Gussilber's Blog

“Bloody Agent”

gussilber — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:13:39 +0000

Download now or listen on posterous

REVOLUTIONARY_HOUSE.mp3 (3995 KB)

Posted via web from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

Valentine

gussilber — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 07:06:37 +0000

The things about you I appreciate

May seem indelicate:

I’d like to find you in the shower

And chase the soap for half an hour.

I’d like to have you in my power

And see your eyes dilate.

I’d like to have your back to scour

And other parts to lubricate.

Sometimes I feel it is my fate

To chase you screaming up a tower

Or make you cower

By asking you to differentiate

Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.

I’d like successfully to guess your weight

And win you at a fete.

I’d like to offer you a flower.

I like the hair upon your shoulders,

Falling like water over boulders.

I like the shoulders, too: they are essential.

Your collar-bones have great potential

(I’d like all your particulars in folders

Marked _Confidential_).

I like your cheeks, I like your nose,

I like the way your lips disclose

The neat arrangement of your teeth

(Half above and half beneath)

In rows.

I like your eyes, I like their fringes.

The way they focus on me gives me twinges.

Your upper arms drive me berserk.

I like the way your elbows work,

On hinges.

I like your wrists, I like your glands,

I like the fingers on your hands.

I’d like to teach them how to count,

And certain things we might exchange,

Something familiar for something strange.

I’d like to give you just the right amount

And get some change.

I like it when you tilt your cheek up.

I like the way you nod and hold a teacup.

I like your legs when you unwind them.

Even in trousers I don’t mind them.

I like each softly-moulded kneecap.

I like the little crease behind them.

I’d always know, without recap,

Where to find them.

I like the sculpture of your ears.

I like the way your profile disappears

Whenever you decide to turn and face me.

I’d like to cross two hemispheres

And have you chase me.

I’d like to smuggle you across frontiers

Or sail with you at night into Tangiers.

I’d like you to embrace me.

I’d like to see you ironing your skirt

And cancelling other dates.

I’d like to button up your shirt.

I like the way your chest inflates.

I’d like to soothe you when you’re hurt

Or frightened senseless by invertebrates.

I’d like you even if you were malign

And had a yen for sudden homicide.

I’d let you put insecticide

Into my wine.

I’d even like you if you were the Bride

Of Frankenstein

Or something ghoulish out of Mamoulian’s

_Jekyll and Hyde_.

I’d even like you as my Julian

Of Norwich or Cathleen ni Houlihan.

How melodramatic

If you were something muttering in attics

Like Mrs Rochester or a student of Boolean

Mathematics.

You are the end of self-abuse.

You are the eternal feminine.

I’d like to find a good excuse

To call on you and find you in.

I’d like to put my hand beneath your chin,

And see you grin.

I’d like to taste your Charlotte Russe,

I’d like to feel my lips upon your skin,

I’d like to make you reproduce.

I’d like you in my confidence.

I’d like to be your second look.

I’d like to let you try the French Defence

And mate you with my rook.

I’d like to be your preference

And hence

I’d like to be around when you unhook.

I’d like to be your only audience,

The final name in your appointment book,

Your future tense.

Posted via web from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

Untitled

gussilber — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 07:46:17 +0000

Mandela

Posted via web from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

Fun New Internet Game: Google se Engelse Vertalings vanaf Nuss24 se Webwerf

gussilber — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:01:43 +0000

Fishermen ask for help from Dirk’s ‘seksslaaf’

2010-02-08 08:06

Cézanne Visser earlier outside the High Court in Pretoria, where evidence in mitigation of her sentence because of more among the indecent assault of children of today will be heard off (Liza van Deventer, Image).

The $30,000 Paycheque: a new South African Urban Legend?

gussilber — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 13:03:44 +0000

Heard from a friend at a braai, that a friend of his, a highly-qualified cellular telcoms techie, had been offered a job by a telco in the Gulf. He was tempted, and when they asked him what his earnings expectations were, he said he was earning 30k a month in South Africa.

The prospective employers were a bit taken aback, that figure being way over their budget.

But the guy said he was paid a premium because he was one of very few people in the country who could do the kind of high-level work he was doing. So they signed him on, saying the best they could do was match his salary.

He took up the positon in the Gulf, and at the end of the first month, he got his first paycheque. For 30k, all right…but in US Dollars.

My friend swears this is true, and who am I to argue?

