Montserrat | Caribbean Island Guide

St. Patrick’s Week

ellen — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:24:34 +0000

St Patrick’s Week is a weeklong celebration highlighting Montserrat’s local culture and Irish heritage that culminates with St. Patrick’s Day on March 17 : also a commemoration of the slave uprising on that very day in 1768.

Events usually include a special service at the Catholic Church, a lecture, an exhibition, guided hikes in the forested mountains, the Freedom Run from Cudjoe Head to Salem Park, a St. Patricks Day dinner and a Junior Calypso Competition. During the weekend the St. Patrick’s Week celebrations is at Festival Village. Here there’s a simulated Slave Village with traditional local food on sale (the time-honored ‘Slave Feast’), along with a revival of traditional games from yesteryear like hand-made spinning tops, story telling, and a kite flying festival.

Local culture and music are in focus and you’ll be sure to see the Masqueraders (masked street dancers in traditional costumes, tall head dresses and whips) perform, prancing to the lively sound of fife and drum: a blend of African and European elements forged out of slavery. String band music, a traditional combination of instruments includes the banjo, ‘boompipe’, guitar, mouth organ, triangle, ‘shak shak’ and bass drum are also on show, along with steel band (steel drum) performances.

Edgar Nkosi White

ellen — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:08:01 +0000

Edgar Nkosi White is a playwright, poet and novelist. He was born in the Caribbean of Montserrat and was raised in New York City (South Bronx).
His literary career began with the poet Langston Hughes who encouraged his writing when Edgar won a city-wide poetry contest while in high school of which, Hughes was the adjudicator. This led to a production of a play, The Wonderful Yeare at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater. Three other stage productions would follow there including The Scottsboro Boys (Burghers of Calais), which later toured. The success of these plays led to a collection of his plays being published: UNDERGROUND—4 plays and then THE CRUCIFICADO—2 plays, both published by William and Morrow.
Edgar Nkosi White then attended the Yale School of Drama and formed his first company there (Yale Black Players). After a successful production of his play, Lament for Rastafari was produced at Ellen Stewart’s Cafe La Mama and later toured London, Edgar moved to Britain where he produced plays for the stage: Masada at the Royal Court and The Long and Cheerful Road to Slavery, The Riverside Studio. He also wrote for the BBC radio drama and BBC television. He published a novel, The Rising, as well as four books of plays. He spent ten years in London and formed two companies, Temba and the Black Theatre Co-op.
Upon Edgar’s return to New York City he was Adjunct Professor at City College of New York where he taught Humanities and Creative Writing. Later he was IRADAC Writer in Residence (2007-2009).
Edgar’s work is part of the National Theatre Black Archive of Great Britain (2010) and can be accessed on line. His publishers are Marion Boyars and Penguin, and his writing is featured regularly in Monthly Review. He is also a member of New Dramatists.
Presently City College of New York has the largest collection of his published work together with Alexander Street Press. Because of Edgar Nkosi White’s spiritual connection with City College, he has officially given permission for the College to be the final repository of the Edgar Nkosi White Papers.
Books by Edgar Nkosi White
Plays
UNDERGROUND—4 plays (William and Morrow, 1970)
THE CRUCIFICADO—2 plays (William and Morrow, 1973)
LAMENT FOR RASTAFARI—3 plays (Marion Boyars, 1983)
THE NINE NIGHT—2 plays (Methuen, 1984
REDEMPTION SONG—3 plays (Marion Boyars, 1986)

I MARCUS GARVEY (Applause Theatre Books, 1989)
Children’s Books
SATI, THE RASTIFARIAN (Lothrop and Shepherd, 1973)
OMAR AT CHRISTMAS (Publ Lothrop and Shepherd, 1973)
THE CHILDREN OF NIGHT (Lothrop and Shepherd, 1974)
Novel
THE RISING (Published by Marion Boyars, 1988)

David Bradshaw

ellen — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:53:29 +0000

Growing Up BAREFOOT Under Montserrat’s Sleeping Volcano: Memories of a Colonial Childhood in a British Caribbean Island 1952-61 by David Reinford Bradshaw.

