Adele: Rolling in the Deep

I have no idea why this woman hits me so profoundly, but she does. I'd love to marry her, but given her track record, she'd be bound to write another album about the numerous ways in which I failed her. I'm willing to trade that for a year or so with her. She has boundless talent and she's beautiful and I'd do it in a New York moment.

Since the lyrics to "Rolling in the Deep" are publicly available, I'm going to copy them into this blog. IMO, they have all the bitterness and compression of classic ballads, and I'm glad that this song is not about me.

Following are the lyrics to "Rolling in the Deep":

There's a fire, starting in my heart

Reaching a fever pitch and it's bring me out the dark

Finally I can see you crystal clear

Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your ship here

See how I'll leave, with every piece of you

Don't underestimate the things that I will do

There's a fire starting in my heart

Reaching a fever pitch and it's bring me out the dark

The scars of your love reminds me of us

They keep thinking that we almost had it all

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless

I can't help feeling…

We could have had it all

Rolling in the deep

Your had my heart inside your hand

And you played it to the beat

Baby, I had no story to be told

But I've heard one of you and I'm gonna make your head burn

Think of me in the depths of your despair

Making a home down there as mine won't be shared

The scars of our love remind you of us

They keep me thinking that we almost had it all

The scars of your love, they leave me breathless

I can't help feeling

We could have had it all

Rolling in the deep

You had my heart inside your hand

And you played it to the beat

Could have had it all

Rolling in the deep

You had my heart inside your hand

But you played it with a beating

Through your soul through every open door

Count your blessings to find what you look for

Turn my sorrow into pleasured gold

You pay me back in kind and treasure what you sow

(Now I'm gonna wish you had never met me)

We could have had it all

(Tears are gonna fail, rolling in the deep)

We could have had it all

(Now I'm gonna wish you had never met me)

It all, it all, it all, it all

(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

(Now I'm gonna wish you had never met me)

You had my heart and soul)

(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep

And you played it to the beat

(Now I'm gonna wish you never had met me)

Could have had it all

(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

Rolling in the deep

(Now I'm gonna wish you never had met me)

You had my heart and soul in your hand

(Tears are gonna fall, rolling in the deep)

But you played it, you played it, you played it to the beat

Adele, Love and Kisses! One day I hope to meet you, and kiss your hand. I'm running out of adjectives and superlatives to describe your impact upon me. I'm 3 times your age, but I continue to hope that one day I could say all this in person. I play this and many other of your songs daily. I'd hate to be on the bad end of your stick, but in trade for a few hours or days or even months with you, I'd accept that fate. Adele, you ROCK!

Maybe the thing I love best is how anti-cliche the YouTube "Rolling in the Deep" tracks are. Down with the era of "the only way to make it as a female musician" is by wearing scanty outfits and hiring sexually-provocative dancers. Up with sheer goddess talent!

Not to get too lofty here, but I can't resist quoting Arthur Schopenhauer: "Marry a woman for her conversational skills. After 40 years, that's all that shall remain." (Actually, I think that's a paraphrase, rather than an accurate quote, but you get the gist.)

The typical male trajectory is, (and perhaps it also applies to the female trajectory, but I daren't venture a position on that, despite a few exemplary cases, which are clearly insufficient evidence),

A maxim: "The thing that compels you to fall in love is precisely the thing you shall hate in a couple of years."

Case in point (one among many others, but shockingly frequent): she dressed provocatively when you first melted at the sight, then worked up the courage to approach her, then She said Yes, and before you knew it, She was your girlfriend. But she continued to dress provocatively, and your territorial instincts kicked in, and just like an outraged Father, you protested her going out in public dressed like that.

She: "Well, yeah, but isn't that what you loved about me in the first place?"
He: "Well, yeah, but now you're My Girl, and it's inappropriate."
She: "Oh, so now I'm supposed to be a virgin, without desires to be attractive?"
He: "I need you to be dressed 'Spoken For', else God knows who might start hitting upon you.
She: Shall I wear a burqa? Would that make you happy?"
He: "When you go out, your attire must say 'Spoken For', else I shall be insulted and ridiculed."
She: "In the 21st Century, it is men and their families who ought to pay the dowry, not the fathers of women! That is so 19th Century, and presupposes that women are required for nothing but childbirth. Welcome to the 21st Century. Men are obsolete. We can do it with test-tubes. So there!
1. We now have the vote, in at least some nations!"
2. Females outnumber males in every nation but China.

What has all this to do with Adele? Well, a lot. She strikes me as the logical consequent to Alanis Morrisette, whose "You Oughta Know" on her album "Jagged Little Pill" encapsulated all the bitterness of at least a generation of women, and at last count she sold about 5 million copies. Now it's Adele's turn, and she rocks!

A.

