A friend recently sent me an internet meme with the message, “In the end it’s all about the person you want to send new music to,” which got me thinking about the absurd grammatical rule that warns us against ending sentences with prepositions. But it also made me consider the profound human need to connect with others through shared experiences, especially art, language and music.
It’s an impulse that I recognized within myself at an early age. For most of my childhood, my parents either read aloud or played a record for me at night before bed. They did not play the music passively; instead, they’d drop the needle, let me listen to a few verses, then pause the song for discussion. Sometimes, the tune of the night resonated deep within me, tapping a reservoir of curiosity and prompting a volley of questions — Bob Dylan’s “Talkin’ World War III Blues,” for example, or Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Bid ‘Em In.” Others, like Leo Kottke’s “Busted Bicycle” or Jefferson Airplane’s “Embryonic Journey,” transported me on an odyssey of self-discovery that I didn’t want interrupted by my parents’ pedantic lectures.
Even so, the next morning on the school bus I’d be eager to share my sonic storytelling awakening with a friend or, as I sometimes fantasized, by performing the number live in the school cafeteria before an audience of my peers (I began learning to play guitar in fifth grade and imagined myself as exuding frontman swagger, a la Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler or the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger).
Despite my vivid imagination, my aptitude for playing music was middling. Instead, it was my love of language and writing that commandeered my attention as I matured, defining both my academic as well as my extracurricular pursuits.
In hindsight, I doubt my talent as a writer out-measured my musical potential; rather, I discovered familiar rhythms that cross-pollinated disciplines — in reading, I heard music, and in music, I saw poetry and verse.
Lately, I’ve been struck by the similitude between producing an edition of Flathead Living magazine each season and composing an album, or, in my case, a mixtape. But digesting a magazine spanning more than 100 pages is a time-consuming endeavor requiring patience. The written word does not easily convey the instant gratification of a song as it builds to full froth. It rewards patience and attention, favoring those who can keep their butts planted in the chair.
A reader recently reminded me of this essential truth when he wrote to complain that he’d come upon a copy of our winter edition of Flathead Living by happenstance while tidying up around the house. When he glanced at the clock several hours later, his spring-cleaning chores had been derailed.
The magazine, however, had been saved from the scrap heap. The songs had resonated.
To my editor’s ears, that’s the sound of a pitch-perfect story.
The issue in your hands is just as mesmerizing.
Showcasing a mix of featurettes, long-form articles, original illustrations, interviews, and eye-popping photographs, the spring edition includes a story about the oldest ranger in Glacier National Park and a retrospective on the park’s earliest rangers, whose day-in-the-life job duties would not correspond to the modern-day standards of human resources. We’ll tell you about a new family owned pizzeria in Whitefish, a “cupcakery” in Coram and a fried chicken shack near the airport. A natural science story taps into the hydrologic health and history of the Flathead River Basin, while our media director Hunter D’Antuono flexes his literary chops in a photo essay aglow in a selection of long-exposure neon-sign portraits, many of which will be familiar to locals, even as Hunter captures a unique perspective that will make you look twice the next time you spot one in the wild. We also peer over the handlebars at the cast of characters animating a local cycle-and-ski shop, where they’ve been spinning spokes and telling jokes for more than 40 years.
And let’s not forget our team of graphic designers who assemble all the puzzle pieces into a veritable storytelling concerto, fusing the ensemble with a maestro’s precision.
In other words, you’re holding a gold record in your hands. I can’t wait for you to hear it.
Many thanks for reading,
Tristan Scott | Managing Editor
[email protected]
Editor’s note: The spring edition of Flathead Living magazine is now available on newsstands across the valley.