kagablog

That past did augur a monstrous future gnawing
Into his soul-fire its waxes that sizzled a fear
Of sights to come.

The rent armor of joy
Wrinkled with crusted wounds –
The brow and a lost heart that knew what it thought it wanted.

He recalls writhes of belly
After that night’s amnesia; having seen friends
One way or another.

Past valentines he shunned a cold gaze
At the piles of arms lovingly traveling
Within his moon song.

It was the square for some,
But future’s street
He’ll leave behind.

Along flying the broken neck
Of person lifeless
But at pleasure’s torpor…

Stars twinkling in blizzards of whores
Chained to losses; he too knew
Gravely the future’s blinded eye – brow bled.

Winding spirals about trees grew
Into his lid, he calls at faces
Of jubilee’s seeds.

He loved and cared
For the momentary lies
Contused about their cold bitten bosoms.

The moon blinked, shoving
Sending petitions of their souls afloat,
Over this wake of shackles being left behind.

Sachets of clots – hemorrhaged patella
Lumbering with sweet bells of the
Skies lush and loud.

What future’s night is this?
While buzzed adorations hurricaned
From these children’s aims?

That was war – Perhaps;
As the cradle for beast children stood
On speakers blurting out slurs of a repulsed populace.

Revolted coffers of punitive gains
Seen for the bile it tastes like; called this
Blue mood.

A short heart signaled towards the stars in supplication;
To the gods of gore – a voweled mouth
In rude ranting of noise-infested-skull in defect mode.

He sang loud, louder then
A muffled echo that paled
With the lid he was peeling.

Stars sang loud in him;
Coughing blood, ulcers
On palate gone loosened by wine.

Crimson spat on shoulders of white-collars;
Murmurs the vigilant that he should cease,
Or he’ll sleep on concrete under foot of vibe’s commuters.

They straddled him up, an ooze of skeleton
Having vacated the skin. He sings out loud,
Newly lithe louder squeals of a mauled animal.

Foxes skinned alive in his song;
The moon song stronger on the scar,
The square’s avenues brimmed with intoxicated bare feet.

Vagrants sleep scattered in every distance;
Struck brightly and then dim, then panic installations
Through the final gulp from a vase akin to the devils’.

Foil glass moribund reverse curse at puritan instincts,
He swallows the last of the sack impregnated into his belly…
The burning years of his birth.

He tarnished the angelic façade about him in many,
Demon blade in eyes –
Blood rage and teeth slits.

Behind his chest nothing kept barren and calm;
He wanted to suffer from bitter wine –
Singing loud…

Louder until the picture was a sacrilege to pleasure,
Colliding with disappointments and
The whine of waning sorrows… HIS.

Nommo

Meer VJ en minder DJ!

Tien jaar geleden trok ik de stoute schoenen aan en benaderde regisseur Ian Kerkhof met de vraag of hij het goed vond als ik zijn film ‘Naar de Klote!’ zou remixen. Hij vond dat zo leuk dat ik alleen maar even langs hoefde te komen om in totaal 29 uur aan ruw materiaal op te halen. Ergens in maart 1997 vond de uitvoering plaats in de Effenaar, op de vaste woensdag film avond. Er waren zo’n 330 bezoekers (bij mijn weten nog steeds ongeëvenaard als film bezoekers record, en sinds de Effenaar geen films meer draait zal dat nog wel een tijdje blijven staan), waaronder Ian Kerkhof zelf, samen met zijn cameraman, editor en actrice. DJ’s draaiden platen, met een derde geluidsschuif voor enkele quotes of sfeergeluiden die vanaf de video’s kwamen. Die video’s waren verdeeld over zes spelers, in twee groepjes van drie verdeelt aangesloten op een videomixertje. Met joysticks kon geschakeld worden tussen de spelers.

