tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40176172011-04-21T21:25:56.293-04:00Notes from a small islandA weblog by Jonathan AliJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.comBlogger4961100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-10817203963749816832008-02-15T11:35:00.004-05:002008-02-15T11:57:06.266-05:00But with all those other things to be anxious or angry about, all the ills and inequalities of our society, is it really worth getting upset about losing the Boissiere House? I think it is. Because this is a line in the sand, a test of how mercenary and philistine we really have become. Contemporary Trinidad seems hell-bent on destroying everything we have that is beautiful and authentic, usuallyJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-56338137676292038692008-02-13T15:41:00.000-05:002008-02-13T15:42:19.990-05:00"And yet it moves."Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-91632812740173747512008-01-17T11:53:00.000-05:002008-01-17T11:55:22.566-05:00She said, "You're pretty good with wordsBut words won't save your life"And they didn'tSo he died-- The Hold Steady, "Stuck Between Stations"Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-73078581485207775112008-01-01T11:20:00.000-05:002008-01-01T11:23:18.973-05:00Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-31373067640478613222007-10-25T14:51:00.000-04:002007-10-25T15:11:42.453-04:00And the prize for best T&T newspaper website goes to...The Newsday. I've just been having a tootle (yes, I said tootle) around the Express, Guardian and Newday sites. In terms of navigability and aesthetics, Newsday comes out tops. The Jamette of St. Vincent Street (and the guardian of our democracy) comes in second. Express gets the wooden spoon. (Really, Express, is that a website or an HTML Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-3059573093514284122007-10-25T13:32:00.000-04:002007-10-25T14:47:15.444-04:00Two letter writers take up the same theme in today's Newsday. With the election bearing down on us, they both demand the same thing: a national debate between the leaders of the three main political parties.It would be, as one of the writers points out, the first time such a thing occurred in T&T's political history. The three party leaders--yes, the UNC-A has two leaders, but we all know which Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-41991903331900663582007-10-25T09:22:00.000-04:002007-10-25T09:50:22.543-04:00For a moment I imagined this constitutional foolishness becoming real, a grinning but concerned father monarch plastered everywhere, the politics of the absurd and violent magical reality, collateral damage, moral police, high food prices and inflation, ballroom dancing, enforced Christian learning in schools, "government" authorised Benny Hinn crusades, a museum to Eric Williams in the middle ofJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-30161781630289384882007-07-27T12:49:00.000-04:002007-07-27T17:18:56.597-04:00Hosay“Wear something red” was the popular cryAnd like the pavements and streets They were filled with envyBecause by morning light They were covered with our bloodI tell you not one soul here escaped the frenzyYou know sometimes you're gambling kingAnd wild is the jokerAnd sometimes the sight of the moon Just riles up the lost, the hungry, the madThese are the troubled times That we have down in Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-70670187758644211262007-06-18T17:05:00.000-04:002007-06-18T17:11:09.944-04:00Everything really does happen in Manhattan....Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-500374189100844342007-05-29T11:57:00.000-04:002007-05-29T12:02:42.507-04:00Jamaica’s Rex Nettleford is a well-known scholar, historian, and political analyst. His achievements and accolades in these fields over the many years of his career are numerous; and he is rightly considered one of the foremost intellectual figures of the Caribbean. Yet when I think of Professor Nettleford, it isn’t so much his mind that I consider, but rather his feet.You see, in addition to hisJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-78127621621552031712007-05-29T09:08:00.000-04:002007-05-29T09:09:58.848-04:00I have always thought the most convenient trait of the white man in Africa and the Diaspora is his short memory. We however, cannot forget: slavery, Liverpool, the Gold Coast, how the Maroons betrayed us, Toussaint, colonialism, blood diamonds, Sharpeville, the Congo Free State, King Leopold, King Solomon’s Mines, Sam Sharpe, Tacky and Boukman, Tarzan, Heart of Darkness, Mau Mau, Kwame Nkruma, Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-27443342482842120642007-05-27T11:47:00.001-04:002007-05-27T12:09:51.240-04:00I'm a bit late in reporting this (OK, almost a month late) so most of you will already know, but anyway: Antilles, a literary weblog started by Nicholas Laughlin some years ago, has been revamped, and is now the weblog of the Caribbean Review of Books (to which I am a contributing author).You can check out Antilles now for extensive coverage of this weekend's Calabash Literary Festival in JamaicaJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-15895265686826538582007-05-22T22:37:00.000-04:002007-05-23T08:27:38.773-04:00Last Friday evening I was part of a conversation that included a number of Haitian nationals, delegates