The 175,000 jobs added by U.S. employers last month was just what investors wanted. The number suggested that the economy is growing, but not so strongly that the Federal Reserve will pull back from its economic stimulus soon.

"This was, in our view, very much a 'Goldilocks' number," said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors. "There is zero chance that the Federal Reserve is going to start tapering monetary policy," at its next two-day policy meeting starting June 18

The central bank is buying $85 billion of bonds every month to keep interest rates low and encourage borrowing, spending and investing in riskier assets like stocks.

Stocks rose strongly Friday morning, then eased slightly in the early afternoon. The gains accelerated in the final hour of trading.

The Dow Jones Industrial average had its best day in five months. It rose 207 points, or 1.4 percent, to close at 15,248.12. That gain was surpassed this year only by its 2.4 percent rise Jan. 2.

Boeing led the index higher with a gain of $2.73, or 2.7 percent, to $102.49. Industrial conglomerate 3M gained $2.44, or 2.2 percent, to $111.11. Twenty-six of the 30 stocks in the Dow rose.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 20.82 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,643.38. The Nasdaq composite rose 45.16 points, or 1.3 percent, to 3,469.22.

Nine of the 10 industry groups in the S&P 500 index rose, led by consumer discretionary stocks, which stand to benefit more than other sectors if the economy picks up. Industrial companies and banks also posted strong gains.

The only S&P 500 industry group that fell was telecommunications, a so-called defensive sector that investors favor when they are seeking safety and high dividends.

Financial markets have turned volatile over the past two weeks as traders parse comments from Fed officials for hints about when the central bank will cut back on its support. When it happens, the wind-down will help nudge interest rates higher.

For investors who expect the Fed to stay the course, "these types of slow economic growth reports speak to that," said Kevin Mahn, chief investment officer at Hennion & Walsh Asset Management. "It keeps interest rates at record lows and it keeps the equity markets humming."

The S&P 500 index is down 1.6 percent since reaching a record high on May 21. The next day, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Fed could ease up on its economic stimulus program in one of its next few meetings.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.18 percent from 2.08 percent late Thursday as investors moved out of safer assets.

The Labor Department's monthly survey of employment is one of the most important gauges of the U.S. economy and receives close scrutiny from investors. It can frequently cause big moves in financial markets, especially if the report shows that employment is stronger or weaker than economists were expecting.

On May 3, the government reported not only a strong pickup in hiring in April but it also revised sharply upward its estimates for job growth in February and March. That sent the Dow Jones industrial average past 15,000 for the first time, while the S&P 500 index broke through 1,600.

In the weeks following that report, bond yields rose from 1.63 percent as high as 2.20 percent May 31. That meant investors thought the economy was strengthening, dampening the appeal of low-risk assets like bonds. It also meant investors believed the Fed would act sooner than previously thought to curtail its bond-buying program.

Investors are still keeping an eye on interest rates because of the impact that they have on the economy. For example, higher borrowing costs will push up mortgage rates and curb demand for housing. The recovery in the housing market has also boosted stock prices this year.

"Interest rates have really gone up in quite dramatically from a month ago," said Paul Hogan, the manager of the FAM Equity-Income Fund. "If they continue to rise, the market will be a little more bit choppy."

The improving economy has also helped support the dollar this year. The U.S. currency rose against the euro and the yen Friday.

The price of gold fell $32.80, or 2.3 percent, to $1,383 an ounce. Gold has fallen sharply this year as a rising stock market and a strengthening dollar have diminished its appeal as an alternative investment.

In other commodities trading, the price of oil rose $1.27, or 1.3 percent, to $96.03 a barrel.

Among other stocks making big moves:

Gap rose $1.11, or 2.7 percent, to $42.09. The San Francisco-based clothing store chain reported late Thursday that its sales jumped 7 percent in May, more than expected, helped by strong results at its namesake Gap and Old Navy stores.

TiVo plunged $2.61, or 19 percent, to $11.10 after the company settled patent disputes with several technology companies including Cisco and Motorola Mobility but received far less than what most investors inspected. TiVo has posted annual losses in nearly all of the past 10 years.

