Still in Chicago

Still in Chicago (BlogHer ended yesterday - was excellent - photos here), and still proving that I’m an even worse blogger when I’m travelling than when I’m at home. In lieu of a conference report/trip update - at least for now - here are a couple of photos I took this afternoon in Millennium Park.

Now why is it that we outgrow activities like this again?

BlogHer - Day One, Session One

The shuttle took ages to collect us at the hotel this morning, so a bunch of us arrived here at Navy Pier after the introductory session had already begun. Grabbed breakfast and took my seat around one of the round tables in the huge ballroom. They’re expecting at least 750 attendees, and it looked like most of them were already there. After the remarks we engaged in a 20-minute “speed dating” session involving two concentric circles - not a well-oiled machine, but fun anyway. Then we made our way here to the floor where the sessions are taking place, stopping en route to visit the booths — and collect swag — on the Lakeview Terrace.

At the moment I’m in the “Life Stages of Online Communities” breakout session, whose focus seems to be more on social space-type online communities than on newsroom-like communities like Global Voices. (Wondering mischievously whether I should throw everybody for a loop and ask: “Any ideas for managing online communities where the members are in time zones 12 hours apart and don’t all speak English with the same facility?”). I’ll confess I’m using part of this time to catch up on my GV e-mail, which seems to be rather intense this morning.

Some interesting talk at the moment about sponsorship models. . . Better listen.

Technorati Tags: blogher07

M.I.A. in T&T

“. . . in Trinidad, I was trying to make a song that wasn’t very soca-ish, but I was in a soca environment with soca producers who were having a lot of soca stuff going on. I wasn’t thinking about American clubs at the time, about what sort of stuff they were listening to, what kids in Paris were listening to. I was just there in the moment in Trinidad. It had the ups and downs: the basic chorus, soca for the tempo, and you just fuck around with that. You create a new way to feel music.”

Singer M.I.A., explaining, in The Village Voice, why she was lurking around Studio Film Club last year (or was it earlier this year?). Maybe I’ll like Kala, her upcoming album, better than I did Arular.

Technorati Tags: trinidad, M.I.A., music, caribbean

Harry Potter and the five o’clock shadow

Cheryl Ali, retail manager of Nigel R Khan Bookseller, is interviewed by a local television station during the launch of Harry Potter 7

It’s only after he puts on the pair of round fake-Italian sunglasses with the slightly reflective lenses that I realise that the figure in the purple cape I’d seen earlier lurking sheepishly near the self-help section is meant to be Harry. A twentysomething year-old Harry, Indian, with close-cropped hair and a five o’clock shadow. The attendants in witch hats bustling around the store, distributing books at the special Potter table and manning the cash registers are a great deal more spirited, led from in front by the indefatigable retail manager/chief witch Cheryl Ali, whose hat has a special orange and black striped crown which marks her as both head honcho and go-to gal.

The book-buying public in Trinidad is well-behaved, and the considerable crowd gathered at Nigel R Khan Booksellers yesterday evening for the 701pm launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is no exception. Besides, this is West Mall, in the heart of the country’s north-western peninsula, the cradle of bourgeois values. As a certain artist renowned for pointing out the blindingly obvious remarked the other day at Alice Yard, there are lots of “red people” here.

I spot the father of a friend, more than likely buying a copy of the book for his grandson, who lives in Tobago with his craft store-owning mom. One of the country’s less popular beauty queens turns up at one point and issues a preemptive, “No interviews!” to the television crews in the vicinity, none of whom acts like it’s any great loss. Here and there eager, sweet-faced kids (and some shameless adults) are posing for photos and rhapsodising about the Potter books for TV and radio. CityTalk 91.1’s Raymond Edwards is anchoring a live broadcast from the store which includes Deathly Hallows excerpts read by a chubby, pleasant-faced woman in a witch hat sitting on an overstuffed love seat.

By a little after 8pm the store, which remains open tonight till midnight, has begun to empty. A few people come in to collect their Potter pre-orders and a handful of regular patrons are perusing the shelves. The witches at the Potter distribution table still have a decent stock of books, mainly the Bloomsbury edition with the classy-looking dark cover which looks like it could be targeted at adult Potter fans, who might be ashamed to be seen reading the edition with the cartoonish-looking cover in public (earlier there were also copies of the garish Scholastic (US) edition on sale, but these all seem to be gone now). Harry is wandering idly among the aisles, looking lost. A couple of witches are reading. The last television crew, a guy from Gayelle sent out tonight on a solo run, interviews Cheryl Ali, who has to hold the microphone herself and talk to the camera as he mumbles questions and shoots at the same time. A friend’s son sidles over to me and says he doesn’t need to read the book now that he’s looked at the last page and satisfied himself that certain things happen. Or don’t.

As I’m leaving the mall I run into a friend. “You were in there?” she asks. “Not buying,” I say, indicating the camera around my neck. She looks slightly embarrassed, and hugs a green Nigel R Khan bag clearly containing a thick book to her chest. “I’ve been sick all day,” she says, making a gesture that suggests the problem is her stomach. “And since I’m going to be up all night. . . I figured. . . .” I concurred, or at least I pretended I did, and wished her a good night.

