Do this don’t do that.
Dude, you know how some people snap photos of famous landmarks and great works of art and Hollywood starlets and such?
I’m kinda like that. Except that, wherever I go, I snap photos of….well…signs.
Don’t judge me Bro.
Listen, I have this suspicion that everyday signs can be secret messages. Like when you had a Little Orphan Annie ring and could decode cryptic signals from the radio.
That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Anyway, here’s a, um, secret sampling of cryptic messages I have captured from around GNV and around the world.
Top left: The great cheese debate: Grove Street Farmers Market.
Top right and bottom left: Some guy exposing the great American “CowSpiracy” on a downtown GNV sidewalk.
Top left: Listen, I don’t know what the guy who added this footnote to a stop sign in College Park had against Joan Baez. But I’m cool with it, Bro.
I found the Surrealism pointy-finger at the Harn.
‘Play don’t hit’ and the Durant quote come from GNV’s own Theater of Memory.
My all time favorite GNV sign – You Are Not Alone – is found in the City’s downtown parking garage.
They are very fond of tall, skinny, sinister/sexy/arty signs in Vienna.
Left to right:
I thought The Great DeSanitizer found a new way to tax liberals. But it turns out that there’s an actual business in Tallahassee named Diversity Taxes (or at least there was: Not sure what it’s called now that they banned DEI).
There’s a grumpy guy in St. Augustine who really hates liberals.
The stop genocide sign was in Chalon-sur-Saone, France.
Yes, if you walk England’s Cotswold Way you will encounter a fallout bunker.
Also on England’s Cotswold Way they warn walkers about dangerous golf courses.
No heads in ringing bowl sign and Voltaire’s admonition also come from GNV’s Theater of Memory.
P.S. The author wishes to endorse not putting one’s head in a ringing bowl. We are not beasts!
Left to right:
I don’t know why they want us all to squeeze together in Ireland, but there it is.
They are very polite in rural UK about warning motorists that their cars may be crushed by tractors.
Tadpole progression: San Francisco.
A church in Stroud-Cainswick UK is quite fed up with having its relics snatched.
And I am not making this up. If you are strolling innocently through Glouster, UK, you are liable to be bowled over by speed demons who plunge recklessly down steep Coopers Hill in pursuit of….cheese.
Where to begin?
Peaceful divestment: Cambridge, UK.
DeSantis of man: Woodstock, NY.
Calm, San Francisco.
Slow Street (also SF) is one neighborhood’s colorful way to slow down cars.
End poverty: Cambridge.
Listen, I don’t know about the rest of you. But I frequently find myself torn by indecision: Vacation in Palatka, Florida’s potato capital? Or the cesspool of sin that is Asheville? I just dunno.
Found both in Dublin.
The sign crawlers: Honestly, I don’t remember where I got this one.
What doesn’t kill you: Frisco.
On this site signs: Woodstock, N.Y.
Trump-Pence: While cycling through rural Virginia I came upon this humongous, motorcycle-crushing, war-like mechanical creature that promised us all a brand new era of peace, prosperity and happiness.
They are very fond of Alice and The Hatter in Chipping-Campton, UK.
Left. I was wondering through the medieval, fortified town of Viviers, France when I came upon this graphic illustration of how to respond to a modern day terrorist attack. Honestly, I don’t think Viviers has been threatened since the Battle of Hastings.
Right: Artistic umbilical cord: Found in a narrow but colorful alley in Passau-Alstadt, Germany.
If you haven’t been to the Reykjavik airport, you’ve missed the coolest secret message sign ever.
Ridiculous race: Where else but ridiculous San Francisco.
Loosey’s Loves You: Guess.
We all need to Get Human: Berlin.
Kafka is closed: Prague.
Not now: Savannah.
‘Sign, sign
Everywhere a sign
Blockin’ out the scenery
Breakin’ my mind
Do this, don’t do that
Can’t you read the sign?’
With thanks to the Five Man Electrical Band
FreeGNV 