People pass one another on streets not knowing what the other is doing, or is about to do, or has just done.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Life Sentence
My favourite author is Javier Marias, a Spaniard. Here is a single sentence from his novel A Heart so White:
Luisa isn't like that, the new generations are just as scornful, but they express it in a more controlled fashion, Luisa is gentler, although with a sense of rectitude that at times makes her wax very serious, sometimes you just know that she's not joking, she thinks I'm with my father now, but my father has had to go out unexpectedly and that's why I'm listening to these revelations from Custardoy, if they're true; they must be, he's never had any talent for invention, in all his stories he's always kept close to the facts or to what actually happened to him, perhaps that's why he has to experience things and live out his doubleness, because then he can talk about them afterwards, that's his way of being able to conceive of the inconceivable; there are people who know only the fantasies that they themselves experience, who are incapable of imagining anything and so have little insight, using one's imagination avoids many misfortunes, the person who anticipates his own death rarely kills himself, the person who anticipates that of others rarely murders, it's better just to think about murdering someone or killing yourself, there are no consequences, it leaves no traces, even the distant gesture made with a grasping arm, it's all a question of distance and time, if it's a little too far away, the knife stabs the air instead of someone's chest, it doesn't plunge into dark or pale flesh but through the empty air and nothing happens, its passage isn't recorded or registered and so remains unknown, you can't be punished for intentions, failed attacks are often not even spoken of, they're even denied by the intended victims, because everything goes on as before, the air is the same, there's no wound to the skin, there's no change in the flesh, no tear, the pillow pressed down on no one's face is inoffensive, and afterwards everything is exactly the same as before because the mere accumulation of events and the blow that strikes no one and the attempt at suffocation that suffocates no one are not enough in themselves to change things or relationships, neither is repetition or insistence or a frustrated attack or a threat, that aggavates the situation but it doesn't change anything, reality can't be summed up like that, they're just the same as the grasping gestures that Miriam made and her words ("You're mine," "You owe me," "I'm gonna get you," I'll see you in hell"), which did nothing to prevent the subsequent kisses and her singing in the room next door as she lay by the side of the lefthanded man, Guillermo by name, to whom she'd said:"Then you get one woman's death on your hands, either her or me."
Luisa isn't like that, the new generations are just as scornful, but they express it in a more controlled fashion, Luisa is gentler, although with a sense of rectitude that at times makes her wax very serious, sometimes you just know that she's not joking, she thinks I'm with my father now, but my father has had to go out unexpectedly and that's why I'm listening to these revelations from Custardoy, if they're true; they must be, he's never had any talent for invention, in all his stories he's always kept close to the facts or to what actually happened to him, perhaps that's why he has to experience things and live out his doubleness, because then he can talk about them afterwards, that's his way of being able to conceive of the inconceivable; there are people who know only the fantasies that they themselves experience, who are incapable of imagining anything and so have little insight, using one's imagination avoids many misfortunes, the person who anticipates his own death rarely kills himself, the person who anticipates that of others rarely murders, it's better just to think about murdering someone or killing yourself, there are no consequences, it leaves no traces, even the distant gesture made with a grasping arm, it's all a question of distance and time, if it's a little too far away, the knife stabs the air instead of someone's chest, it doesn't plunge into dark or pale flesh but through the empty air and nothing happens, its passage isn't recorded or registered and so remains unknown, you can't be punished for intentions, failed attacks are often not even spoken of, they're even denied by the intended victims, because everything goes on as before, the air is the same, there's no wound to the skin, there's no change in the flesh, no tear, the pillow pressed down on no one's face is inoffensive, and afterwards everything is exactly the same as before because the mere accumulation of events and the blow that strikes no one and the attempt at suffocation that suffocates no one are not enough in themselves to change things or relationships, neither is repetition or insistence or a frustrated attack or a threat, that aggavates the situation but it doesn't change anything, reality can't be summed up like that, they're just the same as the grasping gestures that Miriam made and her words ("You're mine," "You owe me," "I'm gonna get you," I'll see you in hell"), which did nothing to prevent the subsequent kisses and her singing in the room next door as she lay by the side of the lefthanded man, Guillermo by name, to whom she'd said:"Then you get one woman's death on your hands, either her or me."
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Four self-portraits
Sometimes I think the term 'self-portrait' may be a contradiction in terms. Or, more likely, a non sequitur.
Post mortem
Sarel Petrus sends postdated bronze elegies to lost life. This 'postage stamp' depicts a frog, long departed. And the bronze tortoises were once made of flesh and blood, like you and I. In bronze, perhaps, they hold time in their posthumous claws.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Cat
Her name is Cat. She agrees that the world is populated by creation operators and annihilation operators. Secretly, she thinks they are all the same. Cat, by the way, INVENTED noir as a way of life, not a genre.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Paisley
Paisley is Ace's companion. She came from pretty humble beginnings too, but that hardly matters to her.
Ace
Ace is a special cat. The vet in Sea Point said he came from humble beginnings, and that may be true. Don't we all, come to think of it.
In Ysterplaat
We live in Ysterplaat, a suburb of Cape Town. Here we plant things, and believe they will grow. We read and do all kinds of things beside work (which some of us also do). this beautiful chair and table appear on a length of fabric I bought in a Salt River shop this morning. Not long ago, Die Antwoord shot a video in our neighborhood which they called Zefside; we think it is cool. Beyond cool.
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