... while all the world watched Europe ...

... "typical," I somewhat facetiously tweeted, "World watches Euros while global future hinges on Antigua vs. Jamaica" ...

... hashtag references to "CONCACAF" and "Euro2012" kept the tweet pertinent to the topic at hand, football, the beautiful game, mere soccer to a non-believer but nothing less than bloodless warfare to legions who take the sport seriously ...

... here, during the height of competition between European topdogs, was this unrelated match-up oceans away, a first-leg World Cup qualifier between two island-nations with aspirations to make the really big show, still two full years away ...

... World Cup 2014 in Brazil, the Garden of Eden of footballing mythology, is the intended destination, and reaching the finals is an achievement Jamaica can boast of from their 1998 apogee ...

... hosts Antigua and Barbuda, playing at this level for the first time, adapted the cricket stadium in the centre of the island for home games ... the modest, yet modern, facility named in honor of most famous son Sir Vivian Richards, a titan of cricketing culture, contrasts to the stadia of Europe, but just add water, goalposts, FIFA banners - presto, bonafide ballground ...

... the topographical factoid of the multi-strip cricket square in the middle of the park is something all West Indian ballers will have encountered at some point ... no problem, right? ...

... bookies playing odds would have Jamaica's seasoned Reggae Boyz schooling their less storied counterparts from Antigua, the Benna Boys, on the way to taking a maximum three points from this important encounter ... at least, that was the script ...

... most of the festoonery decorated the Western stands, the crowd concentrated there too, with local support dominating over the Jamaican presence, but the colors were blended and familiar, this being a clash of Caribbean cousins ...










... build-up to gametime had been intense and steady ... balletic referee rituals entertained the sparse eastern stands pre-game, while Antigua ran through calm, collected calisthenics at one end, in eye-catching red warm-up kits ...

... I had tuned in to Jamaican FM Radio, a few days prior to this initial round of matches, and astonishly heard questions alluding to "small-island" designs on football power in the region being put to Gordon Derrick, the new head-honcho in Caribbean Football Union politics ... did I mention he's Antiguan? ...

... and so our stage was set ...

... on the afternoon, someone had the forethought to position a winsome videographer and her equipment adjacent to the ad hoc, flicky-tricky scrimmages Jamaica prefers as final preparation ...

... I watched as she got some delightful footage, but felt I could also discern conflict of focus in that moment, and no real respect for the contest at hand, from the preening, cocksure black, green and gold, who had to defer their traditional yellow strip ...

... the spotlight shone even brighter with the attendance of Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller in sporty topstitching, and Horace Burrell of the JFF, who presided over the National Anthems and wished the Boyz 'n' Boys well ...

... then came time to kick the pigskin ...

... there was no Shevchenko on the field (though he owns a home in Antigua and is frequently here), no Ronaldo, Balotelli or Schweinsteiger either, unless they were wearing Jamaica shirts which had no names to identify or represent players who it seems, also switch squad-numbers ...

...  #5 in the warm-up came on as a substitute, wearing #4 ...

... my guess is that this subtly undermines key psychologies in young men who are part of notoriously star-driven cultures, football in general and Jamaican Football specifically ... Antigua got this part right - Byers, Griffith and James enhancing their reputations, with Nottingham Forest's Dexter Blackstock reserved for tactical insertion into the game ...

... the pacey Jamaicans, many of whom look to be of genuine technical ability, had no evident plan to reel in these sprats (or minnows, the term you'll hear most often to describe a population of 80,000 audacious enough to field a football team) ... the result was an even nil-nil scoreline which reflected positively on a sensible, spirited performance by the home-team ...

... the visitors left behind a considerably different aftertaste ahead of sterner tests, including the return leg against the newly emboldened Benna Boys, on the Road to Rio ...









... amid the flag waving and good natured support of a team defying predictions, were many Jamaicans who expect more from their national side ... despite being fitter than previous aggregations, the Reggae Boyz would do well to develop a disciplined mental approach which will allow them to adapt more successfully to diverse opposition ...

... the Benna party went deep into the night and next morning's press headline read "We got one!," referring to the first-ever point earned at this level of competition ...

... it's Spain and Germany holding fans in their thrall, for now, as this scoreless match is already old news ... Antigua takes on Guatemala next and Jamaica will seek to rock 'n' roll the U.S.A. in Kingston, but two points dropped at the cricket ground are likely to have more consequence than the one gained ...

... Louis Farrakhan's excellent vacation ...

... Louis Farrakhan is a walking, talking oral tradition, a rousing orator of a testimonial narrative many would forget, minimize or disregard as irrelevant to the present-day timeline ... being aware that mere mention of his name will alienate some readers gives me momentary pause, but won't inhibit my parsing the content and context of his message as it swung by me last week ...

