Caribbean Queen by Billy Ocean - One Track Mind

I'm dating myself, but the easiest way to get me to make a fool of myself is to play Caribbean Queen by Billy Ocean. It's like kryptonite to me. By the time the chorus comes around, I'm no longer acting, I have become an actual fool.

I mean Michael Jackson and Prince especially made major moves that year but Billy Ocean essentially won 1984 with just that song. The rest of the album was a bonus.

I just can't resist the groove, it makes me happy, I want to dance, I want to sing (loudly), and act the fool. They say Dionysus was a Greek god but the scribes out of discretion didn't disclose his infatuation with the siren song of a Caribbean queen.

I'm pretty sure Liberian Girl was MJ's belated response to homie for stealing his thunder, despite what the biographers may say. The gloved one with the golden voice always knew a winner (see lifting the synths from 1999).

Incidentally, many sincere apologies to the women I've stepped to while singing that song or variations of it - I'm an equal opportunity prospective lover, and, as I've said, I'm a fool.

The song is so versatile that, not to disclose too much, I've sang of African queens, Nigerian girls, Ghanaian ladies, various European duchesses and American queens and more, not to mention many a real life Caribbean queen.

Musical flirtation must be an occupational hazard of womanhood and it's all for the good. I've found that on occasion, some do get caught up in the rapture of a song so infectious. And even when deflected, the song breaks it down gently.

Now of course there's a long tradition of such celebratory songs. Frankie Beverly and Maze gave us Southern Girl. Earlier, Lou Perez gave us Caribbean Woman, his charanga ode to that fine Caribbean woman. They know what's up.

But to return to the song, give me the extended version. At the very least, you need the seven minute version, a radio edit wouldn't do with something so exuberant.

Even after the insistent anouncement of the opening bars (you have to signal your intentions in these things), the song takes its time to get the the point and lets the saxophone lay down the law to start things off.

There's something quite unhurried yet insistent about the groove, propelled by the synth basslines. It's a pulsing pace yet it still manages to be langorous, as if to savor the dance. Caribbean Queen is a dancefloor anthem, feelgood in four on the floor rhythms.

Start with the voice. The warmth in Billy Ocean's singing just invites you into the conversation. To my ears, there's a lilting hint of Gregory Isaacs and the velvet touch of Dennis Edwards in the voicing.

The honesty also disarms:

"I was in search of a good time
Just running my game
Love was the furthest,
Furthest from my mind"

The kicker comes from the parentheses in the title: No more love on the run. This is about being captured.

With spare lyrics, the scene sets up the drama of the relationship but he makes you wait by doing two verses and bridges, so building up the tension that the chorus is a release. But, just as soon as we're released, the groove settles back down to enjoy the dance.

The drop in the middle, and the build up, also play their part making you savor each element. The bass gets it due, the drum beats and then the synths do their bit. It's like the Soul Makossa breakdown in Wanna Be Startin' Something. By the time the chorus comes back around you want to start singing it again.

The guitar riffs. the sound effects, Keith Diamond's keyboard, synthesizer and production are inspired and really shine here but it's the saxophone solo by Jeff Smith just puts things over the top.

Infectious thy name is Caribbean Queen.

The initial release in Europe was titled European Queen but didn't get traction. Canny marketing forced a new title and Caribbean Queen struck a nerve. I've also heard an African Queen version.

Surveying the 1984 music scene, most would hand it to Prince, you can hardly argue with When Doves Cry and the Purple Rain album and movie, let alone The Time, Sheila E and Appolonia 6. It was his year in music and pop culture.

But there were others too. I mean Cherrelle (courtesy of Jam and Lewis) dropped I Didn't Mean To Turn You On, Dennis Edwards and Seidah Garret had the almighty duet Don't Look any Further.

The S.O.S. Band's Just the Way You Like It album heated up the dancefloor. And even in the midst of all this, Sade's Diamond Life had been released and Smooth Operators were moving

A digression: Billy Ocean would win the 1985 Grammy award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for Caribbean Queen. But the other nominees that year were quite mistaken. Namely, let's be frank, The Woman In Red is hardly prime Stevie Wonder.

And to pick on the thread, the Grammys have never really rewarded the soul music that moved the masses. Unforgiveably, James Brown didn't get anything after Papa's Got a Brand New Bag until Living in America in 1987.

Sexual Healing is an all-time jam but the Academy barely acknowledged Marvin Gaye's transcendent 1970s run of albums that changed music.

Teddy Riley's only Grammy was for engineering Dangerous in 1993. How are such things possible?

Anyway, the point is that Stevie Wonder kept getting sentimental votes in honor of his Seventies's streak.

It was even harder to square Stevie winning the next year 1986 for In Square Circle when Alexander O'Neal wasn't even nominated.

The same thing goes for 1996 when there was Brown Sugar by D'Angelo or say I Hate U by Prince. For Your Love is a effortless ballad from Stevie but come on, really?

In any case, the fact remains that Caribbean Queen stopped both Prince and Stevie Wonder in the charts that year which is saying something about what it means to black culture.

The song affects me the way its almost contemporaneous Somebody Else's Guy by Joycelyn Brown does - shower song fodder. I Can't Wait by Nu Shooz would disconcert me in a similar manner a couple of years later.

So anyway, catch me singing along with Billy Ocean: Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run). Meet me on the dancefloor.

