A return to the terrifying world of sign wavers

I’ve blogged before about the mechanical sign wavers that are increasingly popular near me; primarily because with their lifeless faces and metronomic sway they’re the stuff of nightmares.

When confronted with an automaton of herself playing the dulcimer, Marie Antoinette was understandably disturbed.

But, at least, that had undeniable artistry to it. These sign wavers, dressed up in clothing from Goodwill, look like their only use would be as a sad sex toy for a horny tramp*. That they can allegedly increase business by up to 10% seems like a sad indictment on the area. Seeing “Lucy” I’m certain I’d lose my appetite for a burrito.

*In fact, they remind me of the always unnerving mannequin displays I would see in the windows of the seedy sex shops when living near Holloway Road.

The drinking habits of Americans

Via Lapham’s Quarterly, an Englishman’s observation on the drinking habits of Americans in the 1830s.

If you meet, you drink; if you part, you drink; if you make acquaintance, you drink; if you close a bargain, you drink; they quarrel in their drink, and they make it up with a drink; they drink, because it is hot; they drink, because it is cold. If successful in elections, they drink and rejoice; if not, they drink and swear.

The last sentence may still be apposite, but the rest sounds more like a Saturday night in any English market town.

As the Englishman in question, Frederick Marryat, served in the British navy, I assume he was impressed by the scale of the dipsomania he was confronted with in the US.

Born on the Second of July

John Adams proved to be out by two days.

“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776

Today’s sights from New Mudfog

1. Full-size pickup truck driving erratically, black smoke coming out of its exhaust. Two flags hoisted in the back of the truck – the Jolly Roger and the Confederate flag.

2. Sign-waver by the side of the road enthusiastically tries to encourage me to go into Peek-a-baby, a service offering artistic 3-D ultrasound photographs. He is unsuccessful.

3. Disappointing news in the paper.

The dying art of the sign waver

 [tweetmeme source=”awindram” only_single=false] And another noble profession dies. The American sign waver – that brave suburban warrior who spends all day on a sun-baked sidewalk while dickishly waving a cardboard sign around so you know about Ackroyd Carpets’ latest sales offerings – will soon be obsolete.

I have seen the future, and it looks like this.

Now a little dumbstruck by it all, I had to take a closer look to see if this automaton was, in fact, a fraud like the famed Mechanical Turk. Was there, for instance, a midget inside controlling levers, or an army of trained hamster with a rudimentary knowledge of engineering? But no, nothing of the sort. For hours and hours I stood and watched it and it kept to the same rhythm. This was no fake, this is a sign waver that will never stop, that is in perpetual motion. And as I passed out from heat exhaustation on the sidewalk, I thought what a shame it would be to lose the skills and moves of the American sign waver and what a poorer place suburbia would be without them.

 

Who knows what dystopian vision companies such as Mannequin Sign Waving may unleash on us.

 

Clearly we learned nothing from the Ealing mannequin massacre of 1970. Do we really want a repeat of that?

 

Thanks to Adam Reiter for the footage of the automaton waver

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