Quote:- "(black people) spiritually we are sick"... "until we heal ourselves spiritually nothing will happen economically"

... the newspaper article said he'd be giving a free address the next day at the multi-purpose Cultural Center, not far from where I reside when I'm in Antigua ... characters like Paulinaire in the dynamite Dominican historical novel Pharcel: Runaway Slave (Alick Lazare) came quickly to mind, prototypical abolitionist agitators travelling the Caribbean furtively fomenting resistance to, and uprising against, the oppressive slave-driven plantation systems of the time ...

Quote:- "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free"

... but there was nothing clandestine about this visit in this century ... the local brass was welcoming and hospitable, right down to the security-'pon-top-a-security which goes everywhere with this man, giving some suggestion of the passions stirred when he calls attention to the way these territories were populated and socialized ... institutionalized racism and proselytizing religion were primary building-blocks of these western societies, and, pre-industrial revolution Europe itself ...

Quote:-"they cannot educate you to free you from them"

... U.S.A. based Nation Of Islam (NOI), led by Minister Farrakhan, is an organization which looks to the East while continuing the pushback against a past which has shaped our current realities as descendants of colonial families ... what comes across to some as anti-European and anti-Semitic can instead be viewed as pro-African and pro-Islam, a way to recognize people building something out of disadvantage rather than acquiescing to mutually exclusive polarities ...

Quote:- "I am a Christian, I am a Muslim, I am a Jew."

... notorious for ruffling the feathers of Jewish groups and slamming entrenched European privilege, this Calypsonian turned motivational-preacher knows which notes to hit in this sankey ... Farrakhan at the lectern opened with "salaam alaikum" juxtaposed to "shalom aleichem,"... taken at face-value, this was an olive branch from a firebrand forced recently to cut back his workload for personal health reasons ... here, hailing peace goes hand-in-hand with humor aimed at local tastes ...

Quote:- "peace" is a better greeting than the English "hello," because hell has always been low" ...

... Louis Farrakhan's father was Jamaican ... his maternal roots are in St. Kitt's and Nevis, islands I can see in the distance from the front deck of my home, and on this evening there was no doubting his Caribbean flava ... in the auditorium, where I occupied my standing-room-only spot at the balcony railing, near-flawless accents, replete with regional nuance, spoke of a man who clearly enjoyed being received like a son of the soil ...

 Quote:- "you can't let America tell you that you can't have a relationship with Cuba ... to hell with you!"

... namechecks for Elijah Muhammed, Malcolm X and particularly Muhammed Ali were sparks to tinder, but every mention of Allah was met with sotto voce murmurs of "Selassie I" from the Rastafarian contingent, noticeably not acknowledged as afrocentric allies despite  much in the way of shared interest ...

Quote:- "all of us are sons and daughters of Africa"

... powerful, pokerfaced, palookas, dressed in the de rigeur NOI tailoring, eyeballed the crowd and Mustapha Farrakhan (a son of) took the Minister's back ... the brother on his right rescued the Holy Qur'an which would go flying during fiery passages, memorably those outlining a connect-the-dots assessment on the spread of  HIV in black populations and poverty-cycles which lead people of color to poor nutrition and hard drugs ...

Quote:- "there's a plot against the black male" ... "they are killing us with our taste-buds and our love for sex"

... as for the females, Farrakhan showed he has personally witnessed a Carnival or two by shifting the theatre to comic relief, even Mustapha curled his lips when Pops let his hips do some talkin', but some women in the crowd were no doubt waiting for the speech to get back to the big picture ...

Quote:- "if a man regards what you show him, your bosom, your behind, he never gets acquainted with your mind"

... the new Burger King downtown got pink-slimed and Trayvon Martin got solemnized (en passant, to his credit) in a show of familiarity with the stories-of-the-day ... references to Haitian-hero Boukman (actually a man from Jamaica) and Antiguan father-of-the-nation V.C. Bird  suggests scholarship and reflects research but Farrakhan always has some special indictment reserved for Churches High and Low ...

Quote:- "Jesus was Jehovah's witness but he never called himself a Jehovah's Witness" ... "if a man treated you as bad as we were treated, would he give you a God that would free you from his whip?"

... more rumblings 'round the room ... "Rastafari, Selassie I!" ...

... beneath "The Skin" ...

... they have fangs, suck blood, creepy-crawl or fly by night,

dress in cloaks, sleep by day, shy from crucifixes on sight,

they fascinate us and seem to be everywhere of late,

books... TV... on Halloween they may even appear at your gate ...

