A Descriptive Challenge

[Weird Harold]

OhMissScarlett's Name dropping thread got me to thinking about describing familiar things.

Try as I might to be original and describe how people are dressed, what sort of cars they're driving, etc, without saying BMW or Prada, sometimes I'm at a loss.

Several of may favorite main-stream authors are fond of slipping 20th century pop-culture references into their Science Fiction stories by describing something in a museum or found on in the universal database and having their character puzzle over the strange devices.

So, the challenge:

Describe something familiar from the POV of a character with no cultural references in common with what you're describing.

It can be from the POV of a naive or primitive character dropped into a modern city, from the POV of an advanced being visiting us primitive Earthlings, or from the viewpoint of a future archeologist trying to identify an object found in a dig.

Extra credit for describing the same object from all three possible POVs.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Removing the last bits of clay with a fine brush, Dr. Mock examined his find. It was almost as long as his forearm, but the diameter was significantly less. A corrugated knob protruded from one end, while the other tapered to a rounded point. The color was close to bone and at first he thought he had found remains of those who once populated the lost city. The smoothness and lack of pores quickly let him know he had been too exuberant in his estimation, but the material was still significantly harder than anything he had unearthed so far. tiny scratches, at regular intervals on the knob seemed to indicate degrees of something, but the symbols remained a mystery. A greenish brown material seemed to have leaked from the end with the knob, undoubtedly the disintegration of some primitive power source.

If he was puzzeled by his find, he was even more puzzled by the laughter of his wife when he showed her the mysterious object.

 

[Weird Harold]

If he was puzzeled by his find, he was even more puzzled by the laughter of his wife when he showed her the mysterious object.

A good effort, but a bit spoiled by the ease with which his wife recognised the vibrator.

Hawk pulled the last bit of rubble from the door into the ancient building and stepped back to let the dust settle. He was pleased to see the interior was mostly undisturbed, although time had taken its toll on most of the contents of the room.

Carefully, Hawk laid a small offering of nutmeats in front of the God Window. He didn't know if the Gods honored by the ancient shrines needed or wanted such offerings, but it was always better to play it safe where Gods were concerned -- even long forgotten Gods who lived in boxes with glass windows.

Privately, Hawk wondered why Gods so powerful that nearly every old dwelling he entered had a large shrine to them prominently placed in the main room and smaller shrines in many of the other rooms could have allowed the Ancients to be destroyed. He shrugged. The unknown Gods were forgotten, but their hard chitinous boxes with the glass windows had survived better than most of the Ancients' treasures.

 

[snooper]

A good effort, but a bit spoiled by the ease with which his wife recognised the vibrator. ...[/i]

Oh. I thought it was a baseball bat.

 

[Weird Harold]

Oh. I thought it was a baseball bat.

Yeah, right.

How about trying your hand at describing a baseball bat from the viewpoint of someone who has never heard of baseball?

 

[sincerely_helene]

An optimistic bump~

 

[Colleen Thomas]

A good effort, but a bit spoiled by the ease with which his wife recognised the vibrator.

Hawk pulled the last bit of rubble from the door into the ancient building and stepped back to let the dust settle. He was pleased to see the interior was mostly undisturbed, although time had taken its toll on most of the contents of the room.

Carefully, Hawk laid a small offering of nutmeats in front of the God Window. He didn't know if the Gods honored by the ancient shrines needed or wanted such offerings, but it was always better to play it safe where Gods were concerned -- even long forgotten Gods who lived in boxes with glass windows.

Privately, Hawk wondered why Gods so powerful that nearly every old dwelling he entered had a large shrine to them prominently placed in the main room and smaller shrines in many of the other rooms could have allowed the Ancients to be destroyed. He shrugged. The unknown Gods were forgotten, but their hard chitinous boxes with the glass windows had survived better than most of the Ancients' treasures.

As usual, my attempts at humor fall short

 

[Weird Harold]

As usual, my attempts at humor fall short

Not at all, it WAS funny, it just sort of disrupted the effectiveness of the description.

Anybody else want to give this a try?

