Sometimes the mystery phrase is obvious, and sometimes it's obscure. For the difficult ones I will sometimes recopy this set of letters and put them in alphabetical order. Today's puzzle was obscure, it was also really long, much longer than normal. So I thought I would make this alphabetical copy, and that's when I realized the letters were already in alphabetical order, and, Oh! Look! Alphabetical Order is the solution as well!
The sharp eyed will notice that the letters written into the space for the answer have a much lighter stroke weight than the others. This is because it was done with one of the those rolling writers, just touching the paper. They work just like ball pens when you use a firm pressure, but they will also write even if they are just barely touching the paper at all. Notice the tails on some of the letters in the initial set of words. Those happen when I lift off the paper while the pen is still in motion. I suspect I used a lighter pressure when I was writing the final answer because I was writing a long series of letters, and it saved time and/or motion. Using a heavier pressure would have involved pushing the paper down until it stopped, writing the letter, stopping, and then lifting the pen. Using a lighter pressure mean just lowering the pen until it contacted the paper and then writing the letter. Obviously requires a more sensitive touch. Does it save energy? Or does exacting that much control require more energy? Hmmm. Probably have to write a lot more on wavy newsprint to find out.
Update February 2017 replaced missing image.
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