PEOPLE: JENNY MEZILE

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frican and Caribbean music are going to be known at their best as the new generation of dancers and singers are bringing back their music to their roots.  In so doing, these artists are giving more emphasis to what in the past colonial l time had been so despised. Among the new comers, Jenny Mezile  has a special place.

Living in Paris, France, Jenny used to work with Africa based groups. Traveling between European countries and the African continent, Jenny undertakes a kind of pilgrimage to the source. As a result, she is giving birth to something new, looking at the same time at opera and Black ritual performances. Furthermore, it is interesting to uncover African instruments and watch the way musicians get the best rhythms to match the new feeling Jenny expresses.

Jenny Mezile  brings to the stage grace, movement and sensuality. The Dahomey Zepol, the dancing body language with the shoulders, along with the gazing and attitude toward life and others, means first of all her pride, will, and commitment to her purpose and goal.

Jenny Mezile is experiencing the mixing of Afro-Caribbean music. Even though apart by seas and continents, these rhythms share a common origin and racial background.

Ms Mezile used  to perform  in Florida

GLOBE TROTTER NEWSLETTER: LEXINGTON KEEPS ITS FRENCH TOUCH

LEXINGTON AVE : AN ENDLESS FRENCH TOUCH

Even in the middle of this still faltering economy, Lexington keeps its glamorous look and attractive way of life. Lexington Ave extends far away, crossing so many streets and neighborhood that nobody can miss it. It is a landmark on its own. Not too large, but big enough to house a lot of businesses, some of them bustling at the eve of this chilling winter. So far, Lexington doesn’t stop from shinning.

It is what we  had witnessed, a week ago under rain and this coolness already there.

But, Lexington keeps luring tourists and passersby for something else. This something else has something to do with a kind of French magic, so to speak.

A few years ago, French named restaurants such as Sel & Poivre, and other  with a French touch had been catching our eyes because besides, many people have  been eating out by the sidewalk, along apparently pedestrian streets under the trees’ shadow. But, this time, although  many have gone, as if swallowed by the American dream turning nightmare, French pulse and Parisian  way still persist and permeate some streets and corners. Really, there exists a French stubborn tradition that makes the difference.

We understand why the Martinique-born mangager Isabelle cannot avoid smiling at Mon Petit Bistrot Cafe

PIERRE BAZIN A FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER

PIERRE BAZIN, A WORLDWIDE FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER 

A photographer specialized in  photo shooting model, Mr. Pierre Bazin   envisions a global photography business where he'd like to display pretty girls eager to show off. The model business industry mixes  art, passion and obviously money like you can imagine. However business wise his job might be, Mr. Bazin like his doing. 

From theWaldof Astoria, Lexington, Manhattan, Ernst Racine, the former Vice president of the American Tennis Association, has been talking to Mr Bazin on the 7 December at dusk about this next move. Show his models at their best seems the main concern of the photographer. 

Mr. Bazin knows how to join the both sides:: the pretty and the  utilitarian.

GLOBE TROTTING ( ANKARA, TURKEY)

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urkey  even today remains for westerners  a startling  land with people mostly locked up in the past, but opening more and more.  Some years ago, as a  matter- of- fact, the NY Times had been reporting about the Turkish elite youth spending time in discos and dressed with jeans.  However, despite such upside down move, Turkey seems very remote and close at the same time. It seems that past continues to permeate every aspect of the daily life.  I wish to be wrong…

Let’s go down  to the streets at Ankara...

First at all, I still  remember the day  I  met a Turkish woman at the Frankfort airport. She was then in the mid sixties, with a big head, the Turkish head. We were chatting, but, my new friend was showing a lot of reluctance to exchange address and more. Apparently aware of literature and politics, this  woman with a beautiful command of the French language, didn't want to go further. I'm  still amazed by her acknowledge of Pierre Loti , the French writer who authored a good deal of adventure novels. "you heard about Azyade", she told me, sure of what she was talking about... 

