The more specific your answer, the better your chance to win.
All decisions are entirely subjective. Two people are barred from entering or coaching any one else about the entry (you know who are J&J!!!)
Post your guess in the comments column of this blog.
One guess per person, please.
The prize is a book of course!
It's a close up of a lid to a piano keyboard.
ReplyDeleteSomeone's stuck some googly eyes aroudn the button, but it looks like the lid on our upright.
I'd dare to suggest that it's a little stickie frog from 1979 that a small girl of five with pigtails and a precocious mind forgot about...a flat frogie just sitting on a window ledge, waiting for that little girl he fell in love with to come back and rescue him and put him back in her sticker album where he belongs...
ReplyDeleteOr, what she said.
That's the doorbell to Brooks' apartment, which recently became sentient and started ringing incessantly while singing "Call Me Maybe".
ReplyDeleteIt's a bear. But what is it doing in the wood?
ReplyDeleteThat's a bingo.
ReplyDeleteThe button to paradise or what Jane said.
ReplyDeleteHa! It's a spirit level, glued to a piano and pimped with a pair of wiggly eyes. Easy peasy. ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's what you get when a Fraggle makes love to a Steinway.
ReplyDeleteIt's Kermit's lesser known and whiter brother showing surprise and hope at the divorce announcement of said frog and Miss Piggy.
ReplyDeleteIt's a treasure chest. A child put a sticker over the lock as a security system, so she would know if someone opened it.
ReplyDeleteJim Henson's portrayal of a mother's face once she realizes what is written in that new book, The Casual Vacancy, that she just bought her 9 year old.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly certain that's how you access the other doorway to Narnia. Just be careful, the White Witch is always watching.
ReplyDeleteIt's a large mouth alot eater. The over-sized googily eyes make it damn near impossible for the sneaky alots to get by. I have one posted by my computer, just in case.
ReplyDeleteGiggling! I'm not going to answer because I know the J&J involved in the caper. I'll just sit back and enjoy the guesses. :)
ReplyDeleteIt is the drawers on an old piece of furniture (desk or credenza?) that someone stuck googlie eyes on to make a face? ??
ReplyDeleteIt's the surprised face of a frog just before the piano lid was closed upon him with a bang, not a whimper.
ReplyDeleteIt's a piece of furniture, treasured from long ago. Now it sits, old and forgotten, dusty and broken. Purchased from a hidden corner in an old antique shop, it hopes to be in the caring hands of someone who will polish and mend it. The new owner is amused at the childish eyes that are placed, but what the old owner knew was that they were placed there as a warning. Because what appears to be a piano is actually Pandora's Box...
ReplyDeleteIt's the coffin containing Janet Reid's corpse because she died before picking a winner to this contest. You people are hilarious. Made my day!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the side of an old coffin to me...
ReplyDeleteWhoa.. hermajesty... ESP much?
ReplyDeleteIt's a button on the front of a drawer, topped by plastic eyes taken from a toy (or bought in a package).
ReplyDeleteFrom Neptune, I think. :-)
ReplyDeleteHere is what I know:
ReplyDelete-The artist is approximately 5.
-Favorite medium: googly eyes or anything that sticks.
-Someone in the household: enjoys enjoys jelly or similar food group.
-Owner of the furniture: Doesn't have rules about eating at table. Probably fun to hang out with.
-The picture: a knob with eyes.
It's the button Mr. Moneybooks has on the edge of his desk to summon Miss Gatekeeper so she can bring in the Standard Rich and Famous Contract for Ernest Nieu-Author to sign. Missy Moneybooks put the googly eyes on it in 1963, which are still there because Mr. Moneybooks hasn't used it since then.
ReplyDeleteoh, that's easy! it's gheytgv *cough*gasp*cough*ackackackackhaaaarrrghhh
ReplyDelete::falls down dead::
doorbell buzzer with two glued-on googly eyes!
