THE CUBAN QUESTION

CUBAN TIMES NEVER GONE

LITTLE HAVANA


 Sadness always is something to fight.

Outside PUB

Middle class Cubans never stop doing so. As a result, in the restaurants, bistros and stores lining Calle Ocho or nearby streets ,  afternoon times  do not end behind closed doors and noiseless avenues, without singing and dancing. Whatever exile might be, Cuban life strives to remain itself the way it used to be before 1959 and socialism take over the motherland.

One cannot forget that joy was a Cuban invention. As a Hispanic legacy, the island's life is still colorful, exciting and exuberant, even in those endless times.  Pub Restaurant still keeps this tempo. There, food quality is very Cuban, say, spicy, a little bit traditional, Latino, so to speak. Steaks filled with onion, black beans, hot sauce, pepper -filled meat, several types of rice and meals, the famous Cuban coffee called espresso, cake tapped with syrup;  Pub restaurant tries to be a kind of multicultural restaurant. But never mind, its Cuban roots are deeply anchored in Little Havana.

Everything there breathes Cuban times. Adorned map speaks of time already gone yet seems, yet  welcome you with a touch of melancholy and epicurism. The kitchen is not too far. Youths, middle-age women come back and forth, carrying food and beverages. Pub is very relaxing place. Protocol is replaced by simplicity and kindness. Good feelings to fit exile’s mood. What a solace!

Outside, life goes on. The vibrant Floridian sky has plenty of perspective as summer unfolds under its typical sun. Little Havana, the center of the Cuban business, displays behind its glass stores, the forbidden fruit of the Cuban socialism, luxury, car, goods, furniture, good food and so on. Capitalism is now the Cuban challenge. Pub Restaurant stands between this American grace and the shadows of the current Cuban day.

First of all, it lets people live like  they want. Aging ladies and gentlemen, wearing old fashioned clothes of times, moved by danzones and French songs of the late fifties, gather around tables while patting each other. A white-haired man, who might have been  joyful during his youth, improvises playing piano and “tchatcha”. The two-man band seems to be happy to get help as wrinkled women and other people turning the seventies, restart life as in Proust’s Madeleine.

Finally Cuban times are never gone. This is the conclusion. Pub’s owners have done all they could to recreate the Cuban touch of the fifties. A past nostalgic restaurant which is mixing past and present in America, a country for youth and future.

PUB FOOD

THE AMERICAN QUESTION JOHN F.KENNEDY 1963-2013

BOOKLET SERIES


JFK BETWEEN LEGEND & HISTORY

                                 
                                             

                                                     EVEN OUR DREAMS DIE 

BUGYS YOURSELF : A JOURNEY THAT'S WORTH

                                                     A JOURNEY THAT'S WORTH.

 

My daughter told me once these words of Oscar wide that I reproduce not exactly:

Try to reach out the moon, in case of  failure, you would land at least among the stars.

I understand that the struggling daily life for people trying to pursuit some goals is as well a matter of time, inspiration and transpiration. Many times we fail because for one reason or another there is a lack of planning, motivation and time. Whatever the outcome, failure is failure, success is success. And simply put ,the public is there to give us an outstanding ovation or ignore us. But, if we keep thinking about our goals and the destination we are striving for, we finally have the desire to start over and over. This feeling is already the beginning of a fresh start.

That’s why in everything, we have to think of our goals and deep-root dreams and desire.  In any situation, to shield us against  fear of failure, we have to visualize success and the frivolous crowd giving us an applause. Let the smell of victory float on our daily battles,  whatever they might be. The best salary of our work comes from us, once we got a relief after  some hard work and so many hardships. This glow that lights up our faces, this smile and the feeling of triumph that the Roman consuls used to enjoy while horse riding in the circus, it is what we call achievement.  We cannot have this feeling without overcoming our hesitation and our fears as if our first enemy were first at all inside  us.

But at the same time, to move forward, it is within us that we can extract the strength to keep going and walking toward victory and conquests. Dr Max Maxwell said once that the battle is inside us as well as the longing for light that apparently is the essence of life. Continue despite everything to think about light in our travel to the sky . No matter how long it might be, this journey to something above us is worth.  Keep working   until you get something  bigger  than you. There is no other way to get your eureka momentum, there is no other way to reach out this marvelous world that O. Wild believes to be the world of light and stars.

Bugys yourself.

