Learn and live.

I don't care who you are or think you may be, you will, for a stone cold fact, catch yourself at some time muttering, "ah well, live and learn." Thing is, we don't have to wait for a flashpoint to go there. Learning is constant, whether we admit it or not, and taking stock of its process is tantamount to consciousness.

Walk waking through this world.

Some orator/philosopher probably said that, if not I'll claim it.

Join me in regarding the past four seasons with critical eye, and in learning from the juxtaposition of observation and personal convictions. My focus will be firmly frontal. Pro-gressive.

And who'll dare to deny that "now" is a function of "then," and "future" will also be thus?

So when I reach back to speak of Mandela, of Marcus, or Marley, my intent is to honor these  propulsive, cultural energies.

Of course, if you've been paying attention, you'll know I'm just as likely to trip the light fantastic on Twerkers, Biebers, Royal Heirs or Jayonce Juniors. Doesn't make me crazy, does it?

Well, maybe, but it can't be said that they don't shuffle the deck over at Ackeelover Chronicles. I'm never too far away despite the recent inactivity on this homepage. Ye olde trusty laptop upped and died a couple months ago, but that has become less of a story than the nifty new one I'm learning to use.

There's that L-word again.

Between Twitter @actualApophis, Facebook newsfeeds and right here, you'll see there's no telling where some actors will go for attention. Sex-tape nah mek it again! - blog is da shizzz yo!

Prepare to test your tolerance threshold for hybrid patois and my app-ified selfies. Marvel too at the island-worldview I distill beneath my brand new illuminati NYE party hat.

Stand clear, Happy New Year!

Don't drop the soap.

Fear not for even one moment that Ackeelover Chronicles is, by extended absence, Fukushima'd. Or that I must be in some kind of sympathy drunkenstupor (German) alongside Rob Ford, Toronto's immediately identifiable bellicose burgermeister.

Few things gnaw at the insides of a wordy mutha, such as myself, like denying a trend of thought. At the moment, my ruminations are weighty, prolific as grass and twice as dense. So much so, that sanity behoves me to also regard miracles in minutiae - profound, if only in the interest of balance.

It's at times like these that I tend to clean out personal clutter. I find stuff, saved for one reason or another, that  stirs ... thoughts. Today's purge-pick was an unopened box of soap. A stolen memento from some hotel on my long and winding road.

You can deny pulling a similar heist if you want to. Okay then.

I really should've figured out sooner that the minimalist sanserif promise of clinical-skin care on the outside, was foreplay for something enticing on the inside. Satisfaction guaranteed was implicit as the font went bold to announce - massaging soap bar.

Then fine-print, directing - for bath ... in case you had other ideas.

Here was a spa in a bar. The sort of form-and-function design Q must've considered equipping Bond with. Y'know, for those moments when he's compelled to share his bathtub.

Back in my reality, I was tempted to take it out and get it wet. Apply it to wherever I felt an ache. That pining impulse to lather up and capitulate to "une expérience douche et bain unique."

I chose instead to shroud it in a "souvenir" instapic filter as an aesthetic exercise. Then I put that thang right back in the box. Where it remains, chaste and vulnerable, awaiting release and a maiden immersion, in service of a soothing cleanse.

Right now I really wish I had pilfered a pair.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure.

Diggin' deep in the personal archives is the quickest way to maintain a presence on a blog when there's no time to write.

When I was much younger my family had a cottage in the hills of the Parish of St. Catherine. It's cool up there. We had expansive views to the North, received radio signals fron Cuba, grew coffee bushes and enjoyed the uncommon fruit of the Rose Apple trees.

The nearest town is Sligoville, said to be the first village peopled by freed slaves in mid-1830's Jamaica. History here is very close to the surface of contemporary observation and one can feel colonialism in the mists that regularly cosset this mountaintop.

The verdant vegetation was/is tropical and lush, with ferns of various description growing like weeds in the fertile soil.

 

One day, and several days thereafter, while fulfilling my gardening chores cutting back an encroaching fern thicket adjacent to our stony driveway, I happened upon what probably used to be someone's refuse heap. Whoever it was had a predilection for European preserves and Irish beverages, judging by containers I found clustered just below the surface of the dark earth.

 

My interest in archaeology was nascent at the time, but rooted enough in my sensibilities for me to cherish the finds to this day. I share them here without too much verbal embellishment for they speak loudly by themselves, as tangible vestiges of the colonial yesteryear I frequently reflect on in my musings.

 

Worthy of note is the prone, round-bottomed bottle embossed with the "Medicated Aerated Waters, Belfast, Ireland" assertion, and the salt-glazed crockware jar which simply proclaims that it once held I. C. Hoffmann's "Rassberry Jam."(sic.).

 

I often wonder if that early spelling of Raspberry influenced the development of  well known, colorful Jamaican expressions.

 

Ackeelover Chronicles will continue ...  

... a cure fi di fever ...

... since I began these Ackeelover Chronicles, cyberspace has coughed up a few life-lessons that have required some handling ... this blog is more than an exercise in writing, a public outlet for stream-of-thought on a variety of topics that infect my mind, it's turned into a vehicle for my learning as well ...

