music
Proud to be a Bez groupie
As in happy. The other night I woke up to hear Zuciya Daya on the radio. It made me feel perfetto. As in happy. The radio presenter predicts a grammy for the artiste Bez. I'm like "dude, will you even wait for the guy's second single to be released before you start talking Grammies?" If the second single is Stop Pretending, then yeah, it's all over. It's possible of course he has even sweeter songs coming out of the studio.
Rufus and Jeff
Rufus lost his mum, the poor baby. Jeff Buckley's music could go on Broadway in some sort of Romeo and Juliet adaptation. Meanwhile, Rufus tours as usual, his opera - Prima Donna - goes to London next month; and there's an album out in a couple of weeks, so I wait I wait I wait. The album is titled All Days Are Nights: songs for Lulu. Rufus, majnoon anta. Crazy boy. Why am I obsessed with death by drowning? In my imagery it's usually in old age, not at my age like Jeff Buckley.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Poem: My Brother, The Jew
music
I’m working on a collection of poems investigating fear and loathing:
MY BROTHER, THE JEW
Under the banner of peace and brotherhood,
my body to be scattered in bits in the noisy,
sudden, non-peaceful tearing of flesh.
My body a weapon against cousinhood.
I have many cousins -
one that smokes by the Ganges and really hates blood.
one that used to be stupid but now rules the world.
one devilish one – very quiet but very sharp sword.
The one that vexes me is not my cousin.
The fuck is my brother. Bastard.
P.S.
My friend Olumide (aka Loomnie) runs NigeriansTalk, where I previously posted this.
I’m working on a collection of poems investigating fear and loathing:
MY BROTHER, THE JEW
Under the banner of peace and brotherhood,
my body to be scattered in bits in the noisy,
sudden, non-peaceful tearing of flesh.
My body a weapon against cousinhood.
I have many cousins -
one that smokes by the Ganges and really hates blood.
one that used to be stupid but now rules the world.
one devilish one – very quiet but very sharp sword.
The one that vexes me is not my cousin.
The fuck is my brother. Bastard.
P.S.
My friend Olumide (aka Loomnie) runs NigeriansTalk, where I previously posted this.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Short Story: Assassin
music
Can you believe that there are cable channels for Africa Magic Yoruba and Africa Magic Hausa? Go Nollywood!
I don't watch Africa Magic myself, but I can tell you it's a big addiction and not only for bored housewives. Maybe the most popular channel in Nigeria right now.
I wrote this Jason-Bourne-inspired piece late last year. Enjoy.
ASSASSIN
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
It’s 8pm and Frida is just leaving the office. As a precaution, she takes the backdoor exit, where two guards wait, robot-like, to escort her to her car. Notwithstanding the bodyguards, or her discreet bulletproof vest, Frida has reason to fear for her life: even with the President’s backing, one could not be too careful in her position as saboteur of those called untouchable in her country.
In reality, she is not afraid.
Frida’s car is a neat blue jaguar worth a hundred thousand dollars. The annual income of most people in her city? One thousand dollars.
The untouchables are people who have much more money than Frida with her jaguar. They claim to work, but the devil in hell claims to work hard too. The way to know them is perhaps their non-work; but definitely by their plenty money and by the fear people have of speaking of them.
People speak about Frida’s family; they talk about her brother the chief and her father the colonel.
Her brother was the Minister of Commerce for one year. The day he was sacked, he cleaned the coffers of the ministry. That day, he stole one million dollars, or about ten jaguars. He took his daughters, wife, and nanny to Spain within the week and never looked back.
Before Frida’s brother, their father had also been what you would call in government a petty thief. In her father’s day, you built a sunny house or two, planted colourful gardens, lay crushed granite on the floor of the car shed and driveway, and fed a gatehouse-full of armed security detail from the National Forces.
Back then, the price of the elite lifestyle was absolute submission to the will of the President. It was a high price but many strove to pay it. Then that president was killed. Then the next. Then came an interim government that handed over to civilians for the first time in twenty years.
Remember that day? O, see dancing in the streets! The civilians are hopeful; the young and able soldiers swiftly withdraw to their barracks, while the potbellied soldiers like Frida’s father choose to retire.
The retired still have to eat – have you forgotten? The retired still have to pay their children’s fees in schools in Europe and Japan. So the ex-military become specialists in disorder. They become consultants, one may say, in the field of bureaucracy that the nation has been and still is. See, whenever a redtape is cut, money gushes to the pavement like blood such that a retired colonel like Frida’s father can suck enough to last until the next feast comes around.
Soon, Frida’s elegant mother dies, then her father. For the next six years, their boy fills his father’s shoes as the man who “knows who to call.” Then comes exile for him, and a promotion to Assistant Chief of Police Intelligence for the girl, Frida.
It may seem strange that Frida has been allowed to rise so highly in the police, considering that there is nobody of clout in her family. The truth is that not everything depends on connections in this country. Her next promotion doesn’t depend on connections either: the President needs some people disgraced, the Chief of Intelligence, Frida’s boss, is not deemed competent to perform even this simple task, so the chief is transferred to head Staff Development, and Frida is named the new chief of intelligence in that capital city in which it would take a dozen people a few years of income to buy her jaguar.
Normally, the office of intelligence is not expected to do anything other than keep the status quo, keep quiet, make some money, buy something nice or whatever. But now the president needs something done about a pair of officials, from amongst those people called untouchables. The president imagines that Frida, with her fancy European degree, can investigate, where her predecessor probably couldn’t spell the word.
The issue at hand in this investigation is no petty theft. The Minister of Petroleum, who has been feuding with the Minister for Finance, tipped off the intelligence office to some of the Finance Minister’s money-laundering antics. The Central Bank Governor is also involved, since he helped the FinMin launder the money, about one thousand jaguars worth altogether. The President is particularly irritated with the Central Bank chief for being allied with a coterie of businessmen that pretends to support the President but actually hopes to field a candidate in the next presidential elections. Hence, he wants to use the police intelligence office to dissolve the wayward Banker’s power.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum Minister is safe in his job because he is the President’s personal fool. This leaves him free to stash some money for himself, fifteen jaguars worth in the past year. He is not a very smart man and his method of operation is fittingly crude: two conspicuously vanished consignments of crude oil, twenty thousand barrels in all, precede two deposits of about 700 grand each in his personal current account in the bank run by his childhood friend.
When Frida was a child living in a nice military house with a fine garden and small orchard, these new untouchables were known to her as lively youths and family friends. Now she knows them as cold, with blue steel in their veins, not blood. They don’t go around torturing people – no. Torture died away, thank God, along with military rule. The new flavor of evil consists in being utterly useless to society. Useless as a boil on your bum.
Where their parents reigned as mere bureaucrats, the new breed of kleptocrats possesses more charm, refinement, and knowledge of the klepto-arts. Round-off error accumulation, extra-zero insertion, goods diversion, public offer vapourization, currency perambulation – these are some essential klepto-arts. Along with cronyism and bold-faced lying, these skills help the upper class suck the lifeblood of the country and keep the other class subdued.
Within one week, Frida’s office has the documents to show that a large extent of money laundering has taken place. Some of the documents were found by bank clerks and civil servants in the investigation, while some were designed by ‘artists’ in the intelligence office.
The president is pleased to think how devastating for those two crooks when they find the law caught up with them. He is eager to see them out of play for the foreseeable future. In fact, he has replacements ready for their positions, a pair of unemployed associates sure to be full of gratitude at being named to Finance and the Central Bank, and consequently eager to please the President.
Suddenly, the Central Bank chief is found dead, of poison apparently, on the marble floor of the thirteenth floor toilets at the apex bank. The newspapers are overfilled with reports of his unfortunate “cardiac arrest.” The Times, The Crier, The Post, The Nation, The Union, The Punch, The Barrel – all the newspapers are bursting with obituaries. In them, bank chiefs and party chiefs, men on the rise and those waiting in the wings, young and old, seize the opportunity to be seen bidding adieu to such a high-ranking official. They eulogize a ‘man of timber and caliber’ who died too soon, leaving his loving wife and adoring sons.
The President instructs Frida to close the money laundering investigation. The death of his comrade banker has left him shaken; he had been plotting his downfall, but never his death.
However, the Petroleum Minister, still angry with the Finance Minister, tips off a newspaper to the investigation. The FinMin reads the unpalatable rumours accusing him of massive corruption. Guessing their source, he decides to put up a fight once and for all. First, he secures more of his money in foreign banks.
Satisfied about his financial safety, the FinMin releases a tip of his own: the PetMin, although married to the President’s beautiful goddaughter Tara, regularly visits seedy bars abroad for sex.
As you can imagine, this creates headaches in the PetMin’s home. The President even becomes irritated with him. In frustration, the PetMin leaks to the press that the FinMin in his early days killed two former schoolmates while jostling for position in his state. The newspapers, of course, fail to print such a scandalous accusation without evidence. Still, the rumour spreads among the rich and the poor people. They shrug alike, too busy with their lives to do any more about the murders.
Things are not going well for the PetMin. He has stashed enough money to retire and nothing else of importance remains to be done at work. He is bored but can’t travel for fear of the FinMin’s mean machinations against him. His wife starts a fight with him every day at home, since she is still sore about the disgraceful rumours of his philandering.
Then a new rumour starts around town that the two bickering Ministers are lovers. The papers do not fail to print this, and the people do not fail to buy, read, and snicker. Here is comic relief to help them cope with their busy lives.
Frida has been Chief of Police Intelligence for five action-filled weeks now. It’s 6pm and she is already home from work. After a quick snack, she packs her automatic, pulls on her hooded raincoat and goes out for a walk in the evening drizzle.
She treks through golden fields of cereal stump and stalk and soon reaches the smooth, tree-lined asphalt road where the Finance Minister will soon take his daily jog. In two minutes, the FinMin is dead. Frida turns her back on his body and discreetly hurries home.
Can you believe that there are cable channels for Africa Magic Yoruba and Africa Magic Hausa? Go Nollywood!
I don't watch Africa Magic myself, but I can tell you it's a big addiction and not only for bored housewives. Maybe the most popular channel in Nigeria right now.
I wrote this Jason-Bourne-inspired piece late last year. Enjoy.
ASSASSIN
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
It’s 8pm and Frida is just leaving the office. As a precaution, she takes the backdoor exit, where two guards wait, robot-like, to escort her to her car. Notwithstanding the bodyguards, or her discreet bulletproof vest, Frida has reason to fear for her life: even with the President’s backing, one could not be too careful in her position as saboteur of those called untouchable in her country.
In reality, she is not afraid.
Frida’s car is a neat blue jaguar worth a hundred thousand dollars. The annual income of most people in her city? One thousand dollars.
The untouchables are people who have much more money than Frida with her jaguar. They claim to work, but the devil in hell claims to work hard too. The way to know them is perhaps their non-work; but definitely by their plenty money and by the fear people have of speaking of them.
People speak about Frida’s family; they talk about her brother the chief and her father the colonel.
Her brother was the Minister of Commerce for one year. The day he was sacked, he cleaned the coffers of the ministry. That day, he stole one million dollars, or about ten jaguars. He took his daughters, wife, and nanny to Spain within the week and never looked back.
Before Frida’s brother, their father had also been what you would call in government a petty thief. In her father’s day, you built a sunny house or two, planted colourful gardens, lay crushed granite on the floor of the car shed and driveway, and fed a gatehouse-full of armed security detail from the National Forces.
Back then, the price of the elite lifestyle was absolute submission to the will of the President. It was a high price but many strove to pay it. Then that president was killed. Then the next. Then came an interim government that handed over to civilians for the first time in twenty years.
Remember that day? O, see dancing in the streets! The civilians are hopeful; the young and able soldiers swiftly withdraw to their barracks, while the potbellied soldiers like Frida’s father choose to retire.
The retired still have to eat – have you forgotten? The retired still have to pay their children’s fees in schools in Europe and Japan. So the ex-military become specialists in disorder. They become consultants, one may say, in the field of bureaucracy that the nation has been and still is. See, whenever a redtape is cut, money gushes to the pavement like blood such that a retired colonel like Frida’s father can suck enough to last until the next feast comes around.
Soon, Frida’s elegant mother dies, then her father. For the next six years, their boy fills his father’s shoes as the man who “knows who to call.” Then comes exile for him, and a promotion to Assistant Chief of Police Intelligence for the girl, Frida.
It may seem strange that Frida has been allowed to rise so highly in the police, considering that there is nobody of clout in her family. The truth is that not everything depends on connections in this country. Her next promotion doesn’t depend on connections either: the President needs some people disgraced, the Chief of Intelligence, Frida’s boss, is not deemed competent to perform even this simple task, so the chief is transferred to head Staff Development, and Frida is named the new chief of intelligence in that capital city in which it would take a dozen people a few years of income to buy her jaguar.
Normally, the office of intelligence is not expected to do anything other than keep the status quo, keep quiet, make some money, buy something nice or whatever. But now the president needs something done about a pair of officials, from amongst those people called untouchables. The president imagines that Frida, with her fancy European degree, can investigate, where her predecessor probably couldn’t spell the word.
The issue at hand in this investigation is no petty theft. The Minister of Petroleum, who has been feuding with the Minister for Finance, tipped off the intelligence office to some of the Finance Minister’s money-laundering antics. The Central Bank Governor is also involved, since he helped the FinMin launder the money, about one thousand jaguars worth altogether. The President is particularly irritated with the Central Bank chief for being allied with a coterie of businessmen that pretends to support the President but actually hopes to field a candidate in the next presidential elections. Hence, he wants to use the police intelligence office to dissolve the wayward Banker’s power.
Meanwhile, the Petroleum Minister is safe in his job because he is the President’s personal fool. This leaves him free to stash some money for himself, fifteen jaguars worth in the past year. He is not a very smart man and his method of operation is fittingly crude: two conspicuously vanished consignments of crude oil, twenty thousand barrels in all, precede two deposits of about 700 grand each in his personal current account in the bank run by his childhood friend.
When Frida was a child living in a nice military house with a fine garden and small orchard, these new untouchables were known to her as lively youths and family friends. Now she knows them as cold, with blue steel in their veins, not blood. They don’t go around torturing people – no. Torture died away, thank God, along with military rule. The new flavor of evil consists in being utterly useless to society. Useless as a boil on your bum.
Where their parents reigned as mere bureaucrats, the new breed of kleptocrats possesses more charm, refinement, and knowledge of the klepto-arts. Round-off error accumulation, extra-zero insertion, goods diversion, public offer vapourization, currency perambulation – these are some essential klepto-arts. Along with cronyism and bold-faced lying, these skills help the upper class suck the lifeblood of the country and keep the other class subdued.
Within one week, Frida’s office has the documents to show that a large extent of money laundering has taken place. Some of the documents were found by bank clerks and civil servants in the investigation, while some were designed by ‘artists’ in the intelligence office.
The president is pleased to think how devastating for those two crooks when they find the law caught up with them. He is eager to see them out of play for the foreseeable future. In fact, he has replacements ready for their positions, a pair of unemployed associates sure to be full of gratitude at being named to Finance and the Central Bank, and consequently eager to please the President.
