It’s cool to watch little sub-scenes of the local cultural landscape develop. Not all of them last – like the most recent (and short) rise and fall of cut-n-paste zines in the early 2000s (certainly caving to the ease of blogging), or the poetry slam scene – a particularly bright spot in our literary history that started around the year 2000 and had mostly wrapped up by 2009. But today there are at least a couple interesting sub-scenes beginning to take shape here. One, is Eau Claire’s improv comedy scene. You’ll hear quite a bit more about this in our next issue, but we’re happy to announce our sponsorship of the first-ever Eau Claire Improv Festival on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. There are a handful of separate groups who’ve been out there making stuff up for a while now, and this festival will help bring attention to the burgeoning scene of improv in the Chippewa Valley. Another trend is the resurgence of bands shooting their own music videos – like real, full-blown videos – which V1 editor Thom Fountain details in a story in this issue. Part of this is because local filmmaking talent is getting stronger, and now all sorts of local acts from Laarks and the Jim Pullman Band to the Daredevil Christopher Wright and Mr. Pizzy are producing some seriously good little videos to accompany their musical endeavors. Here’s to hoping our creative scene continues to evolve in such ways, and that these sorts of trends can take hold in bigger ways. Perhaps soon we’ll even see some music videos improvised live on stage...