Gillian Moor has more anniversaries and birthdays than Dr Hyde and Papa Rocky squooshed together. The open mic concert series will be two years old on Sunday 3rd June, and Mungal Patasar will be stomping through to celebrate. Shows starts at 7PM and tickets cost $40. No weeping and moaning cuz it aint free, grab your tix at Trevor's Edge, or call up Gillian on 868.760.4655.
Heelo Ameericains...please try to attend the opening of Embah's exhibition this Saturday June 2nd, at White Columns in NYC. It runs from 6-8PM, and the exhibition has been generously supported by Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg.
WHITE COLUMNS is at 320 West 13th Street, and you can reach them on 212.924.4212.
Everyone knows I am an NJAC man (I've got the t-shirt to prove it), but someone signed me up for the UNC popaganda mailing list, and I received this gem:
The Barataria/San Juan executive is having a cake sale on Saturday 9th June from 8am-12pm. It will be held downstairs the constiutency office:I think downstairs Trendsetters garment factory is a great place to have a cake sale. Please Baratarians (San Juaners?), buy a cake with Panday's face on the front.
Railway Road
San Juan
Next to El Socorro taxi stand, downstairs Trendsetters garment factory.
For further information please contact the office at 674-4788/ 674-0387/ uncbaratariasanjuanexecutive@yahoo.com
Thank You
Rennie Mohan
Secretary
Who would think there was an art gallery in Cocoyea Village? Chinese restaurant, crack house, art gallery...makes perfect sense. But wait, this is the same community that has an olympic size swimming pool, but no water to fill it. Right.
Anyway, “Innumerable Viewpoints IV” runs until June 6th, and features the work of over 30 artists. The Gallery is located at #14 Naparima Mayaro Road, Upper Cocoyea Village in San Fernando, and for more info you can call Natasha Byron at 652.0710/768 .9664.
It's the biggest group show Cocoyea has ever seen!
If you've got a thing for pictures, give Joanne Johnson a hail, she's looking for volunteer photographers:
Check the Smelta Karavan website, or call Joanne at 629.6582/ 355.6930.A mobile unit will tour our country from June to October this year to host community discussions about environmental awareness. The intention is to gather consciousness from the people of T&T towards protecting our land against the proposed smelter and to set precedents for further indiscriminate industrialization.
- You can offer as little or as much time as you feel joyfully willing and able
- Get one other person to contribute in some way
- A camera will be provided
Forgive me, but I've been busy re-organising my Scotch Tape collection.
Enjoy heaven, my friend. Nice knowing you - I know you'll have some extra hard questions to ask the next time we meet.
I know this is super short notice but please try to come down to the National Museum tomorrow (Sunday) for about 4:30PM. Mungal Patasar is doing an open air show, and he's really, really good.
So be there.
This year's Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival will be held in September and October. It opens at Movietowne, and hits up St. Augustine, San Fernando and Tobago, before closing with the Animae Caribe Animation and New Media festival at UWI, October 25-27.
The deadline for submissions is June 30th, and for more information contact ttfilmfest[at]wow[dot]net. They don't want to talk to you, otherwise they would've put their phone number.
I had lunch at this place on Monday - it's a gallery/ art supply shop/ café. The place smells nice, and they make good juice. They're at 54 Gallus Street in Woodbrook (between Ariapita and Tragerete), and the gallery/ shop hours are 8:30AM - 4:30PM (café hours are 9AM - 2PM.
The picture above is by Maisaa Moses, one of several artists that are currently on show.
1. Turn signals will give away your next move. A real Trini driver never uses them, besides if you do the driver on the lane on which you are trying to get in front of will just accelerate to not let you get in.
2. Under no circumstance should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you, or the space will be filled in by somebody else, putting you in an even more dangerous situation and also delaying you to your destination.
3. The faster you drive through a red light, the lesser the chance you have of getting hit.
4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign. No one expects it and it will result in you being rear-ended.
5. Never get in the way of an older car that needs extensive bodywork, especially someone with no insurance ...the other guy doesn't have anything to lose.
6. Braking is to be done as hard and late as possible to ensure that your ABS kicks in, giving a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates. For those of you without ABS, it's a chance to stretch your legs.
7. Never pass on the right when you can pass on the left . It's a good way to prepare for people entering the highway.
8. Speed limits are arbitrary numbers, given only as a suggestion and are apparently not enforceable in T&T.
9. Just because you're in the right lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn't mean that a Trini driver flashing his high beams behind you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.
10. Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even someone changing a tire. This is seen as a sign of respect for the victim.
11. Learn to swerve abruptly. Trinidad is the home of high-speed slalom driving.
12. It is traditional in Trini to honk your horn at cars that don't move the instant the light turns green. Even though you are at risk of getting shot by the driver in front of you if you do this. Psst....you may be at similar risk from the driver behind if you don't.
13. Remember that the goal of every Trini driver is to get there first by whatever means necessary.
14. 'Flipping someone the bird' is considered a polite salute. This gesture should always be returned.
Rolling around the floor in just his jeans, the Hoff makes a clumsy attempt at eating a burger - which lasts six minutes.
Genius.
