Belize City, Tuesday, March 07, 2006 - Caye Caulker’s celebrity chef Wish Willy, born Maurice Moore in Belize City’s Southside 50 years ago is a study in contrasts. His unique culinary concoctions are sophisticated, highly nuanced dishes that come as close to palate heaven as this itinerate critic has found in Belize.  In contrast to Wish Willy’s classy cooking is his bohemian, beach-bum Rasta look and his ad hoc, outrageously funky outdoor eatery.

  Wish Willy

INtransit 

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” By Albert Einstein

Clash

The deadly dilemma which works against in the arts and artists in Belize is based on the classic Marxist clash of classes- between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

The cold reality in this neck of the woods is the vast majority of artists are either poor working stiffs of decidedly modest means or ghetto poor, living hand to mouth. Conversely the folks that actually dip into their pockets and buy art are a miniscule cadre of rich entrepreneurs, moneyed attorneys and tourist resorts. At one end are the ‘have-not’ artists, musicians and poets and the other end are the ‘have’ merchants, lawyers, resorts and tourists. 

“I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.” Artist Marcel Duchamp

“Dada doubts everything. Dada is an armadillo. Everything is Dada, too. Beware of Dada. Anti-dadaism is a disease: self-kleptomania, man’s normal condition, is Dada. But the real dadas are against Dada.” Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), Rumanian-born French Dadaist.  

“If we knew the meaning to everything that is happening to us, then there would be no meaning.” By Idi Amin Dada (former President of Uganda, 1971–1979.)

Transplanted Taiwanese artist Steve Wu is blessed with a devilish sense of visual gags. His exhibition titled “The Word of Wu” is a challenging exercise in decoding a truly odd way of viewing the world. To paraphrase the Godfather of Surrealism and guru of Dada, Marcel Duchamp, Wu strips bare the veneer of the ordinary to expose the humorous paradoxes lurking beneath the surface, “the bride stripped bare by her bachelors even”.