On Au­gust 9, cel­e­brat­ed car­ni­val king, Pe­ter Samuel and his team, Ki­net­ic Mas Lim­it­ed (KML), launched their 2023 Mas pre­sen­ta­tion, Ex­hale and Cy­ber Na­tion, at 41 Al­ber­to Street, Wood­brook, Port-of-Spain, con­fi­dent that it will be “The Best Ever.”

For Ce­ci­ly Pouchet Alexan­der, who ar­rived in Ed­mon­ton, Cana­da, in 1969 at age 19 to at­tend uni­ver­si­ty, the re­al­i­ty of racism was “im­me­di­ate and shock­ing.”

Iëre X Taba­go: A Choral Ju­bilee, a con­cert held in cel­e­bra­tion of T&T’s 60th An­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence, took place Ju­ly 31 at NA­PA in Port-of-Spain

The vi­brant mas­quer­ade at the Car­ni­val Fes­ti­val in Toron­to is far more than a vi­su­al de­light. It is a cel­e­bra­tion of free­dom—of lib­er­a­tion and ex­u­ber­ance nev­er so nec­es­sary as af­ter two years of the event’s can­cel­la­tion due to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic.

“For As­tor – 50th An­niver­sary” will be a cel­e­bra­tion of 50 years of The As­tor John­son Reper­to­ry Dance The­atre (AJRDT), at Queen’s Hall from Sep­tem­ber 16 to 18.

The 2022 theme for In­ter­na­tion­al Youth Day, Au­gust 12th is “In­ter­gen­er­a­tional Sol­i­dar­i­ty; Cre­at­ing a world for all ages.” Ac­cord­ing to the UN, “Sol­i­dar­i­ty across gen­er­a­tions is key for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.”

In­ter­na­tion­al Youth Day was ob­served on Au­gust 12. The en­er­gy and tal­ent of the youth of our coun­try is un­matched. Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res, said, “On this im­por­tant day, let’s join hands across gen­er­a­tions to break down bar­ri­ers and work as one to achieve a more eq­ui­table, just and in­clu­sive world for all peo­ple.” The day aims to high­light the is­sues faced by the youth in day-to-day life. It al­so rais­es aware­ness about “cer­tain bar­ri­ers to in­ter­gen­er­a­tional sol­i­dar­i­ty, no­tably ageism, which im­pacts young and old per­sons.”

I was the last per­son amongst the au­thor’s close cir­cle of friends to read her book. She had asked me to read some of it in draft form a few years ago. And I de­clined, sens­ing (cor­rect­ly as it has turned out) that it would im­pli­cate me in ten­sions that would make an­oth­er much-loved friend un­hap­py. So it came to pass that I didn’t read a sin­gle page un­til it was pub­lished. Truth is un­set­tling and of­ten not very pret­ty. And, though this book is pre­sent­ed as fic­tion, it is a true ren­di­tion of the au­thor’s rev­e­la­to­ry jour­ney and her vic­to­ry.

Mu­sic ig­nites all ar­eas of child de­vel­op­ment and skills for school readi­ness, in­clud­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al, so­cial-emo­tion­al, lan­guage, and over­all lit­er­a­cy. It helps the body and the mind work to­geth­er. Ex­pos­ing chil­dren to mu­sic dur­ing ear­ly de­vel­op­ment helps them learn the sounds and mean­ings of words. Danc­ing to mu­sic helps chil­dren build mo­tor skills while al­low­ing them to prac­tice self-ex­pres­sion.

Young Xha­di­en Dar­ius has made an im­pres­sion­able mark on pro­mot­ers since his an­nounce­ment in the are­na of ca­lyp­so singing.

The cast of 17 stel­lar live per­form­ers in­clud­ing three Crop Over mon­archs, two DJ teams, two co-MCS (Jen­nifer Walk­er and Young Ali Singh), a three-mem­ber band (drum­mer Re­nal­do Grif­fith was su­perb); danc­ing, singing, add some rain, light­ning, and um­brel­las to lots of good vibes and you have the right amount of in­gre­di­ents to pro­vide the hun­dreds of pa­trons at­tend­ing the six-hour event held at Ball­park Events and En­ter­tain­ment Cen­tre with every­thing they have come to ex­pect.

The spon­sors be­hind An Evening with Sad­hgu­ru fea­tur­ing Machel Mon­tano were af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet the yo­gi at UP­ICK in Ch­aguara­mas on Au­gust 4.