B E...
U NIQUE
G LOBAL
Y OURSELF
S TAR

COME & SEE AMERICA LIFE STYLE: CAMBRIDGE BICYCLE

RELAXING TIME AT MIT

HAITI, LES DERNIERS AFRICAINS.- 4 EME ET DERNIER ARTICLE

4 eme et dernier article:
Voir les articles precedents:

Les DerniersEsclaves.

1.-SURVIVANCES DE L'HABITATION

• La cloche de Damassin. Les moulins coloniaux et ce qui en reste. 
• Le fouet a Jacmel. L'exclusivisme. Les bon moun & les vie moun de F. Hibbert. 
• Le bal des Autrichiens a L'Anse a Veau. Les pianos de la Gde Anse.
• Les enfants du Pays en dehors 
• Les zombis  et les esclaves sexuels.
• Les makandas du Nord
• Marabout.

2.-LA BATAILLE DES RESTAVEK

Ils sont 300.000

Boco aida la pte restavek a s'echapper

Le meutre de F. Hibbert.  Saintanise

Les portefaix de la vieille Haiti
Nedje-La torture et les sevices corporels: djacoucoute
La hache de guerre est deterree.

3.- CES ESCLAVES A FAUX COL QUI S'IGNORENT
4.- LE PASSAGE DE LA MER ROUGE

GLOBE- IMAGES & COLORS

HAITI. THREE GENERATIONS
BASTIEN & SAGET FAMILIES

A HAITIAN FROM CARREFOUR, JEAN SABLOND

PROTEST IN DOWN TOWN MIAMI

A FRENCH RESTAURANT, LA BASTILLE IN MIAMI
DOWN TOWN

VISITORS AT A HEALTH CARE FOOD FAIR (BRONX)

HAGAI SOPHIA CHURCH , ISTAMBUL, TURKEY

THE AFRICAN WAY. BROTHERS

JACKY KENNEDY AT HYANIS PORT, 1960

PAUL MEYER : AT THE WOMENS' FEET

STARRING AT THE WOMEN'S FEET

-Paul, are you a feminist?

-Not really,

 Anyway, it seems so.

Many men stare at the women’s’ eyes. Paul Meyer starts the same move from their feet! What distance in between!

After having immersed himself   enough in the shoemaking industry  and  worked  a lot with famous masters in France and Italy such as  Charles Jourdan, Manolo Blanhik and Walter Steige, and so.., M. Paul Meyer  launched his own line by 1981 no without some sojourn in Spain, the US and Brazil. As a child, he’s fell in love maybe with woman’s feet. If other express their feeling by making dress and working on jewelry, Paul Meyer has enough self confidence to bet on the future of any virtual  design and also on his’ He also  has on his name brevetted to hats, handbags and so forth…

Nobody so far has reinvented the wheel, but many have attempted to experiment new ways. Paul Meyer went on learning more technical details in Spain, Bologna, Italy and Paris. As a result, Paul Meyer  made his name famous. Today, a lot like his design and material as well . M. Meyer has included in the shoes fabric light leather and soft suede so any woman could feel comfortable at home , on the streets and glamorous events.

Thirty years later, Paul Meyer Attitudes refer to a Manhattan based shoes located on third Ave. Surely, across the US, Paul Meyer Attitudes continues to relate  to fine shoes, ballerina collection  heelless and flat styles for women. They  have contributed his success.  Museums, calendars makers are familiar with his name and style. Women have 5,10, 20 pair in the wardrobe. Meyer seems to be right by telling:  "I want women to feel pretty, feminine and comfortable in my shoes".

In fact, so they are. Women feet, thanks to Meyer, are more than something to walk only  with.

Less than one year ago, I met aboard Jetblue airline  a man drawing women shoes 30 000 feet above the sea. He was Paul Meyer working on  his next design .

There is no better way to adore the woman’s feet..        

BUGYS YOURSELF III- RETHINKING THE VISIBLE

"

"RETHINKING THE VISIBLE" WROTE MERLEAU PONTY, THE FRENCH PHILOSOPHE..

