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Two Paradigmatic Catalogues

Benjamin Sammons

in The Art and Rhetoric of the Homeric Catalogue

This chapter examines the two places where Homeric speakers string together several paradigmatic tales or exempla in the format of a catalogue (Iliad 5.382–405, Odyssey 5.118–36). It is argued that ... More

This chapter examines the two places where Homeric speakers string together several paradigmatic tales or exempla in the format of a catalogue (Iliad 5.382–405, Odyssey 5.118–36). It is argued that the striking similarities between the two examples are not coincidental, e.g. that a goddess (Dione or Calypso) speaks to another god about a situation pertaining to a major hero (Diomedes or Odysseus). The choice of divine speakers reinforces the authoritative tone of the catalogue form and suggests its ability to communicate a privileged perspective on history and historical patterns. Yet in each case the speaker’s rhetorical aims, and the catenulate or fragmented structure of the catalogue form itself, distort the overall picture. While speakers may attempt, through paradigmatic catalogues, to impose a pattern or interpretation on the events of the narrative, Homer in each case preserves crucial differences between the catalogue and his own story.Less

Odysseus Nympholeptos

Corinne Ondine Pache

in A Moment’s Ornament: The Poetics of Nympholepsy in Ancient Greece

It is a commonplace to say that the heroes of Homeric epic have close bonds with gods and goddesses. Yet the degree to which goddesses are preoccupied with heroes is striking, and this concern is ... More

It is a commonplace to say that the heroes of Homeric epic have close bonds with gods and goddesses. Yet the degree to which goddesses are preoccupied with heroes is striking, and this concern is consistently expressed in terms of erotic love. Chapter 4 focuses on the motif of the goddess in love in the Odyssey, a poem structured around a series of encounters between Odysseus and several goddesses. The poem offers three Odyssean versions of the goddess-in-love motif. Odysseus’s rejection of Calypso’s love and offer of immortality is unique: Odysseus is the only Greek hero who rejects a goddess’s advances and survives the experience, a choice and outcome that are central to his status of epic hero. The hero’s relationship with Athene includes nympholeptic aspects and comes close to the ideal marriage described by Odysseus to Nausicaa in Odyssey 6. Finally, the Ithacan sanctuary of the nymphs inspires reminiscences of the cultic and folklore versions of nympholepsy. Each Odyssean version thus highlights different features of the nympholeptic pattern, which in turn help define Odysseus’s distinct form of heroism.Less

Dirty Jim/Mighty Bomber

Jan Brokken

in The Music of the Netherlands Antilles: Why Eleven Antilleans Knelt before Chopin's Heart

A chapter that discusses the similarities between Trinidad and Curacao and an Interview with calypsonian Mighty Bomber. It compares the music and social history.

From Calypso Queen to Calypso Monarch

Hope Munro

in What She Go Do: Women in Afro-Trinidadian Music

This chapter focuses on the careers and performance strategies of the three most successful female calypsonians in contemporary Trinidad: Calypso Rose, Singing Sandra, and Denyse Plummer. Each woman ... More

This chapter focuses on the careers and performance strategies of the three most successful female calypsonians in contemporary Trinidad: Calypso Rose, Singing Sandra, and Denyse Plummer. Each woman has had to overcome the sexism inherent in the Caribbean music scene, as well as the critiques of the media and audiences, in their pursuit of a musical career. They have come to serve as role models for their contemporaries and as cultural ambassadors for the women of Trinidad and Tobago. The chapter examines the career trajectories of Calypso Rose, Singing Sandra, and Denyse Plummer as well as their participation in musical competitions in Trinidad and Tobago, particularly the Calypso Monarch and the Calypso Queen competitions. It also considers the various competitions for calypsonians of all ages in contemporary Trinidad, designed to find the next generation of calypsonians.Less

Stolen Time: The Ontology of Black Fad Performance

Shane Vogel

in Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze

What does it mean to be a fad? This chapter outlines a historically specific ontology that unfolds within the political economy of race and entertainment between the 1890s and the 1960s. Vogel argues ... More

