Posts (page 2)
I realised that there is music out there that I consider to be some of the best South African music ever made, mostly in the rock genre and I though that I need to share it.
The first song that I think is one of my all-time favourites and has a lot of good memories attached and that is “Weeping” by Bright Blue.
For my money Weeping is the South African equivalent of “Blowing in the Wind” and “The times they are a changin’” except the boys from Bright Blue can sing without the nasal drone typical of Bob Dylan songs.
I first heard “Weeping” at a concert that my brother, Patrick, had taken me to. The lead artist was Johnny Clegg and Savuka, with Bright Blue as the support act and it was at the Flower Hall on Wits West Campus. The song had already made waves on radio, with DJs picking up on the subversive nature of the song and playing it. The band had sampled Nkosi Sikele iAfrika (now part of the South African national anthem, but the banned) and this just added to the brilliance of the song.
Amazingly the apartheid regime never banned it and when Bright Blue played it live it was something to behold with a few thousand students singing along to the lyrics. At the time I was still at school and as such was typically naive about the situation in the country except knowing that something wasn’t right and things had to change.
The song has been covered a number of times already with the latest by Josh Groban and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, but in my book nothing compares with the original and I would prefer if the song hadn’t been adulterated by other people singing it.
Nonetheless, the other lasting memory of the song was in 2003 when my daughter was being born and they had a radio on in the background and as she was born “Weeping” was playing.
For that reason alone it will always have a special place in my heart.
You've found the fabled pot o' gold. How will you spend it?
Submitted by Red Pen.
Every time the Lottery come round and hit ridiculous numbers like R35 million I start to plot what I would do with an obscene amount of money and the truth is that I am not sure that I even want to be super rich.
I think we need to struggle through life to appreciate it, finding the pot of gold is just too easy for us to appreciate the value of money.
this is not to say that I wouldn't like to be comfortably well off, I have an insane lust for travel and gadgets and both would be well satiated by a decent amount of moola.
But in the spirit of the QoD I will list my current lust items:
1. Aston Martin (anyone will do)
2. House with a killer view
3. Home cinema system with a house-wide content distribution system
4. Great digital SLR and appropriate extras
I'm sure I could think of more if I had the inclination.
And HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY TO EVERYONE.
Book: Show us a book you started reading but never finished.
Never managed to finish this. I did get to the controversial part and I realised that it was just another example of the over-reaction that so often happens in the Muslim world.
Sitting in a hotel room in Bristol watching a program about W.H. Auden reminded me about how much I love sad poetry.
Funeral Blues
W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
What's one of your favorite quotes?
Submitted by Georgie-boy.
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
Dorothy Parker
I have always been a big fan of Dorothy Parker, a lady born before her time with a wit sharper than most razors. I first encountered her in Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle and reading some of her poems and understanding a bit about the sadness that was her life.
I Appreciate a good insult and a witty comeback and she was the queen of the witty comeback, I only wish I could be half as good at it as she was.
So I saw this picture on one of my Flickr contacts and I decided it was time to mess around with the camera and the kiddies.
That and a little basic image editing and I came to this conclusion.
Not art by any stretch of the imagination but not bad for a first effort and no access to photoshop.
What do you do to ensure you get a good night's sleep?
Submitted by Jacob's Ladder.
I normally don't have a problem going to sleep, I can lie down, close my eyes and by the time my head hits the pillow I am off to dreamland. I know insomniacs everywhere will hate me for that, but it is one of the benefits from suffering from mild narcolepsy.
There are a couple of things that keep me awake at night and ensure that I don't get a good night's sleep, the first and most serious being having to get up early the next morning. I toss and turn the whole night because I have to catch a plane or something equally time sensitive. While I would normally sleep through I wake up almost every hour to check the time, it is a real pain. The other thing that disturbs my sleep is too much gaming, if I spend too much time playing any specific computer game I end up dreaming about the game and that is not fun. I wake up in the middle of the night wanting to get up and play more, but I know that if I do that I will be a zombie for the whole of the next day and that is no fun at all.
I woke yesterday morning to the news that David Rattray had been murdered at his lodge in Zululand. I had the honour of hearing him speak once at a conference up here in Jo'burg and he talked about the Anglo-Zulu wars and instead of just repotting the same old stories that every South Africa schoolchild has head a thousand times he told the story of the battles from the perspective of both side. He had spoken to people who had heard the story of the battle from their fathers who had actually been at the battle.
He told it like the story had been handed down in the Zulu oral tradition. He was a man who had more respect than most for the history of the Zulu people and his death is nothing short than a tragedy.
I had hoped to get down his lodge to hear him tell the stories again, he didn't just tell a story he made you feel like you were there.
We have lost a great man and it seem that everyone except those in power have figured out that we have a problem. Denial never solved any problems and until they start fixing the crime problem there we are going to keep bleeding great South Africans, both to crime and emigration.
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The more I think about it the more I think that the "beloved" cuban leader Fidel Castro is on his last legs, or may even be dead already.
Like the students in "Weekend at Bernie's" his confidants and like thinking leaders are enaged in a despeate atttempt to convince the world that he is still alive. Jut as Vice President Carlos Lage is insisting that he is up and about walking or maybe even running I have visions of two nerdy aides to the president walking the corpse around the hospital compound and holding the arm up to wave at passers by.
They are probably practising for the big day when they will be required to take the, now decidedly ripe, Fidel out for a walk down the main street of Havana, greeting the citizens and proving to the world that although he is deceasd
, he is actually alive and well.
So we went away in mid December to a place in the Northern Berg called The Cavern.
This is a nice family run resort where they understand that calling yourself a family hotel doesn't mean just having a few jungle gyms and a sandpit. This is a hotel that has been in business for 65 years and seems to have fine tuned the art of making holidays enjoyable for both parents and children.
Firstly the price includes three meals a day and all you have to pay for is your extras. Secondly the children have their own dining room and once your kids are fed you retire to the sanity of the adults dining room and enjoy a good meal while the kids are looked after by what can be only described as an army of nannies. Older kids sit in the main dining room but by then they know how to behave at the table.
Throw in a massive swimming pool, jungle gym, pony rides, hikes, horse riding, tennis courts, bowls lawns and you start to get a picture of why this is the ideal spot for a quiet family vacation.
They say that people keep coming back and I can be sure that our first visit will not be our last.
PS: This is a picture of Charlotte with a remarkably tolerant dog called Daisy.
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