Behind Cloak Number One Is ...

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Aug. 24, 2008

Shall we recap? We shall.

Earlier this month we posited that the leaders of West Chester had, and we put this as gently as we possibly could, lost their emphatically qualified marbles. That instead of staying straight on the Reality Expressway, they had taken the first available exit for Non Compos Mentisville. That they had collectively started dressing up as the Emperor Napoleon and were anxiously planning a late summer vacation to the Funny Farm.

That is, they’d gone crazy.

Why? Because of their decision to join the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission’s effort to promote places like Bristol, Collingswood, N.J., and Lansdowne as “Classic Towns.” It’s billed as a way of marketing the borough as a place to live, getting its name out there in the public’s eye so that it does not fall off the map. Sort of like Jessica Simpson appearing in ads for that beer in Dallas, except without the blonde curls and shiny teeth.

I argued — quite convincingly, I might add — that the last thing West Chester needs, besides Jessica Simpson bringing the freshmen at West Chester University a couple dozen six packs, is more people. People we’ve got. People, check. Adequate parking spaces, convenient Cincinnati chili parlors and nearby public swimming pools, no; people, yes.

What I wanted, I wrote, was for the good folks at the DVRPC to devise a strategy for keeping people away from West Chester, possibly using some sort of cloaking device that would render the borough invisible so newcomers to the area, driving south of King of Prussia on Route 202 looking for a good place to spend the rest of their lives, would end up buying real estate in Modena.

Ask, sayeth the Lord, and ye shall receive.

The same day that my thoughts appeared in this space, the Associated Press reported that scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, announced that they were a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.

“Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects,” the AP said. “Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects, like Jessica Simpson’s summer reading list.”

OK, I added that last part. But it is clear that researchers are well on their way to providing the technology that would allow us to keep West Chester more to ourselves than the “Classic Towns” folks would have it. This is great news, because heretofore I understood that the soonest the cloaking technology was going to be available was sometime in the mid-23rd century, and then it was going to be used exclusively by the Romulans to hide their Battle Cruisers until they were ready to fire their Plasma Torpedoes at the starship Enterprise. Or some such thing.

Think of it. Gone would be the need for another tedious version of “Landscapes” to protect our open spaces. When suburban sprawlers came knocking, we just wouldn’t be home. And there would be other uses that we could put the cloaking device to, I’m sure. Flip the switch and — blink! — there goes that unsightly new condo development across the street. Crank the handle and — whizzo! — gone are those annoying political signs left along the roadside. Fire that puppy up and — shazzam! — no more having to look at the line of cars stretching out before you on Route 202 on your way to work.

And more to the point, one turn of the knob and — presto chango! — goodbye Jessica Simpson.