. . .if anything this could be used for the B&B guest
who tends to drink on the heavy side. Just line up the house
on the sign with the one in the background....you are home!
Ever been drunk in a new town?
--Eric in Eugene, Oregon
__________________
Does the photo on the sign include a sign with a photo of
the house that includes a sign with a photo of...?
--tbuzek@rogers.com
______________
. . . .If one were to find a website for this B&B, I suspect
the same picture/painting on the sign would be featured on
the website's homepage. We all know the phrase "AS SEEN
ON TV." Since the web is the new TV, "just like it
looks on the website" provides a similar comfort and familiarity
dividend to the potential guest that makes them feel like
they're not taking a chance when they book a room, just like
you're not taking a risk when you book the Holiday Inn or
dine at Outback. I think that the culture of danger we see
portrayed in our media, particularly TV
news, with its nonstop rotation of terrorism updates, shark
attacks, natural disasters, and kidnapped/missing women and
children stories, has raised our collective blood pressure
and pushed our society's approach to new experiences closer
to risk management than exploration. With all this stuff
going on, many Americans just want to get what they're expecting
and rule out as much uncertainty as possible. Any reference
points, however absurd, that can tap into this undercurrent
in the
American psyche, may in fact be good for business.
--Patrick McDonough -- Carrboro, NC
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you have to imagine that there is very little walk up traffic
since it is a hotel. People already have reservations and
are thus hooked. That same picture may have appeared on their
website and brochure. The picture on the sign will ressurrect
the positive feelings formed by the ads.
--Chris Smith
_________________
Perhaps the sign is meant to serve as a reminder to future
visitors of what the building used to look like before the
inevitable hideous new additions were built.
--twentydollarghost@hotmail.com
__________________
Blame Madison Avenue, Television, and the petro-chemical octopus
whose grip we enjoy.
--mjt
_________________
What I find even more strange is that, if you look closely
at the picture, the photographer felt it important to include
a picture of the sign in front of the house on the picture
on the sign of the house in the picture. All that is further
required to complete the fiasco is a small printed sign with
"You are here" attached, and an arrow pointing to the area
just in front of the picture of the sign on the, uh......you
get the idea.
--Todd Sainsbury
Red Deer, Alberta
_________________
While most of us are several generations removed from European
feudal societies, its still drilled in our heads; what do
we want? The same english manor home as the aristocrat boob
who kicked our sharecropping great-great grandfather off his
land for "tax evasion." To the point: insecurity, as
modern psychology tells us, frequently manifests itself in
narcisism, hence the photo of the faux manor home to lend
it an heir of authenticity: "Look at me, I am a yuppee
inheritor/buyer of an authentic/imitation manor home that
I have loving restored to a quaint B&B - look there is
a painting of the lovely home to prove it!"
--jdwarch@yahoo.com
___________________
The sign appears to include, in its picture of the site, an
image of the sign. I think the sign painter is into Chaos
Theory and imagines that the work is fractal, infinitely reproduced
as an image within the same image within
the same image, and so on. Kinda like the infinite selves
you see when you stand between two parallel mirrors in a barbershop.
--Gary Brooks, Syracuse, NY
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Just as the typical emperor puts his picture on currency
and signs around his kingdom, narcissism runs rampant here
in the US. Here the image must be repeated about the same
size as a medium sized TV screen because streetscapes are
a foreign concept to most of the walmart nation.
H. J. BOSWORTH, JR. above sea level - in NEW ORLEANS, LA
_____________________
A possible rational is that the sign photo provides an idealized
image via photographic lensing effects. Because of this, the
photo image is actually more impressive / attractive than
the presence provided by the actual building, even though
you still recognize it as the same ‘manor’. This serves to
create an almost subliminal, but powerful, suggestion to the
mind, and thus ‘enhances’ the visitor’s perception of the
‘manor’ and site. This psychological manipulation, of course,
works best on those who are not accustomed to critical scrutiny
of reality as they encounter it, but who just go breezily
on their way absorbing everything as it is “portrayed” to
them.
-- bigbrojoey@yahoo.com
_______________________
When did attention to architecture go into the toilet? About
the time of the advent of television, which became our new
visual stimulation.
Pete DeCamp
