Mont Rose

On July 24, William Wright posted "Montrose," that being the name of a band Sammy Hagar was in before Van Halen. He discussed the etymology of Montrose, which is Gaelic and means "moor promontory." That surprised me. I had thought the etymology was obvious -- Mont Rose, French for "Rose/Pink Mountain" -- and wouldn't have bothered to look it up, but it turns out I was wrong. I left a comment to that effect, which William Wright referenced in his July 27 post "Painting in Pink." This latter post was about a dream in which he was trying to paint something white but found that his white paint had become mixed with another color (red, as he realized upon waking) and was now pink. This idea of white and red combining to make pink is a central theme of the post. In referencing my own incorrect assumption about the etymology of Montrose, he said it reminded him of this sign, which he had written about in his June 9 post "Running with Claire."

The photo was taken in Portland, Oregon, which is apparently known as the City of Roses, and so William assumed the pink flower is meant to be a rose. So there's Mont with a pink rose under it -- a clear sync with Mont Rose, since the second element of that name means both "pink" and "rose" in French.

Today, July 28, I happened to pass this sign in my urban peregrinations:

It's a perfume ad that says "Montblanc Legend Red." Montblanc is Mont Blanc, French for "White Mountain," written as a single word -- just as Montrose is Mont Rose, French for "Pink Mountain," written as a single word. This is juxtaposed with the English word Red; and, as William's post emphasizes, white and red combined make pink. Legend comes from a Latin word meaning "to be read." This syncs with the two colors because in English it sounds the same as "to be red," and because it contrasts with blank (from blanc), since a blank page is not to be read. The ad as a whole made me think about the old riddle about how a newspaper is "black and white and re(a)d all over," since the model is shown in black and white but is presumably supposed to be wearing the fragrance Legend Red, or "read red."

Seven minutes later (by the timestamps on my photos), I passed a bookshop with this displayed in the window:

It's a Chinese translation of the 1910 A. E. W. Mason detective novel At the Villa Rose. The Chinese title is 玫瑰山莊. The first two characters together mean "rose," and the third character means "mountain." Mont Rose again. The cover illustration shows a white skeleton holding a red rose, so there's the white + red theme, too. And of course it's a book, which is meant "to be read."

Note added (next day):

As William Wright mentions in a comment, Montblanc's logo is star-shaped and represents the snowcap on Mont Blanc. The logo doesn't appear on the ad shown above, but 25 minutes after taking that photo, I passed this:

This photo is of a watch shop, which was closed when I passed it. Apparently Montblanc's main product line is neither perfume nor watches, though, but pens. The company's Wikipedia article has a photo of a pen called the StarWalker.