SEE EVERYTHING NOT ONLY WITH YOUR EYES BUT ALSO WITH YOUR MIND

WHAT MATTERS IS NOT WHAT YOU LOOK AT BUT THE WAY YOU LOOK AT IT


LISTEN TO  WHAT PAUL J. MAYER TELLS US
Attitude is Everything

Paul says his success in life is not part of some magic formula but about having the right attitude in life. “Attitude is everything,” he says. “I have that sign in my office. I went down around South America on the maiden voyage with the Queen Mary and down at the South Pole, as far as I could get, I held up a sign that said, ‘Attitude is Everything.’ I went scuba diving in the Cayman Islands, where I live four months a year, and took the sign down to the bottom of the ocean. It said, ‘When you’re down at the bottom, Attitude is Everything.’ So it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, it all has to do with attitude. And then I have an I will-not-be-denied attitude. And that’s an incredible thing to have. I don’t look to my weakness; I look to my strength. I don’t look to my problems; I look to my power. It’s all about attitude.”

MADE IN HAITI

CUBAN LIFE

 FIESTA A CALLE OCHO

Some people know how to use their spare time and consequently be happy. So are the Cubans in Florida, especially in South West, Miami.

Anyone has something to do there when the working day is over. To begin: those who are not satisfied to relax at the shade of the old-centuries trees back to Ponce de Leon 's times join the elderly around tables on the famous Calle Ocho. Calle Ocho want to express its identity through this ebullient and exciting way of life that characterizes everything which is Cuban.

So, on Friday night, middle-age women and men , some of them turning their  sixties and seventies gather in crowded places, seeping the famous expresso, this strong Cuban coffee with a special flavor. There is no time for melancholia apart the moving one that the music brings back. A pianist is his late fifties recreates more or less the fiesta Cubana. This fiesta also consists of spicy food: rice and beans, steak with onions, coffee con leche. Hung  on walls, Cuban paintings and pictures complete this exotic scenery that  makes the Cuban experience so unique, so original. 

Tasting good food is a tropical-like environment is not the only ingredient of the Noche Cubana. Dancing is also part of the game. ? Cuban, some people say, are born to dance as well as Dominicans. Cobblestone and pedestrian streets serve as ballroom. Here feverish music, thunderous megaphones, exciting couples jammed by a still active avenue, make the Cuban week end a frenzy party.

there is a mix of Latin American dances  such as salsa and the European imported rhythms, say danzons that flourished in the first half of the 20 th century, Mostly popular among people from Batista times, those dances still echo Hispanic feelings and grace, save that other ones are practiced more by Latin American natives with various and fast figures. So is the music of hot countries and passionate fans. Calle Ocho comes up with such a whole on week ends. This is a place where Cubans go to forget hard times and think about future  good ones. 

w

hen they want  to chat and talk about what happens at home, Cubans go to Versailles where the gentry reunites.  A little bit aristocratic and conservative, Versailles opens late at night. By 6 and 12 PM, all of the Cuban politics is there. Workers in jeans, ladies wearing eardrops and necklaces listen to the last news form their native island while swallowing teas, scrambled eggs and waiting something they wish to happen. A very relaxing place, Versailles displays TV interviews and VIP visitors, some of them ready to make news and maybe history. Once at Christmas, we had to stand long before being seated. 

Calle Ocho is part of the so-called Little Havana, as much as the semblance with the remote and crumbling Havana is more a desire than a fact. It is considered the core of the Cuban political life. A sometimes quiet neighborhood, Calle Ocho conserves the touch of tropical countries. More than 40 years later, nostalgia and memoires of the past is lively. Everything you see or watch has not completely move out of this pst. 

History is everywhere present in Calle Ocho.

Versailles Restaurant

Elderly are delighted to recall these memories . bay of Pigs' veterans, prisoners freshly released and finally settled in the US, opponents watching every move in the island... There are a lot who mix the exploratory Cuban future and the turmoil of a past time. It is behind their windows and at the shadow of the oversize trees that Cubans dream of their countries. Once again, a relaxation feeling is not absent.  As if in the midst of more serious questions Cubans keep their sense of humor and hedonistic life philosophy. The 1900-like resorts or guest houses lining the famous avenue bring as much relaxation as nostalgic frame of mind to the Little Havana being modernized.

Nevertheless, good times, farniente or not, what really matters and what people are expecting is the coming of a few Cuban generation still linked to their island and raised  in the shadow of a  free America. Many expect the real change would take place now. This is not in vain that some Cuban voices are talking about Miami as the capital of sun, exile and anticommunism.  The last one, they add with pride, is well a Cuban job.

