Fumbling around in the void of information

A funny thing happened on the way to the editorial pages in todays Windsor Star.

I read through Gord Henderson's column which continued on his previous columns in pronouncing the death of a downtown university campus. Gord tells us about these City Centre West renderings I have been hearing so much about. The ones that I was told would make my mouth break out in an instantaneous torrent of saliva. The ones that "show the area from the new bus terminal west to Caron Avenue, and from University Avenue north to Riverside Drive, changed from asphalt wasteland into a dynamic urban space featuring attractive academic buildings, creative museum space, student residences and existing housing." If Francis wants to build public suport behind the downtown campus, the best thing he could do would be to "leak" these drawings. However, according to the Henderson, the dream is all but dead - "Plenty of vision. Lots of great pictures. But no cash. The story of our lives."

Then, right next to Gord's column on page A3, sat Grace Macaluso's "Mixed signals sent over U of W project", which basically apologises for Gord's current stance that the project is dead: "(t)his is despite the fact that Star columnist Gord Henderson today cites university board of governors chairman Marty Komsa explaining that the board has not only rejected putting the engineering school downtown, it has also passed on a follow-up proposal to put an ambitious $58-million mixed-use campus downtown due to lack of funds." According to Macaluso, , Lori Lewis, U of W manager of news services, said her comments on the weekend about the downtown proposal were premature. "I may have spoken out of turn," she said.

Talk about mixed messages.

This is what happens when the public is given only tidbits of tantalizing news. Like the land developers we love to hate, we speculate, guestimate and postulate, which benefits nobody but the people selling newspapers.

I am excited by the fact that the University appears to be backpedaling on their firm stance against a downtown campus, however. Maybe the DWBIA's forum tonight featuring Rick Haldenby from the University of Waterloo will open up a few eyes and ears to the possibilities that lie ahead if the public rallies their support behind these plans.

I don't think we are hiding our support here at SDW. The evidence is clear about the benefits hundreds of students living, learning and playing in an urban campus brings to the host community. We are also not convinced that the new Centre for Engineering Innovation is the only campus that would work. How about the new Law or Medical campus?

We must dare to dream, and this is where publicizing Francis' dreams-on-paper of a rejuvinated downtown would catapult us closer to that reality.

Good read for the start of the cold winter

This artful and entertaining collection of essays by the novelist Will Self (The Book of Dave) will delight anyone who enjoys his weekly column of the same name in the Independent or his last collection of essays, Feeding Frenzy.

Here Self shifts from gonzo journalism to the study of psychogeography, the study of how geographical environments affect emotions and behavior.

Setting off on a quest for the intrinsic character of various places as well as the manner in which the contemporary world warps the relationship between psyche and place, Self casts a dismissive eye on most of the world. Singapore strikes him as Basingstoke force-fed with pituitary gland; Sao Paolo's lack of a street plan makes it an unholy miscegenation between London and Los Angeles. But Steadman's beautifully harsh illustrations (worthy of their own book) and Walking to New York, a previously unpublished semi-autobiographical meditation on life and death, reveal a surprising depth to Self's cynical insights.

"Cars and bullet trains may speed up our transit time, but they do nothing to enrich the quality or depth of our interactions. On the contrary, because we arrive so fast, we have no reason to make occasions of anything. By nudging others into this consciousness, Self acts as "an insurgent against the contemporary world."After an afternoon of overload at a local mall, he escapes to the suburbs with his kids, where he reflects on how interzones -- those places where "country and city do battle for the soul of a place" -- excite him. This suburban expedition is Self's way of dragging his children into their own consciousness of place. He wants to yank them "out of all this intense urbanity" and expose them to the suffocating pressure of "the sheer orderliness of all the neat verges and linseed- oiled garage doors" -- just like the teenage Self once felt. Once again, the insurgency: Self watches as his son tenses on his way into the suburbs and relaxes on his way home to the city, his psyche penetrated.

This new book promises to be an excellent read. Check out the book review published by the L.A. Times. Unfortunately, it's not yet vailable at the Windsor Public Library, but it is available at the St. Clair Shores Indigo store - but please try and purchase it from an independant retailer first.