Suddenly, the Central Bank chief is found dead, of poison apparently, on the marble floor of the thirteenth floor toilets at the apex bank. The newspapers are overfilled with reports of his unfortunate “cardiac arrest.” The Times, The Crier, The Post, The Nation, The Union, The Punch, The Barrel – all the newspapers are bursting with obituaries. In them, bank chiefs and party chiefs, men on the rise and those waiting in the wings, young and old, seize the opportunity to be seen bidding adieu to such a high-ranking official. They eulogize a ‘man of timber and caliber’ who died too soon, leaving his loving wife and adoring sons.
The President instructs Frida to close the money laundering investigation. The death of his comrade banker has left him shaken; he had been plotting his downfall, but never his death.
However, the Petroleum Minister, still angry with the Finance Minister, tips off a newspaper to the investigation. The FinMin reads the unpalatable rumours accusing him of massive corruption. Guessing their source, he decides to put up a fight once and for all. First, he secures more of his money in foreign banks.
Satisfied about his financial safety, the FinMin releases a tip of his own: the PetMin, although married to the President’s beautiful goddaughter Tara, regularly visits seedy bars abroad for sex.
As you can imagine, this creates headaches in the PetMin’s home. The President even becomes irritated with him. In frustration, the PetMin leaks to the press that the FinMin in his early days killed two former schoolmates while jostling for position in his state. The newspapers, of course, fail to print such a scandalous accusation without evidence. Still, the rumour spreads among the rich and the poor people. They shrug alike, too busy with their lives to do any more about the murders.
Things are not going well for the PetMin. He has stashed enough money to retire and nothing else of importance remains to be done at work. He is bored but can’t travel for fear of the FinMin’s mean machinations against him. His wife starts a fight with him every day at home, since she is still sore about the disgraceful rumours of his philandering.
Then a new rumour starts around town that the two bickering Ministers are lovers. The papers do not fail to print this, and the people do not fail to buy, read, and snicker. Here is comic relief to help them cope with their busy lives.
Frida has been Chief of Police Intelligence for five action-filled weeks now. It’s 6pm and she is already home from work. After a quick snack, she packs her automatic, pulls on her hooded raincoat and goes out for a walk in the evening drizzle.
She treks through golden fields of cereal stump and stalk and soon reaches the smooth, tree-lined asphalt road where the Finance Minister will soon take his daily jog. In two minutes, the FinMin is dead. Frida turns her back on his body and discreetly hurries home.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Why gild the lily?
music
I have no interest in my face. I mean, I'm sure it's a perfectly nice face with all the requisite parts, good structure AND function. On the rare occasion that my conscious mind observes my reflection in a mirror, it thinks (and often pronounces) "wow, hot."
Most boys get along just fine with this mentality.
Not sure why girls have to make like film actors or talk show hosts, working endlessly at adorning and perfecting...It's the standard, and the results are often good, but even where there's gold, I'll always have a soft spot for the lily.
I have no interest in my face. I mean, I'm sure it's a perfectly nice face with all the requisite parts, good structure AND function. On the rare occasion that my conscious mind observes my reflection in a mirror, it thinks (and often pronounces) "wow, hot."
Most boys get along just fine with this mentality.
Not sure why girls have to make like film actors or talk show hosts, working endlessly at adorning and perfecting...It's the standard, and the results are often good, but even where there's gold, I'll always have a soft spot for the lily.
Friday, February 26, 2010
What's good?
music
The winners of the 2010 bloggies will be revealed this weekend. Meanwhile, all the nominees are here at http://2010.bloggies.com. Lots of yummy stuff to check out.
The new gig is cool, but the traffic! so I'm moving in with somebody next week that lives in that area, maybe my uncle, until I move on campus. Don't want to spend 30% of my waking hours commuting. You shouldn't have to either.
The winners of the 2010 bloggies will be revealed this weekend. Meanwhile, all the nominees are here at http://2010.bloggies.com. Lots of yummy stuff to check out.
The new gig is cool, but the traffic! so I'm moving in with somebody next week that lives in that area, maybe my uncle, until I move on campus. Don't want to spend 30% of my waking hours commuting. You shouldn't have to either.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Poem: Ballroom Dance
music
Just wrote this ten-liner.
Posting it because, I guess I thought ErikLeRouge might like it.
BALLROOM DANCE
In the early days, we would
dress up and watch couples
floating like a dream
across the gleaming floor
While me and my husband,
we tripped clumsily
over twenty fat toes
then argued whose fault.
Still in love, we trip
clumsily, daily; privately.
Just wrote this ten-liner.
Posting it because, I guess I thought ErikLeRouge might like it.
BALLROOM DANCE
In the early days, we would
dress up and watch couples
floating like a dream
across the gleaming floor
While me and my husband,
we tripped clumsily
over twenty fat toes
then argued whose fault.
Still in love, we trip
clumsily, daily; privately.
Monday, January 18, 2010
I'm No Superman
music
I should totally have watched SCRUBS all those times I saw it on TV in Cali. Ah well, I bought the pirated $1.50 version. Just finished Season One. Bliss. On to Season Two. I just curled my toes, feel so good thinking about it.
I've been living in my parents' home since late July 2009. Thank you. We're in the phase in which they think I'm a Barbie - I've been so compliant. I'm breaking the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - something about taking responsibility for your actions, "Be Proactive." Not being proactive sucks. But I'll call it research for my book, lol.
Scrubs is really amazing. I should have watched that in grad school, instead of the dating show marathons. Ah but they were good: Elimidate, Change of Heart, The Fifth Wheel, the other one I can't remember, Blind Date...then the weeklies: Bachelor, Bachelorette etc. Ah what a mindless shame.
I wonder what the world is up to now in its race towards its future reality. Hope it's good.
I should totally have watched SCRUBS all those times I saw it on TV in Cali. Ah well, I bought the pirated $1.50 version. Just finished Season One. Bliss. On to Season Two. I just curled my toes, feel so good thinking about it.
I've been living in my parents' home since late July 2009. Thank you. We're in the phase in which they think I'm a Barbie - I've been so compliant. I'm breaking the first of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - something about taking responsibility for your actions, "Be Proactive." Not being proactive sucks. But I'll call it research for my book, lol.
Scrubs is really amazing. I should have watched that in grad school, instead of the dating show marathons. Ah but they were good: Elimidate, Change of Heart, The Fifth Wheel, the other one I can't remember, Blind Date...then the weeklies: Bachelor, Bachelorette etc. Ah what a mindless shame.
I wonder what the world is up to now in its race towards its future reality. Hope it's good.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Things to buy
music
Look, art, from Nigeria.
1. Ituen Basi
great stuff in 2009. I hope she does even better in future when I have more money and interest in fashion.
http://www.bellanaija.com/2009/06/17/arise-africa-fashion-week-ituen-basi/
2. Gidan Nodza
the best bags, possibly made by a friend, or maybe just someone with the same name and intellect.
http://houseofnodza.blogspot.com/
3. Nike Arts
her new gallery in Lekki (Lagos) is the place to visit. she sells top-of-the-line wall art (paintings, especially) typically in the low four-figures (six figures in naira.) It's really big. My friend says it's like the Tate (London.) Nothing else like it in Nigeria.
http://www.nikeart.com/shop.php
Look, art, from Nigeria.
1. Ituen Basi
great stuff in 2009. I hope she does even better in future when I have more money and interest in fashion.
http://www.bellanaija.com/2009/06/17/arise-africa-fashion-week-ituen-basi/
2. Gidan Nodza
the best bags, possibly made by a friend, or maybe just someone with the same name and intellect.
http://houseofnodza.blogspot.com/
3. Nike Arts
her new gallery in Lekki (Lagos) is the place to visit. she sells top-of-the-line wall art (paintings, especially) typically in the low four-figures (six figures in naira.) It's really big. My friend says it's like the Tate (London.) Nothing else like it in Nigeria.
http://www.nikeart.com/shop.php
Friday, January 01, 2010
Tribute to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
music
Pat-down searches now required at airports - assuming the airport security staff is mostly gorgeous people, this could be healthy fun for everyone. Let's do this groping worldwide, not only in America. Imagine the possibilities...
Humour - His attempt at terrorism has been called The Christmas Crotchfire Attack. And today, as we lit up firecrackers for New Years Day, the ones that wouldn't ignite were named the Abdulmuttalibs. Abdul Mutilate-A-Balls. Because we love fart and butt jokes and we still can't pronounce non-Anglo names.
Now that it's clear that I don't really mean the title, and that there's no need to put me on any bloated security lists even though I have been to Yemen (possibly my most beautiful place in the world ) and sometimes say insha'Allah and al-hamdulillah, let's take a look at serious reasons why I don't exactly pity or loathe the guy:
he "got radicalized." He came to believe in something so much that he was willing to give his life for it. Although clarity and singleness of purpose can be beautiful, I, as a scientist, do not have ANY fundamentalist beliefs - who knows what modifying discoveries tomorrow may bring?
I may admire his quest for purity, but I don't admire his willingness to kill other people to make his political statement. I think from now on, we need to think more Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson, Mandela - more nonviolence - and less war. I know he'll come to this realization over the next many years in prison, and I hope he can make amends for this foolishness that caused him to take to the air and nearly kill hundreds of people, human beings.
I think renegade terrorists and state-sponsored terrorists alike need to move on from their brutal business.
I think terms like preemptive strike and war-on-terror are rubbish, and that by my standards I haven't yet seen a just war fought by the US in the last ten years.
What happened to the Powell Doctrine? Where are our military philosophers? Are they really dumb and unimaginative, are they not being heard or are they just not speaking up anymore?
Fear is not an excuse for war. Greed or creed should never be an excuse for war. Land and country often have been excuses for war. I say we get some flexibility about how important "owning" land is, or how sacred country or faith is relative to a single human life.
The only thing that ought to excuse war has been extinguished by now: a need to get food to survive. The world now produces enough food (in total, not evenly so.) My friends, we now have no excuse for killing one another.
Because we are young as a human race, there may still be times when a show of violence is needed. In those times, it will be very clear that what was averted was a clear and certain danger of big big size compared to the violence applied. Such a war won't take years, costing even the aggressor hundreds or thousands of lives.
By this standard, Israel-Palestine is a rubbish war that ought not to be happening. Maybe we need to execute - ok, not really - the leaders on both sides because both countries are mired in hopelessness (one being reduced to a military state, the other a prison) while the leaders seem to think fighting is cool. End the bloody war: Call in Powell, Mandela, and friends. Divide up the land between the warring groups. Take feedback for a short while and make adjustments, supervised by people / institutions with high credibility as people of fairness and peace. Use military or legal force against those few who would rather have the baby cut in half, who want Jerusalem for themselves alone at whatever cost to their civilization.
Likewise, Iraq and Afghanistan should be about getting the so-called Allied Forces out while keeping down the risk of civil war. I mean, really, I feel bad for the soldiers whose mission seems impossible to accomplish simply because it is endless. To think some of them only joined the Forces to get money for school.
This first day of 2010, one week after the averted body bomb attack, I am thankful that George W. Bush is no longer the POTUS. Because sometimes bone-headed crackerpants come from accomplished families.
Pat-down searches now required at airports - assuming the airport security staff is mostly gorgeous people, this could be healthy fun for everyone. Let's do this groping worldwide, not only in America. Imagine the possibilities...
Humour - His attempt at terrorism has been called The Christmas Crotchfire Attack. And today, as we lit up firecrackers for New Years Day, the ones that wouldn't ignite were named the Abdulmuttalibs. Abdul Mutilate-A-Balls. Because we love fart and butt jokes and we still can't pronounce non-Anglo names.
Now that it's clear that I don't really mean the title, and that there's no need to put me on any bloated security lists even though I have been to Yemen (possibly my most beautiful place in the world ) and sometimes say insha'Allah and al-hamdulillah, let's take a look at serious reasons why I don't exactly pity or loathe the guy:
he "got radicalized." He came to believe in something so much that he was willing to give his life for it. Although clarity and singleness of purpose can be beautiful, I, as a scientist, do not have ANY fundamentalist beliefs - who knows what modifying discoveries tomorrow may bring?
I may admire his quest for purity, but I don't admire his willingness to kill other people to make his political statement. I think from now on, we need to think more Gandhi, Woodrow Wilson, Mandela - more nonviolence - and less war. I know he'll come to this realization over the next many years in prison, and I hope he can make amends for this foolishness that caused him to take to the air and nearly kill hundreds of people, human beings.
I think renegade terrorists and state-sponsored terrorists alike need to move on from their brutal business.
I think terms like preemptive strike and war-on-terror are rubbish, and that by my standards I haven't yet seen a just war fought by the US in the last ten years.
What happened to the Powell Doctrine? Where are our military philosophers? Are they really dumb and unimaginative, are they not being heard or are they just not speaking up anymore?
Fear is not an excuse for war. Greed or creed should never be an excuse for war. Land and country often have been excuses for war. I say we get some flexibility about how important "owning" land is, or how sacred country or faith is relative to a single human life.
The only thing that ought to excuse war has been extinguished by now: a need to get food to survive. The world now produces enough food (in total, not evenly so.) My friends, we now have no excuse for killing one another.
Because we are young as a human race, there may still be times when a show of violence is needed. In those times, it will be very clear that what was averted was a clear and certain danger of big big size compared to the violence applied. Such a war won't take years, costing even the aggressor hundreds or thousands of lives.
By this standard, Israel-Palestine is a rubbish war that ought not to be happening. Maybe we need to execute - ok, not really - the leaders on both sides because both countries are mired in hopelessness (one being reduced to a military state, the other a prison) while the leaders seem to think fighting is cool. End the bloody war: Call in Powell, Mandela, and friends. Divide up the land between the warring groups. Take feedback for a short while and make adjustments, supervised by people / institutions with high credibility as people of fairness and peace. Use military or legal force against those few who would rather have the baby cut in half, who want Jerusalem for themselves alone at whatever cost to their civilization.
Likewise, Iraq and Afghanistan should be about getting the so-called Allied Forces out while keeping down the risk of civil war. I mean, really, I feel bad for the soldiers whose mission seems impossible to accomplish simply because it is endless. To think some of them only joined the Forces to get money for school.
This first day of 2010, one week after the averted body bomb attack, I am thankful that George W. Bush is no longer the POTUS. Because sometimes bone-headed crackerpants come from accomplished families.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Bookish Santa
music
The very bright and amiable Nigerian writer Eghosa Imasuen wrote this story and gave a nice reading in October at a Farafina event in Lagos. Enjoy: New Generator.
Farafina Books (Kachifo Limited) has a mouth-watering catalogue of African Literature. Enough reading to get you through the holidays and half the coming year. Priced low enough that you can get them ALL for $100 or less. As with many Nigerian businesses though, I think Kachifo is not big enough. OK, that's a subject for the other blog, not this one.
Merry Holidays and hope the recession ends and the party returns in 2010.
