Lady Leigh of the Meadows

Source

Of all the Great Ones who dwell in this world the elves hold Varda most in reverence and love. Elbereth they name her, and they call upon her name out of the shadows of Middle-earth, and uplift it in song at the rising of the stars.

– J.R.R. Tolkien

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise, 5
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ; 10
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove 15
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss. 20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so 25
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam, 30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just, 35
And makes me end where I begun.

There must be a certain magic in the air when you meet people that you love with your whole being. These people come into your life and fill a void that you didn’t even know existed and when they have to leave for Europe you just know that life will be strange without them. I met one such a person, Lady Leigh of the Meadows, my most beloved of friends. I wish you well on all your endeavours and I'll see you again, either when you return or when you come visit me in Japan in 2010. Have fun travelling through Europe (which I know for a fact is a scary place because it's not home), make many friends, eat strange food, swear at people in Xhosa and steal any good books that you come across.

I'll see you again very soon :)

Life's a Game

I had the shock of my life over the weekend!

I was playing Oblivion because I was tired of reading (and this is saying something) and I had nothing else to play. As I was trying to level my character's destruction magic level so I can use my newly acquired Fingers of the Mountain spell to electrocute those pesky wolves that just seem to pop up everywhere in the wilderness, I had a scary thought. "Real" life is a lot like and RPG - you get born and start to level up. Take for example the things I want to do next year; get my drivers' license, work as an English tutor, work as a linguistics tutor, finally complete my degree, work on a super cool thesis for Honours the following year, go to lots of rock shows and so on. I seriously want to do all these things but when I list them they smack of leveling up in society don't they. I'm crazy scared of having achieved a list of things but never having enjoyed them. That's what counts for me, the life lived in those achievements and failures.

When I first played Oblivion everything was okay and I enjoyed it, especially the Dark Brotherhood quests and then I realised that all you ever do is go on quests in this game. Many of these quests are cool, especially if you have a high level character who can bash the nonsense out of bandits or hurl deadly Wizard's Fire at unsuspecting necromancers, but they get repetitive very quickly. I was so sick of exploring caves and elven ruins by the end of the game that I almost threw up. If real life is like this I will most definitely throw up. I was speaking to a very dear friend on the phone last night and we were discussing how predictable life often is; school, work, retirement. I already lead a half strange life so I'm happy that my path through life is not a graceful arc but a herky jerky line like Jimmy Tock's (minus the clowns and the violence). People who lead these perfect lives where everything happens as planned are probably sad. I sometimes hate my life, I sometimes love it and sometimes I wonder about the weirdness of it all. I prefer my schizo life to 'perfection' though, I think it's fun.

My advice to you: be strange and don't be like a character in Oblivion who does nothing but level up but has no real joy.

Check out this video for some inspiration: Dragonflies & Astronauts

The Power of Words

studentsofenglish.blogspot.com/2006/01/muses.html

I don’t recommend that you spend fifteen minutes doing introspection because at the end of it all the only thing you will learn is you are not as awesome as you think. I’ve spent the last decade or so thinking that I have an overactive imagination and I prided myself in being able to out-imagine other people. Fifteen minutes of self-contemplation and all my pride is gone. I have a normal (okay, maybe just a notch above normal) imagination it turns out – everything else is borrowed from all the books I’ve read and the movies I’ve seen. The writers of the books I’ve read and the people behind the movies I watch have great imaginations. I simply have all their great visions in my head.

Words, they have a power. A good book or movie can help you see the world from a different angle. Words can clarify things that were always vague but words can also deconstruct. Eminem says that words are a mother[humper], they can be great, they can degrade or even worse, they can teach hate. One of the reasons Hitler was such a powerful character was because he had a way with words – he certainly wasn’t a kung-fu master or anything cool like that. Great people like Ghandi and Mandela also fought many of their epic battles using words. The ancient Greeks thought words to be so important that they sent people to university to learn the art of rhetoric. In Greek society only people who could use word to influence others remained in power for very long. Strength of arms was secondary to rhetoric.

Back to what I was saying in the beginning, words are cool because even though my imagination is limited I can piggyback on the imagination of Tolkien, Shakespeare, Gabe Newell or Steven Spielberg.