El Pub, "donde la Cuba de ayer se vive hoy"

FOR THE BEAT OF MY HEART

DANCE TO THE BEAT OF YOUR HEART

In Northern  Africa, where begin the Sahara desert and its sands, Sudan continues to offer the aspect of a war-torn country. Diplomats, warriors, extremists still fight to find out a way out to this lengthy trouble. But, so far, blood and sand are the answer to these uneasy times linked to apparently impossible dreams. But, in America, a Sudan woman keeps telling  another story.

Politics by the way has its up and downs. On the other side, art such as music , paintings and even life style continue to achieve a sort of untelling way to make it. Stiletto has the physical aspect of Sudan, because  her skin tone, profile and  until to this  childish smile of hers refer to Africa and its unexplored mysteries. I ran into her by  Greenwich Village, at twiliight. She offered  the image of the Nubian girl who use to  fetch water in the nearby well.   However she looked   like a queen at the Manhattan dusk

I asked her if she minded to be photographied  for  our blog (Globeadventureshorizonsblogpost.com). Stilletto paused a while and agreed. As a result, I got four and more shots you can watch here. Stilletto, like a lot of Africans, feel  comfortable  themselves, their clothes and tatoes, left alone those boubou wrapped around with so much grace and elegance. Surprising Africa. !

Compared to a lot of countries defining themselves by weapons and PNB, Africa  used to shape an identity of her own through singing, dancing and drumming.  I’ve  learned  that day Stilletto had to dance for Rolls Royce, the 2014 version with a built-in system of sounds. I went to a nearby place, two days later. Stilletto was there with another model dancing  at the beat of her dj machine for Rolls Royce.

A Sudanese voice for Rolls Royce

Stilletto works as a part time model for famous companies back up by a husband who affirms himself through 18th century fashion. But, as she mentions in her business card,  the sounds resonate thouroughly to the heart, as  an enduring staccato. It was an irresistible one.  Life also is a matter of sounds and beat.  Stilletto was right when she was saying : Dance to the beat of your heart.

Back in past, I was thinking about the magic of drumming, the secret of  Africa future

Thank you Stilletto…

COME & SEE AMERICA: VILLA RUSSO

COME & SEE AMERICA

AMERICA WANTS YOU TO COME AND SEE HER

( Dwight Eisenhower)

VILLA RUSSO

118-16 101st Ave  South Richmond Hill, NY 11419

                                                                           (718) 849-0990

THE CUBAN QUESTION: LITTLE HAVANA RENDEZ VOUS

THE CUBAN QUESTION

A FAREWELL TIME

Versailles, the Cuban oppositon rendezvous...

FIDEL CASTRO

Yoani Sanchez, the blogger..
.change is about
to come

.

RAUL CASTRO

Whatever your side, the main fact to remember is that the Cuban Question seems to be a matter of time.

Time to come, time to go.

Without doubt, the  Cold War memories are still burning with its  main clash on the Bay of Pigs by April 1961. Politicians and ordinary Cubans continue to argue about this remote conflict; many are still ready for action, but from both of sides of the Wind Passage, warriors are aging. Over the years, some of them had give up, but when they come to tell their own stories, anger and ire  are on the rise.  The Castro’s saga had left a country divided for many years to come.

The Venezuelan experience with Chavez defining himself as a Castro heir didn’t ease the things. Instead Castro, Chavez and Iran belong to the so-called evil axis, another way to label this troika as terrorists. It has been a concern for the US when fanatics and Muslims extremists venture in his back yard.  But, Chavez and Castro endeavor remain the way it used to be: a Cold War legacy that  few had  maybe foreseen.

Now, what we have to pay attention to, evolve around what Cuba would look like, once the Castro’s experience is over. Whether we want it or not, time is the last frontier in everything on earth. Even Raul Castro, who is now in charge, seems to understand that time has come to do politics differently. Once he mentioned Versailles, the Cuban rendezvous for high and middle class Cubans eager to wipe out the Castroists from their tumultuous island... in the mean time, Washington doesn’t close his ears to the need of change next door.

50 years later, in Havana, the famous ladies dressed in white went to the streets as matrons  to protest against their loved ones in jail. This sign of time is very eloquent about the change so many Cubans strive for. In Little Havana, Miami,  their counterparts wearing necklaces and earrings  continue to curse Castro and his henchmen that have stolen their youth. Now while turning the 70s, they have mixed feelings about what they expect from a Castro-free Cuba.