The very bright and amiable Nigerian writer Eghosa Imasuen wrote this story and gave a nice reading in October at a Farafina event in Lagos. Enjoy: New Generator.
NEW GENERATOR: ‘I PASS MY NEIGHBOUR'
A short story
By Eghosa Imasuen
Mr. Ochuko’s decision to buy a new generator was taken with the help of his wife seven months
ago. They lived in one of those suburbs that NEPA seemed to have forgotten about. The electric
company’s staff always hustled around the transformer just beside the junction to their street,
light came up for about five hours and then was gone for another three weeks. Then the NEPA
staff came again.
“Junior, wait. Let me enter the house first,” Mr. Ochuko said.(Read More...)
Farafina Books (Kachifo Limited) has a mouth-watering catalogue of African Literature. Enough reading to get you through the holidays and half the coming year. Priced low enough that you can get them ALL for $100 or less. As with many Nigerian businesses though, I think Kachifo is not big enough. OK, that's a subject for the other blog, not this one.
Merry Holidays and hope the recession ends and the party returns in 2010.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Agassi Open
music
I adore Andre. Want to be like him when I grow up. Can't wait to read his book, though not sure when I'll get to...
More Agassi Open - the 60minutes interview ... Part 2
Good luck to Richard Gasquet with the cocaine charges. It's not a performance-enhancer, rather the opposite effect - shouldn't that be important in judging these cases?
And good good luck to Billy. He's been in jail nearly six years already.
I adore Andre. Want to be like him when I grow up. Can't wait to read his book, though not sure when I'll get to...
More Agassi Open - the 60minutes interview ... Part 2
Good luck to Richard Gasquet with the cocaine charges. It's not a performance-enhancer, rather the opposite effect - shouldn't that be important in judging these cases?
And good good luck to Billy. He's been in jail nearly six years already.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Inspire Me!
music
Viktor & Rolf always inspire to lose the walls, artistically speaking.
Watch the Fashion Show and hours of video in their archives.
Check out their website tour. No wonder Rufus loves them!
Viktor & Rolf always inspire to lose the walls, artistically speaking.
Watch the Fashion Show and hours of video in their archives.
Check out their website tour. No wonder Rufus loves them!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Writing a bit
music
and waiting for 'Tech. Can you believe I'm itching to get back to Caltech?
A bunch of poetry books in the pipeline. I tried to stop writing them for a while, then someone upset me and I started a third book to be titled "Big Girl" with poems about the yuppie/wealthier-class young woman in Nigerian/similar climes.
I just started reading a Nigerian novel I found around the house that is very good. It's as vivid as Things Fall Apart (by Chinua Achebe), although it describes a different time (the 60s I bet, just after Independence) and place (a hypothetical university with a mix of Nigerian staff and expatriates.) Understanding this novel (I don't, really, although the language is simple like Things Fall Apart) you understand the politics of today's Nigeria. I'm surprised that even terms like "godfather" were already in use then. The novel is The Naked Gods, by Chukwuemeka Ike.
and waiting for 'Tech. Can you believe I'm itching to get back to Caltech?
A bunch of poetry books in the pipeline. I tried to stop writing them for a while, then someone upset me and I started a third book to be titled "Big Girl" with poems about the yuppie/wealthier-class young woman in Nigerian/similar climes.
I just started reading a Nigerian novel I found around the house that is very good. It's as vivid as Things Fall Apart (by Chinua Achebe), although it describes a different time (the 60s I bet, just after Independence) and place (a hypothetical university with a mix of Nigerian staff and expatriates.) Understanding this novel (I don't, really, although the language is simple like Things Fall Apart) you understand the politics of today's Nigeria. I'm surprised that even terms like "godfather" were already in use then. The novel is The Naked Gods, by Chukwuemeka Ike.
Friday, September 25, 2009
My mind is changing, changing...
music
What is the nature of time? Read the winning essay by Julian Barbour on The Nature of Time, then browse more Expository Essays on the same topic at the FQXi, the Foundational Questions Institute.
Shortly, you will be able to view essays on this year's topic, "What is Ultimately Possible in Physics?"
What is the nature of time? Read the winning essay by Julian Barbour on The Nature of Time, then browse more Expository Essays on the same topic at the FQXi, the Foundational Questions Institute.
Shortly, you will be able to view essays on this year's topic, "What is Ultimately Possible in Physics?"
Monday, September 21, 2009
Public Art
music
COMMITTEE FOR RELEVANT ART, CORA (Winner of Prince Claus Award 2006)
We Are Cultural 'Landscapists'. The MISSION is to create an enabling environment for the flourishing of the contemporary arts of Nigeria and to increase human capacity of the continent. VISION is to make Culture the Prime Investment Destination for the Country and the Continent by 2018.
I attended the CORA book party yesterday, celebrating the nine shortlisted works for this year's Nigeria Prize for Literature (Poetry.)
Had an excellent time meeting some of Nigeria's sweetest poets, some of whose works I've started reading. Reading poetry is not bad. It doesn't hurt. Nor does it bore if you choose well.
COMMITTEE FOR RELEVANT ART, CORA (Winner of Prince Claus Award 2006)
We Are Cultural 'Landscapists'. The MISSION is to create an enabling environment for the flourishing of the contemporary arts of Nigeria and to increase human capacity of the continent. VISION is to make Culture the Prime Investment Destination for the Country and the Continent by 2018.
I attended the CORA book party yesterday, celebrating the nine shortlisted works for this year's Nigeria Prize for Literature (Poetry.)
Had an excellent time meeting some of Nigeria's sweetest poets, some of whose works I've started reading. Reading poetry is not bad. It doesn't hurt. Nor does it bore if you choose well.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Fiction: Honeymoon
music
Tradition holds that newlyweds would spend thirty days away from their friends, family - their routines. The period is spent visiting sites of history and culture. As the new couple soared together, gliding among monuments, they would learn about love and permanent marriage. This obligation is so sacred that every newly-married couple in the land is given leave from work to enable it.
Per and Flooy are a newly married couple on their honeymoon.
THE WEDDING
On the wedding afternoon, the friends of Per and Flooy dutifully escorted both to the town square after work. Weddings were conducted outdoors in a green patch surrounded by tall, important buildings and dense, colourful traffic. One by one, the couples came in focus of a camera to declare verbally that they were new spouses. After every three declarations, an intern rang a small, shrill bell; this constituted the wedding proper. The whole show was typically broadcast on screens above the roads throughout the town.
Per and Flooy declared just after the bell, adding that “permanent love and marriage” would be their goal. They waited for the next two couples, and then the solemnization by the bell, before kissing and then skipping off to join their friends.
THE PRESENTS
Among their crowd were their cousins who handed Flooy tickets to see the ancient town of Jerusalem. Their workmates gave them a very classic trip – up the Nile to Sudan to see the oldest human skeleton. Their uncles and aunts had collected enough to present them with a fifty-meal dining card, so that they could enjoy fantastic dinners on the honeymoon.
The couple glowed and hugged thanks throughout their company, while everyone tingled with excitement about the parents’ gift.
As you already guessed, the parents of both newlyweds were expected to come together to pick out the most fantastic tours of their children’s honeymoon. Per and Flooy soon found out that it would be “The Seven Ancient Wonders.” Flooy had been hoping for the moon, not the kitsch Seven Wonders tour. Her in-laws could afford it, and she was certain her own parents knew it was the most desired honeymoon gift of the decade.
THE HOTEL
Soon, the guests left the couple alone with the clerks who led the couple to a newlywed hotel. Here they ate marvelously, slept luxuriously, and in-between these they spent hours holding hands and talking dreamily about all the trips they would soon make.
Two days later, it was time to begin touring.
The morning was glorious, with the sun’s rays bursting into their room, signaling time for breakfast. They had a jam and marmalade feast that was laid out with twenty cubes of exotic breads, all different, all appetizing.
Breakfast in bed was followed by a nap. Then they bathed and dressed for their trip. Flooy chose a dress in ivory printed with tiny begonias, while Per wore a youthful teal-and-khaki ensemble. They decided to get some exercise, so instead of calling for a vehicle, both strapped on their streamliners and soared out of the hotel window.
They traveled for a number of hours in the direction of the mountains, and soon were present among the ruins of the old city of Jerusalem, making small spirals on the rough ground in an attempt to brake their flying.
MOSQUE
Their seventieth hour as a couple found them in the vast courtyard of the mosque, where beggars used to crowd in wait for the alms of the faithful. In those days, hundreds of years back, after Friday worship, the mostly wealthy pilgrims would drop their zakat, their alms, with the men who lived in the streets or the poor shanties of town and made their living on the mosque grounds. Now, the courtyard was the starting point for tours of the mosque.
A guide led the tourists to another area, a confection of small, hexagonal tiles said to have been once covered in shoes of every tribe and type. The guide showed them moving pictures of the same room over the centuries until the time of the Great Quake that sunk Jerusalem.
From the shoe room, they entered a grand room in which the faithful had prayed on thousands of mats facing Makkah in the south. On the screen, the patchwork of colourful carpets looked like a most elegant velvet quilt.
The building used to have five minarets, but three were now broken and hadn’t yet been restored. The central dome that roofed the praying area glistened with a gold that recalled similar domed houses of Australia and Antarctica. Mohammedans could be found in both countries, hence the architecture in parts of these islands used gold, and domes, and minarets, and even retained the use of a star in a crescent moon perched atop the highest reaches of the building.
Mohammedans were few anywhere outside these two places, the movies explained. The people of Mohammed believed that a man would find at most four permanent loves in his lifetime. Since they also believed that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman, and each woman of course could only marry one man, it was usually the case that all the desirable women were already married. Mohammedans often took wives from among the wider communities of non-believing women, and this helped remedy the imbalance in their spousal pools.
SYNAGOGUE
Per and Flooy were flying hand-in-hand as they passed over the tall birch trees that separated the mosque from an ancient mud wall into which the Jews had wailed their prayers for a thousand years. The tradition held that the Father of the Jews lived in the wall. Hence, the faithful took off their sandals and donned black robes over their street clothes before proceeding to whisper into the wall, in deep conversation and prayer which caused them to rock back and forth. Sometimes, if they didn’t feel like talking, they squeezed a letter in one of the many gaps in the wall.
The tour guide at the synagogue explained chattily that Jews busied themselves with two things: successful careers, and preparation for the coming of the son of God. One percent of the world was Jewish, more than the Catholican population of the day, the guide said.
The Jews didn’t believe in flying. They couldn’t shave their heads, eat meat, or gather with non-family members after sunset. These practices made them stand out in the world since bald heads were on every model in every magazine, most meals contained meat, and most parties or socials took place at night. In those days too, young people liked to spend their free time flitting around in the air, as it was a fun and inexpensive mode of transport.
Per had no sympathy for the superstition of this people, but he envied their dedication to work and vocation. Neither he nor his wife was superstitious. What sense was it, they thought, to revert to the thought patterns of millennia past, days so clearly inferior in quality-of-life to the present? In distant history, hunger had caused people to see monsters in benign shadows, while delirium made them merge physics and god; disease was always the result of jealousy backed with anti-god powers.
Yet Per’s wife had idols of a sort; idols in the here and now – her friends, her sisters, and their total acceptance meant as much to her as the thunder god or moon goddess might have meant to her early ancestors.
CHURCH
The sun had been one of the most worshipped gods in this land. Now, the cross held dominance. The sun was getting low in the sky now, and the couple determined to visit another monument before retiring to their hotel room. They traversed the cobblestone on the west side of the synagogue and found a short bridge where the gentle breeze loosened bright red flowers from the trees above, causing a shower of sorts. They walked on, hand-in-hand, in the direction of the former Catholican shrine that also lay in the valley of the ruins.
Per knew Flooy’s superstition about conformity. This was why he was careful to learn about fashion; perhaps she would never leave him, but only if he behaved according to convention at all times.
He hoped this would be enough.
He hoped he would be enough.
He glanced over at her, the most beautiful thing he knew in the world, his lily flower, his new bride. He watched her bald head and auburn eyebrows. Yes, he would do anything to see her face every morning. He smiled thinking the way her eyebrows crinkled then arched animatedly when she talked. He remembered the way she looked when she first undressed and thought grimly that he, for his part, would never leave her.
At the moment the couple arrived at the crosses that marked the shrine and cemetery, their thoughts - at that moment - ran perpendicularly. Flooy suspected this, Per did not. As Flooy Lily Wura’s brilliant red-lashed eyes focused, first on her husband, then on the statues of a Catholican married couple – a man in black tuxedo and his bride in head-to-toe white, with a silver heart behind them and a brown cross before them, as Flooy took in this picture of splendidly correct marriage, she smiled to think how nice the next ten years would be with a good man like Per by her side. She saw visions of babies and trips. Youthful sex. Afternoons comparing notes with her sisters on aforementioned babies and trips and sex.
While the shrine and cemetery had served for fifteen decades, her youth would last for fifteen years at most. With Per, her adorable first husband, she was determined to spend ten of them, and then retire like was the fashion, until she made a mid-life marriage.
Why then did she, just three days ago in the center of the town, swear to love him forever?
Because, silly you, romantic weddings all have the forever clause.
HONEYMOON
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
Tradition holds that newlyweds would spend thirty days away from their friends, family - their routines. The period is spent visiting sites of history and culture. As the new couple soared together, gliding among monuments, they would learn about love and permanent marriage. This obligation is so sacred that every newly-married couple in the land is given leave from work to enable it.
Per and Flooy are a newly married couple on their honeymoon.
THE WEDDING
On the wedding afternoon, the friends of Per and Flooy dutifully escorted both to the town square after work. Weddings were conducted outdoors in a green patch surrounded by tall, important buildings and dense, colourful traffic. One by one, the couples came in focus of a camera to declare verbally that they were new spouses. After every three declarations, an intern rang a small, shrill bell; this constituted the wedding proper. The whole show was typically broadcast on screens above the roads throughout the town.
Per and Flooy declared just after the bell, adding that “permanent love and marriage” would be their goal. They waited for the next two couples, and then the solemnization by the bell, before kissing and then skipping off to join their friends.
THE PRESENTS
Among their crowd were their cousins who handed Flooy tickets to see the ancient town of Jerusalem. Their workmates gave them a very classic trip – up the Nile to Sudan to see the oldest human skeleton. Their uncles and aunts had collected enough to present them with a fifty-meal dining card, so that they could enjoy fantastic dinners on the honeymoon.
The couple glowed and hugged thanks throughout their company, while everyone tingled with excitement about the parents’ gift.
As you already guessed, the parents of both newlyweds were expected to come together to pick out the most fantastic tours of their children’s honeymoon. Per and Flooy soon found out that it would be “The Seven Ancient Wonders.” Flooy had been hoping for the moon, not the kitsch Seven Wonders tour. Her in-laws could afford it, and she was certain her own parents knew it was the most desired honeymoon gift of the decade.
THE HOTEL
Soon, the guests left the couple alone with the clerks who led the couple to a newlywed hotel. Here they ate marvelously, slept luxuriously, and in-between these they spent hours holding hands and talking dreamily about all the trips they would soon make.
