... and a Happy New Year ...

... final week of the year and it's all about TV re-runs, leftovers, hangovers, make-overs, do-overs ... we use the last few December days to look back on the events of the twelve-month western calendar period ... or to tilt determinedly at the the beckoning New Year ...

... me? ... well I do a whole 'eap a dat ... but it's also compulsory to feel some simple stuff ... a basic connection to the spiritual grandeur that is the wide world of creation ... allowing yourself the humility to just be a part of it ...

... this year ... as in every previous year ... a selection of top National Geographic photographs made the rounds ... you may have seen it ... for several decades these guys have been a source of edifying wonderment and mind blowing discovery ... the impossibly superb photography alone justifying the existence of the spearhead magazine ... a portal to other worlds and kingdoms in all their awesome, contradictory glories ...

... the periodical continues to gift me much ... and ... even though my boyhood subscription is long gone I usually flip through back-issues in waiting rooms or pre the pics when they come my way ...

... so here it was ... the predictable smorgasbord of variety, but this time I was struck by a few of the animal images and the human emotions they made me feel, merely by looking ... I collate them here for a New Year re-appraisal based on the fact that each of these photos from the animal kingdom amused my personal world-weariness ... may you be so blessed ...

... with me so far? .... the next one is very cute but not to worry ... I don't intend to kill you with cute ...

... that's the way to beat rush hour ... turtle show some respect! ...

... if turtleman didn't get to you I'd say yours is an impervious heart ... take time to smell the roses ... happiness and joy for the New Year ... 'cept for those who wanna rain on yo parade!

... blessings for the Xmas ...

... feeling humbled enough to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em ... the Christmas juggernaut just gets more demanding every year ... some folks thrive on this quickening of time, and to be honest, December has traditionally been a happy time of year for me ... but this year is my first Xmas as a blogger ...

... surprise, surprise ... many drafts half-baked in the think-tank ... the first thing to get elbowed aside is the routine, the ability to keep all the non-festive stuff running as normal ... so, I'll simply share with you a snap I took last week .... downtown St. John's, Antigua lit up ...















... "take whatever joy you have in your experience my son ... put it up there for all to behold ... for if every eye sees beauty and wonderment ... then that's all there is, truth be told ...."

... so sez my sentient voice, antidote to the inner grinch ...

... Happy Holidays and Blessings for the New Year to one and all ... especially readers of ... Ackeelover Chronicles ....

... Wasilla's all I saw ...

... ok, sooo ... I grappled with admitting, here on my open-mic blog, that I had to remind myself what a palindrome was ... well, I did ... there you have it ...

 ... I'll give you benefit of doubt, but if a reminder is needed now's y'chance ... skip and continue if you're confident ...

dictionary.com :- palindrome - noun .... a word, line, verse, number, sentence, etc., reading the same backward as forward

... the reminder helped me get a kick out of Bob Thaves' Frank and Ernest comic link sent by a friend in Texas ... she who once knit a Rasta tam big enough to house the copious hair I was

rocking at the time ...

... while I'm checking the word I expose myself to multiple examples of ... palindromes ... only now I fully understand this word-phenomenon that some of my nerd-fellows hold on a pedestal ... palindromic words, sentences, phrases, verse, numbers ... but mostly it was those first five letters I was focussed on, so off I went in search of Sarah Palin-dromes ...

... APPLICABLE TO ... - John McCain ... 'Cain, a maniac 

- David Letterman ..... evade me Dave

- Oliver Stone ...... O. Stone, be not so

- U.S. Congress .... star comedy by Democrats
- Democrats ..... no, it is opposition
- Republicans .... Dubya won? no way bud!
- Tea-baggers ... bombard a drab mob

- Health Care .... lepers repel

- Animal shelters .... senile felines

- Special-needs kids .... tug at a gut

- Iraq ... drat Saddam, a mad dastard
- Japan ...... a Toyota's a Toyota

- Hugo Chavez .... yo, banana boy!

