Town removes rumble strips after complaints (con't)
In one place the strips were installed for the first time on Alma St. leading up to Howard Ave. on both the east and west sides.
This followed a traffic fatality there last September.
Yet, only one month later, on December 11, a delegation of people living near the strips complained to town council that the new or reinstalled strips were annoying because of the sound vehicles make when they roll over them.
Michelle Poberezny, who live near County Rd. 10 (Middle Side Road) and Concession 8 North, told council the strips “significantly impacted our quality of life” – including the rattling of dishes - and the sound “literally gets on your last nerve.”
Town councillor Diane Pouget said filling in (eliminating) the rumble strips made sense, especially since the cost, according to a town report, would be only $13,565.
She called the remediation a “win-win” because the town will install alternative measures instead to enhance safety.
At the Alma-Howard intersection, there are four sets of six strips on either side of the intersection.
In the report to the town’s April 9 council meeting, council was informed that the strips were installed without paying proper heed to nearby residents.
“Most policies and guidelines suggest that rumble strips should be avoided in residential areas due to the noise created by the rumble strips,” it said.
“Some guidelines provided setback distances between 200-500 metres from a residential area or property. If the minimum distance of 200 metres were applied to the recently installed rumble strips, the majority of the rumble strips would require removal.”
Meanwhile the report said the Howard-Alma intersection – the site of last fall’s fatality - was the “only one without an oversize stop sign.”
Council’s decision to eliminate the strips came a few days after a horrific traffic crash in rural Saskatchewan, where a transport truck t-boned a bus carrying members of a junior hockey team, killing 15.
There was national discussion in the aftermath of the accident that rumble strips may have been a way to alert motorists of the upcoming stop signs on the intersecting rural route that crossed the main highway on which the bus was travelling.
There was also speculation that accidents are more likely to occur on long, flat monotonous highways, like the county roads in flat Essex County.
Meanwhile, the town’s report noted that the transverse strips provide a “tactile and audible warning” in areas where motorists travel a “monotonous roadway environment at high running speeds.”
Instead of the Amherstburg rural route strips, the new alternative road warnings at the seven intersections will be oversized stop signs, flashing beacons, along with Stop Ahead pavement markings and Stop Ahead roadside signs.
But, warned the council report, “It should be noted that flashing beacons and larger signage may not provide warning of an upcoming stop when it comes to distracted driving as the driver is not looking at the road in those cases.”
WindsorOntarioNews.com
Some competition for vaunted Stratford fest
Those looking to spend a day in Stratford have another theatre option option besides the legendary Stratford Festival. A new independent theatre called Here For Now will open in May. The theatre has bene producing pop-up plays for more than a decade but now it will have a permanent home. Renovations are being made to the former land registry office (photo) and will seat 65. The theatre hopes to offer productions year-round. And artistic director Fiona Mongillo insists ticket prices will be capped at $30. - 6/3/25
DSO & Marsalis release 'Blues Symphony'
The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has just pressed a (vinyl) record celebrating its collaboration with jazz trumpeter great Wynton Marsalis. It's called Blues Symphony. "The Blues Symphony is a seven-movement work that gives a symphonic identity to the form and feeling of the blues," Marsalis says. The DSO says the record is intended "to further the legacy" of composers like Gershwin and Bernstein "who were determined to infuse the innovations of jazz into the vocabulary of the symphonic orchestra." A record pressing party was held this week at Detroit's Third Man Records, founded by Detroit rocker Jack White, prior to the March 14 release on various media. - 20/2/25
Relax at home to watch Stratford
You don’t have to go Stratford to see a play. You can watch in in the comfort of your living room. The Stratford Festival’s online streaming service has released four productions from last year’s festival. Moving from the stage to Stratfest@Home are Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and the 2023 production of Alice Childress’s Wedding Band. New original content includes the music series Never Doubt I Love and the short film The Understudy. - 2/4/25
Prep for "the wildest night of your life"
Go nuclear as another way to warm up a cold January night. Kenekted Presents – BASS JUNGLE: Mushroom Cloud & More for a light show at Skybar in downtown Windsor. “With the incredible Mushroom Cloud taking over the decks, prepare for an epic journey through bass-heavy, experimental sounds that will leave you shook!" the club at 44 University Ave. W. says. A tall order but the club wants you to to shake off that frost and prep for "the wildest night of your life." - 1/17/25
Detroit opening nine "arts alleys"
