mj, unexpectedly, through another; oildown

made my 1st oildong ever this week and, if i do say so myself, it lash! the gutta crew mash it up in a one, no leftovers for next day- i had to dish out for kb+fred before the crew even finish eating the night, to make sure the parents get to taste before it finish! and speaking of the gutta crew, the staged reading went mostly smoothly, lots of useful feedback from an interested audience, and it look like we might be about to do something...more sooncome...
but what really prompted this post was found through a source i can't yet admit to using; 2 pieces by john survivor blake:

Dear Nina
Ever since your voice
wept and whaled
an honest version of "Strange Fruit",
piano keys filling the echo
of empty bodies in forgotten coffins,

I knew then
you were everything black
to the grave,

There's a chance Michael's innocent
of raping children. only God will know.
If this is so, I am praying you meet him.

Keep in mind, you may not recognize the boy.
America took bleach and blade to him.

Look for a face
with everything required
to be considered easy
on the eyes.

His frame is thin
from cutting pills
instead of meat; as if
he tried
imploding.

Between the morphine and Demerol, Harriet
may need to lift his spirit with gospel claps
and her two magnificent hands, just
like old times.

Do not take him to God. The shame
would destroy what little is left. Personally,
I never blamed him the first experiment; how
the girls swarmed his caramel skin, longed
to slide their fingers through his much looser
curls, and butterfly-kiss
his then-tinier
doe-nose.

First
walk him to Assata. She will hold the sun still
and bring back the blue shine. Call Malcolm.
He knows the cure for any conk.
Find Gordon Parks. break out every photo
of pride and prejudice, from police fangs
to fire-hoses. Then, show Michael
the biggest smiles on the blackest faces.
Show him he could have been happy that way.

And see what Gordon can do
with Michael's face. Let him clay, sculpt,
add everything back, . I don't know how well
feathers work as brushes, but what other choice
do we have?

(Please, keep him from Miles. That man
will be sneaking him off to Satan's every weekend.)

Sing for him;
Black is the color of my true love's hair,
Mississippi God Damned,
I loves you, Porgy,
Mood Indigo,
and, of course,
a duet with Billie;

Strange Fruit

until he feels the warm rain, sees
blood of his roots, red

as his infamous leather jacket

red
as his stopped heart,

red
as gathering wind in Autumn,

RED

as the cracked eyes
of weeping girls
who wanted to be him;

White, skinny, famous, rich,
singing about love, with long,
flowing, straight

hair.

A Letter; Miles Davis to Chris Brown
I wanted to thank you
for letting me borrow your body,
I had one last beating to give,
and you, so willing, volunteering
your girl like that,

Sound is powerful,
from hiss to scream, gasp to moan,
the scraping noise needles like us make
when we dig into a woman's vinyl skin,

I knew how to grip a bitch
before your hand knew your cock,

I couldn't float by, she blocked that next song I had
bangin' around my skull, no respect for pitch or tone,
draggin' you into that argument,

did you lose a song too, when she started
with that bullshit, causin' a wind of stares,
did you smell the gasoline sharpen after she threw the keys,
me too, hollerin' 'bout other women in your phone,

did you see the way she shrieked
when we bit her, when the blood
smacked the dash, the way I said,

Now, I'm gonna kill you.

Hands and teeth grow minds of their own,
shit, one time, I hit Cicely so hard
I saw my next album in her teardrop,

I had to protect my ears, but
someone writes your music,
what's your fuckin' excuse,

She ain't goin' nowhere,
These people will chase her
back into your arms and
hate her for returning,
dub her a fool and you

just a man,

til then keep makin' records, dedicate her a song

let it be blue, like the flame on a stove,
hot but sad, alive but lonely, let her see you,
a train she don't want to miss, women
only care how we sound, don't look
into the camera, let her beg for eye contact

when a bitch lets you back in,
squeeze her ribs in your fingers,
slide your palms over what hasn't healed,
say nothing, and let her go,

