Bonus Column | by Peach Dunlee and Apron Morbun
Did you know that “Cynic Jet Briquet” is the anagram you get when you bring CJTR together with the Queen City IB?¹
And that’s exactly how we at the QCIB feel about our partnership with Regina’s community radio station.
It was a little over a year ago when that big green light on our mixing board lit up for the first time, letting us know that the Queen City Improvement Bureau’s weekly meetings would henceforth be broadcast on 91.3MHz on the FM band and our little city department would finally be operating in compliance with council memo EX10-63: Departmenlat [sic] Pubic [sic!] Outreach.²
It’s been quite the ride. Every week we conduct interviews with Improvement Vector Candidates: those Regina citizens working to maximize the city’s vibrancy, attractiveness, sustainability and community.
We also examine Innovative Revenue Tools, report on happenings at city hall, muck about with shark DNA and compose songs of love for our fair city.
They are songs that have become intertwined with CJTR.
But grateful as we are for how CJTR is helping us fulfill our outreach mandate, sadly, we don’t get up to their studios very often. The QCIB office is located in a subbasement deep beneath city hall. Light from the outside rarely reaches us here.³ The only escape is via a treacherous ductwork route.
We don’t get out much at all, in fact.
Although, we did visit the CJTR studios once during Radiothon when our experiments with an Einstein-Rosen Bridge machine had us quantum leaping through all the shows in the station’s Thursday Night Action Pack lineup. We met Prairie Naturalist Jared Clarke (who looks suspiciously like a intern we once had), Dustin B of Just Drawn That Way, Matty V and the whole Nerdcore Cabaret crew and the Pilot and Navigator of The Cockpit. Special fellows all.
So, congratulations on reaching 15 years on the air CJTR. And thanks again for letting the humble Queen City Improvement Bureau join you on this audio adventure. It has definitely been one heck of a cynic jet briquet!
And as for you, Regina, keep on improving!
1. Where IB stands for “Improvement Bureau” not “Irritable Bowel.”
2. The QCIB was the first department to embrace audio technology in achieving this outreach goal so naturally we called dibs on it — stampsies, no erasies. We look forward to seeing how other city departments will fulfill council’s directive. We hear Recreation Development opted to go with a mimeographed newsletter. Surely you’ve subscribed?
3. We’ve arranged our desks close to the boiler for that is where it is warmest. That is also where the highest concentration of glowing fungus is, and we’re unsure about the spores’ effects. So: tradeoffs.