... folkloric characters are found in all world cultures and there's a wide variety to choose from in Caribbean societies populated by slave descendants who have commingled African traditional beliefs with those of European origin, resulting in some pretty gruesome geo-specific ghouls ... known collectively in the region as jumbies or duppies ...

... with such a rich heritage of mythical demons it's somewhat surprising that there isn't more overt usage of demonology in modern Caribbean artforms ... such folklore is largely consigned to oral tradition of countryfolk, archives of heritage traditions, underfunded cultural festivals and nostalgic mention ...

... enter one intrepid husband and wife filmmaking team lending their initials to HAMA productions of Antigua ... HAMA developed a feature-film script centred around the drama that ensues when the dormant malevolence of a Soucouyant is aroused, terrorizing residents of the post-colonial tropical isle ... the small but growing local film industry benefits from those of us with experience in the filmworld at large, and on this fourth HAMA effort, it was a rewarding experience to have assisted in the preparation of the two leading players ...

... yours truly, as the sleazy Detective Morgan, along with Jamaica's eminent Carl Bradshaw (The Harder They Come, The Lunatic, Third World Cop) and Britain's Jeff Stewart (The Bill, Dr. Who) as an obeah man and opportunistic yachtie respectively, add weight to a cast of colorful local performers, many gracing the screen for the first time ...

... the result is an entertaining supernatural thriller-with-a-difference entitled The Skin, a reference to the specific habits of the (female evil-entity) Soucouyant, known by variable but similar pronunciations and other names throughout the diasporic carry-beyond (Caribbean) ...

... just as it takes a community to raise a child, so too the processs of making a film, particularly in places where the infrastructure is embryonic ... The Skin benefits from skills brought by Howard University's Professor S. Torriano Berry who held the camera and augmented the crew with his film students eager to combine an island getaway with an on-set practicum ...

... quid pro quo deals, deferred payments and "favoured nations" arrangements to use scenic locations, combine to lift this one off the page ... actual filming was intense but not without its lighter moments to mitigate early mornings and late nights ...

... well received at an incubatory screening for the Caribbean Tales film cognoscenti in Barbados this spring, The Skin was to premiere at last month's Reggae Film Festival in Jamaica but organizational cross-wiring, of the sort that too often undercuts effort in this region, meant that the grand unveiling took place last week in front of an appreciative home crowd in Antigua ...

... things have a way of working out as they properly should - part of the pervasive mysticism that governs life in the Caribbean ...

... the "A" in Antigua ...

... fortunately for humans, our properly functioning brains being of infinite potential, tend to operate in a mode of information-acquisition from birth to death, created as we are with pristine and curious tabula rasa in our crania ... individual and collective intelligence over lifetimes and generations offset knowledge-deficit through accumulated experience ... the learning is perpetual, sometimes frustrating, testing of faith and concepts of infinity, and still the (human) race doesn't ever quite get to the place I'll just call "there" ... even with the drugs ...

... on the brighter, lighter side, the yet to be informed portion of the brain will consciously or subconsciously head for the higher state we've come to identify as "imagination" ...

... my imaginations were aroused last week with the juxtaposition of Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko's avant garde yacht, designed by Philippe Starck, with the scrubby hillside backdrop and colonial stone ruins of Rat Island in Antigua ...

















... as I understand it, this is the site of one of Antigua's oldest colonial defenses in what became a strategic outpost for the proprietary British Royal Navy in service of the New World (order) colonial aspirations of the times ... the hillock in the inner harbor at capital town St. John's, which featured four cannon and barracks for a regiment in the early seventeenth century, isn't an island in the strictest sense, being connected to the main island by a narrow causeway resembling perhaps ... a rat tail ...

... Dr. Evil meets MI5 in appearance, this unique gigayacht might have changed the course of history had it stopped in for refueling three hundred and fifty years ago ... I suspect it would fare worse against cannonfire amidship, in multiples of four no less, than against a modern satellite grid guiding cruise-missiles ... any shout of "avast ye landlubbers" has no frequency-band or equivalent and may confound operators of the onboard navigational systems ... even the name of the interloper, the single letter "A" displayed only on the stern, would arouse sentries on the lookout for marauding fleur-de-lys ... (though personally Phil, I'd have gone sans-serif, but wha' do I know?) ...

... Antigua's geo-trigonometry, like that of Bermuda where "A" is registered, is currency on maritime maps and seafarers of all sorts pass though here ... Rat Island, which now hosts the commercial wharves where "A" tied up, must have seen 'em all come and go over the years ... I can't tell you the going exchange rate between rubles and doubloons but, if it costs a million and a half US dollars to fill the fuel tank (at pre crisis-in-Libya oil prices), that cargo-weight in gold bars, jewels and thick, heavy old-time coins would sink anything that floats, I imagine ...

