A few more Houston pictures and your chance to win a book
Here's something Houston has lots of.
Here's a celestial body with which Houston will forever be linked.
The third scene, slightly expanded, reveals a clue at lower right. The clue suggests, correctly, that the pattern is in a roadway. The colorfully painted crosswalk is one of several such in Houston's Museum District. Two readers guessed accurately enough to win book prizes. Congratulations.© Peter Rozovsky 2009
Labels: Houston, images, Texas, what I did on my vacation
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 3:01 AM
16 Comments:
It appears to be the moon obscured by clouds.
Peter, I suppose you're offering the striped image as the "contest" image. I have no idea, but it looks as though it could be a multi-cultural crosswalk as conceived by a Houston road-painting crew obsessed with political correctness. :-)
It's asphalt with paint on it?
Do I win?
Fred, it is indeed the moon, an appropriate subject for Houston. The question referred to the third picture, though, and I apologize for the confusion. I'm often uncertain about how to label pictures because what appears to the right of a block of a type on my screen might get pushed down and to the left for someone viewing the post with a different type size or on a larger or smaller screen.
In any case, the moon picture's caption links to a page about an ingenious exhibit at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit looks at the moon as seen by artists through the ages. The highlight for me was some stunning photographs by one Lewis Morris Rutherford from 1865. The exhibit also includes moon paintings by the astronaut Allan Bean as well as NASA photographs and clips of the Apollo 11 moon landing shot from the Eagle and at mission control in Houston.
R.T., this one was not the stumper I thought it would be. You win the prize. The object in question is indeed a crosswalk, though I had hoped the oblique black stripes might make the correct answer harder to guess. I even prepared a slightly expanded version of the photo as a slight visual clue, had anyone needed it.
I'm not sure political correctness lay behind the design, though. The colorful crosswalk is just one of several around Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. As with the previous competition, give a general indication of the kind of book you'd prefer, and I'll try to match your request. Thanks for entering.
It is indeed, John. The oddity of the stripes could not distract you from the surface texture, which clearly indicates asphalt.
I had intended to award just one prize, but I did not indicate this, so I'll send you one as well. Write to me at detectivesbeyondborders (at) earthlink (dot) net with a postal address and a general indication of the type of book you'd like, and I'll try to match your preference. Thanks.
Well, I defer to you about the "prize." Expand my knowledge of "detectives beyond borders" by selecting something from "beyond the borders." Contact me via email about mailing details. (rdavis1@uwf.edu)
I shall do so. Thanks.
Peter,
No problem. I wouldn't guessed the right answer anyway. [g]
v-word: unishib
A unishib is much handier than a toolbox full of multishibs.
I should have played with the picture to flatten out the surface texture and make the rough asphalt less apparent. The clue photograph I had prepared restored a sliver I had cropped out at the right of the scene, where a cigarette butt is visible -- a clue not meant, by the way, as a slur on the personal habits of Houstonians. Cigarette butts may be found in the roadways of many large cities.
Peter, you take pictures of Houston, but you never alerted us to these beautiful Philadelphia murals.
my v-word without qualities is musil.
You found some good ones. Philadelphia is noted for its profusion of murals, and rightly so. The city has a mural arts program, and some of its work is beautifully executed and quite an experience to look at. Others have a ragged, humorous edge, like some of the ones in the portfolio you posted. Others are just clumsy.
Someone has noted -- and been criticized for telling the obvious truth -- that it's the great number of abandoned properties that has provided a canvas for many of Philadelphia's murals.
Finally, you may remember that I once made a post about one of the odder examples.
Did anyone nominate "There was a depression over the Atlantic" for my first-lines post?
That sounds familiar but I wasn't the one.
v-word dedhoat
Great possibility there for a first line, I would think.
"There was a depression over the Atlantic" is one of literature's celebrated first lines, from Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities. No one nominated it for my first-lines post, at least not the most recent one. I should check to see if it came up during my previous discussion of the subject.
Dedhoat hovers tantalizingly outside the realm of sense, I think.
Interesting--
Musil's _The Man Without Wualities_ has moved up in my queue to the point where I may take in up in a few weeks. Perhaps something is prodding me?
It was on the reading list for a course I took in college, but we never got to the book. As a result, I only glanced at the opening pages, but they stayed with me. Perhaps I ought to read it as well.
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