Over here boy.
This blog is obviously becoming Seasonal...:)
I'm sorry for the gaps of FOCUS...but life demands...:)
so during the other months when I Cant focus on MIAMI Carnival..
You can check out my other blog:.
Clivia Writes
Im kinda Feeling some of the soca thats coming out for Trinidad this year...
so i think you'll be hearing me a lot on that...
And I think a new direction in 2011....that will split some of the efforts of keeping you updated between more than one person!! YAY!
Those that still read me...thanks for sticking by me. 
Im still here...In Hiatus..
But Ill be back.
-Disclaimer-

So the season is here....for those that did Labor Day...it BEEN here...and for other its Miami and the ultimate Trinidad.
And we are bombarded by these perfect body images of models in the gorgeous, beautiful, vomit provoking, out of body experience creating costumes that we MUST wear.
And so we begin the ritual - of eating less, and working out more....to achieve this ideal YOU for the road.
Master Cleanse recipes abound, Socacize in full gear...and instead of eating that steak you been dying for all week...you're munching on tilapia and broccoli.
Ain't a damn thing wrong with that. Effort and reward...
BUT.....
Let me just say this..


Lest we forget....
The Instant you step on the road..
and you transform from the 9-5 drudgery of your day to day existence..
The Minute...
you transform...
into the entity that is your costume...
the minute the sun hits your face....
the drink in your cup ....
and your surrounded by the VERY people you would want with you on a deserted island..
The minute the bess man next to you decide to take a small wine..on the bumper he been eyeing since you hit the road...
and your song come on...whatever it is....YOUR SONG comes on on the bumping system....


WHO THE HELL CARES????!!!!


dais all..
  -Disclaimer-

So....I said before that I was taking a break from Carnival this year. I really thought I would miss it. 
And to be truthful in some ways...im still involved. Im doing makeup for bands. 
Im supporting a friend who has a section with a band here. And for once....for ONCE in so many years that I can remember ....instead of looking forward to the season with dread....of the work..and the politics and the long nights and the personal sacrifice....and the glue burns...and wire scratches and depleted pockets and short tempers and hidden angers...and frustrated tears.....
For ONCE...I am excited about Miami Carnival....I'm looking forward to palaving with my sister and my friends. To have the responsiblity of enjoying myself....still looking out for my people...but the burden is not all mine and I can look forward to a mind free of covering all the bases..Is everything as it should be.? Did we do this? Did we remember that? 
I can enjoy the ritual of preparing for the parade. I can actually wear a costume...not the left overs of what ever wasnt sold. I can be ...a Masquerader. The Jumbie bite Meh! -Disclaimer-

So yeah. Miami Broward Carnival is launching..FINALLY!!
WHO: Miami/Broward One Carnival
WHAT: Launch Miami Broward One Carnival Launch come support
WHERE: Calder Race Track- 8PM-4AM
WHEN: August 28 at 11:00pm - August 29 at 4:00am
Over 30 costumes on display
Live performance by Kaushun Band
Music by DJ Karl, Dynasty Int, Gary Enforcement, Mixx Master Roderick, Maestro

More importantly, the carnival will not be in B-Centennial park..but at Dolphin Stadium. A Stadium. Again. It seems like this festival is constantly taking a step back. I don't claim to know about the internal workings of the committee and I'm sure that the recession and economic status has affected budgets with them too. But a stadium carnival brings limitations. What will the rules be on liquor consumption? How do you try to recreate the road element that has been integral to the Miami Carnival parade? I'm trying to be positive about this turn of events....but I really watching this play out with a side-eye.

How are they going to handle crowd control in an even more enclosed place? Refuse entry? Yeah I know its a stadium...but this just feels like a show versus the street parade that is the essence of carnival. I guess we gonna see how it goes. I for one am really disappointed...but being cheerfully optimistic

Skandalous Mas is the lead section in One Island Body Paints 2010 presentation, so I had to give them their seperate post. :) ;) Melissa and her sister Arleesha are the Miami Locals in the mostly New York institution of One Island Body Paint...and their section Pandora is the bluest of the blues.

