Box of sunshine

box of sunshine This is a box that contains a beam of golden, smiling light. Or maybe it's not a beam, but a collection of motes. What with the dual nature of light, y'know, it's hard to tell whether it's a beam or some motes. It used to be that sunshine came in bags, but people didn't think that was very useful. Type: usable Cannot be traded or discarded Free pull from Hagnk's (In-game plural: boxen of sunshine)

View metadata Item number: 1265 Description ID: 151059179 View in-game: view refreshedit data

Obtained From

Skills

The Smile of Mr. A. (If target player has completed one or more ascensions)

When Used

• When not in Ronin or Hardcore:

You open the box and let the beam of sunshine smile on you.

You acquire an effect: The Smile of Mr. A. (duration: 40 Adventures)

• When in Ronin or Hardcore:

You can't use this item right now.

References

• The description references the "duality" principle of quantum mechanics -– the concept that light exhibits properties of both wave and particle (or in this case, beam and mote).
• This particular description of the wave-particle duality echoes Poul Anderson's classic "Uncleftish Beholding," a brief description of atomic theory written almost entirely in words that are native to English. Anderson uses "mote" consistently in place of the word "particle" (which was borrowed into Middle English from French "particule").
• The terms "beam" and "mote" are a play on a well-known Bible verse: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." (Matthew 7:3-5, American Standard Version). (Here mote means "speck," while beam is used in the sense of "a large piece of wood", not "ray of light.")
• "It used to be that sunshine came in bags, but people didn't think that was very useful" is a reference to the Gorillaz song "Clint Eastwood", the refrain of which includes the lines "I've got sunshine in a bag / I'm useless, but not for long."
  • Those lyrics, in turn, are a reference to classic spaghetti western movie "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," in which Clint Eastwood's famous character refers to his bags of gold as "sunshine in a bag."

Collection

"1265" does not have an RSS file (yet?) for the collection database.