Only at the U

Signs are everywhere. We are bombarded with signs both "official" and freestyle every single day. As some may remember, I am a great noticer of signs. I mean, there's this kind of thing:

Or intriguing, less formal messages:

Or messages that seem a little sinister:

Yesterday I took my daughter to physio (stubborn sprained ankle, getting better) at the Fowler Kennedy sports clinic at the University of Western Ontario. I was just hanging around outside people watching and feeling incredibly nostalgic (I went there) and old when I saw a small sign, partly obscured by undergrowth, behind the Ivey Business School. Being a curious, sign-noticing kind of person, I moved in for a closer look.

The sign was basically a "Don't Walk Here" or "Keep Out" kind of thing, yet managed to be so much more:

A tiny, hidden sign on a three foot post with a sad bend on the corner. A remarkably detailed, polite (dare I say erudite?) message that you could only find on a University campus, defiantly protecting a tiny triangle of trees on a vast, busy property teeming with clueless oafs who would happily trample understorey growth and tree seedlings. Remember Rat Trap Press' FARATS-winning "Charlie Brown Tree"?

That sign felt like a nerdy, wonderful "Charlie Brown Sign" to me. I really liked it.

Speaking of trees, I grabbed a pic of the King of Autumn the other day. He's still pretty green, but I have a good feeling that he will ROCK this year and smoke the competition in the Second Annual Rantwick Autumn Tree Smackdown (SARATS)!  

Can you see it? He's got his game-face on for sure. If trees had teeth, his would be gnashing, baby. You better get looking for a good entry now.

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