long-distance haiku

I cut my finger the day you left
the bleeding has stopped
but still I keep the plaster on

When a Lit Fest Turns Into Taxidermy Hell

It was such a find. We made a latish booking for the Franschhoek Literary Festival. With only a month to go, most of the guesthouses were taken. But we found a self-catering cottage on a wine farm. Yes please!

The pictures showed a cute thatched structure high up on a mountain, with amazing views of valley over autumnal vineyards. Breakfast was included. Bonus!

So we booked it, and when we arrived on the day the cottage was everything it said it was. Large open-plan under a roof of crazy beams and thatch. En suite with comforts like a kettle and heater.

Nothing to prepare us for the horror to come.

The cottage was separate from the main building, which called itself a lodge. (Big hint there.) There were zebra and springbok on the surrounding fields, wildebeest and a few larger buck too. (Another clue that passed us by.) Some farmers have horses, I thought, others like their livestock a bit wilder.

What the owner of this lodge liked best, it soon became clear, was to serve his wildlife stuffed.

We took the short road to breakfast the next morning, and walked into a hall of death.

The lion greeted us just inside the door. His teeth were bared, his eyes blazed yellow. They were marbles. His hide was soft and tawny, the 'body' beneath it was hard. I know because I reached out and stroked him. My hand burned with the memory of it all though the meal.

We had entered a macabre mausoleum to one man's blood lust. There were eight heads in the dining room. I counted them, waiting for my poached eggs. 

They were mounted high up on the walls, their throats huge and soft and vulnerable. 

These were the most majestic of buck: eland, impala, kudu. There were European stags, Asian rams the antlers of American elk. There was a buffalo. No continent had been spared, it seems. 

There was a large artistic impression of a leopard. Kitty corner to it on the next wall was a photograph of a hunter with a gun, foot on the limp body of a leopard lying along a branch. (How many people had it taken to lift the spotted cat onto the log, and pose him there? He looked like he was in a rest from which he might spring up, grab that hunter by the ankle, drag that inane triumphant smile right off his face...) 

I wondered aloud whether the picture was of the same animal that the man shot. It was, the M'aitre d' assured me. 'That's him over there.' 

He pointed to the entrance hall. And there the leopard was, above an arched doorway, standing this time, on a different branch, posed to look threatening. I hadn't even noticed him when I walked in, drawn as I'd been to the lion's intense, dead yellow eyes.

There were some moose horns in that passage too. In this case they hadn't bothered with the rest of the head. The place was a tribute to taxonomy. (One of the heads still had the tag dangling from it.) But these trophies had not been bought. They were, the Maitre d' told me, all animals that the owner of the lodge had personally killed, himself. He had built this lodge, in fact, to house his considerable collection.

 

Sticking my knife into the little squares of butter, spreading marmalade on toast. I could tell David was feeling squeamish too. Across the hall from the dining room was a cosy lounge; a fire burned bright in the grate, which was straddled by two enormous elephant tusks. 

We had to rush to make our first FLF session of the day, so made a hasty escape. The quease didn't leave me.

The previous afternoon we'd caught to a discussion on animal rights that included rhino horn trade and trophy hunting. One of the speakers was GarethPatterson, the 'Lion Man', who took George Adams's lions to safety from Tanzania to Botswana. 

"Trophy hunters are serial killers," he said, after demonstrating the ugh-ugh-ugh that he used to communicate with the lions he lived with for so long. 

(He wasn't quite as articulate arguing against sustained harvesting of rhino horn to preserve the very few rhinos we have left, which was John Hanks' suggestion.)

The next morning, our last, we knew what to expect, and it was even more grisly than we remembered. I counted 28 heads in all, not including the free-standing antlers. 

There were two more rooms we hadn't looked at. A passage along the back with ducks and geese in a frieze up the wall, a 3D parody of the ceramic ones people of a certain age and social class have on their walls. These, of course, had once really flown.

There was a second lounge, with glass doors opening on to the view. In its back corner, facing this vista of vineyards and tame wildlife (oxymoron that?), was a giraffe. 

