Let's Hope It's Kenny G.

Celine Dion has decided not to come to Halifax after all. She was recently booked to play an outdoor concert on the Commons next summer, à la (aux?) The Rolling Stones. At first the powers that be just told us that some big act was going to be coming, causing massive-scale rumours and speculation about AC/DC, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and just about any other exciting musical entertainers of whom you can think. Then they announced that it was in fact the big C, and the entire city fell into a cyclically tripolar mood of depression, hilarity, and anger. I had a fun preoccupation for a few days trying hard, with next to no success (except see post title), to think of an act I'd less like to see than The Francowhippet.

But now the fun's over. Her people say that the Commons, as a venue, cannot handle her "elaborate production needs" (e.g. a non-ironically interested audience). "'It's like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown,' said Mr. Adams, the councillor [and self-admitted non-fan] for Spryfield-Herring Cove." I.e. we are Charlie Brown and Celine is the football we can no longer hope to kick squarely and with all our might. Our reverse snobbism thus thwarted, there's nothing left for Halifax to do now but hang our heads and grumble about grapes whose sourness we never even got a proper chance to complain about before the point became moot. Except I guess we are still promised some large and popular act in The Smirk's stead. How camp will it be? How embarassingly melodramatic? How overall cringeworthy? These are burning questions only time can answer.

- Andrew