Gee my jou lyf, jou hart en jou siel

So ja. Ek luister nie juis na Afrikaanse musiek nie.  Dalk 'n bietjie Heuwels as my playlist op skommel (ha ha) is of Chris Chameleon se Ek herhaal jou album waar hy Ingrid Jonker se gedigte sing. Ek onthou nog, dit moes 2009 gewees het, toe ons Oppikoppi toe is en Chris by die boonste bar begin sing het. Net hy met 'n kitaar op 'n kroeg-stoel en 'n klein groepie mense wat na hom geluister het. The Narrow het onder op een van die Maine of Myn of Mayne verhoe gespeel so die meeste mense was onder besig om na Lonely Lonely lyf te skud. Die vorige keer wat ek hom gesien het was jare tevore ook by Koppi toe ek vir die eerste keer Boo gesien het. Ek dog dis 'n absoluut wonderlike freakshow. My vriendin en ek het so die musiek geniet dat die bankie waarop ons balans gehou het gebreek het. Gelukkig was daar 'n stywe crowd wat ons gevang het.

So van lyf-skud gepraat, 'n paar dae gelede luister ek toe nou maar na Jacaranda FM, so bietjie teen my sin want al die ander radiostasies het nie ontvang nie. Een of ander ou het toe heel lekker in Afrikaans gesing, tot ek hoor hy sing "gee my jou lyf, jou hart en jou siel". Klink 'n bietjie soos 'n seks-sekte vir my. Maar ek is bly hulle prioriteite is reg, 'n mens se voorkoms is natuurlik op plek een. "Gee my jou siel" sou dalk ook effens te satanisties wees, ek sien Voldemort en die Death Eaters voor my wat jou siel uit jou suig. Soos 'n menslike suigstokkie. Dalk nie die regte ding om op 'n Sondagoggend op pad kerk toe te luister nie.

Eerlik gesê, ek weet amper niks van Afrikaanse musiek af nie. Rooi rok bokkies, kapteine wat seile span en Liefling is hoe ver ek kan saamsing as dit by traditionele, Huisgenoot-hits kom.

Ek weet dié is nou nie Chris self se lirieke nie, maar ek sal enige dag "klimaat van jou lyf/o meidjie dousag/maar jou oe vlieg wyd/oor die nimmermeerdag" bo "gee my jou lyf" kies.




As julle belang stel, die sanger van Lyf is Albert de Wet, julle kan hier kyk na 'n paar videos wat hulle geneem het gedurend die Jakaranda Friday Live sessie.

Scars on land

I always thought that when by body dies, they can take every part of it except for my eyes. But now, well, take it all. If someone else can survive and my brain is already dead why shouldn't they. Maybe there is an afterlife and organ-less I will be some kind of crippled zombie type. Who knows, perhaps karma exists and I will be rewarded for selflessness or something. All I know is that in that moment, what I was is never coming back, and if someone else can profit from life though mine ending, why not.

Almodóvar's Todo sobre mi madre considers everything from belief to sexuality to AIDS, and also looks at organ donation by starting with a mother losing her son and having to make the choice to donate or not.




If you want to become an organ donor in South Africa, please visit their website.

There's something happening somewhere, baby, I just know there is

via Patron of the Arts

A friend of mine said he'd like to pretend to be in high school again, careless, without responsibility and thinking that you know everything already. I sent my cousin a photograph of us when we were little and he also said he would like to go back in time, and for a day be that child clutching the balloon-ball again.

Instead of looking back, I pretend to know where I'm going with big plans and options and choices to make. But honestly, I have no idea.

Little Numbers

This made my day.





Thanks Coca Cola ( if you like this click through to a previous post on Coke and uplifting ads).

Smoke without Fire

via Morley's site

I'm listening to some Billie Holiday and searching for good street art as a reward for writing today. Two more exams to go. I don't really mind when my knowledge is tested(haha that sounds slightly arrogant), these exams just feel redundant after assignments and presentations and so on. I'd much prefer everyone coming prepared, sitting around a round table (we're just eight people in the group) and then discussing the theme.

