Friday, October 19, 2018
art books environment film fashion music astronomy food puzzles
Weekend
Dexter: The choirmaster
TRACKING TOUR DE TURTLES Pages 10 & 11
pages 4 & 5
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Friday, October 19, 2018
entertainment
Jamz’ party keeps on rolling By JEFFARAH GIBSON Tribune Features Writer jgibson@tribunemedia.net
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EGGAE lovers are in for a treat, when two of the genre’s biggest performers appear on one stage tomorrow night. Busy Signal and Peetah Morgan are expected to bring Bahamian audiences great vibes during the concert to be held in Pompey Square. Upscale decided to team up with K O Productions, Bankable Productions and 242 Party for the showcase. It is also a continuation of the 100 Jamz 25th anniversary celebrations. Organisers are excited to present the event that will allow audiences to enjoy
top class entertainment with two of biggest international artists. “100 Jamz is celebrating a huge milestone and invite all to come out and party with some of Nassau’s biggest DJ’s, past and present whom have all made you crank up your radio at least twice a day while driving,” said Jayde Knowles of K O Productions. Some of Nassau’s biggest DJ’s, past and present whom have all made listeners crank up their radios at least twice a day will also provide entertainment. Organisers are also preparing for Pompey Square to be filled with fans of Busy Signal who are without a doubt anticipating the artist’s performances of “Stay So” - a top hit. The Jamaican artist born Reanno Gordon has been known for his musical innovation and creativity. He has
Peetah Morgan
exhibited great skill for infusing traditional Caribbean music with afro-beats, soca, edm and hiphop. Busy signal has also shown his vast versatility and attracted the likes of prominent EDM group Major Lazer for the hits “Watch Out For This (Bumaye)” and more recently “Jump.” Other collaborations with No Doubt and Damian and Stephen Marley, have further enlarged his international audience, while hits such as “Come Over”, “Bedroom Bully,” “One More Night” and more and have been staples in his core Caribbean fanbase. “He is one of the biggest artist in the Caribbean at the moment with some of
the hottest songs that blaze your radio all day every day, it was only fitting to bring him to Nassau. It’s going to be a real shut down Pompey Square night. Pure vibes,” said Jayde. Peetah Morgan lead singer of the Morgan Heritage band will also bring his sultry tunes to the stage. He has been the distinctive voice leading Morgan Heritage on some of the biggest anthems in modern rootsreggae, including Don’t Haffi Dread (To Be Rasta), “Down by the River” and “She’s Still Loving Me”. The festivities begin at 7pm. There will be free drinks to attendees until 9pm with the show beginning at 10pm. Gifts will also be given to the first 1003 guests. VIP tickets are $25 and platinum is $50.
evolve and maintain our culture tell the untold stories of the things that we may overlook dayto-day that make our archipelago standout versus any other country in the world.” Mr Ferguson said the re-introduction of the “Pop The Top” promotion is to truly celebrate and thank Bahamian consumers who have helped make Kalik the number one beer in The Bahamas. “The 30th year of the beer of The Bahamas is momentous in the sense that all Bahamians can take pride in the fact that we were able to build a brand that has had reach as far as Australia, that has been brewed and awarded at the highest levels of the alcoholic beverage industry globally, recognize aligned with conch by noted international publications as one of the 40 top meals to have on your bucket list worldwide, that Junkanoo, our celebration of freedom was able to help give birth to a brand
that will stand the test of time as “The Beer of The Bahamas”, he said. There are few Bahamian brands that can boast 30 years in business. And Kalik has been hosting a number of events and activities to celebrate including the monthly Junkanoo Jam - a partnership with the Junkanoo Corporation New Providence Ltd. It is a showcase of Junkanoo groups that take place each month until December. The next Junkanoo Jam is slated for October 27 at Arawak Cay. So far the jam has been embraced by the Junkanoo lovers who get a taste of what they can expect when the actual parade kicks off at the end of the year.
Busy Signal
Get a taste of freedom By JEFFARAH GIBSON Tribune Features Writer jgibson@tribunemedia.net THERE will be a musical showdown tonight featuring some of the country’s best artists to climax Kalik Beer’s “Pop the Top” finale. Tonight’s event is presented by Commonwealth Brewery Limited (CBL) and Kalik Beer and is scheduled to take place at Arawak Cay. The finale and grand prize draw, organisers said will be a crowd pleaser with lots of free beer, games. Live performances will be by artists Ancient Man, D-Mac, Julien Believe with entertainment provided by The Mighty Pencil. The festivities will begin at 8pm and event goers can expect to party the night away. The showdown is also being held as part of the brand’s ongoing 30th anniversary celebrations. It was for this reason Kalik, CBL increased this year’s grand prize draw from $10,000 to $30,000.
The promotion launched eight weeks ago, encouraged devoted Kalik drinkers to keep their bottle tops for a chance to enter to win cash and prizes totalling over $500,000. The excitement has been growing over the past few weeks as $1000 cash prize drawings have taken place on a number of Family Islands including, Grand Bahama, Abaco, Eleuthera, San Salvador, Bimini, Exuma and Long Island. “In conjunction with the celebration of 30 years of doing beer the Bahamian way, it’s only right that we give back to Bahamians in a meaningful way,” said Margo Gibson, media and communications manager. Kalik’s entire 30th year has been dedicated to celebrating Bahamian, and the things that make the island nation unique, according to Queswell Ferguson senior beer brand manager. “We developed the Let’s Celebrate campaign which looks at key facets of our culture: sports, food, agriculture, music, regatta and Junkanoo and allows real Bahamians who help to cultivate,
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Friday, October 19, 2018
Inside Weekend Interview 4-5 National youth choir director Dexter Fernander tells Cara Hunt about fulfilling the legacy of the late Cleophas Adderley Books 7 Bahamian author Janice Lynn Mather is nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award in Canada
Fashion 8-9 The fashion at the Royal Wedding of England’s Princess Eugenie
Environment 10-11 Tracking The Turtles
Astronomy 12 Mirroring Earth
Fitness 13 Helping children find their balance
Fashion 14-15 Dress For the Cause Music 16 Artist Spotlight: Getting to know Leonisha Johnson
History 17 A look at fantasy female warriors Film 18-19 A first look at Melissa McCarthy’s new movie Can You Ever Forgive Me For Running? and the remake of Halloween Books 20 Bringing Tolkien to the Big Screen and the conflict that was Vietnam Gardening 21 Jack Hardy gets to the root of the crop Literary Lives 22-24 Finding fortune in the face of adversity Food 25 A cafe serving food in a communal setting Puzzles 26 Animals 27
My perfect Bahamian weekend Clarence Carvel Albury Life Coach/ Writer/Poet Saturday Lunch or Sunday Brunch? Sunday lunch - There’s something sacred and freeing about enjoying a great meal after a good worship experience at my local church. Rum, wine, cocktail or Kalik? Wine - I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older, but wine is more enjoyable for
song or a good book of poetry. What is the one thing that you can’t live without? Poetry. I’m about to publish my first book of poems and so everyday I’m writing, reading, thinking and preparing myself to share my thoughts and feelings with the world. It’s both scary and exhilarating. me these days. I love that my palate has grown to embrace more complex experiences nowadays. Beach or sofa? The beach for sure. I have this connection with nature that I can’t explain with words. It draws me, much like a good worship
Weekend away, where would you go and why? I’m complexed with this question because I love being away from the noise of every day life on a family island like my hometown Abaco and I also enjoy the hustle and bustle of my favourite cities Toronto and New York. I guess it depends on how I’m feeling or what I’m working on at the time.
Things 2 Do this weekend Friday
Saturday
• Eat Drink and Be Pink Time: 4pm Venue: British Colonial Hilton in honour of Breast Cancer Month. Pink Martini and Pink Margarita Specials. Buy one, get one half price. Great food and drinks.
Beat the Drums For Polio Time: 10am Venue: The Straw Market The Rotary Club of New Providence will host its annual Beat the Drums for Polio event. It is a fun fundraising initiative to raise money that go directly towards the fight to end Polio around the world. We will be in front of the Straw Market on Bay Street with Junkanoo rushouts by Barrabas and the Tribe as well as the Genesis Warhawks Junkanoo group. Please come out and show your support by making not just a donation but a difference in the world
• Friday Comes Alive with Patron Time: 5pm Venue: Halcyon Restaurant Bar and Lounge Dance into the weekend, Patron style. Call up your crew and brace yourselves for a #TGIF like never before with Friday Comes Alive with Patron. • Sip and Safari Happy Hour Time: 5pm Venue: Ardastra Gardens Happy Hour Relax and enjoy live music by Tanisha Sweeting. Admission: $10. Cash bar and snacks will be available. Proceeds go towards our animal rescue and rehab programme. • Pop The Top Time: 8pm Venue: Arawak Cay Kalikers! The moment that you’ve been waiting for is almost here - the Pop the Top Finale $30K Drawing. Enjoy live performances by Ancient Man and DMac and Dj Mighty Pencil. Win Kalik prizes all night • Music Video Release Party Time: 8pm Venue: BOND Nightclub Julien Believe releases his latest single “Goin Down on Bay” featuring Angelique Sabrina Tickets $25
• Boo at the Zoo Time: 12pm Venue: Ardastra Gardens Children and adults alike will have a scary good time at Boo At The Zoo. There will be a special “Boo Trail”, games and activities, treat bags, and of course access to the entire zoo (including the Lorry Parrot Feeding and Flamingo Shows). • Bahamas Humane Society Thrift Shop Halloween Jewellry Sale Time: 10am-2pm Venue: Bahamas Humane Society Saturday, October 20, 10am to 2 pm in the Minerva Shack at the BHS Thrift Shop. Large selection of jewellery at a wide range of prices. Come and do your Christmas shopping early, or find something shiny for yourself • 100 Jamz Concert Time: 7pm Venue: Pompey Square The 25th Anniversary celebration continues with a Reggae concert featuring Busy Signal and Peetah Morgan
VIP tickets are $25 and platinum tickets are $50. • Oasis Fashion Show Time: 7pm Venue: The National Art Gallery Get ready for an evening filled with runway looks showcased by local designers. Local performers will also be performing; expect prizes and surprises. • Genesis Boat Cruise Time: 7pm Venue: The Sea Link departing from Potter’s Cay Dock Genesis Warhawks Boat Cruise with music by King Studda and Mix a Lot. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the boat. • Silent Thriller: A Silent Fete Party Hosted by the Rotary Club of Old Fort Time: 9pm Venue: Studio Cafe Compass Point Studios The Rotary Club of Old Fort invites you to Silent Thriller: a silent fete party featuring two guest DJs, three music stations each offering a unique party experience. Signature food and drinks will be available for purchase. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. Contact us to get your tickets. All proceeds from this event will go towards ongoing community service initiatives.