Two days later, it was time to begin touring.
The morning was glorious, with the sun’s rays bursting into their room, signaling time for breakfast. They had a jam and marmalade feast that was laid out with twenty cubes of exotic breads, all different, all appetizing.
Breakfast in bed was followed by a nap. Then they bathed and dressed for their trip. Flooy chose a dress in ivory printed with tiny begonias, while Per wore a youthful teal-and-khaki ensemble. They decided to get some exercise, so instead of calling for a vehicle, both strapped on their streamliners and soared out of the hotel window.
They traveled for a number of hours in the direction of the mountains, and soon were present among the ruins of the old city of Jerusalem, making small spirals on the rough ground in an attempt to brake their flying.
MOSQUE
Their seventieth hour as a couple found them in the vast courtyard of the mosque, where beggars used to crowd in wait for the alms of the faithful. In those days, hundreds of years back, after Friday worship, the mostly wealthy pilgrims would drop their zakat, their alms, with the men who lived in the streets or the poor shanties of town and made their living on the mosque grounds. Now, the courtyard was the starting point for tours of the mosque.
A guide led the tourists to another area, a confection of small, hexagonal tiles said to have been once covered in shoes of every tribe and type. The guide showed them moving pictures of the same room over the centuries until the time of the Great Quake that sunk Jerusalem.
From the shoe room, they entered a grand room in which the faithful had prayed on thousands of mats facing Makkah in the south. On the screen, the patchwork of colourful carpets looked like a most elegant velvet quilt.
The building used to have five minarets, but three were now broken and hadn’t yet been restored. The central dome that roofed the praying area glistened with a gold that recalled similar domed houses of Australia and Antarctica. Mohammedans could be found in both countries, hence the architecture in parts of these islands used gold, and domes, and minarets, and even retained the use of a star in a crescent moon perched atop the highest reaches of the building.
Mohammedans were few anywhere outside these two places, the movies explained. The people of Mohammed believed that a man would find at most four permanent loves in his lifetime. Since they also believed that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman, and each woman of course could only marry one man, it was usually the case that all the desirable women were already married. Mohammedans often took wives from among the wider communities of non-believing women, and this helped remedy the imbalance in their spousal pools.
SYNAGOGUE
Per and Flooy were flying hand-in-hand as they passed over the tall birch trees that separated the mosque from an ancient mud wall into which the Jews had wailed their prayers for a thousand years. The tradition held that the Father of the Jews lived in the wall. Hence, the faithful took off their sandals and donned black robes over their street clothes before proceeding to whisper into the wall, in deep conversation and prayer which caused them to rock back and forth. Sometimes, if they didn’t feel like talking, they squeezed a letter in one of the many gaps in the wall.
The tour guide at the synagogue explained chattily that Jews busied themselves with two things: successful careers, and preparation for the coming of the son of God. One percent of the world was Jewish, more than the Catholican population of the day, the guide said.
The Jews didn’t believe in flying. They couldn’t shave their heads, eat meat, or gather with non-family members after sunset. These practices made them stand out in the world since bald heads were on every model in every magazine, most meals contained meat, and most parties or socials took place at night. In those days too, young people liked to spend their free time flitting around in the air, as it was a fun and inexpensive mode of transport.
Per had no sympathy for the superstition of this people, but he envied their dedication to work and vocation. Neither he nor his wife was superstitious. What sense was it, they thought, to revert to the thought patterns of millennia past, days so clearly inferior in quality-of-life to the present? In distant history, hunger had caused people to see monsters in benign shadows, while delirium made them merge physics and god; disease was always the result of jealousy backed with anti-god powers.
Yet Per’s wife had idols of a sort; idols in the here and now – her friends, her sisters, and their total acceptance meant as much to her as the thunder god or moon goddess might have meant to her early ancestors.
CHURCH
The sun had been one of the most worshipped gods in this land. Now, the cross held dominance. The sun was getting low in the sky now, and the couple determined to visit another monument before retiring to their hotel room. They traversed the cobblestone on the west side of the synagogue and found a short bridge where the gentle breeze loosened bright red flowers from the trees above, causing a shower of sorts. They walked on, hand-in-hand, in the direction of the former Catholican shrine that also lay in the valley of the ruins.
Per knew Flooy’s superstition about conformity. This was why he was careful to learn about fashion; perhaps she would never leave him, but only if he behaved according to convention at all times.
He hoped this would be enough.
He hoped he would be enough.
He glanced over at her, the most beautiful thing he knew in the world, his lily flower, his new bride. He watched her bald head and auburn eyebrows. Yes, he would do anything to see her face every morning. He smiled thinking the way her eyebrows crinkled then arched animatedly when she talked. He remembered the way she looked when she first undressed and thought grimly that he, for his part, would never leave her.
At the moment the couple arrived at the crosses that marked the shrine and cemetery, their thoughts - at that moment - ran perpendicularly. Flooy suspected this, Per did not. As Flooy Lily Wura’s brilliant red-lashed eyes focused, first on her husband, then on the statues of a Catholican married couple – a man in black tuxedo and his bride in head-to-toe white, with a silver heart behind them and a brown cross before them, as Flooy took in this picture of splendidly correct marriage, she smiled to think how nice the next ten years would be with a good man like Per by her side. She saw visions of babies and trips. Youthful sex. Afternoons comparing notes with her sisters on aforementioned babies and trips and sex.
While the shrine and cemetery had served for fifteen decades, her youth would last for fifteen years at most. With Per, her adorable first husband, she was determined to spend ten of them, and then retire like was the fashion, until she made a mid-life marriage.
Why then did she, just three days ago in the center of the town, swear to love him forever?
Because, silly you, romantic weddings all have the forever clause.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
I didn't realize he was dead
music
Naguib Mahfouz, one of the world's great people.
Biography @ Wikipedia
Pictures @ images.google.com
He died August 30, 2006.
Guess I was too preoccupied to register the obituary.
Naguib Mahfouz, one of the world's great people.
Biography @ Wikipedia
Pictures @ images.google.com
He died August 30, 2006.
Guess I was too preoccupied to register the obituary.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
My new love
Shayo, by Bigiano.
Shayo means booze.
The kid is so cute, and so positive. I so dig androgynous hotness.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
African Reader's Library
music
I met this writer, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo yesterday.
Read more about her at 234next, and at sunnewsonline (so people really do it everyday)
I thought her elegant and...gracious? A new friend, looking to help me learn more about publishing options, brought me in to her office at the University of Lagos for a chat. Today I read her award-winning children's book "My Cousin Sammy." It made me sad at times, you know, the little daily cruelties in the family. The story is more interesting than some of the African literature we got in primary school.
For months I'd been trying to remember the title of a book that we read in Primary school. It had references to Bamenda, which we were told was in Cameroun. It wasn't an exciting read. I would maybe never have found it, was even considering posting a help request on the yahoogroup of my former classmates, when I got home found "The Village School" by Anezi Okoro. This wasn't the book but at the end was printed a list of other titles in the "African Readers Library," with short descriptions.
There was "An African Night's Entertainment" by Cyprian Ekwensi - I can still feel my heart race as I remember the sheer danger and excitement of following this story in reading class, was it primary 5 with Mrs. Emokpae? or Primary 4 with Mrs. Ogu? A similar story to The Passport of Mallam Ilia which we read in JS3 (Junior Secondary school) with Mrs. Bickersteth, the unforgettable, finishing schooled, then Head of English, now Principal of Queen's College Lagos. I just checked online...Ilia was of course written by Ekwensi.
On the list was also "Eze Goes to School" which is still very popular, but whose story I've forgotten, "My Father's Daughter" which I remember owning once, but it must have been unexciting, and on the third page of the list, at #16 was Promise, by Ashere, J. Promise was a book like "My Father's Daughter" - a girl's narration of some rustic living somewhere with not much action.
I would never have guessed that: "Promise is the story of a girl growing up in rural Cameroun..."
In those days, definitely Primary 6, 6A, with Miss * (three letters, two syllables, what was her name? jheri curls, dark and pretty and shapely and didn't let us play all the fun music at our class party at the end of primary school, so we trooped to 6C where the usually tough, cane-happy, short Ghanian Mr. Baa was letting the kids go crazy with disco etc. Was her name Miss Oji? She died soon after we left school.)
Where was I? In Primary 6 we had a book, not in the African Reader's Library, titled "Aduke Makes Her Choice." Aduke learrned typing and shorthand and things like that. I don't remember the "choice" she made, though. I remember the words stenography, and I think menstruation (which usually irked Aduke, or was it the Bamenda girl of Promise who noted this?) I remember Kenechi seemed to understand this part, mensuration or whatever, while I sure didn't. Kenechi is a nurse now. Thanks to facebook, I'm in touch with Primary school friends even.
Being on the campus of UNILAG...well, although it has that waterfront going for it,it's not a perfectly beautiful campus, but it is a campus, with all the youthful energy of late teens and tweens. I like campus energy, especially if it's all kinds of intelligent young people on campus, not only engineers.
I met this writer, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo yesterday.
Read more about her at 234next, and at sunnewsonline (so people really do it everyday)
I thought her elegant and...gracious? A new friend, looking to help me learn more about publishing options, brought me in to her office at the University of Lagos for a chat. Today I read her award-winning children's book "My Cousin Sammy." It made me sad at times, you know, the little daily cruelties in the family. The story is more interesting than some of the African literature we got in primary school.
For months I'd been trying to remember the title of a book that we read in Primary school. It had references to Bamenda, which we were told was in Cameroun. It wasn't an exciting read. I would maybe never have found it, was even considering posting a help request on the yahoogroup of my former classmates, when I got home found "The Village School" by Anezi Okoro. This wasn't the book but at the end was printed a list of other titles in the "African Readers Library," with short descriptions.
There was "An African Night's Entertainment" by Cyprian Ekwensi - I can still feel my heart race as I remember the sheer danger and excitement of following this story in reading class, was it primary 5 with Mrs. Emokpae? or Primary 4 with Mrs. Ogu? A similar story to The Passport of Mallam Ilia which we read in JS3 (Junior Secondary school) with Mrs. Bickersteth, the unforgettable, finishing schooled, then Head of English, now Principal of Queen's College Lagos. I just checked online...Ilia was of course written by Ekwensi.
On the list was also "Eze Goes to School" which is still very popular, but whose story I've forgotten, "My Father's Daughter" which I remember owning once, but it must have been unexciting, and on the third page of the list, at #16 was Promise, by Ashere, J. Promise was a book like "My Father's Daughter" - a girl's narration of some rustic living somewhere with not much action.
I would never have guessed that: "Promise is the story of a girl growing up in rural Cameroun..."
In those days, definitely Primary 6, 6A, with Miss * (three letters, two syllables, what was her name? jheri curls, dark and pretty and shapely and didn't let us play all the fun music at our class party at the end of primary school, so we trooped to 6C where the usually tough, cane-happy, short Ghanian Mr. Baa was letting the kids go crazy with disco etc. Was her name Miss Oji? She died soon after we left school.)
Where was I? In Primary 6 we had a book, not in the African Reader's Library, titled "Aduke Makes Her Choice." Aduke learrned typing and shorthand and things like that. I don't remember the "choice" she made, though. I remember the words stenography, and I think menstruation (which usually irked Aduke, or was it the Bamenda girl of Promise who noted this?) I remember Kenechi seemed to understand this part, mensuration or whatever, while I sure didn't. Kenechi is a nurse now. Thanks to facebook, I'm in touch with Primary school friends even.
Being on the campus of UNILAG...well, although it has that waterfront going for it,it's not a perfectly beautiful campus, but it is a campus, with all the youthful energy of late teens and tweens. I like campus energy, especially if it's all kinds of intelligent young people on campus, not only engineers.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Instinct, Natasha
music
It's my instinct to make love, art, whatever; not war. Does everyone share this instinct? Not these city people. I guess chickens in a coop behave nothing like free-range chicken too. Crazy Lagos.
I have a short story from earlier this year: hope you like it. Wrote it in the middle of the night in Yola (after listening to Rufus' Natasha a lot I guess) Yowz, I miss Yola.
Natasha - A short play / picture book
January 24, 2009
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
Natasha is a friend of ours. She has lived in the United States of America for 15 years now, since she was 16 and starting her first week in the University of Indiana. She went from there, summa cum laude, to advanced engineering research in California, and now with her PhD, she is a professor living in Beverly Hills.
Natasha is not only very good in mathematics and engineering; she is also very beautiful with a good sense of fashion. She likes to spend money on clothes, which she collects like pieces of art. Do you think she has it all? Let’s ask her boyfriend.
Hans: Men, I love her. She doesn’t have “it all.” For example, she is so skinny because she hates to eat. I spend an hour everyday trying to make her eat.
But she looks lovely, we protest, so thin.
Hans: She is getting smaller and smaller. I worry for her. Nowadays – she doesn’t know that I know – she goes away after every meal. To the ladies room. To vomit everything.
Really? You should have her see a psychologist.
Hans: Tasha? You know she’s from a different culture. Psychologists are not in her culture. But yes, I agree, she has an eating disorder. I wish I could help her. Ah, there she is.
Natasha: Hey love. Sorry I’m late. (Smiling) I’m always late.
Hans: Darling! It’s OK. We were just about to order. What will you like?
Natasha: Er, not really hungry.
Hans: ‘Tasha?
Natasha: Maybe ice cream. Strawberry.
Hans: And a sandwich? Some rice? (After a minute of haggling, they decided Natasha would get a salad with her ice cream. Hans got a chicken and potato casserole, and we got our usual, fish and chips. )
Hans: Natasha has been unusually sad.
Natasha: I am always sad.
Hans: You are sadder now…
Natasha: The bombings. They are running my life. I wish I never came to this country.
We didn’t even know that was her country. She never struck us as Moslem – no veil, no Muslim name…
Natasha: You didn’t know? I’ve been watching the thing on TV. My own village, where I grew up – it has been leveled by the shelling. My life – I wish I was there.
Hans: But here you are safe.
Natasha: Safe for what? Alive for what? I am not alive, Hans.
Hans: (aside to us) My girlfriend can be overly dramatic sometimes. But Honey, next year you can go back home and help them rebuild.
Natasha: You don’t understand. For ten years, I’ve been plotting to go back (she slurps some of her ice cream) and still – what?
Hans: And she was supposed to finally go to her country this weekend. A one-year visiting professorship.
Natasha: And suddenly, poof. God, my life. If they would only open one airport. Let me go home and die. I can’t live like this anymore – worrying if my parents are alive.
Hans: She misses her home. The thing is very strange, since she’s very much an American girl now.
Natasha: But it’s very modern in the Capital. The difference is that people there – they know how to feel, feel life. I died already, living in America. Hans loves me: right, Honey? But nobody here can help me.
Hans: I know but I still try. I wish I could get her home. I go to my country every year, sometimes twice. My brother’s wife and kids join my parents and me for Christmas. Just like when we were kids; there’s a tree, plenty of soup and warm drinks, presents…So I can’t imagine, Natasha hasn’t been home in eight years.