Well, part of a giraffe - the ceilings weren't high enough for all of it, so they just cut him off below the neck. After all, that's the only extraordinary part, isn't it? This part that's greater than the sum of its whole?

There was a foot of some sort in front of Mr Giraffe, with a bit of leg attached. I don't know whether it was his or some other creature's. There was an ashtray or a flat candle on top of it. I really couldn't bear to look any closer, or any more.

But as I turned to escape the room I saw the piece de resistance. In even more excruciating bad taste than the hoof ashtray was the zebra-head-on-a-plinth. The stand was made of hardwood (probably rare). The shape of Africa was cut out of it, the hollow space filled with yet more zebra skin. This whole continent is mine for the taking, the conqueror seemed to be saying.

I have a thing for horses (live ones), so it hurt to see this his wild equid face, made comical as his neck was posed to show off a stripe in the shape of a necktie.

I don't why it is that this wealthy man gets his kicks claiming the life force of these creatures as his own. I don't know why he is not deeply ashamed to display this need publically. I suppose there are people who feel powerful, in the presence of these corpses. As if they'd had a hand in bringing them here, in claiming them. Which, in a way, I suppose they did. 

I don't understand it. I wish I had never seen it. But now that I have, I had to share it. 

The cottage was lovely, the service was excellent, the staff were gracious. But I never, ever, want to go back there again.

Thank you D Bush for additional pix

After the Fire

“It was always such a relief when fire season was over. 
        We hold our breath during the hot dry summer, with its relentless southeaster gales, waiting for the inevitable blazes.
        Fynbos needs fire to regenerate, but before the city crept up around the base of the mountains, those fires had natural causes. These days, too many of them are set by bored, pyromaniac hooligans. Or by mindless tourists tossing cigarettes out of rental-car windows. These days, there are too many fires for the fynbos to recuperate; too little time between blazes for the plants to regenerate, mature and reseed. Burned too young, they edge ever closer to extinction.”

That's a quote from my forthcoming novel, The Seed Thief, which will be published by Umuzi in August 2015. 

This week, those words felt prescient.

 

 

        I took these pictures with a heavy heart. But this last was the most hopefull pic of all. Because these are seeds. Lying in fluffy piles on the sand, waiting. Soft rains are coming. (Soft, please, soft...) 
        Already, a week after I took these pictures, there are green shoots on the mountain moonscape. Watsonia bulbs that will bind the soil. The leucadendrons will follow. 

          We're watching.

Shakira in the Year of the Horse

Dog's Breakfast

In the beginning, there was the word. For me, it started with this dictionary.

(Actaully it probably started with Dr Suesse, but that's a digression that threatens to lurch into rhyming verse.)

So this dictionary, a handsome Oxford volume which I would like to be able to show you in its former, entire, glory, today literally and not proverbially, became the dog's breakfast.

insult - the thing you add to injury...

The Gospel acording to Bruce

Pheonix, Arizona, July, 1978. Bruce Springsteen addresses his audience of 10 000 plus in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum (as told by Rolling Stone reporter Dave Marsh):

'It began with a description of his family, house and home, and his perennial battles with his father. 

"Finally," he says, "my father said to me, 'Bruce, it's time to get serious with your life. This guitar thing is okay as a hobby, but you need something to fall back on. You should be a lawyer' –– which I coulda used later on in my career. He says. 'Lawyers, they run the world.' But I didn't think they did--and I still don't.

"My mother, she's more sensitive. She thinks I should be an author and write books. But I wanted to play guitar. So my mother, she's very Italian, she says. 'This is a big thing, you should go see the priest.' So I went to the rectory and knocked on the door. 'Hi, Father Ray, I'm Mr. Springsteen's son. I got this problem. My father thinks I should be a lawyer, and my mother, she wants me to be an author. But I got this guitar.'

"Father Ray says. 'This is too big a deal for me. You gotta talk to God,' who I didn't know too well at the time. 'Tell him about the lawyer and the author,' he says, 'but don't say nothin' about that guitar'.