Women need time to forgive themselves
for staying

I see my handiwork made the news,
next time reporters see her,
big glasses and head down,
your name nailed to her collarbone,

never mind words when the flock of press
frenzy, peckin' for crumbs,
shovin' to see the Devil in the flesh,
damn the details, they like to know
money don't change the sound
of a fist crackin' a face,

when the drama ends, reminder her
to watch that tone,

Hold any one of my Grammies,
lift the gold speaker to your ear,

that ain't the ocean,
it's the sound of your woman
fixin' her whimperin' face
in the mirror.

walk good.
ps: for the recipe-record, i use callaloo bush in my oildong...

of theatre, white women and gutters

found ourselves a whitegirl for our staged reading of gutta beautiful, so we orn like boil corn. i'm thrilled with the cast and starting to get excited about saturday, cornerbar 4pm:
gutta beautiful tells the searing story of lola, a young black woman who finds herself at a crossroads in love and life after discovering her own role in her man’s choice to surrender to popular culture and the drug trade economy. lola’s journey, as well as michael’s and her girlfriends suga sweet and orchid transcend time, exploring the history of love and life for people of colour.
"the play represents both the imaginary and fantastic landscape of our collective psyche and the hard-core physical reality of our daily lives,” says playwright, nina a. mercer.
cast: isoke edwards-najeeullah, tracey lucas, tonya evans, mandisa granderson, muhammad muwakil, nickolai salcedo, sophie wight.
parental guidance strongly suggested; mature content.

about the author: born and raised in washington, d.c. and now residing in new york, nina angela mercer is a playwright, essayist, fiction writer and visual artist. her play, gutta beautiful has been produced at d.c.'s warehouse theatre (2005), and for d.c.'s first capital fringe festival at the woolly mammoth theatre (2006). she received her m.f.a. from american university and studied transnational feminist literature of the 20th century in the english doctoral program at the university of maryland. she has taught at american university, university of maryland, and howard university, and is also the founder and artistic director of ocean ana rising, inc., a non-profit arts incubator and outreach project. nina is the proud mother of two daughters.

walk good.
ps: i eh forget mj, just don't think we really need any more commentary.

art+casting

and now, the last words you thought you'd hear me say: i need a white woman.
i'm directing a staged reading of the excellent play gutta beautiful this month and have 1 role still uncast- i need a white female to read 1 of the characters, so any whitegirls or people in the company of whitegirls interested in acting, please let me know asap- it's a good role, dark humour, reading supposed to be month-end.
plus, darren cheewah's 1st solo art exhibit runs (june17th, happy birthday chee!) this week until july17th @ the republic of sydenham art gallery, sydenham avenue, st.anns: wednesdays-fridays 10am-4pm, saturdays+sundays 10am-noon (621.3970 for private viewing appointments mondays+tuesdays) all pieces on sale! and when he done that, i should be finally getting new ink! so fucking excited.
there's an erotic art exhibit happening around town, too, i may read something for its spoken word/poetry event- more details as i have them.
meanwhile i may be about to write a book for someone, managing major life upheaval (details sooncome) and mourning the loss of a friend- i didn't blog about $hok's ill health because in the same weird way i couldn't seem to see him, i didn't know what to say about it. denial, i suppose, which evaporated yesterday when i saw him still+small, except for his gargantuan hands, in his casket and realised i was in much worse shape over everything than previously realised. now i wish i'd written about him when he was still with us. but i can still say he was always entertaining, wildly talented, and will be missed. biglove sheldon, wherever you are, enjoy the music.
walk good.

non-carnival jouvay

over the past 2years or so my prescence here has been increasingly irregular- there's been major shit going down that i couldn't really talk about but was invading my consciousness so completely that it hard talking about anything else...
all of which is to say that now i see the light @ the end of the tunnel. rebirth is underway and soon i'll be here more often, saying more, more freely.
to the few who still bother to check me, thanks for your patience. a renewed, reinvigorated sweet trini sooncome; this time "soon" actually means that, and in the meanwhile, you know i still come to this space as i can.
walk good.

why can't i find a reason for the "d" in "fridge"? abbreviating shouldn't, by definition, add a letter. shit is driving me crazy!
walk good.

