Althouse: Two signs that scared me in South Dakota.

August 4, 2006

Two signs that scared me in South Dakota.

16 comments:

chuck b. said...: I don't get it. What's so scary about rattlesnakes?; 8/4/06, 10:46 AM
Palladian said...: I like official signs that include exclamation points. Imagine if all signs included exclamation points. Stop! Yield! Do Not Enter! Dip!

What the rural dating sign needs is an exclamation point.

Rural dating!; 8/4/06, 10:51 AM
Meade said...: I'm with chuck b. I mean, it's not like rattlesnakes are going to call you up and ask you out or anything. And even if they do, you can always just exclaim to them that you only date urban rattlers.; 8/4/06, 10:55 AM
Mark Daniels said...: Which sign frightened you more?; 8/4/06, 11:01 AM
knox said...: That "rural dating" sign made me think of that bit they used to do on The Electric Company where the two people would be facing each other in sihouette and it was like:

him: "sssss"
her: "it"
in unison: "sit!"

I miss that show and I wish they'd at least put it out on dvd so my son could see it.

sorry, digression...; 8/4/06, 11:24 AM
Ann Althouse said...: him: "sssss"
her: "ex"
in unison: "sex"

(I note the snakelike hissing of the man's "sssss.")

Word verification: omoisms. Used in a sentence: I'm going to go write some omoisms. This are aphorisms with that combine the thought stylings of Emo and Yoko Ono.; 8/4/06, 11:37 AM
Ann Althouse said...: Which sign frightened me more? The second one. I find that kind of artwork really, really creepy. The snake, on the other hand, is very well drawn.

Also, note the corrosion on the newspaper vending machine. And the symbolism of the coin slot is disturbing. By contrast, the exclamation point is amusing. It's like: we knew the word "beware" would scare you and the word "rattlesnakes," and we knew the picture of the coiled snake was just laying it on thick, so we added the exclamation point as if you weren't yet sufficiently alerted, because we just wanted to make you laugh.

And look at the newspaper that was for sale in that cloudy box.; 8/4/06, 11:44 AM
bill said...: knoxgirl, here's the 4 disc DVD collection of The Best of The Electric Company. Each episode has an introduction by Rita Moreno.

Good stuff. As they did over 100 a year, I doubt we'll get to see all of them any time soon.; 8/4/06, 12:05 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Perhaps we could just get two South Dakota herpetologists together and eliminate one of those signs.; 8/4/06, 12:32 PM
Tibore said...: It'd take more than two herpetologists to get rid of all the snakes in South Dakota.

Oh, wait... ;); 8/4/06, 12:56 PM
chuck b. said...: (I was being ironic in my rattlesnakes comment. Poisonous snakes are scary for obvious reasons.) What's funny about the rural dating sign is the anachronistic illustration style and banal typeset. You don't see drawings like that in commercial art anymore. And all that shadow? It's supposed to be romantic, but it's sinister. It's a sign for men, isn't it? A sign for women would have more romance than a white field.; 8/4/06, 4:04 PM
chuck b. said...: I just remembered I went hiking once some place where "Plague Warning!" signs had been posted. That was a scary sign. PLAGUE WARNING! in red, all caps along side illustrations of squirrels, mice, and enlarged fleas. I know plague is easy enough to treat, but who wants a mild case of plague. Not me.; 8/4/06, 4:21 PM
knox said...: ann said:

him: "sssss"
her: "ex"
in unison: "sex"

lmao!

Bill:
I must have The Best of The Electric Company (and what's more, they're selling it with Schoolhouse Rock! ...very "Reality Bites" of me, I know, but I guess I will carry the taint of GenX with me til my dying day). Thanks for the tip!

chuck said: PLAGUE WARNING!

I'd *freak* if I saw that sign.; 8/4/06, 5:09 PM
Synova said...: I've haven't seen plague warning signs but I've definately seen posters. My vet has bubonic plague posters up and I believe there was a local headline in the paper lately that there'd been cases reported.

In two weeks will be our local science fiction convention, Bubonicon. If you're famous for something really horrible, embrace it. ;-); 8/4/06, 5:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Life is still quite direct there.; 8/4/06, 9:17 PM
CCMCornell said...: Reminds me of a story I saw on Yahoo news. I can't seem to find it, but I think it was about the site farmersonly.com.; 8/4/06, 10:06 PM