Thor Industries rose $4.92, or 11.9 percent, to $46.16 after the company reported a 6 percent increase in income. The results beat market expectations on stronger sales of RVs and a lower tax rate.

The troubling U.S. data included weak hiring by businesses, a plunge in mortgage applications and sluggish orders to factories.

Investors also continued to register their disappointment a day after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered a speech to business leaders that introduced the third plank of his economic reform program. The Nikkei closed down 0.9 percent at 12,904.02. It tumbled 3.8 percent Wednesday following the speech.

"Abe took positive steps, but the 'third arrow' did not fly as reforms fell below expectations in terms of tax and investment restructuring," Vishnu Varathan of Mizuho Corporate Bank in Singapore said in a market commentary.

A technical problem put a stop to some trading at NYSE Euronext, which runs the Paris exchange among others. The source of the problem has yet to be identified, NYSE Euronext said. About a third of European stocks trade on the exchanges owned by NYSE Euronext, the product of a merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext in 2007.

Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.1 percent to 6,426.07. Germany's DAX advanced 0.1 percent to 8,206.87.

Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in Melbourne, said investors were unnerved by the uncertainty surrounding the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

Fed chief Ben Bernanke has said the U.S. central bank might pull back on its $85 billion a month bond-buying program as economic data improves. But other Fed officials have spoken about a winding down of asset purchases sooner. Shamu said the uncertainty was driving investors out of the market.

"That is not healthy for investor sentiment," Shamu said. "A lot of investors are thinking they should book profits now."

The Fed faces a perilous decision: If it pulls back its stimulus too soon, the U.S. economic recovery could sputter. If it waits too long, super-low rates could ignite inflation. Or they could swell speculative asset bubbles as investors pursue riskier investments, including stocks, with potentially richer returns than low-yielding bonds.

The Fed knows the timing is tricky. It ended its second round of bond purchases in June 2011 only to see economic growth remain weak and unemployment stay at levels more consistent with a recession than a healthy recovery.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.9 percent to 21,859.16. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 lost 1.1 percent to 4,781.20. Markets in South Korea were closed for a public holiday. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, mainland China and Thailand fell more than 1 percent.

Wall Street sank Wednesday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1.4 percent to 14,960.59. The Standard & Poor's 500 slid 1.4 percent to close at 1,608.90. The Nasdaq composite index declined 1.3 percent to 3,401.48.

Investors were unnerved by a sharp 11.5 percent drop in mortgage applications for last week. That was a disappointment because the rebound in housing has been one of the key factors supporting the stock market's record-breaking rally this year.

There was also disappointing news on hiring. A measure of employment in service industries fell to the lowest level since last July. Separately, payroll provider ADP said U.S. businesses added just 135,000 jobs in May, the second straight month of weak gains.

Benchmark oil for July delivery was up 27 cents to $94.01 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 43 cents to close at $93.74 per barrel on the Nymex on Wednesday.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3120 from $1.3088 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar rose to 99.24 yen from 99.19 yen.

___

Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co raised its 2013 earnings outlook after quarterly results beat low expectations, as CEO Meg Whitman's turnaround plan helped offset shrinking personal computer sales with enterprise computing services.

While fiscal second-quarter profit plummeted 32 percent, Wall Street had braced for worse. HP shares gained 14 percent after the company projected full-year earnings per share of $3.50 to $3.60, raising the lower end by 10 cents, and fiscal third-quarter profit that topped analyst estimates.

Whitman, who took the helm at the world's largest PC maker more than a year ago, is orchestrating a turnaround, trying to recapture some of the Silicon Valley icon's former strong growth. She has said the process could take years.

HP received a warmer welcome from investors for its results than smaller rival Dell Inc, which last week reported a 79 percent slide in profit and is now mired in a takeover battle between founder Michael Dell and activist investor Carl Icahn.

"This is another good deposit on the road to our turnaround here," HP Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said in an interview. "We are roughly where we want to be in total on the company."

