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  • Review of Meghan Trainor’s Timeless

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    CKirkby

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    Ten years ago, Meghan Trainor bestowed “All About That Bass” upon the world. I thought it was an absolute banger both musically and lyrically, with a truly joyful video: an empowerment anthem about self-love at any size (“Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top”). But then I guess I was largely asleep on her for a decade. “Wake up!” she yells cheerfully, on and with her new album, Timeless.

    Timeless is a collection of catchy songs, grounded in self-worth and compassion, in a variety of genres (which I leave to someone whose music vocabulary is less rusty to catalogue), with clever and creative lyrics, vocals that sound effortless, and playful musicality and production.

    Since I control my own word count, I’ll run through some of my favourite tracks.

    “To The Moon,”  the first song, is my favourite to sing, a persuasive love letter from a strong artist to the partner she wants on her journey. It starts off sultry and then turns into an aerobic workout. “I got a spaceship, come get in it / for the ride of your life,” she croons confidently. This is, thematically, a very horny album. (Good lord, the booklet photos.)

    “Been Like This” is next, an upbeat duet with T-Pain that is a giant “I’m not bothered” to haters. There’s a video that appears to be them hearing the finished song for the first time, where she laughs and vibrates and exclaims at how good it sounds. It does indeed sound very good.

    “Crowded Room” is a veritable poodle-skirt love song, appealing directly to Cupid about the one who “was worth the wait.” The lyrics are simple and honest. I am in awe of her and her team’s ability to replicate and update this decades-old genre.

    “Whoops” is hilarious, an excellent addition to the popular “boy, you fucked up” category of song:

    Whoops, you messed up
    Now you cryin’ about what you lost
    You did me dirty, hope she was worthy
    You say you’re sorry, but I think what you really mean is

    Whoops

    In case the boy who fucked up doesn’t get the point from the audio, the video spends a lot of time reminding him of the ass he will never again touch. Vicious.

    “I Get It” is an insightful psychological treatise disguised as a pop song, this one about the fear of trusting love.

    ‘Cause baby, this love is overwhelming, I get it
    You wanted forever once you felt it, I get it
    When your heart does that thing
    You don’t have to explain
    ‘Cause I feel the same, I get it, I get it
    Don’t be afraid of getting deeper, dive in it
    You knew right away I was a keeper, admit it
    When your heart does that thing
    You don’t have to explain
    ‘Cause I feel the same, I get it

    (Horny bonus lyric: “I see your heart beating out your chest / Lose your cool when I’m in this dress / Look at you when you’re powerless.” (Her husband, from what I’ve seen on social media, is quite appreciative of his wife.))

    “Hate It Here” is an introvert’s anthem that could actually be played in dance clubs.

    Goodbye (Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye)
    ‘Cause I’m about to lose my mind (My mind, my mind, my mind)
    And I know it ain’t just me tonight (Tonight, tonight, tonight)
    Get loud if you wanna disappear
    Say “yes, I hate it here”

    When this appeal fails to have immediate effect, she tries another tactic:

    Won’t you rather be at home with me?
    Get naked under the sheets
    Baby, that’s where I’m tryna be
    (Wanna leave, wanna leave, wanna leave, wanna leave)

    It might be impossible not to hear this one in my head when I go out.

    There are a total of 16 songs on the album (the lengthiest clocking in at 3:21), and the last one is the titular Timeless, a beautiful waltz that should be very popular at weddings.

    You and I, baby, we’re timeless
    Here tonight and after my final breath
    ‘Cause there’s just too many memories made
    You can’t tell me all of this love goes away
    Though we won’t ever make no sense
    Baby, we’re timeless

    The album opens with promising the moon and closes, no matter “how long we’ve got / here on this rock,” with the enduring nature of love.

    Very good art.

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    (writer); denial

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    I introduced myself as a writer yesterday. It felt exaggerated, but the smart/kind/thoughtful person I was speaking with accepted it: “If you write, then you’re a writer.”

    I write. I also do necessary writing-adjacent stuff like reading, and like moving around thinking about human psychology during societal collapse.

    I think about the role of denial a lot. Part of what I want to do with my writing is refuse to participate in collective denial. It’s a bad long-term strategy, even if it’s easier in the short term.

    One excellent piece I (writer) read recently is “We’ve Hit Peak Denial. Here’s Why We Can’t Turn Away From Reality,” by Marianne Cooper and Maxim Voronov (writers), in Scientific American. It’s an uncomfortable read but an important one.

    We need to work harder to catch ourselves in the act of staying silent or avoiding uncomfortable information and do more real-time course correcting.

    I agree.

    I think documenting things real-time helps. I think questioning the “normal” we passively accept helps. I think talking compassionately about these experiences with others helps.

    We must stand up for the silenced and stand with the silence-breakers.

    I (writer) agree.

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    Bullshit jobs

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    I was reading an article in The Economist from 2018, an interview with David Graeber entitled “Bullshit jobs and the yoke of managerial feudalism,” and thinking about my own professional experience.

    Broadly, I did non-partisan research for parliamentarians. The concept, presumably, was that it would help make for better law to have independent materials produced by highly qualified researchers. The impression I formed during my tenure is that many politicians in a partisan environment are uninterested in non-partisan research.

    I couldn’t say how much of my work went unread by the target audience. And it wasn’t just researcher work: there were reviewers and translators and formatters too. All of us getting paid — some of us getting well paid — to produce high quality information that had no appreciable impact on governance.

