my new obsession of the week...graffiti

Faith47

Faith47, mark10ne

I take great pleasure in writing about the mundane. People are too serious these days. Conversations have become so boring around the country, with every second person giving their psudo-political alalysis of everything from Jacob Zuma to Barack Obama and the looming recession. It's like everyone has decided that it is cool to be a bore and talk about politics. I find it boring and it bores me to even write about it.

Instead I am putting up pictures I took of some graffiti art in the area I now reside. I take a long walk every morning just so I can walk past this wall (and because I really need the exercise) and this week I had my camera on hand and was able to take pics of the wall.

With the first picture I tried to get that "through the prison bars feel"by taking the picture from the other side of the fence and failed dismally (as you can see). Because the bars ended up blocking out large chunks of the wall and I was standing too far from the wall. But it was worth a shot.

The second shot is a little clearer, I will try to get more pics and post them on here. I think while everyone is obsessing about the economy and politics, my new obsession will be to take pictures of graffiti. And this post is dedicated to Blaqdust86, for sorta like getting me to start noticing graffiti art for its beauty!

the hills- Kirstenbosch botanical gardens

I am aware that this looks nothing like the botanical gardens, that is because it isn't. This is on the other side where I work, along with other tree-huggers amongst the trees and all things natural. We do have a beautiful building or two but this view on the way up is way prettier.

my view is better than yours

I was making my way to the office, up this really steep hill at SANBI. It takes me about 15minutes to walk from the gate (where I get dropped off by the bus). Today was one of those few days when I didn't mind the walk coz the sun was shining (which hardly ever happens in the Republic of Cape Town) I now wish I was based here all year, it's so beautiful.

Carlos Mombeli and Prisoners of Strange

Unfortunately by connection is too ancient for me to upload the video of them performing :(

This video was taken by your's truely (which explains the sub-standard-quality) at the Pan African Space Station event. This performance took place at the Slave Church on Long Street in Cape Town.

Lifestlye SA festival- Celebrating Black

The Festival was held at the Kenilworth Race course and I went through on Saturday to go check it out. They had a line-up that included comedians, poets, musicians, panel discussions as well as money game shows (don't ask). In sticking to the theme of "celebrating black", I arrived a little late and missed the opening. Lucky for me they repeated it late (because lots of other people arrived much later than I did, so technically I was early) in the afternoon and I got to see the poetry section as well as comedian Tumi Morake (whom I had missed earlier). Another comedian, Eugene Khoza, performed and Stuart Taylor (you guessed it, he is also a comedian) was the host. I am telling you, the comedians are taking over, forget what you've heard. Then we had panel discussions on BEE (Black Economic Empowerment), property and success. The first two discussions were kinda ok, the men and ladies did look rather dashing in their nice suits, glasses and sounded so smart using big words while the rest of us pretended to be interested. The last discussion on success was badly timed. I mean, the last thing you want to hear at 19h30 on a Saturday evening is three people discussing how wonderful Stellenbosch University is and how the middle class is suffering from a case of BEE-induced "affluenza"...*yawn*. The real reason why we all sat through all that was so that we can see HHP, Jimmy Dludlu and Ringo Madlingozi perform, and they didn't disappoint. Although, hearing Ringo perform live did bring back bad memories of my med-student roomie playing his music when I was trying to sleep. I took a couple of bad pictures for your pleasure, enjoy!! Ringo Madlingozi in all his glory, I can't hate though. Although i missed most of his performance, I was singing along at some point. Hip Hop Pantsula (hhp) a.k.a Jabba invited Jimmy Dludlu diring his set and they gave a killer performance. Jimmy Dludlu was amazing. I am now a fan. After being force-fed his music by my dad and sister, i enjoyed listening to him on my own terms and he is great. (wait till my sister hears this lol)

Part of the Poerty delight set, Metabolism and Xoliswa during the opening sequence. Zandile Dlamini doing her poem "Put your gun down". Mbali Vilakazi closing the show with her piece, "love says"

yet another cooking expedition gone almost right

I have been busy brushing up on my cooking skills. It has been very fruitful thus far. Im a few dishes away from that dinner conversation where I can proudly proclaim why I prefer basil in my sauce, as opposed to coriander. Please bear in mind that these are terms I have heard Jamie Oliver use on his show and I am yet to find out what they look like since I have absolutely no interest in cooking, but that's a story for another time. back to my cooking expedition, so I made rice and meat because I thought they were the easiest to make. I applied my age-old-never-fail cooking philosophy which simply states "when in doubt..boil". Essentially that's what cooking is right? So I made the rice and it was perfect (no seriously folks it was). Then boiled my meat and poured spices and what not. I was pretty chuffed with myself, it smelled great and didn't look like death warmed up. Then I had a bright idea. I decided to use the pepper grinder to add a bit of flavour to my dish. So I turned it and all those round little peppers ended up toppling into my pot because the grinder wasn't screwed on properly (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). I managed to remove most of them and I added some tomato sauce and Mrs Balls chutney in an effort to try and salvage the meal. When that didn't work, I added more salt and left the damn thing to simmer and cook in its own juices like Jamie Oliver said because he should know. A while later I had my meal and it was not bad at all, at least that's what my friend said as she was spitting bits of peppers out of her mouth...