P.S. Don’t bother with introspection because you’ll just burst you own bubble.

GravityGunSlingers & Exams

I've been writing exams for the past few days and it's been rough. All I do is write essays for three hours every sitting. I'm not complaining though, because I'm rather good at writing essays and thus far all my papers have been good. Exams aside there has been something exciting happening. Sleuth and I play Half-Life 2 Deathmatch after each of our exams. We only play with the gravity gun, no other weapons are allowed. It's such a blast hitting Sleuth with boat or a fence. It just makes me feel so ghetto. The coolest thing is chucking around toilets though, that just totally kills me :)

A Dude Named Dean

When I was in High School I wrote a poem about a dude named Dean because he incites in me such powerful emotions. I never just feel mellow about Dean as I do about Sleuth. For Sleuth I feel a constant stream of love and wonder. The dude baffles me in a quiet way and in his presence I’m like a dog who cocks his head in a quizzical manner at the strangeness of his master. Dean, on the other hand, makes me rage with emotion. I love him something fierce and I hate his guts. He is the most intelligent person I know and the most stupid person I know (second only to myself). He is the kindest person I know and the biggest jerk I know. The dude is crazy and belongs either in a mental facility or a prison cell in Gotham City. Hanging out with Dean is an experience that can be compared to being on a roller coaster, it freaks you out but it's exhilarating.

Natura Morta “Howling with holy wildness”

We are noisy, dull and bored most of the time. We rarely take some time out to listen to the small voice that constantly haunts our souls. We are always too busy, too busy doing I know not what. We are bored with our lives because 50 Cent and Paris Hilton tell us that we don’t have enough bling or pairs of shoes. The only beauty we know is plastic and metal. We ignore real beauty because we are afraid of it, I suspect. Look at the gusto with which we chop down God’s trees and pollute His rivers. Nature scares us witless because she whispers to us of high beauty forever beyond the reach of our destructive habits. Peter Kreeft, in his profound talk about the sea, says: “Maybe God puts cotton in our ears because such great beauty would drive us mad . . . we would be unable to eat or sleep or reproduce or survive . . . in this angel haunted universe.” Some time ago I was telling Sleuth what a good thing it is for the human race that most people on the planet think of sex as the pinnacle of joy. If there were more chody people like me around the human race would not be around for too long – we’d all be too busy lying under giant oak trees to procreate.

I don’t think that you can find the raw stuff of life in any metropolis in the world, but when you walk into your neighbor with green fingers’ backyard it is simply overflowing with the stuff of life. Nature is fertile, wild, soothing, dangerous, exciting and truly alive.

My message to you: be still for a few minutes and let God speak to you and when you’re outside allow Nature (God’s other book) to tell you about life and the love thereof.


The Jaguar

The apes yawn and adore their fleas in the sun.
The parrots shriek as if they were on fire, or strut
Like cheap tarts to attract the stroller with the nut.
Fatigued with indolence, tiger and lion

Lie still as the sun. The boa-constrictor’s coil
Is a fossil. Cage after cage seems empty, or
Stinks of sleepers from the breathing straw.
It might be painted on a nursery wall.

But who runs like the rest past these arrives
At a cage where the crowd stands, stares, mesmerized,
As a child at a dream, at a jaguar hurrying enraged
Through prison darkness after the drills of his eyes

On a short fierce fuse. Not in boredom—
The eye satisfied to be blind in fire,
By the bang of blood in the brain deaf the ear—
He spins from the bars, but there’s no cage to him

More than to the visionary his cell:
His stride is wildernesses of freedom:
The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel.
Over the cage floor the horizons come.