Detroit is embarking on opening nine “arts alleys” across the city with the first one going into the Redford area in the city’s northwest. The state is funding it to the tune of $1M. The plan is to convert blighted areas – including alleys - to arts hubs and wider community go-to spaces. The Redford project will be centered on the existing Artist Village in a former Woolworth’s store. Besides this there is The Alley Project in southwest Detroit. “These transformations are bringing new surfacing, landscaping and amenities, while partnering together with local artists and residents to imbue these improvements with a sense of history, beauty and imagination,” says the city. – 12/23/24
Joe Louis "golfer" sculpture to be unveiled next summer
Detroit has selected Austen Brentley (photo) to create the new statue depicting city boxing legend Joe Louis as a golfer. It will be located on the Joe Louis Greenway, one of several new urban trails feeding into the city’s River Walk and extending far into neighborhoods like Highland Park, Hamtramck and Dearborn. Brently is a Detroit based figurative artist. Few know that Louis was also a leading sports figure desegregating American golf. The statue is scheduled to be unveiled next August. – 12/11/24
Photo: City of Detroit
Wampum Belt decommissioned
The city has approved the removal of the Wampum Belt in Olde Sandwich Towne. The city’s culture and rec director said the belt, part of the 1812 Mural Project assembled in 2013, was a temporary work of art made of almost 3000 recycled bottles and has “now surpassed its intended life cycle.” Located in Patterson Park it replicated the historic Peace Wampum symbolizing “the longstanding relationship of peace and friendship between First Nations and the British crown,” culture director Michelle Staadegaard said. Wampum means a string of white shell beads. – 11/22/24
University theatre's future still up in air
The University of Windsor has no further update on how Essex Hall Theatre will be used in the future. The 323-seat space has long been home to University Players and its public performances for more than half a century. But, citing budget issues, the U nixed the program this year, generating outrage from with the university and without. “At this time, there isn't an update available regarding the future of the Essex Hall Theatre space,” spokesman Dylan Kristy said. The university actually has two theatre – this one and the smaller Hatch Studio Theatre, in connecting buildings that are part of the Jackman Dramatic Art Centre, which features dramatic arts student classrooms and offices. – 13/11/24
Joe Louis - golfer - sculptor wanted
Many people know about the contribution of Detroit’s own Brown Bomber legendary boxer Joe Louis. His fist (photo) is sculpted in the heart of downtown at Jefferson and Woodward Ave. But did you know he also played a pivotal role in breaking racial barriers in the world of golf? Louis began playing golf in 1935 and was a major supporter of the United Golf Association (UGA), the African American organization that conducted tournaments nationwide. As an amateur he was the first African American to play in a PGA-sanctioned event. The City of Detroit is calling on sculptors to submit proposals for a sculpture of Louis as a golfer, to be located, appropriately enough, at a plaza on the new Joe Louis Greenway, a 30-mile trail from the Detroit riverfront to Highland Park, Dearborn, and Hamtramck. – 11/7//24
Detroit's Dreamtroit for artists' housing
Detroit has opened an affordable housing complex for artists offering “creative workspaces.” Called Dreamtroit, the complex “reimagines the former Lincoln Motor Factory and recycling center, preserving Detroit's rich artistic heritage while addressing the need for affordable housing,” the city says. Located in northwest Detroit’s Goldberg neighborhood it includes 76 residential apartments, five office units, and 38,000 square feet of retail and entertainment space, all within a heritage building that has been part of Detroit’s industrial history since 1908. – 2/10/24
Priscilla Presley coming to Motor City Comic Con
Priscilla Presley, best known for her role-playing Jenna Wade on Dallas, will headline celebrity guests at this fall’s Motor City Comic Con. Also known as MC3, running Nov 8 – 10 at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, is Michigan's largest and longest running comic book and pop culture convention since 1989. Oher guests are voice actors Alessandro Juliani, Brad Swaile, Brian Drummond, and Shannon Chan Kent, who star in the animated series Death Note. Also, several comic artists have been added to the guest list including Steve McNiven, Tim Seeley, Ron Marz, Tickets are on sale at www.MotorCityComicCon.com. UPDATE: Robert Englund will also appear and host a special Q&A along with a screening of A Nightmare on Elm Street at Emagine Novi on Nov.9.– 12/9/24
Iconic CanLit Laurence novel heading to Stratford Festival
The Stratford Festival is producing CanLit icon Margaret Laurence’s classic The Diviners. The world premiere opens on August 24 and runs until October 2 at the Tom Patterson Theatre. The central character, novelist Morag, played by Irene Poole (photo), during a personal crisis, seeks resolution through dream and memory, weaving stories of the people of Manitoba – Indigenous, Métis and European. Poole has appeared in numerous films and TV episodes and is a seasoned Stratford performer. – 8/8/23
