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Thursday 22 October 2009
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Help me along, anyone?
As some of you might know, I am/ have been working on a book about a succubus.
The name that we give to that dastardly female, that makes us do anything for her, re-named for the female sexual spirit that appears to men in the middle of the night and makes them have sex with her, and she in turn drains their life forces; in many cases their health, longevity, and bodily fluids which many equate to the same thing.
This concept of course covers many themes; erotic dreams and the many ramifications of sexual desire, male and female, normal and the unusual, the mundane and the deviant.
What is the most intriguing thing for me, apart from the fact that this female spirit appears very ubiquitously in almost all cultures, almost unchanged, is that the general emotional response to such an idea is fear and rejection of the concept.
Many of the literature of the time, while influenced by women, is still largely documented by men. If we accept this to be so, then can one say that men are afraid of sex, a sexual woman, erotic dreams? Or does it mean that in real life, it is much preferred that a woman take a passive role in sexual relationships, or in all relationships? So that the worst manifestation of a woman, the thing that we are most prone to fear and rejection, is as a demon that prowls on men at night?
AND, if there is a universal fear about what a female SHOULD not be, what a female monster or malevolent spirit looks like, flipping that theory on its head, is there a universal theory on what she SHOULD be?
Is there a woman that every man fall in love with? Is there such a woman that can MAKE every man fall in love with her?
This is my theory, also my question, and I have been battling it out on the pages of my book; literary, fiction, for a long time. (2 years and some odd months).
As with everything, sometimes I get stuck on the direction in which to proceed forward.
The characters look like they are forcing themselves to be (any other writer out there feel me on this one, holler)
But ill pass on to you one of the nuggets of wisdom that I have gleaned from writing forums, something that is so simple, its nearly redundant to repeat.
And that is that when you are stuck for inspiration, take a break, and look at life for the inspiration that evades you in the fiction.
Simple huh?
In the spirit of that, I have been spending some time looking at some of the great examples of Succubi in local legend, urban legends, contemporary news, even in literature that was written before me. Jezebel and Jagua Nana, anyone?
Some of them overt, the others covert. The unifying character seems to be that woman who is so sure of her own power and appeal that is draws you in like a spell.
This is irregardless of her looks, or perhaps even her brains. (even though you have to admit that being a seductress requires some appreciable grey-matter cunning).
Arrogance aside, you do have to admire that grit. To get men’s balls, (sorry, there was no other way to put this), you need some yourself.
I think to myself, if I had that power over men, what would I do with it?
(Cleopatra changed a country from inside a carpet, my kinda gal)
So I will in the spirit of my work post a picture of my succubus of the week on this blog.
You are welcome to say yay or nay, just remember that for every succubus you knock off, you have to give me one back.
That’s fair isn’t it?
This week, I present to you, Madame Chantal Biya.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/5195855/Chantal-Biya-the-first-lady-of-Cameroon.html?image=1
The name that we give to that dastardly female, that makes us do anything for her, re-named for the female sexual spirit that appears to men in the middle of the night and makes them have sex with her, and she in turn drains their life forces; in many cases their health, longevity, and bodily fluids which many equate to the same thing.
This concept of course covers many themes; erotic dreams and the many ramifications of sexual desire, male and female, normal and the unusual, the mundane and the deviant.
What is the most intriguing thing for me, apart from the fact that this female spirit appears very ubiquitously in almost all cultures, almost unchanged, is that the general emotional response to such an idea is fear and rejection of the concept.
Many of the literature of the time, while influenced by women, is still largely documented by men. If we accept this to be so, then can one say that men are afraid of sex, a sexual woman, erotic dreams? Or does it mean that in real life, it is much preferred that a woman take a passive role in sexual relationships, or in all relationships? So that the worst manifestation of a woman, the thing that we are most prone to fear and rejection, is as a demon that prowls on men at night?
AND, if there is a universal fear about what a female SHOULD not be, what a female monster or malevolent spirit looks like, flipping that theory on its head, is there a universal theory on what she SHOULD be?
Is there a woman that every man fall in love with? Is there such a woman that can MAKE every man fall in love with her?
This is my theory, also my question, and I have been battling it out on the pages of my book; literary, fiction, for a long time. (2 years and some odd months).
As with everything, sometimes I get stuck on the direction in which to proceed forward.
The characters look like they are forcing themselves to be (any other writer out there feel me on this one, holler)
But ill pass on to you one of the nuggets of wisdom that I have gleaned from writing forums, something that is so simple, its nearly redundant to repeat.
And that is that when you are stuck for inspiration, take a break, and look at life for the inspiration that evades you in the fiction.
Simple huh?
