“I can get you a toe!”: Throw your own Coen Brothers scavenger hunt
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Those of you eagerly awaiting October’s Lebowski Fest have no doubt registered for Friday’s Big Lebowski Scavenger Hunt, and (if you're smart) are already preparing for glory by securing a few no-brainer items, like a White Russian and a Creedence tape. But as much as we love the film and fear inciting random acts of nihilism from its fervent fans, we have to ask: Why does Lebowski always get the love? And more specifically, why should Lebowski have all the fun of a “downtown clue pursuit” when there are so many equally great, less overplayed Coen Brothers films that could just as easily have their own scavenger hunts? We say that it’s time to take the Coen oeuvre back like a purloined rug and just throw your own damn party. Here are some examples and their respective suggested quarries to get you started.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Hunt for: Most obviously, a newborn baby—preferably one plucked from a nursery stocked with quintuplets. Of course, this could raise some uncomfortable legal issues for both you and your guests. If you’d rather play it safe, have them seek out an economy-sized package of Huggies, a mug-shot-style self-portrait, a piece of unpainted furniture, and a bucket of crawdads. (If there are no crawdads, sand will suffice.)
Barton Fink (1991)
Hunt for: The Coens’ oddball ode to the golden age of Hollywood may not be the first movie that springs to mind when planning a party, but the tale of an acclaimed playwright (John Turturro) whose sanity deteriorates under the stress of writer’s block, bloviating studio execs, and a neighbor who may be a serial killer does offer an array of interesting scavenger hunt items, like: a manual typewriter (preferably an Underwood), a sheet of peeling wallpaper and box of thumbtacks, a hip flask full of whiskey, and a parcel neatly wrapped in brown paper, roughly large enough to hold a human head.
Fargo (1996)
Hunt for: It will take a keen investigative mind comparable to that of Brainerd Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) to avoid a wild goose chase while tracking down hidden treasures like a painting of waterfowl that's pretty enough to appear on a postage stamp, a snow shovel, a tan Ciera complete with TruCoat (they install that down at the factory, ya know), and, of course, a wood chipper. Bonus points for anyone who locates the origins of Peter Stormare’s pan-European accent.
No Country For Old Men (2007)
Hunt for: First things first: Any participant must agree to wear a wig fashioned after Javier Bardem’s unflappable hair helmet. That should weed out the amateurs—which is crucial, because this hunt is going to be unusually difficult. They’ll need to track down a cattle gun, a lucky coin (suitable for flipping), a sweating bottle of milk, and—oh yeah—a satchel filled with $2 million in cash. (Of course, anyone who finds that last item probably isn’t coming back to the party—given your license to hunt him or her down.)