Ted Hughes

To The Light House (And Back Again) [2nd Revision]

Image: Salvador Dali, Hermes, 1981

I wrote this story in an English lecture on Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. I wrote the story simply because I got a kick out of it, so don't expect anything epic :)

To the Light House (And Back Again)

Once upon a time, in a light house there lived a beautiful maiden. The house in which this maiden lived weighed only two kilograms and the curious fact that there were thousands of colourful balloons tied to the roof resulted in the house floating away on a gentle breeze. So for all intents and purposes our maiden was a damsel in distress (even if she would never admit to it if asked). The kingdom in which this story takes place was filled to the brim with brave knights in gleaming armour (there were so many of them in fact that the king hired them out to neighbouring kingdoms), but none of them could fly and they all feared shooting at the balloons with arrows in case any harm should come to the maiden. In a stable (a very heavy one I might add) a peasant boy had an epiphany. He would borrow the god, Hermes’ winged sandals and use them to rescue the maiden. He jumped on a donkey and set out (at a rather slow pace) to the Sometimes Holy Mountain, north of the kingdom of Ramsey. Hermes often visited the mountain to drink the wine he stored there in a cave. Most of the wine came from sacrifices, for in those days people were very fond of sacrificing things to the gods – things like useless pieces of string, flowers, virgins, cows, goats, wine and so on. The special thing about this mountain was that it was surrounded by ‘certain airs’ that were detached from the wind and these mysterious airs resulted in a curious property being added to the mountain; that property being that none of the gods, save for Hermes, could see the mountain – it was simply invisible to them. Hermes being quite an alcoholic (as history fails to mention) often retired to this mountain to enjoy a few drinks without being hassled by the rest of the gods on Mount Olympus. Since Hermes wasn’t there all the time the mountain was only holy at the times that he was there. Our peasant boy rode to the mountain in the hope that it was holy on that day. I’m told that he was smart as far as peasant boys go, but it was quite sad that his name was Rubbish. His father was a very busy man and had simply named the boy after the first thing that popped into his mind at the time, which happened to be a pile of rubbish which he remembered he must take out for the king if he wished not to be beheaded. Rubbish, being a vital young man, did not let this get him down for he believed that if people could be made from dust and some of them transcend their dusty state to become something like gods, so bright and radiant that looking at them is blinding, there was nothing stopping him from transcending his unfortunate name. Rubbish arrived at the foot of Mount Sometimes Holy as the sun was setting; he said a quick prayer (not knowing that the gods on Mount Olympus could not hear him) and started his search for Hermes’ cave. He found the cave just as the sun disappeared behind the mountains in the west and on that evening Lady Luck (because she is technically not a goddess and she had no other plans for the evening) was on his side, the god of the mountain was lying on a bed of straw (one would think a god would bother with his sleeping arrangements more) in a drunken stupor, his winged sandals floated around the room chasing each other in a playful manner. Rubbish thought he’d be polite and not wake Hermes up (no one knows what a drunk god would do after all); he quietly snatched the winged sandals out of the air and tiptoed out of the cave. At the mouth of the cave he slipped on the sandals and they rearranged themselves to fit snugly on his feet. He took off with a little jump and zoomed through the air. After a few hours of flying around he spotted the house floating gently on a light breeze. Candle light came from the windows. Rubbish flew right up to the door and like the good mannered boy he was he politely knocked on the door. It is a strange thing being in a house that is floating high up in the sky and hearing a knock at the door. The maiden peeped through the keyhole and was thoroughly surprised to find Rubbish at her doorstep. She opened the door and invited him inside. “O! Dear Rubbish,” the maiden cried when they were inside the house. “It’s so good to see you.”
“It’s good seeing you too, Irene.”
Rubbish and Irene were very good friends so it was really a pleasant surprise for her to find him at her doorstep. “How ever did you manage to get here?” Irene asked.
“I had some help from one of the gods.” Rubbish pointed to the winged sandals.
“Do you think they will be able to carry the both of us?”
“How will we know if we don’t try?”
Rubbish held Irene by the waist and she put her arm around his neck. “Ready?”
Irene nodded and they jumped out through the front door of the floating house. The sandals rapidly flapped their wings in order to adjust to Irene’s added weight and off to the Sometimes Holy Mountain they zoomed.
Rubbish’s plan was to return Hermes’ sandals before he woke up and then he and Irene would ride the donkey he left grazing at the side of the mountain back to Ramsey. But, as anyone with sense knows, something strange always arises to mess up good plans.
Hermes rose from his drunken stupor just as Rubbish and Irene landed at the mouth of the cave. He immediately noticed that his winged sandals were not floating around the cave playfully chasing each other. “Blasted sandals...” Hermes muttered, “Where’d they get off to?”
Then he spotted the couple at the opening of his cave.

