Sunday, June 16, 2013

Ghost sign reference in a William Gibson novel



I've just been told that there's a reference to New York ghost signs in a 2007 William Gibson novel, Spook Country, which deals with mixed reality and signs/images that appear in ghostly form.

The quote below is from Chapter 2, page 11:

"The old man reminded Tito of those ghost-signs, fading high on the windowless sides of blackened buildings, spelling out the names of products made meaningless by time.

If Tito were to see one of those announcing the very latest, the most recent and terrible news, yet could know that it had always been there, fading through every kind of weather, unnoticed until today, that might feel something like meeting the old man in Washington Square, beside the concrete chess tables, and carefully passing him an iPod, beneath a folded newspaper."

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