Here are their pics from the launch that i was able to steal from her Profile..lol


  Type rest of the post here -Disclaimer-

Island music..MOVES me. Don't get me wrong. I'm a Soca head, a Kaiso head probably is more accurate. My taste in Island music is eclectic and runs the gamut. I'm especially appreciative of a lavway...a groove beat..and especially if the music captures the traditional elements of Kaiso but adds a contemporary twist so that it remains relevant.

Rembunction does this perfectly in his "Ah digging Horrors". A perfect Combo of old and New. Mighty Sparrows classic Ah digging Horrors, infused with a a current rhythmn line..with Rembunction's unforgiving, unrelenting TRINIDADIAN ACCENT [god i love that...no twanging..lol]. Horns intact. Gotta love it. The video itself is amazing..produced by Rembunction himself. A perfect balance of color and drama. Simple and remarkably effective. Cameos by Mr Roy Cape himself and Sparrow doing his trademark dances. Doesn't hurt that he is a yummy chocolate rasta trini masterpiece either :).

See the video after the jump


Check out his youtube channel here. His other videos are animated videos..equally amazing. So distinctly Trinidadian. I especially like Samantha Claus. Book Mark Em. Its worth it.

-Disclaimer-

I was trying to edit the template on another blog of mine...and
WIPED OUT THE FORMAT for this one by mistake...
lol
Bear with me while i try to reconfigure this one to my extremely irrational standards.
:)

-Disclaimer-

Hello?? Hello?? Is anyone out there??
Hmm there is some dust on this blog...and I’d like to apologize for that
What happened is ....what usually happens..
I got sooo overwhelmed with the machine that is a mas band..
That I barely had time to breathe much less blog...

But I’m back...
and NO ...I’m not going to Trinidad...
and not even commenting on it...
Maybe on the MUSIC....
Unless the evil jumbie that starts talking to me around now...
after I have made the single, sober, mature decision to not go to carnival..
and certain people tempting me ..thanks XoXo,...
But as of today...
I'm not going to Trinidad...

But I've also made another Major decision

After 13 plus years of being involved in Miami carnival as either a promoter, or section producer, or a full out mas band producer...
I...
gulp..
am taking a break in 2010..
and doing nothing...but observe...
Wear a costume...go to the fetes...see the people that I INVITE to Miami every year...

 I’m soo excited....
Already...there are people pressing me to change my mind...
And even I am a little nervous about sitting out...
I don’t know what that even feels like anymore..

But what has happened to me...
Is something I never believe COULD happen..
I started Resenting carnival..
Instead of looking forward to it with excitement and optimism...
I would see the "DRAMA"...the pressure to produce...the politics....the bad karma with contracts...
Yes the finished result was always worth it..

 but I think that until I rediscover my love for the spectacle
That it undoubtedly will affect MY creative process....
and I couldn’t intuit what my masqueraders would want....because I could place myself in the moment...and see what I would want..

For 2010 ....in terms of Miami Carnival..
I am on a well deserved break..
I think I want to play pan, enter the calypso competiton again....
and finally get to hang out with the sisters, and friends who have supported me with my mas endeavors for sooo many years...
Every year I send them off to the parties..
They call on me while I’m in the mas camp...
They come check on me,
Make sure I eat...
Calm me down when I spaz out...
.reassure me that my choices are good...and that they appreciate my efforts.
Come pick up passes to the SAME fetes that I wish I could go to...but I’m trapped ...
..Girls I love you... Judes, Dania, Rhina...I LOVE YOU :)

I’m excited...
and it means...that I have time as a true spectator...
to give so much more to this blog...
:)
So I can rediscover my love .....My mas...

yay me :)

So I really apologise....but MAS has taken over my life...and I havent been able to give my running commentary on things. I intend to schedule updates into my life ...so that it becomes a daily ritual instead of a sporadic thing.


So I wanted to share a MAS story today..


When you see a costume on the road...that involved a back pack or headpiece..please PLEASE acknowledge the Time, Talent and effort it took to make this slight looking, un assumable piece that your wearing.


