The Professor.... The Page
Professor the Honorable Ralston Milton Nettleford, O.M. has gone the way all men must go. If you were ever blessed with the opportunity to sit in his presence and watch this arguably medium height, clean-shaven man with smooth dark chocolate skin and an impeccable sense for knowing when to go with the Nehru collared suit and when to choose to the dashiki, if you were ever blessed with the opportunity to sit in his presence and listen as the maestro selected one word over another, choosing unlikely companions and weaving them into an artful, symphonic display, a veritable oral and aural tapestry of metaphors, then you comprehend the profound loss to Jamaica.
For me this is not the loss of a choreographer par excellence, or the loss of a Rhodes scholar; this is bigger than losing the first graduate of the University to head the Caribbean region's premier tertiary institution or losing the co-founder of the National Dance Theatre Company. For me, this is the loss of an orator.
I recall the opening night of the inaugural International Conference on Publishing in the Caribbean, a night whose preceeding hours were fraught with stresses such as a near-death experience with a trailer on Mount Rosser on the way to the conference, the extreme time delay due to the circuitous route chosen by the bus driver (hence the Mount Rosser incident), the behind-the-scenes mayhem when we finally arrived as we scrambled to pull the final details together, (including being locked out of my suite by my roommate), and I recall when finally after pulling all the details together and getting halfway through the program without a hitch, (all our dignitaries accounted for, and all the entertainment on time), myself and the two other members of the working staff finally sank our weary behinds into Half Moon's extremely comfortable conference chairs and watched as the guest speaker moved to the podium.
Having chosen the timeless Nehru-collared suit for the occasion, he began to deftly maneuvre nouns and verbs, adjectives and adverbs, choosing bold and unlikely companions, as he inspired us toward a release of our differences and an embrace of those common threads that make us all, whether anglophonic, francophonic, or hispanophonic, Caribbean, West Indian, human.
I can't speak for the others, but for me the mayhem melted away, and the drumroll in my stomach disappeared. I was lost in the symphony of his words and mesmerized by the searing effect on memory by simply selecting one word over another. Whether in patois or in English, his choice of words left you shaking your head in amazement. I feel the loss of an amazing orator.
So the Professor Rex Nettleford has gone on. What does that have to do with the Page? Not the printed page, but the web page. The internet has it uses, and the speed of information which can be received has its merits. Mind you, I have concerns over the transcience of the information and the power to edit and even remove that with which a person does not agree, and in that respect, would choose a book anyday over a website; but nonetheless I appreciate and enjoy the speed with which I can access information.
Try googling Rex Nettleford and you may come across the JIS' website. On February 6th, the webpage's article speaks of this famous Jamaican in the present tense, with no mention of his transition two days earlier. Now understandably in certain economic climates wherein the printed news media are laying off copyeditors and printing even more factual, grammatical and typographical errors as a result, I understand that there may not be enough staff at the JIS to deal with the radio, tv and print media needs, much less to update their webpages in a timely manner, but I cannot help feeling disappointed that a site to whom many may turn for reliable (Jamaican) information has perhaps let down the public.
Of course the Jamaican news media sites are on top of things if you wish to be consoled. But I cannot help but feel that tiny bit of disappointment that the JIS Page let down both the public and the Professor.
For me this is not the loss of a choreographer par excellence, or the loss of a Rhodes scholar; this is bigger than losing the first graduate of the University to head the Caribbean region's premier tertiary institution or losing the co-founder of the National Dance Theatre Company. For me, this is the loss of an orator.
I recall the opening night of the inaugural International Conference on Publishing in the Caribbean, a night whose preceeding hours were fraught with stresses such as a near-death experience with a trailer on Mount Rosser on the way to the conference, the extreme time delay due to the circuitous route chosen by the bus driver (hence the Mount Rosser incident), the behind-the-scenes mayhem when we finally arrived as we scrambled to pull the final details together, (including being locked out of my suite by my roommate), and I recall when finally after pulling all the details together and getting halfway through the program without a hitch, (all our dignitaries accounted for, and all the entertainment on time), myself and the two other members of the working staff finally sank our weary behinds into Half Moon's extremely comfortable conference chairs and watched as the guest speaker moved to the podium.
Having chosen the timeless Nehru-collared suit for the occasion, he began to deftly maneuvre nouns and verbs, adjectives and adverbs, choosing bold and unlikely companions, as he inspired us toward a release of our differences and an embrace of those common threads that make us all, whether anglophonic, francophonic, or hispanophonic, Caribbean, West Indian, human.
I can't speak for the others, but for me the mayhem melted away, and the drumroll in my stomach disappeared. I was lost in the symphony of his words and mesmerized by the searing effect on memory by simply selecting one word over another. Whether in patois or in English, his choice of words left you shaking your head in amazement. I feel the loss of an amazing orator.
So the Professor Rex Nettleford has gone on. What does that have to do with the Page? Not the printed page, but the web page. The internet has it uses, and the speed of information which can be received has its merits. Mind you, I have concerns over the transcience of the information and the power to edit and even remove that with which a person does not agree, and in that respect, would choose a book anyday over a website; but nonetheless I appreciate and enjoy the speed with which I can access information.
Try googling Rex Nettleford and you may come across the JIS' website. On February 6th, the webpage's article speaks of this famous Jamaican in the present tense, with no mention of his transition two days earlier. Now understandably in certain economic climates wherein the printed news media are laying off copyeditors and printing even more factual, grammatical and typographical errors as a result, I understand that there may not be enough staff at the JIS to deal with the radio, tv and print media needs, much less to update their webpages in a timely manner, but I cannot help feeling disappointed that a site to whom many may turn for reliable (Jamaican) information has perhaps let down the public.
Of course the Jamaican news media sites are on top of things if you wish to be consoled. But I cannot help but feel that tiny bit of disappointment that the JIS Page let down both the public and the Professor.