Ankara is a bustling place, alongside the European neighborhood where French, British and other nations mix up."Nice people" remembered a witness who loves Turkey. She remains most of the time in beautiful hotels , overlooking the city. Ankara is relatively new, but Turkey soul is present everywhere,  as shown recently  in a photo exposition in Grand Central, NY, NY

THE HOLIDAY SEASON IS HERE

THANKS GIVING SEASONS

Jim Nix de Nomadic Pursuits wrote, a few days ago by the Thanksgiving Holiday:

Happy Thanksgiving! To anyone who reads this and is celebrating Thanksgiving today, I wish you a wonderful holiday. For anyone reading this who is not celebrating Thanksgiving today, I wish you a wonderful day just as much. No sense in keeping the thanks just to Americans, is there? *Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. - Aesop* [image: Today-I-Am-Thankful.jpg] I have 

Masha Kenol at the Family  Thanksgiving Diner
Massapequa, LI

PEOPLE & RACES IN AMERICA

AFRICAINES

Les Tresses de Harlem....

Senegalaises, Ivoiriennes, Maliennes,Guineennes

Parmi les Africains, les femmes africaines véhiculent un message identitaire qui n’échappe à personne.

Sénégalaises, guinéennes, ivoiriennes donne à Harlem, notamment sur la  125 eme rue, non loin de Central Park, une couleur que l’art, la danse, et la chanson au temps de Langston Hugues sont loin d’éclipser, malgré tout le tapage qu’on a fait autour de la Renaissance d’Harlem. Tenant des salons de coiffure, certain bien pourvus, les Africaines s’affairent à faire ces fameuses tresses qui  sont  vite devenues une sorte de « black speciality ». Sans doute, nécessité oblige, ces oursuivent elles aussi le cote prosaïque et quotidien du rêve américain. «  Ce n’est pas toujours facile, affirment certaines patronnes, il y a des jours ou l’on ne gagne presque rien. Mais, en revanche, « on ramasse un peu d’argent, disons 2 ou 300 dollars par semaine », nous confie une sénégalaise qui semble ne pas avoir froid à l’ œil.

Elles sont plusieurs  dans une salle parfois spacieuse à s’occuper de faire des tresses. Il arrive qu’elles soient deux à se partager une seule et même tète. « C’est ma sœur » affirment-elles le plus souvent. C’est une sorte de partage oblige ; 25 dollars pour une coiffure qui vous occupe une bonne partie de la journée. Faire des tresses est une œuvre de patience, donc de solidarité dans cette Amérique du chacun pour soi.

Harlem  reste le quartier général de l’Amérique noire au temps de la Renaissance. Plus de ségrégation, sans  doute, mais l’instinct grégaire et coloriste garde encore ses droits. En témoignent  les pancartes et les attroupements au  début du mois de novembre  réclamant justice pour le jeune noir Trevan abattu par Zimmerman en Floride. Evénement qui n’en finit pas de faire des vagues.

N’empêche que ces Africaines vivent dans la crainte de l’Immigration. Elles n’ont pas de papier. Ce qui crée une sorte de phobie du visiteur, fût-il innocent.

Là encore l’Afrique n’est pas sortie de la peur

Elles font des tresses

L'AFRIQUE A ENCORE PEUR

AIRLINE HAITI ..THE SKY BATTLE

UNDER A SKY ALREADY BLUE...

THE BATTLE FOR THE SKY
By frantz bataille former director of Le Petit Samedi Soir

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here are neither army planes rumbling on Port-au Prince, the Haitian capital, nor parachutists ready to land somewhere in this Caribbean city, but, even in this  still and uneven landscape, Boeings and Turbo-jets from big worldwide airlines tell about what kind of destination Haiti had become over the years: a sunny and warm heaven, bathing at the heart of Mexican gulf.

Mr. D. Needleman
the Brazilian American
entrepreneur

Airlines had fought so much since the mid 60s when Haiti got a niche in the world map. By this time, KLM, AA and very soon Eastern Airlines would take over. Delta, Air France and Pan Am were already history, waiting for better times. Haitians then had been boarding small planes at the military aviation of Bowen Field, before spending time in Jamaica or Porto Rico   and being connected to big aircraft. Now, after some exhausting saga and bad times, AA became the king of the Haitian sky although Air France, Delta and Spirit had managed to have a piece of the cake.

The coming of Jet Blue this week, with its first flight to P-au-P, told us a story of competition and open market. However, regardless of privileges and some policy of kickbacks, jet Blue, as blue as the Haitian sky, some people notice, breathes  a new life, like those migratory birds carry on what is left from the North with its icy weather. As a color, blue is a relaxing shade. Jet Blue merits its reputation of poetry and romantic airliner that it got from the beginning.

