21 July 2011

Pic Of The Day

Picture courtesy of:  Falcon's Cove Photography Copyright 2011

14 July 2011

Pic Of The Week

Shot at the Botanic Gardens, Durban

Pic Courtesy of Falcon's Cove Photography

6 July 2011

This week we bring you a story from the short story competition held recently at St Clements.

Perhaps by F.W. Felton

The strange man was sitting at the Coffee Shop that morning. The waitress arrived.
He ordered a small cappuccino.  In front of him a new apartment block was being built.
He marvelled at the red struts all over the building.  He wondered what would happen if somebody
pulled out some of those red struts?  Perhaps the building would collapse.  Perhaps someone could
do that at night.  Perhaps.  The waitress arrived with his cappuccino, wrong size.  He didn't complain.
No sense getting angry.

He could come back later, show the waitress his new knife and slit her throat.

Perhaps.

This story is one of 50 in a new collection of short stories titled 'le petit dejeuner'
available at Adams Bookshop, Musgrave Centre.

21 June 2011

Poem of the week by Derick Matsengarwodzi

Love has the energy to defeat hate; it has the muscle to subdue prejudice.

It never salutes human boundaries. Love shall break all roadblocks.

It shall paint all those tainted hearts; and they shall know the true colour of love.

Together they shall sing eternal eternal love unto humanity.

A world plastered with stains of agony and hatred – saturated with clots of vengeance;

A world plastered with stains of hate and agony;

A land saturated with clots of vengeance, fed by egotism.

Guided by gloating egos; never fulfilled by the overflowing streams of sadness.

These streets are littered with gushing streams of anguish.  

Their guns blaze our emaciated hope all day. But nothing will ever defeat love.

For hate has lust but never last

Derick is a freelance writer based in PMB.  Besides journalistic writing he also has a interest in creative writing.

13 June 2011

                      The Manner of Dreams

                        All that we see and seem,

                           is but a dream within a dream.

                                                                 Edgar Allan Poe 

A few nights ago  I dreamt that I was in a dream. In the dream within the dream, all was concrete. The food, the gardens, and even the people were made of concrete, except me. I felt foreign there.

I always feel removed from myself in situations were everyone is required to smile. There is an internal conflict that chokes me in these situations; I'm torn between an urge to put on a straight face until I find a “genuine”  reason to smile, and an urge to blend into the scenery and smile myself into oblivion. I settle for the path of least resistance and quell the conflict by keeping my real feelings under lock and key in the abyss of my mind. Going from one group of concrete people to another with a mechanical smile on my face was self-sacrificial. I hate having to smile when I don't feel like it.

But I smiled to the concrete people as we shook hands and exchanged "pleasantries". A uniform procedure; you say "hallo" to a person and they echo you. And then you ask them how they are. They tell you that they are well or okay or grand or just fine. They ask you the same question and you more or less echo the answer that they gave to the question that you asked. It's a comedy of conformism.

After a few handshakes I had to hide my right hand in my pocket and “keep the ball rolling” with my left. Their handshakes are exaggeratedly firm. The bruises embarrassing; they made me look pitiful. It's not easy, trying to fit in with concrete people. Now I will stop trying; no more handshakes or mechanical smiles from me.

All of a sudden there was thunder and lightning. Rain clouds gathered and the wrath of the sky was upon me. The handshake and the smile are age-old traditions in Concrete Land; the gods will properly curb the arrogance of any mortal who dares to plant revolutionary seeds in the Concrete way of life.

The concrete earth beneath my feet turned to mud. I started to sink into it. It felt as if all the forces of nature were directed against me. I was pummeled by sheets of water from above, and without a foothold below. I was sucked into the abyss of the earth. I suspected that I might be dreaming, but this suspicion was short-lived; I fell into a third dream. 

Now I'm leaning against a rock under the blazing sun, overlooking Concrete Land. I turn to the peaks above with my query: “What is the meaning of Existence?”

“Go back to nothingness,” says a familiar voice in a barely audible whisper. I look around to see who purports to be a philosopher, but there is no one in sight. It is only I and these monumental rocks here.

Who are you? Show yourself!” I shout desperately.

“I am not a who but an It; the Identity-less.” says the voice, growing louder and ever more familiar.

Not a who but an It, the Identity-less? What is the meaning of all this? If I weren't trying to figure out from which direction the voice came, I would have realized whose voice it was. It sounded like the voice of a person I knew, very intimately.

