Signage

Finally I got around to replacing the public-domain letterage at the top of this site with a few stray fonts from the deep catalog of photos I've accumulated over the years.

The S is from the inside of a boxcar-turned-barn in my grandmother's pasture; Pine Bluff, Ark. I found it when I went to shovel dried horseshit into a bucket to serve as fertilizer for fruit trees my dad and I were planting in her yard.

The A is from the neon front of the Billy Goat Tavern; Chicago. Think of me next time you walk by the iconic "Tap & Grill" sign.

The M is on the walls outside the restrooms at Vino's; Little Rock, Ark. Fine spot for calzones and microbrew.

The E is from a movie theater exit at the Rave in West Little Rock. Can't remember what I had gone to see when I snapped that picture ... but, oh, wait. The file is stamped 11/1/09, and amid the (fairly comprehensive) pile of movie tickets I keep around is one for the 7:30 showing of "A Serious Man," a review of which I wrote for the Arkansas Times. See it before Oscar season; it'll damn sure draw nominations for something. The Coen brothers tend to be good for that sort of thing.

The I is from a huge "PARKING" sign on the top floor of a deck overlooking downtown Hot Springs, Ark.

The F lives atop a shuttered grocery in Gurdon, Ark., a hamlet in the timberlands of the southwest of the state. It wasn't far outside Gurdon that I saw this magnificent mailbox you see at top.

The L is from a taptap in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Check August posts for a fuller discussion.

The second I is a Washington Monument profile I snapped when I was in D.C. a couple of years ago to cover the Bassmaster Classic winner's victory visit to the Oval Office when it was W.'s playpen.

The N is from a children's book-themed mural near the downtown Little Rock library. I walk past it each day to work; this is from the "Where the Wild Things Are" pane.

The G is from a (badass) clothier in downtown Texarkana, Ark., called "G.Q. Style." The open-air pigeonarium at right is next door.

The dot is a 16-pound bowling ball taking a rest at Ozark Lanes in Fayetteville, Ark.

The C is part of a signature on a mural at Bonnaroo two years ago. Damn -- almost three, now.

The O is a logo painted inside Little Rock ad agency Stone Ward. The colors and symmetry struck me on a visit there one night.

The M is from a cigar sign in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: "Hecho a Manos," or hand-made.

And not that it has anything to do with any of these, but as I was rummaging through seemingly every file folder on my scattershot desktop tonight, I found this photo I snapped of Barry Obama in Cedar Rapids on the eve of his win in the Iowa primaries two years ago. Even then it was clear this guy was endowed with charisma squared. I've seen the past three presidents speak as they campaigned, along with several -- John Kerry, John Edwards ('04 and '08), Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, John Richardson, Joe Biden -- who fizzled.

For shots of a decidedly less august lot, check out this photo essay I donated to Deadspin, of the duck gumbo cookoff that every November turns the sleepy rice town of Stuttgart, Ark., into a boozy riot of ass-slapping. I hope it's not the last time a major blog meta-tags a piece of mine with "#sadwhimsy," which come to think of it describes a lot of this little state. Still, why more people don't drop by Arkansas to tour the sad and whimsical now and then is beyond me.