The Ideation Project marks the return of Jian Ghomeshi. The former host of CBC Radio’s ‘Q’ tweeted this morning, “Hi. For those interested, here is something I’ve been working on… ” with a link to his new podcast.
I’ve listened to it a couple of times, and it sounds oddly like an extended intro to his old show. ‘Q’ always opened with Jian giving a spoken word introduction about the events of the day that included background music and rhymes.
The first episode of the ‘Ideation Project’ starts with Ghomeshi saying, “It’s Monday, April 10th, 2017: This is the Ideation Project… ” What follows is a spoken work piece in that familiar voice over a continuous loop of background music and containing a series of odd rhymes. For example:
-
“Is there any more painful a divide
Than stripping global citizens of their pride?”
And
“Does compassion descend into maybes
If it is somebody else’s babies?”
And
“Maybe it is the very lack of belonging that leads to a yearning for destruction.
Like, if you don’t want me, I don’t want you,
And I’ll try to take you down”
Okay. That last quote doesn’t rhyme. However, it does illuminate what appears the central theme of The Ideation Project. Ostensibly, it is about immigration and diversity on a global scale, but it’s hard to ignore the source and his recent fall from grace. It sounds rather like a personal lament about being an outcast.
It was about a year ago that Ghomeshi was acquitted of sexually assaulting three women. However, the scandal cost him his high-profile radio job, had the CBC scrapping giant images of his face off the front of their mothership building, and turned him from a media darling into a social pariah.
In his new podcast, Ghomeshi asks more than once, “What if we’re becoming an entire world of exiles?”
Maybe. Or maybe it’s just you.
You can hear Jian Ghomeshi’s new podcast over at https://theideationproject.com/.
The reaction on Twitter has been (unsurprisingly) swift and harsh.