from a conference on Haiti that was hosted at the University of the West Indies.One of the delegates noted that something Haiti perpetually seems to be battling in the news is negative stereotyping. Poverty, violence, Aids, boat people--that's all one ever hears about Haiti, to the point where Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-64346386343458286242007-05-22T13:50:00.000-04:002007-05-22T22:34:06.480-04:00News round-upCredit where it's not dueA government minister goes to New York, visits a fertility clinic, then charges the visit (among various personal items) to her government-issued credit card, wich she "naively" believed to be a personal one. After visiting the clinic the minister became pregnant and gave birth to twins, but denies having had fertility treatment. As to the credit card, the Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-62111586321313579942007-05-18T15:47:00.000-04:002007-05-18T15:55:41.464-04:00Armchairs I dreamed you were a cosmonautOf the space between our chairsAnd I was a cartographerOf the tangles in your hairI sighed a song that silence bringsIt's the one that everybody knowsThe song that silence singsAnd this was how it goesThese looms that weave apocryphalThey're hanging from a strandThese dark and empty rooms were Full of incandescent handsAn akward pause, a fatal flawTime, Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-62797423617064444962007-05-18T14:15:00.000-04:002007-05-18T16:01:58.177-04:00Soca singer Destra Garcia has a problem. She has a problem with lyrics. Not soca lyrics, which, given that she sings soca, and that "soca lyrics" is basically an oxymoron, you would think she might be more than a little concerned about. No, according to an article from Caribbean360.com, our Destra has a problem with hip-hop lyrics. She thinks they're degrading to women. No argument here--a lot (Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-28409106379685875522007-05-18T13:17:00.000-04:002007-05-18T14:27:56.293-04:00Online oldsters: the internet is robbing you of real life. If you're single, every second spent perusing other people's photos on Facebook is a second less to catch the eye of a gorgeous passerby in the street. If your mind-numbing job plonks you behind a computer all day, every minute spent on Facebook is a minute lost to do something about your stultifying situation. And every sensory-deprived Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-87570230972610583282007-04-21T19:46:00.000-04:002007-04-21T19:50:52.356-04:00"Did I entertain?"Yes, Brian, you did. Thank you.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-75410611592937566022007-04-17T14:43:00.000-04:002007-04-17T15:04:43.769-04:00VS Naipaul is in town, here for a week of celebrations in honour of his 75th birthday year. Yesterday, ahead of the celebrations, Naipaul gave a press conference at the University of the West Indies campus at St. Augustine. Speaking of his life as a writer, he said: "I would do it all over again; I wouldn’t change a thing. It was my vocation."And this is the headline in today's Guardian, the Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-87364658765900050602007-04-02T16:07:00.000-04:002007-04-02T16:43:42.408-04:00So yesterday was April Fool's Day, and the British newspapers had their usual slew of invented, ridiculous news stories to celebrate this fact. I particularly liked the one about Tony Blair starring in a new production of The Crucible, although I wonder how many readers bought it (it was in the Observer, after all).Not to be outdone, the local papers ran some April Fool's stories of their own. Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-75833831677288341652007-03-26T14:38:00.000-04:002007-03-26T17:32:54.210-04:00The Best accidentConsidering the importance that Lloyd Best placed on accidents happening in his life, it gives me a wry sort of pleasure to note that that's exactly how I came to know him: quite by accident.This was just about six short years ago, a time of much difficulty and uncertainty in my life. I had, in the preceding few years, made two aborted attempts to obtain a university degree, the Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-5032394069227602442007-03-02T12:07:00.000-05:002007-03-02T12:08:23.826-05:00not entirely happy eitherJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-45339004423071945142007-02-21T17:32:00.000-05:002007-02-21T18:00:32.789-05:00The increasing mechanization of society has created a mechanical politics; one which no longer asks 'why' or 'whither' questions, but only 'how'. As a result, the world of politics no longer encompasses much of what real human beings actually care about. It does not ask what kind of world we wish to live in; it does not analyse the consequences of the choices that are made for us; nor, but Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-20006639150441055922007-02-17T23:08:00.000-05:002007-02-21T17:46:00.006-05:00"So what would happen to us all, psychologically, if the end of the world was at hand? Danny Huston's mandarin tells Theo that he personally gets by from day to day by simply not thinking about what is happening, and his stunned, bleak acquiescence in the creeping horror of global death is symptomatic of the vast spiritual sterility which ushered in the catastrophe in the first place...."But whatJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1163457532001465872006-11-13T17:19:00.000-05:002006-11-15T19:15:05.956-05:00If only I could get you to London, if only just to say goodbye...So here I sit, at my desk at the office, waiting for the Muse to descend (does advertising have a Muse? somehow I think not) while miles, miles, miles away, across the Atlantic in London, at this moment, jointpop are getting ready to play the first gig of their UK tour, at the China White club in Soho. I just got off the phone with Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1162363629863202122006-11-01T01:45:00.000-05:002006-11-01T01:47:09.880-05:00Peter wait, Peter wait, look PW Botha reach by the gate...Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1161960522071345152006-10-27T10:46:00.000-04:002006-10-27T10:55:38.613-04:00"The Google."(And in a related story, Google wants you to stop "googling".)Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1161809146456498572006-10-25T16:37:00.000-04:002006-10-25T16:45:46.473-04:00Have just written a post on the StudioFilmClub blog about the just-concluded European Film Festival and the Departed, Martin Scorsese's latest offering.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1161747387571872612006-10-24T22:50:00.000-04:002006-10-24T23:38:54.040-04:00Last Sunday, Trinidad woke up to a newspaper headline that, while all too familiar these days, was still disturbing: three men shot dead in a nightclub in Arima early Saturday morning. Some young men had been refused admission to the club; they went away, returning a short time later with guns. They shot and killed the bouncer, then began firing indiscriminately at the clubbers, killing two and Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1159794224902932562006-10-02T08:32:00.001-04:002006-10-02T09:03:44.906-04:00What is he thinking?Here's a photo of yours truly, taken by Georgia Popplewell, at the Galvanize panel discussion & conversation News That Stays News: Newsprint Literature, last Thursday evening at Caribbean Contemporary Arts, Laventille, Port of Spain.If you're feeling idle, you can caption the photo. Best caption wins a prize. A good one.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1156977548142388132006-08-30T18:36:00.000-04:002006-08-30T18:39:08.153-04:00sometimes when he speaks/I can hear apple orchards, horses/Rivers full of fish/In his voiceJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1156771626816927662006-08-28T09:25:00.000-04:002006-08-28T09:27:06.833-04:00Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1151548147638659862006-06-28T22:25:00.000-04:002006-06-28T22:32:10.646-04:00In the end, of course, there are no moral foods--unless we count soft-boiled eggs.Via the redoubtable Jabberwock.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1151336725969886272006-06-26T10:47:00.000-04:002006-06-26T16:58:32.620-04:00So the national football team, our Soca Warriors have been rewarded by prime minister Santa Manning and his government on their early return from the ongoing World Cup in Germany. Each player received, out of Papa Patrick's bag of goodies, the nation's second highest award, and will get at least TT$1 million in cash and investments. The players will be availed of a money management lecture, to Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1149878221624845942006-06-09T14:36:00.000-04:002006-06-09T14:37:01.636-04:00TS Eliot and julie mangoes be damned.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1146016547188271662006-04-25T21:51:00.000-04:002006-04-25T21:55:47.196-04:00[T]he most powerful part of Jesus and Yahweh, the moment when the book really comes alive, is when, ironically enough, Bloom is being theological. Near the end, he gives a brief summary of his cherished Gnostic and Kabbalistic beliefs, and then launches a series of anguished laments. Generally, Bloom's Gnosticism has been inert, theologically speaking--he seems to have so little interest in its Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1145802300395843932006-04-23T10:11:00.000-04:002006-04-23T10:25:00.406-04:00A lighter news item, to temper the preceding one: For the first time in his career, Bob Dylan is becoming a DJ. And one of the songs on the playlist for his first broadcast is a calypso.The song is "Jamaica Hurricane" by the late, great Lord Beginner, and is one of a set of songs on the theme of weather, which will be on Dylan's first broadcast on XM Satellite Radio, due to be broadcast on May 3.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1145801349172905882006-04-23T09:39:00.001-04:002006-04-23T10:09:09.173-04:00The news that the Guyanese Minister of Fisheries, Crops and Livestock, Satyadeow Sawh, was brutally gunned down at his home along with his brother, sister and bodyguard early Saturday morning is sending shockwaves around the Caribbean.Robbery appears to tbe motive in what was a well-orchestrated attack on the minister's home, after it was reported that the gunmen demnanded cash and jewellery of Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1142915370570320522006-03-20T22:31:00.000-05:002006-03-20T23:39:09.146-05:00To quote the immortal Morrissey, "I've seen this happen in other people's lives, and now it's happening in mine." I've been tagged. (Thanks, Georgia.) Right, here we go.Four jobs I’ve had:Legal internLiteracy tutorResearch assistantBookseller (For all of a day)Four movies I can watch over and over:Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (The funniest film I've ever Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1142043061289369882006-03-10T21:08:00.000-05:002006-03-10T21:12:47.410-05:00News flash: My name is Jonathan, and I am an introvert.