The voice spoke again: “Language is a symbol. It is limited by the boundaries of the communicable, but human experience and wisdom extends infinitely beyond. Language is too insufficient a tool to be used in the quenching of your philosophical thirst. If you insist on lifting yourself up from existence into the realm of language and limiting yourself to the communicable, you will never overstand the It in me.”
I argued with the voice: "Is it not language that organizes thought and puts it to a useful purpose? Is it not language that preserves the wisdom of the ancients through writing and retelling? How then, if not through language can I ever come to 'Overstand' the It?”
"The only way to Overstand It is by going back to nothingness"
"What is this nothingness?" I needed to know.                                                 "The nothingness is the It."
"I don't understand."                                                                                         "You don't understand because you are beginning to Overstand. Your confusion is your Initiation into wisdom,” the voice replied. “A fair warning: It -into which you were born- was not meant to be stable. It changes from one minute to the next. It adapts to different people and situation in order to absorb all forms of beauty.”

I listened, and the voice continued, “Language is a symbol that does not necessarily coincide with actual experiences. You experience any particular circumstance only once. To describe it through language vulgarizes It. Do not attempt to defend your social identity. It is a false territory. The true philosopher is identity-less. The nothingness is the It.”

“But if I don't It, how can I be expected to guard against trying to grasp It? How can I be content to let It be?”                                                                              “You already know It. Get rid of all your words. Do not waste your energy in trying to know about knowing. Go back to nothingness, where no thoughts mediated between you and Existence. Every day, dedicate yourself to observing consciousness -awareness of awareness, your six sense, your third eye. Try to stay with it for as long as you can. The nothingness is your It. It is not governed by thoughts, It is conscious of them. Consciousness is sensibility to the rhythm of Existence to which you must dance. It reconciles your mind with your body. Your soul will reconnect with the nothingness of existence. You will inherit consciousness as the data bank of your soul. Consciousness is It.”

The voice grew louder and louder, so that I had to block my ears or lose my ability to hear. To no avail. It seemed as thought the voice was shouting from inside my head. It grew louder, to the point where I felt that I was on the brink of sanity.

I looked up at the top of the highest among these mountains and saw myself on the edge, preparing to jump. I shouted and pleaded with myself not to jump. But the distance from the ground to the top of the mountain was too vast for me to hear myself. My pleas dissolved in the wind. I jumped off the cliff. There was a flash of insight on my way down. Just for a few seconds everything became clear. All along the shouting voice had been my own.

Monde Mdodana

Note from the Writer Monde.  

I have independently published a collection of my short stories (The English Note and Other Stories),

which I distribute myself. if readers like my story and would like more, they
can order the book from me. The book is R70 a copy. Interested readers
can call me at 078 201 8754 and I will make the necesarry arrangements
to get the book to them wherever they are.

6 June 2011

                                                                      Pic of the day

Umhlanga Lighthouse.  One of the landmarks of Umhlanga Rocks.

Poem of the Week:

The Jester                      Nick Lithgow

Cavernous hall vaulted oak-beams and stone walls

Light streaming through arched windows above

Tables lined with merry folk, some drunk, singing

Light wine and mead from pewter mugs

Pork and bread from earthen spread

Children and dogs playing at their feet

I donned my fools cap and strutted out

The risen stage, naer fist but tossed food

Booing and applause, choked laughter

At my ridiculous jesters gait

Casting arrogance like a net, I held them

Enraptured at my every word

In common tongue I cursed the King

The Queen a whore, they bayed for more

Of Princes, Priests and Dukes and Lords

I lashed with whip and switch and blade

Stripped them bare, none were to spare

Foul mouthed and angry, I damned them all

The rapt crowd cheered, soulless tirade adored

With tears of mirth they worshiped my calls

Famed reprobate throughout the land

Who entertained by mocking the law

Every tavern a home, free booze and swill

Where I blustered with sharp wit and jagged claw

But not long after my core did fail

My eyes ran dry and my breath was stale

More wretched a man there never has been

Begging a crust and water a pail

With vermin as friend, lice crawled on my head

My mind was numb and my spirit was dead

And then perchance a Princess did pass

Never more beauty did I ever behold

Silk skin, sparkling eyes and shimmering dress

“Oh lady fair, please, just one more chance”

She cast her gaze down at my cowering rags

Her pretty lips parted and addressed me thus

  

“Your mouth was your weapon

Now you’re sucking on sores

Your strong frame had leverage

Pox and booze have ravaged and bored

You berated my family with perditious lies

Now nobody cares if you live or you die!”

