Indians in Trinidad – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Sour Chutney: The Ethnopoetics of Exploitation, Transplantation, and Violence

The feature here is the late Dr. Roi Kwabena’s musical spoken poem, Sour Chutney, from his hypnotic Y42K album, an unrecognized treasure in my view, where every one of his musical spoken word pieces is hauntingly beautiful. This is a remake of an earlier version I posted here some months ago, having produced the first […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

One Year Later: Viva Roi Kwabena!

ROI KWABENA Today is the first anniversary of the death of Dr. Roi Kwabena, someone whose presence in my own work and evolution was fundamental, a mentor and guide, a great example of a publicly engaged anthropologist — completely public, in the sense of not being tied to any academic position, and inspiring some to […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

“The Mongoose,” by Derek Walcott, has a bigger bite than one might think (1.2)

“It’s going to be nasty,” Derek Walcott said, prefacing his war on V. S. Naipaul with a warning. “The Mongoose” was the last of Walcott’s new poems at the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica last weekend [May 2008]. He’d wondered whether he ought to read it, Walcott said, “and then I figured if I don’t […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Stockholm Bollywood: “Jumma chumma de de” and Memories of a Cultural Shock

I found my captor and tormentor! I found my captor and tormentor who subjected me to an afternoon of torture, appearing in noisy, nauseating technicolour dreams for long afterwards, until I learned to love him and all those like him. I am referring not only to the supreme Amitabh Bachchan (see this biography as well), […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

That’s Just Ole Rum Talk…

The fifth episode of Monday Morning Madness introduces a theme that will reappear this week, having to do with that lethal muse, that graceful killer, the best and last spouse, rum. (Having enjoyed many of the fine benefits of a variety of rums, as well as cane liquor, I am not sure why rum beats […]