- Ahmadinejad .... God damn mad dog

- Homeland Security ....... bar an Arab

- the Vice-Presidency ...... title fit, I felt it

- the Presidency .... first, ladies rule the state and state the rule, ladies first
- the electoral campaign .... rise to vote sir

- losing the election .... dash sin if I finish sad

- Going Rogue ... are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to a new era?

 - writing a book .... I did, did I?

- parochialism ... no, slang is a signal son

- the liberal media .... harass selfless Sarah

- the Couric interview ... party boobytrap

- periodical to read for next time ... Semite Times

- wardrobegate .... too hot to hoot

- more wardrobegate .... too bad I hid a boot

- must-have glasses for next time ... mirror rim

- "I can see Russia from my porch" ... ah, Satan sees Natasha

- Madonna ..... yawn! Madonna fan? no damn way
- (Lady Gaga likely makes her gagag)

- labels ... avid diva

..... mom

..... kook

..... boob

..... Ogopogo

and .. for good measure .... I, zany Nazi

... browsing punditkitchen.com turned up this satire veritas poster definition ... I'll continue to refer to the media's popularity radar to see if this intellectual dud and her dewed eyes will be deified ... hoping she grits her teeth, says "dammit I'm mad" and runs for civic office ... maybe taking tot Carrie Prejean and her solos with her, bib provided ... ahh, so many dynamos for the old guard to level at high office ... perhaps even the top spot ... next thing you know it'll be sex at noon taxes and a doom mood at America's Obama pep rally ... wow!

...... ok ... there might be something to this ...

... one more just occurred to me ....

..... drill baby, drill ....

... Lioness On The Rise ...

... everywhere I turn these days someone is analyzing Jamaican Music, the entertainment industry it spearheads and the relationship it has with cultural forces of the day ... both in Jamaica and the wider world ... this isn't idle study, because despite technological adjustments, erratic sales and noticeable market marginalisation, Jamaican cultural expresssion continues to influence beyond local origins ... for better and for worse ...

... much is made of tuneless digi-beats ... aggressive hyper-hetero masculinity ... gunplay and war-worship ... crass content ... repetetive themes of fundamentalism and political entrenchment ... certainly there is enough to repel those who found the bubbling heartbeat and sincere songcraft of earlier eras so embraceable .. if .. it is accepted that the new has obliterated the old ... but Jamaican Music is a living continuum and the truth is more complex than that ...

... first and foremost it is important to recognize that dreck and drivel is not exclusive to current output ... there has always been forgettable music ... only the best survives to represent an era ... secondly it will surprise some and vindicate others to be reminded that the pedigree of musicianship and the power of invention that comes from poverty continues to translate into a tradition of gamechanging on the wide open playing field ...

... it's the time we live in that has changed ... the proverbial pie has effectively shrunken as more clamour for a share of it ... the standouts will include those with the maddest flex, the baddest gangsta gun, the lewdest act ... but also highlighted will be the artiste with the innovative incantation, the fresh lyrical flow or the expanded inspiration ... Jamaican Music has always reflected these and other dichotomies in the society ... if the listener is discerning (granted this can be difficult as it's the hype shit that gets the videolight) then revelation awaits ...

.... I'm a lifetime beneficiary of Jamaican Sound ... readers of Ackeelover Chronicles will come to know this ... there has always been music from the island and it's wider sphere of influence that "sweet me" ... at this point in my life there is enough variety to cater to all my instincts, including those times when I want to feel the high-drama excitement of the dancehall that causes so much hand-wringing and consternation, think Dutty Fridaze in Fletcher's Land Square ... for listening pleasure it's different vibes, all sorts of oldies, "pop-reggae" ... Virgin Islands reggae, Various Artist Samplers ... any Marley, Toots, Tarrus, Tanya, Prezident Brown, the list is virtually endless ... most performers have some superior material in their prolific catalogues ... Sizzla, for example, can sizzle and fizzle ... finding the hotta track is part of the addiction ...

... then, every so often there emerges an artiste who hits stride and produces work that is consistently a-cut-above ...