Photo: Stratford Festival
Lakeshore Imagine Cinemas lowering concession prices
Theatres from time to time reduce ticket prices. But Lakeshore's Imagine Cinemas is lowering the price of concession items. Besides lowering its cheap Tuesday movie price to $8, food and beverage purchased at the counter that day will be $5 or less including taxes. And, says the chain which started in Windsor, theatregoers will only pay $8 any day of the week for matiness prior to 6 pm. – 23/7/24
Art Crawl to "transform" Amherstburg
The second annual Amherstburg Art Crawl takes place this weekend July 20 & 21. This year it's two days and organizers are expecting to "transform" the historic town into a "dynamic hub of creativity, featuring live outdoor painting, mural installations, guided art tours, local authors, musicians, dancers (and) interactive workshops." Events run 11.30 am to 4 pm. The event is sponsored by the Art Amherstburg Society and Art Windsor-Essex (formerly Art Gallery of Windsor). "Amherstburg has been on a roll for over four years and the arts have played a role," says local developer and art society chairman Richard Peddie. "Art Crawl 2024 will build upon the town's momentum and create another great Ontario festival". Admission for this event is free. Free parking is available at Christ Church on Ramsay Street. – 18/7/24
Tims' musical "sickly sweet" says TO critic
The new Tim Hortons musical didn’t garner a good review in the Toronto Star. “Sickly sweet…Tim Horton’s musical amounts to half-baked publicity stunt” for the doughnut behemoth. The Star called it the corp’s “worst publicity stunt ever” and a “75-minute commercial advertisement masquerading as a musical.” Yet critic Joshua Chong had “high hopes” for, yes, The Last Timbit. Staffed with a “who’s who of Canadian actors” and the “most talented voices” the production comes across as massive PR. “Could that explain why the lyrics are stuffed with items off your menu...?” The musical is based on an incident near Sarnia in 2010 when a massive snowstorm forced motorists along Hwy 402 to seek shelter in a Tims. – 9/7/24
Facebook group formed to save University Players
A Save the University Players group has sprung up on Facebook. Created June 21 the group wants the University of Windsor to restore the venerable student theatre, in place for decades until the university last week announced it was cutting it due to budget constraints. “The termination of University Players by the University of Windsor is unacceptable to this community,” the FB page says. “This is a planning and strategy group to pull together and try to save the group, through alternative measures and protest.” Comments are piling up. “This will be like the school naming debacle in Kingsville, where the ‘decision makers’ dig in their heels and stand firm on their bad decisions.,” said one. “I think we need a public outcry has the mayor made any comments?” said another. Administrator Kristina Garswood said a few of them went yesterday to “deliver letters” to university president Robert Gordon. “They wouldn’t let us into the building. A woman answered the door of the building a crack, accepted the letters, and said that the president wasn’t taking phone calls or accepting any attempts to make appointments, and that they were ‘forming a team to look at answering emails.’ That was IT.” – 25/6/24
Group formed to fight University Players closure
WIFF screenings of Windsor-made films coming this month
For the first time the Windsor Intl Film Festival is hosting a group of Windsor-made or connected films this month at the Capitol Theatre. These include Michael McNamara’s 100 Films & A Funeral, Best of the Mark Boscariol 48-Hour Flickfest, Ted Bezair’s The Birder, Michael Stasko’s Iodine, Sasha Jordan Appler’s Kili Klimb, Last Call by Gavin Michael Booth, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, produced by Windsor native Stephen Paniccia, Mike Evans’s Quick and Dirty, Mine Bae’s Reset (see WON post March 30 this page), Marshall Sfalcin’s Rise and Fall of the Grumpy Burger, Chris Pickle’s Saving Grace, Rachel Lambert’s Sometimes I Think About Dying, Kim Nelson’s This is What a Feminist Sounds Like, and WIFF Shorts 1 and 2. The films have been screened over the past two decades at WIFF and in a way have become Windsor classics. They screen June 21-23. – 11/6/24
Festival kicks off its 72nd season tonight
Tonight marks the opening of the Stratford Festival’s 72md season with Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Five more productions open the season this week, some by The Bard and some not. Tomorrow sees the opening of the Tony award-winning Something Rotten! That’s followed by Cymbeline, Hedda Gabler, La Cage aux Folles (photo) and Romeo and Juliet. Other productions this season are Wendy and Peter Pan, The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia, Get That Hope, London Assurance, Salesman in China and The Diviners. – 27/5/24
Photo: Stratford Festival
Shaughnessy Cohen prize for book about Fort McMurray fires