Both Rubbish and Irene froze with fear when Hermes’ eyes fell upon them. The god was immediately on his feet and before they could even blink he held each of them by the scruff of the neck and dragged them inside the cave. I don’t know if you have ever been manhandled (or maidenhandled in Irene’s case) by an angry immortal who has just woken up from an alcohol-induced slumber, but I can tell you that it is a very frightening experience. “A pair of thieves, eh?” Hermes roared.
“Please don’t blame Rubbish, sir. The only reason he took your sandals was to rescue me from floating away with my house.”
I mentioned before that Rubbish was an intelligent boy as far as peasant boys are concerned and so before Hermes could reply he said, “Hermes of many shifts, blandly cunning, robber, cattle driver, bringer of dreams, watcher by night, thief at the gates, please do not let loose your wrath upon us for the theft of your sandals because you are a god who condones the practice of thievery after all.”
Hermes burst out in laughter that shook the cave. “Well spoken… very well spoken, dear boy. I do condone theft if the thief does not allow himself to be caught. Since you are caught you will have to perform a certain task for me if you wish for me to spare your lives.”
“Very well then, tell us what to do,” Irene said.
“By the manner of your speech, I take it that you are from the kingdom of Ramsey. I need you to deliver a little gift to a friend of mine, who currently resides in the dungeon of that wet blanket you call a king.”
King Ramsey was the most unpleasant ruler I can care to think of. He was as thin as a reed, possessed a hooked nose and he had the look of someone sucking on lemons on his face. Rubbish and Irene agreed to undertake the very dangerous mission of sneaking into King Ramsey’s dungeon.

The rest of the evening was spent drawing up plans and feasting on honey, cakes and roasted lamb, which Hermes produced from a hidden larder in the cave. Once the two children got past his alcoholism and their fear of him, Hermes proved to be a charming host. He told them of some of the adventurous errands he has undertaken for his father, the mighty Zeus and how on the day of his birth he stole oxen from his brother, Apollo. By midnight Rubbish and Irene were fast asleep with smiles of contentment on plastered onto their faces.

Hermes flew the two children to the kingdom of Ramsey at the crack of dawn the following day. He dropped them off at the city gates and before departing he presented them with a sealed package and the helmet of Aïdes as a gift to help them on their mission.

Sneaking into King Ramsey’s dungeons was no easy business, even with a helmet that renders the wearer invisible – especially since the helmet could only cover one head at a time. Rubbish and Irene managed to sneak into the castle undetected because everyone was too busy to bother with two children. Ramsey did not hesitate to behead those who did not attend to their duties and thus everyone in the castle minded their tasks and naught else. At the passage that leads to the dark and dingy dungeons Rubbish donned Aïdes’ helmet and immediately he became invisible. “Stay here, Irene,” he whispered, “I’ll be back in a flash.”
Irene hid in a dark corner whilst Rubbish trotted down the passage to find the prisoner Hermes had sent them to. It did not take Rubbish long to find the prisoner, she was hard to miss in the midst of all the ruthless looking men who inhabited the cells. The prisoner wore a long, white gown that was in total contrast with the squalor all around her and her light brown skin glowed as if some inner light was struggling to escape through it. Although there was not a trace of hair on her head, no one could mistake her for a man, so striking was her beauty. “Ah, there you are.” She said in a voice that was like the sweet music of Apollo’s lyre. Rubbish looked around to see who she was talking to. The prisoner laughed and said, “I’m talking to you, dear boy. The helm of Aïdes cannot hide you from me. Come closer.”
Rubbish stepped closer to the prisoner and fumbled with his cloak, trying to take out the package Hermes had given him. He finally managed to free the package from his cloak and he handed it over to the prisoner through the cell’s bars.
“Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure, ma’am.” Rubbish said shyly.
“I suggest that you do not linger too much, but before you go I have a gift for you.” She touched the boy’s head and he felt a tingling sensation all over his body. When she was done she said, “Now no one who sees you shall ever call you Rubbish again. From this day you shall be known as Michael, a name that befits a brave, young man of your stature.”

