... "just read it"... she said ...

... "I'm not sure how this one passed you by" ... ... I think those were the words used when she lent me the book ... adding a touch of sheepish culpability to my receipt of her kindness ... "but," she ventured to add with a sage tone in her voice, "it doesn't really matter much when you read it ... just read it" ...

... of course I devoured it right away and have been keener to life's de facto ironies ever since ...

... Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho's 1988 mystic novella The Alchemist will do that to you if you've ever dreamed or dreamed of dreaming ...

... either you have or you want to ... and many of us can find some liberation in our dreams ...

... additionally, embedded in this tale-of-journey is profound reflection on the road travelled ... the factors that can affect decision making, direction of conscious energies toward what the heart desires and the satisfaction of soul ...

... if we accept that matter can neither be created nor destroyed then we flirt with the concept of alchemy, or change, in nature ... when we further expand to see alchemy at play in changes of circumstance ... even geographical scenery ... we realise alchemy in reality is not about medieval potions and the turning-of-lead-into-gold conjuring of hooded magii, but simply about ...

... understanding ...

..." just read it," she said, which I repeat and endorse ... and, I suggest you'll want to do so before the long-anticipated release of the movie version by Laurence Fishburne ... now expected next year ...

... age quod agis ...

... well, check it out ... time marches on and some things are secrets no more ... other things have evolved from suspicion to belief and even though health-care reform has come to America, first-time occurrences are fewer and farther between ... it's just the way of the world ... yet, game-changing moments still happen, like the election of Barack Obama into the U.S. old boy's club for instance, or this summer's World Cup on African soil for the first time which will stamp its mark on the game of football ...

... so too the Usain Bolt athletic breakthroughs of the last few years ... about which we will marvel for a long time ... Bolt has put Jamaica's love for track-and-field into the brightest spotlight yet ... Trelawny yellow yam, dumplings and country-cooking notwithstanding, most of us know that school-age competition in Jamaica is the most crucial element in the formula for success ... and not doping ... a regrettable component of the sport but less so in Jamaica where professional running retains the ingrained youthful passion of high-school euphoria ...

... in each of the last one hundred years a high-school track and field summit has convened in Kingston ... it's known simply as "Champs", where hype and bluster can rival a hot stage-show or political rally ... the inaugural event was held in 1910 and Wolmer's Boys' School became the first victors ...

... last week Saturday saw the conclusion of Champs 100, the grand centennial! ... a round number for a more-coveted-than-usual slot in the history books ... with heroics aplenty, Wolmer's snapped a fifty-four year winless streak to establish current bragging rights ...

... "age quod agis" reads the inevitable latin school motto emblazoned on the official crest ... it translates to motivate students as "whatever you do, do it well" ...

... props to Bretski for the cris' commemorative artwork ...

... proudly represented by the colours maroon and gold, Wolmer's is a venerable institution ... the oldest high-school in the Caribbean, in fact ... it has served up a roll call of stellar past-students from former Governor General Sir Florizel Glasspole and former Prime Minister Edward Seaga to sporting greats (Jeff Dujon, Ricardo "Bibi" Gardner) and entertainment stars (Belafonte, Sean Paul) ...

... for this history-rich school the latest triumph ranks alongside the 1971 triple-winning footballers who swept all before them ... immortalising themselves in time ... and in the imaginations of all such as I who bore witness ...














... Wolmer's cannot claim Bolt as an alumnus ... but Julian Forte and Dwayne Extol made names for themselves last week in the cauldron of competition ... the Jamaican sprint factory is in full production, the secret is out, Jamaicans run faaas' ...















... wins such as these are inspirational to young minds and mi glad bag bus' to the pulse of Wolmerian pride, home an' abroad ... like me, most readers here weren't born when Wolmer's last won Champs in 1956 ... and during the years I attended, '69-'75 if you must know, the victories didn't come in bunches ...














... both my parents went to Wolmer's, my mother having been schooled on the female side of the actual fence ... my father, the late Dr. John L. Williams, served in the early seventies as President of the Wolmer's Old Boy's Association ... as a student he was said to have been a wily footballer halted only by knee injury and he led a strong Wolmer's Cricket side as skipper ... my thoughts went to him as I know he would have felt his chest fill up and his head swell like the rest of us ...












... it is fairly safe to say the good doctor would not have phrased it quite this way but I can't resist ... ... Wolmaz mi seh!!

... seashells and the sick cyber-stalker ...

... seems sometimes ... only a hit of pure, unabashed nature can counteract malady and illness ... if any of you in blogland have been with me from the beginning of Ackeelover Chronicles or have poked through the archives, you'll have seen evidence of a seashell aesthetic ... every so often I'll throw some at you ...

... I do this in part to share beauty with readers, and in part to help inure us all to some of the ugliness out there ... to throw wonder at some insanity ... and there's plenty evidence of that too, everywhere you look ... even where you're not looking ...