Enterprise services and printing units are "probably a little bit ahead," she said, adding the two businesses helped drive the company's gross margin improvement during the quarter.

HP's net income fell to $1.08 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $1.59 billion, or 80 cents a share, a year earlier.

The company earned 87 cents per share on an operating basis during the second quarter on revenue of $27.6 billion.

HP had been expected to post earnings of 81 cents a share on revenue of just over $28 billion, according to the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For its fiscal third quarter, it estimated non-GAAP earnings per share of 84 to 87 cents, higher than 83 cents expected by Wall Street analysts.

Its shares, which have climbed 51 percent in 2013 as investors gradually gained confidence in its prospects, rose 13 percent to $24.08 in extended trading after closing at $21.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.

STEEP DECLINE IN PC SALES

HP, whose name is synonymous with the birth of Silicon Valley, has suffered years of turbulence. Whitman became HP's third CEO in as many years after Leo Apotheker's abrupt dismissal.

She is now pushing layoffs, cost cutting, and expansion into markets and areas with longer-term potential such as enterprise computing services. The move, intended to bolster margins, pits HP against the likes of IBM.

HP is laying off 29,000 employees over the next two years and has written off $10.8 billion mostly related to the writedown of its EDS services business.

Lesjak said so far the company had reduced 18,800 jobs and intends to cut a total of 26,000 by the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the company reported that revenue fell across HP's main business divisions, with the steepest decline in the personal systems group. Sales from HP's largest, PC-focused unit dived 20 percent to $7.58 billion.

But that same division recorded a 3.2 percent operating margin, up from about 2.7 percent in the previous quarter, as the company focused on improving profitability.

The printing division had the smallest revenue decline, of 1 percent, year over year, but the company said it had a "strong operating margin" of 15.8 percent.

HP generated $3.6 billion in cash flow during the quarter and used some of the funds to reduce net debt by $1.8 billion to $2.9 billion. The company had $13.6 billion in gross cash at the end of the quarter.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Could Disney have done a little plundering of its own when coming up with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie franchise?

The company has been hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit by a man who claims that he came up with numerous elements of the hugely successful "Pirates" film series, including characters, supernatural elements, storylines, plots, themes, sequence structures and screenplay elements, according to court documents obtained by TheWrap.

In the suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Florida on Tuesday, Florida resident Royce Mathew claims that Disney infringed on a story that Mathew had written, and fraudulently procured a settlement from him when a previous lawsuit was filed.

In addition to the Walt Disney Co. and Walt Disney Pictures, the suit lists numerous other defendants, including "Pirates of the Caribbean" producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Mathew alleges that he created numerous supernatural stories in the late '80s and early '90s, including a "Supernatural Pirate Story," along with a related Supernatural Pirate Movie.

Mathew claims that he provided Disney with copies of his creations over a period from 1991 to 1995, both through direct meetings and the Creative Artists Agency and William Morris Agency, but Disney subsequently credited "Pirates of the Caribbean" writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio with the creation of those works.

Though Mathew doesn't list specific damages in the suit, the complaint claims that Mathew "is entitled, inter alia, to the billions of dollars that Disney has generated, or allowed others to generate, from the defendants' unauthorized use and exploitation" of Mathew's works.

Disney has not yet responded to TheWrap's request for comment.

Mathew claims that he initiated a copyright infringement action against Disney in 2006, but that the defendants "fraudulently procured" a settlement, prompting him to execute a release agreement in mid-2007.

Mathew is seeking a rescission of the earlier release agreement. However, his suit argues, even if a rescission isn't granted, he's still entitled to enforce his copyright claims after mid-2007. (The "Pirates" movie franchise is still very much a going concern; as reported by TheWrap on Wednesday, Disney has tapped "Kon-Tiki" directors Joachim Rnning and Espen Sandberg to helm the fifth installment of the series.)

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

The jumbo jewel and other treasures confiscated by the U.S. Marshals Service are up for auction in Las Vegas this weekend.