Sunday • RRD 2019 Spring Summer Collection Time: 6pm Venue: Breezes Resort Remilda Rose presents the Summer Collection which will honour cancer survivors.
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Friday, October 19, 2018
interview
How do you fill
a hero’s shoes? By CARA HUNT Tribune Features Writer cbrennen@tribunemedia.net
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he Bahamas National Youth Choir has been a major part of Dexter Fernander’s life. As a member it helped him find focus and a voice. And now after being hand picked to take on the mantle of directorship from the late Cleophas Adderley, he is poised to take the choir to further heights. Dexter was introduced to music at a very young age when he began taking piano lessons in primary school. Later as a student at the College of the Bahamas he studied music, economics and finance. His music professors the late Paula Glasby and Audrey Wright were the first to encourage him to audition for the Youth Choir. It was a decision that would have a major impact on his life. “Being a part of the choir helped me to focus. It helped me to be able to audition when I went off to college in the United States,” he said. “In Nassau you are used to going to audition with maybe 10 to 15 people, but when you go off, you are auditioning with many people who have been singing all their lives and are really focused on their music. “The Bahamas National Youth Choir (BNYC) as an institution taught me so many life skills, it really helped me to get my mind together as to what I wanted to do.” Dexter went on to transfer from the College of the Bahamas to Tennessee State University where he majored in Economics and Finance. “I went to school at a time where I was told that you had to get a ‘real job’ to pay your bills so I dropped the formal music part of my studies,” he said. Music still played an integral part of his college career. In fact he received a Harpo Foundation scholarship as a result of his association with the BNYC.
“The Bahamas National Youth Choir (BNYC) as an institution taught me so many life skills, it really helped me to get my mind together as to what I wanted to do.” “I was also a part of my university’s show choir,” he added. If being in the choir helped him gain focus, the choir’s late director Cleophas Adderley helped mould him into the man he is today. “He was a stern disciplinarian and I was never sure if it was love or punishment,” Dexter said.
“He would always get on at me, but he spoke into my life.” Mr Adderley’s admiration for the role Dexter played in the choir was clear when he first fell ill and asked Dexter to step in as acting director. It was a role Mr Adderley was never to return as the illness took hold and he finally passed away last year.
In the first months standing in Dexter went through a period of transition, preparing himself for the large shoes he would one day have to fill. “He taught me about what he would go through mentally in preparing a piece and that your mission is to touch people with the music, it may only be one person but that is a true gift to be able to inspire people with your gift,” said Dexter. “Mr Adderley also helped me appreciate the heritage and the value of the Bahamas National Youth Choir. What many people may not know is that the choir is only one of a few where our reputation precedes us and we can perform in places like the Kennedy Centre without having to even audition. ‘When you talk about venues like that, you often have to send in audition tapes and there are people who have to vet your work, but they are aware of the standard that has been set and that
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is why we have been able to perform at the places, we have been.” Dexter says his favourite trip with the choir has to be when they performed in Finland at the Rock Cathedral. “To just know that we we were from a small island developing state performing at such a magnificent venue was just amazing,” he said. Dexter said today he is just so excited to build on Mr Adderley’s legacy. “We have lost some great cultural icons with his passing and that of James Catalyn and Audrey Wright, but now it is time for a younger generation to take on their mantle and continue the work,” he said. His new vision for the choir is to add more of a development and curriculum component for members. “I would like for there to be a link with the Royal School of Music so that members can get their certification as part of being with the choir,” he explained. He also wants to continue the efforts in preserving the culture of the country and its music and to ensure younger audiences grow up with an appreciation for it. “For example when you say the words ‘you straight?’, it can have so many varied meanings. The choir can be an avenue to help understand Bahamian culture.” Dexter says he wants to meet audiences where their musical tastes lie - whether it be a classical interpretation of the hit children’s song Baby Shark or adapting Disney favourites such as his plan to bring the music of Frozen and The Little Mermaid to life next year.
“We have lost some great cultural icons with his passing and that of James Catalyn and Audrey Wright, but now it is time for a younger generation to take on their mantle and continue the work.” “It’s finding the right music for the right audiences, that is how you help them gain an appreciation for music and the benefits of a love of music are tremendous,” he said. “It can help children with Maths as it helps with rhythm and it can also help them with foreign languages because many classical songs are in Latin which is the basic of most languages.” The Bahamas National Youth Choir will perform a cantata called ‘The Psalm- I will lift mine eyes’ by African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork over two nights next weekend. Friday’s guest soloist will be Nicole Jordan while Candace Bostwick will appear on Saturday. Gary
Seydell will also perform. The BNYC will also be joined by the Adventist Vocal Ensemble and the University of the Bahamas Concert Choir. The event will take place at Christ Church Cathedral at 7.30pm. The Bahamas National Youth Choir was established as part of the celebrations to mark the 10th anniversary of the country’s independence. It is a charitable national cultural entity subsidised by The government and the private sector. The choir has sung in 25 foreign languages, produced nine commercial recordings, travelled to 24 countries on four continents and researched
and documented much of the folk music of The Bahamas. It has appeared at the Concert Hall of the John F Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., The Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City, The Moscow Conservatory in Russia, The Barbican and the Oxford University Playhouse in England, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, the Beijing Symphony Hall in China, St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City and The Royal Swazi Theatre and Convention Centre, Swaziland, among other internationally acclaimed venues.
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section
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Friday, October 19, 2018
books
And the goes to...
award
By CARA HUNT Tribune Features Writer cbrennen@tribunemedia.net
L
earning to Breathe, the debut novel by former Tribune journalist Janice Lynn Mather has recently been nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards in Canada. This is just the latest honour for Janice’s book which has received tremendously positive reviews. Learning To Breathe is the haunting, yet beautiful story of a young Bahamian girl who is sent from the Family Islands to live in Nassau and her struggle to survive abuse, an unwanted pregnancy and her search to find a safe place to call home. It was listed as one of Buzz Feed’s 27 young adult books you will want to Devour this Summer and Barnes and Nobles Teen Blog listed the novel as one of the most anticipated contemporaries of 2018. It was also short listed for the Harper Collins/University of Columbia Best New Fiction Prize. The Governor General award is given by the Canada Council for the Arts- Canada’s public arts funder, which seeks to promote and foster the study and enjoyment of and the production of works in the arts. “The Governor General’s Literary Awards are given out annually, currently in seven English-language categories: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, young people’s literature, illustration, drama and translation (there are 14 categories in total, as there are seven given for works in French). Learning to Breathe is a finalist in the Young People Literature - text category. Previous award winners include wellknown Canadian authors like Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje.
This year, Learning to Breathe is one of five finalists who are chosen by a peer assessment committee which looks at works published for the year that are eligible for the prize. Janice told Tribune weekend she was absolutely thrilled to be nominated. “The nomination was a complete surprise, actually. I checked my phone at 4:30 in the morning, and there was something in my promotions folder from the Canada Council for the Arts, announcing some finalists, but it didn’t click that it had anything to do with me, or Learning to Breathe. It wasn’t until I got an email with a more formal letter congratulating me on being a finalist that I realised what was going on,” she said. “I’m really excited by the response so far. Being listed as a finalist for a major award is definitely a high, but what I love is hearing from friends that someone has independently recommended the book to them. “A friend was travelling in Orlando recently and when she asked the staff at the local Barnes and Noble for the book, someone overheard and mentioned that they heard it was a really good book. “Those little stories of random, unrelated people having enjoyed the story are what tells me it’s landing the way I wanted it to. The book was released on audiobook on September 29, with Dreamscape (dreamscapeab.com). “I’m especially excited that it’s read by Chrystal Bethell, a Bahamian actress. A double billing for the Bahamas.” Moving forward, Janice recently signed a two-book deal with Simon and Schuster. “Currently I’m working on a second novel. It’s not a sequel, it’s a completely different story, also set in the Bahamas, and follows the path of four very
Janice Lynn Mather different girls whose lives are woven together,” she said. “This is also a book for teen audiences and older, and is scheduled to be released in the fall of 2020. I also have a couple of novels that are geared more for an older reader (for what that’s worth...I read all kinds of stories as a teen and child) that I’m working on in the background. So you can definitely watch for more publications in the years to come.”
Janice is a Bahamian writer with an MFA from the University of British Columbia. She has been a collector of interesting jobs: journalist, conversationalist, performance poet and professional finger-wagger. Currently, she lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she hunches over her computer, grows vegetables, dabbles on the beach, reads in the sun, grumbles at the rain, and, most of all, writes.
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Friday, October 19, 2018
celebrity The Weekend Fashion Report The Royal Wedding of Britain’s Princess Eugenie of York
SPLIT Eugenie Cara - Eugenie is a real life princess, so it’s not that surprising that her wedding dress mirrored the gown worn by Sleeping Beauty in the Disney cartoon. Most royal watchers praised her gown and it is very classic and traditional and very British. I like that she chose to show her scars from back surgery with the low back and while I am a huge fan of veils, I like that she stayed true to her self and her desire to not wear one. Alesha - I mean it’s a simple off-white dress. It has a little shape to it as well. I really don’t have much of an opinion on the gown, she played it safe which is like the usual thing with royal wedding brides. The head piece does nothing for the outfit though.” Princess Eugenie (evening look)
HIT HIT Eugenie (evening dress) Cara - Eugenie broke tradition by not using a British designer for her evening reception dress, instead opting for a Zac Posen blush creation inspired by the White Rose of York (that’s either super sweet or super corny) and some critics said that the gown was a bit too busty for a royal bride. But hey, if you got ‘em, flaunt ‘em. Alesha - I love this dress: the colour, the shape, the drape, everything. I can’t really tell what the makeup is like here but a brown smokey eye would have been bomb with this look. She should’ve worn this dress in off white as her wedding gown.”
