Electric Spaghetti

Update your feedreaders and blogrolls

2008-12-01T14:22:00.005+02:00

The content of this blog has been copied over to www.saaleha.com and will no longer be updated on Blogger.

Please change the details on your blogrolls and settings on your feedreaders, to reflect the new url (that's mostly for the 54 of you I can see on Google Reader).

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Thank you for sharing your mindspace with me and I hope we'll have some really engaging interactions on www.saaleha.com

Console me

2008-11-19T20:32:00.007+02:00

I have to compete against some Locust Queen.

A play on an afrikaans word and one of the main game characters.

I'm thinking an early release in time for the IIFAs

2008-11-18T20:40:00.005+02:00

Bollywood ain't big enough for me yaar.
Aasia put me on to this gem of a site.

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nauseatalgic (i like this word, i think i'll keep it)

2008-11-17T16:18:00.009+02:00

I swear, I will not post any more of these nausea-talgics and time capsule things again.

---

from: capsule@forbes.net
to: saaleha@gmail.com
date: 17 November 2008 16:00
subject: greetings from 2005

Greetings from your past. In the fall of 2005, you agreed to receive this message, which has been preserved for a year in the Forbes.com E-Mail Time Capsule. For more details, visit http://www.forbes.com/capsule

Here is the text of your message:

hey there dollie,

Hope this finds you well, smiling and happy.

are you married to your soul mate yet?

what's been happening since we last left?
right now, i'm sitting in Paula's home office, messing around on the internet when i really should be making headway with the investigative journalism conference logistics.

the currents in my life>
-*-the one that got away
-**-unclassifiable
-***-a distant friendly distraction
-****-the blind date (who i'll be chatting to this Friday)

i wonder which of these have stuck around.

I hope you've made some progress with your writing and all the big dreams that you've had at the tender age of 22 have translated into a little reality.

mwah and hugs

your past Self-

Saaleha

(how long is your hair now? and have you lost all the weight? more importantly-do you have your driving license and a car?)

--------------------

Hey there littler Saaleha,

Good Lord, weren't you the über bubblygum back then, with alphabet-case issues, and your head full of boys.

Thank the Almighty you don't 'dollie' and 'mwah' that often anymore.

Well, lil ditzy Sal, none of those okes are of any weight to you now.

But, you'll be pleased to hear that you have indeed married your soulmate, a boy from the 'ville, would you bloody believe it. Of the ghaam too, despite all your protestations that you'd never get with one of the People of The Cook Book.

You've also been with the company through three other Investigative Journalism conferences, and while you don't handle logistics anymore, you still mess around on the net when you should be making headway with other things. You're also thinking that a bit of R&D is as good as some R&R and may find yourself in a different kind of workspace next year.

You lost the weight. Then you gained the weight. Then you lost some more. Then you got that happy stomach and funtastic forearms and now you're planning on going back to gym. Tomorrow.

The hair is short. You've never had it so short. They even shaved off some from your neck. But that's also because you Bhamjee's lean towards the hirsute, rocking the bad moon rising and all.

Yes, you drive and you have a Chevy Aveo that your husband won't acknowledge because it isn't german-made. He also thinks it's a big blue shelf in the garage. You drove off to work one morning, with his spectacles, garage-card and cd flying off the roof and making violent kissie-kissie with the tar. He got most of his stuff back and had to cancel the card. You're kinda sure he still loves you.

Ah the writing. Let's not talk too much about the writing. You were more confident back then. But you have been accepted for a MA programme in 2010. We'll talk then.

And the big dreams, well, you're living one of them, and you're pretty much on track on the trek. You just need to be a bit more zenlike about things.

Calm.

Focused.

Like Water.

You're still clumsy. I know you didn't ask but you should know anyway.

Don't think I've seen this one on HijabStyle

2008-11-11T15:03:00.005+02:00

Hola, hola, hola, kicking it for Mzansi Apa!

(Get yours at Al-Hidaayah (sp?), Mint Road, Fordsburg, JHB)

doodle is a funny word and doodling just sounds like it should be dirty

2008-11-06T20:32:00.009+02:00

As far as business ventures go, I wish the blood of Charou ran thicker in my veins.

My first chug of entrepreneurial spirit was some time in Std4 (Grade 6 to you young 'uns) with a little start-up called "Cupid Aint Stupid".

I dealt primarily in matters-of-the-heart and would write custom love-letters and poems for a very reasonable R2 each. I was also the purveyor of fine hand-made twinsaver tissue flowers .

I made enough to buy a few chip rolls at break-time, but the business wasn't sustainable.

The type of people who didn't write their own love-letters were also the types who promised to pay up tomorrow. And the market for tissue flowers was soon overtraded after I gave tissue-flower making lessons for R3.

I never sold much else after that, apart from a few sticker sheets in Std5 and my old Archie comics much later on (a transaction I now regret).

But now I've hit on this idea of customising notebooks.

I'm a huge notebook phan-girl. I'm moleskine-verskrik, and the one I'm currently desecrating is a gorgeous leather-bound volume from Florence with the giglio embossed on the cover.

But I don't quite know where to start. Sites like cafepress.com offer exactly the type of arrangement I think would work for me, but after exchange rates, the final product is too expensive for the average blog reader to consider [Would you pay something like $12 for a notebook just because it had something clever on the cover?].

Are there any South African based print-on-demand set-ups?

Here are a few of the notebook cover ideas, taken from some of my more obscure blog-moments over the years:

Is this the kind of thing you'd willingly hand your credit card details over for?

The backbone of colonial America and where-house sales

2008-11-02T01:05:00.000+02:00

Chuck Palahniuk is of that rare strain of writer.

He violates us with the most extreme characters, but they're so utterly believable, that we'd just lie down and gratefully push a few hundred in their pockets afterward.

5g33k and I watched Choke last night.

A sex addict support group, a potential half-clone of Jesus Christ, an ingenious restaurant choking scam, a fucked-up childhood, a mad mother who meant well and a doctor willing to get herself impregnated in the hospital chapel in order to carry out a radical stem cell procedure. And there's more.

All of it plausible.

I haven't read the book this was based on, and therefore can't make any judgements on the medium migration, but I could see Palahniuk in almost all the pixels.

I may be writing out of my ass here, but what I got out of it was a portrait of damaged people, searching and failing.

I like that about Palahniuk; that as much as the people he creates are so tremendous and weird, there are little filaments running through them that seal the connection with the reader/watcher.

You may not be a chronic masturbator, but when you see Denny draw the stripper as a perfect female form, you're taken right back to those moments where you felt total acceptance of a beloved.

The journey you take with the protagonist Victor Mancini, is one you may still be on, even though you might never find yourself naked in an unlocked airplane bathroom.

Exclusive Books sent out a mass email informing Fanatics cardholders of their warehouse sale. They spelt 'members' as 'memebers' in their email subject line. I think that most of us bloggers are meme-bers.

Back to the ware/wherehouse sale. The dulcet tones of the GPS dominatrix lead me to Strijdom park where I expected to find a huge structure bursting its zinc with covetable titles.

I was disappointed to find a selection that took me all of 20 minutes to browse through.

I came home with two facepainting kits and fairy stories for the brats, three photobooks with accompanying soundtracks (the American Cars and Cuban beats for my uncle, the Sax! and Moods of La Habana for myself), Terry Pratchett's Thud!, Alduous Huxley's Those Barren Leaves, a Marie Claire Breakfast recipe book and The Bollywood Cookbook for my mum (ta for the heads up Kaye).

More to add to the pile of the unread. Whereas I used to eat up entire days reading, now I tend to digest books in spurts, little bites before bed or huge gastronomies on rare Sunday mornings. I'm currently gnawing on Lita Epstein's If you can't say anything nice, say it in Yiddish. To the recent vermin carrying the blogosphere plague, "Zolst es shtupin in toches arayn."

NaNoWriMo 2008. It's the first hour of Day 2 and my word count is bleak. Forget bleak, try non-existent. It's November's fault. Months that start on the weekend have no real ooomph about them. I'll start writing on Monday.

Did I convince you?

At 16

2008-10-23T15:30:00.002+02:00

In the months leading up to my wedding, I observed a sort of ritualistic catharsis by reading through old diaries.

The entries, as one would expect, were a riot of cringe, funny, angst and pain.

It felt a bit odd going through each one, almost as if I was an intruder bearing witness to the life playing out on the pages.

Because I was so different then, but still so Saaleha.

I ended each quasi-voyeuristic reading by tearing up the pages.

I was letting go to make space for new things.

However, like any wannabe godplaying wordsmith, I took notes.

I never wanted to forget what 16 was like.

Even though I'd grown beyond the insecurities and other mental blocks, it was an age ripe with what was to come.

Here are some of those notes, with a little careful editing to preserve some semblance of pride.

(I'm not sure why I tend to refer to myself in the collective, perhaps I'm spreading the loaded responsibility of what I write across all my personalities.)

--

At 16 we're emo.

Dramatic.

Over the top.

Histrionic, theatrical.

We overuse metaphor - bunjee jumping, precipice, mach 3, ground zero, sans parachute, plummeting.
We overuse words - pain, rejection, unrequited, dramatic, therapy, voices in my head.

We begin with new years resolutions for the year 2000-

lose weight
read namaaz
read quraan
study hard
be disciplined
make an effort not to miss school or madressah
be more assertive - as headgirl and in everyday life.
be neat
learn how to drive
talk less and listen more
'be there' for my friends
refrain from gossiping and passing bitchy comments
look upon everything and everyone as beautiful in their own way
smile more
be more understanding
learn how to cook
drink 8 glasses - more if possible- of water daily
start an exercise routine and stick to it
build up my self confidence
finehone my writing skills - start a thought journal
remember that folks are just folks and people are rarely intentionally nasty or stuck up
don't be judgemental
compliment at least one person daily
don't be a doormat
get up earlier
be more helpful and considerate
don't litter- don't be part of the problem, become the solution
set an example
lighten up
save the world!

---
Death shocks the young - we wrote of a friend's passing, the regret and the lessons learnt - to not hurt each other because life is indeed short and the Almighty knows best.

We had self-esteem issues - never thought we were good enough or deserved the best.

We seemed to prefer fantasy, living in that dream world.

We learnt not to underestimate ppl or pass judgements.

"I like to write in pencil, easier to erase"

We thrived on unrequited love, the chase, the longing
We used to listen to 5fm while we wrote in our diaries, pencilling in the name of a computer college advertised, because we weren't quite sure where we fitted.
We had a crush on a boy.

We tended to vacillate -I love him, I cant believe I ever liked him, and on and on.
We were superficial.
We were terrified about the future. and being friendless and nameless.
We realised we were on the continuous search for The One, the elusive ideal.
We used to write for an imaginary audience that we obviously tried very hard to impress.
We realised we wanted to write. Really write. We wanted to inspire awe, be glorious and spellbinding.
We thought we hadn't suffered enough to write brilliantly.
Our fear was that we would waste our talent.
We feared being ignored.
We thought we were manic-depressive.

We met someone at a party. We thought he was amazing. We were swept up in the moment. We forgot what he looked like and made up a picture in our head when we spoke to him over the phone. We learnt soon that evening-time was a witch who liked practical jokes.
We panicked when he put his hand on our thigh during the longest trip home.
We cringed and we wanted to die.
We were horrified when we learnt he didnt like poetry.

We were more attracted to boys who didnt show any interest in us.
We often wrote about suspected psychological disorders.

We liked writing because it immortalised the ephemeral.
We liked using words like ephemeral.

We thought often of the One.
We didnt want a mirror of ourselves - someone who reflected our faults, shortcomings or virtues. We didnt want perfection.

We made the 'first move', and it was thrilling and scary.

We loved the power, the fact that we could make things happen.

We found out he liked another girl. She was pretty, funky and thin. For us this meant she was perfect, and better than us.
We liked his goofy laugh and smile, the dumb things he said, we admired his confidence.

We were afraid of commitment, afraid of solidifying things into concrete definition.
We didnt know if we were in love, only that we felt deeply.

We couldnt get over the fact that someone crushed back, that we were desirable.

Our last matric paper was Afrikaans. We were afraid of the changes that we'd see.

We felt like we were losing something. We were afraid we'd never find friends like the ones we had.
"leave the sunshines of your past to face the fires of your futures" - something we wrote once.

Our weight was a 'heavy issue' - we intended all puns.
We realised we always fell for the goofiest, quirkiest characters.
For us, leaving school was like jumping off a very high cliff.

We learned that good can come from bad and that we learn from every life experience.