... several years ago I caught a Tony Rebel show at the venerable Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, Canada ... a great concert venue ... one favoured by reggae acts when they make it up the West Coast ... the Flames Label undercard featured a young Rebel protege who rocked the spring-loaded wooden dancefloor with a ska medley of her father's hits ... this year she released a CD of admirable quality ...

... the music speaks for istelf, diverse material showcasing strong vocal delivery both as a DJ chanter and a singer ... Queen Ifrica is one of the brightest lights on the scene and an obvious antidote to the prominent mediocrity and negativity... in the greater scheme of things it is important that positivity is uplifted in ways that will encourage emulation ... gratuitous Gully/Gaza/Daggering lyrics are primarily hype, by nature temporary, and it feeds critics a steady stream of ammunition ...

... solidly rooted in Rastafari this Queen is a winning personality with interests outside the world of music ... the "Fyah Muma," daughter of ska luminary Derrick Morgan, is also a film buff as she told me in the Carib Theatre foyer last year when she came to see A Winter Tale during the general release ...

... the discussions will continue, talking points will invariably start with the sensational ... but after the brouhaha passes on to the next flashpoint we will still have the core of the music to provide continuity and anchor the soul ... Queen Ifrica is part of this core and it is heartening to see that she gives a good interview ... http://www.reggaenews.co.uk/interviews/queen_ifrica.asp  ... she is conscious of thought and accurately represents herself in song as a Lioness On The Rise ...

... "UNBURNABLE" ... a reader appreciation ...

... in two weeks it was over, I had read the whole novel ... not just the words, I followed the flow and felt the flesh between the fantasy, experiencing the author's efforts ... it had all been laid out before me, vivid characters with ancestral contexts that raised them above the realm of the merely well drawn ... the multi-generational subject matter is rooted as firmly in the layers of the past as it is in the 21st century here-and-now ...

... the book, set in Dominica and Washington D.C., is a first effort from Antigua's Marie-Elena John ... titled "Unburnable" it has been in print three or four years now ... recommendations came from more than one person ...

... written reviews I've seen are overwhelmingly positive ... were I to write one it would heavily skew towards the favourable too ... some testimonial anecdotes have referred to the plethora of characters and intersecting timelines as requiring back-referencing during the read ... this was not my experience ... I, famous for sometimes starting but not finishing a book, was compelled by the artful storytelling and entertained from beginning to very end, even when, at times, I was able to anticipate a plot turn ...

... now, books are great ... reading is good ... many of us actually combine the two on occasion and actually ... read books ... I was a keen reader as a boy ... historical chronology has me reading at three years old (!!), and indeed, one of the earliest memories I have is being taken to join the public library on Tom Redcam Drive in Kingston ... (Thomas MacDermot was a Jamaican writer from the turn of the previous century who encouraged local readers with local fare ... he published under the mischievously inverted surname pseudonym Tom Redcam) ...

... at a certain point in my life, probably when other things started to make demands on my time ... sports, girls, academic nonchalance ... it became acceptable to my set of personal standards to read fewer books .... I favoured newspapers and the picture-heavy, sexier kid-sister of the book known as the magazine ... the competition for my reduced time-allotted-for-reading now has to take the blogosphere into account as well ...

... my reading habits weren't pre-figured ... I was one of those students who enjoyed English Lit., Shakespeare, Chaucer, the entire axis of de rigeur Anglo-American literati ... Hemmingway, Hardy, Steinbeck ... who can forget To Kill A Mockingbird or The Crucible ... characters like Holden Caulfield ... and Dickens, it's a long list ... in my time we were also taught broad historical and geopolitical identifiers of our diversity but academic acceptance for homegrown authors and artists, barring a select few, was still in the process of being won ...

... true too is the admission that adolescent education of the libidinous sort found in Lady Chatterley's Lover, dog-eared, passed-around copies of Fanny Hill, or passages in parentally ratified blockbusters-of-the-day like Portnoy's Complaint, Valley Of The Dolls or Fear Of Flying, lured me away from Tolstoy and Tolkien ... in my imagination gulag and hobbit could never compete with gonad and hormone ....

