From salon to Biennale

Contemporary art, while ever-evolving, has developed into its current, glorious post-war, post-modern (post everything) reductive state through a progressive lens.

I've noticed several 'happenings' in Cape Town, particularly on the way home. Signs outside the felling of Cecilia Forest reading 'Axes,' and a rather enigmatic 'Tickets to Heaven' marker on the freeway.

1) Fiercely Socialist students from the University
2) Fanatical environmentalists
3) Ironic atheists
4) Banksy-wannabes from Infecting the City

It seems urban philosophy has taken the streets, occupying public space and creating an enigmatic 'other' reality for the average city-dweller.

A Handling of Poets

Poets are delicate creatures. Much like artists, muscians and scientists, they are minds. Often, minds like those of poets are the subjects of their very work.

Poets can only be friends with poets. Poetry is the water of one poet's mind, meeting the mountain with tides of loneliness, rapture and exalt.

Poets seem to enjoy talking about their work. I mean, whatever else has a poet to do all day?

Vleis

A woman standing in front of a braai, to the naked eye, might detract from the traditionally masculine associations linked to this long-established, deeply historic culinary activity. A preserve of the male, along with a dop and tjop, the act of braaing meat on an open flame is a sacred responsibility, integral in the workings of male socialisation. A woman should, and is expected to ( if she knew what's good for her) resign to the kitchen preparing salads and tame vegetable dishes and setting the table places. It would be a real shame for a women to take control of the tongs at a braai gathering, according to convention. Imagine a Muslim woman cooking  Halaal sausages in chakalaka spice

and then you'll have an entire minority group represented in one potluck party.

Wayfaring stranger

            I just could not overcome my writer's block.

Manna or Grind?

First, as you wander in the wilderness, you may distill your thoughts into this divine medicine and nourish your sun-cracked mouths. The roads to Jericho and Jordan are paved with the sticky residue of Heaven's food. Gather it and eat it with relish before it perishes, and becomes spoiled with worms.

Manna, although we're not certain of its exact form or properties, is essentially divine nourishment. What's your Manna? What is it that feeds you when you're hungry and barefoot in the desert? What would you desire most of all if you had nothing in the world? Would it be the dew that falls upon the land during the night? The bread of life?

I fear I am the golden yolk, trapped within a casket of hard shell.

pushkin pants

Your pants are cool.
Wish I had the courage to wear them as you do.
Looks like you don't give one single shit at all.
Bloody good for you.

LOST

Look at all your infinite colours!

I want to put my power


into a poem to burn a hole

in your pocket

so I can sew it

Manna from Brooklyn

Possibly my new favourite blog, Manna From Brooklyn proves that life can be captured in its smallest quirks, from the word 'ejaculate' in literature, to lentil-walnut burgers and visits to MOMA.

There is manna all around us, not just in Brooklyn.

courtesy: manna from brooklyn

Pleasure Principles

"Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it." Søren Kierkegaard in Either/Or:

If You are a Humanist, then I

am, and ought to be, a Hedonist.

If You attempt with lust to find meaning in your existence,

then I will argue that this existence had better be good.

You, Human,  nature's bastard.

I equate my desires to silence.

If You stand for Justice, Freedom and Personal Gain

Then I, for pleasure over Pain.

Dis Nie!

                                                        DIS NIE!


This enthusiastic cast of characters made the fantastical edition of SAX Appeal 2011 possible - and, well, threw in a bit of the good stuff, too. Soon enough, we were picking out the sluttiest Disney princess costumes we could find, smearing our lips with rouge, watering the roses with Vodka and yelling the Our Father prayer at a gathering of complacent miniature garden gnomes, all in the precious name of SAX.

A fiercely feminist Snow White is done with miniature men and domestic slavery.



A hoebag of a Cinderella gets her kicks on the kitchen floor.







our very own Che




slut fight.





'Everything the light touches is your kingdom.'



Charming, bookish Belle slaughtered her Beast and now wears him as a bolero.













Our Editor in the Looking Glass.



Jasmine spent her days on the Humanities lawn and puffed the magic carpet.

Sleeping Beauty



yes, I was the Queen of Hearts, and I had their heads clean off!



supermanunderwater













the fresh fruits of our loins



Photographs: Michael Currin and Gemma Cowan.

It's already February.

                                           It's already February.

February is cold bath water.

February is an uncomfortable shoe.

February is the last in line

To a long and never-ending queue.

February month is my bread and butter.

It washes away like rains in gutters.

February is my hit and miss.

And when I'm sad I like to rhyme my words like this.

Read and bear Fruit

By the end of 2011 I'd like my reading habits to have progressed to this level.

Stark raving

Today, and since Monday, I have reached a threshold. Questions continue to run their courses through my mind. In fact, when all you can do is ask perpetual questions which haved no definite answers you become pretty indecisive.

Decisions were never a talent of mine.

I'd much rather bury myself in my sheets and wait for it to pass.

OH please!

first, this movie changed my life.
second, Jesse Bradford's lobsided smile always gets me.
third, this quick frame sums up beautifully a precious brother-sister moment in cinematic history post-Riff Riff and Magenta of the Rocky Horror.

my heart is warmed.