Now I'm not the biggest fan of the USA. Let's put it another way: I'm not a blind fan of the USA, and a lot of what the US thinks is great about itself I would question.But never would I question the greatness of that nation. The arrogance of this Swede, though, is staggering.
U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work.
"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining."
School teaches children such lies.One such lie told when I was in school was that agriculture failed in The Bahamas.Common sense back then should've told me that this wasn't true. After all, people in my grandparents' generation were feeding themselves well into my teens. My father's mother hardly ever bought fresh fruit from any food store or outlet -- she had her guavas and bananas and hog bananas and plantains and hog plums and mangoes and coconuts growing in her back yard -- which was on East Bay Street, between Bay and Dowdeswell, a place which was "town" even when I was a kid. My mother's mother kept chickens in her yard on Delancey Street, a yard which was the real kind of yard, with a bunch of houses all in the same lot.And then I grew up and studied anthropology. And I learned not only about the lie, but where the lie came from. There's a myth, see, in the world, see, that says that technology is hierarchically stacked and that agriculture is better than horticulture which is better than foraging and fishing which is better than ... well, animal social organization.And in this world, it's true that agriculture failed in The Bahamas. But what nobody tells you is why it failed.Because of the monolithic worldview that assumes that the history of Europe is the only history that any civilization can ever have -- a history that centres settlement around river deltas and grows cash crops and builds societies around agricultural farms that produce surpluses etc -- the kind of farming that works here in The Bahamas -- farming that is disparaged in literature and discussion as "slash and burn" farming but which is recognized by anthropologists as a valid adaptation to particular terrains and social organizations is ignored completely. Forget the fact that one person in Long Island or Cat Island can not only feed himself but his entire family, including those who are scattered around the Bahamian archipelago, and all year round, with the range of crops grown on his land. Forget the fact that the soil that lies trapped in our limestone pockets is not terribly deep but is extraordinarily rich, and produces vegetables and fruits that are pretty darn good -- and among the biggest I've ever seen (I still remember the cabbage I brought back with me from Long Island in 1995 -- huge and sweet and heavy as a cannonball). Martha Stewart's raving about the produce she cooked with in Nassau doesn't surprise me in the least.But don't take my word for it. Take word of the homemaking queen herself:
As I mentioned the other day, while I was in the Bahamas, I cooked a fabulous meal with Frederic Demers at Jean-George Vongerichten’s, Café Martinique. I wanted to know where this top chef finds all his beautiful produce and he told me about a wonderful gem of a farm called Holey Farm. I wanted to visit in the worst way, so I grabbed the television crew and off we went. We were greeted by Maria-Therese E. Kemp, who created this amazing place. Holey Farm gets its name because the growing areas are actually situated in the holes of limestone formations. It was very challenging to grow produce at first, in such rugged terrain, but Therese had perseverance and developed many special techniques. [The result:] a most unusual garden that many local chefs rave about!
The Martha Blog : Blog Archive : More from the Bahamas — Holey Farm
Came across this:
our education systems (around the world) are outdated and mainly designed to meet the needs of industrialization. Sir Ken [Robinson] makes many good points — some you may not agree with — but he certainly is not saying that math and science should be taught or studied less, rather that music and the arts and creativity in general should be pursued more.Presentation Zen: Is education killing creativity?
I think I tend to agree.Forget being tentative. I totally agree.Here's what Sir Ken says in his own words:
Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects ... At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and at the bottom are the arts. Everywhere on earth. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in school than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics.
See for yourself - the YouTube clip via Riz Khan:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAt-3Yk2u80&hl=en&fs=1]And the whole thing itself thanks to TED:http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swfArt and culture make good business.