It can Be dangerous...lol. So "Clivia the Artist" finally decided to take things into her own hands...literally..and instead of waiting on someone to do this for me ...attempted to do it herself. 

Solder! yes people... welll I cant even call it Soldering. Its WELDING. Yup. Bought me a flame torch, and flux, and pipe cutter...and gloves and visor. Watched Damn YOU TUBE for hours for instructions...lol...cause if they can do it why the hell cant I..right? 

And Your girl is currently framing out her own custom backpack. DAMMIT!! 

Wire benders are amazingly talented..and simple frames are easy for a novice like me. Headpieces sure...Collars sure. My backpack before were more of a Novice/Alternative materials effort...and while they came out beautifully, It felt more craft-ish than professional.

But I've been dreaming about this backpack and drawing it for someone to produce always ends up with a misinterpreted shape.

So your girl gone brave...and making her own frame. EYYY...them torches scary no backside!! I kept having visions of half my face scorched off...and wearing a phantom of the opera mask on the road. I almost soaked my clothes down..just in case a spark flew off and landed anywhere...

So there I am, out on the back patio......dressed in long sleeves in 74 degrees, SUNGLASSES[ didnt have the regulation eye protection], hair tied back and under [No Michael Jackson Moments], sneakers...[people who know me know that this ALONE is something to bring snow to florida]....

Trimming tubing, warming metal....bending it in the shape I want...CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???! Fusing parts...realizing that you have to go in with a plan and layout..before you even turn the torch on. It was so much fun!!

I always said if i could find a Carnival Arts Programme...I would be on it like boiled corn...but necessity is the mother of invention. And I must say....the first trial was rough...lol. but now that i understand the process...Im
SOOOOO excited..and I cant wait to go finish this up.

Wish Me Luck...

Ill show pictures after..


-Disclaimer-

So, Ive been talking to couple section leaders and band leaders for Miami Carnival. and the topic du jour of course is Budget.

With the economy as it is, it's almost becoming a decision by band leaders or section leaders to risk their personal financial position and continue with production or sit out the season.

With Trinidad and Labor Day carnival already upon us, band leaders are finding issues, with materials, and of course production. When you were able to find production groups willing to schedule the time to make costumes for Miami Carnival, because of the seasons being so close together, your finding that your sources for swim suits, for production, for materials, are choosing to pass on your offer because they are ALREADY overwhelmed for Trinidad Carnival.

Which then means sourcing your labor locally. For some bands this is not a problem, but for others it makes things very difficult and would then involve in house production when most people have a 9-5 as well as a mas band.

On top of that is the fact that in Miami you cannot afford to outprice yourself. while people will pay 200+ dollars for costumes in New York for Labor day, for some STRANGE reason, they wont pay that price in Miami. Materials are more expensive, even when bought in bulk, and you cant pass on that bump in price to the masquerader.

So when you go to your section leader or band leader or Mas band, Make sure you tell them thank you for doing this..because it sure as HELL not about profit...its a labor of love.


-Disclaimer-

OFFICIAL MIAMI-BROWARD ONE CARNIVAL LAUNCHING
Saturday, August 22, 2009 @ 9pm to 5 am
Location: Mahi Temple, Miami
Code 868
Roger George,
Leon Coldero
DJs
Display of costumes of all registered Miami-Broward Mas Bands and Steelbands
Call 305-653-1877 for Information

-Disclaimer-

Like I announced before..my Band Vibrationz will be presenting Vegas Nights as our presentation for Miami Carnival.

As Creative Director [gulp] for the band..it means that even now we are in full planning stages. A quick trip to New York last week for materials/samples was one of our first moves...and the process has begun.

In Miami you would be hard pressed to charge the prices generally quoted for Trinidad carnival..or even for Labor Day in New York. So our constant challenge is to do creative designs on a limited budget.

Our premise at Vibrationz is that we want to deliver a quality costume, gorgeous...as close to Trinidad Standards as our budgets will allow. Placing fourth in last years carnival does not deliver a large financial windfall...so our challenge is always budget.