(Via Jabberwock.)Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1141833667096093552006-03-08T08:58:00.000-05:002006-03-08T11:03:01.673-05:00Two pieces in today's Express on last Sunday's lecture and presentation on the late actor, singer and cultural activist, Edric Connor, the last item of the UWI 25th Anniversary Conference on West Indian Literature. One is a feature by Michael Mondezie; the other comes from George John, in his column.The tribute to Connor was put together by calypso historian Ray Funk and lecturer in film, Bruce Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1141255611540979082006-03-01T18:17:00.000-05:002006-03-01T18:26:51.553-05:00Mass ManThrough a great lion's head clouded by mangea black clerk growls.Next, a gold-wired peacock withholds a man,a fan, flaunting its oval, jewelled eyes;What metaphors!What coruscating, mincing fantasies!Hector Mannix, waterworks clerk, San Juan, has entered a lion,Boysie, two gold mangoes bobbing for breastplates, bargeslike Cleopatra down her river, making style."Join us," they shout. "Oh Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1139229729692307092006-02-06T07:39:00.000-05:002006-02-06T07:42:09.706-05:00I can hear the crickets tonight like all the other nights. I can hear the wind chimes ringing in the breezy darkness, cars growling like angry jaguars, neighbours talking raw, pure Creolese, a man, another man, a woman.But when I listen I hear the silence rustle too.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1138975050585766012006-02-03T08:56:00.000-05:002006-02-03T08:57:30.616-05:00The telegram is dead STOPJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1138770174607132182006-01-31T23:06:00.000-05:002006-02-01T00:45:56.513-05:00So Tony Blair's government last evening suffered a humiliating defeat when a number of its MPs joined with the opposition parties and the House of Lords and voted for amendments to the bill to combat religious hatred. This means that someone charged with an offence under the act would have to be shown to have used "threatening" language, rather than "threatening, insulting and abusive" langauge, Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1137782261207207142006-01-20T13:27:00.000-05:002006-01-20T13:44:41.123-05:00The Studio Film Club, which every Thursday evening screens a film and spins tunes from off the beaten path at the Caribbean Contemporary Arts centre in Laventille, Port of Spain, now has a weblog. Yours truly is a contributor to the blog, along with Nicholas Laughlin, Georgia Popplewell and Attilah Springer. Earlier today I blogged my first post, about last night's offering, Werner Herzog's new Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1137704722448600082006-01-19T16:00:00.001-05:002006-01-19T16:05:22.446-05:00You know, if the sun was an oboe, what would you do?Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1137443886596146282006-01-16T15:34:00.001-05:002006-01-16T16:01:12.166-05:00I'm going through a bit of a Billie Holiday phase at the moment (The Ultimate Billie Holiday and Billie's Best have been trading places in my cd player; if anyone's feeling generous, my birthday's in March) so two articles in the local Sunday papers were of particular interest.The first was Lennox Grant's column in the Guardian. Grant saw an old tv interview recently, featuring a number of our Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1137090451630251002006-01-12T12:46:00.000-05:002006-01-12T13:27:31.643-05:00Is there nothing Patrick Manning won't take credit for? Following the arrests of Franklin Khan and Eric Williams on bribery charges, our fearless leader, speaking from Guyana (meeting, perhaps, with his fellow clone, president Bharrat Jagdeo?) and speaking of himself in the third person, declared:"Two ministers of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago have resigned within recent times as a resultJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1135001932309437272005-12-19T08:54:00.000-05:002005-12-19T09:38:00.533-05:00The erosion of human rights and the enlargement of state power (that can later be misused and abused) normally take place in the height of a crisis, with the full support of the people, because rational thought is overwhelmed by panic and fear. Trying to mask political incompetence by making kidnapping a non-bailable offence is no substitute for hard, expert police work that can lead to proper Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1135000181219702822005-12-19T08:29:00.000-05:002005-12-19T08:49:41.490-05:00In 1956 Italy's per capita Gross Domestic Product was less than T&T's. That was before any of our oil booms. Italy's economy is now stagnating, with growth rate for 2005 forecast at zero per cent. T&T is supposedly booming, with a real growth rate of 5.7 per cent; but Italy's per capita GDP is still almost two and a half times greater than ours. Their unemployment rate is 7.8 per cent; ours, Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1134735722792617952005-12-16T07:18:00.000-05:002005-12-16T07:22:02.813-05:00365.