See more photos from the launch here.

Technorati Tags: harry potter, harry potter and the deathly hallows, books, trinidad, caribbean, reading, bookshop

Congrats, Nikipedia!

Congratulations to Nicholas “Nikipedia” Laughlin, who just rang from Jamaica to say that he is the 2007 recipient the Rex Nettleford Fellowship in Cultural Studies!

Nikipedia travelled to Kingston this week for the interview, which took place today. The results were announced during a luncheon (after the dessert course, apparently) at Red Bones restaurant. Nikipedia, as many of you know, is editor of the Caribbean Review of Books and the chief blogger at Antilles.

Back from the Village of the Small Huts

The Trinis in Toronto

Returned from Toronto at 6am this morning and I’m feeling about as well as one should after having spent a sleepless night on an aircraft, so a more detailed report on the 2nd annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival will have to wait.

In the meantime, feel free to check out the photos.

Technorati Tags: caribbean tales film festival, film, toronto, canada, caribbean, trinidad

2nd Annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival

I arrived in Toronto today to attend the 2nd annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival, the schedule for which can be found here. The festival starts on Friday, but updates are already being posted to the News from Leda Serene & Caribbean Tales blog.

Many thanks to Festival producer Frances-Ann Solomon (plus apologies for not having blogged about this earlier!) for inviting me, and to the Film Company of Trinidad & Tobago, who’s footing the bill for most of this trip.

Caribbean Free Radio #46 - A talk with Kei Miller

For episode #46 CFR joins forces with Antilles, the weblog of The Caribbean Review of Books (CRB), to bring you Jamaican poet and novelist Kei Miller in conversation with CRB editor Nicholas Laughlin. You’ll also have a chance to hear Kei read two poems from his upcoming collection, There Is an Anger That Moves, which is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

Also available at Amazon is New Caribbean Poetry, an anthology edited by Kei. Purchase Kei’s short story collection, Fear of Stones, from Macmillan Caribbean or Amazon.co.uk, and read a review by Edward Baugh at The Caribbean Review of Books.

Listen to the podcast by using the player at the bottom of the post or access it using any of these methods:
Download MP3 | RSS | iTunes

Technorati Tags: kei miller, jamaica, caribbean, literature, poetry

The Kei Miller reading

Jamaican poet and novelist Kei Miller

It’s often said that once you acquire a DSLR and a lens that’s more than a couple of inches long, it’s only a matter of time before you start getting requests to photograph weddings. Fortunately for me, most of my friends are either already married, sworn off marriage, or unmarriageable. This, however, doesn’t stop them from organising other kinds of events, which is how I found myself in the role of (unpaid) official photographer at a reading by the Jamaican novelist and poet Kei Miller held last night at the Reader’s Bookshop.

Covering a reading is a far easier task than photographing a wedding, I’m sure. There’s no chance, for instance, of your battery running out just as the couple is about to lock lips at the altar, no obligatory shots of the wedding party in its various permutations (couple-with-parents-and-ex-spouses, couple-with-parents-and-current-spouses, groom-with-mother-that-can’t-let-go, couple-with-branch-of-family-that-still-talks-to-each-other, couple-with-estranged-siblings, etc.), and unless it’s an outdoor reading, it’s unlikely you’ll ever have to venture near the Botanic Gardens, the grounds of the President’s House or Wild Flower Park. Once you’ve made sure you’ve got at least one serviceable photo of the writer you’re pretty much off the hook, free to experiment with weirdly-angled shots of bookshelves, piles of books, slumbering audience members, people’s feet.

I first met Kei in front of Jack Sprat’s bar at the Calabash Literary Festival in Treasure Beach, Jamaica. I challenged him to guess what Nikipedia (whom he had corresponded with, but never met in person) looked like. He declined the challenge, which led me to think he was a wise man. Last night, I learned that he’s also an excellent reader, especially of his poetry, and also a passionate commentator on his own work and craft.

After being introduced by Nikipedia, who, as editor of the event’s co-sponsor, the Caribbean Review of Books, was also the chief organiser of the proceedings, Kei read a series of excerpts from his first novel (to be released in 2008), followed by a handful of selections from his two books of poems, Kingdom of Empty Bellies and the upcoming There is an Anger that Moves. In between, he fielded questions from both interviewer Nikipedia and the audience with thoughtfulness and grace, not to mention a breathtaking lack of pretension.

Listening to Kei

I’ve only read some of the stories in The Fear of Stones (which was shortlisted for the Best First Book award, Caribbean and Canada, in the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes) and a few of the poems, but I look forward to reading more of Kei’s work, and I’m certain that he won’t ever ask me to remove any of the photos of him from my Flickr page, as the person who eventually beat him out for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize did this morning (NOTE: the photo linked to is not the one the author asked me to remove). A perfectly good photo, with perhaps the person’s mouth doing something slightly odd, but hardly disfiguring, taken not in some paparazzi-friendly location but while the individual was on stage accepting his prize. And there I was naïvely thinking that Bernard Henri-Lévy had the market cornered on writerly vanity.

Technorati Tags: kei miller, jamaica, trinidad, caribbean, literature, books