obsessions | t+l journal
CO U RT ESY O F D O U G L A N S KY
Signs of the Times Clockwise from left: Xikou, Zhejiang province, in China; Langley, in Virginia; Maui, in Hawaii; North Carolina; Oakmont, in Pennsylvania; St. Lucia, in South Africa; Apache Junction, in Arizona. Opposite: Eureka Springs, in Arkansas.
“don’t walk” sign in Manhattan just beside a light that clearly indicated that walking was okay. There were a few less memorable signs as well, but even those were more entertaining than the snapshots of me in front of various landmarks, so I kept my eye out on subsequent trips. As I started to think about the idea of funny signs, I also began to appreciate them on another level. After all, when you visit a new country, you’re not allowed to vote. You can’t cash a personal check. Your library card isn’t valid. Yet they let you drive. They let you get behind the wheel of a multiton vehicle and zip around anywhere you please. Somehow we’re expected to navigate the road and pick up the traffic nuances—perhaps even adjust to a steering wheel on the opposite side of the car while driving on the opposite side of the road—all before the first lane change. All this is, of course, before you throw a few whacked-out signs into the equation: the roadside traffic symbols that look more confusing than psych-test inkblots; mangled English; and the occasional screwball posting that almost stops us in our tracks (if we could just locate the brakes fast enough in that rental car!). When I ended my five-year contract to travel the world and write a weekly column for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate (mostly due to the birth of my first child), I thought I’d substitute a weekly dose of funny signs for my column. I figured this would be an easy swap since editors were regularly complaining about the shrinking news hole,
yet voicing a demand for more fun, edgy material. However, my syndicate didn’t make the leap to the signs and only six U.S. newspapers began to run my weekly “Signspotting” column. Each time, they included a message explaining that funny sign submissions should be sent to www.signspotting. com and that I paid US$50 for each one used plus a Star Alliance Round-The-World Ticket for the best of the year— both prizes still available today. The signs started coming in. First, about 10 per week. Then 20. Now it varies: sometimes 50 per week, sometimes 200. Today, I probably have about 20,000 submissions filling up one ceiling-high filing cabinet and one external harddrive. For five years I downloaded and catalogued signs, paying US$50 per week out of my own pocket (US$13,000 over that period, not including thousands for web design and maintenance) and watching the project grow deeper into debt. I finally decided it was payback time and approached a number of publishers with the idea of a book of funny signs. In fact, Signspotting, the book proposal, had been accepted by travel guide publisher Lonely Planet’s U.S. office three years after I began collecting signs (Rough Guides, Travelers’ Tales and others turned it down). Lonely Planet in the United States thought it had potential and wanted to push it through for a global release. During this time the tragedy of 9/11 struck, which not only grounded flights, but also humor projects. About 18 months later, Lonely Planet publisher Tony Wheeler visited Stockholm, where I live, » T R A V E L A N D L E I S U R E S E A
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C O M | M A RC H
2008
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