Buyers can preview the gold and silver bullion, coins, jewelry and watches from federal crime cases between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Friday at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The auction itself starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and will be simulcast on the Internet.

Among the other items are 6.6 pounds of gold pellets from a Southern California resident caught up in a $100 million Medicare fraud scheme. The starting bid for that collection is $120,000.

The Marshals Service auctions items from cases a few times a year. Proceeds benefit victims of crimes and supplement law enforcement programs.

Nina Agdal agreed to step in as Jake Davidson's date Thursday night after he got turned down for prom by supermodel Kate Upton.

The Sherman Oaks teen appeared in a YouTube video that was viewed more than 2.5 million times asking Upton to be his date.

After Upton declined because of a scheduling conflict, Agdal volunteered to go, saying she never got to attend her own prom.

The Danish model is better known as the bikini-clad sunbather in a Carl's Jr. ad.

Davidson told the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/173eVPS) he had an incredible night and said Agdal was down to earth.

The study shows that dogs split from gray wolves about 32,000 years ago, and that since then, domestic dogs' brains and digestive organs have evolved in ways very similar to the brains and organs of humans.

The findings suggest a more ancient origin forthan previously suggested. They also hint that a common environment drove both dog and human evolution for thousands of years.

"As domestication is often associated with large increases in population density and crowded living conditions, these 'unfavorable' environments might be the selective pressure that drove the rewiring of both species," the researchers wrote in their article, published today (May 14) in the journal Nature Communications.

First domestication

It isn't clear precisely when wolves were tamed and transformed into man's best friend, and the date has been hotly debated. An ancient, doglike skull uncovered in the Siberian Mountains suggested that thearound 33,000 years ago from gray wolves. But genetic analysis suggested dogs in China were domesticated only about 16,000 years ago.

In any case, most researchers agree that by about 10,000 years ago, dogs were firmly ensconced in human society. []

Some studies show that the wild dogs of South China may have been the first domesticated canines.

To understand this domestication, Guo-dong Wang, a genetics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his colleagues analyzed the DNA of four , three indigenous Chinese dogs and a German shepherd, a Belgian Malinois and a Tibetan mastiff.

The DNA suggests that the gray wolves split off from the indigenous dogs about 32,000 years ago, the researchers said.

"Chinese indigenous dogs might represent the missing link in dog domestication," the researchers write in the paper.

Since then, dogs' evolution has been gradual, and there were no sharp decreases in the dog population over time, suggesting dogs gradually became domesticated, after many years of scavenging from humans.

Parallel evolution

The team then compared corresponding genes in dogs and humans. They found both species underwent similar changes in genes responsible for digestion and metabolism, such as genes that code fortransport. Those changes could be due to a dramatic change in the proportion of animal versus plant-based foods that occurred in both at around the same time, the researchers said.

The team also found co-evolution in several brain processes for instance, in genes that affect the processing of the brain chemical serotonin. In humans, variations in these genes affect levels of aggression. (This shared genetic trajectory might explain why Fluffy can be helped by antidepressant drugs, the authors hypothesize.)

Follow Tia Ghose onand .FollowLiveScience , & . Original article on.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Indie rock band Vampire Weekend on Wednesday grabbed the top spot on the weekly Billboard 200 album chart, besting new albums from country legend George Strait and pop singer Demi Lovato.

"Modern Vampires of the City" sold 134,000 copies in its first week, according to figures compiled by Nielsen SoundScan, and became the second album to debut at the top of the weekly Billboard 200 for the New York-based rockers.

It was also the first independently distributed album to debut at No. 1 on the chart since country singer Jason Aldean's "Night Train" in November last year.

Strait's "Love Is Everything," his 27th studio album, sold 120,000 units and entered the chart at No. 2 while Lovato's "Demi" album sold 110,000 units and landed at No. 3.

Last week's top album, "Golden" by country trio Lady Antebellum, fell to No. 5 this week while the soundtrack to the "The Great Gatsby" film dropped from No. 4 from No. 2.