One of the articles was on how our perception now is based mainly on what we see, because we equate vision with truth, reality, objectivity and reason. But throughout history, people have chosen to split the body from the mind (Cogito ergo sum and so on), to make it separate entities. This is not the thing that interested me most though. The writer, Coleman I think, stated that the belief that we can separate our consciousness from our bodies (for instance Moravec's idea that in the future our consciousness will be downloadable to some supercomputer and we'll be able to live forever) is similar to the Christian belief, or probably belief of most religions come to think of it, that after death our soul transcends its earthly bounds, leaves the body behind and can live forever in Heaven. I wonder if it is not all just a fear of death, of not living before or after this, that makes us believe in both God and technology.

Here's more Morley, check him out on his site and on FB.

via the Facebook site

via the Morley's website. 

There's no saving anything

via Postsecret

Every Sunday I check Postsecret. And had it not been for this today, I wouldn't have known it was Father's Day. My dad lives on a different continent, and it is a euphemism if I say we don't have the best relationship. Perhaps this is my choice, perhaps it is my fault, but my father left me and has never really said why, so I don't know if it is something I can forgive him for.

I saw on TV that half of the children in South Africa grow up without a father. Half. How can that even be? How can every second dad abandon his child/children? I don't understand it, because I cannot understand how you can leave your child. Divorce, separate, that is fine; but the choice to not have contact, to not be involved in your flesh-and-blood's life, well, I don't know how one could choose oneself over one's child. Either accept that is is a responsibility for life or don't have children. Easy.

All these fatherless children must have some larger societal impact, besides all the chicks with daddy-issues being easier to pick up at bars I mean. Parents are supposed to guide you and give advice and instil a sense of morality, but if one is gone and the other has to work constantly, what is left? On the other hand, having a terrible dad who is present surely is not exactly character-building either. Perhaps father's are just more prone to fucking up their children's lives.

I am glad when I see people have great relationships with their fathers, possibly even a little jealous, but the parent I do have is more than I could have asked for.

I've got to take it on the otherside

Mondays are exam days. Every Monday for three weeks. It's well spaced, so there is enough time for some partying in between the studying. Yesterday evening Town Hall in Joburg celebrated their 2nd birthday, and we were eager to have a little fiesta with them. And by fiesta I mean excessive amounts of tequila and music.

In our eagerness, we pre-bought tickets online and made sure to arrive at a respectable time. It's about a 45min drive to Joburg from Pretoria, so this party had to be worth driving to another city for. But in our naiveté we were sure it would be.

Instead of dancing like a maniac or profiting from the open bar, however, we stood outside in a queue for more than two hours. I left my coat in the car because I thought, Hah, we'll just walk through the door with our little pre-bought tickets, and then you don't want to sweat like a gorilla with your coat inside. Mistake of the night.

I don't know how a venue can be this badly organised. I assume that owner/manager/whoever works there knows approximately how many people can fit inside, and then they can decide how many tickets can be pre-sold and sold at the door. So how the fuck do you keep about 150 people standing outside for the evening, when all of those people had pre-bought tickets? The tempting bass-sounds that kept pumping though the walls weren't helping either.

At around 23.00 they closed both doors. Then they reopened them to say that only those with tickets could enter. Problem was, everyone had tickets. We stood around for a while longer and then decided that even if we would get it, it would probably take another hour, and by then the dance floor would be so packed that one would be unable to move, and the open bar not worth it. Our original plan was to be there at 9ish and leave at 1ish, so this was not worth it. Refund please.

Anyways, so on our way home there is this Maxi's that is built over the highway. Real classy. We thought it was a 24h-open joint. It wasn't. Another fail for the night, another disappointment in my going-out career. We got some Milo at the Maxi's that was open (the one next to the petrol garage, not the awesome one over the road).

In the end we were home by 1 AM. It was as though we had gone out properly, but we were neither inebriated, nor sweaty, nor were our clothes smelly from condensed bodily odours and cigarette smoke. This night was a luremus, and no one was left satisfied.

If you wanna complain, I'm not the complaint department

My bag is too heavy (because the two dictionaries I'm carrying each weigh a ton).
Next time you make the dessert, you should stuff more chocolate into the pears.
That exam was such a waste of time.
My skirt keeps sticking to my stockings and bunching up around my crotch, it's very flattering.
That dish could use a bit of salt.
My hair is not long enough/too short/a mullet/not the right colour.
Pretoria ain't no Paris.
7de Laan has become really boring to watch.
It's so cold.
My feet hurt.
Herzschmerz.
I don't like the Caraway seeds.


