It's a rite of passage each year for Caribbean ex-patriots and their American-born hyphenates to revel in roots when summer skips off into memory.
Eastern Parkway becomes a corridor lined with stalls of our oxtail, rice, griot, lambi, bottles of sorrel...This season I'm honoring this city, making sure he knows I never take him granted.
I went to Carnival this year after sitting out a few and as always I was so up. (Yeah, it can be a grope-fest, but so can the subway. And Bloomberg has barricaded it and squeezed some of the lawlessness out, probably for the gawking tourists and the gentrifying set.)
Snapped a few flicks and wanted to post a couple. Did you know that the ritual J'Ouvert (or juvee) celebration that kicks off at about 2 in the morning, the night before the Labor Day Parade has its origins in the French West Indies, when Haitian slaves (and those from Dominica, Guadeloupe, etc.) spilled into the avenues to fete emancipation?
At the parade this year, revelers in fitteds and jeans came splattered in the ceremonial powders, mud, oil, and general goodwill. What a sight to behold.
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