Nunley, chapter 3.

     The most interesting terms applied in chapter 3 are the “Mascaraed Mix-up” representing “a Callaloo of global dimensions” (p. 98), a bowl of soup containing a variety of cultures, seasoned each year with designer’s innovations derived from the sharing of past visual and sound aesthetics. The designers, (or cooks of the soup) represent an interstitial continuum, performed by tens of thousands of bodies representing a continuum of cultures abroad. As Carnival aesthetics evolve, it continues to measure success “aesthetically” along with the ability to represent “unity and identity” (p. 85). Celebrating cultures unified is beautifully interesting as it is primary to my personal goals, however, Nunley’s overall description brought forth a transpersonal visual aesthetic to mind, which metaphorically represents some chronotropes of Gilroy’s in chapter one, The Black Atlantic as a Counterculture of Modernity.

     Gilroy’s discourse is metaphorically represented as a “ship on the Atlantic”, removed from time and space searching for “other claims”, “beyond cultural limitations” applied by “ethnocentrism and nationalism” bias. Furthermore, Gilroy’s ship as “a living, micro-culture, micro-political system in motion” searching for authentic cargo, may “find key ideas” in the “Callaloo” soup of the Trinidad Carnival. (Gilroy, p. 4) Nevertheless, the complex conundrum of the “Mascaraed Mix-up” is representative of transcultural aspects, emphasizing Gilroy’s “conceptual problems” while searching for authentic “African…sources”…”triditions”…and ”themes” seemingly lost through African diaspora (p. 94).

      Nunley’s chapter introduces several authentic African traditions and/or sources in the Callaloo soup, many of which have become hybrid, but I think perhaps there is one aspect existing timeless, at the heart of the Carnival, through mimesis, a commissure that everyone shares in unity. The rhythm of music in the performances guiding dances of rejoicing. After “upper classes condemned” African drumming as “disruptive” (p. 114) the first and clearest form of mimesis as a “found” object of nature were the “bamboo drums”, and later, multiple other “found” objects such as “tins”, “cans”, and “oil drums” (p. 115). Regardless of the instruments used, some music may represent a seamless representation of African authenticity for the cargo of Gilroy’s ship. In addition, according to William Alves, author of Music of the Peoples of the World 3^rd ed. 2013., “call-and-response…is very common in African music.” (p. 49)