My challenge is always the balance of creativity vs budget..a challenge that makes for constant barter with vendors and creative means to come up with distinctive designs...

Right now ..we're in the midst of designing prototypes. And LORD..my head is spinning..because as much as I want spectacular design elements...staying within budget and having distinctive costumes is driving me up a wall. I sometimes wish that we had the benefit of Large sponsors like some of the more established bands...but i think the challenge is what keeps up sharp.

Jamaicans have a saying..Likkle but they talawah....I kinda think that's what Vibrationzz is. At least right now. We may not have the benefit of large sponsors but we try sooo hard to make our masqueraders happy that i believe that's one of the reasons they keep coming back. Our team is selfless, and focused on a true carnival experience even outside of profit....so we continue.

And now my dreams are filled with braid and feathers, of color swatches and applique..of converting visions in my head to reality on a mannequin and eventually to models and costumes on the road.

See you soon..
I out on the road.....i there with my friends...:)

-Disclaimer-

My blog name is Kaiserball.blogspot.com
I got an email this weekend asking me what it is..what inspired the name.

It's a combination of two things..

Sparrow wrote a song called Tobago Gal in 1980
Its a sweet song speaking about the visit of an old man to Tobago and why he wouldn't leave.

Woman..

Because it mentions places specific to Tobago...I, a Tobago gal had an instant affinity to the song. On an aside, He also wrote a song called Trinidad woman, so he wasn't biased..

The chorus goes:

"All them Tobago Gyal
Sweet sweet sweet like a Kaiserball
Burroughs you could call or Ring Interpol,
Me ain't going at all
First I love them sweet Tobago Gyal"

In his sweet crooning voice, Sparrow is singing a love song to us misunderstood,stereotyped Bago gals. He singled us out...haha..and I've loved the song ever since.

What is a Kaiserball though?

A Kaiserball  was a hard, rough, home made candy that existed in my parents time. It was pure syrup, sugar and water boiled down, and would take DAYS to eat if your teeth could stand up the saccharine sweet flavor, or you didn't crack a tooth on it in the process. You would find them in glass jars in road side parlors or made by your favorite Aunty and left for you when you came to visit.

You would be hard pressed to find any of those in this day and age. My last memory of having one [if it is in fact a real memory] is on a trip to visit relatives in the country as a little girl with my cousins and having one from the parlor at the bottom of the hill in Good Wood. That was our favorite stop off place. It was owned by Cousin Ralph and we would stop for Sweet drinks..haha Coca Cola in Bottles mind you, and whatever candied sundries the parents would allow us to have at that point.

The parlor for some reason was always open, dark and dusty, and in this day we would probably never step foot in there, but i always loved it and wished i could explore what was under the layers of dust and hodge podge of boxes. We would drive by sometimes without going in..but would shout greetings out the window and most times get a Hail back!

Anyways...when you're pressed for a unique identifier for the blog my brain came up with Kaiserball. Uniquely Trinbagonion, and personally associated to Tobago for me, it was an easy choice. To hear Sparrow's song and see the rest of the lyrics go here. Enjoy!

-Disclaimer-

Im so Flippin frustrated right now..
Remind me why i do this again???
huh?
Carnival is always stress...i KNOW..
But GODDAMMIT why people cant deliver on their promises??
WHY!!???? It not in style to have accountability anymore??
Especially when it flippin inconveniencing SOOOO MANY OTHER PEOPLE..

I SOOOOOO wanna put somebody on BLAST RIGHT NOW!!
SOOO wanna jus rip they ass to shreds...

sigh..

steups...

