Thursday, April 28, 2005

On Blogging and Egotism

Narcissism: An exceptional interest in and admiration for yourself.

Conceit: Feelings of excessive pride
(definitions provided by WordWeb 3.0, an excellent dictionary software{Yannick recommended}).

It has been brought to my attention that this blog is an excercise in conceit and narcism. A result of my own bloated ego(hahahahahahahahhahahahaha). These are in more or less words the views expressed by members of my inner circle, The Miserable Mr. Stewart(Pole that is) and The Other Mr. Pessoa (Dax that is).

Hmmm this has led to me becoming a tad bit introspective on this little matter. I began thinking why did I start this blog. And have come to the conclusion I do not care. "A me an it out deh" hahahahahaha. Anyway mi hermano think it is a bit too raw and honest and opens me up to too much criticism. Is that a bad thing? Really I doubt I have any harsher critic than myself. At first I thought that me being my critic would be more motivation to me... whichever self help book I browsed and saw that... IT'S REAL RUBBISH. No chocolate tea for this soul. This is my "Marijuana for the Manic Mind"... I see a franchise here what do you say? hahahahahahhahaa. Anyway its me interfacing the world in a less harsh environment... yup maybe it is who cares? I think I need a counsellor... a very outside perspective. But really does it matter. My dear friend Amanda Lynch-Foster thinks I'm an insincere, attention starved pseudo rasta/pseudo intellectual, who says things for shock value and spotlight... (that one hurt) aaah tsk tsk, oh yeah and she thinks I have a thing for both brown and Trini girls, oh gee dear me. This blog seems to have drawn the roughest of criticisms geeee.

I shall proceed inspite, despite and to spite my own vain and trite(is that the way it's spelt) flights of fancy.

MORE BLOGGING MORE BLOGGING MORE MORE MORE!!!! Bwahahahahahahahhahaaa.

Quotidian

Back to life as per usual, in Ja. Look out for my up coming blog "Memoirs of U.W.I.-Year One" bound to be a best seller, this one.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Another blog interlude...


Yours truly at the Cleveland Public Library(Lie Bury)...
waiting to use the net... and contemplating my trek back to the HQ in the blistering cold...
(Doomb Dooooomb DOOOBM: the required sound effects) what ever will our not so young anymore hero do?

Monday, April 25, 2005

New Book weh mi just done read...

The Cigar Roller... mi just done read dis book weh mi buy a Florida and it terrible, so mi just a give it a forward so dat di rest of my literary minded friends will give a read or purchase etc...

The Cigar Roller

Book review taken from Amazon:

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The final days of a paralyzed stroke victim provide the occasion for a poignant set of immigrant's reflections in Medina's latest. Amadeo Terra spends days and nights in his Catholic nursing home in Tampa silently raging against the neglect of his grown children and the shortcomings (and even brutality) of various staff caretakers. In between episodes of internalized anger, Terra relives his path to becoming a master cigar roller in Cuba, his emigration and work in Tampa's Ibor City cigar factories and his troubled marriage. Medina (The Return of Felix Nogarra) crafts a complex, rewarding novel out of a static setting. Passages in which Terra relives his romantic past, uses his bodily functions in retaliatory fashion or rails against the emptiness of life in Florida each have a particular texture. The darker final chapters work less well, as Medina ineffectively blurs Terra's relationship with his abusive father with ambulatory fantasies and Terra's final decline. But Medina's graceful use of the third person, into which he folds a multiplicity of perspectives with real lyricism, makes Terra seem to open outward into the world--as someone to whom things happen (in paralysis and before), but also as someone who asserts his humanity in whatever circumstances he finds himself. Medina skates perfectly between Terra's specificity and the universality of his plight, making Terra, his flaws and his struggles all the more compelling. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From Booklist
Medina's novel is a searing, bitterly humorous analysis of a life. Paralyzed by a stroke, a Cuban-born cigar-factory worker is confined to a Florida hospital. Virtually isolated from the ebb and flow of everyday society, he has as his only companions a cantankerous nurse, an indifferent orderly, and an annoying nun. Reflecting on his past, Amadeo Terra is compelled by both his physical immobility and his spiritual malaise to review his life in ruthlessly honest terms. Introducing his youthful alter ego, Terra recalls his years in Cuba as a master cigar roller, his failures as a thoroughly self--absorbed husband and father, and his desperate flight from Cuba. Adding up the sum parts of his life, he is forced to confront the futility of his present circumstances. Margaret FlanaganCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Award-winning storyteller Pablo Medina's new novel is a radiant journey through the mind of Amadeo Terra, a Cuban cigar factory worker confined in a Florida hospital after a stroke has left him paralyzed. His body no longer works, but his mind is very much alive, as is his ruthless and audacious wit. His only human contact is with the callous nurse who constantly scolds him, the orderly who barely acknowledges him, and the nun who prays for Amadeo's salvation while he fantasizes about what's under her habit. One day Nurse feeds him mango from a baby-food jar-a departure from the usual bland mush-and the taste of it on his tongue brings memories of his life in Havana flooding back. Once a master cigar roller in Cuba and an imperious patriarch of enormous appetites, Amadeo now confronts the long-buried facts of his previously unexamined life. The Cigar Roller is an evocative portrait of a man whose life-once governed unapologetically by his most base urges-is now reduced mercilessly to its most basic functions.

Officially frozen... brrr!!!

And so it is after my flight to Florida was delayed and hence I would miss my connecting flight to Mobay... I am held hostage in the land of the beast only to be caught in a snow storm no less... and soooooooooo... I pass the hours reading newspapers and looking out the windows as white fluff floats pass... Brrrrrr.

The Enigmatic Mr. Pessoa... gi unnu the shotta pose!!!


How mi suh terrible eeeeh!!! Haahahahaha just so unnu memba wah mi look like


Saving minds and hearts everywhere even in the land of the beast, but dat a di least!!!

Friday, April 15, 2005

Adventures in the Land of the Beast

Hmmm here is our young hero (won't be young for that much longer, but hey!!!) The Enigmatic Mr. Pessoa© is traversing the land of the beast after practically swearing and vowing to himself never to set foot here again... alas it was not to be. Our young hero however is duely punisher for it is cold nuh B.C. and there is very little to do in this place known as Cleveland except go to the library, the movies, and buy books to read as best to pass the time...

our saga will continue, fret not, but laters for now...

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Taming the Shrew... In a manner of speaking

So from the shout... or from the grapevine or the multitude of birdies that whisper, I have heard some strange story that the hermit, the shrew, the "Best"(yahrite), the source... has been tamed as it were... snatched from the hunting field and shudder... domesticated. Oh how the mighty "Mr. S" has fallen... abducted by some young philly... alas... I never saw it coming.