After all, I once saw a very nice William Kentridge original at a gallery in Joburg, and when I asked the gallery-owner what it was going for, he said “ten thousand”. I thought that was a very good price – almost unbelievably good for a Kentridge, in fact.

So I phoned a gallery-owner I know in Cape Town, and he, equally incredulous, said he’d check. He called me back a few minutes later to say he’d called the gallery, and yes, 10,000 was the right price. As in 10,000 US Dollars, at a time when the rate was about R13 to $1. I did not buy the Kentridge, I’m afraid.

Posted via web from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

The $30,000 Paycheque: a new South African Urban Legend?

gussilber — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 12:56:33 +0000

Heard from a friend at a braai, that a friend of his, a highly-qualified telcoms techie, had been offered a job by a telco in the Gulf. He was tempted, and when they asked him what his earnings expectations were, he said he was earning 30k a month in South Africa.

The prospective employers were a bit taken aback, that figure being way over their budget. But the guy said he was paid a premium because he was one of very few people in the country who could do the kind of high-level work he was doing. So they signed him on, saying they’d match his salary.

He took up the positon in the Gulf, and at the end of the first month, he got his first paycheque. For 30k, all right…but in US Dollars.

My friend swears this is true, and who am I to argue? After all, I once saw a very nice William Kentridge original at a gallery in Joburg, and when I asked the gallery-owner what it was going for, he said “ten thousand”. I thought that was a very good price – almost unbelievably good for a Kentridge, in fact.

So I phoned a gallery-owner I know in Cape Town, and he said he’d check. he called me back a few minutes later to say he’d called the gallery, and yes, 10,000 was the right price. As in 10,000 US Dollars, at a time when the rate was about R13 to $1. I did not buy the Kentridge, I’m afarid.

Posted via web from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

No wonder we have a crime problem in South Africa. Here’s Woolworths, openly advocating shoplifting.

gussilber — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 16:58:02 +0000

I am reminded of the scene in “Take the Money and Run”, where Woody Allen, playing a small-time crook, painstakingly uses a diamond-cutter to saw a small circle of glass from the window of a store stocked with luxury goods.

Then he saunters off, proudly carrying the small circle of glass in his hand.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

Zombietown RSA: the Secret Joys of Xmas in Johannesburg

gussilber — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:38:00 +0000

Once a year, for reasons known only to themselves, thousands of Johannesburgers flee their beautiful city to spend the summer high holidays in Clifton/Plett/Umhlanga or a whole bunch of other places that would be attractive and relaxing if they weren’t so full of Johannesburgers.

Not that I’m complaining. Because from the beginning of the December school holidays, until the first working week of January, a blissful torpor falls over our city, and it takes on the atmosphere of a small town that you pass through en route to bigger and busier destinations.

A small town like Johannesburg used to be in, oh, 1886 or so. A small town like Johannesburg is for three weeks every Christmas. This picture shows the intersection of Glenhove and Oxford in Rosebank, at about 4.30pm on a weekday, workday afternoon.

That’s peak hour, but then it’s always peak-hour in Johannesburg, because there are always orange witches’ hats and yellow ballustrades on the road, and there are always taxis hooting and racing and screeching off the road, and the air is always hot with the urgency and aggression and hustle that make this the economic powerhouse of Africa. Except at Christmas.

At Christmas, there is hardly any rage on the roads, because there are hardly any road-users to rage at.

There are hardly any backups and delays caused by construction and roadwork, because the builders and the roadworkers are on holiday.

There is hardly any of the paranoia and unsolicited malice that lies in a sidelong glance at the driver of the car next to you at the robots, because, well, what’s the big hurry, China?

We’ve finally got the town to ourselves; we can take it easy; we can nod; we can smile; we can relax. No, please, I insist: you ease into the fast lane, while I slow down and wait.

At Christmas, the air in Johannesburg is filled with an uncommon generosity of the spirit, or maybe it’s just a lassitude of the spirit, a langour brought on by the 49 weeks of madness just gone by, and the 49 weeks of madness still to come.

Either way, if you’re a Johannesburger, and you’re having a nice holiday in Clifton/Plett/Umhlanga or elsewhere, please don’t worry about those of us back home; we’re fine.

In fact, why not extend your holiday by a couple of weeks or so? Seriously, you don’t want to be in Johannesburg when all the Johannesburgers are back.