... pretty much the first thing to notice here are the holes in each of these shells from my favourite beach-of-the-moment ... wonderful creations, previously home to many a happy clam ... but now they have holes in them, protective cuppings with bored breaches ... apertures which can freely admit grit, and irritants ...














... any breach of this "homeshell security" threatens the wellbeing of a self-respecting bivalve ... and I, ostensibly a higher life form, know exactly how that feels, for I too have an irritant that has breached my homeshell ...

... said irritant, in the form of a very disturbed individual wielding a computer like a weapon, is easily identifiable when you come across the madness online ... evidently, such people are as commonly occuring in nature as these shell holes ... when I mentioned the offending cyber-stalker recently to a friend, the response was an unimpressed, "welcome to the club mi bredda" ...












... these blanched sea-urchin shells have holes in them that are meant to be there ... when alive they are protected by long, sharp and painful spikes to keep away attackers ... the internet has no such protection or assurance ... so, until such time as a suitable cyber-pesticide is developed, or an exterminator is found, I am treating the breach with the beauty of the beach ... and whatever additional tools I can get my hands on ...

... mano a mano ...

... when my friend Georges moved away a few months ago I was the beneficiary of a bunch of stuff he left behind ... mostly useful ... but, though I appreciated them ... this is the computer age and I had no idea what I was going to do with the 1970/71 vintage LIFE magazines he gave me ... until just now ...














.... the eureka moment came in the form of query ... my daughter, knowing me to have abiding reverence for Muhammed Ali the man, the athlete and the icon, asked me for thoughts on the third epic Ali-Frazier fight having just watched a documentary on it ... in which the overshadowed Frazier perspective of this massive event is finally presented ...

... remembered as it was billed in 1975, "The Thrilla In Manila" retains sociologically significant sporting import thirty-five years on ... pitting as it did the poster-boy of black pride against another proud-to-be-black champ of the boxing ring ... mano a mano ... on an all-too-eager internationally syndicated stage ...















... over fourteen rounds they put on a full throttle thrilla and, to put it simply, beat the brains out of each other for considerable compensation ... but it was more than a prize-fighter match-up ... for each man there was nobility in their cause and backstory to their behaviours ... huge hype at the time but more clarified today with the added perspective of time ...

... the fight itself is what it was ... a grueling encore of encores adjudged to have tipped in Ali's favour before being stopped by Smokin' Joe's corner ... but it should come as no surprise that both men emerged with their share of the critical spoils ... and rightly so ... some of the weapons-of-mass-rhetoric prior to battle had racial overtones which served to amplify the tensions leading up to the event and surely added intensity to the performances on the day ... that Ali was naturally the more loquacious casts him as the main offender ... he gave everything in the ring and said everything outside of it, even if it was offensive ...

... this was war, all guns a-blazin'! ...















... Central Casting couldn't have done a better job ... the controversially brash brown-skinned Adonis who was effortlessly charismatic in the spotlight versus the rock solid black-powerhouse who did his talking with his fists ...














... seasoned performers both, neither were young phenoms nor past-it has-beens ... Ali in particular carried political weight in his insistence on being his own man in an age where that was an incongruity for one of his background ... by refusing to go to war he fought the law and the law didn't win ... he transcended his sport and while doing so developed his shtick ... a contradictory amalgam of supreme confidence and behaviour black men often manifest in order to project themselves to the widest audience ... ... y'ever notice how that inevitably seems to involve or feature comic mugging on some level? ...

... it is sometimes said that nothing in life is truly black or white, there are only shades of grey ... I'll add to that ... history isn't merely a timeline but also a prism ... while there is something troubling in the image of two proud, talented black men beating each other down, punching their way to a better life, you can't blame either fighter for their approach ...














... the depiction of Muhammed Ali, flaws and all, in the 2009 HBO documentary is not incorrect ... nor is it disrespectful ... it only serves to texturize the picture of this larger than life figure who captured human imaginations worldwide ... for some balance the film ought to be watched alongside the 1996 documentary ... "When We Were Kings" ... about the 1974 Ali-Foreman "Rumble In The Jungle" ... in Zaire, central Africa ... killer soundtrack on this one too ....

... Joe Frazier was as tenacious a pugilist as there's ever been ... and Muhammed Ali wasn't the only boxer with poise and style ... but, in its historical context, with all that resulted from his empowered achievements, from the Olympics and Sonny Liston through Joe Frazier and living with Parkinson's, the magnitude of this man's legacy is documented ... and safe for all time ....

... run, jump, fly ...

... lately I've been thinking about the power of primal scream therapy ... not necessarily to vent any repressed childhood trauma, but as a lusty stress release ... full throated yelling ... preferably into a stiff wind, well out of earshot of anyone who might be tempted to come to the rescue or dial 911 ... an emotional bloodletting, without any rorschach splatter ....









