Nihilism (King Street) Bridge in London Ontario is Open Again!

Writing about this bridge the other day made me want to go see if it was open yet, and it is! You would have to live here to get it, but that little walking bridge being closed was really quite a pain in the ass for a great many people. Now it is finally back and it is better than ever.

It used to be two narrow wooden walkways that made villains out of cyclists that didn't dismount and walk. I was one of them, although most times I wouldn't even try to pass any pedestrians and ride at walking speed. Here's some video of the old bridge, when it was used to make impromptu music...

Then a cocoon was made for it...

So it could emerge sometime recently as something better. A new, wide bridge with all the charm of the old one and then some...

Still wooden, still stick-music ready and nice and wide. It was worth the wait. To all those who worked on it, from planning to execution, thank you. It is great.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Reading the Signs at Nihilism Bridge

This one bridge near my house seems to be a natural focal point for cool happenings and spray painted messages. I have always liked it, even before the random bridge music. Next, I was sent on a philosophical journey that resulted in me calling it "nihilism bridge" these days. Way back then in early summer, the bridge was being re-built. It has been closed all Summer and may be closed still; I haven't been by lately. At the time I took these photos, it was quite literally shrouded in mystery...

In the near environs of the bridge, spray paint was again at work. First, another message asking me to do stuff:

Unlike "try nihilism", I didn't know how to follow this particular instruction. Since it seemed to involve leaving leaving your shirt behind, I chose not to try too hard to figure it out. I turned my attention to the bridge. That shroud was driving me crazy. What were they doing under there? I wanted to take a closer look, but I found two messages discouraging me from doing so.

Studying these two messages taught me something important. Vertical, hand spray-painted warnings are way more scary than horizontal, prefabricated ones. That's because each type of sign suggests a certain kind of author. The store-bought sign stinks of somebody from Head Office who is mostly concerned about liability and such. If they caught you on the work site, it would probably go down something like this:

If that's the worst that would happen, I just might trespass and take a little look around.

The hand done, vertical sign brings forth images of an entirely different sort. I mean, if I had hopped the fence with the author of "keep out" around, I imagine something like this would have been more likely:

With that image in my head, I decided to just carry on home and stop being so nosey. As I left that neighbourhood, I saw the symbol below painted on the sidewalk. The arrow was pointing into the street. If somebody could tell me what it means, I would appreciate it.




Anyway, that's it for today I guess. Remember, if you want to scare people off with a sign sometime, make the effort to spray-paint it yourself. It works better.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K