Whatever it is, we always find something to complain about. Everyday. I do it, too. But rationally, there is nothing really to complain about. It's winter, it is supposed to be cold. You choose to watch 7de Laan. Don't buy uncomfortable shoes. Don't wear bunching skirts.

In fact, even this post is a complaint about complaining. The irony.

To me it is just quite funny how people think that others are interested in their complaints. I don't want to meet up and spend an hour listening to you complain. I mean, sure, people need to talk about the issues that irritate them, but damn, sometimes our complaints are just so stupid. Just look at the comments on News24 or beneath YouTube videos, everyone thinks their opinion matters. Why waste time harking on about all the things that make us unhappy when there is so much more to talk about.

via ZAnews on FB

( Just as an explanation of the image, I saw it and read the comments and everyone was complaining about the new National Police Commissioner when she has barely started with the job. Sure, there may be more suitable candidates and Zapiro is right in his critique of the government always hiring people without experience for the top jobs, but maybe General Phiyega will surprise us.)

Green Gates

This was taken at a restaurant in Plettenberg Bay at the beginning of the year.

I'm not a vegetarian. But I do try to eat less meat. I don't particularly like the taste, and since I haven't killed the animal myself, I don't always feel entirely right when eating meat. Debates about needing to eat meat and humans being omnivores, or debates about not needing to eat meat, or any animal products for that matter, don't really interest me that much. Eat what you like. But know what you are consuming, where it comes from, what it is made of. I mean, the occasional McD burger where you could be eating anything really is fine, but in general one should know where the food you eat is coming from. I read somewhere recently that 40 years ago, the temperature needed to burn a human body was much lower, simply because these days all the chemicals we consume need a much higher temperature to be destroyed.

I just think that decades ago meat was much more appreciated, that the life lost was more conscious to the one eating it. Now, you go into a supermarket and buy a steak/some ribs/chicken schnitzels/or whatever, and you don't see it as an animal, as something dead. Eating death.

Liefling*

Taken by my mom in the '80s. This is my grandfather. 

Taken by me, last year. My gran. 

I like how the images somehow are similar and yet almost 30 years apart.




Gé Korsten's Liefling. I knew I was not proper Afrikaans (even with the farm-photos) when I heard this for the first time last year at a wedding and everybody else knew it like it was the National Anthem.

Re:Stacks

I'd like to see Rives live.

Both videos are courtesy of TED. 

Enjoy.

The happy sinner

I don't have a bucket list.
I don't want to parachute, or climb the Great Wall of China, or go shark-cage diving. All this YOLO* stuff is just the current generation remaking Carpe Diem into something more hash-tag-able to add after Twitter statuses.

Certainly, there are things I, too, want to see and do, but if it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the world. I'd really like to go on a train trip through India, à la Darjeeling Limited, including Louis Vuitton luggage and Adrien Brody and some soul-searching. Or go to the Arctic Circle to bond with some polar bears. Or to spend 6 months travelling across the US and Canada, East-to-West.

But the only thing I really want is this:
Happiness.
Not a lifetime pursuit, not a conquest, not going in search of happiness, and of what one usually associates with it. People ( jaja, generalising, as always) tend to believe that when they have found the perfect job, or the perfect partner, or the perfect apartment, or the perfect car, they will be happy. I think that perhaps these things are to big to provide happiness, and gives them too much importance. Sure, it adds to how content you can be if you have a great place and person to return home to after an enjoyable day at work, but you need to find happiness in the small things.

In the perfect pain au chocolat. Or seeing the university's Camera Obscura. Or the radio playing Walk like an Egyptian on your way home. Or seeing your mom after weeks.

There is a lot of happiness in the everyday, we just miss it.

On a similar note, though, (and the original reason for my post) is the recent launching of a friend's blog about her happy place. Check it out on the Square Bucket.

Also, here's the link to the post title, Miss Li's The Happy Sinner**. Listen to it after a weekend of excess when you've told yourself you'll never drink/smoke/go out ever again.



*You only live once.

**Sliv, für dich.

Treading water

The reason I went to France was for writing a short story about my social awkwardness. I posted earlier about going to a party where no one appreciated my wit and talent. But ultimately I should probably thank the party-goers for ignoring me and giving me something to write about.