... thankfully today there's a vibrant literary scene encompassing the whole "carry-beyond" and it's scattered bloodlines ... poets, novelists, playwrights, biographers and bloggers abound ... the beauty of a work like "Unburnable" is the seamless representation of so many factors in this reader's socialization ... Caribbean cultural themes replete with indigenous, African, European exposition, contemporized by concurrent doses of Diaspora featuring media-savvy lifestyles and BB texting ...

... we of the islands are known to be a matriarch driven social engine, and appropriately, the female characters in this book reflect a variety of strengths and authorities ... all have innate understanding of yoni power and how it can make the world ... and the men within it ... turn ... or burn ...

... a homecoming ...

... I realised I was smiling ... one of those involuntary responses that you're initially unaware of until you break the plane of reality, step outside of yourself and "see" the face you were given revealing a thought of private pleasure ...

... it happened the other day when I saw someone else's creative raggedness on the random chain-link fence ...









... and here again quite unexpectedly, this time walking down the concourse toward my flight ... slipping by milling bi-peds, blissfully content with the image of us making love in the purposeful way re-uniting lovers do ...

... the homecoming, a stress-relieving shagfest of the type that makes you wonder how you lasted this long ...

... yes good people ... good people now channelling this lovemaking in your own heads ... I see slippery nipples and pooling wetness ... I saw tasting tongues and passionate fingers ...

... I see-saw between what you see and I saw ...

... see-saws are timing and thrust ... up and down, give and take ... they require a squat and a straddle ... and the best ones have handles to grip ...

... I saw you see ...

... I see you saw, now you smile too ...

... soon, we'll pivot on the fulcrum ... friction greased at the point where parts fit ... no resistance ... joining with the bond ... and bonding at the joint ...

... I missed you ....

... "taliban" travelogue trilogy ... 3rd gear ... Black River ...

I believe it was Paul who first told me new slang for these automobiles ...

hardy versatile car-truck, best form-function combo found on four wheels ...

as seen on newsreels from Afghanistan ... built tough to suit the nether regions of anywhere ...

rebel-associated pick-ups now known as ... "taliban" ... linguistic inventiveness rules life here ....

I had been north to Toronto, a vital visit with my grown-up daughter and son ...

barely three weeks after a Jamaican excursion ... here I was having another one ...

this time I planned to relive long-time memories ... nostalgia, to tell the absolute truth ...

via the same road trip to Black River ... we so often did back then in our youth ...

Dad was once doctor-of-record, in old Spanish Town ... poverty and strife still entrenched there ...

I always think on him hard, passing that hospital front-gate ... the old cathedral and historic town square ...

prior commitment detoured us to Ewarton ... Pleasant Farm actually, way off our track ...

but effectively, it doubled my experience ... driving all the way 'round there and back ...

the talk was of past times and present reality, farming cassava, Paul's beloved livestock ... and whatnot ...

in the Rio Cobre gorge we paused to admire mother nature's salacious split ... the "pum pum" rock spot ...

on the French-built, multi-lane, wide Mandela Highway ... we paid our compulsory cash toll ...

here speed demons hype-flex flash rides ... Beenie wrote off his hummer and Bolt's bimma did a pupalick roll ...

Gutters, Tombstone, Goshen, Lacovia ... many a familiar place-name ...

in the St. Bess red dirt some things do change ... but most seemed to stay exactly the same ...

over two days and nights I'd do everything, get to know the next generation ...

visiting the Black River Upper Morass was bonus ... up past derelict "Sixteen Pump" location ...

a species-rich ecosystem I'd heard tales of ... felt like Jamaica's version of Africa's Nile ...

never more so than when we saw, off to one side ... the fabled, yet elusive Black River crocodile ...

Paul and I grew up fishing, this time in a "taliban" on the dykes, today my eight-inch catfish won our lifetime contest ...

rod and line couldn't match the guys with no fear of reptiles ... beating water into all-day nets earlyset to corner their quest ...

inspiration screamed at me in a meditative morning stretch ... we ate ackee and headed back to town ...

three road-trips this year felt spiritually connected ... this travelogue trilogy had to be written down ...