Sarah Ferguson and Princess Beatrice Cara - Sarah Ferguson looks so excited, The green dress is fine and compliments her red hair and the wedding theme. I liked her dress, but let’s discuss that hat. She looks like airline wings about to take flight. Not impressed with the hat. Beatrice has also been known to have questionable taste in headgear, so I am happy she chose the demure route this time. That blue is stunning and she looks very elegant. Alesha - They both look cute, again, cute as in played it safe cute. And royal blue just happens to be one of my all time favourite colours, it’s just so pretty. So for me Princess Beatrice’s dress is a win because of the colour, and Sarah also gets my vote because those nude pumps are gorge.
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to Jack Brooksbank Princess Eugenie of York
With Alesha Cadet and Cara Hunt
FAIL
FAIL
HIT
FAIL
HIT
Cara Delevinge
Poppy Delevinge
Naomi Campbell
Cara - Well this is an interesting look. It’s fun, not sure how the “stuffy English” felt about her breaking the traditional dress and hat and gloves though. Alesha - LOL she looks like a circus act. Now she knows better than wearing this at someone’s wedding, a royal wedding at that. While there was definitely effort put into this outfit, the effort was executed poorly. It’s a whole joke.”
Cara - I pity the person who has to sit behind her in this monstrosity of a hat. The colour of the dress is ok as is the fabric, but not feeling the overall look.” Alesha - You know what, I don’t hate Poppy’s dress you know, but I don’t love it either. Now I am not sure if there’s a nude lining underneath the dress or we are looking at her skin, which is tacky for such an event but either way there is a miss somewhere. I love those shoes, but not together with the dress. I love the blazer, but not together with the dress. The hat, no.
Cara - I love it. It is very stylish but not in that costume way some people want to be. And that hat is so fab. Alesha - Okayyyyy to the slayage. Naomi’s style and fashion is timeless so I expected nothing less. I love the midi, the hat, the fit, the pumps and surprisingly the gloves as well. Naomi is stepping it nice and cute per usual.”
The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle
The Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton
Cara - This outfit is totally boring and totally sombre and I am sure that was exactly her intent as she didn’t want to upstage her cousin-in-law’s big day and of course she was hiding the now famous baby bump. Alesha - It’s only a knee length blazer so there isn’t anything much to comment on. It’s simple. Her stylist could have done much better than this. Her meet and greet outfits have been nicer than this get-up and go to work
Cara - I must say that that plum colour is fabulous. As usual Kate looks elegant even if she dresses a little older than her years. I especially liked her hat. Alesha - Yes, fuschia pink. I think readers will get the idea that I love the pop of colours mostly. Kudos to Kate for saying yes to this dress, accessories and hat. As we have seen so far, it could have been much worse.
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Friday, October 19, 2018
environment
Tilly, a hawksbill turtle, heads to sea after her release from the island of Nevis. IMAGE BY BEN HICKS.
Tour de Turtles
kicked off
By CATHERINE MORRIS
T
he Sea Turtle Conservancy’s Tour de Turtles is underway with 17 sea turtles having been tagged and tagging and tracked during their marathon migration. Turtles wear small transmitters during the annual event as they travel thousands of miles to from their nesting beaches to feeding grounds. Data collected from satellite telemetry help scientists gain a clearer understanding of how four species of turtles behave at sea, furthering efforts to protect endangered species. Last year, a loggerhead named Eliza Ann took the crown. This year, Lucaya, the speedy leatherback, has pulled ahead to take an early lead. Every summer, a handful of sea turtles take to the water to compete in the Sea Turtle Conservancy’s, Tour de Turtles – an underwater marathon that blends competition with conservation.
This year, 17 sea turtles entered the Tour de Turtles, and the line-up is diverse, encompassing leatherbacks, loggerheads, green sea turtles and hawksbills. Organizers released the competitors from nesting grounds in Costa Rica, Panama, Nevis and Florida. The winner will be the turtle that swims the farthest during its threemonth long migration. A loggerhead turtle named Turtlette is equipped with a satellite transmitter on her carapace and released from Melbourne Beach, Florida for this year’s Tour de Turtles. A loggerhead turtle named Turtlette is equipped with a satellite transmitter on her carapace and released from Melbourne Beach, Florida for this year’s Tour de Turtles. Image by Celeste McWilliams. Small tags tracking over large areas Tagged and monitored remotely, these turtles aren’t just racing towards the finish line, they’re also providing scientists with key data collected via satellite telemetry.
Sea turtles spend the majority of their lives in the water – feeding, mating and roaming huge distances – but in the vast ocean it’s difficult for scientists to observe their behaviour, leading them to turn to technology for answers. Every turtle participating in the Tour de Turtles is fitted with a small, low-wattage Platform Terminal Transmitter (PTT) tag, which is controlled by a micro-processor. These devices, which are designed to safely fall off the turtle after about a year and a half, send signals to Argos tracking instruments attached to orbiting satellites every time the turtle comes up for air. The satellite then relays this information back to earth where it can be accessed via computer. Turtles must surface for at least three minutes to be detected, and once it detects a PTT, a satellite takes three to five minutes to record the location. Sea Turtle Conservancy research biologist Dan Evans tracks a turtle’s progress online. The satellite tag beams the turtle’s positions to
A loggerhead turtle named Turtlette is equipped with a satellite transmitter on her carapace and released from Melbourne Beach, Florida for this year’s Tour de Turtles. IMAGE BY CELESTE MCWILLIAMS.
instruments on a satellite, which send them on to Evans and his colleagues. Sea Turtle Conservancy research biologist Dan Evans tracks a turtle’s progress online. The satellite tag beams the turtle’s positions to instruments on a satellite, which send them on to Evans and his colleagues. Image by Ben Hicks. This tags provides the Tour de Turtles’ research partners, the University of Central Florida and the Nevis Turtle Group, with up-to-date location information so they can keep a watchful eye on the competitors through every stage of the race. The researchers plot turtles’ routes on an online map so sponsors, donors
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and supporters can follow along in near-real time. Turtles swim several thousands of miles in a typical Tour, but there’s more to the event than just distance travelled. The PTT data collected from each turtle delivers a goldmine of useful information, including an estimate of the number of dives the turtle has taken in the preceding 24 hours, duration of its most recent dive and the water temperature. “We can estimate turtle behavior based on the information from the transmitters, and from that we can also look at the environmental characteristics, such as water depth and temperature,” said Dan Evans, Research Biologist with the Sea Turtle Conservancy. “There are definitely patterns and pathways we are learning about, but we are also learning their behaviour.” “We get confirmation of things we know, but every now and then we get something really interesting. There’s a lot of variation, even within species. It seems like every year one turtle does something different.” Lucaya the leatherback’s current route from her nesting grounds in Panama across the Caribbean Sea, and north along the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. Lucaya the leatherback’s current route from her nesting grounds in Panama across the Caribbean Sea, and north along the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. Image courtesy of Google Maps and the Sea Turtle Conservancy. This year, researchers are watching Lucaya, a leatherback who is hugging the East Coast of the United States rather than heading into the deep Atlantic as expected. Through his work with the Tour, Evans has discovered that leatherbacks move between a primary and a secondary foraging area, rather than sticking to a single feeding ground. He has also noted that leatherbacks spend more time in the Gulf of Mexico than previously thought and that hawksbills, a species that tends to stay local, are actually travelling all the way across the Caribbean in some instances. “That was really cool to see,” he said. “It is a pretty incredible migration.” Technology evolution Tagging turtles is not a new science, but as technology evolves, the research has become more efficient, more streamlined and more effective. When the Tour de Turtles first launched in 2008, transmitters were bulkier and
Lucaya the leatherback’s current route from her nesting grounds in Panama across the Caribbean Sea, and north along the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. Image courtesy of Google Maps and the Sea Turtle Conservancy.
A team at The Turtle Hospital fits sea turtles with transmitters in July 2018. IMAGE BY ANDY NEWMAN.
more vulnerable to the elements than the modern-day version. “They started out as bricks with antennae sticking out of the top,” Evans said. “We had to build a barrier to protect them in the water, but now they have built-in barriers. The transmitters have become smaller, more compact and more hydrodynamic.” Tilly, a hawksbill turtle, heads to sea after her release from the island of Nevis. Tilly, a hawksbill turtle, heads to sea after her release from the island of Nevis. Image by Ben Hicks. They also have a longer battery life that allows them to function for up to five years. “That means we are able to track turtles for longer than we used to and can find out about their full migration,
from their nesting beaches to the foraging areas,” Evans said. Scientists still have a lot to learn, however, and Evans hopes that as the technology expands, it will paint a more complete picture of what sea turtles are up to in the deep ocean. “I think the accuracy of the transmitters will improve over time. My dream transmitter would include a camera that would allow us to really see what kind of interactions the turtles are having with their environment and each other.” Turtles Little Money and Coco are fitted with transmitters at The Turtle Hospital in July 2018.The team spread epoxy to secure the satellite transmitters to “Little Money,” a 365-pound female green sea turtle (left), and “Coco.” The two turtles were simultaneously released off the Florida Keys to become part of the “Tour de Turtles.” A team at The Turtle Hospital fits sea turtles with transmitters in July 2018. The team spread epoxy to secure the satellite transmitters to Little Money, a 365-pound female green sea turtle (left), and Coco, a male loggerhead. The two turtles were simultaneously released off the Florida Keys to become part of the “Tour de Turtles.” Image by Andy Newman. He would also like to make better use of GIS mapping technology, creating a program that can superimpose layers of variables on the turtles’ route such as water temperatures and chlorophyll levels. Raising awareness
Six out of seven sea turtle species are listed as endangered or critically endangered. Human hunting , fishing lines, and plastic debris all kill adult turtles. Natural predators and various human threats to sea turtle hatchlings and nesting beaches result in very low nestling survival rates. The Sea Turtle Conservancy estimates that as few as one in a 1,000 survive to adulthood. The data amassed through the Tour de Turtles focus on promoting sea turtle conservation and education. In 2010, findings from the Tour were used to educate stakeholders on the need to protect sea turtles from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. “Leatherbacks from Costa Rica and Panama are utilizing the Gulf of Mexico much more than anybody thought, [but] leatherbacks had not been in the discussions until we shared the tracking information that we had,” Evans said. “That provided support for including them in discussions about what species need to be protected.” Lucaya, a leatherback now leading the Tour de Turtles, was released from Panama in May and has traveled north via Cuba and the Caribbean to the U.S. Lucaya, a leatherback now leading the Tour de Turtles, was released from Panama in May and has traveled north via Cuba and the Caribbean to the U.S. (see map above). Image by Ben Hicks. Raising awareness is a key part of the Tour’s message. Turtles are sponsored and/or adopted by donors, and each swims for a specific cause. This year’s turtles are swimming to highlight the threats of commercial trawl fisheries, water quality, pollution, beach erosion, and adult and egg harvesting. The Tour’s tracking efforts have made one thing very apparent: turtles do not respect boundaries, making their survival an international issue. “Turtles are international travellers, they do not have borders or passports. They go where they need to go, so cooperation among nations is really important,” Evans said. “With our data, we can identify foraging areas and be able to see whether they are in protected areas. If they are in protected areas, we can then look at whether the protections are good enough for sea turtles.” Follow this year’s Tour de Turtles, which ends November 2, 2018. https://news.mongabay.com/ wildtech/2018/09/tagging-and-tracking-the-tour-de-turtles/
12 | The Tribune | Weekend
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astronomy Earth and SuperEarth in an artist concept contrasts our Earth with the planet known as 55 Cancri e.