If you want to read the story, here is the link. However, it's only in French. To make up for this fact this is a link to an article on the event, also in Francais, but with images. Man, in the one image I look like a mountain. Doesn't help that the other two laureates are 9 and 13 years younger than me and always look adorable. You know sometimes you wear things and think you look decent enough, and then, years later, you scroll through old photographs and wonder how you could ever have put that on. I don't feel this way about my wardrobe now, but perhaps I should reconsider. But actually it is funny. I appreciate a good bad photograph.

I make it sound like I am this super-socially-awkward hermit who cannot interact normally with others. I can. Giving tutor classes is no problem, or presenting something, or talking to people I know. But I detest the small-talk one has to make at functions, I hate having to talk to people who have no real interest in me if there is no profit for them. Also, I like discussing topics, events, anything exciting. The emphasis is on discussion. If the other party fails to add anything stimulating to the conversation, I would mostly like to just walk away, but since that is considered rude I fumble with my clothes and hands and words because I feel I need to save the situation, somehow, and it all just becomes very weird and uncomfortable.

Even reading is uncomfortable. 

Same in any language

About thirty people are shouting at me, enthusiastically. "Commerce!Commerce!Commerce!" I am bewildered. What arrrrrre they saying? Because they are all speaking at the same time, and not in unison, I don't really know, but smile politely and pretend to have understood.

Today was the first day I ever interpreted, officially. At the moment the university is hosting a course for diplomats from francophone countries in Africa, and some of the Masters and Honours students are helping with the interpreting. Most of the visitors do understand English, but to make some points clearer it helps to have someone. Perhaps that someone is not me, yet.

The diplomats know we aren't professionals, but still I was stressing. It was like a first date, except that the butterflies in my stomach were evil and eating my insides. I prepared, read some articles, found some terminology I thought was relevant, and remembered to translate, above all, "le sens" (the sense) and not the individual words. But what you do at home is not the same as when you have to interpret words and acronyms that you don't even know in English.

After a while I decided to fuck translating the slides and simply pronouncing English words in a French way. I just made notes, and when I didn't know the word or expression, the group was more than willing to help. They were all very friendly and understanding, and after an hour, I felt a lot more at ease. I'm sure a professional would have cringed and thought that it was a bit of a pathetic effort.

But the diplomats came up to me afterwards to say "good job" and to give advice on how to improve, which is great. I think good interpretation comes with experience. I'm glad I tried this, and will do so again for Wednesday's session. It can only get better.

Someone ( I found either Roosevelt or Vonnegut as sources) said that you should do something everyday that scares you. I'm scared of lizards, sharks and people breaking into my house/car and hurting me. Academia normally doesn't scare me. Speaking in front of people is also mostly fine. This, however, was terrifying. It was the fear of not understanding, of misinterpreting, of not finding the right words, of embarrassing myself, and most importantly, of failing.

But without trying, you can neither succeed nor fail. So suck it, evil intestine-eating butterflies. I got this.

I change shapes just to hide in this place

I don't really like Sci-Fi/Fantasy books. My library had no neatly stacked copies of the Discworld series or Philip K Dick novels. Neither did I finish 1984, or start with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yesterday I said I was reading Lauren Beukes' Zoo City, and it was so engrossing that I had to know, I had to finish it. I know I've missed the bandwagon somewhat, but this is a really cool book. It's set in the Joburg you know, with Hillbrow being rebranded in name only to Zoo City. It is still equally dodgy, with prozzies, drug dealers and gang wars whilst people live in derelict buildings and the police rarely shows up.

However, people who feel guilty about something are 'animalled', meaning that after the guilt sets in, an animal shows up which gives them a magical power and which they cannot stand to be separated from. The main character, Zinzi December, carries around a sloth. A sloth. How cool is that. Like a giant furry backpack. She also has the power to find lost things. If you have seen that Eskom 49 Million ad, where everyone is connected by pieces of string, you can imagine how she sees lost things connected to the person who lost it.

I don't want to write a review, because enough others have done so. Also because I am lazy and just really liked the book. A sloth. Magic. Mystery. Non/Real Jozi. The cover. It is just all very cool.

The Wallflower

Man, I love Nando's ads. Normally I dislike posting too many videos, because it just seems like then no real effort goes into the blog post, but I am spending my days baking cake and reading Lauren Beukes' Zoo City instead of studying for upcoming exams. Procrastination much.

Enjoy.