We were intrigued by the strange boy who'd come to the shop and stare at us.
We felt fat, unattractive, stupid and unfriendly.
We were whiney, yet we tried to inspire ourselves towards Better.
We realised we liked goofy quirky guys because they didnt intimidate us.
We were afraid of failing at varsity, of making the wrong friends or none at all, of losing ourselves.

We seemed to feel empty alot, We doubted whether we'd ever find the real thing.

We got our matric results - 4 As, 2Bs.
We got interviewed by Radio Islam because of this success.

Our insecurities concerned us. We wanted to be thin and pretty. We wanted fame and acknowledgement but were afraid of becoming conceited.
We didnt want to be a carbon copy, we didnt want mediocrity to swallow us.

---

Ennui Eyes

2008-10-17T17:18:00.002+02:00

258.

That's how many blog posts I've pushed out since I got serious on this platform at the end of August 2005.

The sound the Most Prolific Blogger award makes is "whoosh-thik", as it clips me on the shoulder and soars past towards others worthier on my google reader.

Genesis

It was our Honours year. 2004.

Razina (now a perspicacious Fourth-Estater with the Financial Mail) and I (Jane-of-all-trades who does a bit of wordswork) skipped out of our Journalism Theory class, our heads full of Anton Harber-isms and this Blogging thing.

Off to the post-grad computer labs to get in on the action and become the cyber-bastions of Truth, the wwwatchdogs of the State, the free voices giving voice to the voiceless, wadda wadda, all that stuff you write for the entrance applications.

The first blog I ever really got into was written by Reza in Canada. "Musing Over The Ontological Status of a Boiled Egg". With a title like that, sure, it's gonna grab me by my metaphorical cajones. It's defunct now, but you can still go through his archives. Brilliant stuff.

While setting up my blogger account, I stared at the hulking grey servers making fresh pasta of the data cables, and I thought, "Hmm...you know what, that looks a lot like electric spaghetti..."

I'm now a blogger!! k3wl!!

My first few posts were hardly the stuff of killer citizen journalism we were creaming ourselves over in class. A kitschy poem that rhymed (yeah, I used to do those) and a list of words I found interesting (I recall flocculent, being one of them). You could tell I was farting fairy dust at the time.

And blogging bored me. Mostly because no one read me (what did I know of link-baiting and comment-whoring then. I thought that if I built it, Google would make them come). So I left it to die a slow, stinky death.

The becoming.

Then this guy decided to turn his weekly Randeree-roundup email into a series of blogposts. Suddenly, my blog was up on his link list, it was being read. I should've been elated right? Instead, I was horrified that friends and strangers would be reading the twaddle. I deleted everything, and put up a little spring-clean notice. It was time to decide what the blog should become.

A space for me to write to keep the rust away.

And you know the rest

Personal observations. Me, without too much me. Rare bits of social commentary. Travel stories. Ad-jamming. Obscurities. Little things I do in Photoshop and InDesign. Fun with 419-ers. Monologues. Trying to be a bit clever and fancy with the words. Amusements. A real salmagundi, the phenotype of what it's like in my head sometimes.

Ennui eyes?

It could be due to my current frustrations career-wise, that I find this blogging thing iffy and blehsome of late. I'm easily annoyed at people who poo-poo ponitificate all over the place (and I've used that term in conversation with at least two friends so far). I'm irritated by the judgements I see cast, the idiocy that gets the approved sticker from quality control and an undiscerning audience. I can't stand the sheer amount of inane convoluted verbiage (and I use that word ironically) that's out there.

I don't want to feed into this.

I wasn't always like this. This critical, this angsty.

So I guess, I'm saying I'm just tired and a little jaded.

And maybe I need to eat more soya beans.

Really giving (Blog Action Day 2008)

2008-10-15T13:33:00.008+02:00

I give the man at the robot some of my loose change. He has albinism, and I feel sorry for him, imagining what it must be like to have grown up so, to have people glance at you curiously and quickly look away.

I give another man at the robot some of my loose change. He has an awful burn scar that's eaten up half of his head. I feel sorry for him, because I can see that he's 'not all there' and that it is probably hard for him to get work.

I give a child at the robot some of my loose change. He's holding his blind mother's hand and I feel sorry for him, knowing that he'll graduate from a school on the pavement, and know nothing beyond the cars that pass him, and the people who give him money.

I give a woman at the robot some of my loose change. Her child is tied papoose-style on her back, and I feel sorry for them. While her child is lulled to sleep by the lullaby of hooting taxis and worn brake pads, my baby niece has a tastefully decorated nursery and a colourful hanging mobile to stimulate her impressionable mind.

These are transactions right? I give them money, and they sell me a bit of windowlene for my soul, something I can use to polish off the guilt, rewards in the next world.

But while this sounds like a classic win-win, it's not a real solution, this swapping of something tangible for fickle abstracts.

I give, You take - not sustainable. Yet it has its place, when the space between us goes much much further than just my hand reaching out of my car window to drop some bread money in yours.

But the belly cries louder than the brain.

When your milestone for the day is to find enough food so that your children don't die from a slow starvation, education and development (and sustainability) become big useless words that can't be eaten.

And so poverty extends beyond the corporeal, it entrenches itself in the mind. And like weeds given a small chance, they flourish, forming the incubator ready for the birth of the demonchild - Crime (and that's subject for another Blog Action Day).

I come back to 'sustainability', that somewhat diluted word that's been draped and displayed by consultants and development specialists at many a conference and symposiusm.

Bring on the food grants and food gardens, feed families so that they can start moving up on Maslow's pyramid. But don't let it end at the stomach.

Shift focus to the schools, training colleges and centres for entrepreneurs.

But this need not be a government mandate solely.

We can all somehow contribute and feed momentum into this.

I know of one way we can give so that, like the catchy jingle, it keeps on giving.

"Ibn ‘Umar reported: ‘Umar acquired land in Khaibar. He came to Allah’s Apostle (saw) and sought his advice in regard to it. He said: “Allah’s Messenger, I have acquired land in Khaibar. I have never acquired more valuable for me than this, so what do you command I do with it? Thereupon the Prophet (saw) said: If you like, you may keep the corpus intact and give its produce as Sadaqah. So ‘Umar gave it as Sadaqah declaring that the property must not be sold or inherited or given away as a gift. And ‘Umar devoted it to the poor, to the nearest of kin, to the emancipation of slaves, to wayfarers/guests, and in the way of Allah.-Sahih Muslim"

According to the National Awqaf Foundation of South Africa, this hadith led to the establishment of the Waqf system. A Waqf can be anything from property to money to a food garden. The core endowment remains, while the earnings/produce/resources get distributed/utilised.

I believe this concept has universal and secular appeal. Goverments and NGOs work together to form central trusts where the endowments can be managed. Everyone gets involved in the solution.

What do you think?

Pie in the sky or a slice for everyone?

The Ultimate Choose-Your-Own-Adventure storyboard

2008-10-14T16:12:00.005+02:00

What's your story?

The inkblots were sourced via a google image search.

Do I have to pay extra for that?

2008-10-08T13:19:00.000+02:00

Just a bit of lavatorial-silly-ha-ha. Phonecam-snapped while stuck in traffic.

Slogan reads; "WE WOULD LOVE TO HANDLE YOUR PACKAGE"

Eat Mubarak (updated)

2008-09-30T14:23:00.008+02:00

And so to end, as we began, Eid Mubarak from myself and the folks at someecards.com.

Sucks that we can't agree on a date, but hey, we can't even agree on which of the 72 will make it to the finish line.

May your day be a beautiful celebration of Faith, family and food.

To note; fennel, ginger and turmeric are good remedies for indigestion.

One for the Jo'burgers:

And a special rendering for the spokesperson of the Anti-Mehndhi Collective:

The last time I was this excited about new shoes for Eid, must've been when I was around six years old. Please humour this mindless indulgence:

Recalled

2008-09-20T22:25:00.003+02:00

My husband's handiwork. He's a big South Park fan.

The term 'recall' makes me think of defective seatbelts or leadpainted alphabet blocks.

We are living in interesting times.

The reluctant tagger- Proudly SA- the last i promise (maybe)

2008-09-19T13:02:00.009+02:00

"A Proudly South African meme inspired by EXMI
Rules:
Link back to the Meme creator - Caz
Link back to the person who tagged you - this girlie here.
Give at least 5 reasons why you love SA
Let me know once you've done it."

Our country is a troubled teenager. Its soul wrestles and sweats with the burly demons of crime, poverty and corruption. It thrashes with poor service delivery, reckless political mouthpieces, unemployment, class struggle and HIV/Aids.

But it still believes; this teenager harbours hope.

And I still believe, though on some days, it gets a bit hard to. But that is the nature of Faith.

And with that, I give you 5 reasons why I love South Africa:

Our freedom of expression/religion. I can be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Bhuddist, Wiccan, whatever. I can wear the symbols of my faith freely and there is no obstacle to my practice.
We all go on about what a beautiful country this is, because, what do you know, it really is a beautiful country. Click here for pictures the husband took over at Chapmans Peak, Cape Town. That's just one place.
Our internet access is not censored or restricted. (But we'd really like more bandwidth please)
We managed a fairly peaceful transition into democracy back in 1994, when the world thought we'd burn each other up. And that gives me real hope for our future.
We are a nation of creatives and achievers: in the arts, technosphere and on the sports field.

Your turn.

You know what I am before you know who I am.

2008-09-16T20:58:00.004+02:00

My original concept for this was to have the words form the image of the woman wearing the scarf, a textual graphic, similar to the Islamic calligraphy where verses of the Quran are written stylistically to curve into and form shapes from nature.

But, I am artistically-inept, any rendering would have been as elegant as a crayon left to melt in the sun. The next best thing was to turn to photoshop and manipulate an image sourced from a google search.

The rationale: Ramadaan tends to froth up the visual Islam; the conventional markers of the Faith such as the hijab and the beard. It is a time for questions from those you work with, study with or buy fruit from. Challenge the existing perceptions, unsettle the mindsets, uncover their minds, educate.

"Be water, my friend" and current addictions

2008-09-08T12:45:00.004+02:00

Ramadaan and fasting has me as placid and calm as an undisturbed forest pool, and I am more inclined to do what is asked of me.

Like Bruce Lee, my way is of water.

So while I don't usually respond to tags as a full blog post, I will do this for Fatima because not only am I roza-compliant, but she is almost-family and gave me a really awesome serving bowl as a wedding present.

My five current addictions are as follows:

Fennel. The seeds, the sprigs, ground up or whole. I will add it to any dish I can get away with.
Google reader. How could I have not latched on to this sooner!? Shame on me.
Twitter. I'm following some of South Africa's brightest people and some brilliant buitelanders.
Woolworths Taste Magazine
Making coffee popsicles. See here for directions. Add a bit of elachi (cardamom) for that lekker extra.

--note-- Killa's gone and tagged me as well. Even though I didn't get a discount on the jellies I bought from their shop, he's family too (the tentacles of the charo-connections* extend into the blogosphere)

I will not tag anyone specifically. If you care to play along, leave your list in the comments section.

*aka "haga kareh" in the guji vernac, "my granny's your grandpa's cousin", "my aunty's married to your brother-in-law's sister" and on and on until you discover you've gone and married someone whose forebearers worked in the same village rice keti as your great-great-grand-dada's.

Day 4, 5 and 6

2008-09-06T19:57:00.008+02:00

I was born on the fifth of Ramadaan.

A friday much like yesterday, except for the faint chill of winter that threads through June air.

I always forget my islamic calendar birthday, and had to be reminded by my mother.

Once I hit fast#3, the days become one huge amalgamated mass of light and dark, with only the numbered chapters of the Quran and the tear-away days on our Ramadaan calendar providing any sense of where I really am.

However, this is not exclusive to Ramadaan. Just a few weeks ago, I misplaced a whole day. I have no idea what I did with Tuesday, August 26. Any information you might have regarding the missing hours can be forwarded via email to me.

The quiet still shrouds me, amplifying all those ugly, scraggly bits of character I need to do away with. If only a metaphysical Verimark existed, and I could pick up a nifty flaw and fluff-remover along with some Bio-slim (as this month of abstention does nothing for a body that's stubborn and clingy).

The community website ramadaan.co.za features a really good series by Mariam Mahomed titled Ramadan Bootcamp. A post on forgiveness pulled a string in me, and I began to think on all those whom I had stomped on and the ones who muddied me.

I believe it's a feature of only-child syndrome to want to be loved by everyone all the time (other solo brats feel free to disagree).

For a large part of my lived life thus far, the thought of someone not falling in step with that line refused to compute. And with that, I lived selfishly, doing what I had to do to get what I want, with little cognisance of the sharp words I'd utter or the disappointments I'd cause. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise..." were frequent and familiar. I'd give you a smiley face and some story of how I'm just so caught up in myself to be aware of what I've really done. All would be forgiven, because, well, I'm me, and everybody likes me.

But it happens, that one day, someone actually is not able to stomach you, and it sickens you to your bowels, because really that's never happened before (or maybe you were just so caught up in that little monarchy in your head, that you never noticed). That experience was enough to allow for a long-overdue growth-spurt of maturity. And you begin to think on who's really forgiven you.

It would not make any sense to go back to every single person you've wronged for all your time on earth. What would you say that wouldn't rattle with empty? "Look, I've just had an epiphany. I've been really ugly to you. I know I asked for you to forgive me, but will you really forgive me, because I'm being sincere this time around."

You can't expect people to hand out their heartfelt maafs on your demand. They have a right to withold it for as long as their soul will allow. All you can offer is your honesty and prove by your subsequent actions that you truly are regretful.

As for those for whom you penned great epics of wrath and rage for, it's all kind of laughable really. You would not be who you are today were it not for some reptile who forced you to walk on another path. While you need not cut out your heart for canapés, know that hate makes you brittle.

I visited my family in Azaadville today; with all their quirks and crazies, they keep me grounded. Reading salaah next to my grandmother, I found it hard to suppress a smile when she made her takbeer aloud and proceeded to recite her prayers just above that of an audible whisper. She's been praying like that for so long, I don't think He minds anymore. This is the woman who raised me, more mother than grandmother, I'm blessed to have three I can call Mummy (the recent addition of sg33k's). My grandmother laments my weight gain and pushes sweets on me, all in the same breath. The ways of the old sometimes grate on the young, but in that exercise of patience, lies great reward.

My uncle had a tumour removed from his bladder two days ago. He's caught in that horrid limbo of waiting on his results. Some of you reading this may have met him, and for others who've not; know that he is a father, a husband, a son, a brother, an uncle. At a time where our prostrations are just that little bit more extended, and we're inwardly clamouring for the Almighty's approval, remember him, and all those who are not in their best of states, in your prayers.

Jelly and Ifthaar are inextricably linked for me. Whobbling wonderfulness, I lose at least twenty years whenever I'm shlurping some.

Day 2 and 3

2008-09-03T21:23:00.001+02:00

There is a stillness in Ramadaan; a special type of quiet that wraps around us. A stillness that renders us malleable; a warm and pliable soul, ready to receive all of Good.

Those things that rub against our grain; loaded words that bring on brain-hives and the desire to strew expletives over the offender -- for no well-reasoned argument will dumb the donkey’s bray that offends -- we find those things have no place in this soft soul.

It is from the stillness that patience is to be born, with a certain measure of tolerance and the will to let things go. Water off of a sheet of glass.

But I must acknowledge how fortunate we are to have within our midst, those who abide in domiciles built from a certain amorphous solid, and who are only too keen to hurl projectiles at those who pass by. Well-meaning missiles, of course; targeting our ill-placed sentiments into something that loosely resembles one person’s notion of what constitutes a Mu’min.

Why, you need not scar your forehead asking of The One to guide you onto the path of Truth and Light, when you’re being herded onto a trail predetermined by one who simply knows better.

And everyone knows better. Except you, of course.

My patience is not complete. It has yet to be tempered into something better than glass.

(Coffee at Sehri, keeps you Merry. Salma will agree, that rhymes somewhat)

Day One

2008-09-01T20:48:00.001+02:00

It was hard for me to bask in a spiritual infusion today, when my brain must’ve been trying to escape through my eye sockets, for all the pain I blinked back.

Hello Caffeine Dependency, you are such a bastard.

A website I was working on had its database eaten by some e-tokoloshe.

That translated into two full days of work having to be compressed into a couple of quicksand hours in order for us not to look like inept fools should some client surf over. This excluded the two hours of downtime we experienced due to the power being cut-off because someone was having a Marie Antoinette moment down at the municipality.

It takes a strong person to not want to smash up the internet and unleash an inner Gustav on anyone within arms reach.

I am not a strong person.

I tried to smile, and I failed.

The frustration and the physical fatigue gave my aura the brown-colour wash of a party-pooper. I could see relief iron out the wrinkles on my boss’ face when I asked to leave early.

I admit the juggling is a feat and I’m trying very hard to keep work, pray and kitchen in smooth circles up in the air.

But this is only Day One. I have an entire month (and beyond) to work out my arms.

And there is something truly magic and complete about breaking your fast with someone who builds your world.

The not-quite-Ramadaan-greetings post (updated)

2008-08-21T08:40:00.009+02:00

The best e-card site ever (ever!) has come up with a range of messages just for Ramadaan.
As these have been conceptualised in line with their usual facetious-tongue-on-dockers-clad-butt-cheek offerings, do not send on to people who take themselves too seriously.

They've also introduced a create-your-own e-card function which, as evident below, I thoroughly abused last night.

(As kids, we'd call people who didn't keep their fasts 'kotchcows'. I don't know the etymology behind this one)

HHP and the 2008 Citizen Book Prize (this post has nothing to do with Hip Hop Pantsula)

2008-08-07T09:48:00.006+02:00

In the early days of Electric Spaghetti, circa 2005 (when the template was ghagha green and orange and the profile pic of a young intern journalist with a floppy fringe that ate one of her eyes) I clicked on the navbar's 'next blog' button and tripped over the writings of a young man angry with Grahamstown's garden gnomes.

That, his observations on Zimbabwe and Muslim madness, general battery-acid outpourings and honest devil-may-give-a-flying-act-of-fornication renderings had me thoroughly absorbed.
His stuff was pure crack and I kept going back.

I left a comment once and he thought I was a man or an anthropomorphic water buffalo who'd taken to stalking him.

Subsequent emails soon sloughed off that heavy skin and a friendship was cemented.

For as long as I've known Hamish; from his days as Organ Harvester to Spaced Head and back again, I've seen how words work around and over him.

Fucking talented, with a blistering wit that shocks and awes with each attack, we knew he had it in him -- to go onto something great.

Those uppercuts and lowblows Life sometimes deal us when it's had a few too many, have left Hamish with the scars that are now proving to be his best features.

Read all about it here (thanks for the link Aasia).

Congratulations Hamish Hoosein Pillay, on winning the 2008 Citizen Book Prize.
Well-deserved and long-overdue.

The Meals On Speed Slam Jam Challenge

2008-07-31T15:17:00.008+02:00

This is how it works:

Go to www.mealsonspeed.saaleha.com (Bear with me on the design flaws - I'm still in the tweaking process.)
Click on the Slam Jam Challenge page.
Leave in the comments section, a suggestion for a cooking challenge. (Each challenge is a list of ingredients you'd like to see included in a dish.)
The ingredient combinations can be as varied or as odd as you like. (If you're a regular MealsOnSpeed reader, you'll know I'm not averse to combining paw paw with pepper or tang juice powder with mascarpone.)
My restrictions are that I will not use pork, carnivores or cook with alcohol. Please keep ingredient suggestions to items that are not too obscure or out of season.
Each week I will choose or, you will poll for, the suggestion challenge (I still have to decide). I will then proceed to cook/braise/broil/fry/roast/sauté/massacre/pummel/etc until the ingredients choose to collude to become something edible.
I will blog the result.
A new challenge will be chosen each week.

Photo Credit: Steve Woods

random ad concept - but the sale is for real

2008-07-16T09:46:00.006+02:00

Disclaimer: The advert above is not part of any official campaign undertaken by Exclusive Books or their advertising agencies. It's just me messing around with a concept.

It's been a while since I spread on some ad-jam...

2008-07-08T14:49:00.003+02:00

Now, I know you're thinking this one's old-hat, but an office conversation today totally inspired me to come up with this little production. Thank you Obie.

Photographic sources: For our Main man Jay-Zee and the sheeken for the eeten

cremations and the blue-footed booby that arose thereof

2008-07-01T14:30:00.001+02:00

Despite having done the following for most of my life; drinking things warmed in the microwave, eating kool-aid straight out of the packet, using a roll-on anti-perspirant daily, a couple of weeks ago, I managed to hit a quarter century.

However, it was a birthday spent mostly in bed (I wish I could do a giggley-wink-wink here, but I was merely whiney, miserable and sickly with flu et al.), followed by two weeks of corporeal rebellion.

How predictable that epiphanies would come bouncing along wearing their "Stick with the winners" badges as I approached the eve of ageing.

It's been a while since my last cigarette. Note 'last'. I can say this with an almost arrogant certainty, "I will never smoke again."

I did not find some aspect of God. A fractured personality did not suddenly develop moral fortitude and stage its coup while I slept. I just didn't want to any more.

There was something about my habit that lingered with each dissipating exhalation.
The blues and greys were the rising detritus of past demolitions. Ugly things that diminished me and built me up so long ago, they might as well have not existed. And yet I still held this thing to my lips.

I smoked because I wanted to see. I smoked because I wanted to feel. I smoked because people didn't expect me to.
I smoked because I liked it.

I have fond memories of burning tobacco.
There were conversations with good friends that stretched over sunsets, ashtrays and hours.
There were the liftclub cigarettes, the packs that belonged to everyone and no one, the ones we prayed over, hoping we didn't stink of the guilt when we got home to our families.
A solitary indulgence sometimes, I'd take to quiet heights with views of the city and myself; the roof of the archi building at Wits, Great Hall stairs, the balcony of my boss' house when we still had offices there.
I can still taste the menthol of a slow Craven A, the best after a meal at Muchacho's while driving down the Brixton Hill towards Auckland Park that one day in 2003.
There was the cigarette in my cousin's garden on the morning of my wedding; everything was damp from the rain, and so sharp, I could cut with the leaves.

My last cigarette was dispatched without any ritual; the end stubbed out among a billion other crutches in the communal ashtray of our office smoking room. I walked back to the office, without a word to anyone.

And that was it really.

I don't wish to glorify something that has the potential to harm you. I lived through my grandfather's struggle to breathe. A chain smoker, who had to stop because of a bullet that grazed his lung during a robbery he stumbled upon. After decades of reaching into his pocket for the next one, he quit just like that. The damage was already done. It was a few years after that, when he needed two oxygen machines, because he just couldn't do it on his own. Something so basic, done without active thought, and yet there he was, aware every second that those humming machines were the gatekeepers of his mortality.

I should've known better. And I did, but I smoked anyway. There's this quote from Gregory David Robert's Shantaram that I often pull out, something along the lines of, "I smoked in those days, because like all people who smoked, I wanted to die as much as I wanted to live."
And maybe I was caught up in something I didn't quite understand. But you get on in years, and if you're lucky, you learn from what you've lost and your world becomes that much easier to navigate.

This is not a 'come walk with me, I have seen the light' post.
People smoke for different reasons. People quit for different reasons. Some people never smoke at all. But one thing I do know, we all have our crutches. I know I'm still leaning on a few.

"You got an attitude of everything I ever wanted, I got an attitude of need..."

2008-06-12T12:26:00.002+02:00

There's a man that stands in the middle of the road, at the robots at the corner of Jan Smuts avenue and St. Andrews in Johannesburg.
While waiting for the red to merge into green, you notice the way he's just there, an island unto himself.
He doesn't look up, so there's none of that awkward avoiding of eye-contact that usually goes on with the guy who hands out flyers or the woman with her blind companion and enamel cup.
He's so still.
And in a sort of delicate and ironic caricature, he stands there with his pockets turned out, fingers gripping the inner seams, holding the white cloth out like banners, while his eyes drill through the tarmac
Such a clever bugger.
See how he's reversed the roles!
He's ignoring you, but look how at you're seeking him out, wondering about him.
Don't you want to ask him things? Like where his favourite place is and if he eats the same thing every night.
When Adam Duritz bled his words on stage Friday night at the Dome, I wanted to ask him these questions too.
Duritz and the turned-out pocket man, grand canyons apart but their rocks grind down to the same dust for me.
Pocket-man is as much celebrity to me as Duritz is.
While I sing along to the Counting Crows slipping out of my radio, I scan the street for Pocket-man. I want to know about him, things I can't get on rss feed or google.
Like Duritz; who's lit up with more poetry than a cemetery at sunset, I'm sure Pocket-man has words in him too.

---
Click here for a bootleg version of one of my favourite Counting Crows songs.

yes, this is a plug of the shameless variety

2008-06-10T11:34:00.003+02:00

Two writers.
Two continents.
One collaboration.

(That's what they'll put on the movie posters)

But for now, this is the tale of a cartoonist with a knack for rubbing people out.

Meet Raymar Driver.

(And of course, we'll love to hear what you have to say about him.)

when good bloggers go Mac...

2008-06-03T10:40:00.006+02:00

Your mother may have warned you about sudden blindness and hair-growth on your palms, but for the first time, I present you with the effects of excessive blogging:

When we're not winning Miss Congeniality contests, we also like to go a bit pop-art:

But we're really just a couple of normal freaks.

Thanks to Concerned MJ and the Ever-Great Waseem for a grand Saturday spent mall-ratting. Honourable mentions to Mak and Jauhara for dropping by. I hope to meet up with the rest of you KZN-lot the next time I'm tripping down.

I'd blog about the annual Autostyle Motorshow, but as was twittered, I'm all doof-doofed out. How some people can spend bazillions on car sound for three seconds of brain-liquidising bass-pumping is just beyond me.

However if y'all into the vroom-vroom, the husband did take lots of pretty pictures. He'll have them up on the site (www.autostyle.co.za) faster than you can say tyre-naaier.

chipping the block

2008-05-29T22:22:00.004+02:00

I did it.

My first one ever.

Not a paragraph, not a character sketch, not amputated dialogue, but a whole story. One thousand four hundred fifty five words worth.

It's rough I know, it's still in first draft. It's simplistic, there's undeveloped characters, sparse dialogue, inconsistencies, mixed up tenses, bad grammar, probably a million holes and it doesn't have a title, but I don't care. It may have a face only a mother would love, but this is huge for me. I've never finished a piece of fiction before.

Thank you 5g33k for being such a fucking nag of a muse, couldn't have done it without you Genius.

Read the piece here.

And yes, I want to know what you think. Pat on the head or evisceration, I welcome all feedback.

*July09/08 edit* Have since removed the link for some official purposes. Thanks for all the feedback guys, it's been taken in to consideration for the final edit.

working words

2008-05-26T14:36:00.005+02:00

Would you buy a book that's been self-published by its writer?
Or does it, not having an established publisher's backing, smack of self-indulgence and general dodginess?

a south african war story

2008-05-20T21:16:00.010+02:00

Two gunmen entered our home tonight. They locked my husband and helper in separate rooms and made off with my husband's car and his bag containing house keys, store keys and wallet. No one was harmed, and for that no amount of forehead-bruising prostration will ever fully convey my gratitude.

I was delayed at the office; having to work on a last-minute layout, cursing the job and dreading the traffic, not knowing that this irritation may well have been a blessing from the Almighty.
While driving, it was an alarming call from my sister-in-law, "They're holding Naeem up at home. Don't go home. Come here," that brought on a silence within and and cold unlike anything I'd ever felt. Stuck behind a taxi stopping for passengers, I was helpless, my face wet, tasting the salt of my desperation. My voice, a frail drone, a fraught and feeble supplication, "Ya Allah, just let him be ok, Ya Allah just him be ok."

I reached my sister-in-law's house and after her reassurance, we drove on to my home. Naeem was outside with police and neighbours, getting things moving; giving statements, canceling credit cards, changing locks, taking inventory of what was in the car, picking up the pieces of himself.

The room in which Naeem was in had to have its door smashed at the lock to get him out. The splintered wood and ugly gashes are a stark reminder that our safety has been breached. We have been violated.

We're all victims. Even just knowing someone who's had a crime committed against them, is a stain on you.

I feel a fatigue. I'm tired of feeling helpless, I'm tired of feeling outraged. I'm just fucking tired. This insane crime issue, and now recently the xenophobia madness, this take-what-we-want mentality, this valueless moral breakdown, this quagmire of defecation we're all floating in.

People are being massacred for seeking refuge in our country. Seeking safety, trying to escape the demons and despots in their lands. Refugees and economic immigrants, all here to chase something better. What foolish, pathetic delusions when this beautiful country is being fucked up by inept leadership, blasé attitudes, lawlessness and mob mentality borne out of ignorance, fear and desperation.

I hope for better things for this South Africa, but I don't feel anything for her tonight.

---My husband's car was spotted in the Meadowdale area, south of Johannesburg. A picture of it can be accessed here.
Chances are virtually nil I know, but perhaps just putting the information out there is some sort of positive step.

Unfolding the magic and pragmatism of good Narrative

2008-05-15T09:43:00.004+02:00

If one of the things on your to-do list is to tell the great South African story (or any damn-good story), you simply can not afford to miss this year's Narrative Journalism conference.

For both writers and journalists, the conference organisers have lined up speakers such as Zakes Mda, Mark Gevisser, Fred Khumalo, Jacqui Banaszynski, Tom French and Dave Hazelhurst, among others.

Master of magical realism, Mda will take participants through the journey of building effective characters while speakers such as Gevisser and Hazelhurst, pass on the practical skills to write and deliver compelling narrative.

French and Banaszynski have both won Pulitzer prizes for their work while acclaimed author Khumalo is the winner of the 2005 EU Literary Award for his novel Bitches Brew.

The award winning Gevisser, who is currently updating his much lauded biography of President Thabo Mbeki, writing a narrative film script on the ANC’s 1930 Congress and his celebrated Mail and Guardian political profiles were collected in the anthology: Portraits of Power.

Creative director at The Star newspaper, Hazelhurst will unpack the production of a narrative project – from idea to publication – through “The Search for Looksmart”, a story which recently won the Mondi Shanduka award for best narrative story.

Taking place at Hackle Brooke Estate on May 21 and 22, the conference aims to deepen the understanding and power of narrative journalism, and to give journalists the skills to use it more effectively.

The conference, now in its fourth year, continues to attract considerable media interest from across the continent.

Said frayintermedia Managing Director Charmeela Bhagowat: “This year we want to build on past gains and focus on practical skills for reporters, sub editors and editors from every type of media.
A specialist one day skills workshop will also be run on 23 May by Jacqui Banazynski.

With limited space, interested parties are advised to book sooner rather than later.

For more information on the conference, please contact Debby Kramer at: 011 341 0767 or at dkramer@frayintermedia.com

Download registration forms here.
Download the draft programme here.

Jane and the incredible secret world of the annual L Wechsler & Co. sale

2008-04-28T16:42:00.009+02:00

The number of cars lining the side of the road and choking up the improvised parking lot, was the first portent that Jane was about to become part of something rather important.

When she saw the horde of people emerge from the side of the tent pushing trolleys, each one labouring under the weight of multiple cardboard boxes, her heart missed a diastole. "Ooh, what could there be in those boxes," she thought.

And when she noticed how each them wore that same blend of triumph and satisfaction on their faces, Jane was jolly glad she remembered to put on panty-liners that morning.

"This is it," she whispered fervidly to her sister-in-law. "I can't wait to see what's inside. I've heard stories about things like these..."she broke off, almost in reverence, as they approached the tent's entrance. "Oh my, do you think one trolley will be enough?"
"Ha! I like that question!" said a random woman grabbing her own steel basket. No doubt she'd already been inside and was privy to things arcane and mysterious.
With a very deep breath, Jane clamped her fingers around the steel of the trolley and passed through the white plastic flap of the entrance.

She'd never seen anything like it.
Before her lay shelves and shelves of stacked brown boxes. But it was not the boxes that mesmerised her. It was the items on display next to them, the ones that hinted at what was inside each box.

There were dinner services, serving plates, charger plates, casserole dishes, sauce pans, goblets, tumblers, salad dressing bottles, colanders, egg poachers, apple corers, shiny silver things that could skin an avocado and harness the energy of a hundred suns. So many things of magic and delight, and oodles and oodles of cutlery. And it was all on sale. Jane wept.

She felt the ground beneath her give a little. It was not from the sheer excitement suffusing her insides, but the thrum of a million trolley wheels coursing down the aisles.
Families, couples, singles, every type of family unit crawled over and around each other in a mad shimmering dance.

She saw wives throwing themselves onto the cutlery piles, staking claims on steak knives going at a steal, while their husbands edged away slowly, perhaps out of fear that they might be emasculated by an overzealous grandmother with a sharp potato peeler.
An arthritic woman on borrowed and now overdue time, barely escaped being crushed by a middle-aged woman missioning to claim thirty teaspoons priced at R5 each.

What struck Jane the most was the amount of newly-weds at the sale. "How did they find out about this place?" Jane wondered. She was brought here by her sister-in-law who got wind of it through her other sister-in-law who heard from her sister-in-law via that colossal grapevine that now weaved through Jane's life and tripped her up with its branches.

It really was a whole new world opening it's core to her. She understood the thrill of fingering Jenni Button Melton jackets and boots from San Marina, and now, to have that same feeling extend to olive spoons and honey-drippers, Jane felt she'd emerged from a chrysalis.

Jane was jolted out of her fugue by someone so captivated by the R25 salad forks, that everything in her path towards the display would just have to be obliterated.

Jane rubbed her smarting elbow and immediately oohed at the yellow flan pan on the shelf before her. "Must have..." she murmured, just a little drool sketching a line towards her chin. All thought of pain poofed away when she happened upon the egg cups that came with a cute little salt shaker and an equally adorable little spoon.
"Must have..."
Jane saw pink ponies and babies playing the theme from Desperado on their violins, her mind was so lost between the bright red saucepans and the citrus juicer.

Time passed the way it does when one's under the influence of something delightfully narcotic, and she soon emerged from the tent with her own big brown box in a trolley.

"The lady at the till said they unpack new stuff everyday!" Jane enthused to her sister-in-law. She really needed a good potato-masher and the L Wechsler & Co sale ran until the first of May. With one look at the cardboard box containing her now prized cake lifter, Jane knew she'd be back.

-- Somewhere lyrics spilled out of a car radio, "You can step out any time you like, but you can never leave..." --

Light this candle

2008-04-24T15:36:00.005+02:00

A nine-year old girl was killed after a hit-and-run incident on Jan Smuts Avenue in Johannesburg this morning.
The child, on her way to school, was waiting for a taxi when the accident occurred.
The only passenger in the minibus said she felt the taxi hit something just before the driver stopped. "He demanded I leave the taxi right then and gave me my R7.50 back. I didn't understand what was happening. It was only when I got off the taxi and he reversed and then drove off, that I saw," she said.
The passenger could not recall the license plate number of the taxi. The driver remains unidentified.
--

That's what the news story would read like, perhaps including other details like the eye-witnesses who were on the street at the time and the name of the passenger if she did not want to remain anonymous. There would even be a quote from the victims distraught father, her schoolteacher, the police, an outraged city official even. Her school would've been identified by the embroidery on her uniform. Her name would be on the schoolbooks in her bag.

I don't know if anyone has written the story about what happened to that nine-year-old schoolgirl this morning. My colleague was the passenger in the taxi. That's how I know.

And this is all I know.
And now you know.
Please remember her and her family in your prayers.

--update (April 25)-- The story was covered by The Times

Bunny suits and rocket rides!!!

2008-04-21T13:15:00.008+02:00

Duritz and the boys will be hitting our atmosphere on June 06 in Jozi!!!
Yayness!!!
I heart the Counting Crows!!!
I'm so there!!!

I'm over-doing the exclamation marks.
Anyhoo, they're an awesome band and you should go see them if you can.

Guess That Typo! Round 1 and 2 roundup

2008-04-21T08:23:00.001+02:00

Entries are now closed for Round 1 and 2.

The solutions follow:

Round One
Typo - Rocky Horror Picture Sow
Intended - Rocky Horror Picture Show

Round Two
Typo - Gordon Blue
Intended - Cordon Bleu

Here are the rankings as they stand (included are the bonus points awarded for potential puzzle submissions):

queen_Lestat 15
Naqiyah 10
Mohammed Ziyaad Hassen 10
Sara 7
Waseem 7
Hamza 7

Three more rounds to go before we tally up final scores and determine the winner of the R200 book voucher.

Thank you everyone for playing and look out for more Guess That Typo!

Guess That Typo! Round two

2008-04-17T16:00:00.004+02:00

Round one of Guess That Typo! is still open, so keep those questions and guesses coming in!

Remember the aim of the game is to guess the mistake (typo) that was made in a sentence or phrase.
The graphic is the literal visual representation of that mistake.
The graphic will help you guess what word/words were incorrect in the original phrase or sentence.

Round two is slightly tougher and requires you to think with your stomach.
"It tastes like chicken and other stuff."
An additional clue is contained in the graphic's file name.

The typo in this case is two words that make up a title.

Introducing: Guess That Typo!