ReplyDeleteI see this and I think of a warning buzzer...I see the state of the counter (or what have you) it's attached to, and I think 'speakeasy.' So, I'm guessing it's a "Button your mugs, boys, the fuzz just rolled in!" buzzer. :)
ReplyDeleteShe was five, and her momma had just given her googly eye stickers. There are some kinds of adorable havoc the universe cannot resist unleashing, and the elevator ride was soooo boring. So when they stepped off and momma walked to the well-worn mailbox, she found the lure of the curious door overwhelming: room 101, that no one ever entered or left, that her brother said was inhabited by a troll. Just at her eye level was something she could decipher: a doorbell.
ReplyDeleteMomma said don't bother the neighbors.
She didn't press it, because that would be bad. But she wanted to know if the troll was real.
So she left a spy.
#
A dozen or so hours later, the troll popped her head out long enough to get the mail. On the way back, she saw it: a spy, googly eyes on her doorbell, surely an agent of one of the apartment children.
She left him there. His reports would made the children leave her alone, and the adults would never believe a creature with googly eyes.
It's a rare Golden Horror Frog. Part of its life cycle is to meld with old furniture and then repeatedly call out for a mate with its distinctive call, "ERMEHGERD! ERMEHGERD!"
ReplyDeleteIt's the Condom Kid, spreading his message of safe sex to boozie ladies draped over vintage pianos.
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? Obviously, this is the second-from-the-bottom-on-the-right battered,dusty,smeared drawer of Janet Reid's desk,where she stows her bourbon. The imaginary eyes over the knob remind her someone is always watching...
ReplyDeleteI think it's a frog that's screaming. XD
ReplyDeleteMarvin turned his head toward Josie, moving like a wind-up toy whose spring was nearly spent. He could barely keep his eyes open; his lungs fought with what little energy was left to draw air. Josie crouched beside the bed, straining to catch every word from her grandfather's mouth.
ReplyDelete"The bag," he said. "On the table." Josie turned to his bedside table. There was a clear plastic bag filled with strange looking plastic objects.
"Before Aunt Rose claims anything..." Marvin closed his eyes. Josie's heart sank. Was this it? He can't go in mid-sentence! Marvin pulled his eyelids up as much as he could. "Put a frog on what you want..." The strain was too much. Marvin's lungs gave up the fight.
Josie put a tentative hand to Marvin's face.
"Granpa?" she said. But it was all over. The tears were warm upon her cheek. She knelt beside him for ten minutes, silently crying over her loss. When she managed to get to her feet, she glanced at the bag on the table. She had calls to make, but Granpa had used his dying breath to tell her about the bag. She picked it up and opened it. The plastic objects were colored discs with little eyes on top, a bit like a frog. She examined one; it had a sticker on the back.
"Put a frog on what you want," he said. She looked around the room. Marvin didn't have much, but the little he had was all Josie had to remember him. And she knew Aunt Rose would as soon put a torch to everything. Josie dipped into the bag and pulled out a green frog. She peeled the back to expose the sticky surface, then attached the frog disc to a bookshelf. She ran her finger along the spines of books Marvin had read to her when she was a child. Josie smiled at the memories that cascaded through her mind, of faraway lands, princes on horseback, talking animals, and her Granpa's gentle voice.
She put another frog on an old toybox. She had no use for it now, but maybe one day she'd have grandchildren of her own.
Then she came upon the wooden chest. Granpa once told her it was a special chest, a magic chest. A heavy padlock secured the front of it. She had always been curious about its contents, but Granpa would never tell her. She picked a yellow frog from the bag and secured it to the front.
"What was your secret, Granpa?" she said to herself, glancing to the lifeless body on the bed. "I guess I'll find out soon enough." Josie had already left the room to make her calls when the chest began to hum...
ReplyDeleteRotavirus, E.coli, and MRSA hanging out on a small wooden ledge above the oh-shit panic light they've installed and adorned with googley eyes to keep a look out for their arch nemesis Pledge, Limón.
This is a portrait of my cousin Ray, who, as a small child, dressed up as a doorbell button for Halloween. He always had crazy eyes, but the cherry wood frame you've placed him in makes it a little worse looking than it is. By the way, where did you find this? I've been looking everywhere for it. Ray is getting married next month and I wanted to give it to him as a wedding gift.
