on I chose this song because Rihanna is from the Caribbean (Barbados) and this song has a heavy Caribbean influence to it. The video was shot in Jamaica and I think a lot of the lyrics combined with the video kind of helped me visualize a bit of what the setting of Pao might look like because I’ve never been to Jamaica before and don’t think this video portrays “tourist Jamaica”, but more so what the books we’ve been reading would be referencing.
on I’ve no way of asking Nenes what the inspiration was—or the decision, as it were—to come to Bob Marley & The Wailer’s seminal hit “No Woman, No Cry” and remake it. It’s been done before, with some success I would say. The Fugees pulled it off and given both the Caribbean affinity and collective experiences of the group, the remake made sense.
Too, there is the question of ownership. “Ownership” as in rendering the song as if there’d been no predecessor, making it ‘yours’ even as the nod is made to this being a return to a place before the current rendering. The Fugees pulled that off. Wyclef took artistic liberty and, instead of Bob Marley’s looking out from the government yard at Trenchtown “observing the hypocrites as they mingle with the good people [they] meet,” Wyclef rasps about “observing the crookedness as it mingled with the good people [he’d] meet.” There is also the moment when Marley’s confession that his “fear is [his] only courage” becomes Wyclef’s “drinks [his] only remedy,” and both are responding to the immediacy of their predicaments, each twenty years removed from the others’. Subtle turns of phrase yes, but only two among others that make The Fugees’ version worth pouring out a little liquor with.
Still…the Nenes version. I asked someone once about what inspired her to take on a monumental translation project and she said it was the wish that she had “written the original.” And maybe in that wish is the matter of ownership—of a piece of music speaking so intimately to the listener that when they sang it (be it along with the radio or in a dark studio booth), what was coming out was not another artist’s pain, but their own. In this, I can hear The Pagoda’s Lowe singing a likewise personal version of “No Woman No Cry.” Singing about the hypocrites even as some of them mingled with the good people trying to put the fire out in his shop.
Maybe though there isn’t even a wish for having “written the original.” Maybe it’s the initial intimacy and the thank you that comes from having finally been given the words that we have choked on silently. And maybe it’s not ownership that happens in the reiteration but, instead, a chorus, a singing in unison about a shared experience and a collective trauma. Maybe this is the thing about Afro Asia, that there need not be the frenzied embattlement, the cultural reproach but, instead, the knowing that the wrongs were communal and that “in this great future you can’t forget your past,” so it is render as it’s been experienced: a trauma we shared that echoes, rings in a history more intimate than we often dare acknowledge. And, sometimes, that acknowledgement, that concession can carry us through. Sometimes.
on Hi guys, a couple of us stayed after class to talk with Ben further, these are some of the videos we took of what he was doing. (:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17Xgm2HBQA8Xf7H7jd9EAlaLQPZNPOw_Z?usp=sharing
on This song was written by Ryan Cassata. He talks about his process transitioning from an assigned at birth female to a self-identified man. He sings about how hard this transition was on his relationship with his father. This made me think about the tense relationship Lowe had with his father as a result of his forced transition.
on “He wept for his life, which was cornered with disappointments at every step; for his daughter; whom he had deceived in the most sordid way; for his father, who carried the frustrations of his magnificent dreams on his face; and for Miss Sylvie and her undying affection, which he could never wholly return. He wept until the wells of his tears had emptied, and then he blew his nostrils into the sleeve of his shirt, straightened the mustache, which he’d tacked on again, brushed off his trousers, spotted with cement dust and sprinklings of marl, and wobbled slowly back to the house, his head alarmingly clear all of a sudden” (29).
We encounter this scene towards the end of chapter two. In this moment Lowe has just reflected deeply on the trauma of his childhood and the passing of Cecil. He goes to Cecil’s grave at a clearing near the forest and becomes so overwhelmed he starts crying. I am interested in the role that emotionality plays here. Lowe becomes so emotional that his mustache comes off which, for me, seems to suggest that it is through emotionality that we see cracks in his gender performance. This presents an interesting commentary on the fickle nature of gender more generally. Even those who identify in more binaristic ways never perform their gender perfectly 100% of the time, according to Judith Butler. There are cracks and fragments in every subject because a binaristic understanding of gender is wholly constructed. So it was provocative and important to see that theory reflected in the removal and subsequent reattachment of Lowe’s mustache.
