wolesgirl

In my defence......

2010-06-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

I blame my workspace, which right now looks a huge mess.
The reason is simple.
I often write from the computer, and my favorite to type with is my Mac™ computer.
Because you know, I’m a serious writer and we all know all serious writers must use the Mac™ computer.
Some authors get by on Windows™ computers, but frankly we know that those ones will always struggle.
My beautiful Mac™ is more than 3 years old now, and in some serious need of an upgrade, but if wishes were horses, I’d be a professional jockey.
Lately, it has these emotional issues and chooses to open many programs and some disk drives in a purely random manner, and many times I approach it in pure trepidation, never knowing which mood she is going to be in that day.
The battery is also just about gone, which means I type and save manically and curse very frequently when PHCN cuts the power, sometimes before I have the chance to hit the “save” button.
And what else….oh yeah, by some circuiting problem, the left side of the machine gives me a small jolt when I’m not wearing shoes, which I frequently am not.
So, this machine has me typing manically, cursing like an anti-Christian and in dire danger of one day dying from an electric shock just about everyday.
But here I am, 3 years later, still madly in love.
And still madly proud. Because I’d love to change it and use the Windows™, but what kind of serious writer would that make me?
And this bring us to the Windows™.
Well, I’ll be fair, performance and longevity-wise, I’ve had better luck with my Windows; a clunky, heavy, silver, cheap-plastic Dell™. To be honest, I look at that machine and it reminds me of an ugly shoe.
But that’s all the complaints I’m allowed to have under God’s green earth, because this child has held out.
It is seven years old, bought with scarce funds that I didn’t have, sometime ago as a student. I opportunity-cost(ed) some medical textbooks at the time, and even then, it took about six months and then some to pay it all off. (long story) But I had a computer, I was a year-three student and that fact made me so fly!
Here comes my book, my thesis, my discovery of the cure for saggy bottoms!.
Then I was soon to discover, meekly, that the computer only helps you to write what is inside your head, tap-tapping on the keyboard alone will not do the job and magically put the words, the thoughts, the book, the theory together.
Oh well, at least I could watch DVD’s.
And when I started to get free-lance writing gigs in and outside school, having a computer was an amazing plus, so it was not all in vain.
In spite of falls, bangs and scratches, it has held on stoically like a soldier. A very good product. A bit slow nowadays, but a good product.
If only it would stop looking like an ugly shoe.
Did I mention its slowness? I did I guess, but I must have glossed over it, because that child is slow man…..kilode?
This is how I put it on.

Step one….open computer and press the “on” key.
Step two.. wait a few seconds to see if “on” heard me.
Step two and half… (often inevitable) repeat step two louder.
Step three… If step two and a half goes the right way, step away from the computer for about fifteen minutes. Go and make breakfast, arrange your books, find a pen, review your journal for the day, look at your notes for the day and etcetera ( I don’t do such serious writer-ly things, mind) most of the time I’m taking one of my many showers in the day.
Step three and a half….if Step three is taking long today, wait a little longer.
Step four: by this time, the reason for the fifteen minutes (ugly-shoe is booting up) has usually run its course.
Step five: Now you can do your writing or the day. Or watch DVD’s (mind your business jo!)

Okay where was I?
Oh okay, my workspace…so the reason why its such a mess.
This is because I often have both computers on, the Mac for until PHCN strikes, and the Windows to resume hereafter ( in spite of its unforgivable ugliness, it has held up with battery power and even after eight years, has a spare that still works like Day One).
Behind the silver cheap-plastic is a silver lining abi?
Then there is my portable HP printer to print and revise work with. Which has not made up its mind if it likes my Mac™ or my Windows™ better, because some days it works fine with one, and the next it says it doesn’t want to be friends no more.
Then we switch to the other.
So where were we, last count, two laptops, one schizophrenic printer. My two phones always permanently charging (I know, this is so bush of me, but Im always plugging rechargeable things into power as soon as I find a power source. There must be a name for this compulsive disorder. *The different ways in which Nigeria has messed up otherwise normal adults is criminal*)
Add some other odds and ends, empty plastic bottles, hair-pins, too many shoes, some nail polish (when dialogue wont come, give yourself a manicure), scratched recharge cards, lists of people I need to call, articles to write and you have an idea of what it is like in my workspace.
And that is the reason why I haven’t finished the manuscript yet, or why I haven’t been updating this blog.
And with that M’lord, the defence rests…….

