May 30, 2005
Reagan at Disney World, Memorial Day Fun!
Twenty years ago, on May 23, 1985, the LA Times ran this article, reporting on President Reagan’s plans for Memorial Day. The headline reads “President to Honor Unknown Soldier, Visit Disney World.” This paratactical pairing—Honor Unknown Soldier, Visit Disney—is surely one of the greatest juxtapositions to ever occur, ironically or not, in newsprint in the free world.
Yet somehow, it’s very fitting, very Reaganesque.
Both the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington Cemetary and Disney World theme park in Orlando are products of the same cultural impulses: ritualized nostalgia and the allure of fantastic (an anonymous soldier who dies so that we may live, whose death, because it is no single, identifiable soldier’s sacrifice, memorializes all soldiers’ deaths…how different is that from the idea of a Magic Kingdom whose monorail whisks individuals away from their lives in the parking lots into a world of talking mice and space mountains?
Well, okay, quite a bit different…but I still think both concepts represent two key cultural phenomenon which define America. And Reagan, as always, embodies both at once. War and entertainment, patriotism and consumerism, memory and fiction.
May 26, 2005
Warning!! Playground Swing Seat
There’s a playground around the corner in my subdivision, and it’s loaded with warning signs. There’s even one on the toddler swing seat, alerting all who read that “improper installation, maintenance, use, or vandalism can damage seat and lead to serious injury.”
What I find intriguing about this sensible sign is that it speaks to all sorts of people at once: the workers who installed the swing, the crews who maintain the parks, the parents and children who use the swings, and the teen pranksters who vandalize such parks. All are addressed in a single, leveling sentence. And it’s punctuated, without a trace of irony, with the phrase “Made in the U.S.A.”
So, “serious injury”—especially to a child on a seemingly harmless swing—that ranks high on the Deadly Suburban Danger Sign Scale, maybe all the up to Code Orange.
As an added bonus, I’ve geotagged this sign: N 35° 29.42390’ W 80° 49.60180’
Update: Looking back at the photograph of the swing seat, I realize that it looks awfully a lot like a pair of worn, dirty, stiff underwear. I guess that adds a whole other dimension to the warning on the swing.
May 24, 2005
Warning! Better Lawns through Chemistry
Here’s a sign in the front yard of a house in my subdivision. The “Lawn Doctor” has been there, doing whatevever it takes to make the grass green, green, green.
What’s with the blue thumb? Instead of signaling competence with gardening (a green thumb) it’s as if Mr. Freeze or the Cold Miser has gotten hold of the yard and gone to town. Or maybe the thumb is infected? It’s not clear.
There’s no direct warning on the sign, but it does recommend reading the “door hanger for additional information.” I was polite enough not to sneak a peek at the door hanger on the front door, but I’m sure it had all sorts of friendly reminders not to let pets or small children play in the yard for the next day or so. At least until the rain washes away the chemicals into our drinking supply…
May 23, 2005
Warning! Energy United
Here is a power transformer on my street, operated by Energy United, one of the two power companies in the area. (The other is Duke Power. I’d have to say that having their own nuclear reactor probably gives Duke some sort of competitive edge.)
This sign gets right down to business, no subtlety here: “Can shock, burn, or cause death.” I love the illustration. It’s as if the box itself were attacking the stick figure human, hurling out lightning bolts from its innards.
On the Deadly Suburban Danger Sign Scale, this sign ranks high. Bonus Points for the ecumenical name, Energy United. Sounds a bit like some sort of European Football Club.
May 21, 2005
Warning: Invisible Fence
Here’s another sign common in my subdivision. It’s an Invisible Fence ® sign, and in terms of semiotics—i.e. the study of signs, signification, and meaning—it’s surprisingly dense.
The sign is not a warning sign per se, but it does evoke several implied threats. The most obvious is the object contained by the invisible fence—a dog. Presumably a large and hungry one, a dog who would cross property lines without heed, were it not for the invisible fence reining in the roaming canine. The fence keeps the dog in and passersby safe.
The corollary to this relationship is that intruders who cross the “invisible” line enter into the dog’s domain—a dog perhaps so territorial that its owners resort to electro-shock to keep it in its place. Now, in this specific case, I saw the sign, but no dog. You’d think that as I crouched in front of this house, snapping a photograph, the dog would be baring its teeth, chomping at the invisible bit. But no, no dog in sight. Maybe it was locked inside. Maybe it had managed to chew its shock collar off and was free. Maybe the dog didn’t even exist.
