Twenty: an intimate sort of isolation.

Having recently celebrated my 20th birthday, I have come to realise a few things about being a member of this prestigious decade in the course of life.

I can no longer read teen magazines without feeling like a perve. C'mon, seventeen-year-old boys and pimple cream? Nah.

Hormonal mood swings are no longer excuses for temper tantrums.

I feel responsible for everything, including tipping car guards and driving the speed limit. Also avoided a glass of wine at lunch as I had to drive myself home.

Curfews really shouldn't apply any longer. In your twenties with a safe-in-bed-and-sleeping cut off time? I don't think so.

You probably sleep in the same bed as your boyfriend now. And your parents kinda know, but can't really do anything about it.

Also, according to Erikson's eight stages of psychosocial development, I should now be entering the 'intimacy versus isolation' stage. I wonder, though, if it is possible to be both, and not either/or? In one's twenties one can experience a great deal of intimacy but at the same time feel pretty isolated too.

Perhaps I can disprove his theory.

On the wing

On the ground is where most of us spend our lives. As chldren we dig holes in the ground and soil our best Sunday clothes. As adults we work towards owning a piece of ground in the hope that we can make something of it

But what happens when you view everything from above? Things below seem a lot smaller. You get to play God.

scenes from my first ride in a helicopter

(I wasn't flying it, no Just to clear that up).

Yardbirds

"The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic.” Bill Cosby

radio morale

Radio may be a dying medium, but it certainly keeps thousands of half-awake listeners alive in peak traffic every morning.

Take the Gareth Cliff Show, for example. No matter how early/dark/cold/uninspiring it is at six a.m. on Monday morning, this lovable airwave menace manages without fail to make some kind of sick joke about Julius Malema or the housing crisis. What could be better on a miserable Mondaythan a bit of edgy humour and a few studio sound effects, accompanied by a dialogue of commentary from the peanut gallery in the background?

I'm sure if studies were conducted we'd find that radio increases public morale and work ethic, and helps to lessen the number of suicides committed on a Monday. Or any day of the week, in fact. Somehow, the radio makes mundane things like traffic reports, breaking news and politics seem like a breeze.

It's Monday, people. Four days to go until the weekend, because we don't include Friday as a full working day. You're probably gonna call in sick by then anyway. Have a fabulous day! Now for some commercial music....

The Act of Curate

Q: Why don't you pursue a career as a curator?

A: I'd rather not become one of those parading assholes who make contemporary art seem bigger and more splendid than it actually is.

Q: But isn't that the point of art museums?

A: Not to exclude humanity. To bring us all together in contemplation. Unfortunately, in the last century or so art has become vulgar in its search to sacrementalise the self, and destroy its own virtue. We've resorted to jackhammering gallery floors, inducing panic and generally acting stupid about it all.

Why Don't We Create Art Like This Anymore?

              

Another Racial Soap Opera.

So. Yeah. Now soap's racist.

According to certain hyper-liberalist critics, Dove's new advertisement suggests the presence of a 'skin-lightening' agent in its most recent product, VisibleCare Body Wash.
Which means Dove is implying whiter skin is more beautiful, more radiant.
Which implies that darker women should aspire to the whiter aesthetic.
Which  encourages ideas of white hegemony.
And so the ever-present racial discussion in this country rears its head once again, and reaches no concrete conclusions.



Should Dove clean up its act, or should the over-sensitive among us have their trouble-making mouths washed out with the suds of freedom of speech?

Mandela Would Cringe - A Typical Election Day

Judging from the jubilation resounding from across the valley here in the municipal ward of Hout Bay, the ANC might just have had a victory in the last sixty minutes or so.

I was apathetic today. Being unregistered and sort of lazy I did not cast my ballot. Yes, my X will have to wait til next year. Sorry, X.



There were 'minor glitches' in this year's poll, including a ditch dug through a tar road blocking access to voting stations, two deaths in the Western Cape, protests in Mitchell's Plain over evictions, mass SMS campaigns, advice from Julius Malema, ballot boxes being hidden in dorm rooms and cars, insufficient ballot cards, burning of tires in KwaZulu-Natal and general apathy throughout the country.

Other than that, all went well - as well as it could in Africa.

Taylorony

I was surprised to see Taylor Lautner among the dozens of other familiar faces that made up the cast of Valentine's Day. Aside from some man-massacring, messy break-ups and airport dashes, Taylor and Taylor (Swift, yes) make a retarded on-screen couple. I love Twilight easter eggs though. Especially the one scripted into Lautner's dialogue. Apparently the writers had to draft it this way after Lautner rejected a request to bare his pecs for the movie. The conversation went something like this:



Swift (giving him a sweatshirt): Why don't you try it on now?
Lautner: I'm a little uncomfortable taking my shirt off in public.

                            Hahahaha! Almost as ironic as a singles' fondue on Valentine's Day!