Happy Birthday Quasimodo!

2010-05-16T03:18:00.000-07:00

R.I.P Dagrin

2010-04-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

So young, so talented, so soon.
My heart bleeds.

2009-10-22T11:21:00.001-07:00

Help me along, anyone?

2009-10-13T12:02:00.001-07:00

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

DIET...

2009-10-03T08:11:00.000-07:00

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!

Lemi Ghariokwu is on something...

2009-10-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

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.!

2009-07-15T07:19:00.000-07:00

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.

I know what I shuldnt be

2009-05-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

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

Getting out of a rut

2009-03-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

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!

and this should suffise...somewhat

2009-02-04T10:51:00.000-08:00

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

making a case for the computer

2008-10-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

part of me that always wanted to be a writer actauly fell in love with the picture of the glasses, and the type writer (white corona beauty, natch), and the frenzied tap-tapping hunched over the beautiful mahogany table.
I blame the movies for making this seem so easy.
In real life, not only is the romance of novel writing completely over done because the publishing shadow hangs willy-nilly over your shoulder, it is also because the frenzy is a lie.
Well, most days.
Most days its a deliberate, slow, stiff cog wheel, and when you have been at it, inhaling and exhaling for long enough at your table( which by the way is corrugated metal, and like mine, missing a leg) its gives you a gratuitiois give, every oh, say forty-nine minutes or so
that is not to say those periods are not their own rewards, because truly they are...but then again....
Oh, yeah, the title of my post is making a case for the computer, which is my two kobo about blogger tayari, who by the way i COMPLETELY ADORE here
http://www.tayarijones.com/blog/archives/2008/08/the_case_for_pe.html
I happen to live in nigeria, where you cannot always power your laptop, (you cannot always do a lot of things, but forgive my lassitude right now with all of those)
I bought, 3 years ago, a fountain pen to write with and while i write a mean cursive, and i like the accomplished-for-the-day effect a full day of work can look like on a white page, i have to say , that ultimately, for me, nothing beats getting into sync with my words( whenever that happens), and listening with my inner ear, the tap-tapping of my fingers on the key....
Im working...im typing...look ma...its actually happening.....
and with that, i have to push off right now, and go and tap-tap somewhere else, where the pages really do matter....

Book shop bail out!

2008-10-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so I know Im supposed to suffer for my craft, but this is ridiculous...
I went into a book shop and as usual started drooling spittles of desire on several hard-cover books....
Since I bought my book shelf, (previously owned mahogany beauty, from Lagos ministry Alausa furniture auction) i decided as much as I could, to only put hard cover books there.
I love me some hard cover fiction title.
So I was minding my own business in the fiction titles, when Salvador Dali strecthed one of his fantasio whiskers and whistled to me.....(like he was calling a cab)
I walk over there, and there is still coffee-table-style-biography, compendium-of-works book.
Now the relationship between me and Dali is hard to explain, (technically, all of his and most of my own relationships are a bit of work for most people) but ill tell you this, twice in my life, I have been experienced deliruim while sick with a fever, and both times, my hallucinations have both been about me walking about bare feet in a dali-esque landscape.
we share a connection I insist, and one day, when im grown and rich, I will own a painting by Dali.
As you might have guessed the 600 plus page miracle is fatally expensive.
But. I.have.to.have.it
Only its too gorgeous to be for display only on a coffee table.
this one is for reading, and keeping, and reading, and keeping

since you should only blog when there is something to say....

2008-09-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

Just checking in to see that my people are safely tucked in.
I have taken my own advice and embarked on a course that is scary but familiar.
Ive just got to tell you all about it, but right now I have to shove off to do some of that very thing that is keeping me very excited.
But busy.
Good night, Good night my darlings...
'Till the 'morrow.....

My own version of the Chain Gang Song

2008-09-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

First of, Ill have all of you know that Im aware its a bad idea.
For some reason, that is midly inexplicable, bloggers cant really talk about whats bad about work.
You can go on about specifics: a horrible boss ( i have), office gossip, then-she-said-i-said-and-then-she-said-in-the-toilet-during-lunch, the bad lunch in canteen...all anecdoctal fodder for the funny, insightful, and down-right sympathy seeking opinions.
But to say, like im about to, that all is not well with the REASON why you work...that is just bending it a bit right?
Well people, I have no choice.
Im a doctor, and i hate it.
And whats worse, people dont expect me to. And this is not just members of my family and friends and legions of the but-we-were-so-proud-when-you-finished-medical-school gamut...its everyone, my colleagues, my patients, the old lady that plaits my hair.....(eyin doctor ma n try sha.......)...loose translation...I think you are superhuman, and if i had the chance i would want my daughter to be like you.....
Because of this i have been blackmailed I guess into ignoring the nagging need to scream at myself and what I do.
I chose to be a doctor because I wanted to PERSIST and INSIST in my naïve bubble gum view of the world…you know, one that needed saving from Humans, and would ironically also be saved by Humania. The wall of a dam, behind which The Humanity River raged, which had sprung a finger-sized leak, and could be salvaged by someone just plugging up the hole with his hand.
When one gets tired, another takes his place. So the Brother Love thing goes like
“ Hey man, whats happening?”
“Nothing Brother man, ( as he shakes off some of the mist from standing under the freaking dam off his face) “just coming from doing my time at the dam you know…”
“Oh that’s good brother, I’m just off there for some time too, that wall is not going to break, not on my own watch”….
“well its alright then”
“peace and love”
P.S: I know these two sound like are two badly written hippie / black consciousness-movement/ ‘70’s Christian evangelists characters
But can you just ignore that and get on with reading the point of the story?
So there I was doing my time at THE WALL, and as we were taught in med school ad nauseaum, medicine is a calling*….(* for the brave, noble, gifted, ) then I realized while practicing that not only am I none of these things, but that I’m tired of pretending to be, so that the dam wall (pronounce it again) might fall one day anyway, and perhaps damming it up was not the brightest plan anyway.
Now before I come across as a just mildly exhausted noble (see above) person who had been doing right, let me tell you this… I was never really converted anyway. I just hoped I guess that by plugging on, epiphany would find me, then I just might discover the why, when, or how to do my bit for the world dam, dam world, River river.
I should probably get out of the way, and let the true disciples get in. The ones who will not self-doubt as much as I do, who will work on spite of obstacles like broken needles, fake drugs, unpaid bills, no health insurance, poor mothers, terminal illnesses and believe that there is a point to all this, and there is a plan.
You know….crazy people….or Aliens.
Or evangelists, or Black consciousness movement people…..
Or actually, anybody stronger then me.

2008-09-06T01:34:00.000-07:00

So. I .Went. Out. Yesterday.
And this might just surprise people who really realy know me.
Because for me, having a good time is not particularly found in the fast, nearly desperate scene that it can sometimes be in the Lagos social circle.
At heart, im truly, very boring.
Anyway. I did.
Drinks with two long-time friends at one of the chi-chi hang outs on Victoria Island, which managed to score some points in my book because they were celebrating some anniversary and we scored drinks on the house and supossed free food (food mysteriously failed to appear until we sulked out)
The topic of the evening was to bond about all that was right, and all that peeved us in our lives presently.
I wanted to confess my inner secret. I was about to change career (again) and i seriously needed to verbally test-drive the idea in front of friends that didnt mind being cruel, i guess just to pinch myself....
How that went?.........well..........
We'll never know, I lost my nerve somewhere in the middle of trying to confess it.
I had a glass of champagne, a watermelon-something cocktail, and finished it all with a mojito.....
Did not get tipsy, and that scares the hell out of me............

how to serve revenge......

2008-09-04T00:01:00.000-07:00

as some of you facebookers might know, i dont like my boss very much this week.....or this month..., i just really dont like her period.
And i do feel quite justified, but Im not to rant about that right now.
What I do want to talk about (he-he-he!) is the way to deal with all my anger at the unfair things she does to me.....actually all of us that work under her, but im most concerned of course about me......
If you really want to get even, write the person you most detest about into really hyperbolic character in your book ( i mean, slightly chubby becomes stopping-to-gasp-on-the-street obese, one small pimple can become pizza face, PMS can translate into an egomaniac, then have your charcter meet an unfortunate happenstance.......not death o! (believe it or not, im actually not that bad).....
you would feel so great every morning, and be able to get through the day, more harrasment or not, all you have to do is give yourself an inner wink!
P.S: be sure to give your disclaimer about "all characters in this book are purely ficticious and any (he-he) resemblance (he-he-he-he) borne to (haw-haw-haw-haw!!!!!)...........
hmmm.......now, exactly where would a cruella professor character fit into my book....hmmmmm......