I got this one thanks to Rick Lowe of Blog Bahamas. It's worth a second link, I think.Liberty - Decisive Moments
What you make of a picture shows who you are, not just what the photograph depicts. Yet photographs do have an effect, as Lange suggested, in teaching people how to see. Admittedly, this may take a long time to happen. When Matthew Brady's photos of the carnage at Antietam were displayed in Washington, during the Civil War, audiences exclaimed, "How ghastly!", but did nothing: photography was too new a technology; the viewers weren't accustomed to the reality that the pictures purported to represent. When Capa's photos of men struggling and dying in the waters of Normandy appeared in Life, the American public — perhaps also not used to the raw quality of the images — took it as another just sacrifice and carried on. But when Adams' photo of the Saigon execution appeared in American and world media, sped by technology that was on the cutting edge of communications, it galvanized many people's thoughts overnight. The sense of immediacy — the sense, at least, of a sudden intrusion of unmediated, unjustified brutality — was greater than before. Eyes that had become accustomed to the contemplation of war, and had even accepted its photographic images as classical representations of reality, now looked at an image that was disturbingly hard to fit in the comfortable, classical frame.
A tourist trap already. Check out this promotional film from Pan Am:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXz6BIC7pVs&hl=en&fs=1]Comments are welcome.
This is something new that I want to try to develop -- a series of podcasts that discuss arts and culture in The Bahamas, particularly in relation to CARIFESTA. It's in the experimental mode right now. The first episode is done, and can be listened to online, but I'm still working out the kinks in downloading. Bear with me as I learn more about this -- feedback more than welcome!Culture, Arts and CARIFESTA - Episode 1
Over on Bahama Pundit, where I used to post when I was writing Essays on Life (hiatus almost over), the mind behind Front Porch has written on the need for a more nuanced morality when discussing Bahamian issues. Hear, hear. For those who haven't read it yet, here's a sample:
Genuine insight requires context. Its companions include discernment, nuance, balance, prudence, humility -- and scepticism. It counts as its enemies cynicism, sensationalism and prejudice.*In some quarters there is a knee-jerk conceit about the Bahamas similar to the self-loathing and hackneyed images of the Caribbean by writers such as V. S. Naipaul.It goes something like this. The Bahamas is inalterably corrupt, lacks any kind of moral framework, and may be beyond repair. In its nauseating and inaccurate retelling: it’s worse in the Bahamas, often much worse.A major problem with this storyline is that it is more the stuff of fiction than good journalism. It is like a reality show, filled with exaggeration and drama in order to boost ratings, make money and inflate the egos of the scriptwriters and possibly sell tell-all books based on the reality series.This storyline lacks context. Context requires a broad vision, free of the kind of moral blindness which leads some to dismiss moral failure, and others to see only moral failure.There are many social, moral and other entrenched problems at home. But when you compare us -- or place us within a broader global context -- we are in some areas perhaps a little worse or a little better, and in many areas probably just about the same.
On Thursday past, the organizers of the Bahamas International Literary Festival (BILF), a new-brand entity, so new it don't even have itself a webspace yet, held a literary forum that served as a precursor to the festival. Six Bahamian writers were invited to present on the topic The Role of the Writer in Society. I was privileged to be among them. The others were: Keith RussellObediah Michael SmithAlex MorleyIan Strachan... Who? who'm I forgetting? Or can't I count? ... I don't think I can count ... there were only five of us! Gah!Well, anyhow. The evening was memorable for a couple of reasons. The first was the size of the audience. It filled almost the entire length of the upper floor of Chapter One Bookstore, much to my amazement. Now I know it's entirely possible, even likely, that a good chunk of the attendees were students who had no choice in the matter, whose classes were meeting there, who might even have an assignment about the topic later on. But that didn't stop the fact that there were, oh, maybe fifty or sixty people in attendance from making me hold the event in awe. Writers in this country are not used to such interest. At least I'm not.Just for posterity's sake, and because it might be of interest, and because I've been toying with the concept of podcasting for some time and thought this is on the way to creating one, below's an updated version of the presentation I gave. It's not exactly the same because Thursday was a runaround day and I wasn't able to get all the quotations I wanted for the presentation, but it's 90% similar. The comment box is on, for feedback's sake, if people are so inclined.