A SIGN OF THE TIMES

This is definitely more "grid play" than word play, but I hope people get a smile out of it, if nothing else. Not many theme entries here, which allowed me to include some longer, more interesting answers than I could have if I'd crammed in a bunch of theme. I toyed with other face-related phrases, but in the end the symmetry of a SEE phrase and an EYE phrase seemed the most elegant. Happy to feature a Demetri Martin ONELINER at 38D, as well as give props to "Assassins," which I just played Byck in (65A). My originally submitted NOEL Coward quote was "The higher the building, the lower the morals."

Contest week! Jim and I decided to keep everything quiet until the contest is over, including the grid solutions. I doubt we'd give anything away by publishing all the clues and answers, but this method better preserves the mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, this week is an appropriate time for me to delve into some of my favorite cryptological mysteries throughout history. None of these write-ups have anything to do with the contest, I promise (I'll put up a post summarizing how I solved it afterward, assuming I solve it). I simply like sharing my obsession with unsolved coded puzzles throughout history. And my posts will need to get shorter anyway, as a certain ten-day-old little dictator is just sneering at my offer to pay her a thousand dollars if she just stops crying.

THE BEALE CIPHERS

I was around 10 years old when my dad let me pick out any book on a trip to a local bookstore. Being the oddity I was, I selected Paul Hoffman's "Archimedes' Revenge," continuing my road toward true nerdhood (Granted, it does have a cool cover. Then again, one of its subtitles is "The Joys and Perils of Mathematics.") A chapter on The Beale Ciphers caught my attention in particular, what with the story of shadowy people and three coded maps leading to a fortune in buried treasure.

To make it even more interesting, after much (purported) work, one of the ciphers was solved! It employed a relatively simple code, using the Declaration of Independence as a key. That one leap of logic (no idea on how anyone would make that leap though) allowed the second message to unfold. I imagined myself back in that age, participating in the mad scramble of what might or might not have been a set of hints to finding a real treasure.

Are the Beale Ciphers real, or the work or a genius who figured out a way to make a bundle by creating an aura of mystery and tantalizing riches just out of your fingertips? Stories even link Edgar Allan Poe, the master of literary terror (if you've never read "The Cask of Amontillado" it's a must), to the ciphers. The evidence seems not to be conclusive, so it remains an enigma to this day. I feel a little bad for all the people of Bedford County who have endured decades of treasure-hungry prospectors of digging up their land. But if I were in Virginia, I'd be tempted to buy a pickaxe.