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ack to tourism, Haiti is still renowned for its smiling people and moderate weather.” The place is still warming and warm” everybody acknowledges.  Canadians adore the sunny Caribbean, and among its scattered islands Haiti makes the difference, they conclude. A booming market for tourism, Haiti is living a unique momentum in its current renewal process.

This new airline under a sky always blue adds and mixes comfort, elegance and low cost. Provided with large individual seats and a huge leg room, Jet Blue gives access to internet and TV screen where you can choose your chain and movie while cruising at 30.000 feet above the sea. What it’s really new for Haitian customers.  Other airliners offer magazines, food, beverages, wines, snacks and so forth, but, it seems that Jet Blue wants something more than just business. His CEO David Needleman  …once said: Jet Blue looks to bring humanity back to air travel.

Mr Needleman who founded this company in 1999 came from Southwest airlines where he’d learned about low cost flight. Despite ups and downs, especially in February 2007 due to snowstorm and bad weather, Jet Blue kept growing and even bought new planes. Millions dollars vanished in smoke in the first decades of 2000, but optimism and imagination are also tools in open market.  Jet Blue crossed a Red Sea of its own, before beginning to earn more money against  Wall Street expectations. Now, JB is cruising under so many skies from America to Asia that “sun never sets in its lands”

It is this airline of a globalization era that will land that Thursday 5 December 2013 in Haiti.

GLOBE ADVENTURES HORIZONS : READ, SEEN & HEARD...

HIJACKING OF PLANE LAID TO HAITI'S REDS

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Special to The New York Times. ();

April 11, 1959,

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[ DISPLAYING ABSTRACT ]

PORT - AU - PRINCE, Haiti, April 10 -- Foreign Minister Louis Mars accused the Communists today of responsibility for the hijacking of a Haitian airliner and the murder of its pilot.

IVORY COAST

Ivory Coast authorities still pay the rent to the French government considered the de facto owner of the presidential palace at Abidjan. Some Ivory Coast citizens start voicing their anger for so.

NEUROTHEOLOGY

Dr Andrew  Newberg

Newberg: Well for me neuro-theology is really the study of the relationship between religious and spiritual practices, experiences and phenomena and the human brain. That's the simple answer. For me, for neuro-theology to work as a concept I like the define and neuro and the theology side very broadly, so the neuro side includes the brain, but also includes psychology, behavior, all the different aspects that make up who we are as people, including our health. From the theology side it'snot just theology itself, but it's religious ideas, experiences, practices like meditation and prayer with the ultimate goal of kind of trying to bring these two disparate approaches or ideas together. Is there a way that we can use science to help inform us about religion and spirituality and are there ways that religion and spirituality help to inform us about science?

So to me neuro-theology is a very multidisciplinary integrated kind ofconcept, which gives us a lot of options to look at going into the future.

GLOBE TROTTER'S DIARY

GLOBE TROTTING...
with frantz bataille

                                                           I Like seeing the world the way you cannot imagine. Review pictures and shots is also travelling. So, a few days after some wandering in Manhattan or somewhere else, as the blogger of  Nomadic  Pursuits, I  took the time to remember what I've seen and whom I've talked to. The French poet Charles Baudelaire and the Haitian one Jean F. Brierre used to write  about time travelling or travelling by memories. But, by this time when the future seems not to exist anymore, it is a solace to remember about the past, should it be yesterday or this morning. While searching to abolish time, we never notice that time is swallowing us. So , better to remember.

This fall, Gloholiday and Travelhouse.uk.co.uk seems to comfort me in going after the temps perdu of  Marcel Proust, alas!

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 05,2013


DOWN TOWN MIAMI

I like Down Town Miami at dusk. The place is emptying itself very fast. There is for few time some daylight left. The skyline then recovers its own magic. But, take the time to watch, enjoy and meditate..light will be there for some help.

TRAVELHOUSEUK.UK co.UK

Displays fall pictures somewhere on earth, more precisely in UK. Travelhouseuk envisions a borderless world. Golden fall in some London forest will be something always beautiful to see before you die.

FALL IN MASS

Amazing and yellow fall too in Milton, Mass. By the way, deer and squirrel are jumping before winter is there. Passers-by and joggers set a way on their  own the coming holiday season. Everything in Boston at this time seems to die to be born again. From Milton the sight view on Down Town Boston  is not clear enough as fall is unfolding.