Queens, a playlist

A few more songs in the vein of Billy Ocean's opus. (spotify version)

• Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run) by Billy Ocean
  The masterpiece
• Southern Girl by Rahzel and Erykah Badu
  Beat box meats Dallas princess
• Soul Sista by Bilal
  Raphael Saadiq's slinky production never fails
• Brotha by Angie Stone
• Southern Girl by Maze featuring Frankie Beverly
• Liberian Girl by Michael Jackson
• Soul Sister by Dexter Gordon
• The Girl from Ipanema by Stan Getz & João & Astrud Gilberto
  
• Taurus Woman by The Subterraneans
  Mystical acid jazz that never gets old
• Black Magic Woman by Dennis Brown
  Rather than Santana's involved electricity of the same title, I prefer the crown prince of reggae's musings on his muse
• Caribbean Woman by Lou Perez
  The blueprint
• Caribbean Queen (Extended Mix) by Billy Ocean
  Forgive me if I'm dancing

See previously: Janet Jackson and the importance of bubblegum and Baby me by Chaka Khan

This note is part of a series: One Track Mind

File under: music, soul, nostalgia, review, appreciation, culture, virtuosity, youth, dance, voice, groove, observation, perception, One Track Mind, toli

Writing log: April 28, 2024

The Synthetic Shadows of Marvin Huxley

Apropos simulations and simulacra... I am catnip for the blues and, for the past few weeks, have been simmering in a thick stew of female blues singers - because, well, that's what one can do these days... Which leads me to the curious case of Marvin Huxley.

Or should I italicize "Marvin Huxley", a music producer who, like me, is enamored of 1930's Delta style blues and has now, at length (and perhaps controversially augmented with AI), delivered an album-length blues fascinator, Shadows of the South

Branded as an "Independent Lo-fi Blues and Jazz Funk Music producer" from Adelaide, Australia, I see and hear what gets him off, it's an aesthetic I am deeply sympathetic with. It's also an aesthetic just out of an uncanny valley, leaving me deeply conflicted.

My introduction to Marvin Huxley was Suits Stitched in Shadows and Lies, which was somehow recommended by YouTube after I'd exhausted my go-to playlists of Etta James, Big Mama Thornton and Memphis Minnie. And, well, listen for yourself.

(Putting aside the visuals - which were a later discovery and par for the course in this our generative timeline), I didn't know where to start with the music, I was confounded.

Then, one click later, there was A Dollar's Worth of Skin, which was similarly disconcerting to the ear. Synthesis, compression, homage at once, and fruit of a strange alchemy.

Then, there were also the earlier experiments, say Goodbye America Blues, which is more evidently artificial with its vocal sampling of an unknown singer and filtered guitar. Still, I kept listening, eventually casting the effort as a blues fascinator despite the synthetic content.

Sidenote: The Sister-in-law has written at length about the real thing. We should all listen to them. The emotional labor and the craft:
Blues Mamas and Broadway Belters: Black Women, Voice, and the Musical Stage (Refiguring American Music) #CiteBlackWomen

In any case, here is an album that is soaked in this aesthetic, devoted even. A studio creation, perhaps, but it is a creation nevertheless. A high-tech creation of lo-fi blues.

Or more precisely, it is a recreation from someone "who loves trying to recreate those old sounds using vintage style instruments, samples, compressors and effects". Homage and chimera, then.

When I read "The guitar recording was degraded to evoke the brittle warmth of a 1930s field recording", I couldn't help but think of Pete Rock or DJ Shadow crate-digging and similarly jacking for beats.

Or say Q-Tip on the needle drop.

There's a racial angle perhaps (or a cultural appropriation take, some might say), but I won't venture in that direction, only the music matters to me.

Still, who gets to write "a love letter to the lost ghosts of American blues music"? Not for nothing do many bluesmen sing that Blues is a Feeling. (see Lightnin' Hopkins, for example)

And in a year where the movie Sinners has dominated the cultural zeitgeist, it is worth asking whether you can have a Delta blues revival, with full-on lyrics, gritty vocals and all, that is synthetic rather than authentic.

(Sidenote: to that point, Buddy Guy's new album Ain't done with the blues is also out)

Still, the music nerd in me wants to deconstruct the work. Where do the voices in Shadows of the South come from? What studio trickery was used? What equipment? Or, perhaps more tellingly, what prompts were crafted, if some of it is indeed AI-infused?

But then, stepping back, I also want to ask: who made the field recordings that we all venerate? Who was documenting the blues back then? Who was promoting it? And who now basks in the sounds of earthy blues?

But that's me. I can listen to a blues mama merely humming for hours on end. Further, the stakes are low. To add or not to add to the playlist, that is the question.

It seems to me that the visuals highlight the artifice and perhaps even detract from the music they are intended to support. At the same time, they do underscore the mood and point to the story of the clever lyrics. Also: they are great conversation pieces.

(A reminder that my favorite video accompanying a Funkadelic song is a juxtaposition with a Russ Meyer film, You Scared the Lovin' Outta Me by Funkadelic)

But I wonder what Marvin Huxley would come up with, with say a Lizz Wright in the flesh, after hours in the recording booth. Or maybe, to push the racial angle, what would a project with Alice Russell on vocals sound like in comparison?

In the same vein, one wonders if people want to listen to the blues or if blues-adjacent or blues-influenced will suffice. Certainly in these streaming days, there are many for which the simulacra will suffice as background music. Reserving the experience of the real thing for live settings. One wonders...

Anyway, the album is not all fetishized retro action. The rest features more modern beats, albeit still blues-inflected on the surface, even when veering into trip-hop territory. That growl in the vocals is a constant, and those guitar licks. Sounds of nostalgia.

I can see the twinkle in the eye as the album was released. But who knows how it will be received? I do know that this listener was left chasing shadows tying to decipher this conversation piece. Let me know what you think.