    There was a game that spoke to the futility of the work. If a parliamentarian actually asked one of the questions you’d prepared, you got a point! Points were also futile but were prized in their rarity. My recollection is the vast majority of my points came from parliamentarians whose political affiliation meant they would likely never govern.

    The parties who take turns governing seemed to prefer partisan research and presumably had their own budgets dedicated to that purpose. So instead of asking questions designed to identify problems with the law that should be addressed in order to make citizens’ lives better, there’d be “questions” ranting about what the other team did or would do in power. Sometimes parliamentarians would monologue for so long in the guise of a question that the experts flown in to share their expertise for the betterment of Canada would have no time to answer. Thanks for stopping by.

    Other questions for other witnesses basically boiled down to: “Could you run out your time elaborating on how great my team is?”

    It was, per David Graeber, bullshit, and I burned out. Not only did my work feel pointless, I started to feel complicit. I felt like my participation as a professional gave credibility to a system that does not deserve it.

    So now I’m trying to figure out a better way to use my skills and expertise than preparing research that goes largely unread.

    So far my solution is a website that goes largely unread. But I’m working on that.

    I’m also working on connecting with others like me, who have trouble contributing to a very bad status quo. I want to talk more openly about the bullshit, and the “awful sadomasochistic workplace dynamics” of institutions that in practice exist just to perpetuate themselves.

    I especially want to hear about work that isn’t bullshit.

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    I need to hire a tech person

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    CKirkby

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    Edit: thank you to those who commented. Per the below, all phase 2 candidates have now been contacted.

    I need to hire a tech person to help with this website. I tried to do a general web search but the results were corporate and discouraging.

    What I’m specifically looking for is:

    • a more functional way to organize ongoing projects (including documents to be uploaded)
    • better user navigation (including an easier, less annoying way to subscribe)
    • better networking with people I think are cool / people who might be interested in reading on these topics
    • other random ideas that I don’t want to discuss publicly, one of which involves research and math programming

    I’m not opposed to some other expert advice, but know now that I hate both endless scroll and unnecessary clicks. Also relevant: I am much more comfortable with people who have experienced at least one type of marginalization. Also: I’m in Canada et j’invite les francophones à postuler mais pour la plupart je préfère m’exprimer en anglais. Also: my ideal working arrangement would be largely in writing with occasional phone calls.

    I don’t really know how to go about this, but if this sounds of interest to you, please leave a comment, which I don’t intend to approve to publish, it’s just I haven’t set up an email address yet. (Add that to the list.)

    It would be helpful if your comment included a bit about you, including URLs to examples of your work that can be browsed without logging in.

    My plan, once I did some browsing, would be to contact some number of people to get some sense of what they think would be involved. I don’t want to create great quantities of work for people, but I would appreciate a degree of jargon-less specificity.

    After that, TBD, but I want to be as clear and as fair as I possibly can be. Because I have some role modelling to do, apparently.

    [dun dun DUUUNNNNN]

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  • ,

    Me and the Supreme Court

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    CKirkby

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    I’ve been thinking about the Supreme Court a lot lately. Well, and also since I was a kid.

    I was, in particular, an early fan of Chief Justice McLachlin, and Justice Wilson. They saw through legal and societal fictions, and led through consensus and in dissent. I admired them. In Street Legal, which I started watching at age 9, I saw my path.

    My first paid publications were about the Supreme Court. My recollection is that as part of that experience I got to attend a legal conference for free and hear Chief Justice McLachlin speak! There could be no paid job more exciting for a 20-year-old law nerd. Neither article was within my subject-matter interest, though, and I truly hope both got fact-checked by actual lawyers prior to publication.

    My continuing interest in the Court enabled me to go to law school. I’m convinced the reason I got a full scholarship is because I’d happened to read a case that a member of the panel of interviewers wanted to talk about. Meaning: I read the entire case, not just the headnote or news coverage. I thought the relevant panel member, who was of some prestige in the legal community, was overstating what the Court had said in that particular case, and I gave the panel my take. I’m pretty sure that’s the moment that got me the funding for my degree. Because I read Supreme Court cases for fun.

    My focus continued throughout law school, and I earned two interviews for a Supreme Court clerkship. I was not surprised to not get an offer from either of them. A few years later, with additional credentials, I earned seven more interviews. Two of the Justices said to my face they would be choosing me, but then they didn’t. I don’t know why. I’ve wondered since then if I hold the record for most Supreme Court clerkship interviews without an offer.

    “To be near the Supreme Court” was a strong reason for moving a thousand kilometres to Ottawa, where I had no friends and no job. Eventually I found work that eventually permitted me to be sitting at the table as Parliamentarians asked questions of Supreme Court nominees! This was unspeakably exciting. (To be clear, I was not permitted to ask questions myself.)

    Now, I just have a vague goal of writing something that will get translated by the Court. I’m not sure what the path to that is. Maybe this is a start.

    Part of the reason I’m thinking about the Court now is because I think it has some stressful years ahead, as governments fail more and more citizens and Charter rights become the only option (other than revolution).

    I think about the options the Court has particularly in the area of criminal and correctional law, and in particular with respect to the growing numbers of Indigenous, impoverished, unhoused, and mentally ill accused. I wonder how the Court is going to respond to the rights of students to demonstrate against genocide on university campuses, without being mistreated by armed police. And what will they say about environmental and other public health laws that are duly enacted but all but doom future generations to wildfires and drought and infection?

    Is the unjust deference of NAPE our future, or the strong leadership of Bedford? I’m obviously hoping the latter.

    Be a bulwark.

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