4 AM in the Morning

Half my life
is in books' written pages
Lived and learned from fools and
from sages - Aerosmith, Dream On

It’s four in the morning and I can’t sleep, I’ve been tossing and turning for the last hour... I might as well wake up and do something useful with my life. I’ve considered getting dressed and walking to the nearby pub for a beer or two but people having been getting mugged in the morning on my street of late – and I’m too lazy to actually get dressed. I wonder if that huge bouncer guy at the pub would let me in wearing only boxers and a wrinkled T-shirt...? Probably not. There’s also the fact that I have to be up in a few hours to mark a pile of portfolios and a beer or two (which really means six) wouldn’t go a long way in setting the mood for that sort of thing.

Don’t worry too much about it though, I’ll just sit here for a bit and kick the ol’ bull with you guys. You hear about the clown who assaulted the chicken crossing the road? Well, neither did I, it must have been quite a scene I imagine. What was cool, though, was chatting to one of the crazier (which should be interpreted as meaning über cool in this here instance) tutors at the English Department. We were talking about some of the crazy things she’s done in her life and why she did them. She tells me that at some point she got tired of reading about things and wanted to experience them firsthand. If you want to know what falling in love is like, allow yourself to be swept off of your feet on that euphoric wave of gushy feelings instead of believing what some author (even if they’re really clever) tells you. People like me tend to read about things and then think we’ve done them and thus have the wrong idea about them, which is not good depending on how you’re looking at it. The moral of the story you ask? Books are really awesome but at some point you’ve got to add to the Great Tapestry by actually getting out there and living (whatever that means).

That's my mini-ramble for the morning :) Later.

Bats on the Brian

"'But I don't want to go among mad people' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'Or you wouldn't have come here.'"
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventure in Wonderland

"You're in the real world now and the lunatics have taken over the Asylum."
- The Joker, Arkham Asylum, A Serious House on Serious Earth

Okay, I officially have Bats on the brain; the guy is taking over my life and I'm losing the little that remains of my sanity - assuming I was sane to begin with. I've probably played the Arkham Asylum video game demo hundreds of times and I'm rather sad that I won't be able to afford the full version when it comes out on PC later this month. I'll make a plan though, something like stealing my neighbour's cat, Mr Ginger, and selling him. The game is getting rave reviews on consoles and people are even comparing it to BioShock. I just love the Detective Mode and the silent take downs, there's nothing more satisfying than swinging from gargoyle to gargoyle and swooping down and taking out an enemy and then disappearing before his friends see you. You then sit and watch as the villains in the room get nervous wondering who's next and jumping at their own shadows.

I've also just finished reading the graphic novel, Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean, which is surprisingly good - I'd go as far as to say that it's even better than The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland. I just love how dark it is and how it messes with your mind. If you're into psychology you'll notice some of Carl Jung's archetypes in it and another cool aspect is how The Joker raises the question in the reader's mind: which is the real loony bin, the asylum or the real world? Amadeus Arkham converted his ancestral home into an asylum for the criminally insane because he thought that he could help insane people and thus achieve a triumph of reason over the irrational and other cool stuff like that.

Speaking of The Joker, he's always an interesting character to read about. In Arkham Asylum one of the psychiatrists notes that he cannot be properly defined as insane, she suspects that he is an example of someone with some kind of super-sanity: "A brilliant new modification of human perception. More suited to urban life at the end of the twentieth century." The novel has a very postmodern edge to it and asks whether identity is stable or not. In one scene of the novel one of the asylum's inmates suggests that they take off Bats' mask so they can see who he really is underneath. The Joker intervenes and says that the mask is Bats' real identity. So, you see there's a lot of fun to be had with this novel.

All-in-all, Arkham Asylum is an awesome graphic novel that caters for people interested in exploring the darker corners of the human mind.

Spring Has Sprung

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When [September] is scarcely here

- Emily Dickinson

A little madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown —
Who ponders this tremendous scene —
This whole Experiment of Green —
As if it were his own!

- Emily Dickinson

Ah, 'tis the Spring, it has finally arrived and I feel so gosh-darn good because of it. Winter totally kills my skinny frame and I'm never all that sad to see the bugger go. Spring makes everyone think of the colour green (which is my favourite colour if you're interested in knowing that sort of thing about me) but it makes me think of yellow. For some reason everything that's yellow catches my eye in Spring: take the lemon tree outside my house for instance, it looks so much more beautiful in Spring.