just wrong

saw an ad for yogurt on telly, thought, sweet, i have some, and pulled it out the fridge to find it frozen. solid. boo.
walk good.

trinidad noir on the beeb

lisa, esteemed editor of trinidad noir, was interviewed on the bbc about our lovely collection and setting noir in sunshine (my favourite part of the process of my piece, and 1st time writing noir). she starts @ minute 7, if you don't want angels+demons, and runs until 12+change.
walk good.
ps: those youths brought tears to my eyes more than once this weekend. lagahoo had a good run (tightest saturday night) and i was so proud of the work they put in. so many of them made major progress on this one. this time around, we saw the difference in so many, some stepping up further than we expected in as little as a week. great show, all around.

lilliput presents lagahoo

“take the yampee from a dog’s eye, put it in yours, and look through the keyhole at midnight,” to see lagahoo. or come to queens hall the weekend of may15-17 when lilliput theatre takes the stage.
this year’s production investigates local folklore through one of our lesser-known, more elusive characters, using traditional and contemporary storytelling to ask questions that nobody seems to have answers for anymore. do you know what to do when you see a lagahoo?
lilliput theatre’s lagahoo started as all their shows do, with a junior carnival band designed by merylle mahabir. from the concept that sparked the costume design, ideas were hatched and nurtured and developed into a script by the drama class, asking and attempting to answer questions about lagahoo and his contemporaries in today’s world. artistic director, producer and choreographer noble douglas and director wendell manwarren have led lilliput on a journey of discovery – discovery that today’s youth don’t know trinbagonian folklore as in times past, and discovery of the secrets and stories that await the brave soul willing to listen, maljo beads clutched tightly, just in case.
lagahoo is a shape-shifter versed in the dark arts, but little else is known about the extent of lagahoo’s capabilities. what we do know is that lagahoo could be anybody, your boss, your teacher, your friend, your family…maybe we all have something of the lagahoo in us, waiting to be released.
but when nobody whispers about lagahoo in the dark of night anymore, when nobody tells the stories, can lagahoo continue to exist? does the shape-shifter assume a new form in keeping with the times, no longer known as lagahoo but manifest as some new danger? what happens to folklore characters when nobody believes in them? do they simply fade away or do they strike back?

walk good.

crazy shit

catching up on the world in between catching up on work, i found out that a surgeon claims to have removed a 5cm fir tree growing in a man's lung that they thought was a tumor when his complaint of coughing blood led to an xray (jury's still out on the possibility of a tree growing inside a lung devoid of sunlight, etc.)
plus:
Paid to do it, but fails to make his friend’s wife pregnant after 72 attempts
In Stuttgart, Germany, a court judge must decide on a case of honorable intentions in a situation where a man hired his neighbor to get his wife pregnant.
It seems that Demetrius Soupolos, 29, and his former beauty queen wife, Traute, wanted a child badly, but Demetrius was told by a doctor that he was sterile.
So, Soupolos, after calming his wife’s protests, hired his neighbor, Frank Maus, 34, to impregnate her. Since Maus was already married and the father of two children, plus looked very much like Soupolos to boot, the plan seemed good.
Soupolos paid Maus $2,500 for the job and for three evenings a week for the next six months, Maus tried desperately, a total of 72 different times, to impregnate Traute.
When his own wife objected, he explained, “I don’t like this any more than you. I’m simply doing it for the money. Try and understand.”
When Traute failed to get pregnant after six months, however, Soupolos was not understanding and insisted that Maus have a medical examination, which he did.
The doctor’s announcement that Maus was also sterile shocked everyone except his wife, who was forced to confess that Maus was not the real father of their two children.
Now Soupolos is suing Maus for breach of contract in an effort to get his money back, but Maus refuses to give it up because he said he did not guarantee conception, but only that he would give an honest effort.

at least things didn't get boring while i was too busy to pay attention...walk good.