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1134401046816065172005-12-12T08:24:00.000-05:002005-12-12T10:35:26.803-05:00Dookeran is the person you would send for a Carib with a blue note and not worry about being shortchanged.[He] would make a great drinking buddy. He would almost certainly elect himself as the designated driver and still chip in for drinks on cue.But yesterday's forum did little to suggest he has the ruthlessness or strength of character that might be needed to enact the ideological changes in Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1133270672193993602005-11-29T08:17:00.000-05:002005-11-29T08:26:19.580-05:00Clive Bradley's genius lay in the fact that he knew exactly which soca or calypso melodies would sound best on pan (mostly, those of the late lamented Lord Kitchener), and he also knew exactly how to develop and elaborate them so that they could transcend pretty much every other Panorama arrangement. He had worked with Despers long enough to know exactly how to get the best effects out of the Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1132854775969911082005-11-24T11:44:00.000-05:002005-11-26T23:47:10.696-05:00Two letters of interest in today's Business Guardian. (It's the Guardian, so no links.)The first letter, under the headline "Rest in peace, IOB" is from a Dennise Demming, criticising the recent renaming of UWI's Institute of Business as the Arthur Lok Jack School of Business, following Mr Lok Jack's donation of $20 million to the school. Ms Demming argues that the renaming will only serve to Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1132844598479131822005-11-24T09:00:00.000-05:002005-11-24T10:12:58.170-05:00Things, it seems, are happening.Former works and transport minister and PNM party chairman Franklin Khan has been charged with corruptly accepting over $100,000, making it the first time in the country's history that a sitting member of parliament of the ruling party has been charged with corruption.Despite the predictable noise from the opposition over the disparity in the length of time it Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1132536158124129642005-11-20T19:33:00.000-05:002005-11-21T09:41:47.283-05:00Went with a friend last evening to see Brown Cotton Theatre's production of Bent, Martin Sherman's play about the treatment of gays in Nazi Germany.I'd seen the film adaptation, with Ian McKellen (who had the lead role in the play's 1979 London premiere), Mick Jagger (deliciously cast as an aging drag queen) and the as yet unknown Clive Owen and Jude Law a few years ago, but as good as it was, Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1132501817023085452005-11-20T10:23:00.000-05:002005-11-20T19:29:21.360-05:00In the wake of our country qualifying for its first ever football World Cup, BC Pires interviews Jack Warner, CONCACAF president, FIFA vice-president, and all-round T&T football jefe.I'm no Jack Warner fan, and his high-handed, dictatorial approach to the running of football here (not to mention his political affiliations) has been part of the reason why I've found it somewhat difficult to reallyJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1131974312223490372005-11-14T08:15:00.000-05:002005-11-14T08:18:32.236-05:00So what's a poor boy to do now? He can start a blog, perhaps.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1131115847539133392005-11-04T09:21:00.000-05:002005-11-04T22:03:57.666-05:00Further to yesterday's post about the middle class, here's an article by Mark Lawson on the dearth of films about the middle class in British cinema, from the UK Guardian Film & Music Weekly.It also happens that I've just started Zadie Smith's new novel On Beauty, an homage to EM Forster and set in the middle class world of American east coast academia.Expect some major pronouncement from me on Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1131029661042831842005-11-03T08:48:00.000-05:002005-11-03T09:58:09.946-05:00The first public criticisms I've seen of the recently-opened Hooters restaurant and bar have appeared today, in a letter to the Guardian by Rain Newel Lewis, daughter of the late architect and artist John Newel Lewis (whose seminal book, Ajoupa, I'm currently reading).The letter (which I won't link to, as it's not a permalink and I'm yet to work out the new and apparently confusing permalink Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1130875987532204402005-11-01T15:00:00.000-05:002005-11-26T23:46:19.546-05:00Thanks to Bina for this link, to a fine blog out of New Delhi by Jai Arjun, a freelance journalist.