District 9

I was watching some show on TV a few nights ago and they were all hyped up about this movie when I remembered NAG saying something about it... and the fact that Peter Jackson was the Producer didn't hurt in persuading me to go and see it either.

All I can say is Wowzers! This movie is the "fokken" shiz hey! Seriously, who would have thought that aliens landing in Johannesburg could make such a cool story? Blomkamp and his team chucked everything into this movie: that Cloverfield-esque shaky cam/security surveillance cam thing that usually irritates the crap out of me in other movies, documentary style commentary and speculation, lots of violence and gore (always a good thing in movies), playing with the whole apartheid/xenophobia thing in South Africa, shady Nigerians (rather stereotypical but good fun all the same and an Afrikaans guy who says "fokken" a lot. I spent this first half of the movie laughing at how South African the movie was, which is really cool. The second half I spent ogling the cool special effects an just enjoying how the MNU soldiers and Nigerian gangsters explode when they're hit by the alien weapons.

I was asking Lady Leigh of the Meadows how it feels to live in a city that you see getting destroyed in movies when I saw the Millennium Bridge being taken out by Death Eaters in the new Potter movie and now I have some idea: it's kind of worrying. I'm being a chop but the Nigerian gangsters scared the crap out of me - they're so freakin' ruthless hey. People who live in New York must be brave because that place always gets trashed in movies.

All-in-all District 9 is hands-down the best South African movie in the history of the universe! Go see it, whether you like sci-fi or not you will love it. I pinky promise.

P.S. Check out Christopher's blog while you're here.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
- Walter Savage Landor, The End

People want some sort of consistency in their lives; they want to live their lives according to a rhythm. Wait a minute! Don’t people want adventure and the excitement that comes with it? I hear you say. They do, but within the bounds of a certain ‘routine’.

The other day I was listening to a talk by Peter Kreeft (I really should find other people to spend hours listening to) in which he says we must live our lives like poetry. This immediately made me think of great people like Ghandi, Mother Teresa and Mandela. Whenever one reads of their lives it always seems very poetic – the pain they felt is described in such beautiful terms that make it seem like theirs was a higher kind of pain and their joy was a nobler sort of joy. Dr Kreeft’s statement has been bothering me for a few weeks now because I can’t seem to fine tune my life to the point that it is poetic. When I feel sad, though, it’s a boring sort of sadness and when I’m happy it seems to be an everyday kind of happiness... nothing to write poetry about because poetry – in my head at least – is vibrant, toxic, dangerous and all kinds of exciting.

What I want is for my inner being to be consistent with my outer being, I want to feel like there is a storm raging inside of me when I argue with someone and I want to feel like my heart is melting when I see my beloved... you know, that Romantic kind of thing the old poets always seem to be on about. I want adventure within a confined sort of space – a taste of the unexpected wrapped in familiar packaging.

I might be generalising but I suspect that most of the human race is like me and Walter Savage (this name is fitting somehow) Landor, we want to look back and be able to say that we lived our lives according to some ideal that made us feel nice and warm or crazy and heated in a poetic kind of way. Daily life in a city doesn’t seem to cater for people want to feel poetic about their lives though, which is why I plan to be a surfer or a tree hugger (which is not a nice thing to call someone I’m told).

A Life Lived

“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.” – Sir Philip Sidney


Past,
Future;
They all merge into this present moment
I’m a dude on the road –
I dare to disturb the universe
Within these pages
There are snippets and snatches
Of a life lived


“There is delight in singing, tho’ none hear
Beside the singer: and there is delight
In praising, tho’ the praiser sit alone”

– Walter Savage Landor, To Robert Browning


Through the Eyes of the Observer

“Faith” is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see –
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency- Emily Dickinson

Young, silent observer
In social circles he stands reserved
He is part of all, but not
Jotting down notes with his elegant flowing mind script
Always adding to his intelligence supreme
Like a journalist in a war zone he can do nothing
Nothing but record the terrors
Taking note of human errors
Always adding to his heavily guarded vault of infinite intelligence
Observe is all he can do
It is no fault of his
He seems without feeling
Emotionally void
Grey-eyed ghost
Hands stuffed in pockets of faded blue jeans
He scours rodent-inhabited streets
To add to his already extensive library of thought
His presence paradox, phantom but not
His lips dry like the arid Kalahari from the lack of use
In the shroud of city death the grey-eyed phantom stands
Unseen, listening, jotting down and storing in a box
That might one-day spill all the secrets of life under a cranium saw

“Why do you just stand there?” I dare to ask
No reply
Just a penetrating silver glare

Blood begins to fall from a wounded sky
Drops fall like crimson jewels
He stares at the bleeding sky, emotions from the dawn of time finally stirred
Platinum tears hit the blacktop with unheard plops
He falls to the ground on his knees, arms skinny and limp at his sides
“Father, why?”
He asks in a parched tone

"The Lord said, ‘I was ready to answer my people’s prayers, but they did not pray. I was ready for them to find me, but they did not even try. The nation did not pray to me, even though I was always ready to answer ‘Here I am, I will help you’."

