Neon Road Trip by John Barnes (review)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Reviewed by: Neon Road Trip by John Barnes Joshua Merced Neon Road Trip. By John Barnes. Layton: Gibbs Smith, 2020. iv and 199 pp., figs., and index. $24.99 hardcover (ISBN: 9781423654070). John Barnes' Neon Road Trip is a well-curated collection of North American neon signage with interludes of commentary on thematic narratives certain signage represents. While the book is unconventional scholarship, it retains the potential to serve an insightful purpose to the breadth and depth of geography. Barnes studied photography amongst other art techniques, leading to him receiving his BFA from the University of Delaware in 1984. Neon Road Trip is a product of a two-and-half-year RV trip across the United States and Canada, during which he gathered 50,000 photos of vintage neon signage (Wiley 2020). The arc of the book begins with providing an abbreviated history of neon signage and the scientific composition of the signs that create the glow effect. The book continues into brief commentaries on particular images, structures, and purposes neon signage adopts. Barnes uses these sections to provide deeper context about specific signage he encountered on the trip, and how they preserve themes and trends within neon signage use. The book ends with information about neon museums across North America and a photo index of the 204 photos he included, organized by state/province. Barnes deconstructs the language of "neon signs" with a brief fundamental chemistry overview early in the book to help readers understand that the signage involves more than just neon gas. In a section titled "The Four Gases Used in 'Neon' Signs," Barnes provides histories and characteristics of the gases Krypton, Xenon, Neon, and Argon that are the chemical foundation of the signs. He then redirects readers to how the adoption of neon signage is primarily a business strategy. One example he offers more depth on is the Tower Records sign in Sacramento, California. This particular sign had a "Happy Days-esque, rock-around-the-clock feel to it, with two kids shown dancing atop a 45 record" (22). He continues to create this narrative about why the imagery of the sign is intentional and unique. Barnes includes a section in the book that highlights neon signage adoption in the food and beverage industry, appropriately titled "Eat, Drink, & Be Merry." In this section, he examines trends and themes that restaurants display through their neon signage. One example he provides is the Star Noodle restaurant on Historic 25th Street in Ogden, Utah. This corridor was known for their "opium dens, brothels, and gambling joints in the late nineteenth century" (79). Chinese and Japanese railroad laborers brought diversity to the area, which included diversifying the food and beverage scene. The Star Noodle restaurant opened on 25th Street in 1948 with a dragon neon sign used at the storefront, which was created by Ogden-based company YESCO. Though the restaurant closed in 2007, the sign remained in place as it was an iconic element to the 25th Street landscape. In 2015, YESCO restored the sign and changed the wording on the sign to [End Page 437] "Historic 25th Street" to pay homage to its historic significance. The Star Noodle dragon is also one of many examples of animals depicted through neon signage. Later in the book, Barnes includes a section titled "What a Zoo," which examines how animals — whether they are actual, imagined, or extinct — are adopted into neon sign advertisements. The depiction of animals was not confined to food and beverage advertisements, as many of Barnes' examples illustrate. For example, a neon parrot is perched on top of the Poll Parrot Juvenile Shoes sign in Las Vegas, Nevada. "Parrot" derives from the name Paul Parrot, the founder of Poll Parrot Shoes. Neon Road Trip can be of interest to geographers in its topical and methodological approach. Barnes' work can strongly appeal to cultural geographers through the techniques and themes presented throughout the journey through the photos. Neon signage can be argued to be a medium for cultural placemaking and a marker for social and economic activity, concepts that continue to be tackled across the human geographies. Geographer Dydia Delyser (2018) recounted the history of neon signage in the...
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.057 | 0.042 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".