At the bottom edge of every beer bottle, you will find a series of dots — a crude glass Braille identifying the specific glass moulding. If you examine your medicine cabinet and your building is old enough, you may find a tiny slit that once held razor blades. If you have lived long enough, you may remember when the capsules on jars and bottles were once made of lead or even cork (before health regulations replaced these with plastic and aluminum foil).
The octagonal STOP sign, which is well-known throughout the United States and more observed than the above items, is only fifty-five years old. The eight-sided seed was planted in Mississippi by a three-man crew insisting on different shapes for disparate signs. Why this trio made the jump from four sides (rectangle) to eight sides (octagon) is an answer just as mysterious as the chopped diagonal ends on the paper in Battlestar Galactica. (It is a sad indication of our largely non-inquisitive culture that even fanboys have not sought to grill Ronald D. Moore on this omnipresent observation.)
But in 1935, the original STOP sign was yellow and octagonal, with red or black letters cast in the same font we know today. Two decades later, the yellow was changed to red. Doug Lennox’s Now You Know: The Book of Answers suggests that red “was logical because red had symbolized danger for thousands of years.” But this is too pat an explanation. A gentleman named Eric Reiss opines that the color code established by traffic signals beckoned the need for visual standards and conformity. My own theory is that the old STOP sign resembled an overripe banana, and made numerous aesthetes (and possibly a few vicars) vomit. Perhaps the yellow background caused automobiles to advance faster past a crossing to avoid the sign’s dreadful color, and this movement to avoid ugly signs was initiated in California, thereby bringing the phrase “California stop” into our national vocabulary. But I have only speculation and wild imagination to bring to this discussion. I remain convinced to this day that John Montagu took credit for the sandwich by swiping the idea from a culinary innovator stressed out in the kitchen. But, of course, nobody can prove it. If only the sandwich had emerged a few centuries later, when recording devices had become ubiquitous. Or maybe we’d rather not ask these questions.
In the case of the STOP sign, I’m sure there are public records to sift through. There may even be a transcript from some MUTCD meeting. A search for books on traffic signs reveals that most of them can, in fact, be found in the children’s section. We’re quite willing to document the signs around us, but we’re not willing to get our hands dirty and uncover the stories behind the signs. We’re not willing to encourage children to find answers to these questions. We accept their constant questions of “Why?” as an indication of a phase. The inquisitive impulse is discouraged and permitted to die. The great hoarding of money, needless trinkets, and Babbitt-like sinecures begins with two decades of education, and the world of facts, imagination, and ambiguities — that magical and less competitive realm as limitless as Schläfli — is thrown into the dust heap.
When you see a STOP sign, do you simply accept it? Or do you ever ask yourself, “Why this polygon above all others?” Is it selfish to disseminate an idea or to suggest to another person to get lost within this second concern? When I promulgated a playful riddle on Twitter yesterday, a narcissist by the name of Tony Hightower, who purports to “make stuff up for other people’s benefit,” responded, “I don’t get it. I’m too busy to understand you and your arcane obliquenesses, anyway.” I have the feeling that he simply accepts the STOP sign, and I feel sad for him.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Ed,
I’d be lost without you. Not for nothing, but your explanatory posts on traffic signs are just a small part of what makes me treasure you so. It was very gracious of you to accept Amazon’s apology. It was obviously heartfelt. But you must not let down your guard or succumb to wily flattery, no matter how silver-tongued, which as we know, is just another form of smoke. Amazon has made itself a behemoth and carries the heavy burden of such. If it makes a mis-step, staggering under its own weight, you are genuinely in the right to offer a quick corrective adjustment. Like you, I’m not marching into the literary future without Jonathan Ames. No way. It’s all of us or none of us. Ultimately, Amazon will thank you for it.