The Detourist’s List: Weird signs, shirts, walls and words around the world
Way back in 2011, when Prince William and Kate Middleton were getting ready to marry, the Brits got up to all sorts of stunts. The KK Outlet gallery on Hoxton Square invited artists to design custom plates to commemorate the occasion. This sales rep was kind enough to show it off for me.
Story: What’s new in London since the last big royal wedding (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
A traveler sees these things. Some speak for themselves. Some make sense when you read the caption. And some we may never understand.
--Christopher Reynolds
Let me save you the triangulations: This directional sign was planted along the raffish waterfront of Key West. Photo taken 2010. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The Integratron, in Landers near Joshua Tree National Park in San Bernardino County, has a remarkable resonance inside that attracts musicians, meditators and others, who pay for time under the dome. Photographed in 2012. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Any minute now, expect a nude descending a staircase. The Garden of Eden clothing-optional bar is just upstairs from the Bull and Whistle bar on hard-partying Duval Street. Photographed in 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Sidewalk entertainer, Hollywood Boulevard. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
In the gift shop of the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Rosie the Riveter turns up amid Russian images -- and speaking English, too. Photographed in early 2013. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Archie McPhee, an offbeat seller of toys and gifts for more than 30 years, has a big retail store in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. When I stopped by in 2012 these plastic octopus tentacles were a featured special. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
This is the Vesuvio Cafe in North Beach. The poem on the wall says: “When the shadow of the grasshopper / falls across the trail of the field mouse / on green and slimey grass as a red sun rises / above the western horizon silhouetting / a gaunt and tautly muscled Indian warrior / perched with bow and arrow cocked and aimed / straight at you it’s time for another martini.” (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
This newspaper and its irresistible headline date from 1935, when muckraking author Upton Sinclair was publishing his own paper (and fighting the powers that were). It was part of a display in the MAK Center, also known as the Schindler House, on Kings Road in Los Angeles. Photographed in 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
I went to Iran in 1998, when there was a brief thaw between the Iranian and U.S. leaders. Lodgings like this one, the Homa Hotel in Mashhad, still bore signs of earlier hostilities. Yet the guy in the hat was eager to welcome me and take my bag. Not sure when I’ll get back there. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The Hotel Triton, near Union Square in San Francisco, has wallpaper in its guest rooms made of passages from Jack Kerouac’s typescript of “On the Road.” This passage mentions “a cheap hotel room.” Photographed in 2012. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
“Send a Salami,” says the sign. Katz’s Delicatessen, on East Houston Street, goes back more than a century. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Scientist’s desktop, Page Museum, La Brea Tar Pits. Photographed in 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
El Morro National Monument is famous for markings left on the sandstone by travelers over at least four centuries, dating to the Spanish explorers. But you have to draw the line, or not draw the line, eventually. The National Park Service forbids any further graffiti. Photographed in 2008. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
At Powell’s Books, 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
On the lush isle of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, possibly inspired by a nearby petroglyph site, these tourists (or maybe they were locals) got the annoying yet apparently irresistible idea of marking their names on a prominent plant. The good news is that I took this picture in 2001, so fresh, textless growth has probably taken this leaf’s place.
Read more: Seduced by St. John (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The sign says: “TRAVELLING BROKE & HUNGRY ANYTHING HELPS.” Photographed in 2011. (Note that unlike many panhandlers, this man has a pan.) (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Cody, Wyo., is a common stop for travelers because it’s only about 50 miles east of Yellowstone National Park, and it’s got a nice, old-fashioned Main Street, not to mention a nightly rodeo from June through August. Given all that, it’s no surprise that the week of Independence Day features a big, frontier-flavored parade. This was in 2010. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
In summer, divers make use of floating platforms in Seattle’s Green Lake. Lifeguards watch closely, shirts announcing their role explained in seven languages. Photographed in 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Many menus in Cuzco include not only alpaca but also cuy, a.k.a. cui, a.k.a. guinea pig. Photographed in 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Marilyn Monroe’s grave at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park. Photographed in 2011. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
