Paris Trip

Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/77075989@N00/1298398424

Yes, yes, y'all. I went to lovely sunny Paris. As I was going alone and I could do whatever it was that I wanted, no “it’s so boring” cries to contend with, I decided to go museum crazy. I spent hours and hours researching on the internet. I planned not to be stuck looking like a tourist feeling foolish even though many times, I did. Standing in the queue for the tourist office at Gare du Nord was one of them, the second was ignoring the discrete sign, written in French, not to take the audio guide outside. The guard corrected me gently while I tried to nonchalantly walk past. Very unusual for a guard to do that because as I learned, to my horror, they love to shout over there. Man, do they shout. I was expecting it as all the reviews and the experience from my last trip showed me, but it was still a shock to my system. The pleasant surprises were the Musee du quai Branly and the Louvre. The Louvre is amazing, a museum so big it has separate wings, each wing is bigger than the British Museum and it had four of them. The first day I planned to settle myself in easy, I wanted to go the black areas. See how they lived, see what they did, the foods they ate. Did they behave like regular Africans or were French Africans different. I spend many fruitless hours googling serch terms such as: black Paris, Senegalese Paris, etc, but just could not find anything. Eventually I came across this Travel group, geared at Americans, that just seemed so bogus I could not bring myself to subscribe to them. "Black Tours of Paris" they conveniently called themselves. I had a look at all the tours they offered but it looked like all they were doing was going to the white places and pointing out all the black highlights. It just did not seem like fun and that shoddy picture of a bridge and a wall were not doing them any favours either. I gave up at that point, for a few weeks, until the bright idea dawned on me. Why didn’t I look for black museums, or museums with African or Caribbean themes? That way I could get to one place look for flyers to my next destination. Yes, I thought and them promptly googled for museums. I found an amazing website

http://www.soulofamerica.com/paris-guide.phtml http://www.soulofamerica.com/paris-advice-and-observations.phtml

Its a bit irritating, the constant use of the word "sisters". Two good areas to visit are

Little Africa by the Metro station Chateau Rouge

Black Hair area by the Metro station Chateau d'Eau

But the overall advice was good. Tips such as

Don't take photos of the American Embassy. They have armed guards that are not obvious until you point your camera towards the American Embassy.

Makes you wonder about the unfortunate position that the tip giver found themselves in. I can see the confused tourist, camera in hand, frozen to the spot as several armed men, probably shouting at her in French, rush towards her. I try not to laugh as it is not funny when you are not in that situation but it is really funny when you are not. They also gave you a nice big list of all the museums

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html

Musee quai Branly. http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/collections/permanent-collections/africa/index.html Did I mention that their museum was amazing? You sit in the dark for most of it and the artwork is subtly highlighted with light. Kind of makes you think that the curators still think of the art of non-European peoples as primitive and dark. I know better, as the exhibition space in the British Library is a darkened room but the French are so strange and seem to still carry attitudes that brought about negrophilia. I had to wonder. It was an amazing exhibition. There was nothing traditional about that space. Not the seats or the nooks and crannies or the fact that the dark made me feel so comfortable and warm I did not notice so much the herds of people that moved around me, whispering to each other and consulting their guide books as they went along. Another website I found was

http://cafedelasoul.com/ Taking you beyond the Eiffel towel since 1998.

Oh I loved their spunky funky tagline. Its just a shame I didn't see this website before I went there.

Courage the Cowardly Dog and the Hobyahs

Courage, the Cowardly dog

Grandma and Grandpa

The Hobayahs, Another Neglected English Fairy Tale

Another stolen story.
Look it's all the same! The evil Grandfather, the kind but clueless grandma and the little dog who has to deal with all manner of strange enemies.
Wish these people would stop doing that. They could at least acknowledge that it came from a fairy tale!