On Billboard's Digital Songs chart, which measures digital single track download sales, rapper-producer duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis's "Can't Hold Us" held steady at No. 1 with 231,000 downloads.

Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" featuring rapper T.I. and singer Pharrell Williams came in at No. 2 and Pink's "Just Give Me a Reason" featuring FUN. frontman Nate Ruess rounded out the top 3 on the Digital Songs chart.

Total album sales this year stands at 111.4 million, a 5 percent decline over the same period last year.

Digital song downloads have totaled 531.2 million so far in 2013, off 3 percent in the same period last year.

(Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)

Fox appeared at a news conference in Seattle, where he recounted how the war on drugs has ravaged his country and praised the states of Washington and Colorado for voting to legalize the recreational use of marijuana last fall.

At the news conference, former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively discussed his plans to launch a new marijuana brand named for his great-great grandfather, Diego Pellicer. He says his company is joining forces with a Washington state chain of medical marijuana dispensaries run by John Davis, the Northwest Patient Resource Center, as well as dispensaries in Colorado and California.

"This historic step today is to be observed and evaluated closely by all of us, because it is a game changer," Fox said. "I applaud this group that has the courage to move ahead. They have the vision, they are clear where they're going, and I'm sure they're going to get there."

Fox, a former Coca-Cola executive who was Mexico's president from 2000-06, specified that he's not involved in the venture. He appeared at Shively's invitation. The two first met 13 years ago, when a company Shively used to run was opening a computer center in Sinaloa and Fox appeared at the inauguration, Shively said.

Shively described grand visions for his pot brand hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, tens of millions of customers, more than 1,000 jobs just at Diego Pellicer's Seattle headquarters.

"Yes, we are Big Marijuana," he announced.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last March, the company wrote that it had raised $125,000 of an anticipated $625,000. Shively suggested those numbers were outdated, but did not provide different figures.

Washington and Colorado expect to begin allowing marijuana sales to adults over 21 at state-licensed stores beginning next year, but marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and the Justice Department has repeatedly said it can continue to prosecute large-scale, privately owned marijuana operations even when they comply with state law.

It isn't clear how Shively's plans for a national marijuana brand might be accomplished without running afoul of federal laws regarding the distribution of an illegal substance or conspiracy to distribute an illegal substance. He and Davis said no money from their business will travel interstate, nor will the marijuana itself, but neither of those factors would necessarily shield them from arrest.

Shively insisted that his deals with the dispensaries are structured in such a way as to minimize any risk of federal prosecution, but neither he nor Davis would explain how. Shively said he had acquired certain "rights" related to the dispensaries, and made the plan sound like a marketing agreement by which the stores, beginning next month, would be re-branded as Diego Pellicer.

"Neither Diego Pellicer nor our investors are exposed to any significant risk, in terms of criminal risk," Shively said. "In terms of criminal risk, that is vastly mitigated. ... We're making strategic investments, but we're making them in such a way that they are not in violation of either federal or state law."

Asked how his plan didn't constitute a federal conspiracy to distribute marijuana, Shively described his operation as "a conspiracy to obey the law."

His securities lawyer, Mike Moyer of the prominent Seattle firm of Dorsey and Whitney LLC, declined to elaborate.

Fox urged the reporters present to maintain a focus on the important issues at hand: the failure of the drug war, the thousands of lives lost, and the better alternative offered by legalization. He noted he'd rather be sitting at a table next to Shively than the notorious cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

"This is a much better option, no doubt," he said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

This Memorial Day weekend, the hulking metal come-ons are once again glinting and shimmering at night.

The Neon Museum, where Sin City's most iconic signs go to retire, has begun aiming more than 100 multicolored spotlights on its outdoor collection of 150 signs. It's also extending hours for nighttime tours, and a handful of signs have been fully restored with new bulbs.

Since October, visitors have been able to meander past the Silver Slipper, Aladdin's lamp, the Stardust marquee and dozens of other signs saved from the wrecking ball. But the museum closed at 5:30 p.m., meaning that tourists had to squint through the desert sun to glimpse the old guardians of this nighttime city.