Tegenwoordig is er een apparaatje, de DVJ1000 van Pioneer, dat alle bovenstaande gedoe vervangt. Wat leuk, denken vele DJ’s nu, ik kan videootjes bij mijn mixen laten zien. Maar tien jaar ontwikkeling van het fenomeen VJ heeft gelukkig geleid tot vele variaties op het thema ‘beeldbewerking’ dus voorlopig zal het geïnteresseerde publiek nog veelvuldig getrakteerd worden op al dan niet smakelijke snoepjes voor het oog.

Misschien moet de DJ zich zelfs zorgen gaan maken, want met een beetje knipwerk en herhaling zijn er bijzonder leuke ritmes te maken en voor de afwisseling zorgen dan spits gevonden quotes of desnoods het geluid van een woest ronkende motor. En dat is dan ongeveer waar Eboman ook al tien jaar geleden mee bezig was en Addictive TV momenteel furore mee maakt. DJ exit.

Spannende tijden, want terwijl het grote publiek eindelijk gewend raakt aan doorlopende videoprojecties, zet de volgende ontwikkeling zich al door.

Top 5 van VJ Stalker’s favoriete software:

1 visualJockey Gold
Eindeloos schuiven en friemelen met blokjes om op indrukwekkende snelheid effectcombinaties uit te rekenen.
http://www.visualjockey.com

2. Vjamm-pro
Als er dan toch geluid bij komt, superstrak met Vjamm.
http://www.vjamm.com

3. Max/MSP/Jitter
Als je het echt allemaal zelf wil doen. Visueel programmeren voor gevorderden.
http://www.cycling74.com

4. Resolume
De meest intuïtieve van het rijtje, nog steeds leuk voor het eenvoudige werk.
http://www.resolume.com

5. VJ-Central
Geen software, maar een door VJ’s bijgehouden gegevensbank met gekoppeld forum, dat erg druk bezocht wordt. De plek om eens rond te neuzen.
http://www.vjcentral.com/

Over de schrijver:
VJ Stalker (Jérôme Siegelaer) is al tien jaar actief als VJ en videokunstenaar. Website: http://www.dansmachine.nl

this article first appeared on cultuurxpres

these works were also done in my teens
i think i experienced an artistic climax then
before the corruption of tertiary studies
my grandfather had the most amazing hands
and his knees were always rough and dirty from working in his garage
he died of Alzheimer’s

I was impressed by his equipment
All he had to do was move get on top of me
Or move me on top of him
And I felt great
He didn’t have to make any effort
So he didn’t
He was a surfer
He’d been to Sri Lanka and Indonesia on trips
Just to surf
He want to go to Jeffrey’s Bay
He was impressed I’d heard of it
Obviously, I said, I’m South African
He liked that I knew the band Sublime
I pointed out how weird that lyric was in What I Got
How it goes from how the guy likes Dalmatians to how he loves getting high
How I always imagined the guy picking up the dog by the tail, and smoking it
He kind of laughed
He had a beautiful tribal tattoo above his collar bone
I usually hate tribal tattoos the way I hate butterfly tattoos
So generic and overdone and meaningless and unoriginal
But I loved his
It was genuinely a work of art
He helped me change the sheets before
He brought beer
South Africans love to drink, he said, like he was telling me something
I was so relieved
Israelis don’t seem to drink
It was nice fun relaxing comfortable
He never called again
Even after I called him
Apparently what Israeli women don’t ever do
Is sleep with a guy on the first date
If they want to be taken seriously.

198

Those who denounce the absurdity or the perils of incitement to waste in the society of economic abundance do not understand the purpose of waste. They condemn with ingratitude, in the name of economic rationality, the good irrational guardians without whom the power of this economic rationality would collapse. For example, Boorstin, in L’Image, describes the commercial consumption of the American spectacle but never reaches the concept of spectacle because he thinks he can exempt private life, or the notion of “the honest commodity,” from this disastrous exaggeration. He does not understand that the commodity itself made the laws whose “honest” application leads to the distinct reality of private life and to its subsequent reconquest by the social consumption of images.

i woke at five
this morning
seasick from
my dreams
of you
not being
here
i pulled back the curtain
and the leper
moon’s collapsed
face shone and shone
from the sky
a child’s painted
box blue
i thought of you there
somewhere
in your husk of loneliness
making your way
home

Dear Aryan,

I remember the wonderful days in Jo-burg, and the time
we had together, and I’m so excited to see the
documentation you have made, which reminded me of the
excitement, and the performances we did back then.
I’m so happy that you sent me that DVD, and I’m going
to share it with other people who are really
interested here in America.