So, the “Invisible Fence” sign is an updated version of the threatening “Beware of Dog” sign. And it too is effective even if there isn’t an actual dog.
Whether or not there is a dog, to intruders on the homeowner’s property, the “Invisible Fence” sign also sends the message that the owners are into sophisticated electronic systems. The words “Invisible Fence” dominate the sign, and it’s a recognizable name brand. The Invisible Fence company all but dominates the “electronic pet containment” industry. And who’s to say that these homeowners aren’t into other elaborate electronic apparatuses, say, an advanced home surveillance system keyed into the local 911 network? This system of invisible technology aimed at buttressing the us/them duality of suburbia is another threat implied by the sign.
May 20, 2005
Warning! Southern Bell!
Lately I’ve become aware of all the danger signs and hazardous warnings in my subdivision. Who knew suburbia could be so dangerous?
I’ve decided to document as many of the warnings as I can find, beginning with this sign. It’s on a Southern Bell utility box, located in my very own front yard, warning me that there’s an underground cable nearby, and I should call before any “digging, excavating, boring, etc.” Not that I do much boring or excavating, but the archeological reference to excavating is fitting, since the poetic “Southern Bell” is now known as the inversed, truncated, and more corporate “BellSouth,” making this sign somewhat of a historical artifact.
On the Deadly Suburban Danger Sign Scale, this sign ranks pretty low.
May 17, 2005
Atlases & Maps before GPS
I love maps, and I’m fascinated by the history of mapmaking. Check out this anonymous 17th century atlas I’ve come across, published in London in 1650. The title is succinct enough: A book and map of all Europe with the names of all the towns of note in that known quarter of the world: so that any one of the least capacity, finding the town in the alphabet, shall presently lay his finger upon the town in the map: a work very usefull for all schollars, marchants, mariners, tradesmen, and all that desire to know forreign parts, and especially in these times of warres and commotions that are now in Europe.
(Larger Image)
What I think is so wonderful about this “book and map” is first, the reader—who is perhaps new to the concept of maps and maybe even books—is given very explicit instructions on how to use an atlas:: “…any one of the least capacity, finding the town in the alphabet, shall presently lay his finger upon the town in the map.”
Second, this instruction connects seeing the map in the book with somehow experiencing the physical presence of any given town (“lay his finger upon the town”). In the hindsight of the 20th century this seems like a very Borgesian sentiment.
From the fable “Of Exactitude in Science” in The Maker (1960) by Jorge Luis Borges:
…In that Empire, the craft of Cartography attained such Perfection that the Map of a Single province covered the space of an entire City, and the Map of the Empire itself an entire Province. In the course of Time, these Extensive maps were found somehow wanting, and so the College of Cartographers evolved a Map of the Empire that was of the same Scale as the Empire and that coincided with it point for point. Less attentive to the Study of Cartography, succeeding Generations came to judge a map of such Magnitude cumbersome, and, not without Irreverence, they abandoned it to the Rigours of sun and Rain. In the western Deserts, tattered Fragments of the Map are still to be found, Sheltering an occasional Beast or beggar; in the whole Nation, no other relic is left of the Discipline of Geography.
May 12, 2005
Killer Robots!!!
From the archives: one of my students dug up a report by the United Auto Workers which details the history of death-by-robot in the auto industry. As the report warns us, “Robot injuries are one of the best-kept secrets.” The best-kept secrets where, I’m dying to ask, and I’m hoping they mean “in the industry” and not “in the universe.”
I hate to be sanguine about such a deadly issue, but I have to say that the report has a sardonic tone to it. Some of it almost seems like poetry. Consider these lines:JapanIt’s poetry in motion. Or at least, poetry in automotion:
1981 Robot pushed repairman into grinder.
Robot squeezed person against conveyor.
Robot crushed person against a planer.
Robot pushed person into weld positioner.
Pushed, squeezed, crushed, pushed
Grinder, conveyor, planer, positioner
Robot, Robot, Robot, Robot.