2008-04-17T10:48:00.008+02:00

Allow me to introduce you to a new series we'll be running from time to time; "Guess That Typo!".

Each game will consist of a picture depicting a "literal" visual representation of a typo made in a sentence or phrase. The typos illustrated are actual use-able words in their own right and will never include words that do not exist in modern lexicons (so no abbreviations or swopped vowels etc).

A clue to help with the association between the typo and intended meaning, is given in the uploaded graphic's filename.

In order to claim smart-ass points for the correct answer, send me an email that includes:
a) the typo and
b) the intended meaning of the original sentence or phrase.

Ten smart-ass points will be given to respondents with the correct answer and five smart-ass points will be awarded for half-answers.

The person with the highest tally of smart-ass points after five games will win a book voucher (value to be determined).

If you have a visual idea for 'Guess That Typo!', email me and if it's blogged, you'll get two smart-ass points (for obvious reasons, a successful submission forfeits your chance to play in that session).

Got it?
Good.
Let's play Guess That Typo!

As this is the first in the series, I'll give you extra clue to kick this off and make a cake-walk out of it.
"Dr Frank-N-Furter is a featured character here."

well, 'one' of the reasons.

2008-04-13T23:00:00.001+02:00

image source

On our way home

2008-04-08T15:02:00.006+02:00

We are
creased commuters, squashed between mama and the silent man with the itch in his side. After-robot! Now we can nurse life back into a tingly leg.

We are
drivers with our windows open and the radio up, we'll chance metal against our temples because the air con's broke and it's a long wait at a dead robot at 5.30pm on a weekday.

We are
the man selling sunglasses at the corner. And the one selling mangoes. And the one selling clothes hangers. And the one selling a massive neon bouncing ball.

We are
the lady selling chances to numb your guilt.

We are
the one giving her money, thinking her child seems too old to be carried. "Look, his legs dangle past her knee," we mutter while fishing in the ashtray for the car-guard's change.

We are
taxi drivers, battered emperors of the tacky tarmac. Don't be so insolent as to believe you have any right of way over us.

We are
12 year olds at the roadside, wielding spark plugs for just one shot for glass to rain. Just one chance. One cellphone. This is the difference between today and tomorrow for me.

We are
the people who shoot them. Thieving bastards deserve it. Damn, he looked older when he smashed my windscreen.

----

You may have heard/read this in the news. Crime has made something ugly of us all, the victims and the perpetrators. See how the lines are blurring.

and it begins...

2008-04-02T13:37:00.003+02:00

It's quite surreal how one just slips into domesticity and all-round wifey-ness. It feels like I've been here all my life.

I'm still in that eager-to-please mode, bombarding The Other with msn missives; "Was your breakfast still warm? Were the eggs fine? Was lunch ok or did I overdo the tomato sauce? Are the leftovers from your mum fine for supper? etc etc etc".

No worries, that kak will soon end;)

I thought getting married meant suddenly acquiring an adult-mindset. I'm still playing house, and it is great fun.

just hours from forever

2008-03-15T00:30:00.005+02:00

At 6pm today, my world changes its orbit.
And I'm ready for it.

A grand prize of a bottle of fennel sweets wrapped in not-so-ghagha goldish organza will be dispatched to the first person to spot 5g33k's initial in the henna pattern.

something from the archives

2008-02-20T08:45:00.002+02:00

I sometimes find that a writers block can be eroded by going back to a random notation from the past. I'm hopping this one will unhinge something.

"Oblivious to the greater social ramification, Ling and Charles Curr, named their newborn 'Wan'."
-'Good Intentions' from Cheaper Than A Moleskine (Jan 13, 2006)

The Battle of Confetti - opening salvo

2008-02-18T13:23:00.009+02:00

Off we go to ChinaMart, where mum can indulge her best-price antics.

aside- I cringe when she does this, and still get night-frights from the Bhamjee's Shoes shop name-drop debacle (no, we're not related to the family that owns the store, however this did not deter my mum from mentioning that I am late Abdul's grand-daughter, who used to be a friend of the family. Yes, we did get a discount. Yes, I was a walking vat of essence of mortification. Mummy, I know you're reading this.)

So there we were at ChinaMart having just stumbled upon a store that sold gift bags and papercraft-goodie-things for cheep-cheep.
Our mission that Saturday morning was to shop for wedding favour stuff.
I hate when people give ornamenty-garbage clutter at weddings. I know it's the thought that counts, but how about one that actively engaged some sentient process? The cabinet in our lounge is filled with such crap of this ilk; kitschy plastic fruit floating in a bottle, a little white porcelain ribboned giftbox that looked much like a Lilliput coffin, a cloudy chocolate mould my gran wouldn't eat because there was some prayer written on it in gold dust and about a million shot glasses which your typical teetotal-ling muslim family will never find a use for, all sandblasted with something along the line of "Thank you for sharing with us the day we finally get to shag without incurring hell-fire."

With all of that in mind, we decided on something a bit more utilitarian. But even utilitarian needs to look a bit pretty and flouncy for a wedding. Which is why mum and I were squashed in the corner of the overstocked shop digging through a box falling over with organza circles that niftily pull together to form a pretty and flouncy wrapping.

I managed to find something that wasn't too garish. However, mum wanted the organza with the big gold hearts. Big gold hearts are just ghagha to me. And big gold hearts on wedding favours are the ghagha-est of anything ghagha ever. If you don't know what ghagha means, think about big gold hearts emblazoned on gold organza, that's ghagha.

At this point I ducked her and went to look at the cardcraft stuff instead. I shouted over a box of wire-butterflies that I did not want the ghagha gold organza heart wrapping. The chinese lady at the door smiled to herself. Perhaps this was not the first time she had witnessed such mother and daughter exchanges.

My mum insisted. I was incensed.
She had that tone in her voice.
I'm a dutiful daughter.
We compromised.
We walked out with 100 ghagha organza circles printed with big gold hearts.

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.

2008-02-18T10:36:00.008+02:00

5g33k did not pick me up on Saturday night wearing fishnet stockings.

This meant we would be of the more staid bunch at the theatre that evening.
However, the row behind us consisted mostly of Dr Frank-n-Furter tributes, each wielding a water pistol and legs from here to Transsexual Transylvania.

As per fan script, the Rocky-Horror-Showlings mad-libbed lines at the stage.
Frank (played by Brendan van Rhyn who pulled off a black corset and porngroove heels rather effectively) said, "So come up to the lab and see what's on the slab. I see you shiver with antici..."
"Pation!" was thrown from the fourth row.
Frank didn't miss a mascara-lashed blink, "Wait fucker. Pation."

The show had started and we were time-warped.

---

Saving conversation:

Magenta: I ask for nothing!
Frank: And you shall receive it, IN ABUNDANCE!

Frank: Do you think I made a mistake splitting his brain between the two of them?

Frank: One from the vaults... Don't be upset. It was a mercy killing. He had a certain naive charm, but no muscle.

The Criminologist: And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects, called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space... and meaning.

---

Happy VD...

2008-02-14T09:43:00.006+02:00

... If you're feeling all warm and fuzzy, it's probably a yeasty one too.

And for that special drooler in my life:

heart graphic source

2008-02-11T06:54:00.000+02:00

Do those who are that shade of moral-grey, also scare you more than barefaced thieves and murderers?

Requiscat

2008-02-11T06:42:00.000+02:00

We are friends here and strangers there.
You once told me you were old enough to be my father.
And now you've joined him.
Peace Brainhell, for you and your family.

fong-konged!

2008-02-07T04:38:00.000+02:00

At first glance the blob photographed above looks very much like something the Jolly Green Giant would expectorate.
It is in fact Wasabi, or what I thought was Wasabi. But let's have a little lesson before we get into that.
Wasabi japonica aka Japanese Horseradish aka sneaky-bastard-stuff-that'll-make-your-nasal-passages-feel-like-
they've-been-rinsed-through-with-battery-acid, is a regular accompaniment to sushi. Apparently, the condiment has certain anti-microbial properties, pretty handy I'd say, when you're chugging back raw fish (is there Japanese etiquette for vomiting politely from the food poisoning?)
I say it's sneaky because at first taste, the unassuming stuff lays a bit of sweet on your tongue before it proceeds to puncture your sinuses with a million hot needles. And once you get pass the sensation of your brain being pulled out of your skull by the crown, you'll be reaching for just a little more. It's potent, wicked, addictive stuff.
Now that's what I thought I was shnarfing. Wasabi.
Not so, according to a plethora of online sources. Genuine wasabi is difficult and expensive to cultivate. So much so, that only a small percentage of sushi-ya in Japan actually serve it. The green blobs we've become accustomed to are usually a mash of ordinary horseradish, mustard and green food colouring.
The real makoya is a greenish root that's chopped into little bits with a fine-toothed grater. According to this site, aficionados say, "The taste of genuine wasabi is like a warm explosion that quickly fades away to a slightly sweet afternote."

Knowledge can be something of a party-pooper.

Jane and the magic kiddie-stop beans.

2008-01-30T02:12:00.001+02:00

"There are indications from clinical studies that the mild antimineralocorticoid properties of the Magic Kiddie-Stop Beans result in a mild antimineralocorticoid effect," Jane carefully read aloud from the tome.
"Anti-mineral-o-corti-coid," she mouthed with all the slow-nooooo effect of a Zee TV daytime soapie rani lunging at her son who was about to drink the poisoned lassi meant for her mother-in-law.
Were they saying the properties of a substance that suppressed the secretion or opposed the action of mineralocoritcoids, would result in the suppression of the secretion or the opposition of the action of the mineralocorticoids?
Jane's left eyeball was suddenly spiked by a spear of blinding pain.
All she wanted to know was if the little beans would make her bloated, grumpy or suicidal.
Reading the little booklet that was packaged with the magic kiddie-stop beans made her feel bloated, grumpy and suicidal.
Dros Pirenone and Ethin Ylestradiol sounded like her eastern-european neighbours who led an alternative lifestyle and had just adopted a two-year old nepalese child.
Too many syllables. Too many acutes. Too many thromboembolic disorders. Too many scary sounding things she didn't understand that related to parts of her body that sounded rather important to have without the complications of itis, emia, oma, opia or esis.
Jane reached that point of confusion where the only thing that made pure and perfect sense was to go shopping for a new pair of shoes and a breastpump.

Move over Simon & Garfunkel...

2008-01-24T04:34:00.000+02:00

Make your own old-skool tape here.
Non-SoufEfrikans click here and here for context.

another one that slipped pass spam-control

2008-01-16T04:52:00.000+02:00

From: angela kennedy
Subject: HELLO

My dear, I am miss Melina from Juba, Sudan, single and 19 years old. After accessing your details in the internet site i copied out only your email address. Immediately after going through your information i made up my mind to contact you for long term relationship, and to be my financial manager because you are my choice of trust and i see nothing wrong with the choice that i have made in you. Now that i am in a state of absolute confusion I must let you know that my daddy was the Financial controller to the Common Wealth North African Region.
My parents died during the war in my country and i was able to escape and came to this senegal where my daddy's money is. I am presently in refugee camp in Senegal. The following information is my purpose of choosing you. Before my daddy died he made me the beneficiary of the amount of 9 Million gbp£ in his account with Islamic Bank in Dakar, Senegal. I arrived Senegal without any pucket money left with me. from the refugee camp i went to Islamic bank and the banker in charge said that because of Senegal bank law that their bank cannot deduct any money from my daddy's account to give to me until i appoint a foreign partner who will claim and receive the money according to the written agreement that my daddy signed with them. the money is my only hope in life. As soon as Islamic Bank transfers the money into your bank account you will come to senegal and take me to your country. If you cannot come to Senegal you will send down enough money from my money in your account for my journey to meet you in your country airport and you will be at your airport to welcome me.I want you to help me receive the amount and also be my financial and investment manager. i will be very glad to also have a detailed information about you.
Reply me only through my own email address: Melinasalman111@hotmail.com ONLY.
With all my Love

Miss Melina Salmanwith all my love

-----

From: Saaleha Bamjee
Date: 16 Jan 2008 16:49
Subject: re: HELLO
To: Melinasalman111@hotmail.com

My Dear Melina,

Let me start of by saying how pretty and quaint are those little emoticons you've included in your email to endear yourself to me.
At 19 and single, you sound like quite a catch. However, I'm straight and some serious commitment issues on my part will not allow for any long-term relationships. My therapist says it's because I manifest nymphomanic tendencies and being with one person forever scares the f**k out of me (pun intended). The most I can offer you is a facebook friend invite and a good poke now and then.

You're in a state of absolute confusion? Honey dear, so am I!! You see, my daddy used to be the Chief Treasurer of the Government Bank here in the Republic of Southern Africa. He fled the terrible and evil apartheid regime, and left behind 100million US dollars in a secret bank account in the Cayman Islands that can only be accessed by a Sudanese national who hails from Juba! My daddy's quite clever and did this so that the 100million US dollars would remain far away from the grubby hands of the evil grubby-handed people he used to call his advisors. I received your email and was immediately concerned as I thought you had somehow found out about my father's hidden wealth and were trying to swindle me. But I have a knack for reading people's characters, and I can tell you're an honest and God-fearing young woman who will prove to be my only hope in life! This is the miracle of Fate and God's Hand.

We must act swiftly, without a seconds' hesitance. I've not had pucket money for so so long. Send me all your personal details, including your credit card number with its expiry date and CVV number on the back. We require this to verify your identity, and facilitate the process of releasing the 100million US dollars.

I would not recommend you come to our airport as there's been terrible stories about tourist's being hijacked and forced to pledge allegiance to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, oh what the hell, we call him Zuma. Like that Yahoo! game where the frog shoots coloured balls at other coloured balls, only here the balls are very different.

With all my love,

Saaleha

Party like it's 1429

2008-01-10T10:19:00.000+02:00

You bought a pack of cigarettes on January 2, took one look at the treadmill queue on January 3 and haven't returned to gym since, you thought negative thoughts, you coveted your neighbour's wife, you ate carbs after 7pm for the last four days, you blogcrastinated on company time, you still haven't smsed/emailed your best friend from high school, you're still on facebook and just added your 256th food fight application, you're not reading more or eating less, you still fall asleep in front of the TV and wake up after four snooze cycles, you're not any more self-actualised than you were on December 31st last year.

But hey, yesterday (or today, so much for ummah unity) marks (-ed) the first day of the Islamic new year 1429. Resolution re-run.

And if you still stuff up, there's Chinese new year on February 7, Hola Mohalla on March 14, Nowruz around March 20, Bahá'í new year on March 21, Balinese new year on March 30, Assyrian new year on April 1, Punjabi new year on April 13, Thai, Nepali, Bengali, Tamil and Cambodian new year around mid-April, Rosh Hashanah after sunset on October 29 and Gujarati new year on October 29.

Here's to personal progress.

Binte Eidris

2007-12-26T10:21:00.000+02:00

There's a garage in my head bursting its bricks with bent Popoids, Scalextric racetracks to anywhere, Polaroid cameras, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines and books about The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Talk-Back Tracy and a magnetic chess set are stacked on top of the Dinosaur! magazines I'd collect years later (every fortnight) along with the photographs of leapfrogging at Zoo Lake Sunday picnics.

Eighteen years later and this is all I feel I have of Daddy; these the only things palpable; toys and gadgets, and a father seen through the curtains drawn by a five-year-old.
I can still scribble a stick-people nuclear family gathered in the garden of a house with mattress-spring smoke pouring out of the crooked chimney.

I wish I knew more of my father, beyond the crayon renderings of a child. Six-and-a-half-years with him and Daddy was this fantastic bearer of amazing things; a doll that repeated everything you said when you pressed a glowing red heart on its palm and a little sewing machine that really stitched. Daddy was fun and hugs and there and all things magic until he started getting sick.

And when he got sick, I got scared. Daddy was strange, quiet and convulsing on the floor of the kitchen at the house in Azaadville.
This is all I knew. Happy, then not. Things are that simple to a child.
And when he passed away on that Boxing Day in 1989, the world suddenly got a whole lot more complex.

Now, I'm scant months away from becoming a wife. I need Daddy now more than ever. But it's a funny sort of longing, seeing as I never knew the man behind the Daddy-mien. Any suggestion of what our interactions would've been like can only be nebulous. Would we have got along as adults? Would I have grown to share his ideals? What were his ideals? I know he never missed salaah, even towards his end he'd offer prayer five times daily from his bed, his eyelids closing in submission for each sajdah his body could not perform. I know he was easy-going and had an ear for every stranger's problems. I know he read Robert Ludlum. I know he loved gadgets. I know little things, but I'll never know a lot of things.

Verily we belong to God and to God we return.

Eish, lyk is this a treatise on twang? Yah neh?

2007-12-14T09:36:00.000+02:00

Do you find that you sometimes subconsciously emulate the tonal inflections of the people you speak to?

The phenomenon of 'twanging' (the word itself is a souf-efrikanism I believe) is best explained by the action of adapting your natural accent to mimic the one of the person you're addressing.
Twangers are derided by their critics for aspiring to sound more 'upper-class' than the dictates of their social status [squared] quo, with commentary running along the line of "Why you talking like a white?".

So far, thirteen years of democracy in SA is just a band-aid on the schismic gashes left by the idea that each racial group be left to develop along a path set by white supremacists. With that as our baggage and legacy, our fully heterogeneous society makes up a chorus so varied and rich, that South African Accent in itself is a misnomer. Our voices bump up against each other everywhere. It's this huge conversation, and here and there, we encounter the Twang.

I twang. And I only realised it after I listened to an interview I recorded. It was with gag-disbelief that I heard my voice outside itself, "Yawh, That's true."
I said "Yawh", the way most white south africans would.
Not "Yah", the way most indian south africans would.
It wasn't a conscious act. At no point, did I commit to thinking, "Ok, I'm interviewing the woman the Sunday Times billed as South Africa's richest. I can't show my 'jaat'* here."
And it's not just 'talking White'. I've since noticed I adjust not only to accent, but also nuance, pace and cadence of the people I speak to, more so when it's a situation that requires engagement and earnest concentration.

My mother twangs too, though she'll deny it. And when she speaks to elderly indian women, she lapses into indian-aunty talk (when every fourth word is 'shame', regardless of the positive nature of what's heard. E.g: Your husband bought a new car? Shame, that's so nice, shame. Your daughter's engagement is on Saturday, shame, you must be so happy.)
I've heard friends and work colleagues twang. And I do not believe that anyone of them do it with purposeful intent.

When we converse with someone face-to-face, we mirror their body-language. When they sit with their legs crossed, we tend towards crossing our legs. Apparently, we do this to create a sense of empathy with the other and establish common denominators to smooth the interaction.
Perhaps this holds true for twanging. Some subliminal notion that if we sound like the people we want to engage, we create commonality?

I welcome your thoughts.

*gujarati for caste or social standing

Capsule Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

2007-12-13T09:02:00.000+02:00

I knew that Journalist is a dirty word in Bob'stan.
But surreal, in all the ragged over-use of that word, is the only one that can describe the furtive act of scrawling "Graphic Designer" in the occupation field on the immigration card.

There are other things I learnt in Zim.

I found that I could call on the power of GraySkull and prise a lift-door open with my bare hands after a power-cut had me stuck somewhere between the third floor of the hotel and oblivion.

You will not find a single coin-operated vending machine anywhere in the country. The Zim$100 000 note is the smallest denomination accepted by Zimbabweans (correct at time of blog). It's also the first currency I've ever seen with an expiry date. The stupid tourist in me was overtaken by the novelty of being given Zim$3.5 million in lieu of ZAR30. But you spend millions in seconds, and all you have to show for it is the corny photograph you took of the notes spilling across your palms.

I ate what looked like fish fillets and tomato chutney. I now know that crocodile tastes something like chicken, but not quite.

Mosi oa tunya. Indeed it does. And it's the smoke that leaves you soaked and in awe of the sheer tenacity of water that cleaves through the earth to assert its path.

The sunset over the Zambezi is perfect. That's it. Perfect. Not even a bunch of Indian guys yelling Hindi across international borders to their Babhis over their cellphones could mar the incredible all-encompassing 'Perfect' of the moment. And after over-hearing the 'baw majaa' comment to Bhabi, I know they thought so too.

Some visuals here.

Mommy, are you telling me that I'm really...

2007-12-13T04:47:00.000+02:00

adopted?

passive agression and its practical application

2007-12-03T11:54:00.001+02:00

Commune-living fast deflates the bubble of stoicism.
There lived amongst us one who seemed to consume anything that intersected with her marauding path. Some of it hearsay, most of it confirmed testimony; no consumable was safe.
I too had not escaped unscathed. But for many of the incidents, I did not feel the confrontation worth the effort.
Until I opened the grocery cupboard to find a measly trickle of concentrate pooling at the bottom of the Oros bottle, just enough to give a glass of water a pathetic jaundiced hue.
Still reeling from that discovery, I opened the fridge to find that all the margarine had been used, with nothing but feeble streaks clinging to the sides of the container.
This act of utter inconsideration and disgusting show of bad manners prompted me to action.

"Notes:
I assume it was the tokoloshe that used up all my Oros. I don't mind, since I'm sure the little fucker gets thirsty too.
However, it's only good etiquette to replace what you use or at the very least, inform the owner so that she may purchase more Oros, so that herself and other tokoloshes also have the pleasure of enjoying a refreshing drink.
Hugs,
Saaleha

Sidenote:
The Marvel of the Mysteriously Minimising Margarine. More tokoloshes at work?
Please forward your theories to me."

This exercise in passive aggression yielded a 50% return in that the margarine was replaced by one of the house-mates.
However, it was not the one with the locust bent who 'fessed up and the Oros issue was never resolved.
The marauder has since moved out.
Perhaps now the other housemates will consider it safe to liberate their groceries from their bedrooms.

where the smoke indeed thunders (pending wordy words)

2007-12-01T09:28:00.000+02:00

Mosi oa Tunya

Press Pause and hold.

The Mighty Zambezi at her most tender.

waxing on tetris world-views and a puddle of snowman

2007-11-12T03:05:00.000+02:00

- Plummeting tetrominoes bring to mind a [simplistic] notion that all of Life is falling pieces.
And the business of living is little more than packing those streaming shapes to fit, along with knowing when to leave gaps for the unexpected.
When you're dealt the I's and O's, it's lull-time into the static of complacency (much like when Life goes according to seeming plan), and it's only when the S's and Z's come down in chunks, that you pull out the strategies and consider contingencies.
And despite Freddy Mercury wanting to, it's not a game you can play indefinitely.

---

"Frosty the Snowman
Knew the sun was hot that day
So he said let's run
And we'll have some fun
Now before I melt away"

It's one of the saddest songs I know and it speaks to the transient and ephemeral. Google the lyrics and you will find within them the melody of; passion, spirit, the magic of belief, hope and defiance.
If Muslims had wakes, this is the song I'd want them to play.
Yes, I'm cheese&tinsel like that.

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of ...

2007-11-06T11:25:00.000+02:00

"Click the pic," said the Shotgun to the Head.

Got an itching to do some shopping?

2007-10-31T00:14:00.000+02:00

credit: 5g33k

Osama bin Laden is in Mauritius. It RaWKs here biyatches!!!

2007-10-16T10:35:00.000+02:00

It may happen one day that you find yourself heading west out of Johannesburg, down Main Reef Road, pass the intersection with Leratong Hospital on your right, en route to Randfontein.
I can't say what Randfontein offers that would warrant the excursion, but it may be that the fate of the free world depended on it, or not.
Either way you'll drive past Azaadville; home to 67 Facebookers who've chosen to disclose it as their hometown on their profiles, and one who rose to recent notoriety for being the alleged purveyor of Matric exam papers.

A raid on his house by the Johannesburg Flying Squad Reservist Unit and the subsequent email Fwd:FW: floods were precipitated by the following Facebook status update:

"***** ****** is if all u matric peeps r needin papers.. i no sum ppl, dat nos sum ppl dat robbed sum ppl, that robbed the department... so if u want papers.. jus leme no (",)."

Azaadville is a small town by any definition of 'small town'. Even the term 'town' is too generous for the locale. Designated as an indian-area in the dark-days, the residents have remained pre-dominantly conservative Muslims, Hindus and Christians.
Despite its size and unassuming mien, Azaadville has managed to find itself peppered across newsprint from time to time.
Pre-1994, the town provided shelter for residents in neighbouring Swanieville who were wracked by political violence. Its high school was re-named Ahmed Timol Secondary by former President Nelson Mandela, after the school teacher and anti-apartheid activist who died while in police custody. It was home to the "man they called Banjo" as well as nascent cricketing talent Gulam Bodi who bowled many an over in the local fields.

And now Facebook has brought new focus on Azaadville.

This would be a truly pioneering case if investigations prove that the 'Ville Facebooker in question was in possession of the stolen examination papers. It would be the first time in South African history that a person's actions on an internet social-networking platform result in legal action.

But what does this mean really? Riyaadh Ebrahim posited the implications around arresting someone based on their Facebook status message. He gives the following example, "If my Facebook status says that I am going to kill someone, can I be charged with intent to murder?"
He claims it's a curtailment of the freedom of expression.

I changed my status to 'Saaleha is going to kill Riyaadh Ebrahim at 10.30 tonight in the study using a brass candlestick.' This is obviously a statement that won't be taken seriously by any authority.

The 'Ville Facebooker claimed he was joking.

"***** ****** is if all u matric peeps r needin papers.. i no sum ppl, dat nos sum ppl dat robbed sum ppl, that robbed the department... so if u want papers.. jus leme no (",)."

It certainly reads like a joke. In fact, if any aspirant matriculant read that and thought it was legitimate, I'd say, "Go ahead and try your luck, you obviously need all the help you can get."
Online social transactions will never epitomised by credibility. You take what you read with a gram of coke. Didn't they learn that on IRC?

And then of course, you can flip this thing over on its side. There was the anonymous caller to the crime tip-off line. What if the 'Ville Facebooker really had the exam papers? Now there's a nomination for Most Retarded Net-User Of The Year.

more ire (this could be a regular feature)

2007-10-09T09:30:00.000+02:00

Last night may truly have been the "The Night of Power", for a pair of black pants that went deep underground about two months ago, suddenly resurfaced in the fresh laundry pile.
A miracle certainly, for repeated questioning of the house-mates drew blank stares reminiscent of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Hence it was with great surprise that I pulled the pants in dubious question out of a pile of clothes that had been freshly washed. This implied to me, by no great leap of logical reason, that the pants must've been worn in order for them to have ended up there. Yes? It maketh sense no?

So who's been wearing my pants? The stretchy one with a centre seam down each leg, in a size that accomodates my somewhat healthy and strapping form? When all of the housemates, myself excluded, seem to be blessed with skinny genes, zooped-up metabolism and limited appetites, which compos mentis would deliberately wear a pair of trousers that is clearly identifiable as someone else's by the very virtue of its size?

I'm baffled.
It is by no means a spectacular pair of black pants. Versatile yes, unassuming and practical, but these are attributes that lend themselves to be definitives for any pair of black pants.

Again, why?
?
?

Why would you take someone else's pants without their permission and wear them when they aren't even in your fucking size?

The Intermittent Ire

2007-10-08T02:09:00.000+02:00

What is it with fasting muslim people who get a kick out of forwarding emails with pictures of food as attachments under misleading subject headers, to other fasting muslim people?

Tell me God doesn't have a sense of humour...

2007-09-28T08:51:00.000+02:00

... and I'll direct you to the front pages of South Africa's major national newspapers to disprove you.

- A warrant for arrest issued for our National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi by National Director of the National Prosecuting Authority Adv Vusi Pikoli (who's been suspended incidentally). Selebi is the Head of Interpol. Cue canned laughter.

- Our sick Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is reported to have 'seen the light' in this morning's edition of The Star. Hundreds of clueless homeless people were bussed off to Pretoria yesterday to participate in a mass prayer session for the newly-livered troubled soul. One of the indigent participants said he did not know who or what he was praying for, and only went because he was told he would get food there. I suppose the homeless are generally safe around kleptomaniacs. After Tshabalala-Msimang took communion, and imbibed the spirit (something which she is obviously not unaccustomed to) The Star reported her saying, "I am feeling completely revived and energised... I am not going to let up in continuing to discharge my duties to help improve the quality of life of all South Africans."
God save us. It's not funny anymore.

the i-do to-do list

2007-09-26T04:47:00.000+02:00

1. de-gelatine mindset.
2. un-selfish the markers of only-child syndrome.
3. manage time to time manage.
4. balance gaga with pragmatics.
5. re-discover my strengths.
6. acknowledge my short-comings.
7. re-look organised chaos (it's not going to be just my world any longer)

testosterone soap opera

2007-09-09T01:49:00.000+02:00

It was that of every great narrative, there-in the dichotomies of human experience; good and evil, light and dark, adversity and triumph.

Stories where they threaded; protagonists on the precipice, the victorious who rise from the ashes of their seeming defeat, the underdog, the powerful and arrogant, brothers in arms.
All of whom were smacked by those moments of utter futility, where even the brief marriage of hand on hand could mean the difference between pride and its death, where to grasp the tensile rope for support is to turn the battle on its flank.

This is where gods are made and leveled.

There was the bitterness of being close enough to take Victory by her shoulder, only to have no witness of referee to your triumph. But as it is in the Great Plot that guides this through, Good will always prevail.
It is with every tale that there are those who are loved beyond fallibility and those who incite the fevered choirs of "You Suck! You Suck!" when they dare to displace heroes.
And as it is with all the stories of our times, there will always be the ebullient adulation of one or a mass who will erupt in the greatness of the moment when the right man holds up the leather and gold, for all to witness, "I am a champion!"

Almost there

2007-08-31T10:30:00.000+02:00

boy reads blog.
girl meets boy.
a billion stars and the conversations between.
where do you see us in a few years?
right there, he said, pointing.

I don't have a map and I can't find the GPS co-ordinates for her brain

2007-08-27T10:53:00.000+02:00

It has to be all that Vaseline they put on their teeth to make them smile easier.

Miss South Carolina honey, I believe, we don't need your education, such as.

first sighting

ever after

2007-08-27T09:35:00.000+02:00

A harbinger.

To sleep...

2007-08-19T09:13:00.000+02:00

... perchance to wake with words.

er...cough (again)

2007-08-01T14:48:00.001+02:00

This is more for myself than anything else. The beginning of the end... and on to the beginning.

That Brit Wit

2007-07-24T10:27:00.000+02:00

(Public toilet, Tate Modern)

(On the tube, Northern Line, Camden to Leicester Square)

Even blogwhores...

2007-06-22T15:40:00.000+02:00

... need some R&R for a little R&D.

Best wishes till endish-July,
and remember

capsule mthatha (a really little pill)

2007-06-22T14:31:00.000+02:00

O.R Tambo International Airport - 6.15am.

Take-off for Mthatha in a Jetstream 4100, one of those R/C looking propeller planes.
(Blah photograph but I do like the Munsch-colours. We all begin in blood.)

The tallest building in town.

Mthatha -
smells like: damp wood.
tastes like: sweet veld grass.
sounds like: unhurried deliberation.
feels like: the place you would go, to listen to the wind.

16.06.1976

2007-06-16T08:49:00.000+02:00

For Unknown 16/06/76

a frozen face
on a white wall.

open mouth
rigid arms

your eyes
are the eyes of your comrades

children
with weighted shoulders

and loud voices
muted by the captured moment.

but I hear it.
decibels of scaled anger
your suffering erupt,

holding out its arms to me.

am I worthy of embrace?

1976- not even a seeded thought
in the mind of a girl I call mother.

you are background
context to your time
framing the "struggle"
painting it with your essence
as bullets tattoo your fate.

A bricked acknowledgement
that you were felled on that day
now bedded on gravel
bordered by the crunching tourist tiptoes
echoing now-impotent jackboots

the granite speaks

of more bodies,
not nobodies
but somebodies
with names
and for others without

there is a brick
in a yard
on the gravel.

(conceptualised after a visit to the Hector Pieterson Memorial in Soweto, June 16, 2005)

er...cough

2007-06-08T16:30:00.001+02:00

This one's a bit rich coming from a social lung-tar-er, but it was a concept I could not ignore. I'm still noobing around Photoshop so the execution is a lil shabby.

Copy on box reads: "Cigarette brands don't need health-warning labels. The message is clear enough as it stands."

On private equity, the carrier trade and ‘cheap money'

2007-06-08T09:54:00.000+02:00

"If everyone knows where the cheap money is, they are all going to go to the same place to get the cheap money. Until it runs out.
And how will it run out?
When the Bank of Japan increases interest rates. Then global liquidity dries up.

There’s a wonderful story about a village where there’s only one pig. One guy sells the pig to the neighbour at one price and the neighbour sells it to another guy at another price and the pig keeps circulating around town and everyone’s making money off the pig. And then one guy doesn’t quite understand. He buys the pig and kills it. Everyone's mad at him. "Don’t you know this is how we make money?" they say. He says, "I was hungry, I thought we were supposed to eat this pig."

And that’s what’s happening with private equity now.
There’s a pig going around the world and one day, Japan’s going to kill it."

Hlelo Giyose, Fund Manager, Stanlib
Speaking at Wits Business School's panel debate on “The Rise of Private Equity. Is South Africa a new target?”
May 30, 2007

Of shivering loins and heaving dirtypillows...

2007-06-04T16:15:00.000+02:00

S: how do u write sex though? dont want it to be all smarmy
S2: true
you dont want it porno
nor do you want it mush
or a weird combination i call "morno"
S: yeh...i hav no clue...all this writing...im outa my league
S2: which is kinda like mills and boons
S2: a mix of mush and porno, but where you're saying "more? noooooooooooo"

Just for tricks

2007-05-30T10:52:00.000+02:00

A little game to play on those days when your triplo espresso isn't quite cutting it and other homo-sapiens suddenly look like they'd make a good first course (with lemon-pepper marinade and an accompaniment of fava beans).

When asked - "That's so unusual. What does your name mean?" - respond with random combinations of subject, verb, object. Your statements do not need to follow through logically. In fact, logic is besides the point.

In practice:
you - "Oh my name? Well, in [insert vernacular here] it means..."

possible responses -

"She who walks with the ducks"
"She who farts in the dark"
"She who is praised by the monkey-people"
"She who flies with the ants"
"She who is revered by those who revere the ones who are revered."
"She who is what she is when she's not something else"
"She who will hail the Annanuki" [queen_Lestat edit - annUnAki]

etc.

happy day.

and now you know.

2007-05-29T11:28:00.000+02:00

First saw it at this place.
Got it from this place.
Can't wait to wear it 'coz I'm bastardy like that.

I don't know who she is but damn she cut up that cello

2007-05-28T08:31:00.001+02:00

J and Josie Field @ Catz in Melville - Just the right order of strings and words. That Josie; decent originals and the best cover I've heard of System Of A Down's Toxicity.
J kept flicking the fringe out of his right eye but Down Again and his interpretations of Wicked Game, Uninvited and Paint It Black were worthy.
But seriously, who was the girl on the cello? I've never seen that instrument TAKEN like that. Made me all flushed and breathy.

Fracture - Hopkins again. All mindfuck and watery-blue eyes. Despite the typecast, it made for acceptable viewing. Gosling is endearing in this one.

when geek meets geek...

2007-05-21T06:18:00.000+02:00

x: brb, busy with a remote desktop connection

y: ooo i love when you talk dirty. talk more dirty

x: er... let see..i want to defrag the drive

y: oh yes, I want to take off your bad sectors

Those singular moments of plural possibility...* **

2007-05-20T23:53:00.000+02:00

...sometimes visit upon us when we're at our most unreceptive.

We shall refer to him as Significant-Geek or sg33k for brevity. This is what I call him when I'm trying to be cute or ironic. That or "Hey Pumpkin, you're Smashing!" Which is as emo as we get.

Sg33k's an interesting fella. Incredibly talented and hard-working, he's so focused it makes me sick. Because I'm as batty and scatter-thunk as they come. If I had a second's worth of his drive, I'd be on book four and a half.

Sg33k's also a challenge (not challenged. Although when he laughs sometimes, he has that special person look...) And I know that when he reads over that, he's going to say "bleh". That's just the kind of guy he is. A guy who says "bleh" a lot. And a guy who reads blogs. Sometimes this blog. That's kinda how we met. But I won't go into that. He's not into mush and sentiment, but he did get me my very own domain to which I gush, "You had me at www...".

So as I was saying...
singular moments blah blah
...sometimes visit upon us when we're at our most unreceptive.

'Quite smoking dammit', 'Get off facebook', 'You know, he just may be the One'; those missives hit you like hailstones in the highveld, chipping and denting, indelibly.

It only takes that moment for volumes within you to displace in eureka-fashion, sans, we hope, the running through the streets of Syracuse naked.

I've just had that moment.

And it's terrifying. Because even though the possibilities are vast and unmeasurable, it's like continental drift. The pieces can go anywhere, but back.

And now I've gone and blogged it.

There's no such thing as The One. But there is The One you choose.

And yeah, I guess I've chosen.

Bleh.

*alternative post title "the yin, the yang, and everything after" -credits to Bobby Dentist.
**oops... didn't mean to disable comments...