Their life in exile parallels that of Russian aristocratic life whose members made a living as taxi drivers, singers and restaurant waiters in the Paris  of the 20s, after the Bolshevik revolution, with the only difference that Cubans in Miami restarted a new life the outcome of which is more  than you can  expect after they left Cuba.

Among the unavoidable gap generation, Cubans in Miami are impatient  to show off with their successful life and their shaping of the Little Havana, springing  full of life at lunch time. Cubans from the Castro’s nomenklatura have to choose their word to express a kind of auto satisfaction about the triumphs of the Revolution. In Miami, instead, Cuban success is booming at every corner. What makes Cuban dissidents, bloggers such as Yoani Sanchez …and ordinary people dream so much when Key West lights are blinking at night.

Cuban tomorrows already are under way.

frantz bataille,

Down Town Miami,

September 5, 2013

MEMORIES: THE BASKET CHILD

 THE BASKET CHILD

                In the Haitian  countryside, whatever their age, people keep dying without         knowing why, especially children.

Most of   the time, given the strength of the African traditions, death is usually attributed to malevolent people or the revenge of some angry spirit. So, people keep dying despite progress and the extent of science which is supposed to have bettered their conditions.

This morning, however, as I had left this hospital settled in Pt-a-Piment, far away in the South the  coasts of which bathe at the sea level, I also  left some patients, among them a woman , a poor one, along with her severely ill child. I was fed up at having seen so much suffering and so much passing. Roaming a while into the mountains nearby would bring some relief.

But, I was  a little bit afraid. A child very sick was supposed to keep me from wondering in the mountains smelling good by this April afternoon. I grew more and more anxious because children die even in the most glamorous mornings. An experienced country doctor, Dr Shubert Lamothe, a well known  and respected one, used to try his best to help our patients.  Sometimes so much care , so much effort paid off; but other times, medicine remained fruitless.  There are always some boundaries that medicine cannot cut across. “Alas”, Dr Lamothe used to whisper.

So, before heading to the mountains surrounding the village  where you can see a marvelous horizon  from, I resumed  the same ritual along with Dr Lamothe. As usual that consists of setting up IV and cold bathing when patients were feverish. The child was crying in a very feeble tone. His eyes were looking at the ceiling while showing a kind of deathlike glow. The skin’s had little strength and kept the wrinkle. Signs of impending death.

“Let us make our duty” Dr Lamothe said to me. I really value this quiet and wise man in his mid forties whose reputation went away in the mountains. Peasants, urban people, every one in this remote Southern town trusted Dr Lamothe, my very gentle senior. He was respected all around.

What do you think? I asked him. He shrugged off while smiling and added” Take it easy” we did all we’re supposed to do. The baby still cried, but his eyes didn’t show its deadly glow any longer. Later, I headed to the mountains. It was 3.PM.

The sun was setting. A light breeze  blew by this afternoon. From the heights  of a hill, I watched a landscape set up with the huge blue sea, engulfing deeply the coasts. Here and there smoke rose from poor thatched cottage. What a stillness! What a peace! at this time life got as usual some standstill.The rural and dust-loaded  panorama displayed some natural grandeur. Even the roads grew empty. Cows seem to greet this peaceful moment.

However, I could no longer enjoy the uniqueness of this time. I was thinking of the baby whose eyes  showed so much death shadow. Human beings, doctors especially are powerless in front of death; it is the most incongruous visitor nobody can wave. What a beautiful dusk! How much wonderful life is on earth! the sun was about to be swallowed by the waves. But, I still thinking of our baby. I hurried back to the hospital.

I walked all down the mountain at a run, leaving behind the magical landscape and its glamorous sunset. Never would I see again this mix of water and light. On my way back, I met peasants coming from the public market. How is the baby doing? I asked myself.

Was he doing well? I kept thinking of him while rushing to the town.

Suddenly , a woman ran into me. It was the woman  that I had left in the hospital, along with  the baby. It was her mother In this coming twilight the woman urged to back home before darkness. I noticed she was nearing empty handed. My heart missed a beat, and started beating up. Where was the baby/ What had happened?

-Where is baby ? I prompted to ask when  we were close.

-Here’s, pointing at a hand- crafted  basket she  wore above the head.

-Lower the basket, I ordered.

Then, what I saw will be unforgettable. Never before did I see such a picture. The child laid aside foods and clothes was well alive, sucking his thumb. He was smiling, full of life. He was like a candle in the ongoing night. Smiling with happiness and peace.

Our baby was safe.e was lH