Pe­ter Ray Blood

Seems that it was just yes­ter­day we were at­tend­ing Car­ni­val all-in­clu­sive fetes, singing the re­frain of Like ah Boss and rev­el­ling in the street. Ash Wednes­day is but a mem­o­ry, the fi­nal day of Lent is here and it is the long East­er week­end hol­i­day once more.

East­er is ush­ered in with the "40-day, 40-nights" Lenten pe­ri­od for Chris­tians where tra­di­tion­al­ly, many dis­ci­pline them­selves to eat­ing fish and seafood while ab­stain­ing from drink­ing liquor and al­co­holic bev­er­ages, smok­ing and hav­ing any car­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

The ac­tu­al East­er week­end it­self, cul­mi­nates with Holy Week that tail-ends with Holy Thurs­day, Good Fri­day, Glo­rias Sat­ur­day and the hol­i­day East­er Mon­day.

In days gone by it was deemed taboo to sing, even whis­tle at home, a ca­lyp­so dur­ing Lent. Ca­lyp­so was not played on the air­waves as the mu­sic was deemed to be "sa­tan­ic." The ca­lyp­so "ban" how­ev­er was rest­ed on St Joseph Day and com­plete­ly lift­ed on Glo­rias Sat­ur­day, when the play­ing of ca­lyp­so re­sumed. No one knows when the black­mark against ca­lyp­so dur­ing Lent was re­laxed and sub­se­quent­ly re­moved?

Per­haps the most sig­nif­i­cant day of the year on the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar, to­day (Good Fri­day) is steeped in tra­di­tion and myth. The morn­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly opens with a sump­tu­ous break­fast in which hot crossed buns are the req­ui­site item. Break­fast is nor­mal­ly fol­lowed by at­tend­ing the three-hour Sta­tion of the Cross church ser­vice.

Late lunch, with fish as the main in­gre­di­ent, usu­al­ly was em­bell­ished by white-coloured food, usu­al­ly white pro­vi­sion, white peas (gub gub or li­ma beans), and, white wine.

A ma­jor myth of Good Fri­day was that if you should bathe in the sea be­fore 6 pm to­day you would turn in­to a fish. No one has ever wit­nessed this but many ad­hered to the myth and stayed away from beach­es on Good Fri­day.

An­oth­er myth of yore dealt with egg white and a glass of wa­ter. When placed in the sun if the egg white changed in­to a church steeple, you were blessed and would have pros­per­i­ty.

Good Fri­day tra­di­tion al­so in­clud­ed the beat­ing of the bobolee, a stuffed ef­fi­gy made in mem­o­ry of Ju­das Is­car­i­ot, the vil­lain in the be­tray­al of Christ. Through the years, bobolees have evolved, from be­ing rein­car­na­tions of Ju­das to ef­fi­gies of pub­lic fig­ures the pub­lic is ag­griev­ed with, to celebri­ties who are wed, com­plete with cer­e­mo­ny and pro­ces­sion, like the an­nu­al bobolee fes­ti­val in Mar­aval. This be­ing an elec­tion year one ex­pect there will be sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal fig­ures por­trayed. The re­main­der of the week­end is usu­al­ly oc­cu­pied with fam­i­ly out­ings, main­ly to the beach or to wide open spaces, like Port-of-Spain's Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, to fly kites of every de­sign and va­ri­ety, from lit­tle chee-kee-chongs to huge, elab­o­rate mad bulls.

One ex­pects beach­es na­tion­wide to be chock-a-block with seabathers and sun-seek­ers on Mon­day. How­ev­er, a pop­u­lar and tra­di­tion­al East­er Mon­day pas­time is horse rac­ing and the sec­ond of the year's triple-crown races�East­er Guineas�will be held at the Ari­ma rac­ing fa­cil­i­ty. This is a gala af­fair and at­ten­dees dress to the hilt in sar­to­r­i­al fash­ion splen­dour.

What­ev­er you choose to do Pulse wish­es you a safe and en­joy­able East­er hol­i­day week­end.

This year's To­ba­go Jazz Ex­pe­ri­ence be­gins on April 19, but Randy Glas­gow Pro­mo­tions is stag­ing a big cur­tain-rais­er one week be­fore, April 11, in Buc­coo. Billed as Bac­cha­nal in D Jazz, the con­cert will fea­ture for­mer Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Mon­archs Cro Cro and Pink Pan­ther, past Ex­tem­pore Monarch Bri­an Lon­don, Mr Shak, Skatie, co­me­di­an Tom­my Joseph and more.