Check out Brownscape Production's Brownbag Magazine, chock full of Asian American content. They'd put out this documentary a coupla years back called Made In India, about arranged marriages.
Maybe if you ask nicely i can ask Deepti for the bootleg corner bodega version.
And you can tell just by looking at it. Could this be the busiest front page EVAR?
Sometimes you start off blogging all hot and sweaty and you feel like yeah man i going to do this and talk about that, but then you just kinda get bored of it and go back to watching porn and downloading songs.
Interesting New Yorker article on Banksy, one of the most influential artists of the 21st Century. Or whichever one it is that we're in.
I knew a girl back in the day that wouldn't 'eat by the road'. She endured a relatively sheltered childhood, and rebelled against her parents by dating on of my boys - a serious KFC/ Mackie D/ BK's kinda guy.
Anyway i have found that in Trinidad the most consistent eating experience is Roadside Cuisine. Whether it is a Kanhai roti, George X doubles, Yellow Cart burger or a Brown punch, you know that both the service and the quality of the food will remain consistent. Every now and then somebody on the team might get the shits (not me), but i've seen more roaches coming out of the kitchen at Tiki Village than on the sidewalk outside Kanhai.
Prime Minister John Howard said Sunday the Australian government has banned the country's cricket team from touring Zimbabwe in September because he does not want to support the regime of a "grubby dictator."Why does Mugabe look so much like this guy?
Noble Douglas’ Lilliput Theatre presents their 2007 production, Smelly. Directed by 3Canal's Wendell Manwarren, Smelly is a commentary on our nation’s state of development and environment, addressing local issues including the smelter projects and Vision 2020. It will be presented this coming weekend (May 18, 19 and 20) at Queen's Hall. $60 for adults and $40 for kids, tickets are available at Crosby's Music Centre in St James or from all Lilliput students.
Ms Downtown Island won Best Actress at the Bridgetown Film Festival for her role in the new film Hit For Six. HFS won “Best Barbadian Film” from a field of seven films and Best Cinematographer of the Festival went to Richard Lannaman.
In related news, fellow Trinidadian Yao Ramesar won Best Director for his film Sistagod.
Take a bow!
The title of 'Undisputed Limbo Queen' is not to be taken lightly, and Relevant Theatre's latest production celebrates the life of its esteemed holder, Julia Edwards-Pelletier. There's an utterly inappropriate joke that I'm not making here, but the show takes place on Saturday 19th May at the Strand. For info call the Strand box office at 868.623.5108.
The Haitian culture seminar continues til Thursday at Centre for Language Learning Auditorium at UWI St Augustine. Maksaens Denis and Robbie Styles kill it Audio/Visually from 6PM on Wednesday.
So I was finally able to catch Swan open on Monday. Basically they have an OPEN sign hanging in the window, but you're at the mercy of the owners. I pressed the buzzer today and luckily someone answered. The service was good and the food was excellent - unlike a certain dive on Ariapita Avenue that may or may not serve Dim Sum on a weekend.
"I've got a headache" seems tame in comparison:
The New England Journal of Medicine study said the risk was almost nine times higher for people who reported oral sex with more than six partners.Link
3Canal will be passing through the Yard. Will they sing a song? Will they get into a long winded debate over topics I'm not bright enough to follow?
More [less] importantly, there will be rice and peas and stew chicking on sale. Yummay.
Talking starts at 8:30, and for more info you can call Sheldon on 868.723.0060.
Two local documentaries at the Studio Flims Club - a new one about the Kilimanjaro School in Cocorite, and a not-so-new one about Trinidad Carnival.
Flims from 8:15, doors open at 7:30. Admission free free free and drinks on sale.UP AND DANCING - THE MAGIC STILTS OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO (Harald Rumpf/2007/T&T-Germmany/51’)
The documentary “Up and Dancing” follows the lives of several students and teachers of the “Kilimanjaro School of Arts and Culture” as they prepare for upcoming carnival parades in Port of Spain, Trinidad.The film takes a realistic yet tender look at the practitioners of the traditional art of stilt walking; characters popularly know as Moko Jumbies.Practiced primarily by youths from low-income families in the Cocorite hills, “walking” has become a creative diversion from the sometimes harsh realities of poor urban life.
CARNIVAL ROOTS (Peter Chelkowski/2003/T&T-USA/90’)
“Carnival Roots” is an electrifying documentary film about the people and the music that fuel Trinidad’s carnival.Made over a period of three years while in collaboration with some of Trinidad’s most dynamic designers, musicians, masqueraders and historians, “Carnival Roots” manages to touch on some of the major elements and themes that shape carnival as we know it today.With great clarity the film offers an insight into the historical links between traditional mas and the development of new forms within carnival.What emerges as the film progresses is not a presentation of carnival as revelry and fun but a vision of carnival seen as the act of a nation forging it’s own identity.From camboulay to steelband, to calypso and soca the film emphasizes of the power of transformation that is inherent in the domain of carnival. “Carnival Roots”
which features the music of Machel Montano, Black Stalin, Bunji Garlin and Super Blue among others, is elegantly shot on 16mm film and would have to be considered one of the most definitive films made on the subject of carnival.