Natasha: Was too busy. Grad school, then the Postdoc – ah, I wasted my life. A wasted life. There is nothing now to do but cry for a wasted life.
Hans: I love you. Your life is not a waste. Look, you are beautiful, accomplished, kind, rich, even. Only thirty-one.
Natasha: Excuse me. (She leaves for the ladies’ room)
Hans: I have never known a person so sad. You know, nobody in her family died, fortunately. Her grief is as if somebody died.
We agree that she is sad. We think she has a life here and that she should be patient until she can honour the visiting professorship back home. Of course not now, it’s too dangerous now, with hundreds dying every day in the bombings.
Two years later
Natasha! Look at her on the sidewalk in Beverly Hills, looking glamorous as ever. Granted, she’s a little too skinny. Let’s go over to say hi.
Natasha: I remember you. How have things been?
Alright. You know? And you? How is Hans?
Natasha: My ex? He never understood me. He’s very nice and he saved my life, but for me – I mean, these people don’t know how to feel their life. But he saved my life. I was really miserable those years.
And now?
Natasha: I can’t be miserable. I have a daughter.
Wow. That was – wow. Congrats.
Natasha: It’s not a big deal. Everybody has a child, a few children, at my age. Not around here, but –
I take it you went home then.
Natasha: Yes. The war ended at the end of August. One month later I was in the Capital. My mother kept crying because she said I looked so ill.
Did Hans visit you there?
Natasha: I got pregnant, so he couldn’t – it got awkward. I got very sick after I got to my parents’ home so I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. I couldn’t even teach for the first three months.
So you were pregnant?
Natasha: But not for Hans, obviously. I got pregnant after the illness. The father doesn’t know. It was someone I met in hospital. I can take care of the baby, and my mother is here to help me. She’s been here for a year.
That’s such an interesting life.
Natasha: Don’t use the word ‘interesting,’ like I’m an object. I wish I had Hans now. But he could never return to my life.
Have you talked to him?
Natasha: I had a baby. Can’t possibly ask him for anything now. Men have their pride.
I would call him. Just see what happens. He really cared about you.
Natasha: Yes. And I started going to see a shrink now. It’s a nice activity, outside work and home.
Glad you see it that way. You weren’t interested last time we met.
Natasha: But now I think it’s a good help. I mean, if we still had religions, or tight-knit families and elders, but in the modern world I say a shrink is a nice way to confess, clear your head.
How old is your girl?
Natasha: She’s one. Let’s go inside and see her.
Aw, you’re sure you’re not too busy?
Natasha: This is life, for living, I’m not too busy. (she leads us in through a small gate.)
Natasha’s mother: Ahlan bikum. Ahlan.
Natasha’s daughter: Eeek!
Natasha: There she is – Farah.
Notes:
Summa cum laude – graduating with highest honors.
Ahlan – greeting, welcome, in Arabic.
Farah – name, meaning happiness.
It's my instinct to make love, art, whatever; not war. Does everyone share this instinct? Not these city people. I guess chickens in a coop behave nothing like free-range chicken too. Crazy Lagos.
I have a short story from earlier this year: hope you like it. Wrote it in the middle of the night in Yola (after listening to Rufus' Natasha a lot I guess) Yowz, I miss Yola.
Natasha - A short play / picture book
January 24, 2009
By Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
Natasha is a friend of ours. She has lived in the United States of America for 15 years now, since she was 16 and starting her first week in the University of Indiana. She went from there, summa cum laude, to advanced engineering research in California, and now with her PhD, she is a professor living in Beverly Hills.
Natasha is not only very good in mathematics and engineering; she is also very beautiful with a good sense of fashion. She likes to spend money on clothes, which she collects like pieces of art. Do you think she has it all? Let’s ask her boyfriend.
Hans: Men, I love her. She doesn’t have “it all.” For example, she is so skinny because she hates to eat. I spend an hour everyday trying to make her eat.
But she looks lovely, we protest, so thin.
Hans: She is getting smaller and smaller. I worry for her. Nowadays – she doesn’t know that I know – she goes away after every meal. To the ladies room. To vomit everything.
Really? You should have her see a psychologist.
Hans: Tasha? You know she’s from a different culture. Psychologists are not in her culture. But yes, I agree, she has an eating disorder. I wish I could help her. Ah, there she is.
Natasha: Hey love. Sorry I’m late. (Smiling) I’m always late.
Hans: Darling! It’s OK. We were just about to order. What will you like?
Natasha: Er, not really hungry.
Hans: ‘Tasha?
Natasha: Maybe ice cream. Strawberry.
Hans: And a sandwich? Some rice? (After a minute of haggling, they decided Natasha would get a salad with her ice cream. Hans got a chicken and potato casserole, and we got our usual, fish and chips. )
Hans: Natasha has been unusually sad.
Natasha: I am always sad.
Hans: You are sadder now…
Natasha: The bombings. They are running my life. I wish I never came to this country.
We didn’t even know that was her country. She never struck us as Moslem – no veil, no Muslim name…
Natasha: You didn’t know? I’ve been watching the thing on TV. My own village, where I grew up – it has been leveled by the shelling. My life – I wish I was there.
Hans: But here you are safe.
Natasha: Safe for what? Alive for what? I am not alive, Hans.
Hans: (aside to us) My girlfriend can be overly dramatic sometimes. But Honey, next year you can go back home and help them rebuild.
Natasha: You don’t understand. For ten years, I’ve been plotting to go back (she slurps some of her ice cream) and still – what?
Hans: And she was supposed to finally go to her country this weekend. A one-year visiting professorship.
Natasha: And suddenly, poof. God, my life. If they would only open one airport. Let me go home and die. I can’t live like this anymore – worrying if my parents are alive.
Hans: She misses her home. The thing is very strange, since she’s very much an American girl now.
Natasha: But it’s very modern in the Capital. The difference is that people there – they know how to feel, feel life. I died already, living in America. Hans loves me: right, Honey? But nobody here can help me.
Hans: I know but I still try. I wish I could get her home. I go to my country every year, sometimes twice. My brother’s wife and kids join my parents and me for Christmas. Just like when we were kids; there’s a tree, plenty of soup and warm drinks, presents…So I can’t imagine, Natasha hasn’t been home in eight years.
Natasha: Was too busy. Grad school, then the Postdoc – ah, I wasted my life. A wasted life. There is nothing now to do but cry for a wasted life.
Hans: I love you. Your life is not a waste. Look, you are beautiful, accomplished, kind, rich, even. Only thirty-one.
Natasha: Excuse me. (She leaves for the ladies’ room)
Hans: I have never known a person so sad. You know, nobody in her family died, fortunately. Her grief is as if somebody died.
We agree that she is sad. We think she has a life here and that she should be patient until she can honour the visiting professorship back home. Of course not now, it’s too dangerous now, with hundreds dying every day in the bombings.
Two years later
Natasha! Look at her on the sidewalk in Beverly Hills, looking glamorous as ever. Granted, she’s a little too skinny. Let’s go over to say hi.
Natasha: I remember you. How have things been?
Alright. You know? And you? How is Hans?
Natasha: My ex? He never understood me. He’s very nice and he saved my life, but for me – I mean, these people don’t know how to feel their life. But he saved my life. I was really miserable those years.
And now?
Natasha: I can’t be miserable. I have a daughter.
Wow. That was – wow. Congrats.
Natasha: It’s not a big deal. Everybody has a child, a few children, at my age. Not around here, but –
I take it you went home then.
Natasha: Yes. The war ended at the end of August. One month later I was in the Capital. My mother kept crying because she said I looked so ill.
Did Hans visit you there?
Natasha: I got pregnant, so he couldn’t – it got awkward. I got very sick after I got to my parents’ home so I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. I couldn’t even teach for the first three months.
So you were pregnant?
Natasha: But not for Hans, obviously. I got pregnant after the illness. The father doesn’t know. It was someone I met in hospital. I can take care of the baby, and my mother is here to help me. She’s been here for a year.
That’s such an interesting life.
Natasha: Don’t use the word ‘interesting,’ like I’m an object. I wish I had Hans now. But he could never return to my life.
Have you talked to him?
Natasha: I had a baby. Can’t possibly ask him for anything now. Men have their pride.
I would call him. Just see what happens. He really cared about you.
Natasha: Yes. And I started going to see a shrink now. It’s a nice activity, outside work and home.
Glad you see it that way. You weren’t interested last time we met.
Natasha: But now I think it’s a good help. I mean, if we still had religions, or tight-knit families and elders, but in the modern world I say a shrink is a nice way to confess, clear your head.
How old is your girl?
Natasha: She’s one. Let’s go inside and see her.
Aw, you’re sure you’re not too busy?
Natasha: This is life, for living, I’m not too busy. (she leads us in through a small gate.)
Natasha’s mother: Ahlan bikum. Ahlan.
Natasha’s daughter: Eeek!
Natasha: There she is – Farah.
Notes:
Summa cum laude – graduating with highest honors.
Ahlan – greeting, welcome, in Arabic.
Farah – name, meaning happiness.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
O'Bama
music
I read The Audacity Of Hope last week. I read it very quickly. It's a good book featuring Obama's thoughts on US Government, Money, Race, God, Policy, Family, etc.
I'm reading Dreams From My Father this week. Now, that is an infinitely interesting book. I'm glad it's so long. I really like the end, which narrates, finally, his Kenyan family history. (I had to read the end before I properly got there; you feel his relief at finally KNOWING where he's from.)
I wish many "lost" Black people in America could come out here, even on short visits, 'cos it's rare to feel at home, in the regal sense of the word, in America when you're Black.
I wish I read more of the AfrAm works that we did in that blitz of a course with Charles Metze III in Freshman year at HU. Now I see what a diligent kid I was, how diligent many of us foreigners were, to have got As in these courses in spite of not having the background knowledge - slaves, OK I had seen "Roots", but we hadn't heard of Thurgood Marshall, Richard Wright, even Toni Morrison, and we had just one semester. The main text for the course was fantastic: From Slavery to Freedom, A History of African Americans by John Hope Franklin.
My sister Kehinde graduated last weekend with a degree from The Mecca. The real H.U. She studied Business: Hospitality Management. (Anybody hiring? Seriously. I would hire her in a heartbeat.)
Last week's news:
New Poet Laureate of England - Carol Ann Duffy
New on the Time 100 List - Rafael Nadal
Still the best in the world - Dinara Safina
I read The Audacity Of Hope last week. I read it very quickly. It's a good book featuring Obama's thoughts on US Government, Money, Race, God, Policy, Family, etc.
I'm reading Dreams From My Father this week. Now, that is an infinitely interesting book. I'm glad it's so long. I really like the end, which narrates, finally, his Kenyan family history. (I had to read the end before I properly got there; you feel his relief at finally KNOWING where he's from.)
I wish many "lost" Black people in America could come out here, even on short visits, 'cos it's rare to feel at home, in the regal sense of the word, in America when you're Black.
I wish I read more of the AfrAm works that we did in that blitz of a course with Charles Metze III in Freshman year at HU. Now I see what a diligent kid I was, how diligent many of us foreigners were, to have got As in these courses in spite of not having the background knowledge - slaves, OK I had seen "Roots", but we hadn't heard of Thurgood Marshall, Richard Wright, even Toni Morrison, and we had just one semester. The main text for the course was fantastic: From Slavery to Freedom, A History of African Americans by John Hope Franklin.
My sister Kehinde graduated last weekend with a degree from The Mecca. The real H.U. She studied Business: Hospitality Management. (Anybody hiring? Seriously. I would hire her in a heartbeat.)
Last week's news:
New Poet Laureate of England - Carol Ann Duffy
New on the Time 100 List - Rafael Nadal
Still the best in the world - Dinara Safina
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Birthday
music
Birthday is on May Day folks.
tonight: cartoons and pineapple.
tomorrow: whatever's fun.
Life is amazing, even without electricity in my house.
there's a lot of fun stuff I could tell you, but my Papa might think it immodest. You know I'll still tell.
Girls are weird. Boys make more sense. Someone I know (yours truly) decided to try polygamy. She tried it. Her boyfriend returned two days later from a trip. She told him (well, he knows her, so he knew from her poetry that she might do something like that someday.) He did the sensible thing: tried to "adapt," then eventually started being a bit too busy to hang out regularly.
Could you see a typical girl doing the same as boyfriend? She would get so pissed, then waste a lot of her time fretting over the situation, maybe even trying to change things. Girls are weird, dude.
There are downsides to polygamy, like "who's the daddy?" - I think that's why all the mores around marriage started in the first place. Then also the fact that it leaves less time for "somebody." I guess everybody knew that.
The poetry book is done. I'm so happy. It's so nice to FINISH something this big. You'll read the poems soon, over a hundred of them, everything from Haiku to "Saguaro" with some music and limerick in between. I got a chance to read some today, and my audience had a fine time laughing. Who could ask for anything more?
Birthday is on May Day folks.
tonight: cartoons and pineapple.
tomorrow: whatever's fun.
Life is amazing, even without electricity in my house.
there's a lot of fun stuff I could tell you, but my Papa might think it immodest. You know I'll still tell.
Girls are weird. Boys make more sense. Someone I know (yours truly) decided to try polygamy. She tried it. Her boyfriend returned two days later from a trip. She told him (well, he knows her, so he knew from her poetry that she might do something like that someday.) He did the sensible thing: tried to "adapt," then eventually started being a bit too busy to hang out regularly.
Could you see a typical girl doing the same as boyfriend? She would get so pissed, then waste a lot of her time fretting over the situation, maybe even trying to change things. Girls are weird, dude.
There are downsides to polygamy, like "who's the daddy?" - I think that's why all the mores around marriage started in the first place. Then also the fact that it leaves less time for "somebody." I guess everybody knew that.
The poetry book is done. I'm so happy. It's so nice to FINISH something this big. You'll read the poems soon, over a hundred of them, everything from Haiku to "Saguaro" with some music and limerick in between. I got a chance to read some today, and my audience had a fine time laughing. Who could ask for anything more?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Aish baladee and Nutella
music
It's funny how well Nutella goes with aish baladee. One is an Italian chocolate-hazelnut spread, beloved of travelling students everywhere, baladee is the barely-there-light Egyptian local bread. Yum.
It's funny how lovely dark-haired white guys look in Adire/Batik, the locally-dyed cloth famous among Yorubas.
Yes, I know this post could use some visuals :-o
...so I just added the pics and links. do i have volunteers with cuter pictures of oyinbos in Naija clothes?
It's funny how well Nutella goes with aish baladee. One is an Italian chocolate-hazelnut spread, beloved of travelling students everywhere, baladee is the barely-there-light Egyptian local bread. Yum.
It's funny how lovely dark-haired white guys look in Adire/Batik, the locally-dyed cloth famous among Yorubas.