But, it is Good Fri­day and to­day ush­ers in a long week­end of fun and en­ter­tain­ment. Per­se­ver­ance Sports and Ac­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil hosts its an­nu­al Good Fri­day Sports & Fam­i­ly Day at the Hugo Fran­cis Recre­ation Ground, Wood­ford Lodge, Ch­agua­nas. The ac­tion com­mences with a 5K race at 7 am and con­tin­ues from 3 pm with ath­let­ics, nov­el­ty events and an East­er Bon­net Com­pe­ti­tion.

Good Fri­day fun con­tin­ues at 1 pm when Causin Rabb holds its an­nu­al Good Fri­day crick­et street tour­na­ment, on Thoma­sine Street, Suc­cess Vil­lage, Laven­tille.

At the same, Tu­co will be­gin its an­nu­al Good Fri­day fete match, at The Pad­dock, Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Jazz is al­so in the mix as the Women in Jazz se­ries of shows be­gins to­mor­row at Fi­es­ta Plaza, Movi­eTowne, Port-of-Spain. Be­gin­ning at 8.30 pm the star of the night will be Krys­tal Khanye.

Many par­ties are planned this week­end and one of the biggest will be the an­nu­al Yorke Inc Glo­ri­ous Sat­ur­day Par­ty, al­so to be held to­mor­row, at Pier 1, Ch­aguara­mas. Mu­sic will be by DJs Howie T, Mr Q, Richard Sim­ply Smooth and Sen­sa­tion­al Sam­my.

On Sun­day af­ter­noon, at 2 pm, DC Shell The­atre con­tin­ues its run of Sin­bad at Queen's Hall, St Ann's. A sec­ond show will be staged that evening at 6.30 pm.

Com­PAN­ion will hold its Steel­bands Sports and Fam­i­ly Day crick­et pre­lim­i­nar­ies on Sun­day, at 2 pm, at Re­pub­lic Bank Ex­o­dus Pan Am­phithe­atre, EMR, St Au­gus­tine.

That evening, from 4 pm, Bel­mont Cul­tur­al Im­prove­ment Com­mit­tee will hold its an­nu­al east­er Bon­net Pa­rade 2015, at Bel­mont Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Jern­ing­ham Av­enue.

Weath­er per­mit­ting, out­door ac­tiv­i­ty ought be ex­treme­ly en­joy­able for all this East­er week­end.

Pro­fes­sor stars in Bal­ti­more

Pop­u­lar Trinida­di­an steel­band arranger/com­pos­er/mu­si­cian Ken "Pro­fes­sor" Philmore was the star of The Bal­ti­more Sun news­pa­pers last month when coached stu­dents of Catonsville High School in play­ing the na­tion­al in­stru­ment. Philmore was in­vit­ed to do the work­shop by the steel­band's mu­si­cal di­rec­tor Jim Whar­ton who an­nu­al­ly in­vites a pro­fes­sion­al mu­si­cian to come and teach mem­bers of the school steel­band.

Philmore worked with the stu­dents for one week, his course cul­mi­nat­ing on March 27. Beam­ing with pride and a sense of ac­com­plish­ment, Whar­ton likened Philmore's vis­it to the school's foot­ball team ac­quir­ing the ser­vices of ac­claimed foot­ball coach Joe Flac­co. Dur­ing his vis­it Philmore taught the young pan mu­si­cians, rang­ing from fresh­men to se­niors, how to play the in­stru­ment with­out read­ing a mu­sic score. In a pub­lished fea­ture in The Sun, Whar­ton said: "He (Philmore) is ab­solute­ly a vir­tu­oso per­former and a star arranger ... it's re­al­ly an hon­or to have him here."

Al­so in­ter­viewed, Philmore told The Sun: "I know mu­sic just nat­u­ral­ly, kind of like the wind does. I have ears as big as an ele­phant's. I can't read or write mu­sic, but I feel mu­sic. For me, it's a very spir­i­tu­al thing."

The Sun re­port­ed that Philmore's goal is for more chil­dren to learn to play 'steel drum' and for more peo­ple world­wide to re­spect it like tra­di­tion­al drums, gui­tar or pi­ano."

He added: "I love teach­ing kids, be­cause I like to see the joy in their faces. It's eas­i­er to work with kids than with big peo­ple ...with kids, it's just a joy. It's fun."