Fireproof

Today I quit the gym. One more month of Zen Pilates on Wednesdays and Zen Yoga on Fridays, and then my card won't work any more. I've been going there for 5 years, not religiously, not fanatically, always slightly dishevelled looking, but regularly, at least. I've hated on all jock-y personal trainers, been embarrassed by a room full of nakedness, gotten athlete's foot, fell flat on my face and avoided the V-box class like the plague. It's not like I'm quitting exercise in order to join The People of Walmart or anything, I am just moving to Germany for, well, at least 2 years.

This means a lot of admin. I hate admin. I wish there was no bureaucracy, no paperwork, only (if need be) easy online forms that are designed so that a 6-year-old could fill them out. I would like not to feel like a criminal every time I need to complete paperwork, or to have my mom vouch for me as soon as I need to apply for the silliest things.

At the moment I am sorting (read throwing away) through my CDs, putting books in boxes and seeing which stuff could go to the less fortunate. Strange how we are all hoarders somehow. Not as excessive as the TV show, but we hang on to things because we're afraid without objects of memory we won't be able to remember everything. Maybe that is a good thing though. Maybe not every incident of life need to be enshrined somewhere in our brains.

It is rather emotional, this throwing away of things. I look at the Celine Dion CDs I took along on our trip of Mayan pyramids in Mexico as a child. After two weeks of almost exclusively Celine (I also packed Disney's Greatest Hits Vol. I and II), no one liked her any more. I find clumsy artworks, old photographs, a stack of SL magazines. It is hard to decide what to keep and what to let go, because somewhere in me there is a nagging voice constantly saying: "But you might need that again, someday."

Hah. Someday.

This moving away is harder than I thought. I am like a manic depressive, changing from being elated to nostalgic, teary-eyed and battling against a wave of sadness. Here is where my people are, it is home.

And although I've been all like 'needtoleaveneedtoleaveneedtoleave', actually leaving my very comfortable nest makes me almost shit my pants. What if this is a bad idea. What if everyone is stupid. What if I am the stupid one. What if there the sun won't ever shine. What if someone dies, here. What if, what if.

Luckily, my friend Michael left me with great advice : No experience is wasted.

Better make the best of what I have here, still, and what awaits.

In my city

I recently discovered Humans of New York. Now there's even a Humans of Pretoria. Although I think we are a bit of a conservative bunch, and not as willing to play with the way we look.

This is a trailer for Everybody Street, a (you guessed it) street photography documentary.



Everybody Street Trailer from ALLDAYEVERYDAY on Vimeo.

I should live in salt

So. Art exhibit #2 was Absa's L'Atelier, held at the Absa building in Joburg's CBD. Getting there was quite testing because there was traffic everywhere and as soon as we hit the inner city we stopped moving because of the build-up of cars, commuters and taxis. My spidey senses tell me that this was a very larney do, because of the following clues: 

- there was a guest list. 

- the ladies were all wearing heels. 

- lots of waiters in black. 

- there was an MC and speeches. 

- it reeked of pretension

- I was a +1. Haha. 

It was a mixed bag. Some of the artworks were plain silly (see the rainbow-coloured rugby balls and the basin below). Some were mediocre. Some were really cool. My favourites were the two works by Skullboy because they were fun, awkward and at times slightly sad as well. They felt human, whereas most of the other works felt more like they were created to get into the exhibit, not to express a particular emotion. I guess, like everywhere else, there is a lot of bullshitting that goes on in art.

Sasha Hatherly, Circadian I, 113111

Blantina Khutso Mmethi, Rhythmic Railway

Daandrey Steyn, Kalosesthesia & Eidosesthesia

Heidi Janice Mielke, This little piggy...wore high-heeled shoes

Cassandra Wilmot, Prosthetic II

Pierre Henri Le Riche, Hierargie (Hierarchy)

Louis De Villiers (AKA Skullboy), The Lost Supper

Andrew Sprawson, Drawn Curtains II

Andrew Sprawson, Detail from Drawn Curtains II

Megan Patricia Mcnamara, Flood

Skullboy, You & Me

From here onwards, it is just individual parts of Skullboy's You & Me piece.

Nothing

Most often, art does nothing for me. I'll search for who it might be aimed at and who might purchase it, but ultimately art is a gut reaction, a stirring of an emotion that says: Ah! Now this, this I like! In turn, what I like might not be liked at all by others. Or one might admire the craftmanship but not the subject matter. Art is a fickle, intangible response by the self to what it experiences when looking at/touching a 2D image or 3D object.

This week I went to two exhibits, and the first one was rather disappointing. It was titled Metro Musings and held at the University of Pretoria's Rautenbach Hall on Monday evening. I randomly saw an invite on FB and decided to attend. It was rather disappointing because most of the works were by fine arts lecturers, and it didn't seem all that cool. Maybe my eye just needs better training.

The sun going down on my way to the exhibit.

Diane Victor - Vagrants from the circle (Panel 1), 2013

Diane Victor - Vagrants from the circle (Panel 2), 2013

Diane Victor - Vagrants from the circle (Panel 3), 2013

Elfriede Dreyer - Ship of Fools I, 2012

Frikkie Eksteen - Detail from Blindfold - South, 2013

Frikkie Eksteen - Blindfold - East, 2013

Pieter Swanepoel - Whitewash, 2013

Magdel van Rooyen - Concrete Conversations, 2010

Magdel van Rooyen - Detail from Concrete Conversations, 2010

Leana van der Merwe - Untitled II, 2013

Sing me a love song / From your heart or from the phonebook

The Editors released a new album recently, emotively titled The Weight of your Love. For me, 2008 was filled with An End has a Start and I was extremely jealous when my sister saw them at a festival. Then came the shock that was In This Light And On This Evening, because suddenly there was a lot more synth and a lot less guitars. It was like listening to a different band, but not necessarily in a bad way.

Well, here is a song I like from their newest release.

When we were little the whole family got together for Christmas at my grandmother's house. This meant four families would travel to Jeffrey's Bay and overindulge in one another's company. The greatest part of going was playing the game of who could spot the ocean first. The second greatest was Dirkie. Dirkie were tubes of flavoured condensed milk that we could suck on for the hours and hours that it would take to get to the sea from Pretoria. Oh Dirkie. And then, suddenly, Dirkie was gone from the shelves.

Today my mom came home, and in memory of Dirkie I baked a condensed milk cake. I am not sure of this cake. It is very dense and tastes ok, but it didn't feel airy enough, or light enough. However, I think that maybe the appeal of this cake. If you prefer plain, simple cakes that lean more to the dry side then this is the one for you. If you like your cakes moist and fudgy, don't try this one. I kind of felt like the cake was a waste of a good can of condensed milk. And I cut myself with the tin's lid, so it might have been smarter to simply punch a whole in the tin and suckle on condensed milk for a week than to try change it into something baked.

Here is the recipe if you want to try it yourself, via Dr Ola:

Ingredients: (8 pieces)

1 can condensed, sweetened milk (400 gm)
4 Eggs
1 cup Flour (150 gm)
1/2 Teaspoon Baking powder
50 gm melted Butter + 1 Tablespoon for brushing the Cake form.

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 175°C
Prepare your 22 cm Cake pan ( better a ring form ) by brushing it with 1 table spoon butter & spreading flour.
With an electric mixer, mix all ingredients (milk, eggs,flour,baking powder & melted Butter) till smooth then add them to the cake pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes (or less according to the Cake thickness).
Sprinkle some powdered sugar on top & serve with fruit sauce or fresh fruits.

This is another link to a condensed milk cake, but it is basically just double the one above. And 8 eggs sounds like a sh*tload.

 

Nuvole Bianche

“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.” 

― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son

I stumbled across this tumblr, and boy has it made my day not only because it is funny but also because I've had the song looping over and over in my head since Sunday. Ok, no, not the entire song, just the chorus. And damn it is getting irritating. So this was great comic relief.

Click here for all the 99 problems, Ali Graham is on #41.

And my favourite:

Cheers (Drink to That)

When we were in school we didn't much care what we drank, as long as there was alcohol in it. But even back then when my friends drank Black Label I stuck to my trusty Hunters Dry. It might have cost R11 and not R9, but beer has never been my friend. To me it is something I'd add to a chocolate cake or bake bread with, or mix with Sprite. To each his own. 

Germany has all kinds of strange beer-mixes. Beer with Tequila. Beer with raspberry syrup. Beer with coke. Beer with tomato juice. Beer with grapefruit. Beer with prickly pear flavour. Hot damn. No thanks. I like my ciders. In France I was very excited to see they had cidre, but it's not the same. Nothing beats Hunters. 

However, I did go to a beerfest this weekend. Capital Craft took place on Saturday at the Voortrekker monument and showcases the brewing talents of micro-breweries. On their site they state that "micro-breweries have fast become the tasty and trendy alternative to commercially brewed beers. The painstaking efforts taken to brew and mature these specialist beers can be tasted with each and every sip. At the Capital Craft Beerfest, you will be able to sample beers by over 10 different microbrewers all the way from Darling, Cape Town to Valley of a 1000 hills in KwaZulu Natal."

Luckily they also had ciders :) I tried a red Stone cherry and a Red Stone pineapple cider and finished it off with a Everson pear cider. In between my one venture at beer was Mitchells Award Winning Festival Ale, which was drinkable. I think I just haven't yet acquired the palate for beer. 

Deep Fried Man, Tidal Waves and others performed and people just enjoyed a relaxed day out.