Yes, I know this post could use some visuals :-o
...so I just added the pics and links. do i have volunteers with cuter pictures of oyinbos in Naija clothes?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Cool research, outside the academy
music
Last months in Adamawa
After the last post, electricity returned, and we've had so many hours per day now that I'm mildly sleep-deprived. Basically, whenever we have power, I'm up "using" it, to watch DVDs, read, etc. Watching Indian films now : finaly saw Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a tearjerker love story with all the biggest names (except Aishwarya), Girlfriends is a surprising thriller - think Fatal Attraction but with girlfriends ;), there was a comedy called mujhse-shaadi karogi (Will You Marry Me?)that draws me to Goa , and I fell asleep watching more last night.
My answer, finally, to the first cry in this blog, dated July 2005, that I've discovered no new science...well, it is silly that I expected to be a researcher in 2004. (OK, 2005 less silly.) It takes time (for some people, for me) to have anything to say. I think the time will come, come soon even, but sad that I didn't know how to have more realistic expectations. Perhaps it's something that PhD programs can teach more to reduce the angst and pain. Ideally, though, it won't be in our trade papers that I do all or even most of my work, because I'm special and prefer higher impact even if it's unusual. That, does not come easily to many scientists. Although my gradschool advisor is way cooler than average, it's still a funny bunch that elects to live in Caltech. Ah yes, I'm planning to go back to grad school, in spite of being certain to be unhappy there, unhappy at least relative to eating cheaply and living simply in Adamawa State.
Compare Pasadena, the town in which I was somehow always a little sad. At least I learned a lot, including this work-life balance thing, how to be productive and relevant while selfishly keeping oodles of ME time. How to get knocked down and get up again. Not to mention practical things like driving and googling. Met some assholes and some lovely people, learned about white people and their civilization, enjoyed wealth for a bit (not that I was making a mega-salary but that the ambiance - the landscaping and the big-money equipment and everybody round having food and health, clothing and shelter, internet and extra, and the time and equipment to be scientists...it was quite a wealthy community.) The sad thing is that I wasn't even one of the sadder people around. What manner of progress ends up with sad people? At Howard, with black folk, there were sometimes delays, annoying people, but not the general sadness at 'Tech. Maybe things have changed since the President changed - he had a clue as to how to make a people sad: work long and hard on "interesting" problems without a clear view as to the real-world solutions and impact of the work. That's the winning formula for sadness.
Finally, the research
What could be more important than better understanding infant care? I watched this thing on Oprah years ago in which a chic analysed and classified baby cries so that you can see scientifically "why" the baby is crying. I wish more girls would do science and have fun with it. In
If you're into this astrology thing, The Pisces Effect is intriguing. Kenneth Mitchell scientifically relates Zodiac sun signs to specific Olympic sports, finding for instance that the percentage of medals in a sport such as swimming or archery, is not evenly distributed among the 12 signs, but actually skewed in favour of their corresponding signs: Pisces and Sagittarius.
Why would I want to be a synchronized swimmer of all things: some attractions - movement, rhythm, it's not goal-oriented in the narrow way that besting your fastest time in running or swimming is, it's more "aesthetic" and "cultural," it's low-impact (safe, no injuries), and it involves teammates so that the stress is lower. Basically you have fun trying it, happy if you win, whatevs if you don't. Makes sense that a Taurean would dig it. Taureans are the synchro queens, per The Pisces Effect. And I dreamt of doing synchro years before reading this, you know?
And great news
TWO cybercafes just opened in my area, feet from the university. 50% lower price even. And they may soon have a wireless subscription. My XO laptop aka One Laptop Per Child, would come in handy then, since electricity is not guaranteed. Can't wait to test the laptop out if/when it arrives.
Last months in Adamawa
After the last post, electricity returned, and we've had so many hours per day now that I'm mildly sleep-deprived. Basically, whenever we have power, I'm up "using" it, to watch DVDs, read, etc. Watching Indian films now : finaly saw Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, a tearjerker love story with all the biggest names (except Aishwarya), Girlfriends is a surprising thriller - think Fatal Attraction but with girlfriends ;), there was a comedy called mujhse-shaadi karogi (Will You Marry Me?)that draws me to Goa , and I fell asleep watching more last night.
My answer, finally, to the first cry in this blog, dated July 2005, that I've discovered no new science...well, it is silly that I expected to be a researcher in 2004. (OK, 2005 less silly.) It takes time (for some people, for me) to have anything to say. I think the time will come, come soon even, but sad that I didn't know how to have more realistic expectations. Perhaps it's something that PhD programs can teach more to reduce the angst and pain. Ideally, though, it won't be in our trade papers that I do all or even most of my work, because I'm special and prefer higher impact even if it's unusual. That, does not come easily to many scientists. Although my gradschool advisor is way cooler than average, it's still a funny bunch that elects to live in Caltech. Ah yes, I'm planning to go back to grad school, in spite of being certain to be unhappy there, unhappy at least relative to eating cheaply and living simply in Adamawa State.
Compare Pasadena, the town in which I was somehow always a little sad. At least I learned a lot, including this work-life balance thing, how to be productive and relevant while selfishly keeping oodles of ME time. How to get knocked down and get up again. Not to mention practical things like driving and googling. Met some assholes and some lovely people, learned about white people and their civilization, enjoyed wealth for a bit (not that I was making a mega-salary but that the ambiance - the landscaping and the big-money equipment and everybody round having food and health, clothing and shelter, internet and extra, and the time and equipment to be scientists...it was quite a wealthy community.) The sad thing is that I wasn't even one of the sadder people around. What manner of progress ends up with sad people? At Howard, with black folk, there were sometimes delays, annoying people, but not the general sadness at 'Tech. Maybe things have changed since the President changed - he had a clue as to how to make a people sad: work long and hard on "interesting" problems without a clear view as to the real-world solutions and impact of the work. That's the winning formula for sadness.
Finally, the research
What could be more important than better understanding infant care? I watched this thing on Oprah years ago in which a chic analysed and classified baby cries so that you can see scientifically "why" the baby is crying. I wish more girls would do science and have fun with it. In
The Secret Language of Babies: The Five Cries of Newborns
Priscilla Dunstan [claims] babies of different races and culture all have the same five cries ... and since we all have the same reflexes the sounds are the same. (Check the five sounds here, get the DVD)
If you're into this astrology thing, The Pisces Effect is intriguing. Kenneth Mitchell scientifically relates Zodiac sun signs to specific Olympic sports, finding for instance that the percentage of medals in a sport such as swimming or archery, is not evenly distributed among the 12 signs, but actually skewed in favour of their corresponding signs: Pisces and Sagittarius.
Why would I want to be a synchronized swimmer of all things: some attractions - movement, rhythm, it's not goal-oriented in the narrow way that besting your fastest time in running or swimming is, it's more "aesthetic" and "cultural," it's low-impact (safe, no injuries), and it involves teammates so that the stress is lower. Basically you have fun trying it, happy if you win, whatevs if you don't. Makes sense that a Taurean would dig it. Taureans are the synchro queens, per The Pisces Effect. And I dreamt of doing synchro years before reading this, you know?
And great news
TWO cybercafes just opened in my area, feet from the university. 50% lower price even. And they may soon have a wireless subscription. My XO laptop aka One Laptop Per Child, would come in handy then, since electricity is not guaranteed. Can't wait to test the laptop out if/when it arrives.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Monday, February 02, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sana'a
music
Sana'a, Yemen
"Its value lies ... in the unforgettable impression made by the whole an entire city of splendid buildings combining to create an urban effect of extraordinary fascination and beauty."
Read all about the architecture of Sana'a
Cairo, Egypt
I recently found out what "art nouveau" is. Many of the faded Cairo buildings are art nouveau then. So Cairo's golden age must have been around the time these were built: between the World Wars. "No city on earth has as much architectural variety as Cairo..." While it's a jumble out there, the pictures on this Cairo architecture website remind one that taken individually there are fine buildings the whole city through. To love the look of Cairo, zoom in. Well, there's also the Nile. It's hard to screw that up.
Yola, Nigeria
In Yola, architecture is evolving. It's fun to watch. I'm in a "modern" part of Girei, outside Yola proper, in which the occasional storeyed house has been built. Most houses are either very much mud brick and thatch affairs, covered in earth, or made of mud but coated in cement. I live in something "in-between": it's built of cement, but so earthily, you imagine that it would soon return to join the rust-brown earth from which it came. I assume the walls are so soft because they use cheap cement mixtures, i.e. high ratio of sand to cement. I like it. The layout is simple: one long rectangle, one level only, divvied up with parallel walls into identical sections. Each section is a main door leading to a room, with an inner door and another room and a bathroom behind it. Join these side to side in a straight line.
Lagos, Nigeria
Lagos would be the Cairo analogue. Money is flowing in from "somewhere" and it's going into building at perhaps the most rapid pace in the world. To make any sense of this city's architecture, zoom in tightly. There is no method to the madness. My parents' home is actually very fine, and there's a neighbouring house that I find very unusual and inspired. It's solar-powered, very large and square, white, with huge open balconies on the top floor. The open plan suggests Hacienda? The white-block-ishness is Islamic? Balustrade would be some sort of traditional - what? Renaissance Italian? What is this place? Someday I'll find out. I can just ask the owner, a cool lady I haven't seen in years. In Lagos, the government is doing up the highways from horrific to nice, also very rapidly. Add electricity and water and we'll be on our way...
Got to run now.
Sana'a, Yemen
"Its value lies ... in the unforgettable impression made by the whole an entire city of splendid buildings combining to create an urban effect of extraordinary fascination and beauty."
Read all about the architecture of Sana'a
Cairo, Egypt
I recently found out what "art nouveau" is. Many of the faded Cairo buildings are art nouveau then. So Cairo's golden age must have been around the time these were built: between the World Wars. "No city on earth has as much architectural variety as Cairo..." While it's a jumble out there, the pictures on this Cairo architecture website remind one that taken individually there are fine buildings the whole city through. To love the look of Cairo, zoom in. Well, there's also the Nile. It's hard to screw that up.
Yola, Nigeria
In Yola, architecture is evolving. It's fun to watch. I'm in a "modern" part of Girei, outside Yola proper, in which the occasional storeyed house has been built. Most houses are either very much mud brick and thatch affairs, covered in earth, or made of mud but coated in cement. I live in something "in-between": it's built of cement, but so earthily, you imagine that it would soon return to join the rust-brown earth from which it came. I assume the walls are so soft because they use cheap cement mixtures, i.e. high ratio of sand to cement. I like it. The layout is simple: one long rectangle, one level only, divvied up with parallel walls into identical sections. Each section is a main door leading to a room, with an inner door and another room and a bathroom behind it. Join these side to side in a straight line.
Lagos, Nigeria
Lagos would be the Cairo analogue. Money is flowing in from "somewhere" and it's going into building at perhaps the most rapid pace in the world. To make any sense of this city's architecture, zoom in tightly. There is no method to the madness. My parents' home is actually very fine, and there's a neighbouring house that I find very unusual and inspired. It's solar-powered, very large and square, white, with huge open balconies on the top floor. The open plan suggests Hacienda? The white-block-ishness is Islamic? Balustrade would be some sort of traditional - what? Renaissance Italian? What is this place? Someday I'll find out. I can just ask the owner, a cool lady I haven't seen in years. In Lagos, the government is doing up the highways from horrific to nice, also very rapidly. Add electricity and water and we'll be on our way...
Got to run now.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Them Egyptians
music
You know, I owe you a lot of writing. In particular, those film festivals in San Francisco, I still need to tell you about the films. With the time it takes for them to become commercially successful, some of them may just be making it into the big theaters now.
For now, I'll introduce a film (and novel) that were very popular at the San Francisco International Film Festival of 2007. Not the best film in the world, but notorious, so it brought long long lines of actual Arabs (as opposed to curious non-Arabs.) The Yacoubian Building. The novel can be bought anywhere i.e. local bookstores. Watching the film is of course, quicker. The director was really young and cute. There's something very French about Cairo, or at least the way Cairo of the "good old days" is portrayed.
I'll tell you more about that Arab Film Festival of 2006. It was sooo full. One of the films people crowded to see was "Kiss Me, Not On the Eyes." Raj loved this film. I didn't understand it, but still liked the sensuousness - dance, colour, beautiful woman, colour, red dress against black hair, dance - in the market, I walked through a place like that in the market in my last week in Cairo, where they sell cheap bras and stuff, and a kid stands on a table advertising, (dancing?)
I just read the synopsis written in the AFF pamphlet for this film. Now I get it!
What else was I going to write? Ah, this chic, Nigerian, named Chimamanda is good. I'm excited for her 'cos she got a MacArthur fellowship, aka money to do whateva, suckas. I'm reading a fiction thingie of hers in The New Yorker and thinking "wow, sweet, I actually want to read more." Then it goes beyond two pages, and I'm starting to feel lazy...still going to read more. Still haven't read either of her novels but that never stopped me recommending her, right? A trusted friend swears "Half of A Yellow Sun" is amazing. Igbo nationalists, hehehe. I recommend and gift "Things Fall Apart" a lot. Read that one. It's by Chinua Achebe, whom Chimamanda obviously loves, understands, and emulates as a writer. You'll learn more in 100 easy pages about "Africa" and her "culture" than in months of seminars with big oyinbo grammatical talk.
I'll be back. Peace and love.
You know, I owe you a lot of writing. In particular, those film festivals in San Francisco, I still need to tell you about the films. With the time it takes for them to become commercially successful, some of them may just be making it into the big theaters now.
For now, I'll introduce a film (and novel) that were very popular at the San Francisco International Film Festival of 2007. Not the best film in the world, but notorious, so it brought long long lines of actual Arabs (as opposed to curious non-Arabs.) The Yacoubian Building. The novel can be bought anywhere i.e. local bookstores. Watching the film is of course, quicker. The director was really young and cute. There's something very French about Cairo, or at least the way Cairo of the "good old days" is portrayed.
I'll tell you more about that Arab Film Festival of 2006. It was sooo full. One of the films people crowded to see was "Kiss Me, Not On the Eyes." Raj loved this film. I didn't understand it, but still liked the sensuousness - dance, colour, beautiful woman, colour, red dress against black hair, dance - in the market, I walked through a place like that in the market in my last week in Cairo, where they sell cheap bras and stuff, and a kid stands on a table advertising, (dancing?)
I just read the synopsis written in the AFF pamphlet for this film. Now I get it!