Words I have had difficulty spelling today

I am writing this blog entry because frankly I am terrible at spelling.
I first realised I would have a problem when in primary school the word

beautiful

presented me with difficulties to spell in a spelling test.
being young, finding everything scary challenging and almost frankly impossible, I was not bothered.
I was more concerned about getting my mom to get me cheap leatherette moulded shoes,instead of the expensive, handmade leather buckle down shoes my mom had especially made for me.
I was also concentrating on getting to grade 5 where I would be able to use calculators in class. this would sort out all my math problems and would save me having to figure out long division. I remember explaining this to my brother who was fascinated and probably spent his time rubbing his hands together expectantly as well.
Anyway, I eventually did figure out how to spell beautiful. I did it beautifully and elegantly too.
I did try to look for help without really telling anyone that I could not spell this simple word. I scanned endlessly in the pages of "First Aid in English". oh that book, how I remembered it's blue cover and white writing. the white cross on it cover reminded me of the red cross's cross, and I somehow imagined that reading this book touching its cross would magically heal my fractured grasp of the English language and push me to the top classes of my school. Therefore affording me the envy and respect of my school mates while giving me a podium on which to communicate with my mother. She tended to give you stuff listen to you more as you got older or achieved school stuff.Think of all the goodies I could have! A new school bag, a new uniform with buttons that did not keep popping off and sweets and extra money so I could buy a box drink and all the stuff I wanted from that air conditioned store by my school that did not like to let school children in unless you were very well behaved.Bliss and joy.

Anyway I have struggled silently with so may words since then I have decided to combat this in some way. I definitely needed to do something about this. Words such as acroymns,Socratic and psychiatric would trip me up no longer.
i would be freeeee.

Of course, this word, biometeorology. I often use it in my day to day out goings, and why not.


Here is my word of today, I don't know why I can't spell it, I just spelled it now with no problem.
To try and familiarise myself with the word dyslexia, I did a google search. I was very pleased to find that dyslexia is a blanket term for a variety of learning difficulties. So people have just been using it as a politically correct term for stupid. I am going to have to learn or unlearn my bad writing habits. i can remember hating spelling in school, I was really bad at it! Spelling test gave me sweaty palms and made me feel weird.

Let The Right One In

This movie!
From the moment I saw this in my inbox, part of the weekly from the weekly updates from Curzon that i had subscribed to to lessen the pressure from random strangers who demanded to know my position on aspects of culture, I knew I had to see it.
It was the kind of movie that made me like Low budget, Off Hollywood film. It was a remake of a Hollwood favourite, the Vampire film. I had recently seen Twilight so was really hopeful of a good film.

So i knew it was showing I knew that I had to watch it. Whether I was going to pay the 10 quid they were demanding was another matter. It wasn't out for a few weeks so I planned on squeezing some time into my schedule, saving up my pennies so I could go watch it.
Later that day I also got an update from facebook from Prince Charles Cinema, my heroes. Guess what? They did have it. That day only, for a fiver, bargain. I set myself an alarm, as I tend to forget everything and rubbed my hands together in delight at the after work pleasures that awaited me.

I ran up to the cinema after work, ignoring all the popcorn and fizzy drinks and threw myself into a seat and waited for the film to begin. The person, animal? maybe kept kicking my seat so I was forced to keep leaning back in an attempt to trap their knee under my seat. When that didn't work I sat up straighter in my seat, took my hair band out and fluffed up my hair as much as it would go. I must admit, I really liked the sudden silence took the place of their irritating giggling. So, I think, actually, they must have been some kind of hyena or something.

Anyway, to the film. It started with this little boy, skinny and blonde standing at a window, Oskar. He had the most gorgeous hair ever and the nasty habit of not wiping his nose but leaving it to run to his lips then kind of licking it off. But then I suppose, he is a little boy after all, they probably actually do that over there.