NASA/JPLCALTECH/R. HURT (SSC)/FLICKR, CC BY-SA
What do we know of the worlds which could mirror Earth? This summer NASA held a media briefing to announce the completed catalogue of exoplanets from the Kepler Mission. The catalogue lists 4,034 exoplanet discoveries, including 219 new finds. Ten of these new worlds are close in size to the Earth and reside within their star’s habitable zone, a location that would permit liquid water on the surface of an Earth-like world. These ten join roughly 40 other worlds found by Kepler as possible candidates for Earth’s twin. But is the prospect of another Earth really the Kepler legacy? While planets had been discovered around other stars since the early 1990s, the launch of the Kepler Space Telescope in 2009 resulted in them being found in droves. As the numbers increased from tens to thousands of exoplanets, astronomers were able to identify types of planets and speculate on their frequency through our Galaxy; Kepler had given us the ability to do statistics. Our Solar System suggests there are just two flavours of planet: terrestrial worlds like the Earth with rocky surfaces and thin atmospheres, and gas giants like Jupiter, whose solid cores are buried beneath thousands of kilometres of enveloping gases. This neat, bimodal picture is taken to pieces in the Kepler Mission catalogue. The catalogue contents reveal gas giants that orbit their star closer than Mercury, other worlds so hot their surface must be molten magma and planets around binary stars like Luke Skywalker’s fictional home world of
Tatooine in the film franchise Star Wars. But perhaps the most mysterious entries are the so-called super Earths. How super, really? Over two-thirds of the planets in the Kepler Mission Catalogue have radii of between 1.1 and four Earths, placing them between Earth and Neptune in size. These super Earths are the most common planet discovered, yet our own Solar System has no analogue to tell us what such worlds might be like. Are they terrestrial planets with rocky surfaces or mini gas giants with crushing atmospheric pressures? As interest has mounted in the prospect of finding a habitable planet, a key question is whether any of these worlds have a solid surface. At the media briefing, NASA revealed the Kepler Mission catalogue had produced a clue. A recent journal paper had spotted a split in the distribution of super-Earth planet sizes. While planets with radii of around 1.3 Earths and 2.4 Earths are equally common, planets with sizes between 1.5 and two Earth radii are much harder to find. The astronomers speculate that this is the division between giant rocky planets and gaseous mini-Neptunes. Although this strong divide in the super-Earth population has not previously been observed, its location agrees with the small number of planets we have bulk density measurements for. These density values suggest that planets larger than about 1.6 Earth radii have thick, Neptune-like atmospheres.
But while the Kepler Space Telescope can give us both sizes and locations for exoplanets, it cannot tell us anything about their past or present surface environment. We need theories to explain the different planet types identified within the catalogue. One possibility for the split in the super-Earth population is that the rocky planets have had their atmospheres stripped by radiation pouring from a star. Alternatively, the rocky worlds may have formed later from the gas-rich planet-forming disc that dispersed before the planets could accrue a thick atmosphere. We meet a similar problem for the 50 planets found within the habitable zone. Knowing only their size and location is not enough to determine if their surfaces are similar to the Earth. A difference in geology could create a very different atmosphere to our own, or the inability to create protective magnetic fields to shield the planet from sterilising stellar flares. The temperature may even be perfect for liquid water, but the planet entirely dry. Without being able to probe surfaces, the Kepler telescope was never designed to find a true Earth twin. Rather, the mission catalogue tells us that planets can form around nearly every star and exist in a huge variety of conditions. The Kepler Mission spanned four years (2009 to 2013), exploring a patch of sky in the Cygnus constellation. In
Our Solar System has only cold gas and ice giants and rocky terrestrial planets, but the Kepler Mission revealed many other planet types. NASA/AMES RESEARCH CENTER/NATALIE BATALHA/WENDY STENZEL
May 2013, the second of the telescope’s four gyroscope-like reaction wheels failed and it was unable to keep a stable position. But the telescope continues to search the sky near the ecliptic plane (where the zodiac constellations lie), using radiation pressure from the Sun for positioning. This has become the K2 mission and has already found over 500 planets. Future missions such as TESS and JWST (planned launch in 2018) and Ariel (planned launch in 2026) will add to this number, and begin to probe the environment of these worlds. The Kepler Mission catalogue told us where to look, now we can begin to uncover what alien worlds are truly like. https://theconversation.com Elizabeth Tasker Associate Professor, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
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Friday, October 19, 2018
fitness
Kids Creative
Movements
By ALESHA CADET Tribune Features Writer acadet@tribunemedia.net
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OR THOSE not aware, Ah! Massage Bahamas is happy to share that yoga is no longer an “adults only” health and fitness practice. So why not start your children early on the road to a fun and healthy lifestyle? Bahamian yoga instructor Nicarah White has launched a children’s yoga, movement and meditation programme at The Zen Zone Spa, Yoga Studio and Wellness Centre, located at East Bay Shopping Plaza. While many wrongly believe that to practice yoga you have to be the expert who gets up at dawn, maintains a vegetarian diet, be extremely flexible and make it your entire lifestyle - Nicarah aims to change that perception with an effort to make yoga accessible to all, especially Bahamian youth. Her goal is to one day to incorporate health and wellness practices like yoga in the country’s schools and even businesses. Yoga is a mind-body practice that combines physical poses, controlled breathing, and meditation or relaxation. Yoga brings together physical and mental disciplines that may help a person achieve peacefulness of body and mind. This can help relax and manage stress and anxiety. “ I have thoroughly enjoyed being in this field thus far, and look forward to sharing my knowledge with
kids and families about the importance of yoga and the benefits it provides to physical and mental health. I’m presently awaiting my completion of my extended studies certification for yoga for kids with special needs and disabilities, as these kids and adults have limited activities and resources to aid in their physical and mental development,” said Nicarah. She wholeheartedly enjoys sharing her love and passion for yoga with others, especially children. Nicarah said this profession allows her the freedom to practice and share yoga with others in a non-restricted environment. Getting to meet people and share in their experiences. “Yoga can be done anywhere, it is a lifestyle. The upcoming workshop is aimed to assist kids already participating in an extracurricular activity (building flexibility and endurance), or those that do not want to be
apart of a competitive sport but still need some physical activity. I want to show the benefits of yoga and the influence on their performances in the class and on the field,” said Nicarah. The workshop that kicked off this past Tuesday will run for seven weeks for kids ages 5-8 on Tuesdays, ages:
9-12 on Wednesdays and ages: 13-16 on Thursdays. “The kids love when they come to the classes. They enjoy the comfortable atmosphere, the smells and music. Both kids and parents know they will learn new things, it’s never the same routine class. They get to show their strengths and flexibility and it gets them excited to learn while having fun with their peers. I encourage people to stop doubting themselves, my clients are often amazed at the things they can do physically. So, I take photos to highlight and keep the clients encouraged,” said Nicarah. For more information, readers are asked call or whatsapp 242-445-3818 or email info@ahmassagebahamas. com.
16 | The Tribune | Weekend
Friday, October 19, 2018
music
ARTIST SPOTLIGHT Leonisha “ Leo ” Johnson If you’re going to woo me, know the words By JEFFARAH GIBSON Tribune Features Writer jgibson@tribunemedia.net
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MERGING Bahamian artist Leonisha “Leo” Johnson knew that when her newest single dropped it would resonate with many women who find themselves in a similar situation - single and not enthused about mingling. “Leo” who is now introducing herself with the premiere of “Das Why I Single”. It’s a goombay and junkanoo feel good song produced by Bahamian artist Sammi Star, written by the artist and Lakishna Johnson. The new single expresses relative issues single women face on a regular basis when being approached by men
who, the artist said, have no clue how to woo a woman with words. “I wanted my first single to tell a story, be relatable and banger all in one,” said Leo. The song was conceived when Leo was at home, relaxing and in her zone. “The hook of the song fell in my spirit and I just began to sing it and as I kept singing, it inspired me to write the rest of the song. “I love the lyrics the most because I can relate to it and a lot of other women can too,” she said. While the song highlights some of the issues she experienced as a single woman dating, it is still a song that
will have listners “moving no matter where you are. I believe the song is a female anthem”. A video for the single is also in the works. “I am so excited and I can’t wait for everyone to see,” she said. Leoneisha is a musician and entertainer who is passionate about the arts. Her musical influences are leading female Bahamian artists such as; Emily Williams (formally known as “Sweet Emily”), Lady E and Wendi. She is a former member of the National Youth Choir and currently a soprano in The University of The Bahamas Concert Choir. She is also a graduate of The University of The Bahamas with an Associate’s of Arts
degree in Music. Now she is currently a music teacher at First Step Academy where she is loved by the students. “Since I was a child, I always knew that my purpose in life involved music. In five years, I see myself maximizing my ambitions to be an entrepreneur, entertainer, cultural ambassador and youth mentor.” The new single will be available on all music digital platforms October 19, 2018.