Young Man Going West

Within my heart there dwells a perfect kind of sadness
Within my heart, raging, there is also an organised sort of madness
Stealthily (or so they think) they go about their dire business
I can just barely detect their presence
But I’m quite certain they eventually mean to kill me
Together they make up a beast that is without remorse or relent

Whenever I think of my sadness and madness
I’m struck by the notion that a war’s afoot
I suspect that my soul’s the target of titanic opposing forces
The one side means for me to shed my humanity in exchange for flawless godliness
The other side simply means to consume my soul by preying on my ‘weaker’ will

I stand facing two paths
One of them I have to religiously follow
The choice is simply black and white,
Heaven or hell

But wait!

There seems to be something more…
Something more lies within this fragile heart of mine
Simple gladness

With great consideration I’ll choose the path to follow
I’ll pick up my sadness, madness and new-found gladness
And together we’ll walk down that winding path
Singing our tuneless song into the sunset

Young Man Coming Home

With my madness and sadness in tow
I left home
I travelled far and wide
With these two companions by my side
I swam across seas
Seeking a cure for my disease
And I was told:

"there is a cure in the house
And not outside it, no,"

I found myself coming back home,
Madness, sadness and newly acquired gladness in tow

A THOUGHT ABOUT EVE ON SAINT VALANTINE’S DAY

“True love’s the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven:
It is not fantasy’s hot fire,
Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;
It liveth not in fierce desire,
With dead desire it doth not die;
It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,
In body and in soul can bind.”- Sir Walter Scott, True Love

“… a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” – Genesis 2:24

One day I might be walking down the street…
And all of a sudden there you will be,
As if waiting for me
On that day the sun may or may not shine on our account
Dear God knows, the birds may not even sing
Our meeting may take place in the dead of winter or in the blossom of spring
I would guess the month to be October – things always seem to happen at that time of year
Who is to say it won’t be a dark day of terrible loss and violence
A call to persevere: pure, untainted love founded in a pool of grief and sorrow

The world seemingly passing us by, but from the corner of eyes doubting our little ‘fling’, secretly wishing us ill
You and me, kind of like Fisher’s Lock and Key Hypothesis
No words that I may ever mutter or commit to scraps of paper can do your beauty justice
Your open mind inspiring faith, courage and belief

My love for you, child-like; pure and simple
Because I will give you my all – no more and no less – you may prove to be my fall
I don’t care because I love you
We may be ripped apart by tragedy
And the world may say our ‘doom’ was inevitable, “It was too good to be true”
Stuff the pompous lot with turkey stuffing because I don’t care
I simply and utterly love you

“They sin who tell us Love can die.
Love is undestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth” – Robert Southey, The Immortality of Love

To the Masters of Old

Great masters of old,
You'd be amazed by twenty-first century machinery
'though you invented time travel
That modern science has yet to match
I find myself spirited away by words
That are ages old

Your thoughts are entwined
With mine
I dwell in an ancient past
That never was
I walked down to the store
With Hamlet on my mind
And I could swear that for a moment
Achilles was by my side,
His animated shield
Telling an enthralling tale

To my God

I thank Thee for the life Thou hast given me
As topsy turvy as it may be

I thank Thee for the ups and downs,
The heavenly moments and even what sometimes seems to be mediocrity

I thank Thee for the charming
View of life in retrospect
And the hope of tomorrow

I thank Thee for it all,
Lessons learned and wisdom that flew right over my head

Stay by my side and show me the way
With Your patience, kindness and Love
Show me the way that leads to the Dark Tower

The Lamb

“That is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not understand.’” – The Lamb

You are both the Lion and the Lamb
Your love encompasses things seemingly opposite
And thus our magicians are baffled
By Your mysterious ways

I come to You as I am,
A beggar at Your doorstep
Even if I offer You my all
It amounts to naught

I stand trembling at Your doorstep
Because I know that You are a killer of men
Though I am scared of letting go
I beg that You cut me deep
And remove all traces of I in me

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing of wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost though know who made thee?

