I remembered only this morning that the late, great Martiniquan poet and statesman, Aimé Césaire, who passed away on April 17, was once featured on a Caribbean Free Radio podcast.

On CFR #7 (released on March 27, 2005!), I played “Acid”, a track by the Martinquan jazz group Matébis featuring Césaire on “vocals”. Or, more accurately, Césaire intoning, in his impeccably enunciated French, against a musical background, the first few verses of his epic “Notebook of a Return to My Native Land”, beginning with the famously ambiguous opening line “au bout du petit matin” (”at the end of dawn”)–a line widely used in the titles of Césaire documentaries (including the one by Sarah Maldoror) and in press tributes this week.

For those who wish to listen to the podcast, my intro to the track begins around 4:00. At the end of it I offer a short outro then segue into a moment of nostalgia for my Martinique days and some musings on multilingualism. Others may click on the player below to hear “Acid” by itself:

 

 Matébis - "Acid" (featuring Aimé Césaire) [5:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I’ve already highlighted Global Voices’ lovely compilation of tributes to Césaire from bloggers throughout the world, but Antilles has been keeping tabs (one, two, three) on the tributes pouring forth from the world’s presses. France24 posts a report and video to coincide with today’s burial ceremonies in Fort-de-France, Martinique, and Radio France d’Outre Mer (RFO) dusts off an interesting 2001 documentary (in French) showing Césaire in his role as “homme politique” along with interviews with friends, colleagues and ordinary citizens whose lives he touched in various ways.

And now would be as good a time as any to take a look at Euzhan Palcy’s three-part documentary on Césaire’s life and work, which is available from California Newsreel.

(clockwise from left) “Robber Talk” (detail), Ashraph, “Jumbies” (detail),”Band of Indians”, “Band of de Year?”

Ashraph, my friend of more years than either of us likes to remember, opened his latest exhibition yesterday evening at the National Museum in Port of Spain. The striking works riff off ideas about the past, present and future of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival traditions and art forms in the oblique and frequently surprising manner typical of Ashraph’s work.

The show runs until February 10, so if you happen to be in Port of Spain these next few weeks, don’t short-change yourself by missing it. For a preview, see my Flickr photoset.

 

 Belmont: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Click on the image above or one of these: Quicktime | Flash

Here I go again attempting to make something out of material gathered with no particular purpose in mind. Under other circumstances I’d have used a tripod and locked the shot, but the 9 still images which make up this presentation were taken hand-held. The presentation itself was created in minutes, completely in iPhoto.

The location is Norfolk Street in Belmont, a district of Port of Spain, Trinidad, where I was last night taking photos and video of the La Fantasie art project. I selected the building mainly because it was directly across the street and because of the glow from the two fluorescent light fixtures which highlighted the texture of the metal door, but it also happens to be the constituency office of the People’s National Movement, the ruling political party of Trinidad & Tobago.

See a larger version of the video at Caribbean Free Video, where I’ve begun archiving all the stuff that moves.

This also happens to be my submission for Semanal - Week 4!

It had to happen sooner or later. A band of “Carnival stakeholders” putting forward the suggestion that Trinidad and Tobago’s age-old pre-lenten Carnival be moved to a more “convenient” date, in this case, “a fixed date in April”. At this point it’s simply an idea that was tabled at a meeting yesterday, and they say it will be debated at a symposium which is supposed to take place after this year’s Carnival. But they should save their symposium-organising money and use it for something else, because the idea is just plain absurd. Here’s why:

1. Messing with history is a bad idea. While the people who came up with this idea might not be aware of this, the thing that ultimately gives out Carnival its uniqueness and value and meaning are its historical roots, which also has to do with the time of year it’s celebrated. Without that we’d be indistinguishable from any other of the other latter-day Carnivals. (Also see Reason #4 below).

2. Whose decision is this to make, anyway? While the “stakeholders” who attended the meeting might represent some of the key players in the festival (ie Pan Trinbago, the National Carnival Bands Association, National Carnival Development Committee), and while the idea is allegedly to be debated, they couldn’t possibly believe they could ever be in a position to make a decision like this. Who owns Carnival? Whose festival is this to move? Who has a bigger stake in Carnival than the people of Trinidad & Tobago? That debate had better be thorough, genuine and completely transparent.

3. The newer aspects of Carnival that this proposal would benefit are of dubious benefit to the nation. I do feel sorry for the steelband movement. The leadership of Pan Trinbago (the organising body for T&T steelband movement) seems to be behind the idea, but they should know that they’re far less likely to benefit from the moving of Carnival than the people behind the numerous Carnival fetes, all-inclusive and otherwise, the leaders of the 6,000-person, $4,000-costume Carnival bands and the producers and performers of cookie-cutter soca music. Carnival in its present incarnation has given us a disposable music form, cheap, overpriced costumes, segregated Carnival bands, encourages misplaced financial priorities and very likely lowers the overall productivity of the nation during the first quarter of every year. And it will continue to do that whether it remains on the two days before Ash Wednesday or is moved to “a fixed date in April”? Short Carnival seasons like this year’s are probably very, very good for this country, as they give us the opportunity to spend a greater portion of the year focused on developing, thinking about and exercising our creativity in other areas (eg creating an education system that actually educates, reducing crime etc).

4. We already own the Carnival niche, it would be extremely foolish to throw it away. With a couple of exceptions, like between 1942 and 1945 (because of World War Two) and 1972, when it was postponed to May because of a polio epidemic, Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival has always taken place on the two days before Ash Wednesday. A pre-lenten Carnival in T&T is an entrenched idea that Carnival visitors keep on their calendars. (I’ll also point Pan Trinbago president Patrick Arnold, quoted in the Trinidad Express article as saying that “the shifting date often created problems for fixtures and other organisational headaches”, to the numerous web sites that list the date of Ash Wednesday for the next million years. He could also ask any religious minister). Now what’s to stop some other country from organising a competing festival on the proposed “fixed date in April”? Moving Carnival would be comparable to an airline giving up a valuable berth at Heathrow airport and a lucrative flight route. And that makes no sense at all.

5. Other places manage their pre-lenten Carnivals just fine. Are we so much dumber than people in New Orleans, Brazil, Venice etc that we can’t figure out a way to make this work?

*For a definition of “dotish”, see The Trini Dictionary.

Technorati Tags: trinidad, carnival, caribbean

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