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Friday, October 19, 2018
history
Fantasy women warriors have always been there
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hen the film Wonder Woman was released this summer, it joined the blockbuster ranks of other recent comic book-inspired film franchises, including Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and X-Men. But that’s not just because it features a sword-wielding Gal Gadot in knee-high boots and a metal bodice. Wonder Woman has long been a bestselling creation, originally imagined in 1941 by the psychologist William Moulton Marston, and the film followed some of the main plot lines developed in the comic books. Though Wonder Woman was portrayed as a feminist icon in the 1940s, she is also a highly sexual character. The original Wonder Woman was a feminist icon. We can only wonder – no pun intended! – about the reasons for this imagined link between war and female sexuality. As a sexy but fierce lady warrior, Wonder Woman is hardly alone. Throughout history, cultures across the globe have envisioned and revered the femme fatale, from feline killers to sensual goddesses to sassy spelunkers. The Sumerian “wonder woman” In 3000 BC, in the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk in Mesopotamia, the first kings of human history ruled over the south of modern-day Iraq, protected by Ishtar, a great goddess of war and love often associated with lions. Ishtar would reveal the kings’ enemies and accompany them to the battlefield. It was said that she fought like an unleashed lioness protecting her young – in this case, the Sumerian people. Like Wonder Woman, Ishtar’s sacred duty was to defend the world. She could also be sensual. More than merely worship the goddess, the Kings of Uruk claimed to be Ishtar’s lovers, who, according to royal hymns of the era, would enter her bed and “plow the divine vulva”. For the king, receiving sexual and military favours from a goddess served his political agenda, legitimised his reign and made him into an exceptional hero for his people. In the
Wonder Woman film, this role is filled by the American pilot. References to divine lovemaking are also found among ancient Palestinians, Babylonians, though scholars can’t confirm what was really going on in those temples. What’s more sexy than a powerful woman? Taming her, of course. In ancient Egypt, the most fearsome goddess was named Sekhmet. Like Ishtar, she had two sides – fierce beast and loving companion. Sekhmet was often portrayed as a terrible lioness, the butcher of the Pharaoh’s enemies. At times, though, she would transform into an adorable cat named Bastet. Today, the feline is still symbolic of female sexuality. Catwoman, another comic book heroine, was born a few months before Wonder Woman (not that a lady reveals her age) and is the most contemporary avatar of a feline woman. With her curves and her bondage fetish, Catwoman has always been hypersexual, though some critics regret that her sexuality – not her intelligence – has become her greatest asset these days. Warrior women with sexual natures are also found among the ancient Greeks. Their myth of the Amazons tells of a Mediteranean kingdom in which it was women who fought and governed, while the men were relegated to domestic duties. Marston’s Wonder Woman comic invokes the Amazons’ city, Themiscyra, and the name of their queen, Hippolyta. He embellished his ancient Amazonian setting with details from the legend of the women of Lemnos, in the Aegean Sea, adopting the isolated island idea as Wonder Woman’s home. According to the Greek story, the women of Lemnos had revolted and massacred all the men on the island, young and old. Living in a forced sexual abstinence, the ladies were delighted when sailors unexpectedly landed on a local beach. They immediately set upon the Argonauts, a team
Lee Meriwether as Catwoman in the 1960s. EBAY/WIKIMEDIA
Wonder Woman embodies the male fantasy of warrior women.
Bastet as a lion. MBZT/WIKIMEDIA, CC BY-ND
VARIETY.COM
of beautiful and famous mythological heroes that included Hercules and Theseus, compelling them into long orgiastic intercourse. The sex-starved but unattached women theme is another favourite male fantasy, offering imaginary satisfaction of sexual scenarios that may be difficult to realise in real life. By the late 20th century, Lara Croft came along to update the idea of the Amazons and the ladies of Lemnos. Croft, an English archeologist-adventurer who started life as a character in the 1990s video game Tomb Raider, was the ultimate virtual-reality dream girl: she is an expert in martial arts, great with a gun and super smart. Plus, she always leaves the guys wanting more. Reincarnated on the big screen in 2001 by actress Angelina Jolie, Croft often gave the cold shoulder to her male counterparts. Later sequels featuring Alicia Vikander continued to pitch Croft as a sex symbol while bolstering her feminist credentials. This summer’s Wonder Woman film made a careful choice of actress,
looking beyond just a pretty face and a remarkable body. Gal Gadot has both of those, but she’s a lot like the heroine in other ways, too. Voted Miss Israel in 2004, Gadot was also a sports coach in the Israeli army. In a August 2015 interview with Fashion magazine the actress, who was then 30, affirmed that her military experience prepared her well for a Hollywood career. On screen and off, the ancient link between femininity, sexual attraction and the military, seems to still be going strong today. Everything from Wonder Woman and the Instagram account of Israeli soldier-cum-amateur model Maria Domark to the rise of a new sub-genre of lady warriors in Asian cinema and, of course, American weapons catalogues, confirms the old masculine fantasy associating pretty faces with guns. https://theconversation.com Christian-Georges Schwentzel Professor of Ancient History Université de Lorraine
18 | The Tribune | Weekend
Friday, October 19, 2018
film PHOTOS/MARY CYBULSKI/FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES VIA AP
review
Absolutely nothing to forgive in this little gem
Melissa McCarthy, left, and Richard E. Grant in a scene from “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME RUNNING TIME: 107 MINS
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he early 1990s New York of Marielle Heller’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” isn’t so long ago but it already feels staggeringly distant. It’s a New York of publishing industry cocktail parties, of book stores, lots of them, and of scheming, foul-mouthed eccentrics. Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy) and her partner-in-crime Jack Hock (Richard E. Grant) are two such dyedin-Zabar’s characters. Life has been kind to neither of them. Israel’s latest book, a biography of Estee Lauder, lies stacked on the 75 percent-off table. When she runs into her old friend at a bar (it’s still daylight outside but both are well on their way), Lee asks Jack, a former actor, what he’s been doing with his life. “This and that,” Jack says brightly. And then with a chagrined grimace: “Mostly that.” Israel has penned well-received biographies on Tallulah Bankhead and Dorothy Kilgallen, but interest in her books has dried up and now her agent (Jane Curtin, brilliant) won’t return her calls. A 51-year-old gay woman who lives with her cat in a small apartment on the Upper West Side, Israel is struck by writer’s block or, possibly, is just drinking too much. Her sad predicament infuriates her, and caustic wit fires out of her indiscriminately. Nothing arouses her fury like Tom Clancy; she bitterly curses his millions while being behind her rent.
Melissa McCarthy, left, and Jane Curtin in a scene from “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” With nowhere left to turn, Israel begins forging celebrity letters from the likes of Franny Brice, Noel Coward, Dorothy Parker and Louise Brooks. Sometimes adding to real letters, sometimes faking the stationery altogether, she’s able to convincingly mimic their voices. They fetch her a decent paycheck from book stores and collectors. She’s good at it, too. “I’m a better Dorothy Parker than Dorothy Parker,” says Israel with genuine pride. The story is a real one, first recounted in Israel’s gleefully unrepentant 2008 memoir of the same title. Heller’s film, adapted by Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty, has brought to the screen all the strange ironies of Israel’s famous fraud. (Her forgeries eventually attracted the attention of the FBI and she was sentenced to six months house arrest. Israel died in 2014 at 75.) “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” has justly won praise as one of McCarthy’s
This image released by Fox Searchlight Pictures shows Dolly Wells, left, and Melissa McCarthy.
best and most dramatic performances. As Israel, she’s a gloriously embittered, hard-drinking curmudgeon incapable of holding her tongue — a distinctly New York creature if ever there was one. And her fear of slipping away is painfully real. That McCarthy is utterly at home in a more dramatic part comes as little surprise. She was the best thing in 2014’s misjudged “St. Vincent” and even her broadest of comedic performances tremble with tenderness and soul. She’s simply one of the best actors working today, and it didn’t take a drama to see that. “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” sings best — or rather, grumbles spectacularly — when McCarthy and Grant are together. They are kindred misfits and malcontents happy for each other’s company. It’s been more than three decades since “Withnail and I,” and Grant remains the best drinking buddy in movies. As the
even-more-down-on-his-luck Hock, Grant is a paragon of debauched decadence, tragic and magnificent at once. His regal bearing crackles with a sly wickedness. “Do not underestimate sparking blues eyes and a little bit of street smarts,” he tells Israel in mid-hustle. That Heller, whose debut was the coming-of-age drama “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” has affection for these two is obvious. And just as in her San Francisco 1976-set debut, she leaves the moralizing to the viewer. That film brilliantly captured and let soar the voice of 15-year-old aspiring cartoonist. “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is about a more frustrated female artist who finds self-expression illegally but genuinely. “I still consider the letters,” Israel wrote in her memoir, “to be my best work.” Jack Coyle Associated Press
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Friday, October 19, 2018
film
review
‘Halloween’ reawakens to slash us again HALLOWEEN RUNNING TIME: 105 MINS