interim

it's been a crazy stretch of simultaneous family and personal and work crises so i never got to carnival posting, but finally working on it now. in the meanwhile, as a show of good faith that i will post again, some more humour from my mother:
one year, a husband decided to buy his mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a christmas gift. the next year, he didn't buy her a gift. when she asked him why, he replied, "well, you still haven't used the gift i bought you last year!" and that's how the fight started...
a woman is standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror, unhappy with what she sees and says to her husband, "i feel horrible; i look old, fat and ugly. i really need you to pay me a compliment." the husband replies, "your eyesight's damn near perfect." and that's how the fight started...
my wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. she said, "i want something shiny that goes from 0 to 200 in about 3 seconds." i bought her a scale. and that's how the fight started...
i asked my wife, "where do you want to go for our anniversary?" it warmed my heart to see her face melt in sweet appreciation. "somewhere i haven't been in a long time!" she said. so i suggested, "how about the kitchen?" and that's when the fight started...
my wife and i are watching who wants to be a millionaire while we were in bed. i turn to her and say, "do you want to have sex?" "no," she answered. i then said, "is that your final answer?" she didn't even look at me this time, simply saying "yes." so i said, "then i'd like to phone a friend." and that's when the fight started...
i tried to talk my wife into buying a case of miller light for $14.95. instead, she bought a jar of cold cream for $7.95. i told her the beer would make her look better at night than the cold cream. and that's when the fight started...
i took my wife to a restaurant. the waiter, for some reason, took my order first. "i'll have the strip steak, medium rare, please." he said, "aren't you worried about the mad cow?" "nah, she can order for herself." and that's when the fight started...

walk good.
ps: sidebar's fun, too...

t'ief t'ing 3

the gremlin just wash her foot and jump in. i am to answer questions about her.
protocol "comment that you want in, and i will do each of the following:
1. respond with something random about you.
2. tell you which song or movie you remind me of.
3. pick a flavour of jello to wrestle you in.
4. say something that only makes sense to you+me (if possible; if not, something that only makes sense to me).
5. tell you my first memory of you.
6. tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. ask you something i've always wondered about you.
8. tell you my favourite thing about you.
9. tell you my least favourite thing about you."

1. you the only person who ever tell me keep the engine running while you dump somebody, and reach back to the car before the song even change.
2. funny enough, same song others said reminded them of me- maneater, hall+oates.
3. no jello- lettuce rematch.
4. nobody taking your buff seriously when you dripping wet+naked...
5. i giving 2 because the 1st is about you indirectly- 1st realising you weren't the puppy i requested and asking if we could trade you, then you bawling down the place and me trying to lift you and nearly breaking my damn back with your heavy ass (or heavy head, back then)!
6. gazelle/cheetah- something sexy and too fast to catch. more a cheetah; gazelles too skittish.
7. how you remember all your shoe options when planning an outfit? you have a secret catalogue with pictures of them to flip through?
8. your big heart barely protected by a thin veneer of bitch.
9. said soft heart makes me worry for you. that worse than every fight we ever have.

walk good.
ps: anybody else wanting in, please comment on whatever the most recent post is, so i'll see it, just reference the questions or t'ief t'ing.

100books (bbc 50, fb 56)

what i went to t'ief from keif (bbc 61; fb 62) yesterday that led to the appointment in samarra:
"apparently the bbc reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. the top list is the original bbc list, the list below is the one circulating on facebook.
1. look at the list and put an [x] after those you have read.
2. add a [+] to the ones you love.
3. star [*] those you plan on reading.
4. tally your total at the bottom."
maybe now i'll do some damage to my reading list, especially since i already own most of my [*]s. but even knowing my reading quantity's above average and adjusting downward for that, i'm still shocked that the bbc's expectations are so low, and hope to find out they severely underestimated the truth. 6 is just sad...

