Sadly, the original Juices Fountain shack on Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard was torn down to make room for the W Hotel and condos. Fortunately, Ms. Perez’s collection of brightly illustrated menu signs now live at her new place (now called just Juice Fountain) at 6332 Hollywood Boulevard, just around the corner from the old location. These signs date from the Fountain’s opening in 1969 and feature a masterful, exuberant single-stroke commercial script. The tropical jungle backgrounds are exceptionally well painted and the fruit illustrations are very simple yet manage to evoke the sweet taste of fresh fruit.
On Wabi-Sabi, the Japanese architect Tadao Ando writes:
Pared down to its barest essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It’s simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came. Through wabi-sabi, we learn to embrace liver spots, rust, and frayed edges, and the march of time they represent.
Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of quiet, undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It’s a fragmentary glimpse: the branch representing the entire tree, shoji screens filtering the sun, the moon 90 percent obscured behind a ribbon of cloud. It’s a richly mellow beauty that’s striking but not obvious, that you can imagine having around you for a long, long time-Katherine Hepburn versus Marilyn Monroe. For the Japanese, it’s the difference between kirei-merely “pretty”-and omoshiroi, the interestingness that kicks something into the realm of beautiful. (Omoshiroi literally means “white faced,” but its meanings range from fascinating to fantastic.) It’s the peace found in a moss garden, the musty smell of geraniums, the astringent taste of powdered green tea. My favorite Japanese phrase for describing wabi-sabi is “natsukashii furusato,” or an old memory of my hometown.
For the complete text by Tadao Ando visit http://nobleharbor.com/tea/chado/WhatIsWabi-Sabi.htm
A neon sign lit at night is glorious, but often there are stories hidden behind the lights. The sign lit shouts the sign maker’s intention. The daylight sign tells other stories: the story of an aging neighborhood, the stories behind the business, the hidden components of the sign maker’s craft. This great old sign is locate in San Francisco’s North Beach at 1534 Stockton Ave. It advertises a nice little neighborhood bar that has been open since prohibition days. I can’t find any information about who Tony Nik was, but I wonder why and when somebody painted over the “Nik’s.” If anybody knows anything about the history of this joint, let me know.
Monkeypete loves the urban poetry of real hand-crafted neon signs. This amazing sign, on Woerner’s Cigar and Liquor, can still be found in San Francisco’s Tenderloin at 901 Geary Street between Larkin and Polk. The history and science behind neon can be found at http://inventors.about.com/od/qstartinventions/a/neon.htm. However, the emotional pull of a great neon sign is better explained by Jonathan Richman in his song Neon Sign which can be found on lyricsmania.com.
The sign maker’s craft is not a retro obsession. A drive today through almost any thriving Los Angeles commercial neighborhood east of Fairfax will reveal a vibrant living culture of handmade sign painting. From the auto-body shops of Pico Boulevard, to the storefronts of South Crenshaw, to the richly painted storefront bodegas and restaurants from East Beverly Boulevard to Downtown, the sign maker’s craft is thriving.
If I had known these signs on the Coney Island Boardwalk where going to disappear I would have taken better photos. I snapped this with a disposable film camera on a dreary winter morning in 1996. I was looking for an original New York egg-cream to cure a vicious hangover. I didn’t find an egg-cream, but, in the dull shadow of the ruins of the original Cyclone, I did find some good hand-painted signs. In recent years attempts have been made to revive the style of the original boardwalk signs, but too often the result is signs that are kitschy and self-consciously retro. This nice free-hand sign is not about capturing a style: it’s about selling sausage hero sandwiches.
I took this picture in 1995 along Highway 395 in the Owen’s Valley. This road runs north and south along the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This is still one of my favorite roads in the United States. If I remember correctly, this sign was located somewhere near the town of Lone Pine. The letters where cut from 1/8″ doorskin and nailed to a plywood base. The construction was remarkably delicate considering the harshness of the climate. This sign disappeared to the elements sometime in the late 1990’s.