Little Lamb I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb I’ll tell thee!
He is calléd by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & though a lamb,
We are calléd by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee. - William Blake, The Lamb

Curious Me

Life!
So complex,
So intricate
Everything's entwined like a vast chain link fence
One thing cannot exist perfectly without another
It's such a fine balance
Even the seemingly simple things are mind-bending
Destinies supposedly linked to ancient prophecies written on tattered Greek tapestries
WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? HOW?
These are my journalistic questions
Who do I ask?
Scientists?
Mathematicians?
Or philosophers?
No
They ‘re all just like me
Always searching, digging and trying to unravel the universe's secrets
Unfortunately with answers come only more questions
WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? WHY? HOW?
Curiosity killed the cat
Why didn't the murdering dirt-bag kill the dog curiously sniffing his own butt?
Shall I ask God to reveal to me His grand design?
I wonder what He would say?
"Certainly not! Patience My child is the key."
Probably not
I wonder, I wonder...
If a fish were a cat
And a cat a tin
What would I have been?
A slit-eyed fiend maybe...?
If I was born a minute later...?
Dear Lord! Would I still be me?
Only goodness knows
Then again it may be that wickedness does too
Do you?

The Pursuit of Joy

What wretched, unhappy creatures we allow ourselves to be!
Created for Joy were we
Who now do not heed our Shepherd’s call;
We’re too busy spreading misery

Happiness is like the sea,
He cannot be caught and contained
For He is not a tame lion
Aslan is on the move
And we must follow,
Leaving everything behind
To the ends of the earth and across the great sea
We must follow

To enter that great country
For whose halls every soul yearns
We must forsake this world

Leave behind all your burdens
And forget your cares
Keep your eyes always on that terrible and fierce Lion
Who gave His life for you and me

Take Me Away

My love, whisk me away
To a place where it’s just you and me
You can sing to me of great beauty
And I’ll recite to thee verses of delight



The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there . . . and still on your feet. – Randall Flagg (in Stephen King’s The Stand)

The Sea, the Sea . . . it calls out to me

And it is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

It has finally dawned on me that I am not very good at this ‘real life’ business that everyone else seems so intent on. The new plan is to go live somewhere near the Sea and to take up surfing as my new life-style. Being homeless in Jozi is probably not something anyone should strive for but being homeless near the Sea is a different kettle of fish: all I’ll need is a surf board, some wax, board shorts, a fishing rod and a bonfire every night.

Okay, let me backtrack and be a little more realistic. As Romantic as being homeless on the beach sounds I’m not Zen enough to survive under those conditions yet. What I’ll really need to be a successful semi-beach bum is to save up enough money to buy a super kewl VW hippie van and enough to open a little second hand bookstore somewhere near the beach – those deeply philosophical surfers always need something to stimulate their minds after all. Then I’ll be set for a glorious life of having my brain totally fried by the bliss that is surfing.

I think that we should all quit our jobs or studies and all head out to the world’s beaches and surf forever. If you’re not very fond of the Sea, i.e. she scares the living daylights out of you, I’d recommend trees, quit your job and go live in a giant oak tree… you know, like the Elves in Tolkien. Just build a flet in the biggest tree you can find and fill it with good books and you’re good to go.

I think this will solve some of the world’s problems (some minor squabbles like Hey! Your tree’s bigger than mine will still exist though I’m sad to say) and we’ll all be happier people.

There’ll be some technicalities to consider but I think we (by which I mainly mean a bunch of smart people somewhere) can work around these difficulties and create a system that works. Never mind that, scrap the technicalities, they’re what’s making us humans so unhappy in the first place – we’ll just wing it and hope for the best.

Meeting the Master

Dreams are a serious business – one rarely knows whether they are real or not, or (more precisely) which of their aspects are real and which are not. Sorting through the tangled webs of our dreams tends to be very sticky and I would rather not do it unless the need is dire, by which I mean something like my Mr Spotty Dog being held hostage by an evil organization of green-eyed cats. Our dreams possess many magical properties, prophecy being the most common and strangest of them I’ve found in my approximately 8030 hours on this planet. I’d be walking down the street when I suddenly have a sense of déjà vu, I’ve seen this before and someone in a bright red hat is about to appear from around that corner I’d think. Such occurrences always fry my noodle until it’s nice and crispy. Enough with all this rambling though, what I really want to tell you is about a very strange dream I had some time ago.

