Category: Uncategorised

Posted on October 11, 2017 by j.g.lewis // 1 Comment

Maybe you need to get away to feel more like yourself.
Perhaps you need to look at something new, with the same eyes,
to appreciate what you see day to day. Everything becomes brighter
when you begin paying attention to the certainty of the ordinary.

Maybe time away from the routine you feel closing in
allows you to rethink priorities or plans you may have had.
After some thought some things aren’t half bad, but you need
more perspective. Maybe every day becomes another way.

Maybe it’s all too easy to get caught up in the daily news of tragedy
after catastrophe, disasters and disappointment, often worlds away.
Maybe you are better able to deal with the results or ramifications if,
for a day or two, you turn off the noise and switch off the news.

Maybe you cannot ignore the world events, but you can tune out
for a while. Can’t you? Maye your humanity with come back to you,
even if you are away only for a day or two. Perhaps to understand
what you hold inside, you might need to get out and look around.

Maybe sleeping in an unfamiliar bed allows you to see how
comfortable you can be. The sleep might become deeper, even a
time zone change can rearrange nocturnal habits that have you
sleeping less than you have been, and not as much as you should.

Maybe different thoughts can be found just by not thinking about the
same things, or thinking in a different way. Maybe you need to think
from far away to realize what you know, or want to do. It looks different
the second time around by not allowing the then to dictate the now.

Maybe the once-familiar food tastes different, or better. Maybe it is
as it always was, but you allow yourself time to savour the flavours.
You might chew on things a little longer, just to see if it is all
you once believed. How are you now sustained by your beliefs?

Maybe you need to get to a place that once was home, or find a place
where you feel less alone, or not as isolated from that which you knew.
Perhaps it doesn’t have to be for that long. Even just a day or two, then
maybe when you get back you are better able to deal with all that is you.

 

---

Posted on October 4, 2017 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment

We walk like thieves through sunlight and shadows, attempting to pickpocket the colours temporarily brightening our surroundings. Shades of burgundy, fuchsia, and tangerine. More than yellow and orange. Too soon this will be gone.
  It is like this each October. Random flowers still trying. Windblown leaves over cracked asphalt, in days soon to be wrinkled and weary brown, and then unnoticeable.
  It’s only natural.
  Dew is soupy on the windshield in the morning, and soon we shall see our breath.
  The aura of Autumn; cooler breezes; short days, and those shorter yet to come.
  We move briskly through this season, trying to keep up with the changes, but our soul wants to slow, to even find the stillness we avoid in hectic summers.
  We seek comfort in woolly sweaters and the textures of our domain. The scarves and gloves that have been hiding at the back of the closet suddenly appear on the bureau, as if waiting to be pressed into action. We want to enjoy the present, but, habitually, fear the harsh winter ahead. It always is.
  Within our homes we organize, knowing we will spend more time inside.
  It is nesting. It’s natural. It is our way. We seek familiarity.
  Even the music we listen to takes on a different tone. We react, or relate, to more contemplative lyrics, find melody in varied time signatures, or recall certain movements that harbour feelings of family, and justice, and togetherness. Even if we feel alone.
  Days move with the voracity of a poem, and we hunger for a place, a person, or a thing.
  Something.
  Outside trees shed their leaves, and birds say farewell as they follow familiar routes. Naturally.
  It is time, and we watch it fly by.
  This is us. This is now.
We look around, and we look ahead.

©2017 j.g. lewis

---

Posted on September 27, 2017 by j.g.lewisLeave a comment

As a kid living on the Canadian prairies, Rolling Stone was my bible.

I started reading the magazine — then a newsprint tabloid without staples — when I was 12 years old. Through the years, through the magazine, I learned about culture, counterculture and pop culture, politics, protest, human rights, intellectual debate and, of course, music.

Music was my initial interest in the then-monthly tabloid, but the rag was about so much more. Rolling Stone spoke of real life beyond my sleepy city.

As I grew up, so too did the magazine. The format and size changed, the newsprint became a higher quality stock (stapled) and then it became glossy. As it evolved, the magazine remained under the stewardship of Jann Wenner, who launched the project as a 21-year-old college dropout 50 years ago.

Rolling Stone was the voice of the generation, and through the years the work of Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson, P.J. O’Rourke and Annie Leibovitz (among so many others) graced the pages. This was the journalism that inspired me to enter the newspaper world.

Last week Wenner announced he was selling his controlling interest in the magazine. A sad day really, but sadly just a sign of the times.

We have all heard, and continue hearing, about the demise of traditional media in this digital age. Newspapers have, for years, been downsizing or dropping off the face of the planet. Magazines are fighting both decreased circulation and advertising revenue.

To remain in the game, family-owned Wenner Media has been ridding itself of its other publications (US Weekly and Men’s Journal) in past years. Last year it sold 49 percent of Rolling Stone to a Japanese music technology company. The once-independent publisher is independent no more.

Now I can romanticize about how much the magazine once meant to me (10 years ago I purchased a CD boxed set containing every issue of its first four decades), but truth be told, I cannot remember the last time I actually purchased a copy off the newsstand. It might have been the issue with Barack Obama’s exit interview (written by Wenner), but chances are I read that story online. I read a lot of Rolling Stone content online, it’s always good, and now always free.

I used to subscribe. Then I just picked up issues when something on the cover moved me. Then some of the artists on the cover, or the stories, stopped speaking to me. At one time I used to base most of my music choices on the publication’s album reviews. That, then, was how we heard about new music. Now when an album is released you can actually listen to some (or all) of the album online before you decide to buy or download.

Times they are a changing, with both music and magazines.

I will still read Rolling Stone articles as they drop into my newsfeed, and this may continue after Rolling Stone is sold. Wenner and his son Gus, the magazine CEO, indicate they wish to stay on after the enterprise is sold, but in this age of corporate control, that’s not how it often works out.

I’ll be less likely to read Rolling Stone material knowing Wenner is not as involved, or as committed, as he once was. It was his vision that guided the magazine, and I liked his view. When he is no longer making those decisions, the Rolling Stone brand will no longer speak, to me, with the same voice.

Maybe this is stating what has already happened. For Rolling Stone, like anything else, is no longer what it was.