... "taliban" travelogue trilogy ... 2nd gear ... Cinchona ...

     it wasn't something I expected, summer in Kingston and a chance to do this again ...

     almost certainly wouldn't have happened if there was even the least chance of rain ...

     nearly went once as a youth but missed out on going to these gardens way up in the heights ...

    such is the trek to Cinchona, few attempt it ... most never lay eyes on those sights ...

     I had been to Strawberry Hill but this place was even higher than that ...

     five thousand feet up, a different Jamaica ... from the one you see on the flat ...

    so when Willy called and said his crew were on the go ...

    "can you be ready early o'clock?," there was never a chance I'd say no ...

     seven of us met up at Hope Gardens ... Doc had his 4x4 pick-up to join the convoy ...

    the terrain requires that type of car, so he drives, the rest of us have faith and enjoy ...

    true to form it took a while to get ready and of course we took off late ...

    wedged into the truckbed we were predictably one of the last out of the gate ...

    but that didn't matter 'cause y'dun know seh ... in Jah guidance we trust ...

    only thing, it was seriously dry and we all got covered in dust ...

    the scenery was breathtaking, watching roadside vegetation change ...

    the higher and further we made our way up, into the Blue Mountain range ...

    occasionally a driver would need to manoeuvre a turn, or accomodate nature's call ...

    this slowed everyone down, one or two wouldn't make it at all ...

     it was hotter than expected up there ... creatively I sacrificed my shirt ...

    it became mask and headgear ... inhaling through fabric would filter the dirt ...

  recent hurricanes felled trees en-route, and up at the top ...

    who'd been there before noticed changes when we finally came to a stop ...

    Fyahball, the caretaker, lent his facilities to prepare what we took ...

    most brought food ... we had sprat, veggie-rice and breadfruit to cook ...

     on top of the world, I couldn't help thinking,"man, this is it! - what a life!"...

    playing intense keep-up football we forgot all stress and strife ...

    even up here the world is wired for sound ... a DJ with generator was a huge bonus ...

    this is musical Jamaica after all, where riddim soundtrack is compulsory, must ...

     a wide botanical variety of trees, bushes and flowers ... not to mention the panoramic view ...

    makes it impossible for me, or any writer I've read, to give this place its rightful due ...

     it's a hard site to get to ... perhaps that's just as well, meet and right ...

    conventional wisdom tells us there's nothing good that comes without a fight ...

... "taliban" travelogue trilogy ... 1st gear ... Dominica ...

    I went for a ride in an all terrain pick-up, on an island I'd never been to before ...

    the mountains were steepled and shaggy, rivers and streams rushed to the shores ...

    this place is called Dominica ... not the republic where Spanish is spoke ...

    but the land where Johnny Depp made his film, the one about that pirate bloke ...

    Bully for Anita the Film-Commish, getting us shown at the borrowed French Hall ...

    there's no cinema here you know ... but, we'd have settled for a large blank white wall ...

  
 adults and schoolers loved our film and swore they'd invite us back ...

    encouraging me, while I was there, to sightsee off the beaten track ...

    my friend Lowell stepped up, with his knowledge of the lie-of-the-land ...

    he brought some friends and we set off, this intrepid impromptu band ...

    the girls rode up front with the driver, Ras Petros and I in the open-backed berth ...

    slalom style, windswept, carefree, brave sons of the earth ...

  
  this west-to-east cross-island drive, through misty low cloud and dew rain ... 

    tight-gripped and stagger-standing ... you'd have thought us insane ...

     well we were, in a way, as we ate up the fly-by view ...

    of the verdant landscape we found ourselves adventurously barrelling through ...

    
passing gardens, citrus orchards and many abundant plantations ...

    precipitous plunges, cascading streams and steep, steep inclinations ...

    emerging to the Atlantic, by delightfully named Rosalie ...

    on a bridge where another run-off riverbed meets the wide open sea ...

   on to La Plaine, our destination, the ancestral home of our guide ...

   what we visited around that district ... was more than worth the risky ride ...