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien [x]+
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen [x]
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman [*]
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams [x]+
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee [x]+
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne [x]+
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell [x]+
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis [x]+
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë [x]
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller [x]
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë [x]
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger [x]
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame [x]
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens [x]+
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott [x]
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy [x]
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell [x]
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien [x]+
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy [x] and would like to add a [-] for hating it!
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving [x]
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck [x]
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll [x]+
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez [*]
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett [x]
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens [*]
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl [x]+
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson [x]
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert [x]+
40. Emma, Jane Austen [x]
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery [x]
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald [x]+
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas [*]
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh [*]
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell [x]+
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens [x]
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy [*]
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher [x] not that i know why anybody cares...
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett [x]
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck [x]
53. The Stand, Stephen King [x]
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth [x]
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl [x]+
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell [x]
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer [*]
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [*]
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden [*]
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens [x]
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough [x]
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton [x]+
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman [*]
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding [x]+
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind [x]+
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl [x]+
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce [*]
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens [*]
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl [x]+
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy [*]
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley [x]+
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac [x]
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo [x]
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho [x]
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer [x]
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez [x]+
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie [*]

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen [x]
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien [x]+
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte [x]
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [x]+
6. The Bible- [x]
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte [x]
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell [x]+
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman [*]
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens[x]+
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott [x]
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy [x]-
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller [x]
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare [x]+
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien [x]+
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger [x]
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger [*]
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell [x]
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald [x]+
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens[*]
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [x]
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy [x]+
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh [*]
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky [*]
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [x]
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll [x]+
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame [x]
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens [*]
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis [x]+
34. Emma - Jane Austen [x]
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis [x]+
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini [x]
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden [*]
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne [x]+
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell [x] +
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown [x]
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [*]
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving [x]
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery [x]
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy [*]
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding [x]+
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel [x]+
52. Dune - Frank Herbert [x] +
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen [x]
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth [x]
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens [x]
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley [x]+
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon [x]
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez [x]+
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck [x]
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov [x]+
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold [*]
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas [*]
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac [x]
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy [x]
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie [*]
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville [x]
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens [x]
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker [x]
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett [x]
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson [*]
75. Ulysses - James Joyce [*]
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath [*]
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray [*]
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens [x]
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker [x]
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro [*]
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert [*]
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White [x]+
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [x]
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton [x]+
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad [*]
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery [x]
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole [*]
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas [x]
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare [x]+
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl [x]+
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo [*]

walk good.

appointment in samarra

went to keif's for something specific i plan to t'ief, but got there and saw his post about his favourite piece of fiction. it also happens to be my favourite, and all this time i thought i posted it here long ago, so i could find it easy when i want it. came back here and searched, but to no avail. so i tracked it down in the middle of one of my documents, to put it somewhere i can find it (yay blog search capability). don't think anybody knows for sure, but somerset maugham's been credited with this piece, appointment in samarra.
The speaker is death:
There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now lend me your horse and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

walk good.

t'ief t'ing 2

i said the other day i would answer questions about you. protocol was stated.
"comment that you want in, and i will do each of the following:
1. respond with something random about you.
2. tell you which song or movie you remind me of.
3. pick a flavour of jello to wrestle you in.
4. say something that only makes sense to you+me (if possible; if not, something that only makes sense to me).
5. tell you my first memory of you.
6. tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. ask you something i've always wondered about you.
8. tell you my favourite thing about you.
9. tell you my least favourite thing about you."

in order of request. anonymous:
1. your dog was crazy.
2. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.
3. cherry.
4. unravelling yet?
5. how the hell i suppose to work on this lame-ass computer?!
6. goat.
7. bic, electric, what? baby oil, cocoa butter, wax? method?
8. you crack my shit up and have pretty hands.
9. shall remain nameless.

crazyfool:
1. you've been tattooed while on display.
2. banana pancakes, jack johnson.
3. lemon.
4. you never as prepared as you think.
5. in the livingroom @ montello with the awful swank haircut+suit.
6. deer.
7. what you think you want to be when you grow up.
8. your talent and potential.
9. you're not as prepared as you think.

keifel:
1. your name gives absolutely no clue to your appearance.
2. breaking the rules for you because i'd be lying if i didn't say douglas adams' work, more than any song or film, including the hitchhikers guide film.
3. you making me break rules again, i actually have to go with chocolate pudding.
4. you're my favourite m+m.
5. during orange sky (jointpop? anchorage?) gig with lise, making sure we weren't related.
6. bear, as in hug.
7. how the hell you so well-adjusted...
8. your mind. and your books.
9. how little i see you. we can't lime no more...