For the first time Friday, visitors were able to behold the fully restored signs in all their luminescent glory. The dozens of other markers were bathed in custom-designed spotlights, like true Vegas showgirls.

"The skyline of Las Vegas is a nighttime skyline," said executive director Danielle Kelly, moments before the first afterhours tour came through.

"We stand among the architecture of this city. The notable architecture of this city is its signage. And their illumination is when they came alive," Kelly said.

In a town known for detonating buildings that are beyond their prime, Las Vegas' Neon Museum stands apart in its zeal for salvaging the blinking, glowing memories of the past.

Kelly says time has transformed the signs from commercial emissaries into objects of art.

The hour-long guided tours bend through the artfully cluttered 1.5-acre lot. The excursion offers an alternative to the mega-mall homogeny along the desert metropolis' revamped main drag.

Worn by the beating sun and twisted by desert winds, most of the marquees have lost their flash, some of their bulbs and much of their paint. They tilt toward each other like tombstones in an ancient cemetery. But taken together, they tell a story about the town's glitziest days.

There's the nouveau graveyard's oldest sign: a green and white 1930s relic that marked a restaurant where Hoover Dam construction workers bought fried chicken and bootleg whiskey.

One of the signs with working bulbs a vintage arrow pointing lovebirds to "Marriage Information" alludes to the town's role as the nation's elopement, and divorce, capital.

And the giant marquee that once sat astride the Stardust casino featuring a space-age, deep-red font and cascade of stylized diamonds recalls Nevada's embrace of its role as a test site for nuclear weapons

While only four of the kitschy relics are illuminated, the spotlights play up each sign's attributes and create a feel of pulsating energy.

On Friday, the flashing red lights and blue and purple shadows along with the errant stray cat gave the attraction the surreal, slightly creepy feel of a shuttered theme park.

The museum plans to turn on a few more signs, but facilities director Sam Reza said full wattage would be too dazzling.

"The purpose of the museum is never to have all of the signs fully illumined. We wanted to keep them in the state that they were taken down. To have all of these signs fully lighted up would be overwhelming," she said.

Funding is also a factor; it can cost $100,000 to bring back a single sign.

Art lovers founded the museum in 1996 in a sandy lot outside downtown Las Vegas a few miles north of the Strip as a way to rescue old signs when buildings were demolished or remodeled.

In 2012, curators had the bright idea to open it to the public and began working on a plan to light up the night once again.

Casino bosses began abandoning curlicues of neon in the desert several decades ago, beginning with Steve Wynn's remodel of the Golden Nugget.

Today, major hotel-casinos are built to advertise themselves. The facades and exterior entertainment do the heavy lifting, from the glossy, brown obelisk that is the Wynn Las Vegas, to the fountains that dance outside the Bellagio, to the condensed New York City skyline that frames New York New York.

When signs do crop up, neon has all but surrendered to computerized LED signs.

But most visitors still feel a connection to the town's glittery glory. Most anyone can visualize Vegas Vic, with his checked shirt, perpetually lit cigarette and extended thumb, in their mind's eye.

Sandra Chervinsky, who snapped dozens of pictures during the Neon Museum's inaugural twilight tour, demonstrated her love of vintage Vegas signage by getting full-color tattoo of the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign on her calf.

"When I saw the night tours, I was like, 'I got to do it,'" said Chervinsky, of Montreal. "The light is so perfect, and you're surrounded by all these different eras."

The new tours will run every half hour through 10 p.m., leaving visitors enough time to catch a late show or hit up one of the town's 24-hour bars before heading hotelward.

With the changes and expanded tour capacity, the museum hopes to welcome more than 50,000 visitors this year.

The lot can feel a bit macabre in this youth and novelty-obsessed town, but Kelly said the museum's latest iteration shows that the signs have become key players in a new kind of escapist vision.

"It's not a graveyard," Kelly said. "The signs haven't died. They're just in a new space. And they perform a new function. It's still a fantasy they're selling: the idea of a place."

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Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier