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Tuesday, September 16, 2014
MOTORWAY (1967)
The
politicians,
(who are buying huge cars with hobnailed wheels the size of
merry-go-rounds)
have a new plan. They are going to
put cobbles
in our eyesockets
and pebbles in our navels ,or and fill us up
with asphalt
and lay us side by side
so that we can take a more active part in the road
to destruction.
have a new plan. They are going to
put cobbles
in our eyesockets
and pebbles in our navels ,or and fill us up
with asphalt
and lay us side by side
so that we can take a more active part in the road
to destruction.
Roger McGough (eToll Visionary Poet) (1937- )
Hangman's Blood
I recently reread Anthony Burgess's two part biographies "Big God and Little Wilson" and "You've Had Your Time".
This midlife rereading from a different life-stage (which by the way is the best stage I've ever been at - but that's for another post entirely) offered a markedly different perspective from the my first readings of these as an undergrad. It's prompted me to haul out and start rereading the poets of my formative years too , Holan, Cummings, Pitt-Kethley, and the whole of Children of Albion. The Holan book I'd self inscribed "Happy 24th Birthday - God, you're getting old!"
But I digress.. what I really wanted to mention was this drink recipe for Hangman's Blood which Burgess describes as follows.
‘Into a pint glass doubles of the following are poured: gin, whisky, rum, port, and brandy. A small bottle of stout is added, and the whole topped up with champagne or champagne surrogate. It tastes very smooth, induces a somehow metaphysical elation, and rarely leaves a hangover … I recommend this for a quick, though expensive, lift.’
It's nearly noon on a Tuesday and it's all I wanna do.
This is worth a read...Great Authors on Drink.
This midlife rereading from a different life-stage (which by the way is the best stage I've ever been at - but that's for another post entirely) offered a markedly different perspective from the my first readings of these as an undergrad. It's prompted me to haul out and start rereading the poets of my formative years too , Holan, Cummings, Pitt-Kethley, and the whole of Children of Albion. The Holan book I'd self inscribed "Happy 24th Birthday - God, you're getting old!"
But I digress.. what I really wanted to mention was this drink recipe for Hangman's Blood which Burgess describes as follows.
‘Into a pint glass doubles of the following are poured: gin, whisky, rum, port, and brandy. A small bottle of stout is added, and the whole topped up with champagne or champagne surrogate. It tastes very smooth, induces a somehow metaphysical elation, and rarely leaves a hangover … I recommend this for a quick, though expensive, lift.’
It's nearly noon on a Tuesday and it's all I wanna do.
This is worth a read...Great Authors on Drink.
Monday, September 08, 2014
Crocodilian Tomatoes
The post script to my previous post prompts this image posting.
I think I still have one of these stickers somewhere too. Actually given to me by it's creator (Peter Kidson). background story here.
Rian Malan may have credited PW with loosening the shackles of apartheid and paving the way for de Klerk but we're still paying the price on the land reform front. The sheer waste appalls me.
Fruit Part II
So ...it happens again...and again I am thinking ..A man is not a piece of fruit !
This time though - I am in a good space. My terms. My plans. My middle age!
Forever brave - these decisions to uproot and move on. So many reasons but not one that stands out alone - just the weight of the feathers (thanks Gerrie Nel) as the little things pile up one at a time. This time it involves a decision to "reroot" - back to the territory* I grew up. Not naive enough to believe it remains anything like that place that rests nostalgically in memory from 20 years ago - but dum spiro spero?
* - well close by - but not quite - the real territory remains the farm I grew up on that has lain fallow and unproductive since 1983. A result of PW's last throes of social engineering - so innocently termed as " homeland consolidation".
This time though - I am in a good space. My terms. My plans. My middle age!
Forever brave - these decisions to uproot and move on. So many reasons but not one that stands out alone - just the weight of the feathers (thanks Gerrie Nel) as the little things pile up one at a time. This time it involves a decision to "reroot" - back to the territory* I grew up. Not naive enough to believe it remains anything like that place that rests nostalgically in memory from 20 years ago - but dum spiro spero?
* - well close by - but not quite - the real territory remains the farm I grew up on that has lain fallow and unproductive since 1983. A result of PW's last throes of social engineering - so innocently termed as " homeland consolidation".
Thursday, February 13, 2014
BOJ : 15 Aug 1939 to 13 Feb 1993
Monday, April 26, 2010
Alan Sillitoe (4 March 1928 – 25 April 2010)
Alan Sillitoe died on the weekend.
What a gutsy real writer he was.
I loved this excerpt from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958).
"You followed the motto of ‘be drunk be happy’, kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts”
What a gutsy real writer he was.
I loved this excerpt from Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958).
"You followed the motto of ‘be drunk be happy’, kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts”
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