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VITJjobWLyU&w=425&h=350]So I'm not an purist when it comes to writing. Art for art's sake, as Achebe said, being somewhat of a myth. I don't necessarily believe that all art has to have a function, a purpose; the kind of art that does isn't really art, as it puts emotions and empathy second to function. But on the other hand, as Ian Strachan, who spoke last, said of writing -- whatever you think about it, the act of writing is always a political act. One needn't be a socialist (as Alex Morley is) for that to be true; you just need to write, and to share your writing with people beyond yourself. In fact, each of us spoke about agency and writing and change and revolution of some kind. Revelation, said one of us (don't remember which one -- if you're reading this, own it, Keith or Ian or Obie or Alex!) is revolution. If you don't know my name, said Obie, channelling Baldwin, you don't know your own. (Obie read an essay which meandered through various meditations about writers and society and kept coming back to just that -- if you don't know my name, you don't know your own.) Write for change, said Alex. Write to tell the truth. Write to show ourselves ourselves. Write to make a difference, said Keith. Write to tell the truth.We talked a lot about truth and difference and change among us, each of us in our own particular way. So it's no coincidence that I'm going to post the next video here now. Chris Abani talked about story and the power of telling a tale, the power of telling the truth, and somebody filmed him doing so. Watch the video below to see what he said. It's akin to what we said, only (forgive me, colleagues) better.http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/loader.swf
wonder of the world: CARIFESTA X - An Alternative to the same old, same oldThe Bookman, a blog from Trinidad and Tobago, muses on art, CARIFESTA, and society. It's not coincidental, I think, that this week I've been to two talks already about the same thing: one on Wednesday at PopOp Studios about CARIFESTA XI to be held in The Bahamas, and one last night at Chapter One Bookstore about the role of the writer in society. At the end of the panel discussion from last night, where six of us, writers from very different backgrounds and with very different bodies of work, spoke about that role, we were answered in the discussion that followed by a visual artist who told us that our conversations were not isolated, that they were happening all around the country. Something is happening nationwide about the Caribbean arts. Perhaps we are coming into ourselves. The Bookman suggests that perhaps this something is happening regionally. Because I believe in the latter, I'm going to quote from The Bookman's comment on CARIFESTA X to illustrate, just a little, what I mean, and what I hope:
One cannot help but feel that art is held as a fringe. That artists are at the edges of society, almost invisible, except for moments when society is engaged with it and comments on talent. It is always the same trite comment at that, that there is so much talent in Trinidad and Tobago…and? What are we doing about it?...So I am going around in circles with my point. The public need to be educated about what is happening in the arts locally and regionally. The corporate world needs to get more involved in the arts and make it much more relevant to their own business mandates, and the artists themselves must start to hold themselves to the highest standards, look at their profession as deserving of much more than handouts and government support and we need to be very loud and clear about just how much we mean to our society by having alternative spaces to show our work and encourage the society to see that we mean business and that it isn’t business as usual.
Received the following by email. It's from Terneille Burrows (TaDa). Quite frankly, I was thrilled to get it. Those of us who work in the Department of Culture have made similar points in boardrooms and accountants' offices, but the attitudes about ourselves and our artists persist.I'm not going to say more -- I'm just going to post her letter and let her speak for herself.
