Subway Cures

If you've been to New York in recent months you may have noticed, as I did, the proliferation of adverts in the subway, encouraging people to 'improve' themselves in some way or other. These seem to be epecially prevalent on the C-line, which happened to be my local subway. Daily commuters are confronted with a widening array of posters, promising miracle cures for ailments ranging from bunions, hammer-toe and wonky teeth to impotence. Some ads even reveal the identity of the doctor - complete with mugshot - promising to administer the cure. Dr.Zizmor, the dermatologist, for example, guarantees that 'you'll say thank you, Dr Zizmor' once he's cleaned up unwanted blemishes from your face. His ad doesn't fail to mention that 'all major credit cards accepted' and that his clinic is 'open 5 days per week', furtively adding in parenthesis 'including Sundays'. Sounds more 'zitmore' than Zizmor, to me.
You'll also notice that the phone number provided at the bottom of each poster often incorporates a word into it, presumably to make it easier for people to memorise (for impotence the buzzword is 'male', for bunions it's 'foot', etc). This presumably allows people to avoid the embarrassment of being seen copying down the number. I disregarded this latter consideration when I took these pictures, however. The people on my subway carriage probably thought what an unfortunate person I am, to require so many treatments at once.