have you ever stood in the aisle at a grocery store in disbelief upon learning your favorite treat has been discontinued? Or maybe after years of faithful listening, your favorite radio show is pulled. Or you drive to the neighborhood's best second-hand store, only to find the door bolted and windows boarded up. Disappointment is followed by a twinge of guilt...if only you'd been warned...you would have stocked up, formed a petition, staged a revolt!

Everyday, the old makes way for the new, and sometimes we *are* given warning:
In the last week or so, it was announced that
1) rootbeer popsicles will be phased out
2) Mr. Dressup will be shown only on Saturdays, and eventually, not at all.
i can't imagine a better flavour for a popsicle, nor do I believe a better kids' show than Mr. Dressup will ever be produced. Do you see what happens when decisions are made based solely on profits? things get ugly...or at the very least, they become boring!

Sometimes change is sneaky, leaving society shaking their heads, muttering something about not knowing what we had till it was gone...making a good case for always trying to be aware of our blessings, or "rootbeer popsicles", if you will! Here in Canada, we have a pretty good department store called Zellers. I like Zellers. Good deals, smells of squeaky sneakers and plastic toys, and serves up fries, hotdogs and milkshakes when you need a break. Zellers is largely taken for granted, not especially "revered" by the shopping public...but you wait! When Wal-mart pushes out every last Zellers (it's inevitable, really) there will be cries of, "wait, Zellers! Come back!"...but Zellers will be gone, never to be resurrected, the end of an era.
I have recently taken to using the word "Zellers" in place of the word "good" or "cool", I urge you to use it too...every little bit counts!

what's this all got to do with art? Well, it is said that artists, writers, etc. have a talent for shedding light on society's barely perceptible "trends"...sort of like *watching* an ant farm as opposed to *being* in an ant farm! The wonderful thing about art is that it can expose people to hidden messages/ideas that might normally go unseen...it can reveal emotions normally buried, or memories normally repressed...irrelevant? hardly! powerful? YES!

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