... the route of Earl 2 ... no jestering ...

... it's really a quesion of degrees, this hurricane lottery ... the fine calibrations of latitude and longitude that combine to determine which territory, is affected by which part, of which cyclonic effect of which hurricane ... this time I experienced a hurricane growing to Category Two status as Earl's eye shaved the north-eastern side of the twin-island state of Antigua & Barbuda ...

... at regular intervals, in anticipation of weather to come, there are periods of such intense calm you can talk yourself into a delusory resentment ..."it ain't comin', all that work for nuttn"...

... followed, hopefully, by ... "I'm glad I hooked that shit up yo!" ...

... barometric adjustment is responsible, altering normal air-pressure ... the most commonly used descriptor is "eerie quiet"... this is the sound of stealth, an experience in itself ... debris flew, trees bent and rain didn't so much fall as drive through ... hurricane Earl's core elements put on a lusty show, allowing me a taste of what it's like near the centre of one of these things ...














... something I learned is that it's easier to do "before" or "after" photography than it is to do the more daring "during" ... my best effort, taken from a nearby villa, was as thrilling and wet as it looked ... "my heartbeat needed that jolt" I noted, still feeling the inside of my ribcage as I dried off my spattered camera lens ...

... crop devastation, islandwide power outtages and predictable gas shortages are first on any checklist of post-hurricane issues ... as is clean-up ... Antigua cleans up fast if you're wondering ...














... memories of being the first one outside afterwards, when the sensation of awe at nature is still fresh in the mind, allow me to flirt with post-apocalyptic fantasies from the vantage of an essentially intact world ... and somewhere down the line in the path of Earl ... be it island, U.S. or Canadian mainland ... people will be humbled and reminded of our planet's capricious power ...













... then of course there are the beaches ... my seashell source ... the caressing sea turns aggressor, shuffling sands and casting up flotsam and jetsam (a term that, since childhood, has alternately made me cringe or chuckle due to its ... cuteness?) ... preliminary beachcombing yielded a perfect pole to support a clothesline and a usable, if slightly weathered, snorkel ... there's lots more at the high-water line but mostly not dead long enough for collection ...













... as a strengthened hurricane Earl moves onward to its destiny, we in his wake cast an eye forward to watch copycats Fiona and Gaston make their westward trek ... it'll likely be an island feeling the first lash of these seasonal visitors before North American media-hype swings into high gear ...

... wherever hurricanes make landfall there'll be a price to pay ... closures and cancellations inevitably cost money ...

... we all grumbled about the prolonged blackout while tossing out the contents of our warm refrigerators and mopping up puddles ... but these inconveniences are given perspective when you consider the fate of the lineman who was electrocuted yesterday while working on service restoration ...

... hurricane storm is no joke ...

... "somebody pass me the bullbud!" ...

... in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue ... so goes the enduring children's ditty ... and the rest is history, as they say, when it comes to the expansionary re-population of western lands known as The Americas and the Caribbean ...

... centuries of European-driven enterprise, enslaved African labour, indentured Asians and the inevitably cross-fertilizing populations of their descendants with more recent arrivals have evolved into societies that reflect blended identities jubilantly ... perhaps moreso than many an older culture ...

... this is a particularly identifiable feature of societies with numerically strong African bloodlines ...














... intra-regional variations abound of course, usually boasting contagious music designed primarily for partying and collective street celebrations ... from Rio de Janeiro to Toronto via The Caribbean and New Orleans, adapted African rhythms and body movement characterise carnivals, Mardi Gras style ...

... I got a taste of the recent Antigua Carnival festivities which were dominated by The Burning Flames ... part of the musical nucleus that supported Montserrat calypsonian Arrow on his huge "Hot Hot Hot" hit from 1983 ... this year's boom tune is the catchy "Bullbud" ... a coinage for a stiff homemade whipping implement fashioned from a dried donkey dong (no photo) ...














... people form themselves into tribe-like troupes for the week of ca na val ... they function like mini-economies crossed with all-inclusive clubs ... for a set participation tithe you get to wave your flag in community for the week-long party ... all day and all night, without worrying where your next drink is coming from ... sleep is the only casualty ...














... jump-up provides an annual opportunity to shuffle-bounce down high street as bare as you dare ... a stage on which a bureaucracy-bound civil servant or a by-rote clerk can release her inner virago ... where a post-partum silhouette cramps no style and reminds you that real-life ratios do not favour the svelte ... as pleasing to observe as the latter may be ...