INDIA MOVIES AND INDIA DANCE 

Seem to send a message to the West. Not only India is the most populous democracy, but also it is part of the famous BRIC countries that are challenging the US...Zaccharia has written: The Post American World 

JFK LEGACY

With his family, the late American president JFK had set up a new way for presidents to enjoy their spare time. Going to the beach, horse riding and advertising the first family in America became a kind of American presidential ritual. The Kennedy marvel doing so.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

                                                              
MARATHON HARLEM.

In the early of this ending  November, thousand participated in a marathon. Youths, elders… Life is endless. I think. Even though we go out of the scenery, we  feed at the same time  this endless human being’s adventure. And, better than that, we are not aware of this eternal  ballet…


MACHU PICHU

I’ve never been in Machu Pichu, Peru, but travelers back home told so much  about these precolombus architectures that  anybody listening to remains open jaws. Incas Peru Indians keep amazing our world. Imagine so much work and so much pain to build up through mountains so many ritual places for  freezing  gods.  Gloholiday takes pictures the world over


MONMATRE, PARIS

But, walking in Paris and its renowned neighborhoods brings a kind of relief. The gods in the mean time have places on their own. MONTMARTRE is famous as well as nearby Notre Dame de Paris where Hugo sets his Quasimodo history. Anyway, Paris is Paris!

VILLA RUSSO. 

Here’s a place to see before not dying but leaving Brooklyn, NY. At the border of Queens and Bklyn, Villa Russo continues  to amaze and lure  passers by. It is a must to see in this Middle Class area, long time owned by Italians.

VILLA RUSSO, BKLYN, NY

The Haitian born photograph, Mr. Pierre Bazin enjoyed sharing his shots  with these models. Mr Bazin specializes in the making of better than life pictures. Models are delighted that way…

DAPHNE BEAUTIFUL @HOTMAIL. COM
She is ready for the coming holidays...

Once the famous Nene Masson now
 a coach in tennis for the young. Mr
Masson was a star at Munich in 1974
for the Haitian soccer team.


The French restaurant La Bastille
at Down Town, Miami

 

SERENA WILLIAMS, wide-open arms, tells us her triumph. This human cross sign is a recall of this Latin message: In hoc signo, vinceres. Ms Williams is tennis making history.

La Page de Frantz Bataille

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Coucher de soleil a Tiburon

’exil m’aura permis donc  de constater que le monde rural, celui de mon premier exil, avait en 
plus des   paysages, une histoire, celle bien vivante d’un passé qui ne voulait pas mourir. Le milieu était bien vide, mais  vide à fendre le cœur. Les chaumières étaient  enveloppées d’une solitude déprimante; et la vie toute monotone, qu’elle fût, semblait en même temps marquée du sceau de la mort. Mais, pour notre paysannat, mourir c’était comme changer de paysage. Il ne s’embarrassait point d’en savoir plus sur  ce phénomène  qui était dans  la nature des choses. En tout cas la mort lui aura toujours paru comme un  prolongement de la vie...

Ainsi, malgré tout, sous son dénuement et sa précarité, le monde rural, celui de mon premier exil, exil  d’enfant qui n’en était  pas vraiment  un, était-il d’une intense vitalité. Nous vivions au milieu de grands espaces vides  que  troublait  le souffle du vent, mais, que vint  le jour, et je me surprenais  à entendre les voix lointaines, leurs  éclats  et comme les échos d’un monde présent et caché dans l’épaisseur des branches d’arbres et des jardins impatients de croitre et se jouant capricieusement des saisons. Oh comme la vie peut être présente dans son absence!  Par- delà ces feuillages en folie, il y avait certainement  la magie des horizons et tout le décor insoupçonné des terres lointaines, celles qui durent tenter un matin de printemps les conquistadores s’ennuyant  dans la monotonie d’une Europe devenue trop étroite. Mais, le monde de ma mère, celui qui l’a vue grandir, avait sa richesse, et pourquoi pas son décor à lui. C’est ce monde qui m’a paru soudain enchanteur, comme si la beauté ne se révélait qu’à  celui qui consent à en payer le prix.

-Que pouvait être ce prix?

Maman me dira que c’était la patience.

