This is your magazine

I don’t know what WEEKEND has been to you.

But I hope that this semester, you’ll find WEEKEND to be a magazine about who you are.

Being an IU student is an identity. If you define yourself by what you do in class, not only will you have a pretty boring time in your few years here, you’ll leave this town as a shallow person.

And Bloomington is an incredible place. I know it might not seem that way if you’re looking at it from the surface – we don’t have any enormous rock arenas, sunny beaches, world-renowned dance clubs or movie stars.

But if you dig just a little deeper, you’ll find a huge variety of music no matter your taste – from the eclectic local acts who play in basements and garages to world-renowned jazz composers to country singer-songwriters to the musicians who sit out on Kirkwood and howl to their untuned guitars.

You’ll find film festivals that show movies and shorts you never knew existed. You’ll find DJs you’re sure should be somewhere more “important.” You’ll find foods of every ethnicity and that include every ingredient you can put in your body.

But most importantly, you’ll find thousands of people with stories to tell and subcultures that show you more about the world you live in than you’ll learn in any classroom.

Our goal at WEEKEND is to show you how to dive in. We know you only have a limited time here to discover all of Bloomington’s quirks, and we know if you haven’t been here long this place can be a little confusing.

We hope we’ll show you parts about Bloomington culture that you never knew existed or only gave a passing glance because you didn’t know what was there.
And we hope we can do it with an edge, because who reads anything that’s 100 percent safe?
But even though we want you to get involved in Bloomington, we’d love to have your feedback about how you want to do it. E-mail us at weekend@idsnews.com if you have any tips on articles you’d like to see or if you saw articles that you didn’t want to see.

We’d also love for you to get involved with us online. We’ll be updating our Web site, www.idsnews.com/weekend, every time a new edition of WEEKEND comes out each week, and we’d love for you to tell us what you think. We have a comments feature, so if you don’t agree with our reviews, or you want to tell us what you think of our articles, you have a place to do it.

We’ll also be starting up two blogs soon: One will focus on what our writers think about the wider world outside Bloomington, and one will give you updates and reviews of the local shows, festivals and concerts that come here. And of course, we’ll have lots of multimedia on our Web site, from video and slideshows to audio music reviews.

So, I hope that you’ll check us out every week and that you’ll use us to check out the Bloomington scene. Open your mind, and you won’t be disappointed.