... women of every description plot all year to assemble elaborate ensembles ... men too seize the opportunity to experience the glam thrill of face paint, glitter, lipgloss and leopard prints ...

... comfortable footwear, that will last the week but you are prepared to ruin, and bloodshot eyes complete the uniform ...














... some seize on the parade for an entirely different type of opportunity ... gettin' on bad ... this paradox of public anonimity provides a controlled outlet for the full range of our human expression ... including the eroto-sexuality which exists in all of us but still can shock and acquire taboo through denial in purportedly polite societies ...

... it's a family show for the people ... bring da kids, they're people too ... and sure as the sun shines, one day when they grow up they'll wanna let off some similar steam themselves ...














... call it Afro-Caribbean vaudeville if you like, musical street theatre ... or you could just regard it as island flava ... the essense of which is a hereditary override of an overseer's set of rules and mores ... a mindset of liberation ... in this case commemorating the original August 1st 1834 Emancipation Day in Antigua ...

... wha' you lookin' at? ... you don't like the holes in my hosiery? ... kiss mi backside! ... den come dance nuh ...













... the first week in August also sees Jamaicans celebrate the 1962 Independence from Britain with official fanfare ... in fact, all over the post-colonial world freedom triggers conscious revelry and unconscious sense-memory ... this is impetus for nation-building and fortification of cultural identity ...

... last lap, the summary parade on the final day makes for myriad photo-ops and embroiders the social fabric too ...














... of course these ain't the old days and somebody's gotta pay for all this ... corporate sponsors, like telecom player Digicel, prominent local and regional businesses from haberdasheries to motor dealerships find, in participation, a way to light up brand recognition and par-tay at the same time ...

... I suspect those that prosper most are the ones that quench the thirst and fuel the fun with spirits (rum) and beverage (beer) ...














... it would make sense that there's a certain amount of costume material re-cycling from year to year ... and ... I would like to believe that no actual peacocks, birds of paradise, or endangered species were harmed in pursuit of plumage ...













... with there being next to no trouble to speak of, it's clear a good time was had by all ...

... note to self ... wherever I'm at in a year's time I'm gonna find me some j'ouvert action ... an' get on bad!

... mango walk an' talk ...

... "in Antigua ev'ryt'ing come wit' de rain"... so said my bredrin as he led me off the beaten track into the bush where his friend lives amid bountiful surroundings ... cosseted and sustained by fruit bearing foliage of myriad description ...

... leaving the road ... well past the point where pavement becomes dirt and stone ... diving into underbrush at the threadbare tamarind tree ... sweeping aside tall sharp Guinea grasses suitable for feeding livestock or medicinal teas (we have no ailments or cattle) ... ignoring ripening Noni fruit (too labour-intensive) ... and avoiding the prickly pineapple slips underfoot ... our mission is straightforward ... the objective is mango ...













... the ascendant Jamaican country-bwoy in me should not have been surprised at the variety of types of mango I found in this one location ... but perhaps for that very reason I pulsated with craven excitement as I climbed tree after tree to sample and choose specifically targeted fruit ...

... shape and size ... colour and smell ... texture and degree of ripeness ... not to mention taste ... all mangoes are not created equal ... and when the season arrives in The Caribbean the connoisseur can afford to be fussy ... with hundreds of extant varietals (e.g. Nevis alone boasts over forty) there's plenty to choose from ... these three are even called Choice ...












... I invariably measure each mango against my all-time favourites ... Uncle Stan's incomparable East Indian mango, the ever-popular St. Julian (Julie), the little-known Tringram hybrid planted at my childhood home ... a curiously shaped Thai import with a flat seed that I paid an arm-and-a-leg for in Vancouver's Chinatown some time ago ... and top of the heap I rate the rounded, Indian-derived, Jamaican Bombay ... the one with the distinctively nubile looking, nipple-ish-tip ...

... but ... I'm further afield now and already this season I've enjoyed several new (to me) locally grown mango types ... I'm currently fanning on a Bombay aspirant called Sensation, which lives up to its name ...

... it mek me waa' write a poetry I a tell yu ...

... soft to the touch, must take a taste ...

... when fruits ripe ain't no time to waste ...

I'll have one of each and more of the best ... tasty, tart, j-j-juicy and sweet ... firm, sufficient flesh, at once eaten and drank ...

from under beguilingly hued, smooth cheekskin flank ...

irresistable, fragrant and sticky...

... and I'm still just talking about mangoes ...

... 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 ...

... 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 ....

... "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 ...

... 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 ...