Entitled "North Carolina: Variety Vacationland" the placemat is a map of the state. Various nuggets of history and trivia adorn the map. It is further embellished with a number of icons that relate to different regions; a powder horn near Boone, the Wright Brothers Memorial next to Kill Devil Hills, you get the picture. So, here's the rub. West of Asheville, north of Bryson City is an image I cannot, for the life of me, identify.
What is that!!!
Many a late night order of cheese fries and gravy has arrived at the table to find me, my dinning companions, the freakin' people from the next booth, staring at this little corner in western North Carolina, debating over the identity of that *thing*. I have heard many knee-jerk explanations like "it's an airplane". Frankly, I'm not impressed. That thing is CLEARLY not a plane, nor a bird, nor a hang glider(!).My best guess, GUESS, is that it is a Native American (note feather on headband) waist deep in water (note ripple effect distorting lower limbs) holding some kind of...log? under his arm. Yeah...right.
Observe other images on the placemat:
They are hand drawn, rudimentary, and some, the object of questionable artistic license (the Civil War soldier appears to be slumped over, impaled on a bloody pike). They are, however, clear and obvious representations of actual things from this planet.
So I offer it to you, Charlotteans. What is that *thing*? Post your answer here (in comments).
I ask that you use only your keen sense of observation and your artistic eye. In other words, don't contact the NC Travel and Tourism Division who generated this piece of Americana (rather, Caroliniana).
Good Luck
I ask that you use only your keen sense of observation and your artistic eye. In other words, don't contact the NC Travel and Tourism Division who generated this piece of Americana (rather, Caroliniana).
Good Luck
4 comments:
Is it a Cherokee Indian carrying a canoe into the water?
It looks like an arm coming from the water, reaching for an overturned canoe (with index finger pointed to the sky?)
Detra-
A canoe under the arm? Thats a pretty small canoe.
Theresa-
I like the high drama facet of your guess. Maybe he's actually giving the finger to that which overturned him.
To add fuel to the fire, I have also considered it to be the tail portion of a plane sticking out of the water -OR- the torso of a Native American with the hind quarters of a hooved animal (think Pan) carrying...something.
I beg to differ with all prior posters, but this gentlemen is actually "The Last True Artist of NoDa"...(comparable to your...uh... sasquatch or Loch Ness Monster.) You see he emerged from the rubble of Fat City once it was destroyed one dark and terrible night to discover that corporate Charlotte had bitch slapped any level of true artistic integrity out of the area. He became deathly afraid for his own art, so he desperately ran to Cherokee with the only two pieces of his art he could carry...a canoe painted with the noble blood of his great great great great grand cousin...and a carving of a rotten banana. In the picture he has arrived at the river...exhausted. Believing he is at Lake Minnetonka he tries to purify himself and his art from corporate corruption. No one has the heart to tell him..."that's not Lake Minnetonka"...I'm glad I was able to clear this matter up for you Michael.
Stacey
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