walk good.

me eh forget yuh

the t'ief t'ing coming, as is carnival (post).
tonight's book launch was decent, except for an impromptu interview i was wholly unprepared for. didn't even occur to me, and they asked me not only to define noir as a genre (without being so versed as to mention genre) but then to explain my title woman is boss, which i couldn't find a way to do without giving away too much. of course, grims had the perfect tagline when i said as much in the car after. i should interview him to prep for being interviewed. i read better than @ uwi last week, though, more on par with the paper-based reading. i think being sick for uwi, the classroom vibe and unexpectedly having to "say something about the book" threw me.
i hate having to talk about myself or my work unscripted. ask me about something i get passionate about, not myself and what i do under cover of dark night. especially don't ask me to define whatever i've done. i even have to pretend i'm an actor reading some other author's script to read from my story.
well, at least my mother won't see tonight's footage and be mortified, because something inspired me to look nice tonight (for once, some might say) in skirt+heels and everything. i call it my "what not to wear" look...
walk good.

onobatopoeia

the bazooka's perfect for the joker because it manages to sound like a big gun and a toy gun at the same time.
walk good.

idiocracy

walk good.

t'ief t'ing

been wanting to try this for months since deidre did grims on facebook, and think my head might be clear enough to follow through now. so for all 3 readers of this blog (and i been so silent lately you prob'ly not even checking anymore) i ready to answer questions about you.
comment that you want in, and i will do each of the following:
1. respond with something random about you.
2. tell you which song or movie you remind me of.
3. pick a flavour of jello to wrestle you in.
4. say something that only makes sense to you+me (if possible; if not, something that only makes sense to me).
5. tell you my first memory of you.
6. tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. ask you something i've always wondered about you.
8. tell you my favourite thing about you.
9. tell you my least favourite thing about you.

walk good.

late

i only feel a little bad for now posting about christmas when carnival already jostling for space, because carnival and related projects hot on the heels of christmas were good enough reasons for my lapse. problem is, now i forget most of what i wanted to say, but can't move on until i blog it because i've had it tucked in a corner of my brain for so long that i have to do a christmas post.
nico and the gremlin were both home for for the holidays so even as a christmas-hater i had a decent time or 2. me+nico together in sweet trini again after only 1 too-brief-time in 10years was a joy- we real lime, he stayed by us about half the time, kept me company while grims got surgeried, kept me company into the wee hours when i couldn't sleep, was a hot date boxing night, hooked me up with a best black cake, was the best best friend ever. come back, nico! i missed you whole carnival! and you know you missed it, too.
i even managed to get out of going to the parents for major christmas drama- with grims recently surgeried and unable to go out, we got them to come to us, thus making the whole thing short+sweet. but i still need to figure out how to get back to our pyjama-christmas tradition without upsetting anybody. i can't take the damn christmas stress and don't have an excuse for this year.
plus by the time the gremlin flew out, she managed to move all her shit into my guestroom, talking 'bout, she staying by us for carnival (3 whole weeks, dread!) regardless of my informing her that's what her mudda house for and i had already seen her for christmas. and grims told her yes! you see the set up...she even leave shit in my damn fridge! fus she feel she living here.
although i suppose i can't complain, she wasn't bad, even did some dishes and shit while she was here, bringing boys over so i couldn't relax home in my panty. but more on carnival sooncome...in the meanwhile, christmas2009 excuses welcome in comments.
walk good.
ps: actually just realised that every time i plan to post about time with nico or the gremlin, it ends up at least a month late. so i'ma blame them.

people need to know...

can't imagine why i never linked it before, but i not even trying to explain planet unicorn- just watch a few in order...

beyonce, as much as your single ladies video impresses me, a diva is not the female version of a hustler- a real diva has attained a level of accomplishment that ends the need to ever hustle- and considering your profession i think you should know more about the origins of the expression than to suggest such a cheap and faulty idea.