I’d like to keep in touch, and maybe we could have
another occasion to get together again in Joburg or
Cape Town. That was my first visit, and I’d like to
know South Africa more, to know more about the
creative treasures of the country.

Halim

(view unyazi of the bushveld here)

The Black Steer is red neon on brick we walk under hoping for a table all the while holding hands and telling you over my third or fourth whiskey that I’d like to fuck you on the table at last we order and wait another cigarette you’re beautiful sucking on your B’n'H my Gauloise feeling loaded between my fingers smoking hot lemon water finally drives your pale thighs from my mind and you collapsing beside me my eyes lock onto your bra-strap beneath the white T-shirt you’ve borrowed for the evening and I light another cigarette on returning I watch to see if others watch too sitting down you smile at me and yes no black bits of charcoal between your teeth I leave (trailing your gaze the length of the restaurant) stand at the urinal naphthalene fumes you pay the impersonal price we split at the table before leaving bridging the gap between two people resolutely separate with entwined fingers driving you deal with the man asking for money in darkness sticky with impending rain and decades-old obsequious hatred these one-way sentences ending in cul-de-sacs the rain your tears follow turns my heart to embrace a darker night and a shirtless man shivering some cold morning on an overnight bus in the middle of nowhere I note the red depressions covering your naked body from the clothes left on the bathroom floor the verandas old wicker arm-chair supports this view of the city our weight your joint my cigarette and penetrations necessity your smokes sweet aroma blends exotically with my black tobacco and reclining our obscenity can again abscond the immediate chasm our sex serves to heighten these one-way sentences ending in this apartment channelling hardened layers of sentiment in heaps along the corridor my lamp casts its light roundly on my squared writing pad illuminating our excursion and your heaving mass seething this darkness we swim as a dream

Nobody mentioned the incident in the garden. She woke up later, on a soft tatami mat in a quiet room of the vast, rambling house. Somebody had cleaned her, wrapped her in blankets and left food beside the bed. She slept through the night and returned to her room the next morning. She met several of the girls along the way, but everyone simply smiled and behaved courteously, as though nothing at all had happened. She could feel that they wanted her out of the house, but didn’t care. The house was enormous and silent. It was haunted by cats and quiet women in traditional garb. Everyone ignored her, or treated her in a polite, yet deferential way. It had been too easy for her to slot into the exquisite clockworks of routine and slowness. She was like a creeper who looks for something to grow around, who will settle for almost any system to quieten her mind. In the routines of the house, her thoughts had finally slowed, like snails racing each other across the blade of a dying leaf. The house enclosed the central Switchboard Control for Japan and Jennifer went to work there each morning, in white. She only tentatively explored the city, on one or two meaningless jaunts to the local festivals or tourist sites. Her imagination had deserted her on a sorry coast. It was good to have escaped her former life, but the sensation of being a stranger left her stranded and unfulfilled on the cusp of unexplored beauty… One day, by chance, she discovered a smack pipe in one of the toilets. She investigated further and befriended a dour girl called Mitsuo, who began to supply her with heroin. Her memory began to disintegrate, as she hoped it would. She didn’t see the Oracle after arriving in Osaka, and after some time, she ceased to care whether she saw her again. She became a perfect cog in the house, performing her duties with detail and care, sleeping deeply and watching fish for hours in the gardens. She became almost content in a way, and began to forget the strangers whom she had known so savagely, in that blue house by the sea. She began to see it all as a dream of a film of some kind. The sort of film you half-watch when you are young and half-forget as the years wind on. She now had more money than she knew what to do with, but could find nothing to spend it on except heroin and elaborate sweetmeats. All her needs were taken care of by the machinations of the house. At some point she was asked to courier blackboxes to the offices in the city. She would don black designer clothes on these escapades and descend into the neon surge of the city like a ghost of her former self. She would stay in ridiculously expensive hotels and eat alone in elegant restaurants. She missed Anita the most on these little jaunts. The temptation to call her was so great at times that it made her scream out behind the impenetrable, mirrored visor of her face. She knew that it would take just one word from her to Anita would make her return. But despite what she felt, she knew that she could not survive the re-contamination of the blue light which haunted her dreams. The blue light which shone from Anita’s eyes and navel and fingertips like faery fire…Jennifer had became a true mannequin in a way. A mechanical robot; even more of a machine than Anita had ever been. The psychic-plastic had hardened, rendering her sexless and emotionally impenetrable. She knew without a doubt that she would never engage in sexual relations, make love or even kiss or be affectionate with anyone again. These were things which now belonged to a former life, a half-forgotten filmreel of a fast-forward life. She was as dead and beautiful as a seashell, and content to live in this nun-like state for good. She accepted that her wings had burned off in the flame and that she would now have to crawl to paradise. She began to see it as a fair trade, the price she must pay for her sins, and the empty, material paradise which her sins had paid for. This paradise in which she has found herself a stranger.