Shadows of the South by Marvin Huxley

The album on YouTube (spotify version) and a few highlights. For the first three, I suggest a blind listen before venturing to the videos.

• Suits Stitched in Shadows and Lies
• A Dollar's Worth of Skin
• Goodbye America Blues
• Sunday Prayes and Monday Chains
• Silver spoons and broken backs
• Shadows of the south
  The title track sounds more modern than the rest of the album.

P.S. Hey Marvin, tell me more about the makings of this album.

P.P.S. Pardon the title of this piece, I'm a sucker for such things.

This note is part of a series, One Track Mind. See previously:

Places

Places are a part of you, they leave their imprint
As they burrow into your pores, piercing your second skin
Slowly at first, then, before you know it, you're a local
Affecting the manners and outlook, and reciting idées fixes

The fabric of nostalgia is connective tissue to time and place
That, even as your body faces the present, your soul lingers
Tracing invisible boundaries in sand, affirming kinship
Even at a distance, you can't suppress the great longing

Phantom organs whose purpose is revealed on later reflection
Their notional contribution is to supply a sense of balance
Their stamps of indelible ink are charged with memories
Such are the identity markers of modern travelers

You touch, tentatively, as if to revive that feeling of old
The sound of the streets you roamed, that playground you owned
Grasping to decipher the messages weighted with meaning
The lost stories are outlined faintly in the veins of belonging

Places, a playlist

I give you 120 or so neighborhoods of the mind, a musical journey around the world (spotify version)

This internal displacement is part of a series: In a covidious time.

File under: culture, observation, perception, nostalgia, memory, sensory, covidious, poetry, toli

Writing log: February 27, 2022

Domedo

You have to wait a while for domedo. Those who think of it as just street food know only the adulterated sort, the one that bypasses the wait. Part of the appeal of good domedo is that you have to wait a while. Even when you get a tip about a good supplier, you kind of resign yourself to a kind of food serfdom, the tsar being the domedo guy.

Case in point, I remember one Christmas back home in Ghana, I happened to mention that I hadn't had domedo in a year - a kind of idle hint that I thought might hasten things to the benefit of this exiled soul. The parental unit were enjoying having a full house and fully indulging their brood. But no, I had quite forgotten that this wasn't a routine thing. Domedo is very far from routine, you see. As it was, Mum promptly called her domedo guy and placed the order. It didn't matter that she had built up a relationship with the man over the past 16 years, that she had brought him repeat business, and had referred him many faithful customers over the years, we simply had to wait. There was no indication about when the domedo would come, no estimated timeframe etc. The order was merely acknowledged; further there was no negotiation on price, he knew that whatever he demanded would be promptly paid, no matter how usurious. If we had the good grace to get some domedo on my birthday or even before our return to Austin that would be a fringe benefit, I knew my place.

And when it did come, the fight began. These two children of ours who had been turning their nose up at the fare in the house all of a sudden were fighting with their grandfather and I - I started reconsidering this whole business about putting food on the table for the family. Said grandfather who had began waxing eloquent about the special occasions growing up when domedo was served, noticed the alarming speed with which those two were digging in and reverted to that jungle imperative - every man for himself. The golden rule was was suspended, the other cheek was stuffed not turned. There was no more small talk, we were simians who'd happened onto the prodigal son's feast - to mix my parables. We dug in and ate it all. It was worth the wait.

To say that domedo is spicy pork doesn't capture anything about its essence. It has to be experienced.

I do know this. When this pandemic is over and vaccines and all have been procured. The very first thing I will do when I land on Ghanaian soil is put in an order for domedo. I'm not sure when it will come, but it will be worth the wait.

For the completists or curious: domedo is pronounced something like dough-may-dough.

Note: I have no dietary restrictions albeit my palate was fixed by the time I left Ghana as a child. I am otherwise indifferent to pork - goat and guinea fowl are my favorite meats, but I always stand to attention at the prospect of some good domedo.

Pork, a playlist

A soundtrack to this tasty dish (spotify version)

• Pork Chop by Jimmy Smith
• Ribs An' Chips by Johnny Hammond Smith
• Ribs and Hot Sauce by Lionel Hampton
• Domedo by Rolly Panda
• Eli's Pork Chops by Little Sonny
• I Crave my Pigmeat by Blind Boy Fuller
• Salt Pork West Virginia by Louis Jordan
• Last Pork Chop by Hank Williams, Jr.
• Jerk Ribs by Kelis
• Pork Chops by The Dorsets
• Indulgent Ribs by Evening Jazz Standard

See previously: Taste, Comfort Food and Rare Groove, A Taste of Africa

File under: food, culture, appreciation, review, Ghana, nostalgia, Africa, life, Comfort Suite, toli

Writing log: March 21, 2016; Playlist March 16, 2021

The Great Longing

To this type of writer, fidelity is not the concern
He strains for the lyrical in everything he observes
Comfortable with a tall-tale, or is it a hall of mirrors?
One shouldn't hew too closely to those paragraphs about Paris

He delights in fluttering from town to town
But there's acuity whenever he hits the ground
Picking out people to study and describe
It's no wonder this novel concerns a public scribe

His novels have that quality of floating above a city
All residents are fair game for his detached scrutiny
The fumes of memory are his proving ground
His task is recording the imprint of history's sound

Some writers are like this, they feel so deeply
Even when their work covers a terrain of uncertainty
Yet their commitment holds fast to that roving eye
A compulsion they cannot escape no matter how much they try

It's a sort of out-of-body performance, this authorial detachment
The critics would brand him the laureate of internal displacement
I'm minded of a line from a song called Human Nature
The knowing looks exchanged that the lyricist captured

He traces this compulsion to growing up as a sick child
Confined to bed and to home, experiencing life through others
Starting with imaginary affairs where he pictures himself running wild
Escaping his room and seducing the women who visit his mother

As an adult, in his own real relationships, there is always awkwardness
The flesh can never measure up to the erstwhile fictional goddesses
The determination to eschew participation in favor of bearing witness
Has a pervasive effect, in all engagements he is rendered feckless

He describes towns he has lived in, Fez, Tangiers, all full of traditions
Exquisite portraits, even if some of these places are not happy locations
Take the camp he is sent to as punishment for dissent as a young student
In maturity, in France he can only reminisce about the Morocco he left

A metaphor, perhaps, of the perils of life as a dissident
The squalid end that autocrats decree to crush dissent
The Moroccan antecedent was L'Affaire Ben Barka
The means, fear and blood, that marked such chapters

So who is this écrivain public? And how accurate is his narrative?
The author wears as his disguise a mask of words hidden in plain sight
The indirection of men of letters who craft their narratives of exile
This reader recognizes a fellow traveler bearing a splinter of ice

In days of yore, it was an honorable profession to write letters
To give voice to those requiring correspondence and editorial services
The public scribe took dictation or transformed words into print
From mundane business to, sometimes piquant, the most romantic

The later novels are what endeared him to the academy
But it is this early one that lingers in my memory
The sketches of childhoods with certainties written in sand
And the testimonies on the lack of mercy in the life of man

The lesson is that what matters is documenting the dislocation
We'll have time enough later to deal with truth and reconciliation
The spirit's rhythm of loss is the heart of the matter
The great longing is the main feature of nostalgia



On reading L'Écrivain Public by Tahar Ben Jelloun

The Great Longing, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Human Nature by Michael Jackson

  See that girl, she knows I'm watching,
  She likes the way I stare

• I Know it's You by Donny Hathaway

  Home is the castle you built in my mind

• Insomnie by Les Nubians
  

  J'entends des vois, des gens qui courent

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

See also:

• The Ways of the Porcupine
• The Art of Omission

File under: review, poetry, nostalgia, literature, culture, appreciation, Tahar Ben Jelloun, observation, writing, craft, Morocco, Africa, France, exile, displacement, immigration, identity, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log. Concept: January 10, 2011; March 5, 2021

The Golden Yam

I. Temptation

It was the week of my birthday, I must confess
That I came across the golden yam in a moment of weakness

Call me terrified about going to the grocery store
What with the new variant spreading inexorably next door

The Wife had long since banned me from the Ghana shop
Lest I bring back to the marital home a viral dollop

Our town's covidious alert level was now up to the fifth stage
Leaving me home as usual, trapped in my pandemic cage

I noted, with interest, the increasing bareness of my pantry
Having run out of supplies and other necessaries

Hmmm, these growing children actually needed to be fed
Who knew? I somehow felt that I was being misled

With a craving for comfort food, this exiled soul knew what was best
I promptly launched a browser and brought up Carry Go Market

Mechanically, I added the usual suspects to my cart
I stuck to the tried and trusted, power shopping is an art

Ga kenkey, of course, some gari and sardines, I kept it wholesome
The weekly special on palm oil and suya spice was quite welcome

I passed on the fufu powder, it pays to keep your eyes on the prize
But what's this? A temptation appeared right next to the mix for jollof rice

That's the moment I first saw the golden yam
Believe me, I was quite simply unmanned

I call it golden because, well, it cost an arm and a leg
The price was simply outrageous, it had to be said

But I hadn't eaten any yam for nigh eight months, lockdown you see
This taste of Africa, culinary nostalgia, had been denied to me

My attempts at planting yams in the backyard, my own Operation Feed Yourself
Had come to nought, I was left wishing for herd immunity if nothing else

I started to do the math, the conversion rate has almost six cedis to one dollar
Throw in shipping and handling and, well, you can guess the vertiginous number

I daresay it was a temporary madness what was about to unfold
To actually buy this tuber priced above its weight in gold

Some say the most precious material in the world is printer ink
It doesn't bear contemplating, the golden yam was the kitchen sink

But the flesh was weak, I'll freely admit to the sin of gluttony
By this stage of the pandemic, I needed relief from the monotony

In mitigation, give me leave Dear Reader, what you have to understand
Is that potatoes, even the sweet ones, are a poor cousin to puna yam

I rationalized the purchase, it was my birthday, remember
I've sometimes paid hundreds of dollars for unsatisfying dinners

It took a few more clicks to succumb to the madness
And so Dear Wife and Children, please forgive me my debts

I'd practice austerity for a few months, I'd later explain to my bank manager
Thus it was that, a week later, UPS delivered a glorious golden yam tuber

II. Redemption

It was on the fourth night of the Texas Freeze
That my eyes came to rest on the golden yam
The inside temperature had dipped to forty seven degrees
Fahrenheit, frostbite terrain, I had goosebumps on my arm
It's an understatement to say that my entire household was displeased
The February blizzard conditions had brought the entire state to its knees

Lockdown and now the storm, talk about social distancing
One thing after another, this life in Austin was proving daunting
I pride myself on a knack for surmounting challenges but this was confounding
Almost instinctively, I came to the realization that no one was coming

A frozen hellscape was the universal description
While unbearable angst was the prevailing emotion
Buyer's remorse underlay the fraught situation
And regret would tinge the sense of privation

We were truly stuck with the power restrictions
The outage would likely take days for resolution
The crisis management team had led with poor communication
Destroying, perhaps irreparably, the state's reputation

Rotating outages were the initial, hopeful prediction
The chastening reality was that permanence was our condition
Adding insult to injury is that this was eminently predictable
This was the very opposite of what was known as good trouble

"It stopped being fun real quick", the wages of deregulation were slim pickings
Such is the fate of the curious prevailing ideology: wishful thinking
When you have to be melting crushed snow to flush down your bathroom privy
The vaunted exceptionalism is now subject to worldwide concern, if not pity

"You welcome the U.S. to the fun of the Third World" was your mantra long ago
Don't call it prescience but, well, you reap what you sow

My spare battery charger had long since given up the crop
So I'd had to charge the phone using one of the kids' laptops
There would be time enough, if we survived, to reevaluate our emergency procedures
It is only in its absence that you recognize what is called infrastructure

The last bit I'd read was that Flying Ted had absconded on the daily news
Packed his bags and headed to Cancun Mexico, I see you Senator Cruz
I voted against the man but, stuck in a freezer, I still felt rather abused
But what of the clear majority that put him in power, were they now confused?

I'm used to lights out, dumsor comes naturally to a Ghanaian
But this was different, there was no heat, only snow and no trace of sun
Ice everywhere, and not the immigration agency folks on the prowl
God I missed Ghana, I was quite ready to throw in the towel

This was frankly uncomfortable, quiet as it's kept
Even indoors I could see the plumes of my vaporous breath
If I had electricity, I'd no doubt see on the telly
The rolling disaster unfold, the millions left in penury

Be prepared is what the ancients advise
Despite the single digit temperatures outside,
Our house luckily seemed to have reasonable bones
For want of a bolt, a house is not a home

But back to my tale, let's move on from the disabled electric furnace
Cometh the hour, cometh the yam, I had quite forgotten about this purchase
After all that I'd gone through earlier, this was a stroke of brilliance
It was written, I congratulated myself about my foresight and resilience

It was a swift decision, "I'll make us yam and stew for dinner"
I ignored the complaints of the 7 year old at the food on offer
Every man for himself, "Good luck, young man if you want to be picky"
Survival of the fittest, the palaver sauce needed to be eaten quickly
For everything in the thawing fridge was about to be spoiled
On the large burner, the golden yam would take ten minutes to boil
The cigar matches we'd obtained from the neighbors were pressed into service
One strike was all it took (truth in advertising) to light things up in earnest

I wondered whether I could last through the weekend, or just admit defeat
At this point, I would even forgo food for a few days, in exchange for heat
Throw caution to the wind and expand my support bubble
Brave the treacherous icy roads and assume the risk of covidious trouble
But from what we'd heard, some of our friends that had made earlier offers
Of support were now keeping mum, after their houses too had lost power

The boil water notice had come through when I'd switched off airplane mode
To find out if relief would be forthcoming - the bill of goods we'd been sold
Hotels in town had started charging usurious rates, call it a disaster premium
Cold comfort, that is, if only you could get to them in this inclement weather
The alternative was to throw yourself at the mercy of fate, and head for the gymnasium
The children's elementary school had now been repurposed as, get this, a warming shelter

Forty six degrees is as low a temperature as the young ones could tolerate without panic
The Missus was reaching breaking point, was threatening to become catatonic
I daresay this freezing business, on top of the pandemic was getting rather old
Need I remind you that, by this stage, we were sixty five hours deep in this bitter cold
Those fateful words, the kindness of strangers were just a mirage
I kept wondering if the old man who lives in the park had found a garage

The palaver sauce heated up, the palm oil simply glistened
I daresay there was mist in my eyes, you don't know what you were missing
The water boiled and the slices of the golden yam emerged, what a rush
I quickly made to set the table, there was no need to fuss

The combination of hunger, fright and cold was quite auspicious
The serendipity of having this comfort food was rather fortuitous
All I can say is that the golden yam tasted delicious
At breaking point, I was soul sanctified, it was like magic
Thus fortified, I told myself "I could deal with this for another week"

Narrator: that night's temperature drop put paid to this premature optimism
Thankfully this story has a happy ending, put aside your skepticism

Oh the cheer that went through the neighborhood at 5 am when electricity was restored
The sheer relief at this turn of events - these 75 hours, could not be ignored
Quick, we all got up, charged everything; everyone took a shower
Who knew if this would last, we made sure to boil extra water

...

At the outset of the pandemic, as it were, before the storm
A traveling salesman accosted me as I was mowing my lawn
Rent was due, desperate, he showed me a shiny nugget and made me an offer
I'd laugh later at the memory of this hungry man and my golden encounter

And now, after this bout of winter adversity, I was stuck in my home
Freezing and starving, yet I was pondering a poem
The light was fading, at a loss, yours truly was the desperate man
Thankfully, my hunger was sated by an encounter with a golden yam

...

I might as well go with The Golden Encounter playlist as a soundtrack for this note.

This folktale is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: humour, whimsy, food, nostalgia, culture, observation, perception, USA, Ghana, Africa, failure, poetry, disaster, Texas, family, folktale, coronavirus, pandemic, covidious, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: Part I January 15 2021, Part II. February 21, 2021

Taste

Of the senses that cruel nature can decide to deny
Taste is apparently the ugly stepchild
Likely to be easily dismissed without a thought
Or simply sacrificed as in a pact with Faust

Its function can even be subsumed by its siblings
Harken to the ancients of the Epicurean tribe
Who claimed that we eat first with our eyes
For even as visual appetites can be further whetted
By the alluring smells of culinary anticipation
I'm minded that even the sounds of food preparation
Can occasionally climb to the most flavorful heights

The hunger for touch and tangible connection
The music of comfort suites and aural pleasures
The sight of delightful contours elicit recognition
The familiar smell of home remains a welcome perception

True, there are magical feasts in fairy tales
And secret recipes are oft highlighted
The storytellers of yore emphasized poisonous potions
But far more of their plot points hinge on glorious visions
Suffice to say that the gustatory is underrated

The plague announces itself with the theft of taste
A sensual covidious casualty even before smell
Superfluous perhaps, this robbery, for food is fuel
But the pandemic's effect on the tongue means all is gruel

What a life, to be resigned to the bitterness of disappointment
To no longer know the meaning of a grain of salt
Or that the sweetness of a smile could be lost in appreciation
And sour moods could remain mere shadows rather than viscerally appall

No more folktales, what about the princess and the brown sugar?
What is the spice of life when everything now requires a food taster?
You can have all the riches in the world, all that money
But without comfort food, would the prince still savor the honey?

What circle of hell is this, with no easy excuses to forgo your broccoli?
Sustenance perhaps, but might as well go for feeding tubes really
Everything is pap, utter undifferentiated banality
This poisoned chalice that has become your new normalcy

A paradox, the sensory organ continues to exist
Still soft, warm and lush, this vestigial proboscis
This invisible disability remains a dark matter
Even as you sit ruing the loss of your taste receptors

The body compensates, they say, and refines the other textures
Enhanced smell might give you an entrée
   as a great nose in the perfume industry
But it's no consolation when you can no longer detect
   a wine that's merely ordinary
A subprime foreclosure on your mooted career as a fine wine buyer

We've been reading the tale of the lost stories
Narratives of control; this paradise from which we’ve been severed
Social distancing with so many unable to walk in glory
Pity the survivor however, at a remove from a taste of heaven

The heart leaps at the mention of Auntie Becky's kelewele
Roadside excellence, the comfort food of Labone childhood reveries
The intense longing, an almost physical vibration
Synesthesia, I can picture the plantain with such acuity
But to have these flavors foregone would be agony
To be left with only the color of memory
Would a kiss of life even be extraordinary?
Taste, a lack of sensation, to no longer be at ease
It is said that nostalgia can be a fatal disease

After learning of my sister's covidious condition and a friend stuck in Texas trying to summon the memory of the taste of plantain

Taste, a Playlist

A tasty soundtrack for this grace note. (spotify version)

• A Taste of Honey by Lizz Wright
  It melts on your tongue
• Just a Taste of Lovin' by Al B Sure
  It's all you need
• Your Love - So Good I Can Taste It by Barry White
  He takes his time but once he gets going, well...

  "You ever hear a three-hundred-pound black man with sweat dripping out of his process get so overcome by the goodness of his woman's "love" that he stops forming actual syllables and instead just goes to rolling his tongue around and making "brrrrrr" sounds like a baby? Welcome to Barryland."

• 65 Bars and a Taste of Soul by Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band
• A Little Taste by Cannonball Adderley
• A Little Taste of Soul by Sugar Pie DeSanto
• Taste Your Love by Horace Brown
• Mr Pitiful by Big Daddy Kane
  The album is titled Taste of Chocolate after all
• Kiss of Life by Sade
  Wist and extraordinary comfort are to be found here.

See previously: Touch

This sensory process is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: poetry, taste, sensory, culture, observation, perception, loss, coronavirus, pandemic, disease, nostalgia, food, covidious, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: February 12, 2021

A Kenkey Bounty

Happiness is finding kenkey in Oakland - and not just something purporting to be kenkey, but good kenkey. You hadn't realized how much you'd been missing kenkey in your life so you beamed when you saw those corn husks wrapped around those broken pieces of your heart. Call it a restorative. And then to cap it off you notice some good puna yam at the door of the store, "From Ghana", she assures you. Hey it's Ghana's independence day and what better way to celebrate. Your basket was quickly filled with the basics: kenkey, yam, sardines, tilapia, plantains, okro, palm oil, fufu powder, and the old faithful, gari. You had come perilously close to disaster but had remembered that piece of advice that they announce as the plane takes off from Kotoka International Airport: "A Ghanaian immigrant should never run out of gari"; it's like losing your soul.

One of the problems with being an immigrant is getting food from home, a problem exacerbated especially if, like me, your culinary tastes were locked in place by age 8 or thereabouts. Physical displacement can be tolerable - a cosmopolitan disposition helps, but culinary dislocation goes beyond the realm of physical to a certain level of metaphysical angst. Like nostalgia, it's almost a social disease. As that wise man said, "home is where the kelewele is".

I see it as a quality of life issue. Moreover I have a very specific notion of (my culinary) home. I could eat plantain every day (and often do) - and have been known to base my housing decisions on its availability. So the first thing to investigate when in a new town is where the "African" shop is and if my staples can be obtained. My kelewele has to be styled like Auntie Becky's in North Labone - and I've been known to come to virtual fisticuffs with other exiled souls who have the nerve to argue that it was rather 'the woman from Labone junction' who made the best kelewele in town. Good grief. Well, less said on that, I shouldn't blame you if you haven't been exposed to that slice of heavenly taste.

Fruits: mangoes, bananas and pineapples preferably from Aburi and its environs - I am a failed pineapple farmer - and more on that later. Fruits however can be substituted. Banku and kenkey are irreplaceable. When it comes to kenkey, it's Ga kenkey that is essential. I could of course learn how to make kenkey but I always demur, safe in the knowledge that I'll never reach the heights of some of the good kenkey houses in Osu or Jamestown. I believe in division of labour. Sidenote: to avert the inevitable Ga versus Fante kenkey critiques, I'll admit that Fante kenkey off the road from Cape Coast is quite the thing. Tell Mama Akos Esi (or rather, her grand-daughter who tends to skip school to mind the stand) that I sent you.

There's probably a longer feature to be written about the "African shop" abroad that caters groceries, phone cards and serves as community bulletin board to the diasporic cohort. My experience in France is perhaps coloured by the relative lack of authentic African food stuffs where we lived; the substitutes helped but weren't sufficient and French cuisine leaves me completely indifferent to this day. In London in the 80s it was first Charlie's in St John's Wood that catered to our tastes - although Charlie's English reserve and hefty prices were a bit hard to take. Then, as the immigration wave crested, we started to see competition as Africa immigrants opened their own shops - the couple of Afro-Carribbean shops in Cricklewood made my day. Later, Ghanaians and Nigerians took over many parts of South London so that Deptford on a Saturday could be well be Kaneshie market. In New York and New Jersey, there were of course the Korean shops that were early entrants but again Ghanaians and Nigerians have now caught up and compete in the culinary marketplace with groceries and now restaurants. Boston was touch and go - the Ghana shop that I frequented moved a number of times - and even burnt down at one point. Still, I was never too far from plantain, yam, gari and kenkey. And the world was good. Slowly and surely the African culinary colonization is taking place and these days many supermarkets cater to our diaspora. Would that this trend continue.

Downtown Oakland has the Lucky Oriental Mart which, despite its title, is comprehensive in its purveyance of all manner of African and Carribean food. God bless the Filipino owners whose knowledge of our plants and foods is a thing to behold. The only gap in their coverage had been a regular supply of decent kenkey - now resolved. I do hope these soul sisters make it to the continent one day; on this Independence day, they captured my heart with a few balls of kenkey. A small thing perhaps, but I am duly sated. From here on, I only have a few fantasies to fulfill: some chichinga or grilled Guinea fowl - well a man can dream can't he? Everyone needs a taste of Africa.

File under: Ghana, immigration, food, kenkey, wist, culture, taste, nostalgia, life, Africa, toli

Wist

We the people, having survived for so long on so little, and done so much for so long, are now qualified to do anything... for nothing.

I found the above musing in an old notebook of writings circa 1992. Spring cleaning, even if delayed until summer, does turn up the occasional nugget. It put me in mind of wist, hence some further musings on indigo moods.

The above painting reminded me of the following photo from the African Futurist of fishwives in the morning in Elmina, Ghana.

The stories they have to tell, the perspectives they could share. I want to have a conversation with them, simply sit with them in the middle of the day - in the brief moment before they get back to the important things on their plate. We the people indeed.

It also brought to mind the women who were dyeing cloths in those courtyards in Bamako, Abderrahmane Sissako's film that is, while the World Bank and international institutions were being put on mock trial in the foreground. The women and their work were meant to be the background and yet, from my standpoint, their stories and experiences were the foreground.

Wist is perhaps the attitude that best suits these unsettled times, we are all holding our breath and tightening our belts, bracing ourselves for who knows what.

In the USA especially, I sense a lot of wist in the air. Conveniently timed gut feelings abound all round, we have banned liquids and have to resort to zip-loc containers and long lines. Americans now need visa stamps and even passports. Heck, you can't even get out of the country if you want to without bribing passport expeditors or calling your congressman. When you take that trip to Brazil, you'll need to give up your biometric data, the reciprocal wages of bureaucracy and inconvenience, just like those visitors to the States have had to since it became a matter of Homelands and Security. If you stay in the country who knows who will be watching you or listening to your conversations. When you're on the subway, you need to be mindful of recent non-specific general threats. Suspicious people are everywhere - they could even be (gasp) next door! I think a lot of wist is in order.

There is a danger however: when wist devolves into nostalgia it becomes reactionary. Too much wist and you start dwelling on those good old days that never really were. Your thinking will get woolly and, without moderation, you are liable to be bamboozled into who knows what and then be left picking up the pieces, singing the inflation calypso as the chickens come home to roost. You really don't want your entire society to start behaving like actors in B-movies. The director may not cut the scene.

Hold on to wist I say. Wist is clear-eyed and lyrical. Wist is wary, wist is weary, yet while being realistic, wist embraces the here and now, the tense present and a better tomorrow. At heart then, wist is an optimistic sentiment.

The dictionaries present the word wist as obsolete and would direct us to its adjectival compere, wistful. Of the latter I prefer the meditative, pensive and forlorn senses, but of the former, it is that still small voice of wist that attracts me, that quiet and attentive outlook.

In my book, wist is stoic and, at its best, eschews melancholy. When wistful, one is pragmatic yet hopeful. The British and the French know a lot about wist as their empires have seen better days. Others however are still seeking the black gold of the sun. Would they take a moment to be wistful? Wist is about humility, about acknowledging the small steps towards the wonders that are still to come.

Wist presents an opportunity for resolve, it is a brief respite in that moment as you gather yourself up for the next task, the next struggle. Wist is a flight to quality, a premium bond for these subprime times. Wist is soul insurance that actually pays you back when you file your later claims.

I'll prognosticate here. Those in the developing world are actually at an advantage in these wistful times. Of necessity, we are aficionados of wist, world-weariness has long been our lot. A lifetime of almost always expecting the blows coming your way will leave you better equipped to deal with this harsh world. The school of hard knocks is our neighbourhood and our response is communal not unilateral. Sissoko would say "we are all responsible". One shouldn't strike out on one's own just because one can, rather we find strength in community. Burning Spear would add: social living is the best.