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1129899704184068992005-10-21T08:42:00.000-04:002005-10-21T10:01:29.346-04:00Try telling the mother of a child whose son has been brutally tortured for weeks that the situation isn't so bad.Try telling East Indians who are being targetted for kidnapping as though they were living in Rwanda, that they should be 'comfortable'.Try telling the family of an old-age pensioner, after the cold-blooded killing of their father, that the situation is worse elsewhere.Try telling a Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1128349315767308122005-10-03T10:07:00.000-04:002005-10-03T10:21:55.773-04:00In his column (link good for a week) in today's Guardian, Fr Henry Charles muses on what it means to be a republic; specifically what being a republic means to us here in sweet T&T. He finds he can come up with no better definition than that of Ramlogan, in VS Naipaul's novel, The Suffrage of Elvira:In the novel, Ramlogan and Chittaranjan are neighbours, and trading insults across the fence is Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1126186722662039292005-09-08T09:32:00.000-04:002005-09-08T09:38:42.666-04:00Eugenia Charles remained staunch in her defence of the invasion, regarding it as a "pre-emptive strike" which had removed a "dangerous threat to peace and security". When Labour's foreign affairs spokesman, Denis Healey, accused her of having been virtually kidnapped by the Americans, she turned the tables on her accuser by retorting that he would never have dared to make such an insulting remarkJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1120881385115992692005-07-08T23:41:00.000-04:002005-07-08T23:59:08.436-04:00London is the place for meLondon is the place for meLondon, this lovely cityYou can go to France or AmericaIndia, Asia or Australia But you must come back to London cityWell believe me, I am speaking broad-mindedlyI am glad to know my mother countryI've been travelling to places years agoBut this is the place I've wanted to knowLondon, that's the place for meTo live in London you're really Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1120792079157490712005-07-07T23:05:00.000-04:002005-07-07T23:07:59.163-04:00How could we have forgotten that this was always going to happen?Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1120778094197858132005-07-07T17:43:00.000-04:002005-07-07T23:09:09.736-04:00When the terrorist attacks on New York occured, I'd only ever been to that city once. And even though I had been to visit with friends in Battery Park, a stone's throw from where the World Trade Centre used to be, the fact was that as saddened as I was by the tragedy, it never felt real to me. It seemed almost fantastic, and the indellible images on TV some terrible, terrible fictions dreamed up Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1120134767974142062005-06-30T08:30:00.000-04:002005-06-30T08:33:45.513-04:00At a Certain AgeWe wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.White clouds refused to accept them, and the windWas too busy visiting sea after sea.We did not succeed in interesting the animals.Dogs, disappointed, expected an order,A cat, as always immoral, was falling asleep.A person seemingly very closeDid not care to hear of things long past.Conversations with friends over vodka or Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1119228999578616702005-06-19T20:46:00.000-04:002005-06-19T23:31:59.516-04:00In today's Guardian, Simon Lee joins Blur's Damon Albarn (among others) in criticising Bob Geldof for sidelining African musicians at the Live 8 concerts in aid of Africa. (Link good for a week.)Oh, and Seldo isn't exactly a fan of Mr. Geldof and Live 8, either.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1118859476825873462005-06-15T14:08:00.000-04:002005-06-15T14:17:56.833-04:00As I posted previously, convicted murderer Lester Pitman received a stay of execution last week. His appeal is yet to be heard, yet the government has again stated its intention of hanging him and all convicted murderers on death row, as soon as possible. There are some seventy-plus men and women on death row, some with convictions going back almost twenty years.Meanwhile, Senator Angela Cropper,Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1118686116014173132005-06-13T14:04:00.000-04:002005-06-13T14:08:36.020-04:00Think of all the missing people whose stories don't merit continuous coverage on CNN or the front page of People magazine or special features on the major network morning shows. They may not be white and blonde and pretty and straight A students and regular church attendees, but that doesn't mean that they're worth any less. That doesn't mean that their families and friends mourn their absence Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1118422194429652582005-06-10T12:48:00.000-04:002005-06-10T12:49:54.436-04:00Remember your dresses, how they dressed you - remember that they were not you, only of you, and you wore them. Remember your life in these dresses and sing. Sing of a life with a dress.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1118419639172475522005-06-10T12:05:00.000-04:002005-06-10T12:07:19.176-04:00Lester Pitman has been granted a stay of execution, pending a high court appeal to heard next week.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1118322282223682822005-06-09T08:36:00.000-04:002005-06-09T10:50:03.530-04:00Last week the government announced the resumption of hangings as part of its tough new policy against crime. Yesterday the death warrant was read to Lester Pitman, who was convicted of a triple-murder last year. If Pitman is hanged--the date set is this coming Monday--his execution would be the first exercise of the death penalty in T&T in six years. Pitman's attorneys are to appeal his death Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1116699073997898172005-05-21T13:57:00.000-04:002005-05-21T14:19:22.386-04:00He explained that compassion was not an attribute that could be taught, or legislated for, or in any way insisted upon, for the reason that it was an unavoidable by-product of the imagination. If one were not gifted (or perhaps in some cases the better word might be burdened) with imagination, then one was unlikely to be compassionate. A compassionate person was a person who through his Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1114273893185981512005-04-23T12:29:00.000-04:002005-04-23T12:31:33.186-04:00I'm not the one to ask about this. Lately everyone's been saying, Hey, man, what's the deal? Why do all the bears of North America dislike EM Forster? And they expect me to have all the answers. Just because I hang out with some bears sometimes.