-Disclaimer-

Plenty Black costumes in circulation?
remember when people used to say
IT TOO HOT FOR BLACK??

oh well
change is good

-Disclaimer-

I dont know if there is room for this any more in trinidad Carnival..
it scares the Backside outta me..
Im glad for MacFarlane..and some of the other stalwarts holding out..
But even me in my little carnival here is the US..
is being made to sacrifice VISION for COMMERCIAL..
it SUCKS ASSSSSSSs...sorry people..
but it's Hard...
its like designers being forced to make cookie cutter to sell..
cause people just want sexy...not symbolic..
steups

anyways...
as always
Minshall inspires..More pics if you

Minshall is GOD!!
I would Wear it.
The Dramatist..an overview on his History if you

Peter Minshall in the 1980s Mark Lyndersay

The dramatist
Peter Minshall, born 1941

Occasionally you’ll hear a Trini describing someone in a great hurry as “running like they just hear Minshall reach the Savannah”. The expression hinges on an indisputable fact: Peter Minshall is the only Carnival designer working today whose masquerade is capable of making ordinary spectators drop everything and race to the Savannah stage to see his band make its epic crossing — as spectators of older generations would have done to see the latest creations by Wilfred Strasser or George Bailey or Carlisle Chang.

Chronologically and creatively, Minshall comes at the end of the parade of golden age Carnival designers. As far back as 1982, artist and musician Pat Bishop declared that he “has drawn . . . truths which have something of the potency of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement, or the late Beethoven string quartets,” and “lifted what was no more than folk festival in which glitter had replaced content, to the level of the highest art”. No designer emerging in the 1980s or 90s has been able to push the creative barriers further.

Born in British Guiana in 1941, Minshall moved to Trinidad with his family when he was a small child. His first taste of mas came when he was 13; with a cardboard box, green paint, and animal bones, he made himself an African witch doctor costume for the children’s Carnival competition. “The die was cast there and then,” he says. As a teenager, padded out with old pillows, decked out in his sister’s frilly dress, he transformed himself into a Dame Lorraine for J’Ouvert, “liberated from race, from age, from gender.” That total liberation has been the goal of his 30-year career.

Peter Samuel portraying the Midnight Robber from Danse Macabre (1980) Noel Norton

When he was 21, Minshall left Trinidad to study at the Central School of Art and Design in London. After graduation, in 1969, Minshall found himself designing the set and costumes for a ballet production at Sadler’s Wells. He was launched on a promising career as a London designer; then his mother asked him to create a costume for his adopted sister for Carnival 1974. “It took five weeks, 12 people,” he recalls. “104 feathers, each one made of 150 different pieces of fabric.” When 13-year-old Sherry-Ann Guy finally took to the stage, portraying the Hummingbird, dancing “like a joyful sapphire”, it was a defining moment in the history of Carnival. “Ten thousand people exploded with her.”


Two years later, bandleader Stephen Lee Heung asked Minshall to design a band for 1,500 masqueraders. He chose Milton’s Paradise Lost as his theme, imagining the presentation as a symphony in four parts. Hummingbird’s winged form evolved into a host of fallen angels; Minshall’s imps were based on the traditional jab jab character. His aim was to allow his masqueraders complete mobility: kinetic mas. He wanted his costumes not just to be looked at, but to be felt. And so they were. Few who witnessed Paradise Lost on the streets of Port of Spain would ever forget the experience. The Minshall era had begun.

Peter Minshall’s art is the product of two main elements. The first is his love of theatre, the collaborative process combining visual design, words, music, dance, and attitude to create an experience that can move its audience to the core. Minshall sees Trinidad Carnival as “theatre of the streets”, one of the purest theatrical phenomena in the world. He conceives his bands with acts and scenes, sometimes even with scripts; sound and ritual are as crucial as the costumes.

Paradise Lost (1976) Noel Norton

The second key element is his fascination with traditional characters like the bat, the robber, the devil, the sailor. “Study the bat,” he once said, “and you’ll realise that its entire body informs its movement.” And movement, the masquerader’s primary tool of expression, is all-important. “I don’t design costumes. I provide the means for the human body to express its energy,” he claimed. This called for new materials and methods. Fibreglass rods, acrylic tubes, garden netting, opalescent polyester film, corrugated cardboard, parachute silk, all made to come alive.