What does it mean to be a fad? This chapter outlines a historically specific ontology that unfolds within the political economy of race and entertainment between the 1890s and the 1960s. Vogel argues that the special temporality of fad culture creates perilous conditions for black fad performers that corroborate black social and political life under Jim Crow. Within this horizon of (im)possibility, the repetition of fad cycles over time are a kind of eternal return of the same that trapped performers in cycles of racialized consumption. But they also allowed some fad performances to co-opt this co-opted time. The argument of this chapter advances in three stages: first historically, then politico-economically, and finally ontologically. It begins with an account of the three major black fad cycles of the long Jim Crow era: the ragtime craze, the Negro vogue, and the calypso craze. It then considers the political economy of the fad. If finally turns to the performances of gravel-voiced calypso chanteuse Josephine Premice who, at the height of the calypso craze, allegorized the ontology of black fad performance by explicitly thematizing the opportunities to pilfer the time of the fad for oneself.Less

Helen, Heaven, and I: In Search of a Dialogue

Tania Isaac (ed.)

in Making Caribbean Dance: Continuity and Creativity in Island Cultures

Tania Isaac suggests, in her writing here as in her choreography and performance pieces, an intense, complex experience of knowing her native island, St. Lucia, through its dance and its ways of ... More

Tania Isaac suggests, in her writing here as in her choreography and performance pieces, an intense, complex experience of knowing her native island, St. Lucia, through its dance and its ways of looking at the body. To do this she finds four names for St. Lucia which suggest metaphoric characterizations of the multiple selves of her island. She uses these selves to explore the movement of St. Lucian kwadril (quadrille), masquerade, calypso, and soca, of Carnival of the bands playing mas and the more individualistic Carnival of Ol' Mas. Isaac uses description and metaphor to suggest a density and variety of cultural information, a layering that can contain all contradictions.Less

Dance in Barbados: Reclaiming, Preserving, and Creating National Identities

Susan Harewood and John Hunte (eds)

in Making Caribbean Dance: Continuity and Creativity in Island Cultures

Susan Harewood and John Hunte reveal a wealth of information and insight about how the range of Barbados dance and policy on that island helps form identities, from the historical dances, to efforts ... More

Susan Harewood and John Hunte reveal a wealth of information and insight about how the range of Barbados dance and policy on that island helps form identities, from the historical dances, to efforts after independence to use dance to promote nation building, to developing the government-funded Barbados Dance Theatre Company, to that uniquely Barbadian organization, the Landship. Issues of class, of who gets government subsidy, of emphasis on the African-derived or European-derived come to the fore within their framing question of decency and indecency. The wukking up to soca and calypso at Crop Over, Barbados' carnival season, is contrasted with a resurgence of ballroom dancing, liturgical dance, and new dance companies.Less

Rigidigidim De Bamba De: A Calypso Journey from Start to …

Cynthia Oliver (ed.)

in Making Caribbean Dance: Continuity and Creativity in Island Cultures

Cynthia Oliver connects the Anglophone islands of the West Indies by calypso and its offshoot soca and the dancing done to this infectious music. She celebrates its early dispersion by radio, her ... More

Cynthia Oliver connects the Anglophone islands of the West Indies by calypso and its offshoot soca and the dancing done to this infectious music. She celebrates its early dispersion by radio, her relatives on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands diverse ways of dancing to calypso, the sexy carnival boat rides of St. Thomas, and the hip circling wining that prevails today all over the Caribbean and the diaspora. This leads her to begin a tangy pan-Caribbean dance performance piece, “Rigidigidim De Bamba De,” by diaspora-diverse women who delve into their island memories, conflicted and joyful, while playfully wining.Less

Introduction: Military Might, Melodious Music

Andrew R. Martin

in Steelpan Ambassadors: The US Navy Steel Band, 1957-1999

This introductory chapter briefly discusses an in-depth study of the US Navy Steel Band and its relationship within the scope of two overarching narratives: the development of post-WWII military ... More

