This is so much better with the explanation Jeffrey gave me, so I'm just going to reprint it here:
This is from a store in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA, and it is easily my least favorite storefront in the entire city. I'm not overflowing with civic pride, but I really resent the implication that we need someone who is "actually from New York" to sell us scented oils and silk-screened tee-shirts. I didn't know those were culturally important commodities in the first place. Now I find out that the store's proprietors, on top of being pretentious d-bags, are hinting that they might not be as devoted to New York as they would have us believe. They're probably spending the weekend watching Penguins hockey, trying to figure out how to get Al Pacino's face onto even more crap. Incidentally, these pictures would be decent candidates for a blog devoted to horrible fonts on signs.
OMFG!
ReplyDeleteI live right by this place and was horribly offended when I first saw it.
My first instinct was the same as when I see "I (heart) NY" t-shirts: "Well fucking go back there then".
Pittsburgh does not want whatever crap these D-bags are selling, believe me.
A friend of mine is actually working on a book or horrible signs and I told him to make it a point to include this heap of bullshit.
"Sat, Sun and Monday"? Either stick with the abbreviations or don't use them at all, ya lazy bums.
ReplyDeleteThis blog may help lower my blood pressure, or at least vent my "frustration" at our "failing" educational system.
ReplyDeleteAs a native New Yorker who now lives down the street from this store, I found out that they are from Long Island. Sorry Buffalo.
What's so New York about a Scarface t-shirt?
ReplyDeleteThe sign chides Pittsburghers not once but twice! Smart move: talk down to your potential clientele.
If this place is still in business in a year's time, I'll be amazed.
@John R. Carman--you probably should've put "educational" in quotes, too.
ReplyDeleteYou missed the other critical quote-encrusted comment on the window: "MERCEDES BENZ NOT PINTOS". Is this another sort or regionalistic dig at Philadelphians? I'm from the West Coast, so I don't know what the hell it means. I DO know that it's missing a hyphen as well. (Douchebags, indeed)
ReplyDeletehorrible font indeed. This usually suggests an asian flair -- what's the deal?
ReplyDeleteThis may be an insider-ish quotation from Frank Zappa's "Billy the Mountain." In which case, the punctuation is fine.
ReplyDeleteHaha, no way are they from Buffalo! We Buffalonians would be even more disgusted by the "actually from New York!" condescension!
ReplyDeleteI think "We're going to New York" is a correct use of quotes, since it indicates a quotation.
ReplyDeleteIf it were ironic, it would be: We're going to "New York"
"We're going to New York" is code for surfing the web for porn, eating pizza and counting money from suckers who care that the clothes "came from new york."
ReplyDelete