TASK DEFINITION: Write a question from the passage such that it identifies a character (a person or a thing) in the passage.
PROBLEM: In the shadow of the Seattle Space Needle, almost alien crystalline forms wrap their deft tendrils through the Chihuly Garden and Glass.
Every single petal, bowl, stem and branch of cascading glass has been handblown under the guidance of Washington State native Dale Chihuly (in fact he grew up in nearby Tacoma), and we couldn't quite believe our eyes.
Having discovered this exhibit through the magic of Jaime's instagram (she's a self-named Angloyankophile who grew up in Seattle before moving to London) I knew we would have to visit.
My photos don't do the undulating forms any kind of justice; but they might just convey the incredible scale of the exhibition.
I'd always been curious to learn more about Chihuly, after being introduced to his incredible sculpture suspended over the V&A Museum information desk, a glowing confection of green and white glass whisps.
In 1968, after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship, he went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice, observing the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today. In 1971, Chihuly cofounded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. With this international glass center, Chihuly has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art.
His work is included in more than 200 museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including twelve honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has also lost an eye to his passion, and now mostly directs the sculpture design and assembly.
It was truly amazing.
In 1999, Chihuly started an ambitious exhibition, Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem; where more than 1 million visitors attended the Tower of David Museum to view his installations. In 2001, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London curated the exhibition Chihuly at the V&A. Chihuly's lifelong fascination for glasshouses has grown into a series of exhibitions within botanical settings.

SOLUTION: Who did the writer learn about Chihuly from

PROBLEM: What are the worst examples of false advertising you've seen? Did you fall prey to their claims?
Rather that vouch for myself - my story is trite, and not particularly interesting - I'll relay the tale one of my nurses shared with me when I was laid up in the hospital for a few weeks. Call her R.
R was from an Eastern European country. We chit-chatted a lot, while she was taking my blood pressure readings and stuff. Lots of fun stories! But she relayed to me one of her first U.S. memories:
She wanted to lose weight. She was impressed by some things the U.S. had to offer - "you have actual nutritional information on everything!" - and thus figured everything she encountered was on the level. And she found a "miracle cure" company who was along those lines! "These are AWESOME miracle shoe inserts! Wear them, and the pounds will melt away!" She saved her pennies and dimes; she sprung for the inserts.
She received them... and they were shoe inserts; that much was true. But then there was their documentation: "using these insoles, combined with a 1200 calorie-per-day diet...." Like a 1200-calorie diet won't likely involve weight-loss, no matter what else you did, shoe inserts aside. The inserts did nothing, obviously. It was a sham.
At which point she knew she was snookered, but really had no recourse. She wasn't explicit about it, but I got the feeling that it was a leading factor towards her chosen profession. "I might not have been the most sage medical person ever, but I'm gonna rectify that, and if ever I hear someone falling for that sort of gambit again, I'll be there to nip those sentiments in the bud with my own anecdotes." Which is awesome.
I still feel for her. I wish I had contact information, so I could touch base, and express those thoughts personally. But that's the most personally resonant version of false advertising affecting someone that I've seen.

SOLUTION: Whose claims should we not fall prey to?

PROBLEM: Sheila split open and the air was filled with gumballs. Yellow gumballs. This was awful for Stan, just awful. He had loved Sheila for a long time, fought for her heart, believed in their love until finally she had come around. They were about to kiss for the first time and then this: yellow gumballs.
Stan went to a group to try to accept that Sheila was gone. It was a group for people whose unrequited love had ended in some kind of surrealist moment. There is a group for everything in California.
After several months of hard work on himself with the group, Stan was ready to open a shop and sell the thousands of yellow gumballs. He did this because he believed in capitalism, he loved capitalism. He loved the dynamic surge and crash of Amazon's stock price, he loved the great concrete malls spreading across America like blood staining through a handkerchief, he loved how everything could be tracked and mirrored in numbers. When he closed the store each night he would count the gumballs sold, and he would determine his gross revenue, his operating expenses, his operating margin; he would adjust his balance sheet and learn his debt to equity ratio; and after this exercise each night, Stan felt he understood himself and was at peace, and he could go home to his apartment and drink tea and sleep, without shooting himself or thinking about Sheila.
On the night before the IPO of gumballs.com, Sheila came to Stan in a dream. She was standing in a kiddie pool; Stan and his brothers and sisters were running around splashing and screaming; she had managed to insert herself into a Super-8 home movie of Stan's family, shot in the late 70's. She looked terribly sad.
"Sheila, where are you?" Stan said. "Why did you leave me, why did you become gumballs?"
"The Ant King has me," Sheila said. "You must rescue me."

SOLUTION:
Who turned into thousands of yellow gumballs?