    I walked in a Garden Of Eden, strolled on volcanic black sand ...

     and rode a green grotto rope swing, on Lowell's own plot of land ...

 

    it was a while before we got tired, sundown and chill signalling end of day ...
    we climbed aboard the trusty truck, once again on our way ...

    the return run to Roseau took us south before turning back west ...
    if we thought the first leg twisty, the second was a more tortuous test ...

  by the time night enveloped there was much less to see ...

    still, we made it back, thankfully intact, primed and ready for a cold Kubuli or three ...

... brown babies and beasts of burden ...

... whenever I'm flipping through channels and I happen upon the face of Wanda Sykes I'm compelled to stop ... to watch and listen ... such is the effect of her elfin visage on me ... it's the same sort of compulsion when I see the goofy mischief in Tracy Morgan's face ... I expect the laughter to come instinctively and I'd put money on it being slightly uncomfortable at times too ...















... I happened upon Wanda's stand-up this week, her topical material these days is heavy on Obama ... understandably ... and still includes the shtick she used at the White House Correspondents dinner event she was invited to regale ... clearly, like many, she's proud of America for electing a black Prez ... adding, "that's unless he fucks up, then it's like, who voted for the half-white guy? .... who voted for the mulatto?" ...

... hold up ... reeeewind .... mulatto?! ...

... now, as we all know ... context is everything in controversial matters, especially in comedy, and despite my knee-jerk cringe I don't have a problemo with the use of a word in service of an act of contemporary performance ... for me this includes the notorious "n" word ... "nigger/nigga"... after all, they are just words ... words which can be rendered odious by rank overuse, ignorant abuse or malicious intent ... no ... the spark that has set off my powderkeg is to be found in the aftermath ... the whole idea of mixed-race sub-labelling ...

... even taking into consideration cultural variances ... I'm told the antecedents of the term carry no negative holdover in Spanish and Portuguese speaking cultures and mulatto/mulatta is seen as an affirmation of aesthetic positives ... well, just how do you separate a cafe-au-lait range of skintones and ringlets from the commercial trading of Africans? ... and what were the purposes for the arithmetic of African-ness on a scale of mulatto(half-African) to hexadecaroon(one-sixteenth African)? ... to quote Wikipedia ... "Defining an individual mathematically is inherently reductive, and these terms derived from the slave trade which treated these people as chattel." ... yet still, some people refer to themselves as mulatto ... I've heard defense of the fifteenth-century coinage with simple justification ...

..."it's in the dictionary"...

... it's safe to say Wiki is the new Webster's ... I hope to trigger a spike in hits on the definition of mulatto ... there you find a wider treatment than a dictionary would offer ... you're given enough insight to decide whether the term is a descriptive or a loaded label ... meanwhile children are born, and those who would comment can scamper to clarify the appropriateness of their terminology ... if I'm a mulatto for instance, are my children also? ... there are undoubtably even narrower slots into which Wanda's own recently arrived twins could be put ...

... interestingly, as I write this there's a case in Louisiana, U.S.A. of a marriage license being denied to an interracial couple ... the backlash of outrage, though quick, loud and widespread only goes so far to counter the intuition that such attitudes are symptomatic of deeply ingrained social biases based on historically engineered hierarchies ...

... confronting these aspects of our multi-cultural realities can feel Quixotic at times and most would rather not bother or have to in these modern times ... me included ... but alas ... a luta continua ...

... my approach has settled into a mature place ... just the facts ma'am ... the term mulatto derives from the Spanish/Portuguese word for mule ... we know that a mule is only produced from a horse and a donkey ... so ... as cute as these noble-yet-lowly beasts-of-burden can be when they are babies, they are a result of inter-species mating and are therefore generally sterile ... I don't know about you but none of the mulattoes I know fit this description ...

... dreams of Beowulf, baubles and bullion ....

