Today, you are a member of… Semiotic Refreshments

Hey Members, time to take a refreshing dip in the Signifier pool, what with the recent renaming of Alaskan Geological Wonders. Dive right in and you’ll find an ocean’s worth of tides, barrier reefs and seachanges of sometimes random, sometimes thoughtful, newness to the old hat. You might even go deep enough to happen upon the wreakages of September 4th, 1781 when a group African, Spanish, American Indian settlers from Sonora and Sinaloa Mexico gazed upon a fine river in what was then known by the Spanish as Alta California, and previously known to the Tongva and Chumash Tribes as “iyáangẚ” (place of poison oak). Surely the water looked better than today (in that, there was some), and in the river bed, nary a shred of concrete, and so the Pobladores (as they have later been named) deemed the place (though it already had been deemed) “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula” or “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River.” Sure, we know the crystal clusterfuck today as Los Angeles, or even more curtly, ElAyye, and sometimes neighborhoods would rather sport their own signifiers (i.e. Compton, i.e. Hollywood) but way down deep in the waters of the Signifier Pool, it’s all there. And no doubt one day all the tinsel and hot air and giant highway arteries and the spanish style bungaloos tucked away in Los Feliz will be known as Omicron Banana X-1.11B. But for now, go on and dive in. Refreshments will be served poolside.

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