Archive for the ‘chalk alphabet’ tag
X marks the spot
Snapped by a reader, Kerri, on her way to work this very morning was this latest instalment.

Ever heard of “The Snicket?”
Well I hadn’t, but colloquially, it is the name for the pedestrian pathway that leads down to Billyard Avenue from Macleay Street, and this is where the X-Ray Specs were found.
Thanks Kerri.
No no no! Don’t say it’s over!
We hope that the latest “R is for” is not spelling the end of our much-loved chalk alphabet riddle.
Spotted by Rachel a couple of days ago, on Roslyn St, down near St Luke’s Hospital was this.

Deep breath.
It’s all okay. “R” is followed by “S” and “T”.
S is for solved
Moments after that last post, I received news from my co-blogger that he was closing in on the mystery chalker.
Hours later, two emails popped up in my inbox from readers, Shawn and Fred, saying they had (independently) captured the chalker’s latest stunt, on the Hardie Street wall of the Darlo Bar: “L is for Libation.”

Reemski commented about “K is for Kleptomania,” too, but didn’t get a snap.
Following a couple of leads, I found the chalker.
He thought it seemed a shame to ruin a good mystery. I agree, but we reckon we owe it to you guys.
The This Is For That series/chalk alphabet is just a celebration of great words, or at least favourite words. They’re not, as a rule, linked to the location or what’s going on in the world, just words that are excellent for some reason.
The first one was “a is for atom” on a toilet door, then “b is for brain” on the footbridge, then “c is for cephalopod,” which was the first one to get photo’d, and is of course another word for a squid.
Other words are really normal, but when put out there on their own they get weird, like “igloo.”
Some are great sounding like “wobble,” or kind of moving like “heartache” or “fiasco.”
Some are beautiful words and things like “filament” and some are excellent concepts like “entropy.”
Then others are interesting concepts that need a bit of research, like “azimuth” (which someone modified by adding “z is for zenith”, which is a word describing a similar thing, but starting with z… brilliant).
Other great modifications include someone taking letters out of “g is for gyroscope” and making “g is for goop.”
I’m up to my second alphabet now. Currently up to, um, “m”… not sure what that’s for yet.
The z is for zipper is the z from the last alphabet.
So, the mystery is solved!
Hmm, turns out that had we the nous to type “a is for azimuth” into a search engine, the mystery may have been solved long ago. But where is the fun in that?
Incidentally, the letter m, it’s for meddling.

Is that “meddling” directed at us?
Brought to you by the letter I
Itching to crack the chalk alphabet code?
One of our readers, Fred, dropped the letter I into our inbox this week.

He came across it on Oswald Lane.
Come to think of it, I passed by “A is for Azimuth” on Friday, on Barcom Avenue, just near Oswald Lane, and I am sure there was another entry for “Z”, but not for “Zipper”.
Will have to go back and check it out. Perhaps it was done by the copycats.
Chalk alphabet – update
There’s another chalked up alphabetism under the Boundary and Burton Streets Bridge, behind St Vincent’s Hospital. As our eyewitness Ben notes, it’s the bridge “with the occasional cool cup art” (by Andy Uprock).

So, now we have:
A is for “azimuth”
C is for “cephlapod”
D is for “diatribe”
E is for “entropy”
K is for “kibosh”
M is for “modulate”
N is for “nebulous”
T is for “thought bubble”
Y is for “yesterday”
Z is for “zipper”
It is looking fairly random from this list. Anagram fans, does anything jump out?