This dude called Dr. Agozino, who's head of the UWI Department of Behavioural Sciences and coordinator of their Criminology Programme, writes the most amazing garbage for Vanguard, a Nigerian newspaper. You've GOT to check out his work!
I didn't even know Nigeria had the internets.
Saltfish and dumpling this week! They advertise Robbie Styles again this week, but last time they talk out the man, better to just go for the food.
Alice Yard always worth checking.
I wouldn't be caught dead at the Squeeze (this is no exception), but Dougie's band is playing on Friday from 9PM. Tabanca is this amazing blues band that i first ran into a few years ago at the No Name Bar On Gatacre Street With The Heineken Sign And Not Much Else. Plus they got a German dude on geetar.
Tell yer mum!
My boy Colin did this shoot in Tobago on the weekend. Pretty straightforward stuff, 'cept the picture doesn't show the chickens hanging out in the drain, or the fat man/crazy man directing traffic, or the amazing heritage buildings that will soon be torn down and replaced by gaudy celebrations of 21st century island architecture.
Long sigh.
This experimental set combines the music and video of Haitian DJ/VJ Maksaens Denis. Part of the Haiti Now! Art, Film, Literature seminar at UWI, Denis will collaborate with Robbie “Styles" Persaud, a Trinidadian folk musician, producer, remix artist, and member of the 3canal band, the cut+clear crew. The abstract and real visual images—many taken from everyday Haitian life— are mixed live and are played off against the mix of dance music styles, which include ambient, drum 'n' bass, and tribal.For more info, call up 662.2002 x2469.
The Sean Thomas Quintet will be performing live on Friday 25th May and Saturday 26th May at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Show starts at 9:30PM and tickets are $100, available by calling 632.3061. Sean Thomas is one of the most talented drummers i've ever seen, and the Quintet features Samantha Gooden and Corinne Gray on Vocals, Theron Shaw on Electronic & Acoustic Guitar, and Michael Nysus on Electric Bass.
Checkidout.
Due to public demand (everyone was at jazz), "Scandal in Parliament! Duck and Run!" has been extended for three nights - Wednesday 2nd (long gone), Thursday 3rd (tonight), and Friday 4th at Queen's Hall.
If you loved the scandal and laughter of "Run For Yuh Wife" then "Scandal in Parliament! Duck and Run!" will have you in throes of laughter as the colourful mix of characters, including Members of Parliament and a Minister get involved in bacchanal that could have reprucussions in a pending general election.Showtime is 8:30PM and tickets are $100, available by calling the box office at 624.1284 x1, or 721.3260.
Writer and director Paul Anthony Morris’s latest work is an action packed political satire that takes us into the sometimes surreal world of politics and survival in Jamaica. 35 Cents, the first major work for Crying in the Wilderness Productions, plays at the Blue Elephant Theatre in Camberwell, London, from 8th May - 26th May (Tuesdays to Saturdays).
It’s election time in Jamaica and the campaigns are already smouldering with intimidation and violence. Fatigued by ever increasing levels of poverty and corruption on the Island, a new student organisation called the ‘No Confidence Movement’ enters the political arena. Their mission, to lead the electorate on a national boycott of the general elections to protest against International and Corporate interference in the Island’s affairs. However, as our youngTickets cost £10 and the box office can be reached at 020 7701 0100. Post Show Discussions will be held on the 17th and 24th, hosted by Kwame Kwei-Armagh.
protagonists prepare to embark on their campaign, they are confronted with the reality that political power comes at a price. The question is, who’s going to pay?
The UWI Kenya Academic Research and Cultural Exchange Project will be hosting a Movie Marathon/ Fundraiser on Saturday 12th May at the Center for Language Learning Auditorium, UWI. They are trying to raise funds for 26 students to get to Kenya, cuz it's not like the UWI could use their own cash to send some kids to Africa.
For ticket info contact Akilah (714.6757), Tyehimba (730.4693) or Melissa (716.4791). I kinda hoping there's a dancing competition for a trip to Africa or something.2:30PM ($35) LUMUMBA (2000/ Raoul Peck/ Haiti)
5:00PM ($50 Double Feature) YESTERDAY (2004/ Darrell Roodt/ South Africa) and TSOTSI (2005/ Gavin Hood/ South Africa)
This first of the six seasons of Westwood Park weaves the story of the DuSoleil and Gunn-Monroe families, whose affluent and picture-perfect lifestyles become less than idyllic on closer inspection. The manipulative and power-hungry Herbert dominates the Gunn-Monroe clan, while the conscientious and upstanding Jonathan heads the DuSoleil family. Set in lush and luxurious locations rarely seen in Caribbean dramas, Westwood Park is driven by the universal themes of love, hate, power, greed and corruption.Westwood Park: Season One is available for purchase on Amazon, at the bargain price of thirty fo' ninety nine. I think I will have one.
Bored with MySpace, Hi5, Facebook, Youtube, et cetera ad infinitum? Check out WestIndianTube.com - it needs no explanation. Guaranteed to waste countless precious hours of your life, that you will never ever be able to recover. Enjoy.