“Now that’s entertainment!” The NHL playoffs are on TV, but is it enetrtainment or sports? Does buying a new CD qualify as an entertainment activity or is it a business transaction? Books are entertaining, but also informative and educational. Is this magazine entertaining, or informative and educational? It all comes down to who’s entertaining whom.
What is entertainment anyway? How is entertaining an idea different from entertaining a guest or an audience? Any interesting or diverting performance or spectacle, usually public, is considered by the dictionary to be entertainment. Whatever. Around here, going to Tim Horton’s for a coffee with a couple of friends can be entertaining(depending on who you run into.) Renting a movie, going to a bar or party, and playing street- or Sega hockey are some of the things we do to entertain ourselves. Television, radio and movies are some of the things out there to entertain us. There’s music and theatre and creative arts, all kinds of stuff goin’ on around here. Maybe some of it shgould be kept from the authorities, but ost of it we can admit to. Skateboarding isn’t really a crime, is it? We’re just socializing, playing and listening to music, and trying to deal with the media blitz that is the nineties. There’s a national excitement about our music and they may come from away and try to use it, but they’ll never understand that we’re mostly just trying to keep ourselves entertained. Piping in the field out back or jamming in the garage is the same thing really…, but that’s an explanation for another time and place. The point is, there’s entertainment out there that is specific to our community, that shapes and is shaped by where and how we live here. Are you still reading this because it’s entertaining, or because it’s about entertainment? Or is it? . . . or No. I dunno either. This magazine is about that, whatever that is. It exists to cover and promote and explain and understand and question and participate in and produce the things that keep us entertained during our stay here. Let us know what you think.