ReplyDeleteIt's a panicked button.
ReplyDeleteIt looks liked a heffalump face (minus the mouth) rising through the wood like a siren surfacing. Everything looks all innocent and googly-eyed at first, but if you've had ANYTHING to drink today, watch out.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what it is, but I don't like the way it's looking at my maple nut goodies.
ReplyDeleteDon't even think about it, big mouth.
Quartersawn Brazillian rosewood demilune with classic pearl button inlay (mouse style), Lordsmith Makers catalogue, c. 1933- c. 1936.
ReplyDeleteAn old, tired sticker of a fuzzy, bug-eyed frog living on crown molding that was once shined and polished. Both the frog and the molding have passed their glory days.
ReplyDeleteWHAT WOULD FRANZ DO?
ReplyDeleteTheir favorite Sturm und Drang opera blasts from the Victrola.
He scratches himself.
"Whatever you do, don't push this button."
His companion drools.
"Umm … why?"
"It summons the lost anti-doppelgänger of Nikola Tesla."
"Who's this?"
"Franz, of course."
"What would Franz do?"
"He'll turn on the earthquake machine … and collapse our world."
The three-year old blinks … and impulsively presses said button.
The floorboards rumble beneath their paws.
The rotund German cook stomps in.
"You schweinhund and dummkopf, keep your wet noses away from the servant call button."
He continues carving a scale model of the altar by Tilman Riemenschneider.
The other Rottweiler resumes reading Kaftka.
His name was Prince Ham before the evil witch turned him into what he is today. She meant to turn him into an ugly beast, but by the time she realized she mixed the aeronig smoke (it should have been boornig) with the fiddlementary spell (should have been harrimentary), it had already been too late.
ReplyDeleteHam's happiest moments, now as an accordion, is when someone pushes the right buttons and sings his theme song. Hammer Time.
This is making me crazy because I've SEEN this somewhere, but can't remember where.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like my mom's old doorbell, but that's not exterior wood.
I'd say it's a table, especially given the fancy strip of inlay, except that looks like quarter-round along the bottom edge and who does that to a table?
It looks more like a baseboard. And I believe that's an old-fashioned call button for a servant.
Looks like a casket button someone stuck google eyes on to amuse the now MIA inhabitant.
ReplyDeleteIt looks much more like a monkey than a frog to me.
ReplyDeleteIt's the big "O" on a huge stick, proving once and for all that size really does matter.
ReplyDeleteThat is either an Empire Style desk drawer or writing dest lid with sticky eyes attached. Or it is a piano keyboard cover.
ReplyDeleteThere are many different types of music: vivacious and dragging, celebrations and threnodies. Music has its own being, its own character. Music builds castles in our minds and waves in the air. Music is sound and imagination and – once in a very, very great while – music takes corporeal form.
ReplyDeleteOnce, a piece of music flew out of a trumpet and became a bird, soaring and triumphant. Once, music seeped out of a cello in liquid waves, swirling up through the air until it became part of a thunderstorm. Once music rose and became a man, conducting his own glorious symphony.
But not all music is triumphant or thunderous or glorious. Sometimes, music can be silly or obnoxious or just plain catchy – and this magic has as much right to take form as any.
That is what the creature in the picture is. Not too long ago, someone played an extraordinarily silly piece of music on a cracked old piano, and that music snickered off the keys and into a more permanent form: yellow, circular, with googly eyes. Pure music.
It's a button installed on a dining room to 'signal the help' in the kitchen that you want their presence.
ReplyDeleteDear Ms. Reid
ReplyDeleteI know I've seen this somewhere.
Is it the lid of an antique crank-operated record player?
Possibly playing "Jeepers-Creepers"?
dylan
It is a call button set into the underside of an antique bank president's desk. The six year old grand daughter of the current owner liked to crawl under the desk and thought it would look friendlier with a couple of eyes. No one else knew about the eyes the desk was sold at an estate sale.
ReplyDelete