(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 a recent newcomer to the contest:
Thanks very much for the one month’s free subscription to access the results — it was really interesting to see the different approaches the various sleuths took to solving last week’s competition. As you might remember, my own strategy was to simply travel the couple of miles from my home in North London down to Covent Garden. I hoped to be able to do something similar this week, but whether by accident or design, you seem to have picked somewhere almost as far from London as it’s possible to get — about 11,400 miles away!
Accident — though in general I do space out locations from week to week. From last week’s winner:
Having finally won, I wondered if my heart would feel as though I’d chased down this particular dragon; but I should have known better. There’s a reason so many winners/close guessers continue to play every week: you run a damn fine contest, and it’s downright addictive. And this week, you enflamed my itch for textual clues. I just couldn’t resist the ship “DREAM A*****” that had been bedazzled more than beclouded by the beagle. Having never been to our locale or seen the distinctive architectural subject of the photo, that sent me searching.
Another exclaims, “Dusty had a workout on this view!” Our mediocre super-sleuth in NYC suggests, “I think you needed a Saint Bernard to cover the name of the cargo ship.” Another: “Thanks for the generous gift of not covering the entire names of the ships.” Another looks at the animal shape: “So, the dolphin logo — narwhal? Okay, let’s just call it a cetacean.” But that one doesn’t explode. Another:
My strategy was to identify the container vessel (DOLPHIN II) and then search its recent ports of call. None of the Chinese ports that showed up fit the bill, so I went looking for others where Dolphin II arrived (seems there is no Dolphin I).
From our super-sleuth in Providence (not Provincetown):
Best guess is that it’s a Pacific NW port, but which one, I canna’ tell you ... so I’m just gonna say Everett, Washington for a total wild-ass guess.
Curious question: I THINK I know (by sight over many years) the old guy Andrew cites on the beach in his column today. Is the gentleman in question rather tall and lean and somewhat gingerish, quite handsome, rimless glasses, reddish large beard? Is he often in a hat and sandals and glasses and little else? I’ve long been intrigued/wanted to know the guy’s story — he’s been a Ptown fixture for decades, so he actually seems ageless. I think I have had very minor interactions with him at bars or whatever in the past, and he was unfailingly polite/soft-spoken, but ... rather an enigma ...
I’d ask Andrew, but when I last talked to him a few hours ago, after we published the Dish, he was off to the tidal pools again.
Photo by our friend Chris Shipman, a renowned creative director
Speaking of Sully:
When I was convalescing from my recent bout with COVID, I started binge-watching the ‘90s legal drama The Practice. Imagine my surprise to see Andrew’s book Virtually Normal cited as authority for the proposition that gay marriage should not be legalised in the TV-fiction Commonwealth of Massachusetts (my home state). Watch the video clip here (excuse the sound of my dog’s tappy toes).
Back to the window hunt, a sleuth in Kitsap County looks at the strange structure in the middle of the photo:
This view reminded me a lot of my closest port to home, Seattle. But we don’t have that caterpillar thing on any of our wharves. (I think it should be called the “The Great White Caterpillar.”)
From a local: “It’s also called The Slug by people less pleased with the design.” The slug in all its glory:
Yet another writes, “the structure is officially known as the Cloud (and nicknamed the Long White Elephant by unimpressed locals).” This next sleuth looks at a structure you can barely see in the photo:
It’s an inflatable white dome used as a silo for storing cement:
Photo by Nick Reed
Apparently it was quite controversial when it was built (and perhaps still is); it was nicknamed the “Giant White Boob” by some locals.
But which locals? They could be anywhere in these green areas:
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