This introductory chapter briefly discusses an in-depth study of the US Navy Steel Band and its relationship within the scope of two overarching narratives: the development of post-WWII military public relations and recruiting, and American popular culture's fascination with Latin and Caribbean music over the past century. The chapter then explains what a steelpan is, along with the steelband movement in Trinidad and Tobago, and how it impacted the development of steelbands in America. It also explores how the American calypso craze of the late 1950s influenced the formation of the US Navy Steel Band.Less

Dropping the Bomb

Shannon Dudley

in Music from behind the Bridge: Steelband Aesthetics and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago

At the time of Trinidad’s independence from England, the most popular and hotly contested carnival performance venue for steelbands was the “Bomb,” in which steelbands played arrangements of foreign ... More

At the time of Trinidad’s independence from England, the most popular and hotly contested carnival performance venue for steelbands was the “Bomb,” in which steelbands played arrangements of foreign repertoires performed in calypso style. Especially popular were carnival arrangements of European classical music. The projection of such colonial icons by the national instrument at the national festival brought together highly charged and seemingly incongruous symbols, and contributed to heated debates about the national culture that persist in important ways up to the present. This chapter outlines contrasting interpretations of the Bomb to analyze the aesthetics of the steelband’s diverse constituents and to sort out some differences between musical thinking and political thinking.Less

Secrets, Narratology, and Implicature: A Virgin Reading of “Calypso”

Margot Norris

in Bloomsday 100: Essays on Ulysses

Fritz Senn, one of the most incisive readers ever to tackle Ulysses, calls “Calypso” “probably the easiest chapter in the novel.” This is certainly true for veteran readers of the novel, who can ... More

Fritz Senn, one of the most incisive readers ever to tackle Ulysses, calls “Calypso” “probably the easiest chapter in the novel.” This is certainly true for veteran readers of the novel, who can bring the knowledge of the whole work to bear on figuring out nearly everything that goes on in this episode. But how would “Calypso” strike a first-time or virgin reader, as we might call such a hypothetical figure? This chapter advocates a return to first principles in its endeavor to track the heuristic dilemmas faced by a “virgin” reader of “Calypso.” Adopting Paul Grice's notion of implicature, the role of the unspoken and the implied in discourse, this chapter charts the path the reader must steer through the false leads, explanatory gaps, perplexing conjunctions, semiotic lapses, and insinuated points of view of this episode. It shows that all interpretations of Ulysses must necessarily be incomplete and imperfect and that, moreover, James Joyce forces us to collude in the guilty secrets at which the text playfully gestures only often to reveal as figments.Less

The Whales of Pender Harbour

Jason M. Colby

in Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean's Greatest Predator

By early 1968 , Cecil Reid Jr. had given some thought to orcas. A gill net fisherman based in Pender Harbour, the thirty-one-year-old Reid—“Sonny” to his friends—had ... More

By early 1968 , Cecil Reid Jr. had given some thought to orcas. A gill net fisherman based in Pender Harbour, the thirty-one-year-old Reid—“Sonny” to his friends—had seen many killer whales over the years. As a boy growing up in the 1940s, he heard locals grumble about blackfish, and he watched family members take shots at the animals as they passed by. “My grandfather lived out around the corner from Irvine’s Landing,” he recalled, “and when the whales showed up, they would get the guns out and start shooting them.” Yet Reid knew live killer whales had become lucrative commodities, and when his father suggested catching one, he decided to give it a try. It was winter, however, and there weren’t many orcas around. Then, to his surprise, they came to him. In the late afternoon of Wednesday, February 21, a pod wandered into Pender Harbour, passing Reid’s waterfront home on Garden Bay. Momentarily stunned, Reid raced down to his boat, Instigator One. “I just happened to have my San Juan net still on the drum—which is a lot deeper and touched bottom,” he later recounted. “So when they came into Garden Bay the first time, I just set my net across.” The whales eluded his first attempt, but they lingered in the harbor, and the following morning Reid convinced other fishermen to help him, including several of his brothers and members of the local Cameron and Gooldrup families. In all, nine fishermen worked to seal off Garden Bay, and as the sun set over Irvine’s Landing, Reid felt certain they had trapped at least three orcas. But that night, one of the nets tore loose, and in the morning only one whale remained. Disappointed, Reid and his partners secured the animal—a fifteen-footer they believed to be male. Like those caught previously, the trapped orca hesitated to challenge the frail net surrounding him, much to the fishermen’s relief. Within minutes, the animal was swimming placidly in its makeshift enclosure. “Maybe it likes it here,” mused Reid. Less

