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Monday, October 8, 2007

An Open Letter to City Market

posted by on October 8 at 15:54 PM

Dear City Market,

It’s probably just because I’m in love with the Larry Craig scandal, but running into this sign outside your store last night made my weekend.

larrycraig.jpg

Of course, you’ve been making these signs for a while. The drunk Mel Gibson last year? Hilarious. But you’ve really been outdoing yourself lately, City Market. You have four of these hand-drawn signs up right now, and they’re all so good I couldn’t decide which one I most wanted to steal and hang in my apartment.

OJ?

OJsimpson.jpg

Phil?

philspector.jpg

Owen?

owenwilson.jpg

On reflection, the Owen Wilson one’s clearly the best. It took all I had in me not to rip it off the sign and run. Who draws these, City Market? And what happens to these when they’ve, you know, expired? Do you have some secret door behind the soda case leading to a huge gallery of all the past signs you’ve made? You should! Hell, if you have no room, howzabout you take up some wall space here at The Stranger’s offices? Owen, OJ, Phil, and Larry would be in good company. We already have huge drawings (by Kathryn Rathke) of Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Ayn Rand, Samuel Beckett, and Brian Wilson.

Whaddya say?

RSS icon Comments

1

City Market Artist needs to have a show in a real live gallery...

Posted by KELLY O | October 8, 2007 3:59 PM
2

Wow. Shittiest topical humor ever.

Posted by John | October 8, 2007 4:00 PM
3

The Owen Wilson sign is priceless. I'd steal that one.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 8, 2007 4:01 PM
4

Oh my gawd, these are so cool. Great post.

Posted by boomer in nyc | October 8, 2007 4:05 PM
5

His name's Kaenne (sp?), and he's the general manager. Nice guy, too.

Posted by tabletop_joe | October 8, 2007 4:10 PM
6

i used to live next to city market and these ever changing signs never failed to brighten up the mornings.... they should really do an art showing or a post-secretish book deal, whoever the artist is.

Posted by Noa | October 8, 2007 4:23 PM
7

They're a regular feature on the morning walk to work.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | October 8, 2007 4:30 PM
8

owen wilson sign wins.

Posted by brandon | October 8, 2007 4:32 PM
9

They brighten my day. Favorite ever: the one with Amy Winehouse saying "Blah blah, lame rehab joke, just shop at City Market."

Posted by --MC | October 8, 2007 4:32 PM
10

Not quite gallery worthy, but they are funny as hell.

Posted by SDA in SEA | October 8, 2007 4:48 PM
11

I love their sandwich boards. My favorites will always be the batboy and Mary Kate Olsen editions. Search for citymarket on flickr and you'll see a bunch of other ones, like:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alicetiara/169662511/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joerandazzo/247469328/

Posted by spencer | October 8, 2007 4:52 PM
12

My fave was that astronaut chick--she said: "I'd drive 500 miles in a diaper to shop at City Market!"

Posted by Lola | October 8, 2007 5:00 PM
13

My favorite remains:

Anna Nicole sez, "City Market may be my baby daddy."

Or something to that effect. It was up during the big brewhaha with Dannielynn. I think it stayed up after Anna Nicole died. Tasteless, perhaps. Classic, YOU BET!

Posted by Powhattan | October 8, 2007 5:18 PM
14

I've been photoblogging the signs since about August... Bookmark me or add to your RSS and I add 'em as they make 'em.

-CityMarketBlogger

Posted by CMB | October 8, 2007 5:27 PM
15

Dan Savage sez I'd walk through santorum to get to the tasty treats at City Market.

(lame, I know)

Posted by IS | October 8, 2007 5:30 PM
16

I saw similar stuff for sale in Sprinfield, Illinois, at the local Abe Lincoln tourist trap gift shops. They had t-shirts with images of Abe that said something like: "They'd have to kill me to get me back to Springfield." And they had one with Mary Todd that said: "I'd be crazy to live in Sprinfield." Tasteful? Hell no. Funny? Hell, yeah! at least on the surface.

Posted by nightlifejitters | October 8, 2007 5:33 PM
17

IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT CITY MARKET, THEN YOU'LL HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME!

Posted by Sam | October 8, 2007 5:39 PM
18

CityMarketBlogger: You're awesome!!!!

Besides the signs, City Market also has my 2nd favorite thing in the world: piping hot deep fried bean & cheese burritos at 2am.

Posted by jamier | October 8, 2007 6:31 PM
19

poor owen wilson.

Posted by josh | October 8, 2007 6:38 PM
20

And now some local news station will air some "concerned citizen's" complaint that it offends their morals and then upper management will issue a heartfelt apology on T.V. and fire the artist...

Or aren't we heading into sweeps week?

Posted by Y.F. | October 8, 2007 6:43 PM
21

I miss walking past those signs every day. So funny!

Posted by monkey | October 9, 2007 7:10 AM
22

City Market is a great place. The staff is happy and friendly, the selection is great for such a small place. It's the best corner market I've ever lived near.

Posted by It's Mark Mitchell | October 9, 2007 7:57 AM
23

They're mind blowing. Unforuntately when you have to stop for milk or bread every hour on the hour, they get a little old and or predictable.

Britney appears a lot.

Posted by Sarah | October 9, 2007 9:23 AM
24

The guys name that does the signs is Cain Morehead and he works there. If people requests the signs he signs them and gives them away. The Stranger should do a piece on him or hook him up with a art show!

Posted by dp | October 14, 2007 8:17 PM

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