... get to work Tiger ...

... there've been ample opportunities to bla-bla-blog about the Woods-Nordegren affair recently ... I've resisted 'til now, while the pixels in the (what's wrong with this-)picture filled in ... a few are still missing but we've seen the pendulum shift from what happened ... to, what's going to happen ...

... life-lessons to recognize here are mixed in with a seductive kind of love potion number nine-iron ... (sorry) ... still, I'm betting that every one of us can remember a time in their lives when contrition was their lifeline to self-respect ... Tiger is at one such juncture ... significantly amplified by fame ...

... we listen to his public statement and judge it for emotional honesty, a quality which manifests variably among the general populace, and we come to our own conclusions ... my mind tells me he is learning some personal humility which will serve him well going forward ... aaand, why do we care?

... because we believe in a Redemption Song ... "none but ourselves can free our mind" ... barring extreme recalcitrance or rare fortune we are all ultimately humbled by higher power before we die ... sometimes immediately before ...















... emerging from the shitter is a potential beginning for the redemptive ride Tiger can take on his way towards pole-vaulting the bar Jack Nicklaus set ... you don't have to be a golf fan to get that ... in the process he can give us all a look at what it takes to overcome personal adversity in whatever guise ...

... to those who would queue all night for some-a-dat particular type of adversity ... 'memba, it ain't about the details ... adversity is a "who feels it knows it" ting ... and, self-inflicted wound or not, you are unlikely to get to choose when it confronts you ... but redemption can be earned ...

... the gods must be angry ...

... it's getting hot in the kitchen ... tectonics are active in the Caribbean as Haitians can confirm ... reservoirs and water supplies in several territories are struggling to keep up with demand while political ennui still cedes leadership to street leaders and popular figures ... for better and for worse ...

... but imagine you were part of a residual population of about five thousand, in a place where the habitable landmass has shrunken by over two-thirds ... spare a thought for the isle of Montserrat where the Soufriere Hills volcano, dormant for all of recorded history, has resurrected itself ... for all of recent memory ...

... these days I'm considering the psychological effects of being up close and personal with the molten core of the planet ... Montserrat is thirty miles from where I am ... of course this means I don't feel the heat directly but I had cause to think, "hmmm ... a wha dis?," when shifting wind patterns brought a blanket of ash, or tephra, for the week just concluded ...















... when you think about it, the emissions have to go somehere ... lava ground oozes out of, and around, Earth's boil ... finer spew casts further afield ... the latest event looked a lot like this helicopter reconnaisance shot sent to me in October ...

















... thirty miles away asthmatics are compromised ... clothes, cars and deckchairs accumulate grimey sediment, landscape dullens to bleak ... and, with every dusty inhale our environmental psychology adjusts its concern level ... visitors too, from non-volcanic parts of the world, who were fortunate enough not to get caught up in flight-scheduling hell due to weather or ... gasp ... pyroclastic vulcanicity, get to breathe in a thick island breeze that actually has texture ...













... this photo of a famous Shirley Heights sunset horizon, taken a few days ago by my friend Bernd from Germany, shows the paradox of superb Montserrat visibility and the particle stream which came to occlude so much ... heading towards Antigua ...

... I'm not sure we can blame global warming for volcanos and earthquakes but we can link it to climate change and erratic weather patterns ... I'm pretty sure rain doesn't douse magma but it sure could ease regional water shortages and restore verdant gleam ... if only I had knowledge of an ancestral rain dance ...

... thou art Bob ... 65 candles ...

... February 6, 2010 might have seen a smiling Bob Marley blowing out 65 candles on an ital birthday cake, no doubt surrounded by grand and great-grand children, at a Birthday Bash to mark the occasion ... ... c'est la vie ...

... every once-in-a-while I encounter an incredulous query as to why Bob is such a revered figure ... few things irk me more ... but to balance that, even fewer things are as easy to counteract with anecdote, scholarship and evidence ... the veracity of Marley's outsized global footprint is unassailable ... so this time, rather than reiterate descriptives of The Legend, I've chosen to make commentary on random artistic interpretations of Marley appeal ... all gleaned from internet searches ...

... even a cursory surf yields numerous examples of Marley Art inna every style an' fashion ... many incorporate de rigueur Rasta colours indicative of Jamaica and Africa ... increasingly there are efforts which use the full hundred (or "hun-dread" - Bob loved wordplay) in terms of the color spectrum ... check the above work in oil by an artist called Andree ... below, a stretched canvas print titled "Get Up, Stand Up" by Ingrid Black that not only invokes Africa but various other cultures too, opting for hues of brown ... pan-culturalism in full effect ...

... soft tones selected also for the bloodstained, stencil texturing of the pensive-young-hipster-Bob, displayed on the Flickr photostream of user roxycrisp, remind the viewer Marley was both magnetic and prolific before iconoclastic dreadlocks and international exposure came along ...

... the aura of mysticism grew around Marley as his spiritualism chrystallized ... so too his status as griot-philosopher, elemental in world outlook ...

... I sometimes speculate about which specific aspect of Bob's life triggers someone to create a piece ... obviously the artist identified as jtabije was inspired by the Redemption Song lyric ... was it a sense-reverence for words that called for black and white presentation?... thoughts of war and peace?... lions and doves?... islands and continents?... all day and all night?... there's even a Buffalo Soldier if you look closely at this one ...

... it's a fact that there's more to Marley than marijuana ... and there's more to marijuana than Marley ... still, Bob was assuredly complicit in the inspiration for an entire industry of ganja art ... one result of this is that the stiff-necked can only see that dimension ... not so the artistic invention of samihavia who fuses a jacketed, mature-business-Bob to media and the music industry with clever choice of image, color and material ... interperative ites, green an' gold ... yet proudly Rasta ...

... statues, busts, caricatures ... literal renderings and photoshops ... not to mention the merchandising artwork on everything from tissue paper and belly rings to fashion gear and whatsitnot ... there is a lot of future landfill out there bearing the unauthorised image of Bob ... this will always be, given the pervasive popularity of the subject ...

... but there's also a growing body of expression touched-off by memories of Bob Marley and The Wailers, personal and second-hand ... I have no idea if artist T. Noll saw Marley in flight or if photographs sufficed to inform his depiction in oil-on-canvas of the incendiary depth of a Marley performance ... at any rate that inspiration made the original canvas 8'x9' in dimension! ... also available in smaller, numbered, hand-signed reproductions ...

... high-mindedness in the art world can minimize works on popular icons and famous-faces ... and to be fair, there is plenty sycophantic naivete on offer ... however, some of this Marley art reaches the psyche, touching inside with sheer honesty-of-effort and love ... strong Bob attributes, speaking to the enduringly positive legacy of this influential life ...

... in a visionary creation by Jamaican/Canadian artist Barrington Robinson, dubbed "Independence Now And Forever", there's inherent rapture of free-spirit ... a man and his movement of Jah people ... to the world! ...

... as a full fledged Marley appreciator from ever-since ... there isn't a time when I don't hear something new in the message, feel the power of the clenched fist, or revel in the lessons of Bob's emphatic life ... his art continues to flourish and multiply, one way or another, with every passing birthday ...

** UPDATE ** ... now open ... The Berhane Selassie Art Gallery ... located at Tuff Gong International, 220 Marcus Garvey Drive, Kingston, Jamaica ... for more Marley art ...