 

[BlackShanglan]

Gulliver's Journal of a New Kingdom

Coming through this crowd and caper of wretched yahoos, I found them all about a narrow passage, pawing and crushing upon each other. Two of the creatures guarded an arch or wicket through which the others passed, and true to the contemptable nature of their intellect, the yahoos would not go around it - which they might well have been done, and more quickly - but milled about in their own loathsome reek waiting to pass through the one point. And even here, where the creatures have taught themselves to clothe their bodies and thus hide the most obvious deformities of their repulsive frames, they cannot keep to the faint stirring of reason that arises in their deformed minds. For each as it approaches the arch, male or female, tears off its coat, and kicks from its hinder paws the coverings, most approximating shoes, and makes itself half-naked before its fellows. Then it crushes through with the rest of them, putting by its goods, and then snatching them up again with hasty greed the moment it has passed the reverenced portal. It happens from time to time that one will be refused passage by those that guard the gateway; then nothing will appease them, but that it strip off what remains of its clothing, and submit itself to most lewd inquiry and embraces. And all so much in the public eye, that I blushed to see it.

I enquired after the reason of it, though it much digusted me to speak with a crowd of yahoos. I was told that the reason is this: that the nature of the yahoo is such, that it must forcibly be prevented even from blowing to powder the very frame that gives it safety, for the pleasure of slaying some dozens of its fellow creatures. Such, indeed, is a yahoo.

Gulliver

(under his hand to) -

Shanglan

 

[CharleyH]

Gulliver's Journal of a New Kingdom

Coming through this crowd and caper of wretched yahoos, I found them all about a narrow passage, pawing and crushing upon each other. Two of the creatures guarded an arch or wicket through which the others passed, and true to the contemptable nature of their intellect, the yahoos would not go around it - which they might well have been done, and more quickly - but milled about in their own loathsome reek waiting to pass through the one point. And even here, where the creatures have taught themselves to clothe their bodies and thus hide the most obvious deformities of their repulsive frames, they cannot keep to the faint stirring of reason that arises in their deformed minds. For each as it approaches the arch, male or female, tears off its coat, and kicks from its hinder paws the coverings, most approximating shoes, and makes itself half-naked before its fellows. Then it crushes through with the rest of them, putting by its goods, and then snatching them up again with hasty greed the moment it has passed the reverenced portal. It happens from time to time that one will be refused passage by those that guard the gateway; then nothing will appease them, but that it strip off what remains of its clothing, and submit itself to most lewd inquiry and embraces. And all so much in the public eye, that I blushed to see it.

I enquired after the reason of it, though it much digusted me to speak with a crowd of yahoos. I was told that the reason is this: that the nature of the yahoo is such, that it must forcibly be prevented even from blowing to powder the very frame that gives it safety, for the pleasure of slaying some dozens of its fellow creatures. Such, indeed, is a yahoo.

Gulliver

(under his hand to) -

Shanglan

Sounds like almost everywhere I go, in particular the grocery store

Nonetheless. Is this a guessing game? A club, although without shoes??? Hm.

 

[neonlyte]

Gulliver's Journal of a New Kingdom

Coming through this crowd and caper of wretched yahoos, I found them all about a narrow passage, pawing and crushing upon each other. Two of the creatures guarded an arch or wicket through which the others passed, and true to the contemptable nature of their intellect, the yahoos would not go around it - which they might well have been done, and more quickly - but milled about in their own loathsome reek waiting to pass through the one point. And even here, where the creatures have taught themselves to clothe their bodies and thus hide the most obvious deformities of their repulsive frames, they cannot keep to the faint stirring of reason that arises in their deformed minds. For each as it approaches the arch, male or female, tears off its coat, and kicks from its hinder paws the coverings, most approximating shoes, and makes itself half-naked before its fellows. Then it crushes through with the rest of them, putting by its goods, and then snatching them up again with hasty greed the moment it has passed the reverenced portal. It happens from time to time that one will be refused passage by those that guard the gateway; then nothing will appease them, but that it strip off what remains of its clothing, and submit itself to most lewd inquiry and embraces. And all so much in the public eye, that I blushed to see it.

I enquired after the reason of it, though it much digusted me to speak with a crowd of yahoos. I was told that the reason is this: that the nature of the yahoo is such, that it must forcibly be prevented even from blowing to powder the very frame that gives it safety, for the pleasure of slaying some dozens of its fellow creatures. Such, indeed, is a yahoo.