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1114272266702424742005-04-23T11:57:00.000-04:002005-04-23T12:50:46.190-04:00Inside the registration hall, in a sea of greying quiffs, chunky glasses and blazers, a coffee morning for the chronically shy is in full swing.... Cups and saucers clatter nervously in trembly hands as the 150 mild-mannered Morrissey-fixated academics are forced to mingle and munch ginger snaps. "I had this old battered VHS tape of the Smiths' 1987 South Bank Show special," one doctor of Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1114209509738297022005-04-22T18:29:00.000-04:002005-04-22T18:38:29.740-04:00Like anyone, writers, of course, are embarrassed by excessive praise, just as readers are burdened by their excessive gratitude--one cannot keep going on about it. And, eventually, it is easier to turn the beloved literary work into a kind of disembodied third party: to admit that the work itself exceeds the writer, that it sails--sails in atmosphere, indeed!--away from the writer and toward the Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1113242422294786242005-04-11T13:53:00.000-04:002005-04-11T14:00:22.296-04:00Karol Wojtyla was a witness to [the] holocaust, which may be why he did the extraordinary thing that he did. On his visit to Israel in 2000, he posted a prayer in a niche in Jerusalem's Wailing Wall which said: "God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your name to the nations. We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1111609561802090472005-03-23T15:19:00.000-05:002005-03-23T15:26:01.803-05:00As the charming, imaginative improbabilities piled up in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," I began to think of another small and voluble survivor named Oskar: the narrator of Günter Grass' "The Tin Drum." His freakish story went far beyond Foer's in distorting reality, or overriding it altogether, and yet "The Tin Drum" confronted harsh, unresolvable facts in a way that felt not merely Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1111506151082756222005-03-22T10:38:00.000-05:002005-03-22T10:46:56.066-05:00Each Coming NightWill you say when I’m gone away, "My lover came to me and we'd lay In rooms unfamiliar but until now." Will you say to them when I’m gone, "I loved your son for his sturdy arms We both learned to cradle then live without." Will you say when I’m gone away,"Your father’s body was judgement day We both dove and rose to the riverside." Will you say to me when I’m gone, "Your face hasJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110638680261441472005-03-12T09:38:00.000-05:002005-03-12T09:47:03.646-05:00This week's UK Guardian Friday Arts Review has an interview with Win Butler and Regine Chassagne of the Montreal band Arcade Fire, whose debut album, Funeral, was one of the more noteworthy pop releases of 2004. Arcade Fire has a few interesting Caribbean connections: Regine Chassagne is of Haitian parentage--a couple of the songs on Funeral are Haiti-themed--and Chassagne and Butler spent their Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110634617368974232005-03-12T08:33:00.000-05:002005-03-12T08:39:17.076-05:00Mystery white boy: a selection of images from a current exhibition of Jeff Buckley photographs by Merri Cyr.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110557108742326472005-03-11T10:46:00.000-05:002005-03-11T11:06:20.303-05:00Latest podcast now available at Caribbean Free Radio.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110223024301925662005-03-07T13:52:00.000-05:002005-03-07T16:50:23.010-05:00The latest issue of the Trinidad and Tobago Review is out. The paper is finally available online (though this month's issue isn't, as yet). Among the March offerings is an interview with Derek Walcott. An excerpt:Caribbean culture is—since it was permitted to be articulate—is just about two-hundred years old. And that is "babyhood", compared to any other culture. Right? But as I’ve said before, Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110056509688630342005-03-05T15:58:00.000-05:002005-03-05T16:07:02.810-05:00 In our society, serious issues are too rarely looked at from the rational, empirical and ethical viewpoints. Instead, debate is often overwhelmed by superstition, folk wisdom, prejudice and self-serving agendas. Our group, which is made up of people of various beliefs and backgrounds, is here to ensure that these are not the only lenses that citizens look through when Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110047801331329702005-03-05T12:35:00.000-05:002005-03-05T16:08:38.240-05:00In her column (not, nor will it ever be, it seems, a permalink) in today's Guardian, Atillah Springer criticises the decision of her paper to publish, splayed across its front page and in full colour, the photo of a body of a man killed in an accident on the Port of Spain docks earlier this week. Springer's beef is that the dead man is of the "working" or "lower" class (I use the quotes since I Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1110043380791296932005-03-05T12:13:00.000-05:002005-03-05T12:25:11.043-05:00Thanks to Georgia for the mention in the latest Caribbean Free Radio podcast. And thanks too for "Old Time Days".If you haven't yet checked out Caribbean Free Radio, please do so. It's essential. Unlike this blog.