(Dedicated to the doyen of all literary genres, Omoseye Bolaji)

Magnetic literary gem to the living and the martyrs dead,
Unto the ebbing souls his literary works are the living bread;
Feathers he pieces of worth on the scroll of literary time,
His feather tirelessly unfolds issues that all souls prime,
Reveals through his feather all the golden illusion of our age,
Literary love his only most undisputed precious heritage.

Writ he his mind to redress the societal wrongs;
Scaring the living writer out of him critics’ failed songs,
Saluted Sir, F. S Literature on the map he put by fortitude,
He lit the torch to show us the ultimate literary latitude,
From Cape to Cairo, acclaimed, Morocco to Madagascar;
To so many readerholics he is more than a compassing star.

Mind him not the hardship-hazards of the game,
Toilest endlessly not to build for himself a good name,
He is the evening-eye that blazes a track of literary glory
A catalyst in the ignored Free State black literature’s history

Leadst us the way on the unmapped literary roads,
His substantive literary work all races alike goads,
No amount of money his priceless efforts can buy
He hath suffered in the name of literature all the way
Naught goes beyond the compass of his literary wits

pule lechesa

check out nikhil singh’s myspace page here

25 may 2007

You led me to your bedroom
Played me music while you drummed along
Wanted my opinion on your playing
But I had none
Just it sounded good to me which sounded lame
When I said it out loud
But you smiled
Told me you liked my body
Kissed me while our friend sat in the next room with the lights on
Doing god knows what
While you took off my eighties tights and short jean skirt
I had my period so we didn’t go all the way
But we both wanted to
We drank vanilla absolut
I hate girl drinks, I think I told you
Maybe we need some vanilla scented candles to go with this
You laughed touched my face
We watched Friends with Hebrew subtitles
It all felt vaguely familiar
Listening to you speak with your American accent
English as a first language, thank god
It was comforting
You kissed me before I left
Said you’d call me
And you did but only after a week
To invite me to a show you were playing
In a small club where everyone was sitting on top of everyone sweating
The music was awful like Dashboard Confessional in Hebrew
Even if I was a fifteen year old girl I’d have better taste
You hardly paid attention to me
I felt ridiculous
A girl had her arm around your shoulders
I told you I wanted to talk
You said it wasn’t the time or place
I said it was nice meeting you
You looked a little stunned
But said the same and wished me good luck
Which I wouldn’t need in the future
Maybe just better judgement.

199

Boorstin describes the excesses of a world which has become foreign to us as if they were excesses foreign to our world. But the “normal” basis of social life, to which he implicitly refers when he characterizes the superficial reign of images with psychological and moral judgments as a product of “our extravagant pretentions,” has no reality whatever, either in his book or in his epoch. Boorstin cannot understand the full profundity of a society of images because the real human life he speaks of is for him in the past, including the past of religious resignation. The truth of this society is nothing other than the negation of this society.