ABSTRACT
In chapter five “Knowing the Ropes,” the evolving relationship between common sense, risk, and the spectacle is considered from a semiotic perspective that sees risk amidst dimensions of imaginative response to normative frameworks of danger and alternative understandings of common sense. In ways that will be seen in greater detail, teasing the legal spectacle is a testing of law's authority. Similar to the volcanic energy of Kīlauea, geothermal energy of a geyser captures the attention at Iceland's Strokkur Geyser. Similar to the lavascape, this geyerscape provides the semiotic nuance to understanding the ropes and legally “knowing the ropes” literally by looking at the ropes that guard the geyser from the visiting public