The White Whale

Jason M. Colby

in Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean's Greatest Predator

When bob wright awoke on Sunday March 1, 1970, he didn’t feel like getting in a boat. He had attended a wedding reception late into the previous night, and the morning ... More

When bob wright awoke on Sunday March 1, 1970, he didn’t feel like getting in a boat. He had attended a wedding reception late into the previous night, and the morning in Victoria had broken cold and blustery. But he had promised to show his whale-catching operation to Don White, Paul Spong’s former research assistant. Wright already had an orca at his new oceanarium, Sealand of the Pacific, but he was keen to try his hand at capture, and he especially hoped to trap an albino killer whale often seen in local waters. When White and a friend arrived for the excursion, however, Wright wasn’t feeling very eager. “Bob is totally hung over, but he is feeling responsible,” White recalled. “He has told me to come, so he feels like we’ve got to do it.” Along with trainer Graeme Ellis, the three men piled onto Wright’s twenty-foot Bertram runabout and started for Pedder Bay. As the boat rounded Trial Island and cruised west past Victoria, the sea became choppy and Wright grew queasier. But minutes later, as they approached Race Rocks, he forgot all about his hangover. “Fuck!” he yelled. “It’s the white whale!” Sure enough, a group of orcas with what appeared to be an albino member was passing Bentinck Island and heading straight for Pedder Bay. The sighting was lucky, but the timing awful. Wright wasn’t set for a capture that day. His seine nets were in storage, and at first he couldn’t hail any of his Sealand staff. Determined not to let this opportunity pass, he gunned the Bertram into the bay and made straight for the Lakewood—a charter fishing boat he had rigged for orca catching. As Wright gathered his crew on the vessel, the excitement was palpable. “We were playing macho whale hunters,” White reflected, “and Bob Wright was our Captain Ahab.” With only one light net on board, the operation would have to be perfect, and everyone watched anxiously as the whales lingered near the mouth of Pedder Bay. Finally, as the sun began to set, the orcas entered. Less

Clarke's Two Vitamin Cs For Successful Living

Francio Guadeloupe

in Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism in the Caribbean

This chapter introduces one of the many disc jockeys working in SMX: DJ Fernando Clarke. Clarke is one of the many DJs working on PJD2, the oldest and most popular radio station in SMX. The chapter ... More

This chapter introduces one of the many disc jockeys working in SMX: DJ Fernando Clarke. Clarke is one of the many DJs working on PJD2, the oldest and most popular radio station in SMX. The chapter first describes the kind of work the disc jockeys in PJD2 do, and then focuses on Clarke's celebrity status. It reveals that Clarke does his best to promote his “Christian partying man of the people” image, even though it does not fit well with other aspects of his life. From there, the chapter introduces the Saturday calypso ritual and the marriage between the biblically derived ontological idea of the sinful nature of man and the contextual importance of tourism.Less

”Mkgnao! Mrkgnao! Mrkgrnao!”: The Pussens Perplex

John Gordon

in Bloomsday 100: Essays on Ulysses

This chapter is concerned with how James Joyce renders reality or, more specifically, how he captures our slow-motion sensory apprehension of the world. In a reading itself characterized by its fine ... More

This chapter is concerned with how James Joyce renders reality or, more specifically, how he captures our slow-motion sensory apprehension of the world. In a reading itself characterized by its fine attunement to the text, the chapter notes how the onomatopoeic notation of the mewing of Bloom's cat in “Calypso,” if carefully deciphered, captures the ways in which sounds gradually become more audible as we begin to discern and interpret them. It also argues, in delineating the semantic games enacted with the figure of the Porter in Finnegans Wake, that the process of reading this text spurs readers to refine and sharpen their powers of perception. In similar manner, the recurrence of details and the differing versions of events to which we are often treated in Ulysses mimic the time-release effect of sense perception while encouraging readers to hone their observational powers.Less