... feedback from the readership skews positive, with mild critique aimed at my chosen style of prose - eschewing capital letters to begin sentences, favoring instead consistent use of ellipses (...) to separate thoughts, sentences and paragraphs ...

... what lies behind the final interface though, beyond the building of riveting content and pithy copy, is a technical battle to thwart the malice, malfeasance and malediction that would compromise a sincere web-publishing effort ...

... searchable cache, which hoards remnant rants of a mentally-challenged Australian Stargate fan whose attentions toward me went far beyond the acceptable, underscores my paranoia ...

 

... it's hard not to see the-ghost-of-malevolence-past when confronted with suspicious-site warnings, such as the one that greeted viewers of this blog recently, but the new malady proved to be from an entirely different malefactor ...

 

... malware - loosely speaking, malaria for computer systems ...

 

... fortunately, there's a fix for this fever ... vigilance, tenacity, technical expertise and time to decipher dense diagnostic forum-threads for helpful antidote ... this is the unglamorous side of blogging, and it doesn't come with a futuristic bug-bustin' suit ...

 

... but it's a relief to rout malignancy for a clean bill o' health ...

 

... ackeelover, going forward in the now ...

... well, it's been a helluva year so far ... a couple weeks in and I've gone from snow and sub-freezing to sandcastles and sunshine ... from prolific blogging and twitter-tude to internet void (since rectified), and from Netflix-on-demand to no-TV-at-all ... but a couple of things have remained the same, the spinach-to-Popeye power in a meal of ackee and saltfish and the comfort of nature's beauty to the watchful eyes of this beholder ...

... the former is compromised by canned ingredients up north but redeemed by the fresh stuff down south ... and the latter? ... well, winter in Algonquin serves up its dashboard version of beauty (see Dec-16, 2011 post) and high-season in The Caribbean displays seaside charm through metal grillwork ... Ackeelover Chronicles continues to toggle between these two realities ...














... being back by the beach, observing neighbors and seafaring traffic through a long lens, reminds me of  "Someone's Looking At You," by The Boomtown Rats and Rockwell's whiny smash hit, "Somebody's Watching Me," - both songs provoke less of a voyeuristic creepy-cringe than an acknowledgement of shrinking personal space on this crowded planet ... or an allusion to Big Brother (Orwell, not the reality show) ...

... but more than that, comes the peace-of-mind required for scatological thought to flourish in my head ... this is when I think, write, photograph ... and express the thoughtstream which comprises these Chronicles ...

... thus far in 2012 the tendency has been to look to the future - better, I suppose, than looking at the past, but still decidedly short of Buddhist-type meditative ideals which stress practicing observation of the present, this moment of  "now" ... still, the past is a factor of "now," and "now" is a function of what the future will be, innit? ...

... exposing readers to my roving ramble is increasingly a compulsion, so this year you'll see more spontaneous "ting an' ting" on this site ... often with cool Canon pics from my "now" ...

... rest assured there'll always be music in these pages ... but with this being the Chinese Year of The Dragon, coupled with me being born in a Year of The Rooster (a.k.a. The Cock, where I come from), there's an impulsive temptation to get more "extra" - (delivered, of course, with Jamaican inflection to squeeze hyper-meaning out of the word) ...

... if all goes to plan, more "sexxyyy" too ... Happy New Year! ...

 JAMAICAN GLOSSARY 
"ting an' ting" - things, all kinds of everything

"extra" - over the top, "out there"

... out with the old, in with the new ...

... the limbo of this short week between the orgiastic peak of Chrishmash Day, when we ritualistically prepare to be drunk with occasion, and New Year, that digested evacuation of a calendar-year on its way out, must be what it feels like to be a perineum ... oh yes, I did say perineum, the DMZ between one's genitalia and anus (one and all have batty, so me naah tek back no chat!) ...

... obscure logic, but don't watch dat ... now that I have your attention, I can assure you I'm not at all concerned with where the sun don't shine, but instead, where it does ... it continues to shine on Jamaica and on Jamaicans trodding forward-ever, backward-never at home and abroad ... besides well-documented sporting prowess and musicianship, Jamaica produces and exports social dynamism to influence every realm and make for spellbinding discovery ...

... African America is listening-in now and flyin' down on-the-regular for the roots ... Toronto, Tokyo and Berlin are established outposts of the orbit and British youth have co-opted enough Yardie phraseology to spawn some of the world's hippest lingo ... examples abound but it's the weave of the binding fabric that interests me ... there's been enough time to work out a social blem (blend) which increasingly includes various non-Jamaican Caribbean energies and hybrids of every type, drawing impetus and swag from the Xaymaca wellspring ...

... enter the bloggers who, like me, seek to express thoughts in writing, within and without the selectively established peripheries of standard language and tradition ... Ackeelover Chronicles may have been better nominated in the "Personal" category than the "Overseas" one, but it doesn't really matter 'cos we can chat from whichever part we deh, and better yet, we can chat 'bout any-an'-ev'ryting under Jah sun ... these Jamaica Blog Awards recognize the scope of the field and honor all kinds of excellence but I imagine that's nothing compared to what might be inspired by this initiative ... bring on the New Year!