In the spirit of that, I have been spending some time looking at some of the great examples of Succubi in local legend, urban legends, contemporary news, even in literature that was written before me. Jezebel and Jagua Nana, anyone?
Some of them overt, the others covert. The unifying character seems to be that woman who is so sure of her own power and appeal that is draws you in like a spell.
This is irregardless of her looks, or perhaps even her brains. (even though you have to admit that being a seductress requires some appreciable grey-matter cunning).
Arrogance aside, you do have to admire that grit. To get men’s balls, (sorry, there was no other way to put this), you need some yourself.
I think to myself, if I had that power over men, what would I do with it?
(Cleopatra changed a country from inside a carpet, my kinda gal)
So I will in the spirit of my work post a picture of my succubus of the week on this blog.
You are welcome to say yay or nay, just remember that for every succubus you knock off, you have to give me one back.
That’s fair isn’t it?
This week, I present to you, Madame Chantal Biya.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/5195855/Chantal-Biya-the-first-lady-of-Cameroon.html?image=1
Saturday 3 October 2009
DIET...
Too much of everything is bad.
Unless of course you are talking about pineapples and fountain pens.
Top of the list of what is bad in huge doses is facebook, followed by twitter, and then youtube and the fourth horseman of the apocalypse is OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOGS.
Especially when you have a project like finishing a book, to do.
I blame Starcomms you know. When i opted for 100 hours of internet per month, one of the things that I thought this would do, was that given only about 3 hours a day at the world wide WEB (pun intended), I would be able to catch up on readings, check and reply emails, laugh at some funny stuff and the like.
It was a doomed idea from day one.
All the more so since i discovered online games.
Now this is the most unoccupied I have ever been in my life, I currently have no real employer, and my hours are basically mine.
But this is also the time that I have been the most unproductive, ever since I took up my love for writing again.
If I have ignored bills and living the good life to concentrate on my art, why am i letting frivolous things steal that precious time away from me. (To all my Fabulous friends on Facebook and twitter, I'm not saying that you, or our relationship is frivolous, I'm just regretting that I'm not maximizing precious minutes but making them linger and robbing myself, and maybe you.
So, in the spirit of my new found resolve, I hereby will start an internet diet of 3 hours a day, broken into one hour each.
I'm collating my friends and their time zones so that I can sync the online times of most of them and deciding when these periods will be.
i will also post up a graph about my progress, the minute i can figure out how to go about that.
Peace!
Unless of course you are talking about pineapples and fountain pens.
Top of the list of what is bad in huge doses is facebook, followed by twitter, and then youtube and the fourth horseman of the apocalypse is OTHER PEOPLE'S BLOGS.
Especially when you have a project like finishing a book, to do.
I blame Starcomms you know. When i opted for 100 hours of internet per month, one of the things that I thought this would do, was that given only about 3 hours a day at the world wide WEB (pun intended), I would be able to catch up on readings, check and reply emails, laugh at some funny stuff and the like.
It was a doomed idea from day one.
All the more so since i discovered online games.
Now this is the most unoccupied I have ever been in my life, I currently have no real employer, and my hours are basically mine.
But this is also the time that I have been the most unproductive, ever since I took up my love for writing again.
If I have ignored bills and living the good life to concentrate on my art, why am i letting frivolous things steal that precious time away from me. (To all my Fabulous friends on Facebook and twitter, I'm not saying that you, or our relationship is frivolous, I'm just regretting that I'm not maximizing precious minutes but making them linger and robbing myself, and maybe you.
So, in the spirit of my new found resolve, I hereby will start an internet diet of 3 hours a day, broken into one hour each.
I'm collating my friends and their time zones so that I can sync the online times of most of them and deciding when these periods will be.
i will also post up a graph about my progress, the minute i can figure out how to go about that.
Peace!
Thursday 1 October 2009
Lemi Ghariokwu is on something...
And whatever it is, I want some of it!
So i was at this book reading on tuesday and no sooner than I got there and managed to score some kiss space on Jeremy Weate's cheek, and scooter into one of the chairs, had the event begun.
It was about Doreen and Toni' s book, or actually it was more about the topic of Eros and Desire in African writing, a matter which i'm very invested in since, i'm working on a book that pretty much sits on that.
(Spoiler alert...... my manuscript is on a modern say succubus.)
I do have to appreciate the fact that this topic is timely, and not only because i'm suffering from an over-kill of the mascot-writing that African writers do nowadays that makes them so self-conscious. all art must mean something and be for a purpose, but enough already with pre and post colonial issues, wars, child soilders, immigration stories and the like.
In the middle of all these, we, Africans are still living lives, that even though, they may be colored by these experiences, these experiences do not have to be the excuse or reason to pick up the pen, or tap on the keyboard.