T(dot)G(dot)I(dot)F

2007-05-18T17:55:00.000+02:00

George looked forward to the weekend...

...pity it wasn't his party.

I'm not feeling lucky...

2007-05-16T12:23:00.000+02:00

... hence the need for GoogleLife.
Mountain View, are you listening?
GoogleLife: A pocketable widget that uses whatever holy algorithm you internet overlords conjure, to offer up search results for lost time and my car radio's removable face-thingie. Ideally, it should automatically index Life during sleep and be totally ad-free.

Kinda like This, but better than beta.

Tuesday tchotchkes

2007-05-15T17:41:00.000+02:00

- Getting the mobile and macbook acquainted. Involved some power-googling, breaking out the blue-teeth and a bit of gentle persuasion in the form of scripting but it's obvious to anyone who'll see, they are soul-mates.

- Sky-tripping, road-running, contiki yippie ka yay. The Munshi's and I will bring a lil mzansi into the european equation, come June 25. Details to follow as soon as that pesky schengen gets sorted.

- Crazy housemate got evicted. No, seriously, ta-na-nas, as in medically certified (that, and 'They' were out to get her). Too much manic paranoia and there were whispers she'd been stealing the cheese. Big misunderstanding since I was the thieving so and so. That fact aside, some arcane incident involving tupperware and fruit juice proved to be the proverbials that led to a massive showdown in the communal lounge. I kinda miss her though. I didn't mind her exploding teabags in the microwave and she had that endearing quality of batty that made me feel like I wasn't alone in the world.

- Kewl words I'm looping until they just sound stupid - kaizen, ukase, argot.

"look for wisdom and you'll find it anywhere.."

2007-05-15T15:11:00.000+02:00

I heart spam of the non-spiced-porcine variety.

Stock tips, cheap Xanax, the quadrillions I've won in Zimbabwean lotteries, the offers of easy sex and perkier mammaries, the nice people who want to give me money to help them with fund transfers; all contribute towards making me a wealthier and more desirable human being. And now these noble spammers have provided me with cogent aphorisms that simply must (must, i tell you) be shared with the rest of the blogosphere:

If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.
Life is hardly more than a fraction of a second. Such a little time to prepare oneself for eternity!
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one -- they show one another off to the best advantage.
It takes three to make a child.
All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child.
Flowers are happy things.
Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts.
Give me one friend, just one, who meets The needs of all my varying moods.
Fearless minds climb soonest into crowns.
Luck? Sure. But only after long practice and only with the ability to think under pressure.
There's only one free person in this society, and he is white and male.
Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. [Ephesians 6:10]
The business that considers itself immune to the necessity for advertising sooner or later finds itself immune to business.

de-briefing

2007-05-07T04:39:00.000+02:00

Friday: Lark (@88 Lounge, Norwood)- was just that.
Saturday: Sam's wedding - was all that.
Sunday: Spiderman 3 - was not that.

achtung! this blog may induce labour...

2007-04-24T17:22:00.000+02:00

...or you may just pee yourself.
Either way, the ramifications are substantial.

Here's to Aadi, whose water broke after she surfed over here last night.
Congrats to you and Hardy on your little Nanabhai.
A mommy! You're a mommy! Can't freaking believe it.
No fear little one, you're momsie's gonna be so cool.
Ah, the stories Aunty Saaleha will tell you when you're older and start asking the fun questions.

:)

The blog of Small Things

2007-04-23T16:44:00.000+02:00

*Been stewing for a while. and no, I'm not about to go buy a Kenny G music-to-slit-your-wrists-by Special Holiday edition. This is pure self-indulgence. Insert disclaimer of choice here.*

“Welcome to the pity party. So pleased you could join us. We have trays of masochism and punch so good you’ll cry. Should you be so inclined, a selection of razors and blades are laid out on a table near the DJ box, individually wrapped for your protection. Please enjoy yourselves, but not too much. Hope you have a wretched evening.”

I left the park last weekend. Packed the accumulation of a year into stackable cardboard boxes and took the highway to the East Rand, where I will now spend most of my weekends.

*mandatory benoni girl joke*

Q. What do you call a Benoni girl in a white tracksuit

A. The bride

Moving’s never easy. When you’re strapped for space, you suddenly realize just how much of all that you value is clutter. Books get heavier, cds stack up awkwardly, jackets bulk up, hard-drives hulk like museum dinosaurs.

One of those weekends too, where tragedy laid a pall over my family when my uncle and aunt met with an accident on their way to Port Shepstone. My aunt lost the baby she’d been carrying for the last 7 months. Both her and my uncle had to have one of their hands amputated. I’ve never been good with grief. Losing the people you care about around you makes you no expert. I never know what to say, except when I think of my own bereavement and all I can say is, “`it’s hard, and you will feel self-pity. You will bargain with your God, and you will be angry. That is what it was like for me until the resolve to accept sets in. You’ll become too tired to be angry. Its time to resign yourself, because ‘Why’ sometimes remains one of those questions to which the answers will not leave you satisfied.” I stopped asking ‘Why’ a long time ago.

I feel like-

I’m being strained through a colander.

Like I’m being forced to spread and separate, until I’m only reconstituted Saaleha.

With Work, with Home, with Study and Family issues, I’m being stretched.

I’m walking around; static mess, this field of scratchy unintelligible sound drowning out my clarity, slaving me to disorganization, inefficiency, procrastination.

My eyeballs are lubricated with seeded strawberry juice, the insides of my eyelids lined with a fine grade of sandpaper.

It doesn’t help that I haven’t been to gym in two/three months. The monthly bank debit glares at me disapprovingly, judging me, poking breadsticks at the extra-Saal.

I also had a pimple on my chin, so large it deserved a christening and its own facebook profile.

I was heavy inside. The kind of heavy that has you choked up. The kind of heavy that makes you a gut bag of lachrymal fluid filled up till the skin stretches and shimmies. One muscle twitch and you’re bleeding salt all over yourself.

And I sat there looking at my phone, scrolling through my phonebook and not knowing who to call.

So many friends. So many big-hearted, kind, beautiful people. So many I love, so many I would die for. Why, when I fill up with heavy, am I so uncomfortable and reluctant to ask them for their ears?

And when I do choose to share, I’m left feeling like someone sneaked up behind me and pulled down my pants.

ok. all done now.

Beeg deranged smile. :)

I didn't break it!

2007-04-20T07:43:00.000+02:00

<----

I'm annoyed.
At Facebook.
No, its not the random poking. I quite like getting poked. Sometimes, I even poke back.
But that's a whole other blog.
I'm annoyed at Facebook for passing a groundless diagnosis about the state of my ticker.
If you're Facebooked - here's an exercise. Fiddle around with your relationship status on the edit profile page. Switch from 'single' to 'in a relationship' and back.
Pay careful attention to the little icon that appears next to your profile news-feed item.
If you're listed as single, the little heart goes achey-breaky.
Remove your single status for whatever reason, and suddenly, miraculously, Facebook channels the power of whatever Holy Spirit to 'heal' your shattered vital organ.
WTF is that? This warped normative construct of emotional balance, that if you're not with someone, you're obviously damaged.

this time from Ougadougou

2007-03-29T11:02:00.000+02:00

From: mutamuta baruka
Reply to: muta_baruka@yahoo.fr
Date: Mar 27, 2007 12:00 PM
Subject:BUSINESS PARTNER NEEDED

THE DESK OF DR MUTA BARUKA
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER
BANK OF AFRICA.
OUAGADOUGOU,BURKINA FASO.
TOP SECRET

Dear Friend,

I am DR MUTA BARUKA, bill and exchange manager at the foreign remittance department of BANK OF AFRICA. I got your contact from the internet ,while seaching for an honest and trust worthy person, who will assist me to implement this transfer. l discovered the sum of Twenty Two million and five hundred thousand United States Dollars (USD22.5M) belonging to a deceased customer of this bank.

The fund has been lying in a suspence account without anybody coming to put claim over the money since the account owner late Mr Salla khatif from Lebanese , who was involved in the December 25Th 2003 Benin plane crash. Here is the air crash
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/12/26/benin.crash/index.html
The said fund is now ready for transfer to a foriegn account whose owner will be portrayed as the beneficiary and next of kin to the deceased customer of the bank. Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidlines and laws but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.

It is therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.

The banking law and guidline here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will be transfered into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occassioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. I therefore soliciting for your assistance to come forward as the next of kin, I have agreed that 40% of this money will be for you as the beneficiary in respect of the provision of your Account and services rendered, 55% would be for me while 5% will be for expencses incured during the cause of this transaction If the money is transferred to your Account from BANK OF AFRICA, I and my family in this transaction will proceed immediately to your country for our own share of the money.

I expect you to keep this business strictly confidential and secret as you may wish to know that I am Bank official. Be rest assured that this business is 100% riskfree on both side and every arrangement to transfer this money to the Account you are going to provide have been concluded provided we maintain the confidentiality and secreceirity involved.

1.your sex

2.your age

3.occupation

4.your nationality

5.telephone no.

I am looking forward for your prompt response.

Yours faithfully,

DR MUTA BARUKA

----

From: Saaleha Bamjee
Date: Mar 29, 2007 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: BUSINESS PARTNER NEEDED
To: muta_baruka@yahoo.fr

Dear Mutamuta Baruka,

Your name instills in me the maddening urge to put your moniker to music, something with a spicy-latin beat, like a rumba or a sexy samba. Can you hear my maraca's baby? - "boom, chicky boom chi, muta-muta, ba-ruka, boom, chicky boom, chi."

But I digress, I don't usually get people emailing me when they search the internet for terms such as honest and trustworthy. Certainly not after that misunderstanding with the orphanage lunches and my account at Prada. How much do four-year-olds need to eat anyway?

Anyhoo, the sum of Twenty Two million and Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (USD22.5M) held in a "suspence" account (i have a suspense account too. my creditors are always wondering when they'll get paid -grin-) could not have come at a better time.

However, since joining the Church of Former Day Heavenly Goody's Latter Day Rumble In The Jungle, I've learnt the path of selflessness and would prefer that the money be sent to a better cause.

Hence, I attach the details of a noble movement to which I feel all these monies be directed:

The Friends of Jacob Zuma Trust
First National Bank
Durban, South Africa
Branch Code: 221426
Cheque Account number: 62087217818

Thanking you Kindly,

Saaleha Bamjee

To My Mind...

2007-03-27T06:21:00.000+02:00

Wish You Were Here

credit

5 things

2007-03-22T08:30:00.000+02:00

As if to reiterate the incestuous cast/cast of the blogosphere posited here, I've being tagged by both dreamlife and Taz to list "5 things people don't know about you".

I've already quantified my weirdness.

But seriously, what don't you (you: the blog-hopper/the phantom commentateur/the one who googles hentai spaghetti) know about me? Are we (personal bloggers) not the over-revealers in this sphere that we'd otherwise avoid eye-contact with out there in the supra-http?
What more do you need to know?
Here I write my vices, the way my heart shatters and beats, the things I eat, the places I lose myself in, the people I can't digest, the dreams that are just that eyelash-breadth out of reach, mortal quirks that amuse and the consistencies of the polyfilla that holds me in.
I blog, ergo sum.

But despite this, I guess there'll always be 5 things more things you didn't know about me until now:

I can do cartwheels, and sometimes I spin down the office corridor on palms and feet when I work late.
I enjoy my vices.
I am as vain as I am insecure.
Once when I was around 9, I karaoked (sp?) to Jailhouse Rock in front of a crowd of strangers at the Rand Easter Show.
There are 7 things you'll never know about me. (because my mum reads this blog too)

I tag the fat kid who always gets picked last.

not quite the curtain call (yet)

2007-03-16T16:50:00.001+02:00

"I had 'em Jerry. They loved me."
"And then?"
"I lost 'em. I can usually come up with one good comment during a meeting, but by the end it's buried under a pile of gaffes and bad puns."
"Showmanship, George. When you hit that high note, say goodnight and walk off."

George and Jerry, in "The Burning".

One morning in Rietvallei

2007-03-09T16:16:00.000+02:00

Where the streets have no names...

through a portal of mattress-springs (...here be dreams)

skip around the arrogance of cauliflowers...

and the colours will not be still...

stuff your fists into your ears.

It is now that you must hear through your eyes.

---

(Elliot Mlalazi's nursery in Rietvallei ext1, West Rand, Johannesburg)

at the office...(2)

2007-03-07T15:05:00.000+02:00

Rowena: "Guys, I saw this headline on a poster on my way to work today, 'Benny burns Bolton'. Did Benny McCarthy burn Michael Bolton?"