By Terneille Burrows*A major concert sponsored by Bahamian companies and featuring multi-platinum hip-hop artist Lil Wayne will take place in Nassau on Friday September 26, 2008. Will Bahamian performers on this show be fairly treated and compensated???However outrageous it may seem, Bahamian recording artists are often times given the "short end of the stick" when it comes to being recruited to perform on shows featuring major international recording acts. Despite the promoters best efforts to make local artists feel important (backstage, pre and post party events access etc.), there may not be payment offered for the artists' services, which can include not only performing at the show, but making promotional appearances, attending rehearsals, meetings, sound-check and lending their name and likeness to be attached with the event promotion. (Oops, the natives were neglected from the big budget…oh well…)However, it seems everyone except the local artists financially benefit (promoters, advertising media, venues, event consultants, security firms, sound and lighting companies etc.) When promoters apply for international artists' visas and other required licenses to work in our country, should we also demand that our local artists be compensated for their contributions as well? While some might argue that local performers should jump at the chance to be on a big event, merely for the presumed prestige of it, I would have to disagree. Bahamian artists have long fought for the respect of our craft, as some of us do this for a living, while others aspire to. I feel as though if an artist or entertainer has worked to establish them self and gained a decent local following, there should be a fee attached with their service.Some sectors of the Bahamian entertainment industry have established systems in place to cultivate their respective discipline. The burgeoning Bahamian film industry has benefitted vastly from practices implemented by the Ministry of Tourism's Bahamas Film and Television Commission division. The Bahamas film commission has become a excellent example of a system that should be emulated by the wider entertainment and performance industries in the Bahamas. Film commissioner Craig Woods, and his team actively promote and facilitate the hiring of Bahamian crew for productions that come to be filmed here. They are in intent on continuing the nourishment of the Bahamian film industry through not only promoting Bahamians gaining experience on film productions, but also by providing them with employment on productions that come to town.We as artists and artists' representatives are also to blame for allowing ourselves to be so freely taken advantage of. It's time to effect dramatic change and encourage Bahamians and foreigners alike to regard Bahamian artists and entertainers as working professionals. Throughout other parts of the world, local independent artists are taken seriously for their work. More closely to home, in parts of the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados, there exists established and organized music industries. The government, corporate world and consumers alike support their local music scenes. Major artists like Rihanna, Sean Paul, and Sean Kingston come from the Caribbean, are all respected on the international scene, and celebrated by their countrymen. Why can't we do the same in our country?Other Artists' Input"This (exploitation) has been going on for far too long and people are afraid to speak out for fear of being blacklisted, but mainly because we have been conditioned to believe that we as Bahamians are not 'good enough' to make it on an international level".– Margaret 'Believe' Glynatsis (Recording Artist/Producer) "It is insulting when an organizer expects an entertainer to perform for free however charitable the event without saying, we are willing to pay 'x' in exchange for your services - which in turn offers the artist the opportunity to say, 'don't worry about it, I'll do it for free'. If a promoter/organizer is unable to pay you, there should be some exchange, pre-agreed by both of you that is valued at the cost of your performance i.e. - goods or services, event passes, commercial consideration... something. And I won't begin to talk about Flyers, Press Releases, web-advertising, radio mentions.– Bodine 'Be' Johnson (Recording Artist/Journalist)"How can major international promoters and the local consultants they hire expect to be taken seriously by local (Bahamian) acts, when our performers are treated like second class citizens at events in our own country? I have seen too many major concerts come to the Bahamas and have local artists act as guinea pigs, while sound engineers check levels and tweak the house system during the opening performances in preparation for the headliners!! The local artist are again put in a predicament, when headliners arrive late, and the opening acts are used to "stall" the aggravated audience. For this type of treatment, it only adds injury to insult to imagine our Bahamian artists performing at these events without being duly compensated"– Ian 'Bigg E' Cleare (Producer/Studio)
