A done A done A done. A done with this carnivalA done A done A done. A done with this Bacchanal
1. The service done? Let me crawl up and see. No. You stay down here. Keep to the side. Let the younger ones go up and check. You are too anxious. They are using backhoe. They will work fast. You will get yourself killed. We have time, plenty time. She is not going anywhere. She can’t go anywhere.
2. I can’t wait to start dig out she libber. Bad birth and bad upbringing. They killed off Old Time Christmas for her. And look pan she. Insult to culture. They want to bury her in the same graveyard as Old Time Christmas. No flipping way. A drunk them drunk? The cemetery full. We going make she fart. Tell me when the Nunc dimittis start.
3. You always want to dig out somebody libber. She is an old, hard one, born 1957. EW2, with respect, I don’t fully understand why you despise carnival so much.
4. She is an imposter. Off with her gorgon medusa head! They can’t even organize a singing meeting properly. They could have asked King Obstinate’s mother, the New Winthorpes Warrior, aunt of the old doctor man who can’t stop playing in the calypso band. Carnival is a carnival. She serves no useful purpose at all, at all, at all. She makes me want to bawl, to bawl, to bawl. Pure jam and wine, endless fete and rudeness; stupidness and more stupidness.
5. Crawl round the graveyard and see how many old stalwarts turning round and round in their graves. They tried to inject more culture into her. They rejected them, and they died from heart failure. The word in the ground is that some of them were so sick from rejection, when we got to them their broken hearts just fell apart before we started to work on them. That’s why as soon as my battalion gets inside this carnival coffin, we going to dig out she libber.
6. EW2, Hold on. She might tell you she is part of the culture because all she is doing is reflecting society. She will say it’s not her fault, although she should have listened to the Reparations people and some Rastafarians too. You can’t say anything bad about the steelband players. They standing tall.
7. Respected EW1; yes, indeed the steelband players are carrying the tradition but there is much room for improvement. They tried unsuccessfully to stone Johnson. But what about others in the society? They cannot ignore the sanctimonious ones who know better, and yet are refusing to help to guide carnival on earth, whilst looking for their spiritual carnival in heaven. Remember the really nice, respectable woman who always saying mercy, mercy, mercy in church? Before she passed away and came down to us, some undercover, dogging young EWs in her village reported that at nightfall there was often a choir of teenage boys singing and disturbing her “peace”, causing the sybarite to bawl out, mercy, mercy, mercy. No mercy will be left back for anyone else after she gets her full forgiveness.
8. Respected EW1, the reparation group is standing tall after years in the wilderness. Carnival is a big muddle to flesh out. The national archives say Old Time Christmas Festival was a popular and culturally significant annual festival. The same records say that Antigua carnival is a celebration of emancipation from slavery. And again, the very same records say that John Ferdie Shoul (chairman of carnival) and Maurice Ambrose (builder and musician) worked together to create a plan for a Carnival that replaced the Old Time Christmas Festival in 1957, with hopes of inspiring tourism in Antigua and Barbuda. You ever heard such nonsense?
9. That is madness. They cannot hijack the culture of Old Time Christmas, mix it with the celebration of emancipation and end up with carnival, a carnival with the stated commercial aim of inspiring tourism. They cannot do that. They mad. They put themselves in a national psychological trap of mental slavery from which they now have to try to escape to repair the mind of the nation. Now you see why I want to dig out she libber.
10. You mention Rastafari. That is another conundrum, mixing drums of consciousness with eating wisely and smoking herb. They smoke, smoke, smoke, like joke, joke, joke. We have to warn our juvenile earthworms to stay far from their brains. Some of their brains mash up bad, bad, bad, from the excessive ganja they had, had, had; sad, sad, sad. But the rest of their body clean, clean, clean, since they don’t eat meat and they looking lean, lean, lean.
11. Respected EW1 and EW2, the news from on top is that the service is taking very long. They say a new, young pastor is preaching that carnival, as an institution, is vital to society. After the part about, from dust carnival came and to dust carnival returns, he has the congregation rocking. He said the spiritual being is eternal but all physical bodies, including carnival, will be consumed and recycled by us, earthworms! He is quoting, “Worms are fantastic burrowing creatures that are the living, breathing engineers of the underworld. They eat and recycle organic matter to keep our soil healthy.”
12. He quotes Charles Darwin, “It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures”. His reference is that carnival, as an institution, when organized and played out professionally and fittingly, is a pressure valve necessary to keep the society healthy. The congregation rocking! They are singing with glee. They have a steelband man who khan play! Service not done-ing now.
13. Pastor jamming them hard. After the ashes to ashes and dust to dust part, he is talking about carnival and sex. See how some of the congregants faces turn from black to indigo. One moment, Respected EW1 and EW2; The news is filtering down very slowly. Some of the young EWs on top are choking with laughter and not passing on the message fast enough. Here comes EW2R2D2. What is this sermon about sex?
14. I got the scoop from EWEarthCrawler. He had to burrow back down quickly, as only he can, to relay the sermon. The parson said there is too much vulgarity and wanton, real and virtual sex in carnival. Then he preached about self-gratification. The entire congregation jumped up when he said there are some things that must be done only in the home and not on the street, or in public. This is his exact quote about self-gratification: “No masturbation on Boggy Peak. No masturbation in Christian Valley”. Some of the congregants vex, vex, vex. Others saying next, next, next. One of the older parsons dropped off his chair, shouting wait, wait, wait; he got permission from Dr. Thwaites, Dr. Thwaites, Dr. Thwaites. Bacchanal in church.
15. They are taking collection now. Respected EW2, I hear how you planning, for carnival coming. They say you going eat people. I suggest you leave that in the kitchen to Kitchener. I hear you have big plans to dig out she libber. By the time she gets down here, there might be no libber left. You might have to wait until next year to see if carnival comes up dead and insipid again.
16. The funeral service huge. Plenty people outside. They are lamenting that some greedy, unscrupulous people extracted the fete part, just one canine, from the entire teeth of carnival and call that canine, carnival. One singular tooth cannot bite. Peter Minshall said carnival, or mas, his preferred name in place of the polymorphous name, carnival, is “more than a retina spectacle”.
17. Public theatre has been adulterated and privatized. The depth of the carnival soul is empty, void and devoid of meaning; dehydrated, superficial, and tart. They walk on it, spit on it, urinate and defecate on it, and wipe it off as culture. Who is going to recycle and restore the glory of the ancestors, so that they, and the rest of us, can rest in peace?