... one of the best ways to exorcise is to exercise ... so, fanned by the freedom of Brandon's Beach, Barbados, in a morning ritual before daily duty, I claimed for myself a gift of fantasy which cost no money, but proved priceless ... outsprinting Bolt and Asafa I shattered world records right there in the sand ... before rising above the Brazilian defense to head home a winner in the World Cup Final ... listen to the roar of that crowd! ...













... as I understand it stress is a killer ... and psychological disquiet can inhibit the most confident voice or the surest gait, especially affecting those of us who are prone to not making the most of what we are equipped with ... the effort of exertion and the purposeful use of lung is tantamout to meditation ... bringing a centered balance ... ballast in the keel ...




... in no time I am airborne ... not quite leaping tall buildings in a single bound but at least driving to the basket like Kobe, in a sport I don't even play ... momentary sanity hands off my Canon EOS Rebel to KP ... snap-snap-proof-print! ... I believe I can fly! ...

... note to self ... practice this more often ...

... karaoke and the cricket ...

... this is no secret or revelation ... most of us wish we could belt out a tune ... and, as we all know, there's an app for that! ... it's called karaoke, a word I don't recall hearing before it took the world by storm some decades ago ... everyone wants to be a SingStar ... take it from me, most actors would love to be singers ... in the same way that so many singers want to act ...


... often seen in a corny mood light, gifted pipes can turn karaoke into a fine art ...

... to others fantasy and fun is all that matters ...

... skip a few connecting thoughts with me as I leap from karaoke to the more crucial consideration of the sport known throughout the remains of the British Empire as ... cricket ...

... now, having alienated most of my readership with the very mention of these two scintillating topics ... in one devil-may-care post no less ... I continue in the knowledge that if you're still with me you've probably been to Barbados, know a few Bajans, or are from this reef-ringed, easternmost island of the Caribbean ... a place where karaoke enthusiasts abound and a constellation of cricketing superstars had their beginnings ...

... the Best Of Caribbean Tales Film Festival which opened with a screening of A Winter Tale attracted a vanguard of attendees to Barbados last week, surviving technical challenges to augur well for the future of filmmaking in the region ... those of us visiting couldn't miss the indelible nation-building stamp of larger-than-life players from the consecutive golden eras in West Indies Cricket history ...

... the triple-headed memorial to "The Three W's" (Frank Mortimer Maglinne Worrell, Clyde Leopold Walcott and Everton DeCourcy Weekes) at the UWI Cave Hill campus is a testament to favourite sons with great career stats, knighthood and a last initial in common ... when you add uber-cricketer Sir Garfield St. Aubyn Sobers, whose statue graces Bridgetown's showpiece Kensington Oval, and a host of other native greats you get the picture ... modestly put, this ground has been walked by some of the finest ...













... fast-forward to the present day and we find endemic underperformance within contemporary Caribbean cricket ... while listening to a shamefaced radio post-mortem of a Windies capitulation to unregarded Zimbabwe in a recent 20/20 match I was reminded of a standard Cowellian reproach to many an auditioner on American Idol ... "that sounded like karaoke," he's been known to say, when faced with soulless mimicry where authentic virtuosity is required ...

... in Barbados the pervasive pride in sporting achievement exists in tandem with respect for recreation ... typically, after a day of beach and required activities, we head out in search of food ... the colourful gazebo at the food village in Oistins is a popular spot which invariably has a karaoke set-up, complete with mellifluous DJ, interactive entertainment, good natured and light ... nary a boo nor bottle thrown ...














... a Wednesday night at Hal's Bar along the cosmopolitan St. Lawrence Gap strip provides unexpected entertainment ... there's Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, a superb Otis Redding, two Teddy Pendergrasses (Pendergrassi?) ... Marty Robbins, Waylon Jennings, all The Platters rolled into one man, some requisite rap-aoke ... and an unforgettable Tom Jones ...













... Bajans are also genuinely proud of their pop princess Rihanna ... right now she has many imitators-at-the-mic and may yet get a highway or round-about in her name ... might we even see her face on the money like the cricket gods? ...











... that's Sir Frank (who broke the colour barrier in 1958 to captain the West Indies team) on the fiver, partial and defaced to thwart counterfeiters ... but, the cricket world prays for current players to copy the example of excellence and translate it into something viable, in the tradition of the more interesting karaoke acts, who may lack in originality but can approximate or bring something bright to a performance ...

... we cling to the faith that a phenom or two will eventually come along, both in the music field and on the cricket pitch ... still, I know I'd be happy if in the meantime some young batsman/bowler/all-rounder could do a credible impression of Gordon Greenidge or Vanburn Holder or Keith Boyce, in the same way someone always does a spirited approximation of Billy Paul's "Me And Mrs. Jones" wherever there's karaoke ...

... well, why not? ... sure these are tough acts to follow ... but, as a case in point, there will always be Michael Jackson impersonators riffing on the Thriller's genius ... more often than not they'll be as blurry in their tribute as I am with my drive-by photography ... yet still, we do love 'em for trying ...

... 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 ...