#351: Carvalicious

Hell's Kitchen, NYC

#352: Bright's All Right

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

They like stuff bright and cute up in those colder climes.

#353: Poe-Faced

Edgar Allan Poe Street, NYC

Yes, there is an Edgar Allan Poe Street in New York City. The name was bestowed on the section of West 84th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive, and while it took the city a couple tries to get the spelling right (they originally spelled it "Allen" instead of an "Allan" on one of the signs), it's now there for all to see. It commemorates the fact that old Poefellow penned his most well-known work, "The Raven" nearby, in what was then the Brennan farmhouse. The house was torn down in 1888, but 84th Street keeps its Poe street cred by not only having a cool name, but also having appropriately creepy numbers like this one to keep his spirit alive.

#354: Away, Awful Awnings

Yorkville, NYC

Most awnings in this city, while serving a practical purpose, grate on my nerves like sandpaper. Little to no thought is put into design; it's like someone took a scissors to the Barnum & Bailey tent and ran off with it, sticking the flapping monstrosities into the cement with rickety poles that look like they belong on a campground rather than the sidewalks of Manhattan. Such affronts to innocent, historic buildings are many, and unfortunately with my number-spotting obsession, the awning eyesores are hard to ignore. But every now and then, I'll stop in my tracks to note a happy exception. This clean sans serif number, carved into galvanized steel and fixed to the sides of a cherry red awning, is one.

#355: Caret Gold

Venice, Italy

They like their numbers punctuated and framed in Venice, and who am I to argue with the experts? Consider today's number a companion piece to last week's #361, though here the caret has grown -- nay, mutated -- into two fine strapping young triangles.

#356: The Curious Incident of the Dog-Grooming Salon in the Daytime

Upper East Side, NYC

Apparently when you run an Upper East Side dog grooming salon, you can not only commit grievous crimes against the color wheel, but you can also throw some paw prints on the awning and call your establishment Doggy Stylez. And no one will complain.

#357: Duck and Cover

Hell's Kitchen, NYC

I couldn't break out the Fallout Shelter sign without a nod to my favorite cartoon ever endorsed by the United States Federal Civil Defense Administration, Bert the Turtle. See, Bert knew what to do in case of a nasty old nuclear attack: simply put your head in a shell and wait till the earth has disintegrated into a flaming shell of itself, then pop out, dust yourself off, and proceed as normal. "Duck and Cover" was sort of the 1950's cold war version of today's "If you see something, say something" signs on the New York City subway: another snappy buzz phrase to keep handy so's not to panic when and if, as Kurt Vonnegut's narrator in Hocus Pocus might say, "the excrement hits the air-conditioning."

Bear in mind though, that if you do click through to watch the clip you may be humming "Duck and Cover" for days to come. You know, assuming there are days to come. And if you enjoy handling that brand of hot potato humor vs. straight-up horror, the 1982 documentary The Atomic Cafe (where I first encountered this bizarre cartoon) is a must-see.

#358: Posh Putty

Upper East Side, NYC

These numbers appear to have been squeezed out of a tube like some bronze-fortified toothpaste. Still, you have to award points for originality. Posting will be light over the weekend as I help celebrate the wedding of a dear friend. Expect your numbers right on schedule and a return to the usual blather next week.

#359: Brokelyn

Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

If it's broke, don't fix it.

#360: Trolley Trolley Clang Clang

Old Pueblo Trolley Company, Tucson, AZ

Every now and then when I'm in the &7 kitchen cooking up a nice piping hot slice of blog pie, I'll get super excited about my upcoming subject matter ("OMG," I think, looking at the next day's number, "I get to write about TROLLEYS tomorrow!") and immediately begin thinking of clever things I can say, peppering my thoughts with allusions and song titles I can work in, only to do a cursory search online and find that every clever turn of phrase I was going to use has already been beaten to death by journalists and prescient idea-thieves. For example? There I was at the helm of my computer, gazing gormlessly at this picture of a Tucson trolley, when suddenly I was seized with inspiration: "Gee whiz! How about I slip in that hokey old song, 'Clang Clang Clang Went the Trolley'?" Which, I was soon to discover, is the hokey old reference nearly everyone with a pen or an internet connection and the word "trolley" on the brain reaches for first. It's one of those PBR ideas -- you don't drink it because you like it, you drink it because it's the first thing someone hands you when you say, "beer."

It's not a new feeling, this sad realization that in writing as in life, as Willie Shakes himself once lamented, there is "nothing new under the sun." (Though take that same idea, feed it into Samuel Beckett's brain, and what comes out of the machine is one of my favorite opening sentences of a novel ever, the memorable first line from Murphy: "The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.")

Along these lines, I remember feeling similar disappointment when, while a starving student at NYU, I sat in the abandoned carrells of stern Bobst Library and scribbled a review for one of my theatre classes on the show I'd just seen, Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. My opening line? "Jacques Brel is alive and well and playing in Greenwich Village!" And subsequently, every single review I have read of the show since starts with some shudder-inducing variant: "Jacques Brel is alive and well and playing in (insert name of town, name of venue)!" Or "Jacques Brel may no longer be alive and well and living in Paris, but he lives on in this zany new production by Horksville's own Redundant Repertory Theatre!"

Ah, it makes me cringe to look at now, but there is nothing quite so deceptive and dangerous than a writer in the throes of so-called inspiration. That's why I'm much more trusting of the days when I write dutifully, angstily, and doubtfully, laboring over each turn of phrase, feeling more like a pack mule than a glittering weaver of ideas.