Every single time I read Tolkien I am astounded by the scale, beauty and richness of his imagination, so much so that the ‘real’ world seems rather dull in comparison to his Middle-Earth. He was a cantankerous and endlessly niggling man to know from what I’ve read of him, but I would like to meet him nonetheless. The members of my family are all mad in one way or the other so I’ve some experience with lunatics. Back to this dream of mine: I’ve always had this idea in my head that if could write a story half as good as The Lord of the Rings that I would be the happiest man in the world and then I stumbled across Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and it smacked of Tolkien somehow. The first book in the series opens with the best opening line I’ve ever read. The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. Maybe it’s just me but those words are like the coming of a great storm, and what a whirlwind of an adventure the journey to the Dark Tower has been. The Dark Tower scared me because it seemed to do for contemporary readers what Tolkien did for his readers, what I hoped I could do one day. In an introduction in the new editions of the Dark Tower books King reveals that he was indeed inspired by Tolkien to write a long tale that would captivate readers in the same way that The Lord of the Rings does, but without the Elves. I think that he’s achieved his goal in terms of writing a story that excites readers, a story that even makes them weep at times. His story is so overwhelming that it seeps into all his other stories. All things serve the Beam in the end I guess – it’s ka.

I think there’s still something missing though… King doesn’t quite hit the spot. I’m the only person that I know of who notices this gap, so perhaps it is my job to fill it. Tolkien and Lewis wrote the type of stories that they did because they felt that there were no authors who wrote the type of stories that they wanted to read. I rarely come across books that do to me what Tolkien does. Perhaps if there more stories like Tolkien’s it would be like living in an Angel haunted world, which (as Peter Kreeft points out) might drive us so mad that we would not eat, sleep or procreate. Back to my dream (in earnest this time): I had a dream that as I was walking down Main Street, Tolkien appeared before me in that unsurprising manner in which things happen in dreams – as if meeting dead authors in person was as common as bread. He looked at me and spoke, more to himself than to me it seemed, quoting Sir Philip Sidney (whose work I’ve never seen him quote anywhere before): “Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.”

I said before that I believe in the prophetic power of dreams and I think that the message of this one is fairly straightforward; in order to write something that might do to readers what Tolkien’s work does I have to start writing and to stop dreaming. Whether I’m good or not is yet to be seen. Wish me luck on my journey to the Dark Tower… or is it to Mount Doom? Who knows? I certainly don’t.

Living or Not Living

In his very strange novel, A Void, which is a lipogram of the letter “E”, Georges Perec writes:
Living, or not living: that is what I ask:
If 'tis a stamp of honour to submit
To slings and arrows waft'd us by ill winds,
Or brandish arms against a flood of afflictions,
Which by our opposition is subdu'd? Dying, drowsing;
Waking not? – William Shakspar

Yesterday morning I was totally peed off! ... Which is better than being peed on I guess. There were no buses again (not that there are buses today mind you), which meant I had to hustle lifts from everyone like a mad person because paying for taxis is burning a serious hole in my pocket – and I can’t afford a pair of those really cool fireproof pants they sell at Cape Union Mart. I spent my money buying a monthly bus ticket, only to have it sit uselessly in my bag because Metrobus is full of crap.

This is one of those times when it’s very irritating to be living in a society where it feels like the letter “E” has been letternabbed by some villainous organisation of hooded figures with girly fingernails and everything is topsy-turvy. I'm an indefatigable optimist though and slings and arrows waft'd at me by ill winds simply bounce of my imaginary Achilles' armour, which just goes to show how dangerous my imagination is.

My answer to Shakspar's question is that I choose to brandish arms against a flood of afflictions and to continue the imaginary revolution. For Frodo! (And my grandmother!)

The Horror

I've been downloading old-time radio horror shows for the past few months and listening to them on my mp3 player on my way to varsity, and recently someone pointed out to me that this is strange. Apparently I'm the only person who listened to tales of terror on the radio as a kid - I have no clue where everyone else grew up. To all the masses out there, who are clearly out of the loop, I must tell you that listening to a radio horror story is a very frightening experience, especially if the actors lending their voices to the drama are good. I don't recommend it to people with heart conditions! I've had many sleepless nights after listening to stories like Dr Grimshaw's Sanitarium. The horror stories that aired in the '50s are the scariest in my opinion - they have a weird vibe about them that just freaks you out as a listener.

Get a dose of some old school horror here.