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ith hollow eyes and sagging cheeks, the flabby white mask of Michael Myers is horror’s great blank slate. Project your fears here, it says. Myers doesn’t speak. His movements never rise beyond a deliberate gait (well, aside from all the stabbing and strangling). Even his name is purposefully bland. Decades after John Carpenter’s slasher landmark, David Gordon Green has resurrected the faceless Boogeyman of “Halloween” and set him loose on another Halloween night, 40 years later. Time has done little for Michael’s personality. He is still a poor conversationalist. (He hasn’t uttered a word in the intervening decades, says a doctor at the sanatorium that holds him.) He is still handy with a knife. There are no roman numerals in the title of Green’s film, nor any of those dopey subtitles like 1998’s “Halloween H20,” which presumably delved into the very real fears of dehydration. As if to draw closer to the original (and to ignore the nine sequels and reboots in between), this “Halloween” has simply taken Carpenter’s 1978 title. And with gliding cameras, Carpenter’s score and original cast members Jamie Lee Curtis and Nick Castle (the man under the mask), it has tried very hard to take much more, too. But while Green’s “Halloween,” which he penned with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, has faithfully adopted much of what so resonated in Carpenter’s genre-creating film — the stoic killer, the gruesome executions, the suburban nightmares — what makes
Jamie Lee Curtis in a scene from “Halloween,” in theaters nationwide on Oct. 19. PHOTO/RYAN GREEN/UNIVERSAL PICTURES VIA AP
his “Halloween” such a thrill is how it deviates from its long-ago predecessor. Setting the template for countless slashers to follow, Carpenter’s film often reserved its most painful endings for more promiscuous girls or drugusing teens. As a grim reaper carrying out a metaphorical reckoning, Michael had questionable biases. But what Carpenter did do was equate sex with violence, a connection that Green has elaborated on with a more feminist streak. Having survived the “Babysitter Murders” of 40 years ago, Laurie Strode (a fabulously fierce Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising the role that was her film debut) is now a self-described “twice-divorced basket case” living in a run-down house on the outskirts of the fictional Haddonfield, Illinois. She has turned her home into a training ground and domestic fortification (beneath the kitchen island is a well-armed shelter) for the second coming of Michael she’s always been sure will happen. Her daughter (Judy Greer) and her son-in-law (Toby Huss) have grown tired of Strode’s fanatical survivalist paranoia. Certain that the world isn’t so bad a place as Strode insists,
they plead for her to get over it. Their high-school daughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak) isn’t so sure, and she naturally gravitates to the grandmother she’s been shielded from. The curiosity of “Serial”-like podcast journalists (Jefferson Hall, Rhian Rees) introduces us to both the locked-up Myers and the withdrawn Strode. Before curtly dismissing them, Strode insists their investigation into Myers is pointless. “There’s nothing to learn,” says Strode, surely no fan of, say, neo-Nazi newspaper features. Hunt evil, she believes, don’t analyze it. It’s a message peppered throughout “Halloween” with clear reference to today (and to some of the earlier “Halloween” instalments that sought to understand Michael). Needless to say, both those who dismiss Strode’s deep-seated trauma and those who would rather study evil than confront it are gonna get their comeuppance. When Michael is transferred to another facility, hell predictably breaks loose. Once Michael is again stalking the suburban streets of Haddonfield, custom kitchens start seeing their cutlery disappear, and the shadows and closets of seemingly safe
neighbourhoods are again rife with danger. Evil — soulless and unkillable — lurks everywhere, even if does wear a silly mask. Green, the sometimes brilliant, sometimes confounding filmmaker of art-house indies (”George Washington”), broader comedies (”Pineapple Express”) and, more recently, a few starry studio projects (”Our Brand Is Crisis”), can’t recreate the eeriness of Carpenter’s original. But he pumps more blood into the story, both literally and figuratively. Foggy nights and gas-station bathrooms turn predictably gory, more so than the original. But the scenes that fall between those foreboding, twinkling piano notes have far more warmth and spirit than you’d expect. You almost wish Green — easily the most talented filmmaker in the franchise since Carpenter — was instead making something original here on the same streets, with the same cast (including the scene-stealing Miles Robbins) and none of the skull crushing. But there are rituals to observe, and this “Halloween” lives up to its name. JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer
20 | The Tribune | Weekend
Friday, October 19, 2018
“Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson & the Making of Middle-earth” (HarperCollins), by Ian Nathan Reaching the final sentence in film writer Ian Nathan’s 576-page exploration of movie director Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy requires the stoicism of Frodo and the vigour of Gandalf. So much detail lies along the way that even the eye of Sauron would need a shot of Visine to keep going. That shouldn’t put off fans of the films that, collectively, gained 30 Oscar nominations
and 17 of the golden statuettes, including a Best Picture award for the finale, 2003’s “The Return of the King.” Oh, and they left behind a worldwide box office stuffed with a couple billion dollars, too. Jackson’s movies are a marvel of cinematic storytelling, likely to remain so because he came to understand that the special effects should be deployed not just to thrill but also to give emotional life to novelist J.R.R. Tolkien’s world. (It’s an epiphany that Jackson apparently forgot with the bloated “King Kong” and his overstretched LOTR follow-up, “The Hobbit.”) In breezy and often cheeky prose, Nathan tells a grand story worthy of the annals of great filmmaking: A little-known New Zealand director wins over Hollywood moneymen to translate Tolkien to film, once thought to be an impossible task given the complexity of Tolkien’s vision of
Viertnam - the conflict Americans would like to, but never will, forget “Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 19451975” (Harper), by Max Hastings British journalist Max Hastings, noted for his critically acclaimed books about World War II, has fast-forwarded his research and writing talent to a war many Americans would like to forget. His 900-page work chronicles Vietnam’s tragic history from Ho Chi Minh’s proclamation of an independent state after the 1945 Japanese surrender to the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime 30 years later after the United States cut off ground and air support. Despite ample accounts of heroism and sacrifice on all sides, it’s a story in which each of the principal players — France, the United States, Saigon, Hanoi and the Viet Cong — comes away with welldeserved opprobrium. Unsurprisingly, Hastings concludes that Vietnam was a catastrophe, one that took the lives of as many as two million to three million combatants and civilians. The war claimed 58,000 American lives,
a place called Middle-earth and the hobbits, wizards, dwarves, elves and others who inhabit it. Tolkien himself shrugged off the idea of a movie version in the late 1950s. A decade later, in 1967, his books enormously popular on college campuses, the aged Oxford professor accepted 104,000 British pounds for the film rights in (gasp!) perpetuity. In hindsight, it’s enough to make an orc cry. For decades, however, Tolkien’s folly appeared to be a good deal as one effort after another failed and the rights became a cinematic albatross. The most fanciful idea may have come from the Beatles, who asked “2001” director Stanley Kubrick to join them in presenting a music-infused version with Paul as Frodo, George as Gandalf, John as Gollum and Ringo as Sam (so reports Jackson after a chat with McCartney). The hero of the quest to film “The Lord of the Rings” is
but the number of Vietnamese dead was 40 times greater. This definitive narrative describes how the French debacle at Dien Bien Phu gave rise to the domino theory and the need to halt the spread of communist domination in Southeast Asia. There were more than 500,000 U.S. service personnel in Vietnam by the time of the 1968 Tet offensive, a stunning military defeat for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong that was transformed into a propaganda victory. After Tet, the war was never the same. CBS anchor Walter Cronkite declared the nation was mired in stalemate, President Lyndon B. Johnson said he would not seek re-election, and the U.S. abandoned any hope of victory and sought instead to extricate itself while avoiding explicit defeat. The fighting would continue for another seven years, a period marked by the My Lai massacre, the invasion of Cambodia and the 1972 Christmas bombing, which Hastings says was designed for partisan political purposes and had no military justification. The narrative includes detailed accounts of all the major battles, with riveting descriptions of what life was like for combatants on both sides. The reader relives the experiences of GIs plodding through booby-trapped jungle, North
PHOTO/HARPER VIA AP
The quest to bring Tolkien to the big screen
Jackson, but he doesn’t set out alone. From co-screenwriters and producers to special-effects masters and illustrators, those in the fellowship he assembled matched his enthusiasm for the years it took to complete the trilogy. Nathan wisely explores and celebrates their unique contributions, not just those of actors Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen and other more easily identifiable participants. A chapter on movie music master Howard Shore is particularly welcome for explaining the usually overlooked composition of film scores. Nathan also takes a Helm’s Deep dive into the films’ best creations, their characters as well as their sequences. The wretched creature Gollum became perhaps the first truly realistic CGI character in the movies, thanks to actor Andy Serkis’ voice and motion-capture performance and the army of artists that created nearly 700
Vietnamese dodging B52 strikes while heading south on the Ho Chi Minh trail and helicopter pilots braving fire from hot landing zones while inserting troops or extricating the wounded. Many of the campaigns covered in the book are familiar to those who served in Vietnam or followed the war in the media, but a rarely mentioned 1968 battle at Dai Do in which a Marine battalion suffered devastating losses gets special scrutiny. During three days of bloody combat, Marines displayed both courage and cowardice in a series of senseless assaults against a wellentrenched enemy. The author says the American commanders who “displayed folly of Crimean proportions” shoulder much of the blame. Drug abuse, racial strife and the erosion of discipline and the will to fight took their toll on U.S. troops. By contrast, Hastings points to the stronger performance of the small contingents of Australians who were disciplined in their
HARPERCOLLINS VIA AP
books
sculpted expressions and some 9,000 muscle shapes to bring Gollum to life. In this age of the director’s extended cut, a flagging reader could be excused for wishing for a downsized edition of “Anything You Can Imagine.” Yet there is much to learn, to chuckle over and to admire as Jackson and his band of indefatigable Kiwis face down the naysayers. DOUGLASS K. DANIEL Associated Press
