Yeah, and…?
Joe
Me too. And I’m trying to telepathically get him to hit himself in the head until he admits it’s a stupid sign he made up and it has no real meaning.
It could be Gorby. That plus I minus bee would make Igor. Don’t have a clue about the other part, however.
“Port wine stain” plus “view” minus “no see ums” plus “seasoning” = “poorly constructed rebus”, which is an easily understood three-word phrase.
Like the OP, I’ve lost sleep over this, so if it doesn’t make sense, blame sleep deprivation. If it does make sense, you’re welcome.
My reasoning : s m u d g e plus the letter i (represented by the image of an eye) minus m i d g e s plus s p i l l equals U S P I L L which resembles U. S. bill - vaguely interpreted as a common three word phrase.
red eye flight?
Wikipedia says Naevus Flammeus
Edit: oops, which is neither cruel or immature =D
The pepper shaker could stand for “over season” or “over spice” or something similar. That would explain why it’s tipped over, and you can imagine that if you needed something like “over season”, that would be an elegant way to represent it.
If you don’t mind the plural “s” from the “flies” being subtracted from “over season”, even though that would be out of order, you’d end up with something that sounds like “over reason”. That seems like a reasonable end to a phrase.
Maybe the eye symbolises the concept “inspects” And when you subtract “insects”, it leaves you with a “p”.
Fofer has been spending more time at the ask.metafilter site (second link in the quote above) than here, and has provided more information he’d been able to pry from the originator of the rebus. What seem important from the clues the originator gave Fofer are that “eye” is the official interpretation for the image of the eye and that the sound of the word thats supposed to be another name for flies is what’s supposed to be subtracted from the combination of the Gorby mark and “eye”.
Thanks, william.
Fofer, is there any hope you will receive an answer from the creator of the puzzle? I mean, I don’t mind thinking about it, but I hope we eventually get an “official” answer.
Not really - I’m familiar with the previous thread where various suggestions of this kind were made, I was interested to see if this one was better than any of the others, and then wanted to post an explanation of why it isn’t in my opinion.
I think this could be it. The minus sign in front of the flies could be a synonym for flies read backwards, which could be “Nat” (phonetically), which becomes “Tan” when read backwards, plus the “I” (eye) makes “Tain” - we just need to work out where the “w” comes from!
Fofer, can you ask the puzzle author if “Mark Twain Season” is the solution?
Does Mark Twain Season even mean anything?
See post #27 by jjimm - the sign is posted in a bookshop, it could be referring to a “Mark Twain Season” where Mark Twain’s books are being promoted. It seems unlikely, though, partly because the answer doesn’t quite fit the clues, and partly because Mark Twain’s books are very well-known and I wouldn’t have thought it would be worth the shop’s while to promote them specially. But I think it’s worth asking - it’s the best attempt I’ve seen so far.
Fofer, I repeat my question. Is there any hope you will get the actual answer in the future?
I just tried to contact Fofer, but he has his PM’s turned off.
Great.
I wonder if Fofer is a sock of mittu :).
[Mods - not a serious accusation, just referencing the infamous “14 k of g in a f p d” thread]
I’ve decided to look at this as if we were never given any of the ‘clues’ first provided. Which may indeed be a good thing to do given the OP’s disappearance.
In the light of that, what was the intention of the first drawing?
The answer is clearly Mikhael Gorbachev, not his splotch. Unambiguous.
Assuming the “Mikhael” would be discarded*, we get syllables “Gor-bee” “Gor-buh-choff”.
Gor buh choff eye
Minus something that’s clearly meant to be “flies”.
So, ignoring the L:
Gor bu cho [season]
Er… fuck.
Can anyone help me get “Gore Vidal Season”?
Or is this a monstrous wind-up - is the OP the person who drew something meaningless, photographed, it, then propagated it around the interwebs as a piece of performance art?
*Mikhail Baryshnikov Season?
That’s funny, because I was checking this thread to see if Fofer had posted anything; you know, their idea of what this could mean. He/she asked for help solving this and then disappeared! 
I’m leaning toward the performance art angle, too.
Uh, hello?
Fofer, any update?