Posted via email from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

“They’ll call me Freedom, just like a Waving Flag”

gussilber — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:24:01 +0000

Somehow, I missed the memo about the official FIFA 2010 World Cup song, which I had automatically assumed was going to be a fusion of “World in Union”, Special Star”, and “Doo Be Doo”, each of which will be highly familiar to any South African who has ever had to hold on for the next available operator on Telkom’s ADSL Support Line.

But then, by serendipitous circuit, I chanced upon this video of a Somali-born rapper named K’naan performing a song called “Wavin’ Flag”, just guitar, djembe, and voice, in a Canadian radio studio.

I was hooked from the opening acoustic curlicue, a conscious echo of the intro to Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”, conscious because a little later in the song, K’naan manages to weave in a reference to Buffalo Soldiers too.

By paying tribute to Marley, he also wears his mantle, and on the evidence of this song alone, he wears it well. There is passion and ache and joy in his voice, a pride in roots, a wistful yearning to be heard across the world. So listen.

In these spare and simple lyrics lies the whole story of our continent, of the coming of the tall ships, of slavery and displacement, of missionaries with Bibles and soldiers with guns, of promises and betrayal, of war and survival, of the long walk, the long, patient wait, for the one day, someday, any-day-now victory of destiny over history.

This isn’t your typical FIFA World Cup theme song. It isn’t a mawkish song; it isn’t a chest-thumping song; it isn’t We Are the World.

It’s We are Africa, and the World is Coming to Africa, and although I’ll probably be sick of it by the time June 11, 2010 rolls around, for now it gives me goose-bumps, and I can’t think of a more moving, uplifting anthem of Africa that’s ever been written, unless you count the one we’ll be singing just before Bafana kick-off against Mexico at Soccer City.

When I get older, I will be stronger,
They’ll call me freedom, just like a Waving Flag,
And then it goes back, and then it goes back,
And then it goes back

Born to a throne, stronger than Rome
A violent prone, poor people zone,
But it’s my home, all I have known,
Where I got grown, streets we would roam.

But out of the darkness, I came the farthest,
Among the hardest, survival.
Learn from these streets, it can be bleak,
Accept no defeat, surrender retreat,
So we struggling, fighting to eat and
We wondering when we’ll be free,
So we patiently wait, for that fateful day,
It’s not far away, so for now we say
When I get older, I will be stronger,
They’ll call me freedom, just like a Waving Flag,
And then it goes back, and then it goes back,
And then it goes back

So many wars, settling scores,
Bringing us promises, leaving us poor,
I heard them say, love is the way,
Love is the answer, that’s what they say

But look how they treat us, Make us believers,
We fight their battles, then they deceive us,
Try to control us, they couldn’t hold us,
Cause we just move forward like Buffalo Soldiers.

But we struggling, fighting to eat,
And we wondering, when we’ll be free
So we patiently wait, for that faithful day,
It’s not far away, but for now we say

When I get older, I will be stronger,
They’ll call me freedom, just like a Waving Flag,
And then it goes back, and then it goes back,
And then it goes back

Posted via web from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

A Cartoon Invictus

gussilber — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:08:00 +0000

I am an amateur collector of original artwork by professional cartoonists, and this watercolour work has pride of place in my humble collection.

It’s by Tinus Horn, a great South African caricaturist, and it first appeared in the Saturday Star a week after the Rugby World Cup Final at Ellis Park on June 24, 1995.

I asked Tinus if he would sell the original to me, and he very kindly went one step further by redoing it in a bigger format, adding a couple of flourishes, and then selling it to me.

I love this cartoon. It perfectly captures that warm and fuzzy Rainbow Moment when Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, the two Captains of the Nation, stood on the turf and raised their arms in unity and triumph, while thousands upon thousands cheered in the stands, and millions more cheered in front of their TV sets at home.

I can’t wait to see the movie. I just hope it’s as good as the cartoon.

Sent from my iPhone

Posted via email from Gus Silber’s Twitter Overflow Blog

Gussilber's Blog

“Bloody Agent”

Valentine

Untitled

Fun New Internet Game: Google se Engelse Vertalings vanaf Nuss24 se Webwerf

Fishermen ask for help from Dirk’s ‘seksslaaf’

Related links

The $30,000 Paycheque: a new South African Urban Legend?

The $30,000 Paycheque: a new South African Urban Legend?

No wonder we have a crime problem in South Africa. Here’s Woolworths, openly advocating shoplifting.

Zombietown RSA: the Secret Joys of Xmas in Johannesburg

“They’ll call me Freedom, just like a Waving Flag”

A Cartoon Invictus