use of firepower and exercised better fieldcraft. Neither side comes away with clean hands, but Hastings writes that news media were quick to record atrocities by U.S. troops and the brutality on the communist side went largely unreported, fuelling antiwar propaganda that portrayed the North as the virtuous party. Hastings’ narrative, along with Ken Burns’ masterful series on PBS, offers a well-balanced account of a war that ended more than four decades ago. The author weaves anecdotal and first-person accounts from both sides into the overall history to produce a compelling account that veterans of the war, those who felt its impact at home and readers born decades after the fighting ended will find hard to put down. Today, with the rise of the internet and globalization, the outcome of the lengthy struggle may seem less cut and dried than it first appeared. Although Vietnam still endures harsh rural poverty and authoritarian rule, America’s economic and cultural influences are leaving their mark on its former enemy. “Whereas the US armed forced failed with B-52s, defoliants and Spooky gunships, YouTube and Johnny Depp have proved irresistible,” Hastings writes. JERRY HARKAVY Associated Press
The Tribune | Weekend | 21
Friday, October 19, 2018
gardening
Root
crops
While some root vegetables, like carrots, can be difficult to grow, they can be very rewarding, says Jack Hardy
R
oot crops in general are those that grow underground – or partly underground – and have a swollen part in the form of a root, a bulb, a tuber or a rhizome. Classic root crops include carrots, turnips, beets, radishes, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and malanga. The biggest problem with carrots is sowing the seeds. It is very worthwhile to take the time and patience to sow the seeds individually in blocks or grids. This way you will be rewarded by being able to pull your carrots when they are big enough without disturbing their neighbours. I like to press a milk crate into the ground and the impression in the soil gives a clear grid for spacing the carrot seeds about two inches apart. I pour some seeds into my left hand and remove the seeds one at a time with the end of a small paring knife. Yes, tedious – but the rewards are satisfying. I hate trying to harvest carrots that have been sprinkled erratically and then thinned out. Do the
planting right and your carrot patch will be a joy. In the supermarket you will come across Imperator carrots that are perhaps 18 inches long and a couple of inches in diameter. Good luck trying to grow them in our shallow Bahamian soil. The tastiest carrots are Nantes and Chantenay of medium length. Danvers carrots are broad shouldered and are best for sowing in clay soils. Sow your seeds ¼ inch deep in loamy soil that does not contain any fresh compost that will encourage side roots from the main shaft. Mature compost is fine. Light dressings of 6-6-6 fertilizer are all carrots really need but watering should be frequent. Parsnips look like white Danvers but prefer cooler conditions than we experience in the Bahamas to have any flavour. Turnips are a major crop in Europe but are rarely grown locally. More palatable for most people are rutabagas, sometimes called Swedes. These grow readily and reach a size larger than a softball. They can be peeled and mashed just like potatoes and have a light turnip taste that is not dominant. Radishes are famous for being the easiest and fastest to grow of all vegetables. The problem is that most people do not like the peppery taste. It should be noted that when radishes are cooked, instead of being eaten raw, they lose their pepperiness altogether and taste much like turnips. Beets are very popular in the Bahamas and I know some people who use them – fresh or canned – with virtually every meal. Beets serve a double harvest with delicious leaves as well as bulbous roots. Young leaves can be used in salads and older ones chopped and simmered in bacon fat. Beet seeds are contained within knobbly capsules which make them easy to sow a few inches apart. The plants need little in the way of fertilizer but do appreciate a side dressing of 6-6-6. Pull your beets when a little short of full maturity to avoid corkiness. Cut away the foliage leaving a
half inch of stems and do not trim the lower root. Boil or bake the beets; baking gives a richer flavour. Beets are naturally sweet and Napoleon ordered his agronomists to produce white beets when the British cut off France’s supply of cane sugar from the Caribbean. Sugar from beets is nowhere near as sweet as that from canes but it is still a major crop in Europe. If your bag of sugar does not say 100% cane sugar it means it has beet sugar added. The natural sweetness of beets is enhanced by lime juice or vinegar to produce a lovely sweet and sour taste. Irish potatoes are best grown in winter. It is hard to obtain registered seed potatoes so the backyard gardener has to choose suitable specimens from the produce section of a supermarket that have a few ‘eyes’. Cut the potatoes into wedges that have one or two eyes. If there are more than two you can get rid of the excess with your thumb nail. Dip the wedges into a weak solution of bleach (a tablespoon of bleach to a cup of water) and allow them to dry for three or four days. The wedges should be planted – eyes up- in
holes about five inches deep. Roots will form at the bottom of the wedges and the eyes will turn into stems. Keep adding soil to the individual holes as the stems grow and when they are well above ground mound soil around their base. Potatoes will be produced between the seed potato and the surface of the soil. When the foliage of the potato plants wilts and dies the harvest should ready. Digging up potatoes is one of the most exciting of gardening experiences. Kids love to help. It makes sense to grow expensive rather than cheap potatoes. Fingerling potatoes, for instance, are pricy by the pound but easy to raise. Sweet potatoes are grown from slips, shoots from the sharp end of an overmature potato. When these are about 12 inches long and slightly woody they can be cut and planted at a steep angle in the ground several feet apart. Sweet potatoes develop their tubers when under a degree of stress so keep the nitrogen content of your fertilizer low. Sweet potatoes love sandy soil and will quickly colonise an area as ground cover. • For queries and comments e-mail jacktribune242@ gmail.com
22 | The Tribune | Weekend
Friday, October 19, 2018
literary lives – charlotte hays
‘The Fortune Hunters’ Part II Sir Christopher Ondaatje writes about two dazzling examples of fortune hunters who overcame significant hurdles to achieve both wealth and acclaim in 1980s New York.
W
hen Charlotte Hays began her useful and informative book “The Fortune Hunters” she didn’t expect to discover much in the way of love. She had assumed that the women who famously married big money had gone about it coldly, methodically, and with calculation, just as you would any high-stakes business deal. However, as you will find out, this is not a book
Finding love in the end Susan Gutfreund
Gayfryd Steinberg about love stories. Sometimes, just sometimes, it is just as easy to love a rich man. There are 12 chapters in “The Fortune Hunters” – a vital and informative book for any ambitious fortune hunter. There is every possible piece of advice in the book’s 215 pages, including case histories of the most successful hunters. Beauty has always been women’s passport to wealth and power. A woman’s beauty can change the course
of history. Madame de Pompadour was once Mademoiselle Poisson – Miss Fish. She became Louis XV’s declared mistress – a quasi-official role. When Miss Fish demanded that Louis ennoble her, she became Madame de Pompadour. Numerous aristocratic families were established on a woman’s beauty. England’s Dukes of St Albans are descended from Nell Gwynne – an actress and orange seller in London’s Convent Garden who became Charles II’s favourite mistress. When Nell
called her son a bastard, Charles legitimised him and made him a duke. Carroll McDaniel Portago CareyHughes Pistell Petrie is the first case history – a woman who, like Madame de Pompadour, used her radiant good looks to become a marquise. She had a life full of adventure and, despite several false starts and a tragedy that filled the gossip sheets, ended up enormously rich. Her first husband, the Marquis de Portago, was killed in Italy’s treacherous thousand-mile auto
The Tribune | Weekend | 23
Friday, October 19, 2018
race, the Mille Miglia, moments after kissing the actress Linda Christian, with whom he was having an affair. She went on to marry three more times – finally bagging Milton Petrie – a ready-to-wear magnate thrice divorced with three grown children – and in his 70s. Petrie died in 1994, at the age of 92, leaving Carroll $5 million in cash, a trust fund of $150 million, a plane, cars, and houses, including one at 834 Fifth Avenue, and a large spread in Southampton. “A successful fortune hunter has to endure a lot of matrimonial karma before attaining the special nirvana that only a filthy rich husband can provide. Public humiliation that would permanently sideline most women are a mere bump in the road for her. She must be shameless, confident, and endowed with an indestructible belief that she is supposed to be rich. She does not fold when a marriage folds. She is able to cut her losses and move on.” Charlotte Hays gives two examples of dazzling and successful fortune hunters in the 1980s New York who surmounted formidable obstacles to get where they were, and whose opulent parties raised eyebrows among staid elements of society. First was the ebullient Susan Gutfreund, and the second was Gayfryd Steinberg. Susan Kaposta (as she was then known) worked for Pan Am, where she met John Ruby Penn who had inherited a fortune in Texel Oil money. She was the fifth of Penn’s nine wives and was secretive about her past. One of six children, she was the only daughter of a career Air Force Officer of Hungarian descent stationed in Chicago, Shreveport, Los Angeles and abroad. The Penns divided their time between Ford Lauderdale and Fort Worth. Desperate for a place in society, Susan was a quick learner and learned the fine art of having a party; she travelled abroad and honed her skills as a hostess. When the inevitable 1976 divorce came (eight of Penn’s marriages ended in divorce – and died of cancer in 1996 married to the ninth Mrs Penn), her settlement from Penn was $350,000, a nice chunk of change but hardly enough to last forever. She stayed in Fort Worth attending all the parties but her marital prospects had been tarnished there so she headed for New York’s Upper East Side. In 1980, she asked Sandy Lowenstein, the wife of a prominent investment banker, to introduce her to
Nell Gwynne (1650 - 1687), an acclaimed actress, became the mistress of King Charles II of England.
Carroll McDaniel Portago CareyHughes Pistell Petrie used her good looks to become a marquise. the owlish John Gutfreund, the “King” of Salomon Brothers, who was recently divorced. Following a hugely successful intimate dinner for four – herself, the Lowensteins and Gutfreund, she moved into Gutfreund’s Park Avenue apartment and happily began spending his money, indulging in her passion for interior decoration. She married Gutfreund in 1981 and the next year
Susan Gutfreund with her second husband, businessman John Gutfreund the couple moved into a duplex apartment at River House, one of New York’s best addresses, before moving to 834 Fifth Avenue. This proved that the quintessential fortune hunter can be anything she wants to be. Susan Gutfreund had reinvented herself as a Francophile with an aristocratic past. She didn’t sit around and moan about her divorce. Susan Gutfreund made her own luck.
