Earthy, spiritual, psycho.

There's a thin line between the rustic, earth-goddess look that many yoga studios/every store in Berkeley try to go for with their signage, and the somewhat scary, cultish look my local Bikram yoga studio has actually achieved. I pass this sign almost every day on the way to my local Gold's Gym (whose logo uses bulging, steroidal yellow type—they know their audience!) and it always unnerves me a bit. It kinda seems like it was carved by students at the end of a class when they were completely dehydrated, on the verge of heatstroke and pretty much crazy. Of course, if you've ever taken a Bikram class, you already know that it is in fact a cult, and it should seem perfectly natural that their sign bears a resemblance to this:


Postcard from Charles Manson

But in terms of creepiness, this studio can't hold a candle to the Funky Door Bikram studio on 2nd Street in SF, where massive windows provide passersby with an intimate view of limber, half-naked sweat-o-philes grabbing their ankles. I can't even count the number of times I've passed by that place at lunch and seen several middle-aged men just guilelessly standing there, watching and eating Subway. I admit I sometimes watch too, but only to see people faceplant when their hands fly out from underneath them as they try to execute a downward-facing dog on their sweat-slicked mats.