VFYW: Don't Mess With Assassins

For contest #393, a boring scene reveals some dangerous tales.

(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)

From the winner of last week’s contest:

Thanks for the good news of my proximity win — which comes as a complete surprise! I’m in awe of the seven sleuths who actually got to Carambeí. A key insight seems to have been that the auditorio and esportes are part of a school; all I had to search with were the building’s general architectural characteristics.

Also, I’m glad I wasn’t having a windmill hallucination. It was a great but misleading clue, because it kept me spending time on Portugal.

I’ll take the two free years of Dish as a reminder of this Curitiba/Carambeí Conundrum. I’ll share the bounty with my niece.

A quick followup from the super-sleuth in Augusta, GA:

I never cease to be amazed by the mad skillz of the super-est sleuths. I didn’t make it any further than southern Brazil; I knew I was doomed the moment I saw that you hadn’t bothered to blur the Portuguese writing.

From one of many super-champs who couldn’t find the window either:

The VFYW has now become such a part of my weekly routine that I feel genuinely bad when I fail to solve it — like I am letting you and the community down! On the other hand, the fact that it is such a challenge to me is what keeps it compelling and fun. So, there is that balance …

Thank goodness for a layup this week. I needed it. Actually, having just read the recap of contest #392, I don’t feel too bad. It really was a tough one, and I was not the only sleuth stumped. As opposed to the Santa Fe contest, I did not miss anything super obvious. I even saw the windmill. I wish I had pulled on that thread a little harder; I might have found the town.

On to this week’s view, a previous winner “can’t even make a WAG”:

What’s with the concrete pattern 5-4-3-2-1? And the concrete structure with dishes? Is that a concrete arena? Or auditorium? Is this a college campus? I thought maybe Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez are on the mural on the PARK lot.

Chini’s aerial view this week was too close to the ground, so here’s one from the CO/NJ super-champ:

But Chini has more to offer:

So you want a clue, huh? Well, to be honest, it’s been a long time since I been down in these here parts, more than 30 years I reckon. But I do remember one thing; that damn fool Dabney, thought he was some kind of actor, running all over town. Wearing a beret too …

From a previous victor:

I’m a blank for this week’s contest, and I’m swamped by emails as it is already, and of course I spent the weekend captivated by horrific videos from Israel. I’m intrigued by what Dusty is hiding in the middle of the view, and that someone built concrete pillars that look like they should be holding up an elevated freeway. The stadium reminds me just a bit of the truly hideous (now demolished) UVA basketball stadium in Charlottesville that was supposed to look like the Rotunda, itself a pastiche of the Pantheon in Rome.

Another stumped entry comes from the weekly sleuth trio in Vancouver:

We drew a complete blank this week, Chris. In desperation, we are going with a friend’s comment: looks like Spain.

Nope, but the city does have a Spanish name. The super-sleuth in San Fran points to the right country and state: