ended up back West, but with a few leftover health problems from the trip. then school began and what do you know, I haven't ended up posting my notes from the rest of the time in Jamaica.
I will do so again, but for now, regular posting on music, copyright and other stuff will be available back at my regular site: http://djripley.blogspot.com . when I post more notes, I will announce it there as well as posting it here.
Thanks for reading and commenting y'all.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
safe in the USA
I will post more soon - internet access has been sporadic. I made it out Saturday afternoon just before Dean hit. Cross your fingers for my fellow traveler, who was supposed to leave today. Cross your fingers for Jamaica that the damage was not too bad.
The airport in Kingston was filled with tourists and rich Jamaicans fleeing the island - it wasn't frantic yet, but it was urgent. I got a final taste of Jamaican food - albeit fast food- from Island Grill in the airport. Mmmmm callaloo rice and fish tea. still more spices than you get in US fast food. and I just discovered (at Brunch at the Alhambra when we went last sunday) that Hominy corn porridge is yummy in that "I'm eating pap" or babyfood kind of way, so I had that as dessert (it's sweet and vanilla-ish tasting).
The plane flight was full as could be and there were many loud white american teens exclaiming over how glad they were to leave early. One insisted on moving an elegant, elderly black man (in a fedora) from the window seat he had mistakenly taken and shouted across him to her friends for the rest of the flight about how glad she was to get away. I think ther were several school groups on the flight. I put my headphones on and read The Iron Council. Back in the US now, although I will continue to upload accounts from my trip over the next few days.
The airport in Kingston was filled with tourists and rich Jamaicans fleeing the island - it wasn't frantic yet, but it was urgent. I got a final taste of Jamaican food - albeit fast food- from Island Grill in the airport. Mmmmm callaloo rice and fish tea. still more spices than you get in US fast food. and I just discovered (at Brunch at the Alhambra when we went last sunday) that Hominy corn porridge is yummy in that "I'm eating pap" or babyfood kind of way, so I had that as dessert (it's sweet and vanilla-ish tasting).
The plane flight was full as could be and there were many loud white american teens exclaiming over how glad they were to leave early. One insisted on moving an elegant, elderly black man (in a fedora) from the window seat he had mistakenly taken and shouted across him to her friends for the rest of the flight about how glad she was to get away. I think ther were several school groups on the flight. I put my headphones on and read The Iron Council. Back in the US now, although I will continue to upload accounts from my trip over the next few days.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
some pics to cheer you up
no I'm not back in NYC or anything. we went to a ROCK NIGHT last night.before that were many adventures, pouring rain, and a visit to the immensely creepy and sad house that Dennis Brown was born in.
other than that, due to the rain and the heat and all my shoes being filled with rain at one point over the weekend I have trench foot basically. Makes walking around on my last week a bit less fun than usual. But at least I have something to scare off cat-callers with.
Made our final trip into the prison system today. Fort Augusta, the women's prison. It was a more relaxed trip than the last one, where I gave an abbreviated version of my copyright workshop. This time we talked about future plans for SET in the prisons, and different inmates told a bit of their stories of how they came up there. What is increasingly evident is first the lack of choice facing people in poverty, but also, the fact that 75% of the women there were there because of men, in one way or another. People fighting back against abuse, or acting out because they had been abused, were the most common stories. We left energized but also enraged all over again at how little the women have to work with to improve their situations, whether inside or outside.
Gotta run for now, but this site will be updated soon with accounts of
- The walking tour of Orange Street, historic record label/studio lane
- Some accounts of tasty food eaten while here
- more fashion talk (uptown vs. downtown and men vs. women mostly)
- another trip to Rae Town, this time with my partner as well as my roommate.
- Wedi Wednesdays at Stone Love
- A full account of ROCK NIGHT
Friday, August 3, 2007
Evening at Half Way Tree
(from last week, when my roommate and I walked down to Half Way Tree to look for clothing to go out dancing in - I've been feeling severely underdressed these days)
The sun is setting by 7 but even as it grew dark people were everywhere when we approached Half Way Tree (site of the only walk/don't walk sign I've seen in Kingston so far). Most shops were closed except for hair salons (somewhat segregated by gender, I think), where I could see people getting gussied up for later tonight.
As we walked down Half Way Tree road towards the clock tower, the sidewalk on one side was lined with vendors although they seemed to be multiplying as the night goes on – some were only beginning to set out their stuff at 8pm, unrolling big plastic tarps or laying out garbage bags flat and layering clothing -mostly women's clothing – brightly colored tops especially, and occasionally piles or bunches of underwear. Coming up on the main corner, we passed a woman sitting on a stool or something I couldn't see, with a huge bag of 3-stacked boxer shorts in front of her. All the clothes for sale (and stacks of washcloths –very useful for wiping sweat off in the clubs) looked pretty new and clean.
There were also a few drum chicken vendors, across the street from the clothing vendors, although I don't hear the whistle of the nut roasting machines. On both sides of the street a few folks had set up small tables with drinks and candy, and there is a guy with a fruitstand, rows of mangoes and a small pile of breadfruit visible in the dark. As we walked into Clock Tower Plaza, most of the shops were closed but a van parked in the middle of the parking lot had an entire fruit and vegetable market crammed inside of it – I could see piles of onions, plantain, tomatoes, other foods.. a scale hangs from the back of the van. At the back of the parking lot a rasta guy in his 30s stands by a table piled high with sugar cane.
All the women's clothing and shoe shops were still open when we arrived at around 7:30, and we begin our exploration by wedging ourselves into a series of tiny places with as much clothing as possible stuffed into racks and women pushing through and around them and each other.
The first three stores we visited were in the half way tree mall (a c-shaped structure around a parking lot – two levels small shops ranged around the center). These were buzzing with activity, mostly women in their 20s I think, with women the same age or slightly older working behind the counter. IN all the small places, it's only women's clothing, hanging on long lines across the window or hanging from the metal grates over the windows, and hanging from the ceiling.
There is hardly room to turn around, although most places have a fitting room (everyone I go into is piled with shoe boxes and a mirror leaning in the back). Lots of stuff was cute – mostly looked like stuff I would see at home in the cheap stores like Tellos, the step below H&M – mostly synthetic fabrics, microfiber and thin cotton, or some of the club-clothing stores where everything is microfiber, draped and pinned with shiny hardware. But it's not really so cheap here. I see a really cute sundress but it's 3800 jamaican dollars – about 45 bucks. Everything is made in china, and the sizes are demoralizing. I'm an 8-10 in the US and when they have larges (which is rare) I don't fit into most of them. Even when I do, many of the cheap fabrics are too see-through or stretch unflatteringly. O well.. We walked past at piles of denim jeans, bedecked with sequins and crystals and embroidery. Many women wear tight jeans all day here – I can't imagine it myself, in the heat.
The shops farther back from the street, or not in that mall are quieter, and staff more likely to be male. Most of them are larger shops, and have a men's section on one side and women's clothing on the other. Several of the men running some of the larger and quieter shops appear to be middle eastern, although one or two other shops are staffed by black Jamaican men.
All of the shops play music, mostly dancehall and R&B. I can't tell if it's a radio or a player of some kind – I don't see the source and I can't remember any djs talking.
Outside, in the cool of the evening the scene is pretty jovial. People are clearly preparing for evenings on the town, gathering in groups on streetcorners. There are mostly groups of women or groups of men, segregated by age and gender. We walk back up the street, to get to the supermarket before it closes. As we leave the supermarket, we walk towards a fruitstand where Christina gets a coconut to drink from. Just past it there is another vendor with a drum of chicken, a table piled with snacks and a TV plugged in (somewhere?) with the news on. People sit or lean nearby, catching up on local news.
The sun is setting by 7 but even as it grew dark people were everywhere when we approached Half Way Tree (site of the only walk/don't walk sign I've seen in Kingston so far). Most shops were closed except for hair salons (somewhat segregated by gender, I think), where I could see people getting gussied up for later tonight.
As we walked down Half Way Tree road towards the clock tower, the sidewalk on one side was lined with vendors although they seemed to be multiplying as the night goes on – some were only beginning to set out their stuff at 8pm, unrolling big plastic tarps or laying out garbage bags flat and layering clothing -mostly women's clothing – brightly colored tops especially, and occasionally piles or bunches of underwear. Coming up on the main corner, we passed a woman sitting on a stool or something I couldn't see, with a huge bag of 3-stacked boxer shorts in front of her. All the clothes for sale (and stacks of washcloths –very useful for wiping sweat off in the clubs) looked pretty new and clean.
There were also a few drum chicken vendors, across the street from the clothing vendors, although I don't hear the whistle of the nut roasting machines. On both sides of the street a few folks had set up small tables with drinks and candy, and there is a guy with a fruitstand, rows of mangoes and a small pile of breadfruit visible in the dark. As we walked into Clock Tower Plaza, most of the shops were closed but a van parked in the middle of the parking lot had an entire fruit and vegetable market crammed inside of it – I could see piles of onions, plantain, tomatoes, other foods.. a scale hangs from the back of the van. At the back of the parking lot a rasta guy in his 30s stands by a table piled high with sugar cane.
All the women's clothing and shoe shops were still open when we arrived at around 7:30, and we begin our exploration by wedging ourselves into a series of tiny places with as much clothing as possible stuffed into racks and women pushing through and around them and each other.
The first three stores we visited were in the half way tree mall (a c-shaped structure around a parking lot – two levels small shops ranged around the center). These were buzzing with activity, mostly women in their 20s I think, with women the same age or slightly older working behind the counter. IN all the small places, it's only women's clothing, hanging on long lines across the window or hanging from the metal grates over the windows, and hanging from the ceiling.
There is hardly room to turn around, although most places have a fitting room (everyone I go into is piled with shoe boxes and a mirror leaning in the back). Lots of stuff was cute – mostly looked like stuff I would see at home in the cheap stores like Tellos, the step below H&M – mostly synthetic fabrics, microfiber and thin cotton, or some of the club-clothing stores where everything is microfiber, draped and pinned with shiny hardware. But it's not really so cheap here. I see a really cute sundress but it's 3800 jamaican dollars – about 45 bucks. Everything is made in china, and the sizes are demoralizing. I'm an 8-10 in the US and when they have larges (which is rare) I don't fit into most of them. Even when I do, many of the cheap fabrics are too see-through or stretch unflatteringly. O well.. We walked past at piles of denim jeans, bedecked with sequins and crystals and embroidery. Many women wear tight jeans all day here – I can't imagine it myself, in the heat.
The shops farther back from the street, or not in that mall are quieter, and staff more likely to be male. Most of them are larger shops, and have a men's section on one side and women's clothing on the other. Several of the men running some of the larger and quieter shops appear to be middle eastern, although one or two other shops are staffed by black Jamaican men.
All of the shops play music, mostly dancehall and R&B. I can't tell if it's a radio or a player of some kind – I don't see the source and I can't remember any djs talking.
Outside, in the cool of the evening the scene is pretty jovial. People are clearly preparing for evenings on the town, gathering in groups on streetcorners. There are mostly groups of women or groups of men, segregated by age and gender. We walk back up the street, to get to the supermarket before it closes. As we leave the supermarket, we walk towards a fruitstand where Christina gets a coconut to drink from. Just past it there is another vendor with a drum of chicken, a table piled with snacks and a TV plugged in (somewhere?) with the news on. People sit or lean nearby, catching up on local news.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
wuh?
Is there a simple reason for the style of lettering on this gambling machine?
why hebrew lettering and scrolls?
why hebrew lettering and scrolls?
Friday, July 27, 2007
language's meaning contracts
As we cooled our heels last weekend due to a threatened strike by prison workers that meant nobody could get into the prisons, I've been thinking about all the different kinds of work I've been involved in.
I've been struggling with drafting contracts and forms to provide a legal framework for what's happening in the recording studio. This is because I'm not clear how to make them meaningful legally and meaningful to the inmates who sign them.
Contracts, in order to be rock-solid, are supposed to have extremely specific language in them, to cover all contingencies and prevent any fancy footwork or nit-picking after the fact.
But the situation in the prison is that there is nothing at all protecting these folk, pretty much all rights are theoretical here, and also nobody is very sophisticated –on either side. It's not that people are manipulating loopholes for their benefit, it’s that one side has all the power. Down to even things like who has freedom of movement, or who has access to information about what's happening outside the prison.
Any ripping-off that could be going on here is pretty straightforward, people get recorded, the person who records them disappears with the recordings. I'm enough convinced of the usefulness of law, and beyond that, of the importance of modeling fair agreements between people , that I think there should be an agreement on paper. But the importance of creating a clear legal relationship should be because the relationship has real meaning, that is, that it gives the inmates the sense that they can make choices at all about this kind of thing, that they are not completely at the mercy of people who have more power than them (although I'm ambivalent, because, practically, they are, if the guards want to play it that way).
In order for the experience of participating in legal processes to be transformative, (which is part of the point of this whole project), I think it has to be a conscious choice, a choice they can understand. This means I'm really fighting with the fact that I want people to actually understand the agreements.
The problem is, the more specific they are, and the more contingencies they include, the more chances for misunderstanding and manipulation there are. A longer document is more intimidating, the use of legally specific and foreign language is alienating and confusing. And 9 times out of 10, no matter which way the meaning of the language is slanting the contract, any confusion is going to benefit the powerful person in that contract. Because who is in a position to interpret the language?
Add in to that the fact that a contract that is longer than a single page runs a very high chance of pages being separated, signatures lost, pages mix up.. not even through maliciousness but because the er "in-prison filing system" is perhaps a bit precarious. I'm working on a scanner as a backup, but not sure how that stands legally either.
Basically, it seems to me that contracts rely on an assumptions that both parties signing it are on equal footing with respect to the law. As if rights were automatically enforced by the fact of their existence. But if one side has more legal resources (whether it is access to lawyers or a higher level of literacy), then the contract itself will tend to benefit one side automatically. While the tendency is to write something extremely cautious and defensive, and then insist on the inmates signing it "because it will protect them," this seems both a bad model for them to practice engaging with law (and inherently no more reliable as not signing contracts) because I'm basically asking them to trust me on what is in their best interest, based on their feelings about me –which is the same reason the trust the people they work with without contracts, and also practically suspect. If they can't understand them, does it matter what's in them?
I've been struggling with drafting contracts and forms to provide a legal framework for what's happening in the recording studio. This is because I'm not clear how to make them meaningful legally and meaningful to the inmates who sign them.
Contracts, in order to be rock-solid, are supposed to have extremely specific language in them, to cover all contingencies and prevent any fancy footwork or nit-picking after the fact.
But the situation in the prison is that there is nothing at all protecting these folk, pretty much all rights are theoretical here, and also nobody is very sophisticated –on either side. It's not that people are manipulating loopholes for their benefit, it’s that one side has all the power. Down to even things like who has freedom of movement, or who has access to information about what's happening outside the prison.
Any ripping-off that could be going on here is pretty straightforward, people get recorded, the person who records them disappears with the recordings. I'm enough convinced of the usefulness of law, and beyond that, of the importance of modeling fair agreements between people , that I think there should be an agreement on paper. But the importance of creating a clear legal relationship should be because the relationship has real meaning, that is, that it gives the inmates the sense that they can make choices at all about this kind of thing, that they are not completely at the mercy of people who have more power than them (although I'm ambivalent, because, practically, they are, if the guards want to play it that way).
In order for the experience of participating in legal processes to be transformative, (which is part of the point of this whole project), I think it has to be a conscious choice, a choice they can understand. This means I'm really fighting with the fact that I want people to actually understand the agreements.
The problem is, the more specific they are, and the more contingencies they include, the more chances for misunderstanding and manipulation there are. A longer document is more intimidating, the use of legally specific and foreign language is alienating and confusing. And 9 times out of 10, no matter which way the meaning of the language is slanting the contract, any confusion is going to benefit the powerful person in that contract. Because who is in a position to interpret the language?
Add in to that the fact that a contract that is longer than a single page runs a very high chance of pages being separated, signatures lost, pages mix up.. not even through maliciousness but because the er "in-prison filing system" is perhaps a bit precarious. I'm working on a scanner as a backup, but not sure how that stands legally either.
Basically, it seems to me that contracts rely on an assumptions that both parties signing it are on equal footing with respect to the law. As if rights were automatically enforced by the fact of their existence. But if one side has more legal resources (whether it is access to lawyers or a higher level of literacy), then the contract itself will tend to benefit one side automatically. While the tendency is to write something extremely cautious and defensive, and then insist on the inmates signing it "because it will protect them," this seems both a bad model for them to practice engaging with law (and inherently no more reliable as not signing contracts) because I'm basically asking them to trust me on what is in their best interest, based on their feelings about me –which is the same reason the trust the people they work with without contracts, and also practically suspect. If they can't understand them, does it matter what's in them?
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Rae Town Rock
So we roll out from the studio, Sunday night, around midnight: Andrea, a friend of Andrea's in a camo minidress and long blond dreads, a younger woman T (daughter of one of the gentlemen hanging in the studio), Earl Chinna Smith, whose studio we've been hanging out in all evening, a visiting musician from the US, Berklee-trained, who’s working with them on an album, and a few other venerable cats.
Taking a circuitous route through downtown to the highway (following Chinna's car, the women exclaim this route makes no sense, both because traffic in the city is no problem at 11:45pm on a Sunday, and because this takes us near downtown during election season, when the chance for politics-related violence is high), we come to Rae Town, definitely not New Kingston. Small houses and shacks, gullies for drainage, but also a good sized crowd. Andrea says this is small, but it's perhaps 800 people maybe, or gets there in the next hour or so.
Towers of speakers line the back of the sidewalk at key points, and people stand in front of the speakers but with their backs to them. This means there are two thick rows of people facing each other across the street, being blasted in the face and back by speakers playing oldies, "vintage" music. Which in this case means everything from funk (I think "last night a dj saved my life" was playing as we pulled in), to rocksteady (to which everyone sings along, Alton Ellis crooning over the crowd).
We park in a lot at one end, and walk back towards the crowd, collecting at one end. I am already dizzy with sensory overload. The crowd ranges from teenagers to people in the 70s. Clothing styles are wide-ranging but definitely have not much upper limit on the flashy side, from tight jeans with golden zippers hanging off and high heels, to halter tops, mini skirts, leggings, men strut in near-zoot-suits (with a fedora in one case), or rocking the look more popular uptown: the slim-cut button-down shirt with embroidery (gothic letters or eagles or other crests), plus white shirts and vests, enormous dreadlock crowns.
I should point out that tonight at Rae Town age does not appear to dictate style – either in flashiness or sexuality (although tight and revealing clothes appear on women only here) the first women I notice are a woman in her 50s wearing a crocheted outfit that is like long trousers that are only opaque in the hotpant region, and then become see-through crochet for the entire legs, a black crochet top that is equally revealing, a black bra and red men's suspenders hoisting the pants up. Her friend has a black one-piece outfit that is a bra top attached to the pants part by a sort of fishnet, stretched over her round belly. I turn around and there is my guide talking to Errol Dunkley, who is magnificent in a white satin buttondown shirt with a Chinese-style collar, clipped at the throat with a thick golden chain, a more enormous golden chain hanging around his neck over a black pinstripe vest, a matching one on his wrist and a huge seal ring on his finger.
The age range is striking compared to the other places we've been out. A nice thing about the scene is the number of older people dancing enthusiastically –something I rarely see in the US (both because we are so age-segregated in terms of nightlife, but also I think dancing is not assumed to be so usual here). I'm particularly taken with the older men with dreadlocks piled high and beards, standing and wining, eyes shut, bending their knees and rocking out to the beat. Across the street from me when I first arrive, is one such man, hair wrapped in a white turban, white buttondown shirt under a blue knit v-neck vest, white beard glowing in the reflected car lights.
I'm the only white person there, and I don't see any asian folk either (Christina and I had been talked earlier on the visible presence of Chinese folks all over Kingston), although later a crew of 3 japanese girls and a guy walk through, the girls are dressed to death –I think one of them might be one who won a dancehall queen competition here a while ago – Junko. Long bleach hair, skinny skinny. I hear other folks say that name, and from what I've seen I can believe it would be her. Then again, all that external stuff is pretty movable/changeable, and I can guess any blond skinny asian girl gets called Junko here.. Anyway, she and her female friend disappear, although I see the guy walk back and forth through the crowd a few times.
There are things for sale all along the street behind the crowd - mostly food, drum chicken (steel drums cut in half lengthwise and turned sideways into a barbecue pit), rickety tables piled high with drinks, or coolers full of ice and drinks. Small rum shops/bars are open as well, along the sidewalk - just a bar and a few stools and a chair or two in teh corner. People selling nuts walk back and forth with huge bundles of small plastic bags, or pile the bundles on their heads. Some of the drinks sellers also sell cigarettes and candy, and there is at least one little shop selling candy and cigarettes and other small things I can't make out.
Cars cluster at both ends, although there are a few parked within or behind the crowd. Occasionally someone drives down the street, the crowd parts sulkily for them, people push back a bit but make a point of not moving quickly or too much for the cars. The most common drive-through is the cops, in a really beat up looking Toyota. There are three of them crammed in there in blue suits, toting old m-16s. T tells me it's just a "routine check" when they get out of the car near where we stand, slinging their guns around. we step across the street to the rum shop, I peek over my shoulder but I don't want to stare and I can;t tell what they are doing but nobody is moving quickly. T says they are checking for drugs. But later they drive through again, and a young guy with scraggly cornrows terminating in a kind of mini-fountain at the top of his head, who's been striding around with a kinda scraggly set of branches of weed, is walking past them. He talks to them through the window and I think I see a hand go in. Anyway he walks on and they drive past.
Most of the cars driving through and parked are beat-up, older models, although occasionally a newer one in better shape comes through. The most dramatic car is a big white and silver one that comes at us through the crowd around 1:30 in the morning.. it looks like a big SUV of some kind but there's something on the hood, where the leaping jaguar would be a on a jag. It's a golden lion, sitting majestic and metallic on the hood. I peer past it and through the tinted windshield is an older dready man in a huge white tam with the red-gold-green stripe in the front, and I realize it's Bunny Wailer. When he comes out his clothing is a vision in white and cream – kind of a colonial look actually, except for the tam. The woman with him has a black dress with a gold mesh underskirt and a tall headdress with a sort of gypsy-like gold coin chainmail thingy hanging over her forehead. There's a few other folks but I don't want to stare. They hang out a bit beyond us away from the biggest part of the crowd.
This happens as we stand in the middle of the crowd. People mostly dance solo in these two groups facing each other across the street. There isn't (at least until I leave at 3am) much of the grinding and hot+heavy pair dancing that I've seen in the clubs. People groove and sing along, the sense is of a broader camaraderie through the music, rather than one-on-one attention or performance for watching eyes. I don't notice a lot of pairing off or flirtation in general – people seem either en masse or in same-sex groups mostly. There are watching eyes with respect to me, a bit, although people say less to me (in the way of "whitey, white girl, hiss hiss") than almost any public place I've been since I got here. But of course I still stand out. Older folks seem less interested in me, overall. It may also be that I'm escorted by people who are clearly jamaican, and that could be what keeps the commentary down.
Near the end of the evening, when we're in the middle of the crowd in front of a mountain of speakers, I'm happy I know the lyrics to a lot of the sweet rocksteady, thanks especially to my weekly rocksteady gig back home at the Guerilla café, I had time to brush up. It's a pleasure to dance and sing along, during which I occasionally stop thinking of observing and just enjoy the music, but that feeling is rare. And there's also the nice feeling of surprising people –they notice when I carol along.
Taking a circuitous route through downtown to the highway (following Chinna's car, the women exclaim this route makes no sense, both because traffic in the city is no problem at 11:45pm on a Sunday, and because this takes us near downtown during election season, when the chance for politics-related violence is high), we come to Rae Town, definitely not New Kingston. Small houses and shacks, gullies for drainage, but also a good sized crowd. Andrea says this is small, but it's perhaps 800 people maybe, or gets there in the next hour or so.
Towers of speakers line the back of the sidewalk at key points, and people stand in front of the speakers but with their backs to them. This means there are two thick rows of people facing each other across the street, being blasted in the face and back by speakers playing oldies, "vintage" music. Which in this case means everything from funk (I think "last night a dj saved my life" was playing as we pulled in), to rocksteady (to which everyone sings along, Alton Ellis crooning over the crowd).
We park in a lot at one end, and walk back towards the crowd, collecting at one end. I am already dizzy with sensory overload. The crowd ranges from teenagers to people in the 70s. Clothing styles are wide-ranging but definitely have not much upper limit on the flashy side, from tight jeans with golden zippers hanging off and high heels, to halter tops, mini skirts, leggings, men strut in near-zoot-suits (with a fedora in one case), or rocking the look more popular uptown: the slim-cut button-down shirt with embroidery (gothic letters or eagles or other crests), plus white shirts and vests, enormous dreadlock crowns.
I should point out that tonight at Rae Town age does not appear to dictate style – either in flashiness or sexuality (although tight and revealing clothes appear on women only here) the first women I notice are a woman in her 50s wearing a crocheted outfit that is like long trousers that are only opaque in the hotpant region, and then become see-through crochet for the entire legs, a black crochet top that is equally revealing, a black bra and red men's suspenders hoisting the pants up. Her friend has a black one-piece outfit that is a bra top attached to the pants part by a sort of fishnet, stretched over her round belly. I turn around and there is my guide talking to Errol Dunkley, who is magnificent in a white satin buttondown shirt with a Chinese-style collar, clipped at the throat with a thick golden chain, a more enormous golden chain hanging around his neck over a black pinstripe vest, a matching one on his wrist and a huge seal ring on his finger.
The age range is striking compared to the other places we've been out. A nice thing about the scene is the number of older people dancing enthusiastically –something I rarely see in the US (both because we are so age-segregated in terms of nightlife, but also I think dancing is not assumed to be so usual here). I'm particularly taken with the older men with dreadlocks piled high and beards, standing and wining, eyes shut, bending their knees and rocking out to the beat. Across the street from me when I first arrive, is one such man, hair wrapped in a white turban, white buttondown shirt under a blue knit v-neck vest, white beard glowing in the reflected car lights.
I'm the only white person there, and I don't see any asian folk either (Christina and I had been talked earlier on the visible presence of Chinese folks all over Kingston), although later a crew of 3 japanese girls and a guy walk through, the girls are dressed to death –I think one of them might be one who won a dancehall queen competition here a while ago – Junko. Long bleach hair, skinny skinny. I hear other folks say that name, and from what I've seen I can believe it would be her. Then again, all that external stuff is pretty movable/changeable, and I can guess any blond skinny asian girl gets called Junko here.. Anyway, she and her female friend disappear, although I see the guy walk back and forth through the crowd a few times.
There are things for sale all along the street behind the crowd - mostly food, drum chicken (steel drums cut in half lengthwise and turned sideways into a barbecue pit), rickety tables piled high with drinks, or coolers full of ice and drinks. Small rum shops/bars are open as well, along the sidewalk - just a bar and a few stools and a chair or two in teh corner. People selling nuts walk back and forth with huge bundles of small plastic bags, or pile the bundles on their heads. Some of the drinks sellers also sell cigarettes and candy, and there is at least one little shop selling candy and cigarettes and other small things I can't make out.
Cars cluster at both ends, although there are a few parked within or behind the crowd. Occasionally someone drives down the street, the crowd parts sulkily for them, people push back a bit but make a point of not moving quickly or too much for the cars. The most common drive-through is the cops, in a really beat up looking Toyota. There are three of them crammed in there in blue suits, toting old m-16s. T tells me it's just a "routine check" when they get out of the car near where we stand, slinging their guns around. we step across the street to the rum shop, I peek over my shoulder but I don't want to stare and I can;t tell what they are doing but nobody is moving quickly. T says they are checking for drugs. But later they drive through again, and a young guy with scraggly cornrows terminating in a kind of mini-fountain at the top of his head, who's been striding around with a kinda scraggly set of branches of weed, is walking past them. He talks to them through the window and I think I see a hand go in. Anyway he walks on and they drive past.
Most of the cars driving through and parked are beat-up, older models, although occasionally a newer one in better shape comes through. The most dramatic car is a big white and silver one that comes at us through the crowd around 1:30 in the morning.. it looks like a big SUV of some kind but there's something on the hood, where the leaping jaguar would be a on a jag. It's a golden lion, sitting majestic and metallic on the hood. I peer past it and through the tinted windshield is an older dready man in a huge white tam with the red-gold-green stripe in the front, and I realize it's Bunny Wailer. When he comes out his clothing is a vision in white and cream – kind of a colonial look actually, except for the tam. The woman with him has a black dress with a gold mesh underskirt and a tall headdress with a sort of gypsy-like gold coin chainmail thingy hanging over her forehead. There's a few other folks but I don't want to stare. They hang out a bit beyond us away from the biggest part of the crowd.
This happens as we stand in the middle of the crowd. People mostly dance solo in these two groups facing each other across the street. There isn't (at least until I leave at 3am) much of the grinding and hot+heavy pair dancing that I've seen in the clubs. People groove and sing along, the sense is of a broader camaraderie through the music, rather than one-on-one attention or performance for watching eyes. I don't notice a lot of pairing off or flirtation in general – people seem either en masse or in same-sex groups mostly. There are watching eyes with respect to me, a bit, although people say less to me (in the way of "whitey, white girl, hiss hiss") than almost any public place I've been since I got here. But of course I still stand out. Older folks seem less interested in me, overall. It may also be that I'm escorted by people who are clearly jamaican, and that could be what keeps the commentary down.
Near the end of the evening, when we're in the middle of the crowd in front of a mountain of speakers, I'm happy I know the lyrics to a lot of the sweet rocksteady, thanks especially to my weekly rocksteady gig back home at the Guerilla café, I had time to brush up. It's a pleasure to dance and sing along, during which I occasionally stop thinking of observing and just enjoy the music, but that feeling is rare. And there's also the nice feeling of surprising people –they notice when I carol along.
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