Menu
Fifty years ago, a wind stirred, a slight breeze, a melodic air if you will. It rose and died. It barely touched the earth during its time of life. It was the sound and soul of Nick Drake. The young singer-songwriter released three albums from 1969 until 1972, the first when he was 21. He
Read More
“Poetry is resonating with people who are looking for understanding. It is a really good way to explore complex, difficult emotions and uncertainty” – Andre Breedt, Nielsen Book Research. ** It was World Poetry Day recently. I missed it. I expect most did, too. For the record it was March 21. Put that in your
Read More
Here’s to the 17-year-old teenager who slammed a raw egg into the head of Senator Fraser Anning at the weekend. Anning was so shellshocked he lunged at the lad and bashed him. If Anning had any wits about him (Yes, a long shot), he should have praised the teenager for egging him on. Laugh it
Read More
And so shock dies. This is the shock we used to know to define our state of being at witnessing or receiving news of a catastrophic event. Shock would rattle the bones, the heart and the head. We were in shock. Now, no more. This latter vanishing is the collateral damage of the slaughter of
Read More
Alas and alack to be these three syllables: oversight. It’d be exhausting. The work never stops. You get hauled out of bed, away from family and friends such as overshot and overside, at the drop of a hat. You’re on constant call, any time of the day or night. You’re thrown into situations not of your own
Read More
Four years ago Joni Mitchell’s voice fell silent to the world, the victim, with her body, of a brain aneurysm. Mitchell turned 75 last November. A tribute concert was held over two nights in her honour. A film of the shows was given limited release in American cinemas in the past few days. A CD
Read More
How dumb is a rock? The time has come for an answer. We simply cannot have the US President, Donald Trump, hurling it about with gay abandon into public discourse, without an answer. In the latest incident, Trump described Rex Tillerson (above left), who for barely more than a year was his secretary of state,
Read More
“The gift of time in reflection has provided some clarity …” It reads as the opening words of a philosopher, sitting in a bower, contemplating life and offering to the trees and sky an essence of what he or she now would utter on something important, something of a distilled universal nature. But no, not
Read More
Terror comes in waves. The first is the bullet, knife or bomb. Then, the maiming or the death. Then there is the grief. The third drops into lives like a large stone dropped into a lake; it radiates out, slams into those directly affected and touches others with fainter ripples. Sometimes, it drowns those over
Read More
The race that stopped the nation stopped the horse. So death becomes us, becomes even more part of our culture, but not in a way that grasps us by the throat and sends us into gasps of grief. No, we say it’s tragic and move on. Culture’s collateral damage really. It’s not as if a
Read More