He was a very angry little boy, he was being bullied at school and was far too nice to do anything about it. He vented his angrier and frustration by collecting stories about guns and murder and dreaming of the grisly death that he could inflict on this tormentors. He was saved by a little girl who simply told them to give him a good slap. The end.
No actually there is more to the story than that. He was a very angry little boy, one person who reviewed the film Sukhdev Sandhu from the Telegraph noted casually that Oskar met the vampire character Eli "while out stabbing a tree repeatedly with his hunting knife" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturecritics/sukhdevsandhu/5131859/Let-The-Right-One-In-review.html

The story is beautiful and quite graphic. More graphic that I expected after watching Twilight and not having read either book on which the films were based I was solely seeing how they handled the theme of Vampire attracted Human. I originally wanted to watch Twilight because I saw the previews of Twighlight and thought it was fantastic. I enjoyed the subtlety of it all and the more equal distribution of power between the characters and the forward nature of Bella. I thought it was a true Hollywood classic and found myself looking for the stories of the characters in real life. I reflected that finally people who thought they were strange for different would stop sleeping in coffins, wearing black and doing strange things on their faces with red and black pencil.
After watching the Let the right one in, I am more that certain, that in some way Stephanie Meyer stole the idea off this

Tube Strike

Ah. I just had to blog about this. So here I am, stuck on a bus. I have
been sitting in the same spot looking at a landmark that normally only
takes me seconds to pass on a normal day. Its like walking, except I am
sitting down and am trapped beside a bunch of people coping in
different ways with this state of affairs.

The business man beside me is bag of nerves. His bag balanced evenly on his legs, perfectly immobile. His hands however, are going into overdrive. At first they
just casually stroked the side of his bag but now they are in his
mouth wrapped around his body, rubbing his fingers, running his hand
through his hair, checking his phone, checking his nails, checking his
phone and his nails at the same time in the quick abrupt gestures of a
seasoned and guilty nail biter. He manages to stop biting is nails by
jamming one hand between his body and the side of the bus and using
the other hand to hold his phone but i feel the slow, quick kick of
shuffling feet. He is late and he doesn't like it or he is as agitated
by I am by the flippant backbackers with hair that they have dyed and
cut themselves. In some places uneven in some places the colour too
harsh. People who would care but can't afford to. People with no
meetings and only the stress of making their pack of cigarettes last
as long as possible and looking vibrant while seemingly casual enough
to keep their partner interested. Making sure he catches the glances
of strangers and talking just loudly enough to make people look. They
ignore the rowdy students who pepper every couple of sentences with
the words "yeah" "weed" and innit. Often repeating what the last
person has said in the distinctive meledy of accents that make up the
innercity accent. Boys who prostitute their identity to aspects of
American culture while trying to be british as possible. Their
multiple pencils and rucksacks awkwardly packed with more books than
they will need for the week remind me of boys in my school. Their
smooth hands and skin appeal to me they are on their way to becoming
men but aspects of the cuteness of their babyhood still lingers.
Making me feel slightly protective of them even as they
inconsiderately push their bodies and overburdened bags into my face
and limbs. The suit bedside me snacks away on his nails still.
Shuffling feet avoid mine then bite again. Every time he takes his
hand out his mouth i get kicked. Now he starts vibrating his legs. I
feel guilty writing him this way as he sits beside me. He doesn't
want to be written about. He wants to get to work. I look past him
out the window. We are in angel, breathtakingly close to my place of
work. I dare not check the time. I had 15 mins to get to work. I am
sure longer than that has passed. Everyone else sits quietly listening
to music, texting, reading, more people biting nails, others still
and silent Trying not to be annoyed. Then there is me

This video

Its so cute



How tired I am of this unbearable distance between us
How I long for the toll of the recess bell
Have you forgotten me?grown midless of me?
tell me I am not writing into an abyss
Or that is what will become of my heart...

Book Industry and Libraries in Jamaica and the Caribbean

Libraries

Jamaica library Service
http://www.jls.gov.jm/

National Library of Jamaica
http://www.nlj.org.jm/

Mona libraries
http://www.mona.uwi.edu/library/about_libraries_mona.html


http://lists.webjunction.org/libweb/CSA_Jamaica.html



Book industry

Capnet Caribbean Publishers NetworkWebsite

http://www.capnetonline.com/

Publishers
Longman Caribbean
http://www.longmancaribbean.com/


Bookshops

Kingston bookshop
http://www.kingstonbookshop.com/index.asp

University of Mona Bookshop
http://bookshop.uwimona.edu.jm/

Sangsters
The major bookshop in Jamaica
http://www.sangstersbooks.com/