"Tradition, culture, expression, and passion collide in this sensitive exploration of the changing nature of love and romance in modern Cairo. Young Dunia balances two lives: one as a promising graduate student in poetic arts, the second as the daughter of one of the greatest legends in belly dancing lore. Between intensive studies and even more extensive dance training, she manages to wrestle with intimacy issues regarding arduous suitor Mamdouh, forcing herself to make hard choices between what she wants and what she believes. When she secures the opportunity to work with an esteemed and outspoken literature professor many years her senior, she discovers a new kind of sensuality that challenges every assumption she has ever had about love. A well paced and often hypnotic feature that draws the viewer ever tighter into its inexorable conclusion."Maybe I'll understand this film better when I'm older. Like how dumb was "Love Story" when I was a kid? I couldn't wait for the chic to die, the film was so boring. Then I watched it again during the holidays in Sophomore year of college, and thought, huh, I guess it's this love story going on, they're not altogether stupid following each other around and then being miserable when one dies. Gosh, I used to hate those misery stories. Like Beth in Little Women...what was her story? She was sick, and then she died. Julianne Moore once said Beth was her favourite. I thought, eeew, what about Jo? She was alive, tough, and she like married the Professor ;)
What else was I going to write? Ah, this chic, Nigerian, named Chimamanda is good. I'm excited for her 'cos she got a MacArthur fellowship, aka money to do whateva, suckas. I'm reading a fiction thingie of hers in The New Yorker and thinking "wow, sweet, I actually want to read more." Then it goes beyond two pages, and I'm starting to feel lazy...still going to read more. Still haven't read either of her novels but that never stopped me recommending her, right? A trusted friend swears "Half of A Yellow Sun" is amazing. Igbo nationalists, hehehe. I recommend and gift "Things Fall Apart" a lot. Read that one. It's by Chinua Achebe, whom Chimamanda obviously loves, understands, and emulates as a writer. You'll learn more in 100 easy pages about "Africa" and her "culture" than in months of seminars with big oyinbo grammatical talk.
I'll be back. Peace and love.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Woooooooooo
music
It's cold here. Hehe.
No, seriously, Yola is probably a tough sell being so "isolated" and all, but I feel it's paradise. Nowadays the nights get "cold" - in the late teens. That's Centigrade, not Fahrenheit. It's about 70F at night. Ah, the joy. The days now reach about 30, as opposed to nearly 40 (I agree, 40 is hot.)
I still haven't found an inexpensive swimming place...though I bought one of those inflatable kiddy things to fill up with water for a soak one of these mid-days.
I just finished Meet the Robinsons. Nice film. 4 1/2 stars: 4 stars plus 1/2 for Rufus singing that "give me just one more chance...Another Believer" song. Love the film. Love Rufus. Kids would actually be tickled. And it's so intelligent, the type that gets better the more times you watch. KEEP MOVING FORWARD, indeed.
You know another very science-y cartoon worth watching? Osmosis Jones, from 2001. It was a pleasant pleasant surprise.
I FINALLY watched Ratatouille. RATATOUILLE gets FIVE STARS. Aw, what a sweet film. Basically, this rat is a chef. French. Silly accent. The part near the end when the critic tries the food? Divine in its silliness. I'll always watch cartoons. It actually won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2007. Maybe the best of the decade. I wonder if kids judge in this category? Or is that why there's always something for the grownups in these big-studio animateds?
Some kids were visiting during the holidays (little cousins, sleeping over) and I think one of them was IN HEAVEN just watching cartoons on a laptop late at night until he fell asleep. The twenty(?) films are all on a DVD I bought in December for =N=300. I promise never to buy pirated media while in a Western country. But out here, oh yeah...
It's cold here. Hehe.
No, seriously, Yola is probably a tough sell being so "isolated" and all, but I feel it's paradise. Nowadays the nights get "cold" - in the late teens. That's Centigrade, not Fahrenheit. It's about 70F at night. Ah, the joy. The days now reach about 30, as opposed to nearly 40 (I agree, 40 is hot.)
I still haven't found an inexpensive swimming place...though I bought one of those inflatable kiddy things to fill up with water for a soak one of these mid-days.
I just finished Meet the Robinsons. Nice film. 4 1/2 stars: 4 stars plus 1/2 for Rufus singing that "give me just one more chance...Another Believer" song. Love the film. Love Rufus. Kids would actually be tickled. And it's so intelligent, the type that gets better the more times you watch. KEEP MOVING FORWARD, indeed.
You know another very science-y cartoon worth watching? Osmosis Jones, from 2001. It was a pleasant pleasant surprise.
I FINALLY watched Ratatouille. RATATOUILLE gets FIVE STARS. Aw, what a sweet film. Basically, this rat is a chef. French. Silly accent. The part near the end when the critic tries the food? Divine in its silliness. I'll always watch cartoons. It actually won the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2007. Maybe the best of the decade. I wonder if kids judge in this category? Or is that why there's always something for the grownups in these big-studio animateds?
Some kids were visiting during the holidays (little cousins, sleeping over) and I think one of them was IN HEAVEN just watching cartoons on a laptop late at night until he fell asleep. The twenty(?) films are all on a DVD I bought in December for =N=300. I promise never to buy pirated media while in a Western country. But out here, oh yeah...
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Aw, menn. It's fun being a fan.
music
I like all these people: Martina, Rafa, Jelena, Ana, ...
I like all these people: Martina, Rafa, Jelena, Ana, ...
Stories by Sarah Thurmond, on TENNIS.comWhen You’re Good to Martina…
You may have heard that Martina Navratilova came in second on the British reality show “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!” but what you may not have heard is that she caught the acting bug. (Possibly through one of these critters?)In an interview with The Times of London, Navratilova talks about auditioning for the role of Mama Morton in the West End’s production of Chicago. I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t that the role that earned Queen Latifah an Oscar nomination in the movie version of the musical? Wait…can Martina sing? Here’s what she says: “I have no idea whether my vocal cords can handle it, or whether I'd be able to cope with the lifestyle. I'd do it if it was a two- to three-week run.” The latest word is that the role is hers if she wants it, but she's too busy to take it on.
...
Tennis Stars at Night…
Is space becoming tennis’ version of the Hollywood Walk of Fame? First, Rafael Nadal got an asteroid named in his honor after he beat Roger Federer in the final at Wimbledon last year. Now Jelena Jankovic has a star. According to her website, the star is named JJ and “shines in SC2 Hercules constellation of North polar region.” In other Jankovic news, she switched management agencies, from Octagon to IMG. She is also is joining IMG Models. All you models-of-the-moment better watch out!...
Think She Cares?
Thedailybeast.com (former Vanity Fair editrix Tina Brown’s current affairs site) released its “Top Ten Thinking Man’s Sex Symbols for 2008.” Who tops the list? Tina Fey? No. Sarah Silverman? Uh-uh. It’s ANA IVANOVIC! Yep, the defending French Open champion is No. 1. The writer of the piece, former TENNIS Magazine contributor Touré, says Ivanovic “is blowing men away with a butterscotch-colored face that’s all smooth slopes and haunting eyes. Ivanovic is the most beautiful female professional athlete of all time.” Sorry, Touré, but the only eyes she’s haunting are those of hunky Fernando Verdasco.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Metamorphosis
music
The one you hold most dear
is the same whose heart you spear.
The one you want so close
you frighten since, who knows? --
love may be the child of hate,
if you push I may compensate.
Lessons from the life you knew -
Do as has been done to you.
Fear. Be jealous. Sting and bite.
Secure someone to hold at night.
Love is a dreadful swirling thing.
London is the capital of Spain.
I left aloft Lufthansa and mercifully
find amongst better teachers better theory.
The one you hold most dear
is the same whose heart you spear.
The one you want so close
you frighten since, who knows? --
love may be the child of hate,
if you push I may compensate.
Lessons from the life you knew -
Do as has been done to you.
Fear. Be jealous. Sting and bite.
Secure someone to hold at night.
Love is a dreadful swirling thing.
London is the capital of Spain.
I left aloft Lufthansa and mercifully
find amongst better teachers better theory.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Rufus is a funny man
music
In RollingStone Magazine
Rufus Wainwright on Casting Lou Reed as the Grinch and Being Stalked By Amy Winehouse
If you dread spending Christmas with your family, consider kicking it with the McGarrigle Sisters this year. The folk duo’s not-quite-annual “McGarrigle Christmas Hour” variety show lands at New York’s Carnegie Hall on December 10th — along with Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Fallon, Laurie Anderson and that apotheosis of Yuletide cheer, Lou Reed. Joining them all, as usual, is singer-composer Rufus Wainwright, the son of McGarrigle Sister Kate. Rolling Stone spoke with Wainwright last week about the big holiday show, his forthcoming opera and, naturally, Amy Winehouse. Excerpts:
It’s that time of year again and you’ve got a Christmas show a comin’.
Well, it’s sort of a biannual Christmas show that we do. Um, mainly because if I had to do it every year, I would probably become a Hasidic Jew.
Why do you say that?
I can only take Christmas in small doses and it’s really only mostly for my mom ’cause she really loves getting the family together and forcing us to sing and be merry.
Well, there’s nothing small about the doses that you’re serving it up in though.
No, no it’s an O.D. event and my mother really is going whole-hog. She’s doing the Martha Stewart Show the day before the performance and she’s making cookies for everybody. And she wanted everybody to dress in sort of a Dickensian style — meaning just take your fashionable clothes and put holes in them. And then we’re doing a selection of French songs and famous English songs, or standards. Because we have people like Emmy Lou and Lou Reed, I’m sure we’ll do some country songs and stuff. And then, you know, a lot of comedy too just because we tend to under-rehearse and then make up for it onstage with banter.
Lou Reed doesn’t strike me as the most holiday-oriented chap.
He’s the Grinch, or the Scrooge character in our carol. He did the last show, which was a couple years ago and I worked with him at a couple other events. He’s a wonderful, wonderful guy.
So speaking of big shows and O.D.’ing, you did Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall in 2006. Now apparently Liza Minelli is poised for a comeback. Did you see that big profile in The New York Times?
Was I mentioned? Probably not. No, Liza and I are sort of in different camps — which is sort of a funny term to use. I mean, I think she’s an incredible talent. But I don’t know how much Liza digs my Judy work. I think anything concerning her mother is usually loaded. That’s another funny word to use.
Who in today’s culture would you sort of compare to Judy?
Oh God, one can’t help but think of Amy Winehouse of course. I mean, there’s so many correlations. They both have such an amazing voice and an amazing drug problem.
Have you ever met Amy Winehouse?
Yeah, I met her. She once sort of chased me at Coachella. She kept trying to break into my dressing room and, I don’t know, I think she saw some light in my eyes or something.
What did she want?
I don’t know. Maybe she was a fan, I can’t quite tell, but I think it was more about looking for some sort of safety. I don’t party anymore and there was a lot of partying going on. And I remember that when I did party, you could kind of see people who weren’t in that fast lane. And they either seemed extremely attractive or extremely repulsive. So I think I was pretty attractive to her at some point because it was pretty crazy around her.
Did you guys ever talk?
We talked a little bit and in all truth, I think she was probably, you know, raiding my beer fridge ’cause I wasn’t drinking it or something.
You’re totally dry? You don’t drink at all?
Well… whatever. You know, who knows? Never say never.
She is really tragic. She never had that sort of depth of career that Judy did before it went down sort of spiraling.
I think the problem is that in this day and age, there’s no safety net for anyone in show business. In fact it’s almost the reverse. They almost push you off the trapeze without a net, you know, for kicks. They feed off of your injuries.
Did you ever feel pushed?
When I started it was a little safer. It was right after Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley. I think people were a little sensitive to real dark chaos and they were kind of smarting from being extremely wounded by those two events. So people wanted to see me healthy. But that seems to have worn off at this point.
What about Britney?
Actually, I really love Britney and I love what she did on TV recently. I thought that was a great move on her part just being really honest and open and not exploitative either about her situation, but at the same time being realistic.
There’s hope.
Yeah! There’s always hope. But I’m always here writing my opera and working with Shakespeare so if they want to come over and see what it’s like — see how boring it can be — then that’s great.
Talk about your opera.
I’m writing this opera at this moment that is premiering in July in Manchester, England called Prima Donna.
What about any other pop recordings? You’ve been touring a lot.
I tour every once in a while just to make money to eat out. And then I have another fabulous project that will be premiering in Berlin in the spring, in April. It’s a musical play based on Shakespeare sonnets. I’ve written music to about eight or nine of the sonnets and it’s being directed by Robert Wilson. That’ll be sort of a Germanistic theatre extravaganza.
A Bertolt Brecht sort of thing?
Yeah it’ll be huge here of course. I’m totally going for the jugular in terms of the MTV generation here — Shakespeare and opera.
Right, great. All Rolling Stone fodder.
I know. I know. I have some Rolling Stone fodder, but it’ll come later. Don’t you worry.
****************************************
In Newsweek
You’ll Have A Gay Old Time
Rufus Wainwright is back at Carnegie Hall, only not with Judy Garland this time. His Christmas show includes his mother, his aunt and his sister. He spoke with Nicki Gostin:
Whose idea is the show?
Definitely my mom's idea, 100 percent. In fact, it's really the Kate McGarrigle Christmas Show.
Is it a way for the family to get extra money for presents?
Oh, no! It's a way to give a Christmas present without having to go shopping. One other thing about the show: there is a charity aspect, for cancer. My mom's been struggling with that for a couple of years, so we're raising money for all the great care she's got in Canada.
Don 't they have nationalized health care?
They do, but they still need money.
You ' ve lived in Canada and the U.S. Which has the better healthcare system?
At the end of the day, if it's free it's better. There are a lot of obstacles but eventually you get what you need if you fight really hard. That's better than being completely wiped out.
Is it weird working with Mom?
No, I've worked with my mom all my life. That being said, yes, it's completely weird.
Your sister, Martha, is also in the show. Does your mom favor her?
No, no. I think that she gets along with us both in completely different ways. Martha and her are bosom buddies, they'll cook and talk. Me and mom go to the opera together.
They do say there ' s nothing better than a gay son.
My mother has definitely profited from that legend.
Are you still with your German boyfriend, Jorn?
Yeah, we're happily together. After the show, when I'll be completely horrified and sickened by my family, I'm going to go to Germany for Christmas for the first time. We're going to go skiing in Austria, and on New Year's Eve on the stroke of midnight we'll dance to Strauss's "The Blue Danube" in the snow.
Do you have lots of famous friends?
I do. Elton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon.
Do you have fancy dinner parties?
I try to, but I don't like to clean up very much.
So hire some help.
I'm not quite that fancy.
Do you at least have a cleaning lady?
I'm just really lazy. Too lazy to phone the cleaning lady. But I do have a German boyfriend. He can't help cleaning. Recently he came back from a long trip and he kissed me and immediately went and cleaned the toilet.
****************************************************
In RollingStone Magazine
Rufus Wainwright on Casting Lou Reed as the Grinch and Being Stalked By Amy Winehouse
If you dread spending Christmas with your family, consider kicking it with the McGarrigle Sisters this year. The folk duo’s not-quite-annual “McGarrigle Christmas Hour” variety show lands at New York’s Carnegie Hall on December 10th — along with Emmylou Harris, Jimmy Fallon, Laurie Anderson and that apotheosis of Yuletide cheer, Lou Reed. Joining them all, as usual, is singer-composer Rufus Wainwright, the son of McGarrigle Sister Kate. Rolling Stone spoke with Wainwright last week about the big holiday show, his forthcoming opera and, naturally, Amy Winehouse. Excerpts:
It’s that time of year again and you’ve got a Christmas show a comin’.
Well, it’s sort of a biannual Christmas show that we do. Um, mainly because if I had to do it every year, I would probably become a Hasidic Jew.
Why do you say that?
I can only take Christmas in small doses and it’s really only mostly for my mom ’cause she really loves getting the family together and forcing us to sing and be merry.