... I know by now you've all heard about the metal detector hobbyist who discovered fifteen hundred pieces of ornate "dark ages" gold and silver in a grassy field in Staffordshire, UK ...

... yeh yeh!, there's palpable excitement in the world of Anglo-Saxon archaeology right now, so, count me present! ... because ...













... some thirty-plus years ago I signed up to study Geography at Nottingham University and blithely opted to read Archaeology too ... towards a joint degree ... in effect fusing two interests which remain with me today but have little direct relevance to my eventual career in film and television ... I may never understand why I didn't go for a drama course ... it wasn't touted as much of an option back then but that's no excuse 'cos it's not like Geog/Arch was ... uknowwaddamsayin'? ...

... from mi eye deh a mi knee I've known there must be valuable items from times gone by to be found in hidden locations ... this, and the grounding corroboration of digging up the past, is a continuing interest which draws me to that knowledge ... it was a long dusty bush walk to the Arawak Museum near Central Village but for an adventurous country boy with a lifetime subscription to National Geographic and a keen interest in "the bigger picture" it made a perfect pilgrimage ... situated on the site of an Arawak/Taino settlement on a commercial white marl deposit the under-appreciated destination held great fascination for me ... the archaeologists on-site encouraged my visits ... I watched them scratch and sieve the soil for significance ... layer by layer the middens gave up the bones, pottery and tools that told broad stories of the people who once lived there ...

... additionally, from an upstairs balcony at the house where I grew up ... in St. Jago Heights near Spanish Town, Jamaica ... I could see the Kingston deepwater harbor in the eastern distance and the low glow of Port Royal, pirate capital of the world at one point, luminating a corner of the night horizon in the right conditions ... family visits to the restored Rodney Arms at Port Henderson provided an easy setting in which to conjure mental images of doubloons and pieces-of-eight ...












... more recently, visits to Nelson's Dockyard in English Harbor, Antigua, the only restored Georgian site of its kind in the world, keeps my nerd-brain asking where I would have hidden the stash if I was dying of scurvy ...

... like so many dreamers and romantics I had early fantasies about finding lost or hidden treasures ... in the Caribbean there's much fantasy fodder with all the rum-soaked lore on the subject, sunstroked sailors concealing scribbled parchments where "X" marks the spot ... rubies, diamonds, strings of pearls and ingots of gold, not to mention the many beaches and caves where all the jewel-stuffed chests are supposed to be buried ...

... during some time spent in Grand Cayman decades ago I befriended Karen, daughter of well-known Florida salvager Art McKee ... retrieving relics and riches can be a family business and she could tell a story or two about real treasures ... and, with the history of trade, exploration, privateering, warfare and weather in the region, her's wasn't the only family in that biz ...

... Terry Herbert, our newly-rich hero in England who poked around for eighteen years before locating this massively important hoard, and professional salvagers bring this fantasy to life with every find ... my own personal-best discovery came when I uncovered the skull of a prehistoric deer with a sawn-off antler on a field-trip excavation near Cheltenham in Gloucester ... I was elated ... these things are relative you see ...














... the less-than-reverential looking Nottingham University trio pictured here circa 1977 in the ruins of Roman-era latrines on dreary Hadrian's Wall, apparently conducting some sort of disrespectful student ritual, might have been seen digging in the mud if there were a few bits of gilded gold scattered around ... mostly though, finding ancient pricelessness remains the stuff of dreams, good fortune and perseverance ...

... my gratitude to the custodians at - http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/ for proliferating the images of the freshly recovered, still-caked-in-dirt Anglo-Saxon artifacts on the worldwide web ... wouldn't Beowulf of antiquity be bewildered by the ubiquity of the internet ...

... Miss Ivy first son ... and grandson ...

... I carried the photo around with me the whole time we were filming Catwoman in Vancouver ... convinced I would get a chance to show it to Halle Berry who was in town taking her turn as the feline fury... she had not yet wedded her settlin' down man, which added a touch of spice to the possibility ...