as much i love every dress i got there, "where fashion meets design" is a completely redundant tagline and i can't quite forgive them.

and speaking of linguistic aptness, shari said it this evening: too-tight hair is like the misery of being cold.
walk good.

too funny for their own good

i'm not only a very fast reader but somebody who likes to read credits, and it's a credit to the daily show that i just wished the credits on their inauguration-eve programme would scroll a hair slower so i could catch all instead of most. whole show was funny as shit. constant favourite.
walk good.

slow new year

as usual i somehow find myself with a bunch of shit to post but not quite ready to post any of it for a variety of reasons. tings a gwan, so posts sooncome: grims' surgery, nico+gremlin home for xmas, 3canal show+album joy+fire and paradise?jouvay, lilliput show based on local folk characters, ttw's 50th anniversary year+season, writing gigs just picked up...in immediate news, 3canal launching album+show+jouvay in 1 this sunday.
but meanwhile, i also find myself concerned again about facebook stalking tactics. these creepy fuckers emailed me (hate how they keep culling my email address from members' address books) to say somebody added me as a friend and i was to confirm our friendship with facebook, in spite of it being obvious (especially to facebook) that i have no facebook account, thus cannot enter into this requested online acquaintance. yet without my confirmation, facebook is now emailing me facebook-invitations to events from said unconfirmed "friend"! how does this comply with the terms they originally set forth? i never said i was this person's friend or even agreed to be on facebook. and no matter how often i tag facebook email as "spam" it keeps creeping into my inbox. i thought the big brothering would stop when i left usa...fuckers...
other current concern: i think i'm in trouble- @ the "rennaissance fair" i developed a tiny crush on the freecreditreport.com lead singer.
thankfully, the act of typing those words seems to have cured me, but still love the ads.
walk good.

charlotte street sightings, friday evening before christmas

the mere existence of some of which was shocking:
actually on sentient being walking down the road, loose mesh camouflage shirt with white-trimmed black polo collar.
naked big bumsee mannequins trussed together like a defeated insurgency on the pavement outside an empty lot.
police in full riot gear with guns "at rest" pointing directly toward traffic.
yin-yang bandanna, face-obscuring wraparound darkers, 3quarter-length navy trench flapping mid-shin of too-skinny legs in tall dark dress socks and shiny pointy-toe shoes.
perfect circle of powder up-centre of her chest, evenly situated between collar and bosom.
nicholai la barrie.
walk good.

reading frenzy

trinidad noir reading went very well, even with my coming down with a cold the morning of, watching with horror what i thought was just morning sniffles develop into loss of hearing in 1 ear and the ability to breathe with my mouth closed. i even had a massive sneezing fit @ the venue while the 1st author read, so i was terrified until i was done that i'd just fill the microphone with sniffles, sneezes, snorting and other phlegmy phrases, but as soon as i apologised in advance for my sniffles and launched my story (after being pleasingly intro'd as "edgy"), i was somehow fine. people said i read well (plenty compliments for john on my vocal delivery) and have one of the strong stories in the collection, i was asked to sign books, and even had the pleasure of my mother telling me i was good (extremely rare), plus i pulled off a voice-over today, delivering 3 completely different takes in no time without sounding like i still can't hear myself or breathe properly. so i feel like crap but work wukkin'...
walk good.

yes, virginia...

...there is a santa claus.
i know this because now i get spam from him, too.
walk good.

grims even put up photos!