Canadian-US writer John Vaillant has won the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. His book, Fire Weather: The Making of a Beast, is about the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire and its political ramifications. Judges found it a “deeply compelling, skillfully crafted story.” by The award is presented by the Writers’ Trust of Canada, recognizing a book of literary nonfiction that has the potential to shape Canadian politics. The Trust says the award is named for “the outspoken and popular MP from Windsor, Ontario” who died in 1998. The award was announced May 7. It has been given out since 2000. - 13/5/24
Get your Mint Julep at Derby distillery party
Saturday May 4 is Kentucky Derby Day. And the Detroit City Distillery is hosting a special event not just to celebrate the race – with mint juleps of course – but their own special win. The distillery, located in Detroit’s Eastern Market, just won a platinum medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition for its Homegrown Rye. The distillery makes small batch artisanal whiskey, gin and vodka, and limited-edition spirits, using the local ingredients from local farms. This Saturday Mint Juleps will be going for $10 (US). A gift card will be awarded to the person with the best Derby hat. – 5/1/24
Stratford starts plays with land acknowledgements
The Stratford Festival announces land acknowledgements prior to performances but does not issue “trigger warnings” per se. A land acknowledgement is a formal statement that acknowledges the original Indigenous Peoples of the land the event is taking place on, and is spoken at the beginning of public events. Local municipal councils have them. “Yes, we do land acknowledgements before performances as part of our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation,” publicity director Ann Swerdfager said. Does the festival also use “teigger warnings,” increasingly popular in theatres, to warn audiences about content that might distrurb them? The University of Windsor Players introduced this a couple of years ago and also offers counselling. But, said Stratford’s Swerdfager, “We have always had audience advisories for our productions. I would not call them trigger warnings as they predate that term by decades.” Example: “This production contains some mature subject matter, including sexual innuendo and coarse language. It is suitable for most families with teenagers.” – 15/4/24
New DIA board chair admits to buying 'Art for Dummies'
The new head of the DIA, a defense contractor, admitted to buying the book Art for Dummies when he joined the esteemed museum's board a couple of years ago. He is the first Black appointed chairman and a non-Detroiter, originally from Chicago. "And I needed to become like, a pseudo expert," Lane Coleman told The Detroit News. "So, one of the things I did, I bought a book, 'Art for Dummies.' " The businessman, owner of Strike Group LLC, is an avid collector but admits his art knowledge is limited and says he tries to catch up as best he can. "One of the takeaways (when visiting museums) is when you don’t have a lot of time, go right to the gift shop. Look at the postcards. That will tell you what the highlights are, right?" Coleman is a prominent figure on Detroit area boards including the Detroit Water Commission, Henry Ford Hospital Health Network, and the Detroit Regional Chamber. - 25/3/24
Detroit punk scene DVD set now on sale
Dope, Hookers and Pavement, The Real and Imagined History of Detroit Hardcore, is now out on video. This is a limited-edition of 1000 numbered copies. The package includes two Blu-ray and DVD discs, a numbered slipcover, an old school DIY-style hardboard folder, an extra 32 minutes of supplemental videos, and a 20-page full-colour book. Advance orders include a bonus copy of "The Eternal Present" DVD, the filmmaker's weirdo feature debut from 2005 (while supplies last). See www.detroithardcoremovie.com – 12/2/24
Folk dancers from around the world
Here’s your chance to see folk dancing from around the world. The St. Nicholas Macedonian Orthodox Church is hosting a day long event Saturday Feb. 3 with doors opening at 2 pm. Folk dancers in traditional costumes will highlight Macedonian, Serbian, Antiochian, Irish, Ghanaian, Chinese, Slovak, Indian, Scottish, and Ukrainian cultures. Tickets are available at pre-sale prices: $25 (entrance + meal) or $10 (entrance only). Vegan fare will be available. For more information contact mkgerdan2023@gmail.com
'Glass' and 'Little Women' round out UP's 23-24 season
The University Players round out their 65th season with two plays this winter – Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie and Marian de Forest’s Little Women based on the book by Louisa May Alcott. The Glass Menagerie is staged Jan 19-28 and Little Women March 15-24. The first is directed by Lee Wilson, an award-winning director who has worked in Canada and Ireland. The second is directed by Kerry Ann Doherty, a BC based director who has worked in Canada and the UK and first time directing for University Players. Performances are at Essex Hall Theater on the university campus. – 12/1/24
Booking online will cost you at Cineplex
If you want to buy a movie ticket online – and provide yourself and presumably the theatre more convenience – it will cost you. Using Cineplex's website, Canada's largest theatre chain charges a $1.50 "online booking fee." Cineplex introduced the charge in 2022 "to further invest and evolve our digital infrastructure." But if you're a Scene loyalty card member, the charge is only $1. According to CBC, Cineplex ironically years ago eliminated a similar charge to encourage the audience to buy tickets in advance. – 5/1/24