The contrast between the overwhelming sorrow throughout the paragraph and clarity at the end of the sentence seems to highlight the power of emotionality. It is only through crying that Lowe is able to attain some sense of clearness. In this way, the paragraph highlights the duality of crying and, perhaps, water more generally. While the crying is an expression for extreme sorrow, it is also an avenue for spiritual cleansing. We have seen this duality in other novels like On Such a Full Sea, so this scene further exemplifies the many messages water can and does take on.
on “That night, crouched underneath the towering pillows, Lowe couldn’t sleep; he stared into the darkness, watching his dreams defeat him, watching his yellow spirit swirl around him in delirium…..but he lay there suffocating under the burdens of his rapidly failing attempts.” page 74
The author uses the word, “towering” to signify how low, and down Lowe is feeling. A pillow to be towering is ironic. Especially when pillows are thought to be as safe, soft and comfortable. Lowe is feeling the opposite of all those things. The pillow towers over his surroundings, his feelings and his self esteem. A period as punctuation wasn’t used for the first few sentences. It shows, the ongoing feeling of discomfort and troubles. Lowes world keeps on going, but in misery and defeat. Lowe feels small, low and incapable.
All of his wishes, feel overwhelming and unreachable, his pain is continuous. With his inability to make his wishes come true, the pain of the truth spins around him.
There is a use of the word, watching twice and staring once. This may be used to show how Lowe, feels out of control of his own life. He isn’t able to do much of anything but watch the destruction, see the pain and darkness.
The yellow spirit could reference a few different things. Often times, yellow is attributed to people of Asian decent. So the yellow light could be referring to Lowe’s racial and ethnic identity. The intersectionality of his identity, is something that Lowe struggles with throughout the novel. He spends a lot of time talking about his story and who he feels he is as a person. Lowes race, sexuality, gender identity, sex, migration story, and ethnicity are all brought up at one point in the novel. They are truths to be sorted through and identities to be claimed. However, that work can be tiring, confusing and complicated.
on The build-up on the musical instruments in this song reminded me of the scene when Uncle was told that McKenzie burned down Mr. Lee’s shop. Although the mood of the song and the mood of Uncle aren’t necessarily the same, when I read this passage again over listening to this song, it seemed to beat match with the passage.
on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUE3Z-LoWyQ
Lowe’s loneliness at the end of the novel as well as throughout the book was a strong emotion and state for Lowe. I wanted that to be highlighted.
on Lowe’s shop has been torched and his lament is that “[y]es, he’d come to catch his hand and make something of his life” but that he hadn’t done so by situating himself above those who had come to despise him (Young 13). But, it wasn’t enough that “[h]e didn’t see himself better than them,” because by virtue of their being a “them” there was an us, and that misalignment became the incendiary that poured the kerosene and lit the torch on the rage of the oppressed–a condition shared but uncommon because while their histories converged, they were incomparable (13). The immediacy of their predicaments were mutually exclusive, and having come over in the bowels of the same ships, at least as Young gives us, across–and into–the same straits is not a tie that binds because shared experience does not make for common ones.
Still, this rage-filled island is, of sorts, home for displaced bodies–and Lowe has a dream, finally a dream of his own. And here is Stephanie, taking his hands in ways that neither Miss Sylvie nor Sharmilla have been able to. There is hope in the dream of home–even when it is not labeled as home; even when home is, at best, an imaginary homeland.
“…I have had my mind spun around in space
and watched it growing
And oh, if You’re listening God, please don’t make it hard
to know if we should believe the things that we see…”
Or the things that we dream.
on I chose this song due to Pao marrying Fay because she is socially acceptable, but continuing to see Gloria. The line “She’s all right, but you’re all wrong.” sticks out in particular because when sung, it sounds like “She’s all right, but you’re a roar.” It captures the nature of an affair.