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109517661958675732005-02-27T10:12:00.000-05:002005-02-27T10:23:05.906-05:00Sticky and dangerous, Port of Spain might only exist to correct anyone who thinks ecstasy comes in a tablet. I went there for a cricket match and didn't get away for two years. It's a tropical disease, the kind that tempts you to piss away everything you thought you wanted. Kind of infection that melts your veneers. A place to die, but die wasted and shrugging. No turquoise waters, no powder Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109451979174203022005-02-26T16:01:00.000-05:002005-02-26T16:06:19.176-05:00Derek Walcott has established a fiction prize.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109444762534762772005-02-26T13:55:00.000-05:002005-02-26T14:20:16.026-05:00So what is Never Let Me Go really about? It's about the steady erosion of hope. It's about repressing what you know, which is that in this life people fail one another, grow old and fall to pieces. It's about knowing that while you must keep calm, keeping calm won't change a thing. Beneath Kathy's flattened and lukewarm emotional landscape lies the pure volcanic turmoil, the unexpressed yet Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109367784847410382005-02-25T16:29:00.000-05:002005-02-25T16:52:52.080-05:00All three of my readers probably already know this, but for anyone who doesn't, the very first Caribbean podcast was recently launched. It's called Caribbean Free Radio, broadcasts out of Trinidad, and is masterminded by Georgia Popplewell (hi, Georgia, and congratulations). If "original, Caribbean-related audio" is your thing--and why wouldn't it be?--then go check it out.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109336286055981242005-02-25T07:50:00.000-05:002005-02-26T14:15:07.166-05:00Whether remembering how the late Jeff Buckley's vocal histrionics sounded "like mad Ophelia" or depicting his relationship with his sister as a string of Dangerous Liaisons-style intrigues, Wainwright is never short of something to say. This makes him an anomaly amid current big singer-songwriters. They delight in a sort of wilful mundaneness best expressed by Toes, a Norah Jones song in which Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109169558283254552005-02-23T09:33:00.000-05:002005-02-23T09:39:18.283-05:00I seek an image, not a book. Those men that in their writings are most wise Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts. I call to the mysterious one who yet Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream And look most like me, being indeed my double, And prove of all imaginable things The most unlike, being my anti-self, And standing by these characters disclose All that I seek;Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1109107151730492412005-02-22T16:14:00.000-05:002005-02-23T08:22:37.430-05:00Guillermo Cabrera Infante, the Cuban-born novelist and film critic, is dead.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1108227340738236112005-02-12T11:41:00.000-05:002005-02-26T14:31:39.866-05:00The love stories that touch us most deeply are punctuated by human frailty. Look at them up close and you see the fault lines, compromises and anticlimaxes. At the beginning of Shakespeare's play, Romeo is just as intemperately in love with a girl called Rosaline as he is later with Juliet. Tristan and Isolde's passion could well be the fruit of substance abuse, of a love potion they drank Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1108042705815477472005-02-10T08:33:00.000-05:002005-02-10T08:38:25.826-05:00Just because you’re an atheist, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t love for things to have reasons for why they are.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1107288857352154782005-02-01T14:57:00.001-05:002005-02-01T15:14:17.353-05:00The winners of the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Canada and the Caribbean were announced today. Best book went to Canada's Alice Munro for her short story collection, Runaway and Other Stories. David Bezmozgis, also from Canada, claimed the first book prize for his collection, Natasha and Other Stories.Jonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4017617.post-1106751909458676112005-01-26T09:36:00.000-05:002005-01-26T10:05:09.456-05:00"Most of all I would like to thank all those people in Britain who work hard to make sure the rivers in this country never run with blood, only with water."
-- Andrea Levy riffs on Enoch Powell, in response to the announcement that her novel about Jamaican immigrants in Britian, Small Island, was awarded the Whitbread prize.
(And Trinidad-born Trevor McDonald, the judges' chairman, in answeringJonathanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13527923077560932437noreply@blogger.com0