[MUSIC] New Order, "Blue Monday"

New Order's 1982/83 million-selling song "Blue Monday" is one of the more interesting songs I can think of, darkly ambiguous where the later "Bizarre Love Triangle" is naively ecstatic with its melody out of sync with the beat and a fragmented verse-and-chorus structure.

"The Blue Nile - The Downtown Lights (1989)" (Watch on YouTube)

And then, there's also the lyrics.

How does it feel
To treat me like you do
When you've laid your hands upon me
And told me who you are

I thought I was mistaken
I thought I heard your words
Tell me how do I feel
Tell me now how do I feel

The song could be a simple song by a put-off lover, but then other lyrics intervene.

Those who came before me
Lived through their vocations
From the past until completion
They will turn away no more

And I still find it so hard
To say what I need to say
But I'm quite sure that youll tell me
Just how I should feel today

I see a ship in the harbor
I can and shall obey
But if it wasnt for your misfortunes
I'd be a heavenly person today

This source touches on the confusion surrounding the lyrics' meaning.

As with many of New Order's songs, the title has no relationship with the lyrics, which in turn have been the subject of much debate. Although Bernard Sumner never publicly discusses his lyrics, many people have surmised that "Blue Monday" concerns the suicide of Joy Division vocalist Ian Curtis and the effect it had on his former bandmates. However, comparisons with the lyrics and the aftereffects of cocaine have also been made, which would fit in with the potentially drug related themes of many other New Order tracks. (Another legend has it that the band was on LSD while recording it, and after they finished the producers took them to a café to finish out their tripping while they went back and cleaned it up.) The song's references to a ship in the harbour, a beach (the name of the original releases B-Side) as well as other lyrics that could concern war together with the fact that more overt military imagery is used in a number of other New Order songs (such as the contemporaneous "We All Stand"), has also raised suggestions that the song is a reference to the Falklands War of 1982. Indeed, the video to the original 1983 release of the song used many clips of military vehicles, albeit in a warped manner, such as that of a Harrier Jump Jet, a plane which featured heavily in the conflict.

[LINK] "A Viking union?"

The Guardian's Gwladys Fouché reports that some Icelanders see a closer association with Norway as an alternative to European Union and Eurozone membership.

While Iceland is debating whether applying for EU membership is really the best option to rescue its crisis-hit economy, there is another option on the table growing in popularity: monetary union with Norway.

None other than Iceland's new finance minister, Steingúrmur Sigfússon, is considering the idea of using the Norwegian crown as the country's currency – a move that would have been unthinkable only a few months ago.

Asked by the Norwegian daily Klassekampen on Friday whether this was a serious option, Sigfússon answered: "We hope so. It will be natural to talk about it when we celebrate our party's 10-year anniversary [this week]. Nordic socialist party leaders are invited and I hope of course that Kristin [Halvorsen, the Norwegian finance minister] will come."

Sigfússon is the leader of the Left-Greens, the most popular political party in Iceland today, while Halvorsen leads the Socialist Left party in Norway, the sister-party of Sigfússon's.

"A strong and deceptive belief in adopting the euro has emerged [in Iceland] even though Iceland is just as far away from complying with euro criteria as poor countries in eastern Europe," continued Sigfússon, whose party is strongly opposed to EU membership. "So we think that the possibilities of currency co-operation with the Nordic countries, preferably Norway, must be thoroughly investigated."

Iceland was originally settled from Norway in the 9th century and was part of the Norwegian kingdom until the Congress of Vienna when continental Norway was handed over to a personal union with Sweden and Norway's insular possessions (Iceland, Faroes, Greenland) went to Denmark. It seems unlikely that Norway will go for a monetary union with its much more troubled European neighbour, however, and new Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir still favours the European Union option.

[LINK] "Brazilians integrate on own terms"

The Toronto Star's Lesley Ciarula Taylor took a look today at Toronto's Brazilian-Canadian community.

Most estimates of Toronto's Brazilian community say half of its 10,000 to 12,000 people are illegal. Far smaller than the long-established Portuguese community that surrounds it, Little Brazil on Dundas St. W. from Ossington to Lansdowne is a network of businesses run out of private homes, churches renting space, bars where contractors troll for day labour and a solitary drop-in centre.

Felipe Scarpelli, a 23-year-old musician and graphic designer, and Sandro Miranda, a 39-year-old journalist, started PanTV (pantv.ca) exactly one year ago to help Brazilians integrate with Canadians and help Canadians understand Brazilians because they saw the regular methods weren't working. With no funding and only themselves to produce, write, interview, shoot and edit segments in English and Portuguese, they've seen their audience shift from mostly Portuguese speakers to 40 per cent English.

"Everybody is smiling on the government immigration websites and they have their full family with them," says Miranda, who like Scarpelli, came as a student eight years ago. "They don't talk about the invisible wall, the culture shock."

PanTV runs news, music and current affairs shows.

"Many Brazilians stay in Brazilian spaces with Brazilian media and Brazilian restaurants. They are scared or intimidated by the long, cold winters." says Scarpelli. "We wanted to open the doors, integrate the cultures. There is still a big, big gap between new communities and Canadian society."

Within days of arriving on her husband's temporary teaching permit nearly five years ago, F.A. found a job as a graphic designer for a Portuguese company, a common route despite tensions with their former colonial rulers.

Brazilian-Canadians, as Multicultural Canada points out constitute a young and relatively small population in Canada, and the volume of immigrants remains small: "Even among South American nations, Brazil, with almost half the total population of the continent, has averaged less than 5 percent of immigration, and only since 1989 has this figure gone above 8 percent. The low rate of immigration reflects several factors: the general disinterest of Brazilians in emigration; a lack of knowledge about Canada as a target country for those able to migrate; the absence in Canada of a large Brazilian community that would encourage the migration of family members; and the lack of perception in Canada of Brazil as a country in crisis and a legitimate source of refugees." That said, Wikipedia estimates that, including illegals more than twelve thousand Brazilian-Canadians may live in Ontario alone. I've certainly noticed something of a Brazilian cultural imprint on the larger Portuguese-Canadian community, between things like soft drinks, music CDs, or support for soccer teams.