May 11, 2005
More liberty from the liberty-loving Liberty Baptist Church
Yesterday I focused on the bag I received, like manna from heaven, except it wasn’t the desert and it wasn’t edible, and it wasn’t from God either, from the Liberty Baptist Church. Now I’d like to share, because that’s WWJD, what was in the shiny, plastic, shopping bag from what I like to think of as God’s grocery store.
You can see below the “Response Card” that I’m presumably supposed to fill out and presumably supposed to return to Liberty Baptist Church. Because I am, after all, of course, going to rush out this weekend and attend services there.
The front of the card is straight-forward enough. Name, email, phone, address, my kids and their birthdates. Keep expanding that database! Sell it to the Family Research Council! Sell it to Karl Rove! Because that’s WWJD.
It’s the back of the card that really attracts my attention. There, with a simple checkmark, I can select a box that says, “I’m committing my life to Christ.”
That’s it? It’s that easy? I just check the box? With my pencil? And that’s that? I’m saved? My life of sin, gone? The iniquities and depravities? The feeding tube business? Wiped away? This box here, right here? I check it? And I’m saved? My soul cleansed in the cleansing cleanser of Liberty? And what, no signature required? No photo id?
It’s like Salvation for Dummies. It’s like Redemption for Idiots.
But wait, it can’t be that simple, can it?
Ah-ha, I see it…There’s a trick to it, a test. For beyond the checkbox, temptation lies…Just a few lines down I have the opportunity of requesting more information. Among the things “I’d like information on” are “Couples,” “Men,” and “Women.” So, like, if I’m into wife-swapping, that’s what they’re asking? Or looking to hit on some young pure Southern ladies? I sign up here? What if I check the box for more information on men, will I be reported to the Gay Squad? It’s a trick!!! Entrapment, I tell you!! Don’t check any of these! Just check to commit your life to Christ and get the hell out of there!!
May 10, 2005
Liberty Baptist Church Wants Me!!!
Yesterday I had the good fortune of receiving, on my front porch, a gift bag from Liberty Baptist Church in nearby Mooresville (“Race City U.S.A.”). At left is this fabulous surprise, which made my day (click the image for a larger photograph). How ironic that just moments before finding the bag, I had been pondering my near certain eternal stay in Hell, roasting like a puffy white marshmallow in the fiery depths of infernal damnation. I wasn’t sure which mortal sin would be the one to ultimately land me there, but I’m sure it had something to do with feeding tubes.
Liberty Baptist is, as the pamphlet inside the bag assured me, an “old fashioned, missionary” church, just like the ones I see on TV!!! None of that New Age feel-good stuff. We’re talking Baptist, pure and simple and God-fearing and Footloose free.
But what really draws me to the church is the name itself: Liberty.
Man, am I a sucker for liberty. It’s right up there with freedom. I mean, liberty, that rocks. And if liberty weren’t enough all by itself, the name is actually sanctioned by the Bible!
In this detail from the photograph of the bag, you can see that “Where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” (II Corinthians 3:17). True, true.
But I wondered what else the Bible has to say about my favorite word, liberty. Well, in the King James Bible there’s a great book called Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach (i.e. Not That Jesus). In Sirach the good prophet tell us, “Give the water no passage; neither a wicked woman liberty to gad abroad” (Sir. 25:25). Cool, “gad” in the King James Bible! And yes, I agree—keep those wicked woman home to gad.
And in Sirach 26:10, “If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty.” Whoa, not just liberty but overmuch liberty? That’s heavy. Like, I’m thinking, and I’m probably wrong here, but “overmuch” kind of means “too”? As in too much liberty? Hell, yes, when you’re talking about women!! If there’s one thing the Bible teaches us again and again, it’s that shameless women and liberty don’t mix. Give a woman an inch and she’ll take a mile, or whatever distance it takes to get her abroad, where she can gad about all she wants.
Tomorrow: what else is inside my bag from Liberty Baptist Church?
May 05, 2005
Disco Tango
 |
 |
Enthralled by this video, I’ve done some cursory research on this Danish wunderkind, and I discovered in 1979 he released an album called Disco Tango. Like the earlier music video, which features a Danish keyboardist in chaps and a fringed leather shirt singing about Native Americans on the Great Plains, while scantily clad Scandivanian women in headdresses dance by, this album cover epitomizes the pastiche of postmodernism. Disco? and Tango? Together at last? It’s a dream come true!!