I want to hear someone tell a story, simple.
And so did the pair of Toni Kan, and Doreen Baigana, in their books Nights of the Creaking Bed, ad Tropical Fish respectively
Had they, in my book, earned their place to moderate this discussion...hell yes.
So, where was i? okay, late and looking for a seat, which i found next to a rather slight, rather attractive man in brown ankara, who actually practically pulled the chair out for me.
And about thirty minutes later, out of the blues (in the middle of one of the readings) it suddeny hit me why the man was rather familiar, this was Mr Lemi Gharioukwu!
http://naijablog.blogspot.com/2009/09/lemi.html
The reading was nearly spoilt for me, because now I couldn't concentrate.
I ran huge colorful Fela murals through my head, and started humming the tune to "Omolakeji" (who remembers this tune when Lemi went to the music studio?), and I started to wonder that if the man looks like he is his thirties now.... my age), how could he have been alive for me to have remembered what he did when I was a mere wee baby?
It was clear, there was only one thing for it. the man must be on some secret potion to keep looking this way, and since im still doing the research on the myth of ever lasting youth, I was going to reach over and ask him to 'fess up.
....................................................,
.................................,
.........................................., ....................................
That space represents me hesitating on whether to, if to, and how to ask someone famous if he practices juju to maintain his youthful looks. any of you think you know better than me how to do it, feel free to add your ITK comments here.
Of course I didnt ask him, but I'm following his progress (closer) from now on. Just in case he slips up one day and lets his juju bag of goat bones, shea butter, cowrie shells, pigeon fat, etc. fall down and the contents scatter to the ground...i'm so blogging about it.!
So i was at this book reading on tuesday and no sooner than I got there and managed to score some kiss space on Jeremy Weate's cheek, and scooter into one of the chairs, had the event begun.
It was about Doreen and Toni' s book, or actually it was more about the topic of Eros and Desire in African writing, a matter which i'm very invested in since, i'm working on a book that pretty much sits on that.
(Spoiler alert...... my manuscript is on a modern say succubus.)
I do have to appreciate the fact that this topic is timely, and not only because i'm suffering from an over-kill of the mascot-writing that African writers do nowadays that makes them so self-conscious. all art must mean something and be for a purpose, but enough already with pre and post colonial issues, wars, child soilders, immigration stories and the like.
In the middle of all these, we, Africans are still living lives, that even though, they may be colored by these experiences, these experiences do not have to be the excuse or reason to pick up the pen, or tap on the keyboard.
I want to hear someone tell a story, simple.
And so did the pair of Toni Kan, and Doreen Baigana, in their books Nights of the Creaking Bed, ad Tropical Fish respectively
Had they, in my book, earned their place to moderate this discussion...hell yes.
So, where was i? okay, late and looking for a seat, which i found next to a rather slight, rather attractive man in brown ankara, who actually practically pulled the chair out for me.
And about thirty minutes later, out of the blues (in the middle of one of the readings) it suddeny hit me why the man was rather familiar, this was Mr Lemi Gharioukwu!
http://naijablog.blogspot.com/2009/09/lemi.html
The reading was nearly spoilt for me, because now I couldn't concentrate.
I ran huge colorful Fela murals through my head, and started humming the tune to "Omolakeji" (who remembers this tune when Lemi went to the music studio?), and I started to wonder that if the man looks like he is his thirties now.... my age), how could he have been alive for me to have remembered what he did when I was a mere wee baby?
It was clear, there was only one thing for it. the man must be on some secret potion to keep looking this way, and since im still doing the research on the myth of ever lasting youth, I was going to reach over and ask him to 'fess up.
....................................................,
.................................,
.........................................., ....................................
That space represents me hesitating on whether to, if to, and how to ask someone famous if he practices juju to maintain his youthful looks. any of you think you know better than me how to do it, feel free to add your ITK comments here.
Of course I didnt ask him, but I'm following his progress (closer) from now on. Just in case he slips up one day and lets his juju bag of goat bones, shea butter, cowrie shells, pigeon fat, etc. fall down and the contents scatter to the ground...i'm so blogging about it.!
Wednesday 15 July 2009
Okay world,
its been a minute.
the good news, while i will know, that i am not a good blogger, I have been making a lot of progress in the other thing that I have been spending my time doing
Which im not going to jinx by talking about it too much..but lets give it a picture shall we?
here's my portrait of art.
its been a minute.
the good news, while i will know, that i am not a good blogger, I have been making a lot of progress in the other thing that I have been spending my time doing
Which im not going to jinx by talking about it too much..but lets give it a picture shall we?
here's my portrait of art.
