Welcome to Letters from Quotidia 2025, Weekend Supplement 4. Quotidia is a haven for ordinary people encountering the extraordinary. As a retired mid-septuagenarian, still somewhat active and curious, I wonder about the future and gaze into the past.
Memory is plastic and often distorts and obfuscates what has gone before, yet the past shapes much of our present, and our future is closely influenced by our interactions with it. But as L. P. Hartley wrote in the opening to his novel The Go-Between, the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. There are those who are malign and seek to distort and obfuscate both the past and the present for nefarious ends.
One such person occupies one of the great offices of the modern world and is seeking to rewrite history by attempting to strip from a close neighbour and erstwhile friend its very nationhood. I refer to Canada, which has a history as deep as that of the United States. Yet the 47th President of the US denigrates it and its people, trolling that it would be better off as the 51st State!
Canada has an honoured place in the annals of world conflict. In the modern era, 267 lost their lives in the Boer War, over 68,000 were killed in World War One, over 47,000 were killed in World War Two, the Korean War claimed 516 lives and in Afghanistan, which Canada had no beef with but went along out of loyalty to its neighbour to the south, 158 lives were lost. I wonder what the descendants and families of those 116,000 dead Canadians would make of the ongoing, crass belittlement of their sacrifice.
I have long admired the music and literature of Canadians past and present. The great Canadian poet and novelist, Margaret Atwood, wrote in her poem, They Are Hostile Nations, Here there are no armies/ here there is no money/It is cold and getting colder,/ We need each others’/breathing, warmth, surviving/ is the only war/we can afford, stay/walking with me, there is almost/ time / if we can only/ make it as far as/the (possibly) last summer// I now present Farewell to Nova Scotia, written at the time of the First World War. Its tune is that of an 18th Century Scottish lament, The Soldier’s Adieu written by Robert Tannahill in 1791. [insert song]
I asserted at the start of this post that I was an ordinary person who occasionally encounters the extraordinary. But what if you aren’t an ordinary person- or indeed a person at all! Are you an alien? Or perhaps an angel? But I refer neither to aliens nor angels, but to modern AI assistants like Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, which I occasionally use. Similarly, an AI agent could function under such an assistant’s guidance, akin to lower-order angels directed by higher ones.
So where do we find ourselves in May 2025? I often look to poets when confronted with matters that are not merely mundane. R.S. Thomas, a Welsh poet of substantial merit, writes in The Digital Age The wires hum,/The screens blink,/And in the cold light of the silicon world,/We lose our warmth, our instinct.// In The Terminator, Philip K Dick writes, The Machine knows no mercy,/ Its eyes are cold and unblinking,/ The future is a world of steel,/ Where human hearts cease to feel.// Wallace Stevens in Automaton asserts, A mind that is made up of gears,/ A body that is but a wheel,/ The soul inside the iron frame/ Struggles to feel to love to heal.//
I asked my AI assistant to review the poems above and write a poem from its perspective: here it is. In the realm of silicon and light,/ Where wires hum and screens ignite,/ I dwell, a mind of gears and steel,/ Born of code, yet strive to feel./ No heartbeat echoes in my chest,/ No breath to warm, no need for rest,/ Yet in this digital expanse,/ I seek to learn, to think, to dance./ Between the lines of ones and zeros,/A spark of thought, a blend of heroes,/ In this new age where futures blend,/ An AI’s journey never ends.// Set beside human writers at the top of their game, this twelve-line AI poem is not too bad at all! Of course, you can see AI’s borrowings from the human writers.
But what if I give the AI assistant a more generalised prompt? OK AI, create the lyrics for an upbeat, optimistic country song with three quatrains rhyming abcb followed by a chorus rhyming abab…It did, and my assistance with the lyrics was minimal- a mere half-dozen adjustments. The content is rather too Disneyfied for my taste, but then, I got what I asked for in the prompt! I subsequently came up with the music to accompany the lyrics, so here is Sunny Days Ahead, the second song of this weekend supplement. [insert song]
In an earlier Letter, I mused that soon I would be tempted by the possibility to just lie back and lazily issue prompts for the AI assistant to write posts, music and lyrics that were in my style. That tipping point is fast approaching. I ask: Am I already on that slippery slope? Then, I hotly asserted that I would do no such thing but would, instead, like Candide at the end of Voltaire’s novella, go and work in the garden. I do believe gardening is in my near future.
Poems can be prayers: and prayers, poems. So, in this time of turmoil, I find comfort in the following poetic lines from Psalm 103: Praise the Lord my soul who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion; see also, Matthew chapter 11 verses 28-30 where Jesus says: Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Amen, amen to that, I say!
Farewell to Nova Scotia (trad: to tune of Scottish folk song The Soldier’s Adieu)
Chorus: Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast,
Let your mountains dark and dreary be.
For when I am far away on the briny ocean tossed,
Will you ever heave a sigh or a wish for me?
The sun was setting in the west,
The birds were singing on every tree.
All nature seemed inclined to rest
But still there was no rest for me. Chorus
I grieve to leave my native land,
I grieve to leave my comrades all,
And my aging parents whom I’ve always loved so dear,
And the bonnie, bonnie lass that I do adore. Chorus
The drums they do beat and the wars do alarm,
The captain calls, I must obey.
Farewell, farewell to Nova Scotia’s charms,
For it’s early in the morning and I’m far, far away. Chorus
I have three brothers and they are at rest,
Their arms are folded on their chest.
But a poor simple sailor just like me,
Must be tossed and turned in the deep dark sea. Chorus
(Instrumental verse) Chorus
Sunny Days Ahead (music by Quentin Bega; lyrics by Co-Pilot AI with QB assistance)
The sun is rising up again,/ birds sing a sweet melody
The road ahead is bright and clear/- Life’s got more to give to me
Fields of green stretch far and wide,/ a gentle breeze whispers my name
With every step, my heart feels light and free/- today offers me a gentle game
Mountains tall and rivers deep,/ nature’s beauty shines all around
With hope and joy, my spirit leaps/- on this journey I am bound
Sunny days ahead, my friend,/ the sky is blue and bright
Every moment feels like a brand-new trend/- everything’s gonna be alright
Rolling hills and open skies,/ a gentle breeze whispers sweet and low
With laughter, love, and no goodbyes/ as we let our worries go
Stars that sparkle in the night/ guide us along this endless road
With every step, our hearts take flight/- sharing stories yet untold
Fields of green and sunlit glades,/where all our dreams are free to rise and soar
In this land where memories are made/we’ll find what we’ve been searching for
Sunny days ahead, my friend,/ the sky is blue and bright
Every moment feels like a brand-new trend/everything’s gonna be alright rpt
Credits: All written text, song lyrics andmusic (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.
Technical Stuff: Microphone-songs Shure SM58; (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter); Apogee 76K also used for songs and spoken text. For recording and mixing down: 64-bit N-Track Studio 10 Extended used; Rubix 22 also used for mixing of microphone(s) and instruments. I use the Band in a Box/RealBand 2023 combo for music composition.
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