Well, there’s nothing small about the doses that you’re serving it up in though.
No, no it’s an O.D. event and my mother really is going whole-hog. She’s doing the Martha Stewart Show the day before the performance and she’s making cookies for everybody. And she wanted everybody to dress in sort of a Dickensian style — meaning just take your fashionable clothes and put holes in them. And then we’re doing a selection of French songs and famous English songs, or standards. Because we have people like Emmy Lou and Lou Reed, I’m sure we’ll do some country songs and stuff. And then, you know, a lot of comedy too just because we tend to under-rehearse and then make up for it onstage with banter.
Lou Reed doesn’t strike me as the most holiday-oriented chap.
He’s the Grinch, or the Scrooge character in our carol. He did the last show, which was a couple years ago and I worked with him at a couple other events. He’s a wonderful, wonderful guy.
So speaking of big shows and O.D.’ing, you did Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall in 2006. Now apparently Liza Minelli is poised for a comeback. Did you see that big profile in The New York Times?
Was I mentioned? Probably not. No, Liza and I are sort of in different camps — which is sort of a funny term to use. I mean, I think she’s an incredible talent. But I don’t know how much Liza digs my Judy work. I think anything concerning her mother is usually loaded. That’s another funny word to use.
Who in today’s culture would you sort of compare to Judy?
Oh God, one can’t help but think of Amy Winehouse of course. I mean, there’s so many correlations. They both have such an amazing voice and an amazing drug problem.
Have you ever met Amy Winehouse?
Yeah, I met her. She once sort of chased me at Coachella. She kept trying to break into my dressing room and, I don’t know, I think she saw some light in my eyes or something.
What did she want?
I don’t know. Maybe she was a fan, I can’t quite tell, but I think it was more about looking for some sort of safety. I don’t party anymore and there was a lot of partying going on. And I remember that when I did party, you could kind of see people who weren’t in that fast lane. And they either seemed extremely attractive or extremely repulsive. So I think I was pretty attractive to her at some point because it was pretty crazy around her.
Did you guys ever talk?
We talked a little bit and in all truth, I think she was probably, you know, raiding my beer fridge ’cause I wasn’t drinking it or something.
You’re totally dry? You don’t drink at all?
Well… whatever. You know, who knows? Never say never.
She is really tragic. She never had that sort of depth of career that Judy did before it went down sort of spiraling.
I think the problem is that in this day and age, there’s no safety net for anyone in show business. In fact it’s almost the reverse. They almost push you off the trapeze without a net, you know, for kicks. They feed off of your injuries.
Did you ever feel pushed?
When I started it was a little safer. It was right after Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley. I think people were a little sensitive to real dark chaos and they were kind of smarting from being extremely wounded by those two events. So people wanted to see me healthy. But that seems to have worn off at this point.
What about Britney?
Actually, I really love Britney and I love what she did on TV recently. I thought that was a great move on her part just being really honest and open and not exploitative either about her situation, but at the same time being realistic.
There’s hope.
Yeah! There’s always hope. But I’m always here writing my opera and working with Shakespeare so if they want to come over and see what it’s like — see how boring it can be — then that’s great.
Talk about your opera.
I’m writing this opera at this moment that is premiering in July in Manchester, England called Prima Donna.
What about any other pop recordings? You’ve been touring a lot.
I tour every once in a while just to make money to eat out. And then I have another fabulous project that will be premiering in Berlin in the spring, in April. It’s a musical play based on Shakespeare sonnets. I’ve written music to about eight or nine of the sonnets and it’s being directed by Robert Wilson. That’ll be sort of a Germanistic theatre extravaganza.
A Bertolt Brecht sort of thing?
Yeah it’ll be huge here of course. I’m totally going for the jugular in terms of the MTV generation here — Shakespeare and opera.
Right, great. All Rolling Stone fodder.
I know. I know. I have some Rolling Stone fodder, but it’ll come later. Don’t you worry.
****************************************
In Newsweek
You’ll Have A Gay Old Time
Rufus Wainwright is back at Carnegie Hall, only not with Judy Garland this time. His Christmas show includes his mother, his aunt and his sister. He spoke with Nicki Gostin:
Whose idea is the show?
Definitely my mom's idea, 100 percent. In fact, it's really the Kate McGarrigle Christmas Show.
Is it a way for the family to get extra money for presents?
Oh, no! It's a way to give a Christmas present without having to go shopping. One other thing about the show: there is a charity aspect, for cancer. My mom's been struggling with that for a couple of years, so we're raising money for all the great care she's got in Canada.
Don 't they have nationalized health care?
They do, but they still need money.
You ' ve lived in Canada and the U.S. Which has the better healthcare system?
At the end of the day, if it's free it's better. There are a lot of obstacles but eventually you get what you need if you fight really hard. That's better than being completely wiped out.
Is it weird working with Mom?
No, I've worked with my mom all my life. That being said, yes, it's completely weird.
Your sister, Martha, is also in the show. Does your mom favor her?
No, no. I think that she gets along with us both in completely different ways. Martha and her are bosom buddies, they'll cook and talk. Me and mom go to the opera together.
They do say there ' s nothing better than a gay son.
My mother has definitely profited from that legend.
Are you still with your German boyfriend, Jorn?
Yeah, we're happily together. After the show, when I'll be completely horrified and sickened by my family, I'm going to go to Germany for Christmas for the first time. We're going to go skiing in Austria, and on New Year's Eve on the stroke of midnight we'll dance to Strauss's "The Blue Danube" in the snow.
Do you have lots of famous friends?
I do. Elton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon.
Do you have fancy dinner parties?
I try to, but I don't like to clean up very much.
So hire some help.
I'm not quite that fancy.
Do you at least have a cleaning lady?
I'm just really lazy. Too lazy to phone the cleaning lady. But I do have a German boyfriend. He can't help cleaning. Recently he came back from a long trip and he kissed me and immediately went and cleaned the toilet.
****************************************************
Friday, December 05, 2008
Poem
music
It's not usual that I apologize for my "art." I'll say before pasting this poem that Naija-bashing is not a sport I want to indulge in, I actually think it's a gorgeous bunch of land and people here.
Here goes Prophecy II: Blame Game
Prophecy II – Blame Game
Author: Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
How does it feel to be a problem?
Tell me, Nigeria. Let us talk.
What happened?
Is it…
me, us, the people,
who have slandered you
and named you scapegoat
to cover up our laziness?
Is it…
them, Britain, America,
who beat you as a child
then mock you as a large-limbed
but small-brained man?
Is it…
God
God
God
whom you call daily
who tells you to come back,
to wait, Oga no dey office –
Is it He that wastes your time?
Is it…
your wife, her name, Corruption?
Just marry another wife.
There are women out there
who make a man prosperous.
I don’t know why you have no money left
but I do know that when you stand up you will be praised
and the shame of the past will be quickly forgotten.
Let’s go Nigeria. Vamos.
The author is currently working on a collection of 100 poems, including the Prophecy series.
It's not usual that I apologize for my "art." I'll say before pasting this poem that Naija-bashing is not a sport I want to indulge in, I actually think it's a gorgeous bunch of land and people here.
Here goes Prophecy II: Blame Game
Prophecy II – Blame Game
Author: Tosin Otitoju
ootitoju@hotmail.com
How does it feel to be a problem?
Tell me, Nigeria. Let us talk.
What happened?
Is it…
me, us, the people,
who have slandered you
and named you scapegoat
to cover up our laziness?
Is it…
them, Britain, America,
who beat you as a child
then mock you as a large-limbed
but small-brained man?
Is it…
God
God
God
whom you call daily
who tells you to come back,
to wait, Oga no dey office –
Is it He that wastes your time?
Is it…
your wife, her name, Corruption?
Just marry another wife.
There are women out there
who make a man prosperous.
I don’t know why you have no money left
but I do know that when you stand up you will be praised
and the shame of the past will be quickly forgotten.
Let’s go Nigeria. Vamos.
The author is currently working on a collection of 100 poems, including the Prophecy series.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Sappy
music
What's on your wedding album / dream wedding album ?
Here's my list :) What's missing?
Tiergarten - Rufus Wainwright
Said I Love You - Babyface
I Finally Found Someone - Barbra Streisand and Bryan Adams
The Wedding Song - Kenny G
So in Love - All 4 One / AZ Yet
Everything I Do I Do For You - Bryan Adams
What's on your wedding album / dream wedding album ?
Here's my list :) What's missing?
Tiergarten - Rufus Wainwright
Said I Love You - Babyface
I Finally Found Someone - Barbra Streisand and Bryan Adams
The Wedding Song - Kenny G
So in Love - All 4 One / AZ Yet
Everything I Do I Do For You - Bryan Adams
Monday, November 17, 2008
Quickies
music
It's been a while. Internet sucks out here, but I found a good cybercafe in town and intend to be more regular. So much to write, so little time.
DVDs: No FBI in China or Nigeria, so it's all about the pirated recordings. Full season of Prison Break, Numbers, 24, can be had for about $3. Everyone around here has watched them all.
Wentworth Miller: In case things don't work out with Tosin y Rafa :) His character in Prison Break has low latent inhibition, which seems really cool to me. That's like, genius disease. This phase will pass, like when I was in JS2 and wished for glasses.
MY students: 72 baby engineers, I ran a course on transmission line theory. We had only four weeks and we did a lot: in-class presentations, the relevant math, a few proof questions, some of the actual engineering coursework, two quizzes, and a little crazy trip. I hope they do well on my final exam. For next semester, I'm looking forward to getting them using software and to supervising a few excellent projects.
Self-defense: Some kid tried to enter my apartment on Saturday night. It was pitch dark (no electricity half the nights here) and I opened the door. He gave a name I didn't recognize and I still opened the door. Don't do this.
Thankfully, as soon as I opened, I pushed myself outside the door (he wanted to push me in.) So, since the dumbfuck had no backup plan, he took a stroll with his friend. I hear this is the season for picking up cellphones and laptops. Stupid kids could be learning how to rule the world but instead they'd settle for your used cheap Nokia.
Intelligentzia: I meet cool people here. My officemate is nice. Many people are nice. Some are even intellectual and all. Like any tech school, too many boys :) Not happy about the thieves, it's making me hate the place. Stupid place. There's a hotel called "Bizare" It's sponsoring a beauty contest for "Miss Bizare"
Suya: FINALLY got shelves from the carpenter and arranged the place. Add a few flowers and traditional leather cushions and maybe a whiteboard and I'll be totally cozy. I eat suya almost everyday. I've even made my peace with the fat that they mix with the the regular beef. Mmmmm, yummy spice-crusted fire-roasted beef fat.
Writing: but not the novel. Poems. My kids will do a little creative writing on their Transmission Lines final - they don't know it yet heh heh heh.
Kids: The goats here are, like, always pregnant. Their little kids are the cutest. Sheep are cool. They hang out with herds of cattle, kinda like sheepdogs. I don't know why. I keep thinking there'll be pictures someday but dunno.
It's been a while. Internet sucks out here, but I found a good cybercafe in town and intend to be more regular. So much to write, so little time.
DVDs: No FBI in China or Nigeria, so it's all about the pirated recordings. Full season of Prison Break, Numbers, 24, can be had for about $3. Everyone around here has watched them all.
Wentworth Miller: In case things don't work out with Tosin y Rafa :) His character in Prison Break has low latent inhibition, which seems really cool to me. That's like, genius disease. This phase will pass, like when I was in JS2 and wished for glasses.
MY students: 72 baby engineers, I ran a course on transmission line theory. We had only four weeks and we did a lot: in-class presentations, the relevant math, a few proof questions, some of the actual engineering coursework, two quizzes, and a little crazy trip. I hope they do well on my final exam. For next semester, I'm looking forward to getting them using software and to supervising a few excellent projects.
Self-defense: Some kid tried to enter my apartment on Saturday night. It was pitch dark (no electricity half the nights here) and I opened the door. He gave a name I didn't recognize and I still opened the door. Don't do this.
Thankfully, as soon as I opened, I pushed myself outside the door (he wanted to push me in.) So, since the dumbfuck had no backup plan, he took a stroll with his friend. I hear this is the season for picking up cellphones and laptops. Stupid kids could be learning how to rule the world but instead they'd settle for your used cheap Nokia.
Intelligentzia: I meet cool people here. My officemate is nice. Many people are nice. Some are even intellectual and all. Like any tech school, too many boys :) Not happy about the thieves, it's making me hate the place. Stupid place. There's a hotel called "Bizare" It's sponsoring a beauty contest for "Miss Bizare"
Suya: FINALLY got shelves from the carpenter and arranged the place. Add a few flowers and traditional leather cushions and maybe a whiteboard and I'll be totally cozy. I eat suya almost everyday. I've even made my peace with the fat that they mix with the the regular beef. Mmmmm, yummy spice-crusted fire-roasted beef fat.
Writing: but not the novel. Poems. My kids will do a little creative writing on their Transmission Lines final - they don't know it yet heh heh heh.
Kids: The goats here are, like, always pregnant. Their little kids are the cutest. Sheep are cool. They hang out with herds of cattle, kinda like sheepdogs. I don't know why. I keep thinking there'll be pictures someday but dunno.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Greed is good
music
We of America believe that "greed is good."
I wonder what else is good now that wasn't good when I was a kid in Lagos 20 years ago, watching Tales by Moonlight on TV and learning "the moral of this story: this story teaches us not to be greedy (or proud, or jealous/envious, etc)." You know, the lessons have changed. No wonder there are things called generational gaps. And culture shock.
Sloth is good? I can beelee that!
The seven deadly sins are LUST (good), GLUTTONY (Oprah says not-so-good) , GREED (your civic duty, very good) , SLOTH (good in small doses, buy antidepressants if in excess) , WRATH (good in small doses, take lessons if too much) , ENVY (drives greed, which is good) , PRIDE (do you like Donald Trump?)
There.
They're not deadly at all, but good for you.
Consider Pynchon's essay on Sloth, and tell me: is a thesis statement good - we were taught this in Freshman English - or is it for losers?
The novel - Haven't been writing, moving and all that, but will get back to it soon. Forget the October deadline.
Toodles.
We of America believe that "greed is good."
I wonder what else is good now that wasn't good when I was a kid in Lagos 20 years ago, watching Tales by Moonlight on TV and learning "the moral of this story: this story teaches us not to be greedy (or proud, or jealous/envious, etc)." You know, the lessons have changed. No wonder there are things called generational gaps. And culture shock.
Sloth is good? I can beelee that!
The seven deadly sins are LUST (good), GLUTTONY (Oprah says not-so-good) , GREED (your civic duty, very good) , SLOTH (good in small doses, buy antidepressants if in excess) , WRATH (good in small doses, take lessons if too much) , ENVY (drives greed, which is good) , PRIDE (do you like Donald Trump?)
There.
They're not deadly at all, but good for you.
Consider Pynchon's essay on Sloth, and tell me: is a thesis statement good - we were taught this in Freshman English - or is it for losers?
The novel - Haven't been writing, moving and all that, but will get back to it soon. Forget the October deadline.
Toodles.
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