A Wistful Soundtrack

A playlist full of wist

Musically, the quality of wist is a step up from the blues however the blues tend to get more love since they are more dramatic and keenly felt - wist is merely transitional. In compiling a wistful playlist for this note, I initially thought to songs about holding on. To "hold on" is indeed the most resolute response to wist and I have many songs on that theme (Lisa Stansfield, Dennis Brown, Ann Nesby, Dwele and others can school you for a good hour about holding on). Shuffle serendipity struck however and instead I found my wistfulness encapsulated in the following songs.

• Sam Cooke - A Change is Gonna Come
  This song is perhaps the definition of soul music - the point at which the genre coalesced and departed from gospel and the blues. It is fitting that wist was the first vein in which Sam Cooke made out his soulful sound. There is both a spiritual and a bluesy feel to the song. Watching Talk to Me last night, that wonderful film about the life of Petey Greene, that ex-convict turned radio disc jockey, it was no surprise that A change is gonna come was the song that he played to sooth the soul on the airwaves in Washington D.C. that night after Martin Luther King Jnr. was assassinated. It speaks about optimism even in the face of setbacks. The vocal performance is one that few can equal although many have tried. A few sublime minutes of yearning and longing.
• Duke Ellington - Mood Indigo
  The Indigos album is one of my favourites in the Ellington catalog, featuring wistful tunes throughout. The only vocal track on the album is of course Autumn Leaves that paragon of remembrance (see also the autumn soundtrack). Prelude to a Kiss is all about the lyricism of Johnny Hodges, as is the old faithful, Solitude. The song I'll highlight however is the title track, Mood Indigo. An economy of emotion, it features a perfect trumpet solo full of whimsy and reflection by Shorty Baker. That wondrous portion when the rest of the band join in is ecstatic. An earlier performance is on youtube with Jimmy Hamilton Willie Cook (see corrections) doing the deed on trumpet and with a more prominent piano solo by Ellington. Indigos are not quite the blues and the Duke's band prove that indigo is the colour of wist.
  You can listen to the mp3 for the next week: Duke Ellington - Mood Indigo
• D'Angelo - The Line
  The crown prince of soul put it on the line seven years ago. The elements of the song are simple: Questlove's steady drums, James Poyser and D'Angelo's keyboards and Rhodes, a little boom bap from the bassist and above all the vocals. I hear Sam Cooke, I hear Al Green, I hear Prince, Curtis, Donnie, Marvin and more. It is a tour of the sounds of his favourite vocalists wrapped in his own stylings. It's the moment of truth, the stakes are high ("Will I fall off or will it be banging?"), he steels himself: "all I got to do is hold on". He'll stick to his guns, resolute to the challenge ahead.
• James Carter - The Intimacy of My Woman's Beautiful Eyes
  Perhaps the hungriest of the young lions of jazz, James Carter can also be the most tender when he want to. The musical scion of Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, he isn't afraid to engage in matters of the heart, albeit with a wink and a certain swagger. Hence this song is a study in contrasts: the wistful tone of the music set against the premise of the overwrought title. After a fairly subdued opening solo, the piano takes over and the bassist prods him along and what a piano solo. When Carter's saxophone returns wailing, or rather growling, the notes are urgent, longing and attentive — wistful in short. One hopes his woman forgave his missteps, the music is a plea for a renewed intimacy.
• Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins - Mood Indigo
  Apropos tenor saxophonists, there is another version of Mood Indigo that I'm very fond of: this intimate meeting of jazz giants. Ellington introduces the theme on piano and the band step in smooth as usual. After a while Coleman Hawkins steps up and delivers the goods. His solo is discursive, breathy and virtuosic. This is someone who has lived body and soul. Duke's accompaniment is subtle, encouraging Bean to find the emotional depth in the melody. Simply magic.
• Charles Mingus - Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
  Mingus recorded Mood Indigo twice, recognizing as he did, the genius of Ellington's composition. Each occasion elicited typically sensitive bass solos from him. I'll focus here on his own composition, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, his tribute to Lester Young, written right after he learned of Pres's death. It captures the mournful and elegiac tone of loss, Mingus' great band remembering the arch tones and oblique art of their friend who paved the way for them. In the hip-hop vein, I suppose the closest would be Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth's They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.) although that arguably leans more towards nostalgia than wist.
• Amel Larrieux - Weary
  The lead single of last year's opus, Morning, this song takes on the notion of hard experience in life. She takes her time to warm up as the song progresses and only really starts letting her hair down vocally at the midpoint. She's in control throughout observing the vagaries of the mood, a midtempo soul excursion. Watching the video (slightly lower quality on youtube), you see that she has a lot on her mind ("A woman is getting weary"). Ultimately she finds comfort around her friends and family as it should be. The song ends as it starts with Amel walking down the road. Perhaps the weariness has been lifted, in any cases she has given us music for a long walk.
• Cannonball Adderley Quintet - Walk Tall
  Like the country preacher declaimed:

  The most important thing of all is that no matter how dreary the situation is, and how difficult it may be, that the song really doesn't matter until the song begins to get you down.
  
  So our advice to you, the message that the Cannonball Adderley Quintet brings to us, is that it's rough and tough in this ghetto, a lot of funny stuff going down. But you've got to walk tall.
  
  Walk tall. Walk tall.

Wist, the ineffable sentiment for our times.

See also: Indigos, a playlist

Next: Resisting Nostalgia

File under: wist, mood, colour, language, emotion, indigo, observation, culture, music, jazz, soul, life, Ghana, Africa, nostalgia, art, Social Living, Things Fall Apart, toli