With her second husband in jail and her house on the block, Gayfryd Steinberg met her third husband Saul Sternberg at a party in New York Gayfryd NcNabb was the other woman Charlotte Hayes discusses who captured the opulence of Novelle Society in the 1980s. She arrived in New Orleans with her husband, a metallurgy engineer. She was so beautiful that heads turned. She was up for bids and worked as the maitre d’ at Moran’s continues on page 24
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Friday, October 19, 2018
continued from page 23 Riverside Restaurant. Norman Johnson, a rough-and-tumble millionaire in the oilfield pipe supply business, was a regular at Moran’s. Despite his vast wealth, Johnson, a slight man with large jug ears, was socially ill at ease. Gayfryd grew up in modest circumstances in the mid-size Nanaimo in British Columbia. She married John McLean, a metallurgy engineer whom she’d met at university. He was 22, she was 19. They went to South Africa for his job, but she persuaded him to return to the United States, and they ended up in New Orleans. Norman Johnson fell for Gayfryd the first time he saw her in Moran’s and it is rumoured that he give Moran a Rolls Royce in exchange for an introduction to Gayfryd. Johnson wanted to marry Gayfryd. He was divorced from July Holmes – his second wife – in 1975. In March 1976, Gayfryd went to the Dominican Republic for a quickie divorce. She married Johnson the next month – not legal in Louisiana. They were married again after a legal divorce in October 1977. Their son, Rayne Johnson, was born in December. The Johnsons bought one of the biggest houses in New Orleans, in St Charles Avenue, and embarked on a two and a half year decorating project. Snubbed by the snobbish Junior League of New Orleans, Gayfryd instead got her husband to join the board of trustees of the New Orleans Museum of Art. They gave generously to charities and started collecting art themselves. Gayfryd transformed herself from the head-turning maître d’ of Moran’s Restaurant into a splashy St Charles Avenue hostess. Johnson also bought her a lot of jewellery. Trying hard to bring an element of stability into their chaotic lives, Gayfryd impressed everybody by her dedication to being a good stepmother to Norman Johnson’s three children. She then, perhaps unwisely, waged an epic legal battle for custody of the children from Judy Johnson – his ex wife, an alcoholic. Judy ultimately lost by marrying a man with a criminal record, but a bitter Judy tipped off the IRS about irregularities in Johnson’s business affairs and the IRS launched an investigation into Johnson’s dealings, revealing a massive tax liability. It was the beginning of the end and Johnson lost his grip on reality and wanted to simply vanish, which he did for a while
Author Charlotte Hays in London. He contemplated suicide. Gayfryd begged him to serve his time in prison and let her run the business. Johnson returned to New Orleans and pleaded guilty in October 1982 of conspiracy to defraud the US Treasury. He was sent to prison camp at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida. With her husband in jail and her house on the block Gayfryd moved into a small apartment not far from the site of her former glories. Federal agents took everything – even the chandeliers off the ceilings. Gayfryd struggled to keep personal assets. “As soon as she realised that Norman Johnson’s portfolio had taken a plunge, she got the hell out of the marriage,” echoed a newspaperman. Gayfryd met Saul Steinberg at a party in New York when her troubles in New York had reached a desperate point. This was in November 1982 – only a month after Johnson pleaded guilty – at a dinner party given by Richard Feigen, the New York art dealer. Steinberg was intrigued when Gayfryd said she ran a steel-pipes business in New Orleans. Saul Steinberg was the perfect solution to all her problems. She gave him an ultimatum and Steinberg proposed. After a tortuous trial – Gayfryd and Norman’s divorce actually ended in both state and federal court on December 22, 1983, Gayfryd married Saul the next day. She converted to Judaism to please her new family. However, Norman Johnson filed suit
in March 1983 claiming that Gayfryd was still married to him. Johnson’s suit went nowhere. Gayfryd quickly rebuilt her life as a society hostess. Released from prison, Johnson checked into the Lincoln Park Hotel in Houston in July 1985, demanding a room on the top floor, and jumped to his death. “Why are some women able to triumph over defeat? Why do some stare down disasters of truly cataclysmic proportions to emerge victorious – with a new husband, a second collection of fabulous diamonds, and a string of even bigger houses – while others are defeated by smaller disasters? “One of the things is the ability to have the energy not to be fixated on the past”,
said Dr Carol Goldberg, a psychologist. “Such a woman must be a calculating optimist. You aren’t mired in regret, because the opinions of others don’t control you.” As the 1980s drew to a close, Novelle Society went into retreat. Some of its most visible members were felled by scandal. Saul Steinberg’s fall was as dramatic as his rise. Reliance Insurance and junk bonds had made him rich. A federal investigation, however, revealed Reliance to be badly managed and heavily in debt. In 2001, Reliance filed for bankruptcy. The couple were forced to leave their Park Avenue apartment. John Gutfreund’s problems stemmed from illegal bids by others, not himself, at Salomon Brothers. He did not participate, but when informed of the illegal activity he failed to notify the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was forced to resign. His departure from Wall Street marked one of the quickest falls for a Wall Street executive. People who vied for invitations were no longer such dear friends. Though neither Susan Gutfreund nor Gayfryd Steinberg was impoverished, both had fallen from great heights, but in a way it was their finest hour. After keeping a low profile for a while, Susan reinvented herself: she became a professional interior decorator. Her husband loved to brag that she made more money than he did. The Steinbergs moved to a five-storey brownstone on East 73rd Street – a property listed in her name. After Saul had a stroke in 1995, Gayfryd did not cut and run. She was a faithful nurse to an ailing man. “There has to be a point when love takes over,” said a woman who knew both Susan Gutfreund and Gayfryd Steinberg well. “Their husbands were ousted and had lost power. They could have walked out but they didn’t.” They have their enemies. But, who hasn’t? Their lives are an answer to them. NEXT WEEK: Two great courtesans in North America who achieved wealth, fame and fortune in the latter part of the 20th century. • Sir Christopher Ondaatje is the author of “The Last Colonial”. He acknowledges that he has quoted liberally from “The Fortune Hunters” by Charlotte Hays.
The Tribune | Weekend | 25
Friday, October 19, 2018
food
Keshlah’s
concept cafe
By CARA HUNT Tribune Features Writer cbrennen@tribunemedia.net
T
he Work Space Cafe by Healthy Concepts is a small eatery tucked away in the corner of the Incudesk a community work space on Chesapeake Road that serves up big healthy menu to meet many tastes. “I want the cafe to be a place where the whole community can gather and enjoy a meal,” chef Keshlah Smith Clarke told Tribune Weekend of the cafe she created almost two months ago. “There aren’t formal table and chairs, instead there are spaces that encourage people to hang out lounging while they enjoy a meal and learn about their fellow diners. I wanted it to be a place for fellowship and relaxation.” The Incudesk facility was the perfect location to fulfil her vision. It is a shared co-working space that provides an environment for entrepreneurs and small to medium sized business. The shared concept allows users to offset the cost of their business operations. “I made the move from my Smooth Move Cafe out west because I wanted to be in a central location and I also wanted to be in a large space and we know that the cost of doing business here can be very expensive,” said Keshlah. The move allows here to pass cost savings on to her patrons so they can enjoy her farm-to-table menu at a reduced cost. “Our focus is farm and garden to table and 90 per cent of what we serve is sourced locally,” she said “What we can’t get locally then we bring it in fresh, but the cafe will always be a place to get healthy and affordable food. The cafe is opened from 7 am to 5.30 pm and is opened Mondays through Saturday (closing at one on Saturdays.)
Chef Keshlah Smith Clarke at Incudesk Some of the cafe’s offerings include sandwiches, salads, salmon and grouper (when in season) and shrimp and smoothies made with native seasonal fruits and vegetables. “Everything is made from scratch, we do whole wheat bread and smelt bread and we make our own salad dressing. We can cater to vegans and vegetarians,” she said.
PHOTO: TERREL W. CAREY SR/TRIBUNE STAFF
And while the cafe is closed on Sundays interested diners can also order brunch which can be delivered to the location of your choice. Private catering is also available. The Work Place Cafe will also cater a pop up event at Incudesk on November 2 for young entrepreneurs - a sip and sushi social.
26 | The Tribune | Weekend
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The Tribune | Weekend | 27
Friday, October 19, 2018
animals
The hungry caterpillar
Animal matters | KIM ARANHA
O
ne of my favourite sayings is: “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly.” Apart from it giving a positive spin on life, it brings to mind the ingenious life cycle of the butterfly. There are not that many animals that morph from a creepy-crawly to a splendid beauty of the skies. Yet another example of the unbelievable miracle of nature! Let’s look at the caterpillar a little more closely. Most people hate them because they eat their way through gardens, they munch on our carefully planted and tended vegetable gardens and we devise ways to kill and eradicate them A note of warning, when you kill a caterpillar you may be killing one of those splendid, colourful butterflies whose absence we lament all too often now days. What exactly is a caterpillar? They are worm-like creatures that are the larva of a butterfly or a moth. The word is possibly derived from the French “Chatepelose”, meaning hairy cat, though I have never seen a caterpillar that remotely reminded me of a cat in any way whatsoever. Caterpillars is greatly vilified because of the amazingly voracious appetite they it have. They need to eat, and eat and eat some more, because their existence is only the beginning of a long journey. Have you ever read the book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric
Carle? I know I read it to my two boys when they were growing up and they delighted in the interesting graphics displayed in the book and the holes in the pages as the caterpillar ate its way into becoming a butterfly. When I was a girl I used to love collecting caterpillars and putting them in a “habitat” with lots of suitable food, cabbage leaves and various other plants that the caterpillar enjoyed to eat. Frequently, I would stack the habitat with leaves from the plant I originally found the caterpillar. When my boys were growing up I enjoyed finding caterpillars with them and recreating the same habitats I had done in the past. We often found very large and rather aggressively bright green ones who loved to eat the leaves of our ficus bengamima hedge. Much to the frustration of my son’s godfather, Gary Moss, who owned the garden maintenance company which kept our garden, I forbade killing these green alien looking caterpillars. And we had quite a few that we would feed and watch turn into cocoons. For some reason I was always under the impression that these big boys could bite, but doing my research for this article I have not been able to find confirmation of this. However, you do have to be very careful handling many species of caterpillars as quite a few of them have hairs on their bodies that can cause skin rashes, especially on those with sensitive skin. I have turned to
PET OF THE WEEK stay as long as needed but a home, Save a space on with a lovely yard and maybe a sofa do love sofas!), would be your sofa for Sam (potcakes welcome.
“I
am Sam; Sam I am... “ While this young fellow is not likely to offer you green eggs and ham, he is ready to offer up lots of love and affection as he is looking for a home to call his own. Sam is about one-year-old and has been at the Bahamas Humane Society for several months now. Since it’s a no-kill shelter, he’s able to
Do you have a space in your place for Sam? If so, come in to the BHS to get to know him! Adoption hours are 11am to 4pm Monday to Friday and 10am to 4pm Saturday, or you can call 323-5138 for more information. Sam’s sure to greet you with a smile! The BHS Thrift Shop’s Halloween Jewellery Sale is Saturday, October 20th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Photo of Sam by Patricia Vazquez.
the website Scientific American for a description of what happens after our hungry caterpillar stops eating and turns upside down, hanging from a twig and spins a silky cocoon or molts into a chrysalis. Here is what I have read: “But what does that radical transformation entail? How does a caterpillar rearrange itself into a butterfly? What happens inside a chrysalis or cocoon? First, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues. If you were to cut open a cocoon or chrysalis at just the right time, caterpillar soup would ooze out. But the contents of the pupa are not entirely an amorphous mess. Certain highly organised groups of cells known as imaginal discs survive the digestive process. Before hatching, when a caterpillar is still developing inside its egg, it grows an imaginal disc for each of the adult body parts it will need as a mature butterfly or moth.” What an extraordinary, almost science fiction horror story! The caterpillar digesting itself in order to emerge as a butterfly. The process is called metamorphosis, and in some ways it is completely mind-boggling. It is absolutely incredible. Some fascinating footage can be seen of time-lapse photography of this process and I highly recommend spending some
Without the creepycrawly caterpillars we can’t have beautiful butterflies.
time on Google watching some of these film clips. I have written in the past about the gradual disappearance of butterflies. I think the blame has to be laid at the feet of those who use pesticides with no regard of the cycle of nature. In order to preserve the leaves of all our plants, we spray and kill the caterpillars, and in turn we are gradually stamping out the beautiful, colourful butterflies who used to fill my childhood and that our children become excited and enchanted by if they are fortunate to glimpse one flying by. We cannot eradicate caterpillars and preserve butterflies; it just doesn’t work that way.
28 | The Tribune | Weekend
Friday, October 19, 2018