Foreign Parts

On the Road: A slice of Americana

Sometimes it's the little things you miss when you're away from the United States for a long time.  Little things like old-fashioned fonts, barber shop poles, black-and-white speed limit signs.  Here I am on a street corner in Baltimore, Maryland, enjoying the muggy weather and remnants of Americana.  Baltimore is a particularly good city for vintage signs and logos — the most famous are Natty Bo and the Utz Potato Chip gal.  Of course the Utz girl's good name was recently sullied when the FBI discovered that the owner of the Utz stand at the funky Lexington Market was selling chip boxes packed with firearms instead of greasy snacks.  Sounds like an episode of The Wire, doesn't it?  But it's absolutely true, and absolutely Baltimore.  Another slice of Americana to take home to Europe.

On the Road: Only in California

This is the sort of thing Europeans laugh at: the sign outside my friend's apartment building in Westwood, warning of the toxic effects of outdoor smoking.  Smoking cigarettes is still legal outdoors in (some parts of) California, but I wonder — for how long?

Every time I try to imagine such a sign fixed to the limestone wall of a Parisian Haussmann building, I chuckle.  What if the French government started posting these signs outside the cafés, on les terrasses where people are still allowed to smoke?  That, I am sure, would start a riot.

À DÉTESTER: the Orangina ad campaign

Every time I pass one of these Orangina billboards in the street or in a métro station I get la chair de poule — chicken skin, or goosebumps — and not in a good way.  There is just something very creepy about a half-human, half-horse wearing silicone breast implants and Daisy Duke shorts. 

I have been waiting for Orangina Schweppes International, which owns the sparkling orange drink, to move on to another campaign but it doesn’t look like they’re going to quit anytime soon.  So far, they and the fertile minds at FFL, the company's advertising agency, have presented the consumers of France with a chorus line of “hottie” man-slash-beasts, including a stripper penguin and a hairy green bear with six-pack abs and a suggestive bulge behind his fig leaf.

I used to love Orangina.  Now it gives me nightmares.

For those of you who dare to see more, check out FFL’s television commercial for Orangina “Extra Pulpy.”  Warning: it has something to do with Flashdance.