It isn't a frivolous thing to protest against the way in which people expect to view Africa (and the rest of the third world for that matter, where skins are dark and palm trees feather the skyline). I know Hurricane Ike was a bastard, and ripped up the southern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos and slammed Cuba and is now going to hammer Texas. I know this, and so do you.But is there any excuse for the kind of coverage provided below?BBC NEWS | Americas | Paradise flattened in storm's wakeHere are other ways in which the BBC has reported on the storm:Images of Ike (almost all of Cuba, which racks up the heartstring points)And here is how the local media covered it:Images of Ike damage in Inagua, including millions of dollars' damage at Morton SaltMy conclusion: our lens sees damage. The lens of the BBC seeks human distress.All the better to underline, once again, and subtly (or not-so-subtly) the wonders of being civilized.I wrong?***(15/09/08) Edit: So maybe a little wrong, and certainly a lot biased. Here are some other links to consider before weighing in on the discussion:New York Times on Ike (May require a password to view)LA Times on IkeHuffington Post on Ike
Country: Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire, West AfricaAuthor: Marguerite Abouet (& Clement Oubrerie)Review: Yes, yes, another coming of age novel. But I had to think about this one, because (a) it's not All About Me, and (b) it's a graphic novel. It's about three young women in the Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire of the 1970s, three fairly ordinary young women in a working class neighbourhood (Yopougon), who are having the usual teenage girl-issues, like school and boys and what to do with what's going on between their legs. It's called Aya, and that's the main character -- or rather the narrator -- but as Aya's a pretty dull person really (at least at this point in her life -- she's studying too hard to generate any real drama in her life) the story really focusses on the actions of her two friends Bintou and Adjoua.Comment: All the reviews about this book, as well as the preface, make a point of talking about the ordinariness of the story, the lack of violence and abjectness in the background, the total unAfricanness of the story (because nobody dies, no government topples, and nobody starves). To do the same thing would justify that stance and underline the idea that what happens in Africa must be very very bad. Everyone makes the point of saying that Ivory Coast Côte d'Ivoire was an exemplary African nation in the 1970s, etc, etc, rather the way Alexander McCall Smith keeps reminding us that Botswana is an exemplary African nation in the 2000s. It's the postcolonial version of the Dark Continent myth. I don't buy it, so I won't say it. But for people expecting fireworks and drama in this graphic novel, and who approach it the way they might approach, say, Speigelman's Maus, forget it. Think Archie, Betty and Veronica -- only all grown up.
Country: Nigeria, West AfricaAuthor: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Review: Perhaps it's typical of novels from the African and Caribbean diaspora, but I find often that authors' first novels are coming-of-age stories. (It's one of the things that's turned me off reading novels from my own region, and equally, what's stopped me writing The Big One.) But that's an aside; I'm here to talk about Adichie's first novel, Purple Hibiscus.So all right, it's a coming-of-age story. But it didn't turn me off! On the contrary, it's so well done, so carefully drawn, so non-solipsistic that it won me over.The narrator is a fourteen-year-old girl whose father is a Big Man in her community -- owner of a local factory, publisher of the only newspaper that dares to be critical of the government, fierce Roman Catholic convert, pillar of the community, a local hero who (like Achebe's Okonkwo) cannot bend but must break, or be broken, instead. The father is a domestic tyrant who teaches his lessons with pain, who punishes his family with specific physical torments, and who has no tolerance for anything other than the way he has chosen for himself. He is distanced from his own father, who has refused to abandon his traditions, and has an uneasy relationship with his sister, who has made peace with both the old way and the new, and is able to chart a specifically African course, balancing her life between the traditional and the contemporary, and finding a very Nigerian interpretation of Christianity. The narrator and her brother live sheltered lives until they go to visit this aunt, a poor professor in a university town, and their experiences with her and her family form the catalyst that brings the story to its turning point.Adichie's style is spare and clean (is this a 21st century phenomenon?), and deceptively simple. It's in keeping, in its female, 21st century way, with the trend Achebe set with Things Fall Apart, limpid language revealing subtext. And the subtext is rich: domestic abuse, the challenges of living in independent Nigeria, the challenges of remaining uncorrupted, the poverty and marginalization of intellectuals, the casual violence of everyday life. From the fervent church services and the generosity of the father to the poor to the scar on Kevin-the-chauffeur's neck and the polishing of the mother's figurines, the gulf between the public persona and the private life is too large to be crossed, until.Comments: I ran across Adichie on Zoetrope and am glad I finally read her book. I'd read more by her for sure.