... in the black and white posed shot was a boy, of around five, and his doe eyed mother ... looking at the image it strikes me that both of them have so much life ahead of them ... such is the benefit of hindsight ... the Jamaica this woman had returned to serve after post-graduate study abroad was embracing independence and had turned a page in the annals of its history as a jewel of the colonial British Empire ... for that boy it was the early stages of a journey through changing times ... a journey that now features his blogging in this space, almost half a century later, in honor of the woman who raised him ...

















... her face looks for all it's worth like Dorothy Dandridge, the American actress whose own browning black beauty represented a standard of the day ... inevitably portrayed by Halle ... our Miss Ivy was often mistaken for the screen idol around the Columbia University campus in 50's New York ... these were Pete Seeger times, Stokely Carmichael, Belafonte, Lena Horne and optimism ...

... back home, mento was giving way to ska, Oxford english was yielding to more dynamic patois and urban areas developed new ways to project their kinetic energies ... Kingston needed teachers, and with both parents in that profession it was unsurprising that this mother-of-two also taught ... a teacher of teachers at Mico College (est.1835), the oldest teacher-training institution in the Western Hemisphere ...

... Ivy-league you might say ...

... church and hospital committees, volunteer endeavours, raising two boys in a rapidly growing society .... wife, mother, daughter, sister, nation-builder ... complete the picture of selfless service to God, kin and country ...

... there are indelible memories of the heady Michael Manley era which transformed the minds of the nation before and after the landmark 1972 election ... the political maelstrom was at once exciting and promising as it was foreboding and fractious, resulting in new realities of greater self-awareness, devalued currency and passionate pride in the ever-expanding global footprint some now call Brand Jamaica ... warts and all ... the memories of the same period for Miss Ivy carry adjectives more suited to her perspective which by this point had become more focussed on futures for her sons than collective infrastructures ...














... by the time the seventies had blown by the photos were boasting color, bigger hair and our maturing-yet-ageless protagonists were on the move ... part of the destiny of a small place is to look beyond its borders and spread out ... this is not a phenomenon that can be linked solely to political weather or a single generation ... the common binding factor has to be a search for betterment, an umbrella phrase that encompasses all reasons for emigration ... and like her mother before her, another Miss Ivy, the Dominion of Canada, warts and all, was chosen as a new frontier with new opportunities ...












... how you approach challenges is part of the legacy you leave ... Ivy senior was as unflappable as the Dalai Lama and just as jovial ... while Ivy junior proved to be resilient, resourceful and intrepid enough to start anew as an overqualified clerical temp en-route to an almost year-long Swiss-appointed mental health consultancy in Namibia at the behest of the United Nations ...

... the countdown to the millenium was speeding up and no-one knew definitively what the year 2000 would look like ... Ivy senior went to meet her maker before the big party and the rest of us will forever be trying to match her spirit and sense of humor ... she herself, as a music fan and popular-culture afficionado, would have gotten a huge kick out of pre-eminent dancehall personality Rodney Price a.k.a. Bounty Killer, Warlord or ... Miss Ivy Last Son ... and his mother, you guessed it ... Miss Ivy ...

... for my mother the millennium brought a well earned retirement within which all her talents from classroom and workplace still work in tandem with her spiritual strength in service of community and her sons and their children ...

... in retrospect, this is the chat that would probably have spewed forth if I met Halle and she had seemed remotely interested ... the description of the matriarchy that nurtured me ... the tale of the Dandridge look-alike and her mother ... the men with whom they made homes ... the life stories that informed rock-solid faith, strength to raise families while aging gracefully and productively ... Halle might have called for security ...

... I can hear the mama-mantra ... "the Lord works in mysterious ways my son" ... perhaps it's a good thing I never met Halle Berry then, falling as I do, somewhere on the spectrum between her two ex-husbands in appearance ... our characters never crossed paths in the movie, I didn't even go to the wrap party when filming was over ... but if I meet her now, preferably on another project, I'd still show her the old photo and for added inspiration, update it with an image of a real superhero who continues to live the full life ...