Archive for November 2005
shining
mist
by now
Learning Life
“A teacher in Ireland once told me school is not life, life is school,” Brigid begins. With the amount of living she has done I can only conclude that Brigid Deffense must be here to teach the university something. I arrive at her ‘student’ accommodation to the sound of Gilbert and Sullivan, a warm fire and a tri-lingual parrot called Ernie who politely tells me to piss off, while the cat settles on my lap. Brigid disappears into the kitchen while I make myself at home chuckling over a book of Celtic Erotic Art. The pages are empty, and it fulfils its coverpage promise that in Ireland, ‘less is more’. Read the rest of this entry »
Who Is Don Maclennan
Don Maclennan makes me cry. He also farts, burps and shits, or so he assures me. For some reason this makes me want to cry more than ever, but I’m also smiling because listening to this man is like listening to the taste of something you can only smell. How do you write about Don Maclennan? You don’t. You write a bit about what he says or how he looks. His career speaks for itself. And when someone has such a history with words, how do you use yours to try and describe him? Read the rest of this entry »
White Pills
“Oh my god…did you see that?”. Before Rob’s words register we reverse. Emerging from my drowsy stupor I see the body lying there on the side of the road. It could be dead or asleep. I see that the white shirt is rising and falling. It is white like the pills scattered on the tarmac, sudden snowflakes in the hot sun. I feel cold as she lies there sweating. Read the rest of this entry »
On the Bench at BP
There is one in every town, city and country. More than one; reproductions of reproductions, cars people, the urban ritual. It’s repeated hundreds of times a day, thousands of times. People drive in and out, paying brief tribute to our mechanized mobility. Like so many rituals, this one is commercial, performed perfunctorily. Money changes hands and the taken for granted flux of our lives is guaranteed. Read the rest of this entry »
Bulawayo
Bulawayo: City of Kings. And Queens of the Night, of Pissed Nights, and of Pawns, waiting in queues, for meilie-meal, oil, salt, flour, fuel that nobody can afford; Bulawayo: City of Queues. We swoop in towards Joshua Nkomo Airport, and I look down on this unreal world; an obscure chessboard. The ground rises up in fertile green and brown patches. Gold grass glows alongside dust. Over a million people live in Bulawayo. As we skim the city, I see the people-pieces fill out, moving randomly. Whoever was playing lost interest a long time ago. Read the rest of this entry »