"Well, I didn't know how to find God, so I went to Clarence's house. He says, 'No sweat. He's just outside of town.' So we drive outside of town, way out on this little dark road.

"I said, 'Clarence, are you sure you know where we're goin'?' He said, 'Sure, I just took a guy out there the other day.' So we come to this little house out in the woods. There's music blasting out and a little hole in the door. I say, 'Clarence sent me,' and they let me in. And there's God behind the drums. On the bass drum, it says: G-O-D. So I said, 'God. I got this problem. My father wants me to be a lawyer and my mother wants me to be an author. But they just don't understand –– I got this guitar.'

 

"God says, 'What they don't understand is that there was supposed to be an Eleventh Commandment. Actually, it's Moses' fault. He was so scared after ten, he said this is enough, and went back down the mountain. You shoulda seen it--great show, the burning bush, thunder, lightning. You see, what those guys didn't understand was that there was an Eleventh Commandment. And all it said was: Let It Rock!'" '

An extract from Rolling Stone magazine's Bruce Springsteen Raises Cain: A true believer witnesses mass conversions, rock & roll vandalism, a rocket upside the head and a visit with God by Dave Marsh (August 24, 1978) 

See the full story http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bruce-springsteen-raises-cain-19780824

youtube video from a later concert that same year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMLIig1lR1g#t=357

'I'm Your Fan' - The Revelation of Following Bruce Springsteen

At the end of my three-night Bruce Springsteen concert odyssey, I am sated and elated ... and a lot stupider than I was before I started on this ground-hog day like live-gig marathon.

I should wonder how The Boss feels – he's the one who did the equivalent of three long-distance hauls in four days, and despite copious amounts of sweat (which wet the T-shirt nicely, none of the girls complained...) he looked like he could go on for another couple of hours. And he's 17 years older than me...

Part of my stupid-head is just plain tiredness. I managed to meet a couple of pressing deadlines over the past days, in between battling traffic to get to the venue at the other side of the world (from behind the lentil curtain to behind the boerewors curtain, to be exact – but that will only make sense to you if you live in Cape Town), then standing in lines and staking out positions, and then screaming and jiving for three-plus hours in the auditoriam each night. Ah, the happy ear-blast  - it was BIG, it was LOUD! The post-Bruce ringing in my ears only just subsided each day in time to be clear for the next sonic assault. I think doing it repeatedly has done something to my brain.

Do I sound like I am complaining? I am categorically not. It's just - what do I do now, after four straight days of Bruce? I've got this hollow empty feeling. I put another CD on – or better still, pull out the old vinyls, for their warmth, you know? – and it feels a little better. But only just.

I've never been a groupie. I'm not a joiner, I don't go in for mass therapy sessions. I don't like crowds. But if the spirit moves you ... I feel like I understand Renton's urgent rant at the beginning of Trainspotting, with one difference: instead of heroin, I say, Just do Bruce.

His fans know this. Their devotion was a revelation.

I mean the real fans, not just the ones who rushed out to buy tickets as soon as they came online and looked forward to the concerts with some excitement. I mean the ones who camped out from six o'clock every morning in the blazing sunlight, and made sure they were there for the roll call every three hours, and wore their numbers inked proudly on the back of their hands, so that, when they – only the first 350 of them, mind you – got their coveted Golden Circle entry bands, they could line up in strict numerical order and enter the stadium before anyone else to claim their hard-earned spots right up against the stage, within  touching distance of the man they had come to see. 

Blikkies and Frikkie - their shirts were hand-painted by a 16-year-old son of someone in their devotional group

Not all of them were locals. Many had come from far and wide, some because that is what they do, others because they were lured here by the novelty – and the double bubble happiness – of seeing both The Boss and Cape Town for the first time.