No, I haven't forgotten it. Have you?Here's my update. I took books, as I said, to Guyana to read. That was optimistic; I didn't get the chance while on the ground, though I did read small bits of Purple Hibiscus in the bath once or twice. I also didn't get the chance to attend Karen King-Aribisala's reading, much to my regret, as I know Karen personally, having attending the 1992 Caribbean Writer's Workshop with her (and Edwidge Danticat and Garfield Ellis and Geoffrey Philp -- time, hey, for me to get my behind published like my peers, huh?) Karen, if you ever chance to read this, please please accept my apologies, and start saving -- CARIFESTA's here in The Bahamas next time.I will be posting reviews -- I finished two more books -- over the next week or so.Cheers.
Alissa Trotz makes some salient points (hey, Alissa!!)In the Diaspora : Stabroek News
In a presentation made at the Caricom Heads of Govern-ment Conference in July, Barbadian novelist George Lamming took Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo to task for the following comment “…and now we come to the lighter side, CARIFESTA in Guyana.”There is one way to interpret these remarks, as seeing culture as entertainment to engage in when the real work is finished. It is a view that allows ‘culture’ to fall by the wayside, to be addressed only after the ‘real’ priorities of so-called development are attended to, like building roads and paying off the foreign debt. As Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott observed in his exchange with the President at the opening CARIFESTA symposium, we have heard politicians rehearse these tired arguments for years. Walcott expressed his ambivalence about a festival that asks us to celebrate the wanton disregard for our artists in a region where with few exceptions artistic endeavour is not seen as a serious vocation. Here is the ongoing lie of CARIFESTA, illustrated by the profound gap between rhetorical pronouncements and the woeful state of our institutional infrastructure supporting the arts.
Read more.
Guyana Providence Stadium: Guyana - Rambler on the benefits of Carifesta
So please, El Presidente could you arrange just one more week of freeness, dancing and drinking? You know as a Moscow trained economist that this splurge of government spending, (you take $500 million of taxpayer’s money out of the economy and send it right back in) is not the zero sum game it would appear on paper. It multiplies throughout the truly long lasting, productive sectors: beer, rum, hair salons, boutiques and Red Dragon.And what a shining example of public/private partnership, the mega concerts were. For example, you invited the company that imported soda pop/beer to hold a concert for which people had to buy the same soda pop/beer to receive a ticket. This demonstrates how even-handed you can be even as your investigation into the customs scam grinds to a halt.The performers stay in the hotel you helped finance with our money and thereby reduce the hotel’s interest-free loan in a way that is impossible to verify.Then you get the newspaper whose owners your government gave illegal tax concessions to, to join an unquestioning cheerleading chorus for Carifesta along with your personal TV and radio stations.Let’s not even mention the Chronic, which ignored everything else in Guyana for ten days as it entered the magical world of Carifestaland. Not even the killing of those criminals – what are their names again? - could crash their party.No wonder it was a success. You proclaimed it was a success, the biggest ever… like your budgets, your tax revenues, and you were everywhere, omnipresent: you quarrelled with Walcott, avoided auditors at the Grand Market, addressed the gospel fest, declaring the country was in safe hands …you meant your hands of course, not God’s. Ha ha silly us!And the crowds! The multitudes came out for you, for your country. After all 30,000 people at the Banks Ultra Mega Concert-to-end-all-Concerts can’t be wrong! And in the process, they made the PNC look like fuddy-duddy party poopers.
The point, though, is that it didn't have to be government-funded only. My point was that the demand for such events is high, and is worth money. Governments don't have to make everything free to make something economically viable; in fact, governments often destroy the economic viability of cultural events by too much interference. Take Junkanoo as an example.We would do well to pay attention.
Hanna has passed without incident, as expected. Ike has weakened and has shifted a little so that the eye is no longer heading for New Providence but further south. We don't know what will happen, but there it is.We're keeping our eyes on the storm. We'll feel it by Monday.
Guyana doesn't get hurricanes.We do.I'm sitting here, a tropical storm watch active for the area, while three storms line up and take aim on us. Of them, the one that worries me the most is Ike -- a decent Cat Four hurricane currently heading straight for Nassau. I'll keep you posted.Cheers.