June 23, 2008

• I've been in Dresden where Longaberger is (and the giant basket)... a strange, strange town whose whole point of being is to sell stupid tourists overpriced baskets.... But, I've got to admit, you drive up to the 7 story headquarters building and just say "holy shit, look at that basket!"
• Oh, dilettante, I love this sort of shit. Bookmarked for extensive later perusal. The disused drive-in signs make me sad, but in that sort of sweet sensucht melancholy way. Y'know, sort of a "vast and trunkless legs of stone" type of thing. The last time I passed through Pennsylvania, I drove by both the Benjamin Moore Paint Can and the horrifying Pie Woman of Frackville.
• I, too, have had my soul forever scarred by that Pie Woman! And this stuff is so cool. They don't make these things much any more, so I'm glad someone is chronicling them. Soon, we won't be a highway society, because we already can't afford to just hop in a car and drive, and these things will disappear.
• And I'm fascinated by the story of the Muffler Men! I would really love to be a fly on the wall when future archaeologists try to make sense of these.
• Very good link. We've got a bearded muffler man just a few blocks from the house. For some reason he's been transformed into a lumberjack, but whatever he advertised in either guise is long gone and he now perches atop a pretty good Vietnamese restaurant.. According to rumor, the local cuban population calls him "Fidel".
• The first time I saw the octopus at the Octopus Car Wash in Albuquerque, I fell in love. He's not the biggest, but he's the bestus.
• What about the giant 25 foot monkey! and the salsa man! You can get any kind of huge signage you want at FAST Corp. Check out their six page catalog.
• Yeah, that Octopus is pretty awesome.