Minshall’s bands often address social or metaphysical questions. 1980’s Danse Macabre was a sardonic death masque. 1982’s Papillon was a meditation on the fragility of life. In 1983 he began the trilogy that may be his magnum opus with River. His masqueraders danced on the Savannah stage in innocent white cloth; then jets of coloured dye suddenly appeared, staining the River People. His Washerwoman queen, the embodiment of purity and harmony, was symbolically raped and murdered by his king, Mancrab, a devil-like creature representing greed and evil technology.

This manifestation of modern anxiety was followed in 1984 by Callaloo, then in 1985 by the final act, The Golden Calabash, two bands in one. The Lords of Light and The Princes of Darkness clashed before the Savannah audience in a supreme battle between good and evil.
Before Minshall, no one had imagined the medium of Carnival could be used to make statements like these. Other bandleaders were taken aback; they felt threatened, not just by Minshall’s art, but by his outspokenness. He was accused of perverting the mas for his own intellectual satisfaction. But ordinary people responded. The River trilogy failed to win a band of the year title, but in 1983 and 1985 Minshall was the people’s choice.

Paradise Lost (1976) Noel Norton

Controversy and adulation have followed Peter Minshall throughout his career. He has been lauded for his work on the opening ceremony of the 1992 Olympics, and attacked by religious groups for his 1995 presentation, Hallelujah. He has been called aloof and elitist, yet he has won more people’s choice awards than any other designer (until the authorities ended the popular vote, embarrassed that it differed so often from the judges’ decision). He has created spectacles of astonishing beauty, yet has not been afraid to kick the prettiness out of pretty mas when his art demands it.

For a quarter century, like George Bailey in his time, Minshall has been the Carnival designer with whom all others are compared. If his work provokes hyperbole, it is only because of the singularity of his vision in the Carnival of the 21st century.

was watching a documentary this morning and it moved me so much i had to blog about it.. They're showing the origins of Brazil carnival not in direct historic sense.. but through the eyes of different individuals of different walks of life...

From as young as 13 to as old as 80 and its the most beautiful thing..
You see the country through different perspectives..
the Original Indigenous people.
the poor but hopeful,
a teenage girl who cleans houses but dreams of being a football player
the techno youth..an aspiring female helicopter pilot,
a 1st generation upper class Brazilian woman who felt compelled to discover the real Carnival by joining a Samba school and being trained even though it involved her leaving the safety of her modern capital to go the favelas [Shanty Town]

the archaic traditions, the religious ceremonies...strange and mysterious..
They've covered Candoble...the samba dancers that are the lead dancers ..the naked ones? Represent the high priestess in the religion..[never knew that]
Capoeira--the african drums and rhythmn
the religious good Friday procession..the choreographed movements
The boat people....the floats
The indigenous people..The body paints and movement

I wanna GOOOO.. Portugese is delicious... add that to my list.. i want to speak Portugese

Anyways.... what they also did in essence is show all the different parts Cultural, financial, historical, religious... that have added to the Unique Brazilian Carnival... that leads up to the show in the Samba Drome..

These women ... make me want to run from here to Georgia every morning, Stop eating anything but water and wafer thins...

They're Beautiful, BODY beautiful.. I mean the formula for these women are the same as ours.. Years of race blending...[i love that word] that have refined the features to perfection...same as Trinidad

But damn.... Poor men... you see them looking like they know that they're giving themselves whiplash.. but they cant help it .. who can blame them..

The spectacle is AMAZING!!

Me, being the punk that i am [the chick who had an almost religious, emotional melt down seeing Rudder and Jesus perform Oil and Music at Madison Square Garden this year] would have probably been in tears if I were in the midst of it.

The details...the details...
whats more is that they haven't gone modern on their production
every thing is individually made and crafted..

I'm in awe Its mass choreography... and singing..
Singing and dancing..
its pore raising....
and some how in the midst of all these churning bodies.. they've been able to find each person that they individually featured..

They're all there...even the 80year old dancing...
and they show them after returning to their lives...

Inversion and Transformation...
a civil servant became a carnival queen
a cowhand a rodeo star
a student a pilot
a school girl an angel
a life without hope a life without limits..
all in a country where a shoe shine boy became a president..
This is the spirit of Brazil