Michael and Irene made their way home safely through the king’s dingy dungeons and to their merry surprise they found Irene’s house returned to its original spot. It also seemed that the house had acquired some weight along the way. Inside they found a note from Hermes demanding a month’s supply of good wine to be delivered to Mount Sometimes Holy for the favour and the swift return of the helm of Aïdes. In the days that followed Michael thought much about that strange lady in Ramsey’s dungeon and he hoped that all was well with her.

Alas, the story of Michael’s quest to the light house and back again must I end here for now. There were many adventures that followed and many of them included that strange lady Michael encountered in Ramsey’s dungeon. I am told by my sources that her name was Palesa, which means flower in one on the tongues of the South.

Galápagos

I was randomly watching late night TV when I came across a BBC series called Galápagos. What caught my attention was the enchanting narration by a voice of a woman who was born to tell epic stories. It turns out the narrator is Tilda Swinton, who plays the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe. The islands and their inhabitants are beautiful and deadly at the same time. The islands have been called hell on earth and so on but the life that flourishes on them is just amazing. The Galápagos are a place that every man, woman and dog must visit at some point in their lives.
Here are cool pics from Wikipedia:














*All images from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galapagos_Islands

March On

This post is dedicated to all of my goodbuddies :), even though most of you don’t read my blog – you bast1ds ;) Maybe one day when I am dead and some of you guys are still kickin’ it strong you’ll be digging through the archives and stumble upon this post. To all my friends, from people I’ve been with me for years to that one person I just said hello to on the bus this morning, I love you guys like mad (but I still reserve the right to hate your guts if you behave like a chode – a word which here means jerk).

Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one. – JOHN BERGER (Epigraph to Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things)

It makes me feel fuzzy inside when I see my friends doing awesome things that make them happy.

Sleuth, with help from Dean, put together a respectable PC (from my point of view anyway) and he has been gaming the days away. His supply of games is drawing to an end though because he plays 24/7.

Dean got himself a new graphics card and he’s got some major plans for upgrades throughout next year. The dude’s playing Crysis and having a good time of it. He’s also getting into the local rock scene and he’s planning to attend a few gigs and, naturally, I’ll be tagging along.

Last time I spoke to Anouk she was having boy trouble and not listening to my sage advice because she felt like being stubborn. Get yourself sorted dear girl! Just hook up with H. and see where it leads you. Here’s the mantra: how will we know if we just don’t try?

Sleuth and I hung out with Katie yesterday and dragged her around campus showing her what the student life is all about. It’s not as glamorous as all the poems say ;) Katie is doing well at work and she got a promotion a month or so back. Respect to the woman.

I hung out with M’Jackknife last week and the man’s having a tough time with accounting. It’s your own fault buddy; you should have studied medicine like you were planning in High School. You’re my most disappointing friend of the day ntanga (I’m getting you Fight Club for Christmas; maybe Tyler Durden can talk some sense into you.

To the rest of my goodbuddies: keep the faith strong :) *Live it up to the best of your ability and make sure your strand gets woven into the great human tapestry.

*Just to clarify, my definition of ‘live it up’ is reading as many books as you can and lying under as many trees as you can – that’s why God invented trees and people make paper from trees after all.

International Translation Day

Listen up guys and gals, you’re about to get an education ;)

I bet none of you knew that the 30th of September was International Translation Day. The theme for this year was “Terminology: Words Matter”. After spending some time with postmodernist texts that whispered language fails to convey meaning in my ears it was quite refreshing to step back into a world where words mean. When it comes to the beauty and power of words I’m an inhabitant of Middle-Earth where speaking words can sometimes unleash great power. There is even a patron saint of translation! His name was Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, but you can simply call him St. Jerome. He translated the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin and the New Testament from Greek into Latin. I imagine he was a charming gentleman and legend has it that he removed a thorn from a lion’s paw. The Department of Linguistics and Literary Theory hosted a workshop presented by Wilna Liebeberg on the 29th of September to commemorate the day and all us 3rd year student got to attend. Even though the talk on how to start your own freelance translation or editing practice was irrelevant to us at this moment in time I enjoyed it. During the break I got to speak to a very friendly gentleman named Jerry Ngubane who runs his own translation freelance practice and makes a comfortable living from it :) It was a cool experience being a room full of professional language practitioners and laughing at how childish they are at times.

Check out the South African Translators’ Institute and the International Federation of Translators to see what the hype’s about :)