Alors, je me suis mis à écouter au fil des jours et attentivement les récits de famille, ceux qui étaient perdus dans la nuit des temps.  Mes premiers héros seront des hommes rudes montes sur des chevaux dotes également d’un pouvoir que leur prêtait cette trop belle légende rurale. J’appris que ces hommes avaient le pouvoir de disparaitre, qu’ils étaient de la race des  immortels, veillant sur les leurs et aussi bien redoutables que redoutes. Je vis arriver un jour un nomme Philoïs avec une élégance de cavalier conquérant. Ces gran neg répandaient autour d’eux une terreur sacrée. Plus tard, le plus jeune frère de maman me dira qu’au passage de ces surhommes, grand’mère affolée criait  à ses enfants de s’abriter sous le lit parce que les “malfini  deyo”, avertissait-elle. 

J’avais peur en écoutant ces récits, une peur qui s’ajoutait à celle que répandait en nous l’école des frères. Je ne sais de ces deux peurs laquelle  sera la plus funeste. Pourrai-je un jour goûter à tant de beauté répandue au milieu de cette très belle  nature  pendant que les légendes du pays en dehors et les interdits des missionnaires blancs m’apprenaient avant toute chose la méfiance envers un pays qui m’a vu naitre?  “Te isit  glisse” concluait grand’mère. C’est comme si j’entendais le prêtre breton s’écrier: il faut détruire Satan et ses serviteurs.  Mais, hélas, ces serviteurs -là se trouvaient être mes héros.

J’étais donc à six ans déjà écartelé entre deux mondes.  Je tombai en garde contre un environnement tabou que j’aimais cependant. Le tambour dont les rythmes servent à guérir certaines maladies cardiaques, ainsi que je l’apprendrai plus tard, sera quelque chose à éviter.  Mais tout le pays dansait et chantait. Comment rester fidele au message du prêtre alors que mes petits amis et les grandes personnes dansaient comme David avec une élégance irrésistible?  A côté de cet exil mental, la fuite de maman vers Cuba ensuite vers l’arrière-pays cayen semble bien dérisoire.  Je ne savais que choisir. J’aimais les récits étranges des habitations même si il me fallait en bon élève des frères les bouder, jusqu’au jour où j’entendis parler du petit serpent de famille qui habitait quelque part dans le calebassier.

Je n’aurais pas du aimer le petit serpent.  Ce petit serpent inoffensif appartenait à la catégorie des êtres à détruire selon les normes de cette éducation-la que je recevais chez les Frères du Sacre -Cœur. Mais, ma mère m’a dit ce que sa mère lui a dit.  Le petit serpent est l’esprit qui visite quelque fois notre famille, disait Camara  Laye, l’écrivain guinéen. Les gens pleuraient à chacune de ses visites, se réconciliaient et faisaient la paix. Les choses allaient s’améliorer, la joie et l’harmonie revenir  et bientôt l’abondance. Le petit serpent ne venait que rarement. C’était un prophète, un petit  prophète rampant, mais non pas  un prophète  de malheur. C’était un amour de petit serpent.

Ce texte est un extrait de mon manuscrit:

L'exil Au Coeur. 

J'y raconte mes souvenirs a la fin des annees 50, quand maman se sauva de Pt-au-Prince a la chute de Paul E. Magloire

Il  ne restait pas longtemps. Mais il aimait se réchauffer au soleil. Ma grand’mère passait à cote d’un pas tranquille. Le petit serpent ne s’inquiétait pas. Puis, brusquement, à l’insu de tous, il disparaissait sous les racines  du calebassier. Sa visite terminée allait faire les frais de la conversation pendant des semaines. On en parlait dans une sorte de respect sacre. Car le petit serpent était l’intermédiaire entre notre famille et les forces d’en haut. Mais, les frères nous disaient qu’il fallait fuir ces choses-la au risque d’aller en enfer.

Des années ont passé depuis ces guerres secrètes. Ma famille parle de moins en moins du petit serpent protecteur et messager. A l’époque, une douce paix  tombait sur les terres de Grand’mère plantées de  cocotiers et sur   ces sentiers a l’herbe mouillée. La vie se déroulait dans une tranquillité sans égal. C’était le temps des cassaves, de la coupe de la canne et des champs envahis de soleil et du rire des filles. Rien ne semblait n’avoir change depuis des années, voire des siècles.

Les vieux moulins, les bœufs qui les actionnaient, et l’homme qui fouettait ces bœufs, tout ce tableau remonte aux temps coloniaux. Les hommes aussi sont restés les mêmes. Le petit serpent aussi.  Tout comme ce malfini qui sous un grand ciel toujours bleu, tournait en cercle, attendant de se jeter sur quelque gallinacé trop plein de lui-même.

Ce bucolisme n’était pas  cependant sans revers.