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 ...  

... 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!" ...

... fast track to London ...

... the sun has long set over South Korea and the echoes of the starting pistol at the recently concluded Daegu World Track and Field Championships reverberates no more ... in replacement there is the slipstream of Caribbean athleticism and a drooling anticipation for the 2012 Olympiad, set to usher London into a bright new future ... maybe ...

... cynics will posit that Olympic gloss has dulled in modern times, given public distrust of relationships between high-performance humans, multi-syllabic pharmaceuticals, sponsorship-driven agendas and all-powerful quasi-governmental bodies along the lines of football's FIFA or the United Nations itself ... such organisations can be topheavy with empowered officials who carry weight when it comes to direction and decision-making ... career diplo-politicos sit at the UN, FIFA chiefs are ultimate footballing backroomers and International Olympic Committees are headed by the likes of the late Juan Antonio Samaranch and Jacques Rogge, names largely unknown outside of their specific circles ... the face of the 2012 London Olympic Organising Committee (LOCOG) however, is a premier athlete of modern Olympic lore ...

... legendary British middle-distance runner Sebastian Coe was transcendent on the track in his day, and true to form, has been doggedly aspirational since ... Coe is a household name in his homeland, having won gold medals, owned world records, entered politics and been granted peerage, titular membership in that most exclusive club of the realm, the preserve of Lords and Ladies ... his enduring and uncommonly close(ted?) link to former Conservative Party leader and "elder statesman" William Hague, Britain's current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has kept the newly-divorced Lord Coe in the UK public's voracious imagination ...

... an uncharacteristic false start and the subsequent automatic disqualification of Usain Bolt in Daegu's 100 metre sprint final sent shock waves through the sport ... that split-second, of a less-than-ten-second event, stunned observers and provoked comment from the terminally staid when Coe decreed there would be no rule change in London for Bolt, whose status as marquee king might otherwise have forced one ...

... in 1988, a similarly rejected call for exception meant 8oo metre world-record holder Coe missed the Olympics ... his ties to the not-so-distant corners of the British Empire might have seen him win glory for India, by virtue of his Punjabi maternal grandfather, since ill-health caused his failure to qualify at the British trials ... if that was a disappointment in Seoul it would undoubtably be topped in London where no-one but the competition (and the odd bookie) wants to see another major final with an empty block where Bolt should be ...

... so, the poignant drama of a sporting pinnacle is built into the fabric of Olympian battle - at every level, exposing cynicism as merely that ... every four years the universal spectacle of The Summer Games brings geo-politics into the cocktail-mix for the world to imbibe ... (even more than the Winter incarnation, which has a shallower history and intrinsic need for snow, ice, sang froid and thermal underwear) ...

... London, seat of a culture that once claimed proprietorship over so many world cultures, now becomes the focal showroom for retributive contest (dare I say reparation?), a forum for moral redress and assertive statement, in a conflict where the subordinated are wounded in pride only and human casualties are not counted by lives lost ...

... meanwhile, back in the boardroom, Lord Coe will be brushing up on his "jive" (referring to a comment he once made about Jamaican-born, British sprint star Linford Christie's speech patterns), betraying attitudinal distinctions implicit in the relationship between landed gentry and the hoi polloi ... Coe's recent genealogical quest for his aristocratic lineage led to roots in the sugar plantocracy of Jamaica, a revelation that exposed family ownership of hundreds of slaves and inter-mixture of bloodlines ...

... ground-zero in this particular plantation pot-pourri was Trelawny, the same north-western parish of Jamaica that Usain Bolt hails from ...

... period maps of the region, and others like it, survive to shine light on the ancestry of those who are descended from the principals of the lucrative industry-of-the-age, and most of the Caribbean cast of competitors will relish the opportunity to overtake Rule Britannia on the track and in the field ...

... certainly it's compelling to study the little ironies of intertwined legacies ... to wit, George Hyde Clarke, Coe's ancestor, shares a surname with the bloodline of Bustamante and Manley, scions of modern Jamaica, cousins, National Heroes and founders of both major political parties ... there's plenty reason to salivate at the thought of strands of history sharing a distilled moment of clarity in the still evolving post-colonial landscape ... it may even spawn a new dance ...

... currently, Jamaican athletes in particular are in a rich vein of dominance, just in time for 2012 - which is also the landmark 50th Anniversary of Independence from British rule ...