Linette came all the way from Sweden, with her son. She has been to every Scandinavian Springsteen concert ever. And we had all 'met' her the night before, when Bruce pulled her on stage during 'Dancing in the Dark' and she stumbled in her excitment and fell hard on the giant floor monitor speakers. Our sympathy vied with our envy. She recovered quickly, pulled herself up and went to jive with saxophonist Jake Clemons (Clarence Clemon's nephew). "I was number 10!" she told me proudly the next night, referring to the number inked on her hand. On this, the third and last of the Cape Town gigs, she was badly sunburned from spending another day in the Golden Circle line. "I got high numbers on all three days," she said, "but that one was the best day." When I asked her if she was sore after her fall the night before she gave me a look that said, "I should feel pain? In the midst of this Euphoria?" What she actually said was,  "I will hold that moment in my heart, always. So, so close to my heart."

Ready for round two....

There was a German fan who couldn't wait to hold up his cardboard sign for Bruce to read. It said, "We found your balls!" (A reference to the fact that, on night two, Bruce told the adoring crowd that he had had his first swim in Cape Town. "It's COLD," he said. (Duh.) "It's so damn cold, I haven't seen my balls in a day-and-a-half!")

 Alberto and Beatrice came in from Alicante in Spain. They were the kind of people you want to hang around with in a Golden Circle (and we did) because they were so infectiously joyful, high on being there and just keen to dance and celebrate. They knew what they were doing - it was Alberto's 123rd Bruce Springsteen concert. That's right - one-hundred-and-twenty-third! His wife Beatrice was on number 63 – he already had a couple of gigs under his belt when they met. 

They have a three-year-old son, who stayed home with family in Spain. His name? Bruce. Alberto pulled out his iPhone and showed me pictures of his boy, and his motorbike. It's called Thunder. (As in, Thunder Road). It has lightning bolts and all kinds of other Springsteen related insignia on it – I couldn't quite follow it all through the excitment in Alberto's telling.

But I think the fan that touched me the most was Elan, from Israel. I was chatting to him on the numbered chairs outside the stadium, before they let all the arm-banded chosen ones through to claim their space by the stage. I told him Bruce had saved my life (see last post) and he one-upped me. "Me too," he said. "Me too. There was a time when I was so depressed, I was going to kill myself. But then I just thought, how could I live without his music?"

(Yes I realise there's an existential gordian knot of a contradiction in there, but it's the thought that counts.)

How he undid me was like this: "So how did you feel," Elan aksed me, "when you finally got to see Bruce after all this time?"

I started on an analysis of the first and second night's concerts, how they differed in vibe, the set list, what we thought he might play that night because he hadn't on the others. "But how did you feel?" he insisted.

"I don't know." I said. "His energy is amazing. And he is so generous with the crowds. And..."

He cut me short, impatient. "How. Did. You. FEEL?"

Oh. Okay. I finally got it. And while I tried to find the words he put the last lick on his rollup and left to smoke it elsewhere. I believe I had disapointed him.  I was too logical, Too distant. Too careful.
Why could I not just answer him from the heart?

So how did it feel?

It felt deeply personal. And surprisingly intimate.

It was a revelation. It was everything it had promised to be, and much, much more.

It left me deeply satisfied. And simultaneously ravenous. 

Yes, I was part of this crowdsurf wave . I think one of my best tweets ever was the one I sent moments after I took this. It said: 'I just had #BruceSpringsteen in the palm of my hands'

 
Live Bruce Springsteen is a little bit like a drug. Once you've had a taste of it, you need another fix.

I think I undertstand those die-hard fans, who travel all over the world, who notch-up the Springsteen concerts they've seen, reciting rollcalls of places and years - Barcelona, Milan, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin, Helsinki, New York, L.A., Boston, D.C. ... The friendships forged in queues, the cameraderie of the Golden Circle seekers, the mix of grim determination and eager anticipation, knowing what you are about to see but knowing also that it will be different, is always different, every time. Bruce makes sure of that.

 It's hard to explain the very personal connection people have to his music. The way thousands of people can gather en masse and yet still feel that he is talking to them alone.

I should have told Elan that seeing Bruce Springsteen live changed me. If I had a Bucket List, and a reason to use it, following Bruce around a world tour would be on it.

I'll keep you posted on that one.