Sunday 10 May 2009
I know what I shuldnt be
Okay, there are some people that should be bloggers and some other should just be happy to be readers and blog-stalkers.
I mean what was i thinking??? wasting my time and some of the other people that have ever bothered to stumble on my page and look here.
And would you know if it wasn't that i wasn't (my grammar o...) always on the internet, one would understand, but i'm always here, looking at writing, books, hair, fashion, jewelery, craft, kitchen-sinking etc.
then I go over to what is the excuse of this straggly site, tut-tut my head, promise to do better, and then leave.
And guess what happens?
Sigh, sigh.....im shameless, i tell you.
and then something i have thought about I remember exactly ten years ago, that there were two broad categories of people in this world, the players and the audience.
and most of us like to think as players, but guess what the truth is?
And like everyone i have spent so much time convincing myself that i was a player when the truth might be different?
I believe the world ,might just be an easier place if people (and i'm talking to myself here) defined where we were supposed to be, where we want to be ( and then work hard enough for it) and stop biting nails.
SO i make a promise to myself to move my body and brains and put an end to this life lethargy.
here's hoping
I mean what was i thinking??? wasting my time and some of the other people that have ever bothered to stumble on my page and look here.
And would you know if it wasn't that i wasn't (my grammar o...) always on the internet, one would understand, but i'm always here, looking at writing, books, hair, fashion, jewelery, craft, kitchen-sinking etc.
then I go over to what is the excuse of this straggly site, tut-tut my head, promise to do better, and then leave.
And guess what happens?
Sigh, sigh.....im shameless, i tell you.
and then something i have thought about I remember exactly ten years ago, that there were two broad categories of people in this world, the players and the audience.
and most of us like to think as players, but guess what the truth is?
And like everyone i have spent so much time convincing myself that i was a player when the truth might be different?
I believe the world ,might just be an easier place if people (and i'm talking to myself here) defined where we were supposed to be, where we want to be ( and then work hard enough for it) and stop biting nails.
SO i make a promise to myself to move my body and brains and put an end to this life lethargy.
here's hoping
Sunday 29 March 2009
Getting out of a rut
3 days ago, i took an unplanned journey of of Lagos into Ibadan ( I was just about to type "the city of..." in front of Ibadan, one of those things we find ourselves saying without really knowing why.
Ibadan has a somewhat glorious reputation as a quaint city, rather full of collective memory, representing something of a certain era, perhaps a certain je-ne-sais-quoi of arts.
But what i found was a city that had a certain peace, while still hinting of something old but deep inside.
Even taking a walk inside the hot air, on the grounds of the University of Ibadan, I felt a certain something that I was trying to put on paper later, but could not quite.
I will blog later about the event that I went to Ibadan for, but what i can say is that Ibadan has reminded me that I ought to leave Lagos behind a lot more often.
There is a place I have been for almost a year, that makes moving forward, being excited, making new things and daring life, quite ardous, but here I am again life,
take me!
Ibadan has a somewhat glorious reputation as a quaint city, rather full of collective memory, representing something of a certain era, perhaps a certain je-ne-sais-quoi of arts.
But what i found was a city that had a certain peace, while still hinting of something old but deep inside.
Even taking a walk inside the hot air, on the grounds of the University of Ibadan, I felt a certain something that I was trying to put on paper later, but could not quite.
I will blog later about the event that I went to Ibadan for, but what i can say is that Ibadan has reminded me that I ought to leave Lagos behind a lot more often.
There is a place I have been for almost a year, that makes moving forward, being excited, making new things and daring life, quite ardous, but here I am again life,
take me!
Wednesday 4 February 2009
and this should suffise...somewhat
Of course I would have had a post about the awesome charity concert that i went to on
Inspire Africa for the street child, at the EXPO centre Lagos, on saturday, but being that the evening ended with my car with being towed away, and me having to go look for it in the middle of the night (actually, morning..2am) its taken away a lot of my mojo for that post.
all I'm going to say is that it was truly awesome...Carl Thomas can sing like nothing funny...
I have been reading a lot of Oscar Wilde...this is not (entirely) what explains my time away..but he is certainly my type...
I mean, I dont really have a type...but if I did, Oscar...you would be in it
Inspire Africa for the street child, at the EXPO centre Lagos, on saturday, but being that the evening ended with my car with being towed away, and me having to go look for it in the middle of the night (actually, morning..2am) its taken away a lot of my mojo for that post.
all I'm going to say is that it was truly awesome...Carl Thomas can sing like nothing funny...
I have been reading a lot of Oscar Wilde...this is not (entirely) what explains my time away..but he is certainly my type...
I mean, I dont really have a type...but if I did, Oscar...you would be in it
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