... celebrations will be in full swing by the opening ceremonies and contemporary demographic realities suggest there will be as much black, green and gold in evidence as red, white and blue ... think Princess Beatrice one-upping her wedding hat with a voluminous Rasta tam or Pippa skanking with Roots Manuva at a street-party ... just keep the dreadlocks wig away from Prince Harry ...

... Attack The Block, aliens and allegory ...

... ok fam, so it's jus' a movie right, 'cept it's more' than tha', innit ... it's bere laffs for one fing, and it chucks right off th' screen at u, an' pawns u by the bollocks ... not just y' biggie smalls bruv, but them bollocks in y' brain as well ... f'real gangsta! ... an' you done know seh it's not jus' di man dem pon the ends got bollocks, the girls dem too, yeh ... trus' me! ...

... Red, Gold and Grey, the colorz of a new Rainbow Country ... don't fear if you're allergic to spoilers, the call whether to continue reading is entirely up to you, but I'm more likely to be looking at a bigger picture than specific plot-points in this fun indie flick ... Attack The Block is set in the same Britain that recently ruptured close to social seams that have been straining for some time ... when they call it "Blighty" you can picture the traditional imagery, 'cept now a swathe of pop-youth-culture is inflected with reggae-isms and hip-hop ... 

... aliens and allegory, right and wrong, cops and robbers, boys and girls, weed and wisdom, not to mention guns and guts ... this movie finds a balance between modest (in focus and means) and boasty (in characters and thematic riches) ...

... trash an' ready for the Leicester Square red carpet, the young cast of this entertaining little feature presents a reflection of an emerging generation of tenancy in UK inner-cities ... young, gifted and bored ... poly-racial little-big-men slinging yard slangs and attitudinal overtones of cockney-cool and bluster ...

... the allegorical story survives precocious characters, even daring to feature a leader named Moses, humanizing the very people historian David Starkey pointed to before invoking lurking memories of Enoch Powell's 1968 "rivers of blood" speech ... his statements read like cliche formula, race equals riots, but the big picture is more instructive, beginning with the historical veracity of expansion into lands considered claimable ... occupants therein deemed inferior and taught, indeed bred, behaviors of subservience, in deference to a lust for sweet lucre ...

... zzzzzp (the sound of scrolling through intervening years) ... to a world where Bolt and Becks are boss, Mavado matters more than Mountbatten and Yellowman is still known in some dances as King ... a one-time vortex of empire we know as Jamaica continues to resonate that very energy, only now it plays out in the wider world precisely because of the complicated psychologies associated with shedding shackles of any kind ... the pushback of life's pendulum is the riddim of Creation ...

... it doesn't escape my notice that Starkey and Bob Marley were born early in the same year ... I compare how relevant their respective legacies are to the youth on the block, who, like punks generations ago, get called-out publicly by people who just don't get it ... is like dey dealin' wit' aliens, blood ...

... and still, natural as change is, there's always friction at the intersection of past and present, with lessons to be learned and adjustments to be made by all concerned, assuring social advancement, even as variables continue to require adaptation ...

... writer/director Joe Cornish sends for extra-terrestrials in Attack The Block as foils for our heroes, effective dramatic counterweight, the blackest of avenging intruders ... ironically, their deep darkness actually illuminates common-ground above the socially stratified post-colonial Queendom ...

... British expediency, Tudor through Victorian, before and after, has woven itself into social DNA far beyond the ports of Bristol or Liverpool, and back ... that the hybrid language of the street should bristle is understandable, but the true "tell" is in the tone of the reaction it elicits ... Mr. Starkey's freestyle, on-air apoplexy over "Jamaican patois" was fed by troubling imagery of wanton looting, but the selective tack and torque of his commentary betrays fear and revulsion, two cornerstones of racist reaction, so often negative in intent and impact ...

... the economical, character-driven storytelling of Attack The Block ecourages viewers to calibrate private sensitivity to larger issues via developments that find truth in the personalities of the protagonists and their personal choices ... but, lest you get the impression it's a dry celluloid lecture, and use that as reason to delay, I assure you, this rollick's a real riot ...

... oops, I mean ...  it's a lark innit, bashment yeh?! ... the movie's boom! ... believe! ...