Dorine O’Garro

ellen — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:52:56 +0000

Dorine O’Garro was born in Montserrat and migrated to New York City at the age of fifteen. She attended Washington Irving High School, and Hunter College, where she majored in Spanish and minored in French, and earned her BA and MA degrees. She also attended the National University of Mexico in Mexico City, for two summer sessions, and L’Université Laval in Quebec City for one summer session. During the 1970s she spent her summers in Montserrat with her cousin, the late Mrs. Ellie Wade.

Dorine taught Spanish and some French for thirty-two years in New York City beginning in September 1963. She spent her last eighteen years at Stuyvesant High School and retired on July 10, 1995. Eight days later, on July 18, 1995, she listened to the reports of volcanic eruptions in Montserrat and decided, then, that she would write about the Montserrat of her childhood and young adulthood. Not being a historian, she has chosen the pathway of fiction.

Her literary output includes Montserrat on My Mind (2004), Montserrat in the Heart of the Caribbean, America and England (2006), Miss Tillie (2008), and soon to be released: Maamie and Parpi Daley of Montserrat.

Warren Cassell

ellen — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:05:21 +0000

Warren M. Cassell is an Attorney at law specializing in Intellectual Property, Media law, Entertainment and Sports law. He is the founder of “Cassell & Lewis”, formerly “Cassell Law” the Eastern Caribbean’s only full-serviced intellectual property law firm. He practices in the eastern Caribbean in the areas of Copyright, Media Law, Sports Law, Internet Law, Trade Secrets & Law of Confidence, Trademarks, Entertainment Law and other aspects of Intellectual Property. He is the host of the Warren Cassell Show a television variety talk-show focusing on issues affecting the English speaking Caribbean that is seen in 26 countries.

He is the President and Chairman of Immaculate Productions Inc. and holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of the West Indies and a Master of Laws Degree from the Golden Gate University School of law in San Francisco, California. Warren resides on the island of Montserrat with his wife Cleo and their three children.

O’Habits: 40 Success Habits of Oprah Winfrey and the One Bad Habit She Needs to Stop! is the first book by the Montserrat national and is now available on amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
According to Cassell, who owns Cassell & Lewis law offices on Montserrat, after watching thousands of hours of the Oprah Winfrey Show, reading just about every issue of O magazine, and other books about the most successful woman in the media, he began to formulate the idea for the book.

“Brian Tracy, one of America’s foremost authorities on developing peak performance and individual achievements, notes that “the most important discovery in the field of psychology and success is that fully 95 percent of everything that you think, feel, do and achieve is the result of habit”. There a lot of people who write about Oprah but there was no literature that looked at the specific steps or habits she adopts that enabled her to be so successful,” explained the author. “I wanted to examine what has made Oprah as successful as she is in a way that others could pattern and practice in their daily lives regardless of their professional or personal needs.”

But nobody – not even Oprah – is perfect, and O’Habits also uncovers an Oprah bad habit too. While she has proven to be an excellent mentor among her own gender, many men find Oprah….well…just plain intimidating. Says Cassell, who is an admitted Winfrey devotee, “I was and continue to be inspired by Oprah, but I would love to see her reach out more to the male audience.”

“Men can learn a lot from Oprah, not just about how to better run their businesses, but also how to run their lives and become better husbands, fathers, and global citizens,” says Cassell himself a successful talk show host.

For more than 20 years Oprah Winfrey has been an integral part of the lives of millions of television viewers around the globe. Oprah provides a panoramic worldview to the masses – from diet crazes to international tragedies, couch-jumping actors to world leaders – Oprah has informed, entertained, and influenced. Covering an enormous range of topics: adultery to Apartheid; gay rights, civil rights, women’s rights, and animal rights; politics and prose; celebrity and controversy, Oprah Winfrey has set the bar high.

But as extraordinary – if not more so – as the popularity and power of her talk show, is the power of the persona herself. Oprah Winfrey leaves behind a legacy; one that has motivated a race, empowered a gender, and inspired humanity to make the world a better place one act of kindness at a time. She is renowned as one of the most influential people of the millennium, and her influence has impacted not only public opinion and pop culture, but individual lifestyles worldwide.
In O’Habits: 40 Success Habits of Oprah Winfrey and the One Bad Habit She Needs to Stop!, author Warren Cassell examines the characteristics that have catapulted Oprah to the top, and which readers can adopt so that they too can enjoy a level of success and happiness in business and in life.

Learn more about the book at www.ohabits.com.