Monthly Archives: February 2006

My Carnival #10 – Carnival Monday

“The Sacred Heart” crosses the Savannah stage on Carnival Monday afternoon T-shirts today. Tomorrow we wear the real thing! See this Flickr photoset for more Carnival Monday photos. Technorati Tags: carnival, trinidad, caribbean, masquerade, “the sacred heart”

My Carnival #9 – Phase Two does it again

Members of the Phase II Pan Groove steel orchestra celebrate their victory in the 2006 Panorama competition on February 26, 2006 It’s 6:03am here and I’m just in from the Phase II Pan Groove panyard. I was on the Savannah stage with the members of the band when the results of the Panorama competition were [...]

My Carnival #8 – Do try this at home

Nikipedia‘s taken charge of making sure we have decent devil tails for j’ouvert this year, and spent the earlier part of today running around to hardware stores and the like buying wire and electrical components (seems we’re going to be illuminated). But I received an e-mail from him about an hour ago saying that he [...]

Carnival in the blogosphere

De party now start! – letting loose at yesterday’s Beach House Carnival fete at Ortinola Estate, Maracas-St. Joseph Don’t miss “The web make to blog on Carnival day“, Nicholas “Nikipedia” Laughlin‘s take on the Carnival talk in the Trinidad & Tobago blogosphere (and elsewhere) — over at Global Voices! And while you’re at it check [...]

My Carnival #7 – Las’ Carnival

Suddenly having these idle and random memories of Carnival 2005: – J’ouvert. Leon with his hair smeared with clay and twisted into two devil horns, Nikipedia with his sculpted into a mohawk, somewhere in Woodbrook. (Which reminds me, I need to get a disposable camera for j’ouvert). – The ancient individual who came up to [...]

My Carnival #6 – Rain

So I’ve finally registered for “The Sacred Heart”, in The Heart That Sings section. I’m thinking the helmet — which is made of metal — might come in handy if it rains on Carnival Tuesday. It rained most of yesterday. It’s drizzling right now, in fact. Earlier this evening we went to the Savannah to [...]

Has blogging arrived? – Part Two

Earlier this month I posted a short item about bloggers being invited to a Caribbean tourism conference in New York, giving it the somewhat facetious title, “Has Blogging Arrived?”. Anybody with a brain knows that corporate cozying is hardly a sign of true “arrival”. It’s when they start trying to shut you up (or down) [...]

CFR turns one

One year ago today, a little Caribbean podcast was born. . . . Birthday ‘cast coming later!

Suggest blogs & stories for Global Voices

Just wanted to say a big thank you to all who have been e-mailing me with suggestions for new Caribbean blogs and stories for Global Voices — your messages play a critical role in my ongoing struggle to stay on top of things in the growing regional blogosphere, and of course it’s always great to [...]

Haitian Bleu

Finally cracked out the package of Haitian Bleu beans my dear cousin Christiana brought me this Christmas, in somewhat belated response to an appeal put out by Delphine way back in February 2005. My partner in caffeinated crime, Mark Franco, christened the Bleu by himself yesterday evening (as I can’t do coffee after 5pm), but [...]

My Carnival #5 – Carnival Week To-Do List

Technorati Tags: to-do list, carnival, trinidad, caribbean

Portrait of me as narcissistic teen

The reason I haven’t done a podcast in more than three weeks is that I’ve been too busy taking photos of myself. Or so suggests an article in today’s New York Times Style section which an image of me helps illustrate. The piece also seems to think I’m a teenager, so it might be advisable [...]

Open Source Samba

On the Road VI by Carf It’s a cool, breezy afternoon here in Trinidad, and as I write I’m listening to Christopher Lydon and a bunch of musicians from Brazil and the USA “pulling apart the rhythms” of samba and other Brazilian grooves on the latest episode of Open Source Radio. Musicians and brazilophiles should [...]

My Carnival #4 – Behind the Scenes

Behind the visual, aural and sensual spectacle that is Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival is, as you can probably imagine, a tremendous amount of hard work. This season, I’ve had the opportunity to photograph — not always brilliantly — some of that activity, and upload the results to Flickr. Phase II Pan Groove Panyard – February [...]

Fire two

While I was inhaling fibreglass dust and resin fumes last night at Callaloo Company HQ, Francomenz was blogging about the fire that destroyed ten buildings in downtown Port of Spain yesterday, which, she reminded us, was “the capital’s second major blaze in less than a year”. Which made me check the date of CFR #14, [...]

This and That: Valentine’s Day Edition

Lifehacker to TTCS OSSWIN CD: Be my Valentine! The Trinidad & Tobago’s Computer Society’s OSSWIN CD, a collection of open source software, was chosen as February 14th’s Download of the Day by popular productivity site Lifehacker, which was particularly impressed with the TTCS‘s implementation of an innovative web-based interface, “allowing you to browse the offerings [...]

My Carnival #3 – “Stop the Carnival!”

The following is reprinted with the kind permission of my friend Nola Powers, who in any event is sailing at the moment in the Grenadines on a 45′ monohull manned by an all-male crew and couldn’t care less right now what anybody does with her work. It is based on a true story (“or sort [...]

Spam Name of the Day

I’ve discovered I find spam easier to tolerate if the “sender” has a cute name. Today’s “Spam Name of the Day”: SHAKEEL VANPELT Technorati Tags: spam name, spam

My Carnival #2 – “We must really love this thing called pan”

A member of the Phase II Pan Groove steel orchestra cleans the instruments in preparation for today’s performance at the Panorama semi-finals Just made a quick dash back home to grab a bite before heading to the Queen’s Park Savannah to continue filming Phase II Pan Groove as they gear up for their Panorama semi-finals [...]

Milestones, and my blogging foil

I’m not one for marking such occasions (or for admitting that I do), but yesterday I made my 200th post at Global Voices. I had no idea when I was doing it, but it turns out that my 200th post linked to Nicholas, which is more than appropriate, as Nicholas, I’ve come to realise, is [...]