Gulliver

(under his hand to) -

Shanglan

Just for fun, stick a couple of foil wrapped condoms in your pocket, they get terribly embarrassed when you fish them out.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Gulliver's Journal of a New Kingdom

Coming through this crowd and caper of wretched yahoos, I found them all about a narrow passage, pawing and crushing upon each other. Two of the creatures guarded an arch or wicket through which the others passed, and true to the contemptable nature of their intellect, the yahoos would not go around it - which they might well have been done, and more quickly - but milled about in their own loathsome reek waiting to pass through the one point. And even here, where the creatures have taught themselves to clothe their bodies and thus hide the most obvious deformities of their repulsive frames, they cannot keep to the faint stirring of reason that arises in their deformed minds. For each as it approaches the arch, male or female, tears off its coat, and kicks from its hinder paws the coverings, most approximating shoes, and makes itself half-naked before its fellows. Then it crushes through with the rest of them, putting by its goods, and then snatching them up again with hasty greed the moment it has passed the reverenced portal. It happens from time to time that one will be refused passage by those that guard the gateway; then nothing will appease them, but that it strip off what remains of its clothing, and submit itself to most lewd inquiry and embraces. And all so much in the public eye, that I blushed to see it.

I enquired after the reason of it, though it much digusted me to speak with a crowd of yahoos. I was told that the reason is this: that the nature of the yahoo is such, that it must forcibly be prevented even from blowing to powder the very frame that gives it safety, for the pleasure of slaying some dozens of its fellow creatures. Such, indeed, is a yahoo.

Gulliver

(under his hand to) -

Shanglan

Airport security check-points, due to terrorism.

~lucky (who reads slower than neonlyte)

 

[Guest]

Airport security check-points, due to terrorism.

~lucky (who reads slower than neonlyte)

:blink:
from vella who had to have lucky explain it.

 

[neonlyte]

We'd found several of the devices scattered through the excavation, in different locations of what we knew to be a dwelling area. Other teams had reports of similar devices on other landmasses. I knew this from the relay of bounced speech thought off one the satellites dishes we'd positioned for to maintain out of line of sight telepathic communication.

What interested me about this particular unit was it intactness. Whatever disaster had befallen these inhabitants had been cataclysmic. We found it just under the sediment surface and excavated it more or less completely removing a skeletal corpse of one of the beings for further evaluation. The corpse had wedged in the door allowing the sediment to enter the compartment preserving the interior. Numerous artefacts worth serious study were painstaking excavated. Including the transporter terminal device, it would be useful in evaluating the extent of their technological advance at the time of the disaster. The individual presumably was trying to leave ahead of the flood, or possibly had arrived at a most inopportune moment. We'd more or less finished our work when one of the team found something most interesting. Clearly instructions or information, the script unreadable to our eyes, the linguistics people would process this.

Back on the craft, we were reviewing the initial data. We'd confirmed the numeric script in the devices represented geographic locations but not in a logical distribution easily interpreted or immediately apparent. I received a tele-beamed message from the linguistic team.

We believe it's a time related document, though we cannot be more precise, we lack the nuances to understand the intent of the message. The citizen seems to be a supplier of good time instruments, they can be reached at the numerical code given.

 

[Weird Harold]

We believe it's a time related document, though we cannot be more precise, we lack the nuances to understand the intent of the message. The citizen seems to be a supplier of good time instruments, they can be reached at the numerical code given.

I've often wondered what future archeologists or aliens would make of toilet stall graffitti.

 

[neonlyte]

I've often wondered what future archeologists or aliens would make of toilet stall graffitti.

Close, this device is more English than American, and today is rapidly becoming archeology in it's own right.

 

[CharleyH]

I've often wondered what future archeologists or aliens would make of toilet stall graffitti.

Good guess. I am so bad at this, but LOVE it!

 

[Weird Harold]

Close, this device is more English than American, and today is rapidly becoming archeology in it's own right.

Aha, I should have recognised the TARDIS.

 

[neonlyte]

Aha, I should have recognised the TARDIS.

Not so many years ago red ones littered England, now they are rare, though some remain as 'protected buildings' - a time capsule all but.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Airport security check-points, due to terrorism.

~lucky (who reads slower than neonlyte)

Indeed. I've been trying on and off for some time to distill this to a coherent poem entitled "Dean Swift Passes an Airport Security Checkpoint," or possibly "Gulliver in DFW," but so far it's eluded me.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

Not so many years ago red ones littered England, now they are rare, though some remain as 'protected buildings' - a time capsule all but.

Ah, phone box.