She turned on her heel when a horseman arrived

A monstrous black beast with evil red eyes

I screamed in terror, begged for mercy in vain

My mind was seized and my limbs racked with pain

The rider thrust forward, hooves flashed in my face

And there where I lay was there where I died

A gentle white light drew me though the membrane of time

I laughed and I danced to my spiritual rhythm divine

Emerald green fields, gold hedgerows and rolling streams

Surrounded me as I repaired with my love and children three

“I’m sorry, I failed, you deserved more by far”

“Don’t be sorry Daddy” they smiled, “We love who you are”

And then His Devine Benevolence placed his hand on my arm

His kind eyes gazed without verdict or harm

“You had love and sound mind, health and strong bones

But you dismissed your friends and fed wrath to your foes

You are My son, I love you without condition or term

But you learned nothing this time, so you will have to return”

Twitter Blanket Drive

SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL BLANKET DRIVE 2011
The power of social networking and the strength of the SA Twitter community has flexed its muscles once again and the
Twitter Blanket Drive (“#TBD”) is underway once again.
#TBD is a South African national charity drive managed and supported by the local Twitter community. "#TBD" is the
Twitter hashtag that you can use to look up all related posts and information. "#TBD" is the acronym for "Twitter Blanket
Drive".   The idea is for "Tweeps" to meet up ("tweetup") at venues around the country on the same day, at the same time
to share a warm cup of coffee – and to donate a blanket or two.   There are 800 000 Tweeps in SA. If 1% contribute we
can raise 8 000 blankets. There are 4 ways to participate and show your support: RSVP and attend a Tweetup. Don’t
forget to bring a blanket to donate.
In 2011 @melanieminnaar posted a Tweet on Twitter suggesting that it would be great if the SA Twitter community (SA
Tweeps) could donate blankets to those in need this winter. That tweet raised hundreds of blankets and over R25,000.00
in cash donations that were distributed to organisations and needy people countrywide.
Several corporate have shown their support for this initiative by either matching blanket collections in cash or by holding
staff blanket drives to contribute to #TBD.
You can donate blankets and clothing. New or used. Cash donations can be made as well but only directly to the selected
charities for #TBD 2011. We will publish links to their websites or make their banking details available to you via
www.twitterblanketdrive.co.za. Please note that #TBD *is not* an NGO or official charity organisation – no cash donations
should be made to any person representing #TBD. This is viewed as fraudulent and therefore illegal.
Events take place on Saturday, 4 June 2011 in the following centres:
Area  Venue  Time  Twitter host
Sandton Crowne Plaza Hotel, Rosebank 6pm – 10pm @MelanieMinnaar
Benoni The Coffee Shop, Rynfield 6pm @jackiejvr
West Rand SilverStar Casino 6pm @ReneeEverett
Pretoria The Blades  6pm @sdiedericks
Cape Town NewsCafe at Artscape 4.30pm @alambchop
Hermanus OCF offices, Gateway Centre 6pm @talitharabie
Plettenberg Bay Fynbos Ridge Country House 6pm @fynbosridge
Somerset West TBC  6pm @Helderberginfo
Knysna Mitchell’s Brewery beer garden 2pm – 4pm @marleneboyce
Durban  Luna Rossa, Gateway S/C 11am - 4pm @waewest
Durban north Livingstone Gastro Pub, Glenore Centre 6pm - 8pm @askashe
South coast The Bistro, Ramsgate 6pm - 8pm @SouthCoastLive
Eastern Cape  East London TBC  TBC @slummiesgirl
Port Elizabeth Vovo Telo Pizzeria 6pm @mon_tays
RSVP’s are encouraged and can be done online via the official #TBD website; www.twitterblanketdrive.co.za
For anyone wishing to donate but who cannot attend any of the events, Williams Hunt dealerships nationwide are once
again drop off points for blankets and clothing (no cash donations). For more information visit
www.twitterblanketdrive.co.za
Melanie Minnaar (Founder & national co-ordinator)
Twitter: @MelanieMinnaar
Email: melanie@twitterblanketdrive.co.za