we had a time in tobago playing sancho pedro every night with foreigners (and on the boat to+from), too many drinks and good food. we did the argyle falls too, which i hadn't before (of course, redid glass-bottom boat for the foreigners) and was so good i can't wait to go back. and grims posted 'bago pictures on facebook along with (finally) pictures of the meteor shower and other shit he been lapsing on, plus promises to blog the photos for we nonfacebookers...
the other repeat of the trip: last time it was sandflies ruining my freshly-waxed legs; this time i fucked myself up. walking down a muddy track to another little bacolet beach i slipped, fell and landed shin 1st on a rock. i good buss up my shin, plenty cuts spead over a large area barely missing my tattoo, and bruised the bone enough that i can't wear long pants because the fabric on wound feels like knives. so i have to walk around in stupid little skirts showing off the big bobo more than the sexy legs.
we also drove all around, beautiful adventure driving through charlotteville, speyside and some of the north coast, took the road through the forest reserve back, saw a peacock just strolling across the road in l'anse fourmi, got to but not into pirates' and bloody bays...which reminds me we also went adventure driving through flood in carapichaima to see the hanuman murti (largest outside of india; very cool) and waterloo temple (looks very different than i remember although carapichaima looks the same) and i must add that, yes, dopsons might just be the best roti i ever eat.
walk good.

wonder

got me thinking:

for me hero has something crouching tiger hidden dragon lacks even though i could never and still can't articulate what's missing from the latter for me in the 1st place, just that it lacks a little something, and hero pointed it out.

drug stores make sick people walk down to the back counter to fill prescriptions but presumably healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front register.

why does lemon juice have artificial flavour when dishwashing soap made with real lemons?

is congress the opposite of progress?

"splenda with fibre" somehow makes me feel more like we on the way to the sad future of nutrients delivered in per-meal-dispensation pellets and food a disregarded concept, more than vitamins and prior single-component meals ("in a bottle" and such) have. but that may be my inherent distrust of splenda and other artificial sugar-substitutes for anybody other than diabetics whose only other choice is going without.

this blog is truly my online notebook. so much so that this thought occurred already hyperlinked. but because it's my notebook i never bother that sometimes what i choose to hyperlink is only connected in my head. i sometimes feel guilty for it always being about what and how i need to record rather than the potential reader.

while writing this post i realised i never said boo about trinidad noir- i got my copies, devoured it then promptly did again, and really enjoyed it both times. it's a strong collection; i nearly peed laughing reading bobby antoni's piece and immediately saw how the american reviewers lost out having never heard trinis talk, thus unable to comprehend our language muddied with text-message-style delivery, but it's hysterical. i loved some pieces and liked almost all.
i was totally not embarrassed by my work when i saw it amongst the others like someone had once threatened (a certain jackass said mine was "pornographic", "vulgar" and "obscene" and threatened to withdraw from the collection if it was published as written; luckily i had an editor+publisher on my side) but was quite pleased and love its placement (so if you read the book, don't skip ahead to mine because you know me- read in order) and it's one of the better (neo?)noir collections i've read, even with a couple stories that might not strictly classify as noir.
and now i'm rereading mine for an excerpt, prepping for a reading i was asked to be part of next week. so there's a trinidad noir reading @ normandie (6.30pm thursday december11) and i'm assuming that once i find an excerpt i can handle the anxiety will give way to thrill...

walk good.

heave

spending hours painstakingly editing and transferring hundreds of emails, i notice how funny it feels to be so attached to things that in some dimensions don't properly exist and also how unexpected it seems to be so traumatised over said event while simultaneously realising that i shouldn't be surprised because this tabanca bears out the reluctance and delay in doing this in the 1st place, these past few years...
and why does gmail bother giving so much storage if it won't let me send/receive large email? the account i'm switching from lets me send+receive anything i want... plus, my yet-untold gmail address has already received (days ago, actually) spam titled "barak on the verge of death" and "drunk barak after elections" and "cindy mccain cheats her husband" and "michelle obama cheats with mccane"- all misspellings and poor grammar theirs- and i see a 200% raise in subject lines claiming to be debt notices to entice opening...
walk good.
ps: my sister would love to decorate her flat, but has too many shoes...in fact, she'd love to have us over, to stay in her guestroom like she will in ours this christmas, but we can't fit with the shoes...she admits she may not afford a house big enough for the shoes...i been laughing for 3hours talking shit with the gremlin...

old school analog charm

@ tonight's dance class, after skipping through a dvd to find the piece being remounted and watching to ensure it was intact, aunty noble tells grims, before you take it out, just rewind it to the top of the piece for me so we could find it when we ready to rehearse...
she cracks my shit up.
walk good.