Is Canadian Culture Dead, and If So, Did the CRTC Kill It?

Several recent posts on SlashDot concern the death of Canadian culture, and the perpetrator of said death is attributed to the CRTC (Canadian Radio and Television Commission). Here is a quote selected from SlashDot's thread on this, followed by my response:

Basically Canada is still going through issues trying to figure out what it means to be Canadian. A large part of how many Canadians seem to define themselves as as "not American" hence the "little brother" syndrome I talk about. They are like a little kid who is saying what they are is the things the big kid is not.

This isn't such a problem for the average man on the street, of course, but it is a big issue for the government and various folks. They have a real issue with trying to decide what it is to be Canadian and protecting that. There are even things like laws requiring a certain amount of content on TV and radio to be Canadian in origin.

My reply:

While I agree with your characterization in very general strokes, I also point out that a significant minority does not have this problem. To this I cite Canadian pop music, for starters.

Music: I have a friend in Florida who has emailed me about the phenomenal female talent coming out of Canada, from Joni to Nelly to Alanis to Sarah. That will do for starters, but let's toss in:

Pop -- Celine Dion, Robert Charlebois, Boule Noir, Lhasa, Robbie Robertson, Leonard Cohen and his son Adam, Neil Young, Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Robert Goulet and many more.

Classical -- Ofra Harnoy (cello), James Ennis (viiolin), and a few operatic tenors and sopranos and altos.

TV series sold around the world: "Anna of Green Gables", "Heartland", "FlashPoint", "daVinci" and everything else Chris Haddock created, my favourite being "Intelligence".

Cinema -- David Cronenberg's entire ouevre, James Cameron, all the work of Atom Egoyan, and all the celebrated contributions of NFB, and that's only for starters. Add to this a few films such as Point 45.

"Literature": Margaret Atwood, Mistry Rohinton, Farley Mowat, Malcolm Lowry, Mordecai Richler, Alice Munro, Michale Ondaatje, Gabrielle Roy, Douglas Copeland, Dim Unrespected 

S-F literature: William Gibson, Ursula Guinn and  Robert J. Sawyer, , for starters. 

Non-fiction: Pierre Berton, Peter C. Newman, Marshall McLuhan Roch Carier, Douglas Copeland, William Gibson, J.K. Galbraith, Steven Pinker, and the list goes on. 

Comedy:, That list is endless, but it begins with Lorne Michael, founder of Saturday Night Live, who hired numerous Canadian humourists, but let's begin that list with Russell Peters, then include Jim Carrey, John Belushi, John Candy, Dan Ackroyd,and the list goes on. 

Actors: Donald and Keifer Sutherland, Keannu Reeves, Gordon Pinsent, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Alexandra Stewart, and thousands of others.

Canadian culture is no more in peril than Quebecois culture, which is thriving. I daresay that so is Canadian culture. We are not in peril at all.

Back to the intiial point: is the CRTC a protector of Canadian culture or a threat to it? There are several answers to this question. Admittedly, the restriction that ratio stations play a mandated percentage of Canadian artists definitely did help Canadian musicians conquer the world. There is no dispute about this.

But I would argue that the mission is mis-stated: rather than mandate Canadian content, I would argue the other side: that foreign content be restricted by percentage. Arbitrarily choosing a number, I propose that content by nation ought to be restricted thus: the maximum content from any other country be restricted to 20% of the total broadcast.

Canadian culture is not suffering. I daresay that it is thriving! I would also say that the CRTC's mission is obsolete. We are thriving! Everyone knows that Celine and David and Donald and Keifer and Jim and Martin (Short) and Lorne Micheals and John Candy and Denis Arcand and Nelly and Joni and Norah and Leonard are Canadian!

I don't think that I fit into this company, but I have published several non-fiction books, all about database programming, so I fit somewhere, at the lowest levels, in this list.

A.

Why Can't a Cello Laugh?

The classic cliche in movies, when a sad scene's music is required, is "Bring up the cello!" This misguides the listening audience into believing that the only emotion a cello can express is "Triste" (sadness). I want to object to this and in a serious way.

A cello can be happy, and droll, and joyous, and even abstract (in the sense of Dvorak and other 20th Century composers), but this aspect of its emotional landscape is far too often overlooked.

Without meaning to decimate the incomes of various popular cellists whose income swells and depend upon this fallacious equation between sadness and cello, I want to protest against this. Cellos can laugh, and they ought to be allowed to! Anyone who doubts this need go no further than two works of Beethoven: Cello Sonata Op. 69 in A, No. 3, and the Archduke Trio (which, by the way, also includes some of the saddest music ever written (Part 3), but which culminates in a hilarious "F**k it, Life Goes On!" conclusion.

There are many other examples that illustrate that the cello can do more than pluck tears, but those will suffice for the moment.