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Monday, February 24, 2025

Fireside chat heats up Brooklyn

by

20101109

It is an in­ter­est­ing con­cept and sure to gen­er­ate lots of buzz in the weeks ahead. Fri­day Nights Fire­side Chats is by no means an orig­i­nal con­cept, but giv­en the lo­ca­tion, its mar­ket and pro­mot­ers, I would not bet against it. In truth, any project cos­set­ed by Sesame Fly­ers Inc is well po­si­tioned. Fly­ers, a Brook­lyn cul­tur­al fix­ture that has seen its stock grow ex­po­nen­tial­ly in the last decade, is hedg­ing a lot on this ven­ture. Its chair­man, Ray­mond Luke, called it "a jour­ney in­to the arts, a more pro­found ex­pe­ri­ence." He is con­fi­dence per­son­i­fied. Fire­side Chats is a six-part se­ries that fea­tures, what event or­gan­is­er Glen­da Cado­gan called, "Every­day celebri­ties in­clud­ing per­form­ers, au­thors and po­ets," of Caribbean her­itage. "We will get them to chat with us in an in­ti­mate set­ting. This is like the nur­tur­ing ground for the next Spar­rows and Rud­ders," she added. A chilly evening ush­ered in the maid­en show. The Car­ni­val show­room at the Church Av­enue head­quar­ters of the Fly­ers un­der­went a marked trans­for­ma­tion–a makeshift stage, Afro-Caribbean mo­tifs and sym­bols, an im­i­ta­tive fire pit, plants, and satin-clothed chairs to ac­com­mo­date a cap­ti­vat­ed au­di­ence.

Un­der the glare of the stu­dio lights and video cam­eras of Gayelle TV, a cau­tious be­gin­ning gave way to a charged and in­ter­ac­tive show, with a stream of ques­tions from the au­di­ence–some self in­dul­gent, oth­ers com­pelling–lead­ing to wrench­ing rev­e­la­tions from fea­tured guest and au­thor of The True Nan­ny Di­aries, Nan­di Keyi. "It was hard get­ting up in the morn­ing and push strollers," she con­fid­ed, as she touched on the con­tro­ver­sial ex­is­tence of thou­sands of Caribbean ba­by sit­ters in New York. There were mo­ments of lev­i­ty, lots of it, but the grav­i­ty of the sub­ject weighed heav­i­ly at times. As well it should. The True Nan­ny Di­aries, is a fic­tion clothed in the ex­i­gent re­al­i­ty of West In­di­an life in the Di­as­po­ra. It's a jour­ney that jux­ta­pos­es the tra­vails of Val­di West, the pro­tag­o­nist, with her white, af­flu­ent and dys­func­tion­al em­ploy­ers. It ex­plores the vi­cis­si­tudes of life with all its ex­pectan­cies, man­gled dreams and com­pro­mis­es. Nan­di, who was born in Britain of Trin­bag­on­ian parent­age, clev­er­ly slith­ers through the per­plex­i­ty of Nan­ny­ism.

She is en­gag­ing and sharp, but still, there are no easy an­swers here. Re­cent laws to pro­tect do­mes­tic work­ers will not deem Nan­di's sober­ing work anachro­nis­tic, nor would it sani­tise phan­tas­magoric tales of abuse. Paid va­ca­tions, and health­care plans aside, do­mes­tic work in the US rup­tures fa­mil­ial ties back home, saps the spir­it–leav­ing the soul naked and cold. To many, this is the sin qua non of the dis­cus­sion.

Nan­di ac­knowl­edged that much. "A whole gen­er­a­tion of young boys are af­fect­ed. Grand­moth­ers are not moth­ers," she lat­er told me. And of­fered words to in­spire. "If we are pa­tient, we will not leave Trinidad. We can make best of the sit­u­a­tion and suc­ceed." But she will nev­er bite the hand that fed her. "Look, you can make US$600 a week...it's part of the jour­ney to a des­ti­na­tion. My daugh­ter al­so grew up learn­ing about life in Man­hat­tan." The trou­ble is, many nev­er reach the des­ti­na­tion, re­main­ing stuck in the mire of what many call, "servi­tude." That is the Kant­ian dilem­ma which is at the core of the Di­aries, a time­less lit­er­ary work that de­serves more than a sin­gle fire­side chat. Over­all, Fire­side Chats was flu­id and en­gag­ing. No overt tech­ni­cal kinks, no sna­fus. A pro­pi­tious be­gin­ning in­deed. Ray­mond Luke should be well pleased.

(Fea­ture re­view by Glenville Ash­by,

a New York jour­nal­ist for the T&T Guardian)


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