A la Vivian Baxter

2008-07-17T15:15:00.000-07:00

I remember the way I felt when i read this bit from Maya Angelou's phenomenal auto-biography......
so Maya had just been to see her mother, after i think a bit of time (and water) had passed under the bridge (you have to read the book)...Now Vivian Baxter, if we are to believe Ms Angelou about her own mother is no joke....tough cookie she was, even before we had to invent the phrase...she was the first person, i kind of like to think that cut the picture of the intelligent little old lady, full of wisdom and stories of old lovers, wore fur and gloves and hats, but could down mean martinis, and carried a pistol in her lamb skin evening purse ( vivian baxter actually did...)
They met in a bar (I think) and Maya filled her mother up about what had happened so far, in her life...Black civil rights movements in the 60's , raising her young son, fears about finances, Vivian had let her cry on her shoulder, and (here is where my story begins) when it was time to go, vivain said to her (or something like it...I lost my book)
"I'll just walk away, I hate to say goodbye to the people I love" and swaggered her hips out of the resturant...everyone of course watched the clssy little lady sashay out....
At 14 years i was at the time, I fell in love with my first virtual person; i kept thinking...what a bad ass....suddenly my grandmother, who is no less a phenomenom,( with stories for another day) seemed too tame and well...dull.....
i wondered If I wrote her to ask , would she adopt me?
I didnt, and Vivian died never knowing how long a little girl would hope that that kind of scenario would ever play itself ut with me in it just so i could say that....
Anyway, this is a close second....
I hate to explain absences to people i love, lets just get on with it...............,,,
thats me sashaying off the screen till the next (near) post.

An evening of charity

2007-04-14T10:34:00.001-07:00

I have done one of the things i never thought i would in my life...
I went to one of the charities that are tailor made for africa...you know one of theose ones that advertise the starving children with the thin dry thighs, flies in their mouths and eyes, famine-cracked dry soil, robust vultures and the like of that, charities concerned wiith hunger in africa, aids in africa, war in the continent.
The reason for that thinking?.......that none of those events that are stemmed in western patronising attitudes had any kind of effect on the many african issues that they were not entirely innocent of their causes in the first place.
I would imagine a bunch of western imperialist tut-tutting in their straw hats and mini sandwiches over how "cute", "innocent looking", "really loving life " the African children were........in a way that suggests that they are surprised that african children might be similar to white offsprings in the first place.
It takes a bit sometimes to take a look at how bigotted one does not realise one is.....
But I digress....anyways I went to the charity event of the
Food for hunger, a New York collaboration between bourgeoise resturants and international designers to host a food tasting event, with fashion show and auction at the end of it to raise money, in addition to the ticketing takings.....
So when someone had offered me free tickets to a fund raising charity event, shamlessly i went anyway, to do my part for the continent.....
LOADS of people showed up, cold april weather or not....awoof apparently knows no colour or gender...
In a huge TV screen, greeting me right after the coat check were those same old images of Africa as defined unoriginally as ....flies, kids, and more flies...tried and tested..works everytime
I get in there aand everything is spiffy, art types and lovers of them, models, photographers..all in the room swilring around once again high culture...
The food is amazing and plentiful, red wine is in the house and im happy.
In spite of this I cant help but feel out of sorts, here we are in a cool swanky hall, food, music and even potential couplings...and the skeptic in me wants to keep asking......
Are we doing anything? making the potential difference to the problems of Africa?
Im on the other side now...that part of the fence that had the people who were formerly the targets of my scorn...we wined and dined and made ourselves believe that by merely putting our dollars in a pot for some trite memento, we would be able to sleep easy. (I got an orginal rolled havana cigar, rolled apparently by a famous afficionado who flew in to attend from Cuba. Its still on my dresser, it gives me pleasure just to even LOOK at it)
But there was one thing that i didnt prepare for learning that night, a lesson in spite of myself.
Do-gooders alwayd get bad rap right? and that is because we, the others never are able to see beyond their awkward attempts to do what they consider is the right thing, frankly because its more fun really to laugh at those fumblings than give credit.
sure there were those people who came for the food, photo-op opportunities and shmalzing with the quasi-famous.
But there were other people who came with the fabled heart of gold, who just were looking for the right place to fulfil their calling.
They came to the people like me in the audience, asked questions , wanted to know beyond whats was superficially served as the definition of the circumstances of Africa.
I felt my myself, in spite of myself, thawing to gestures like that, and deciding not to look their gift horse in the mouth any more.
The real charity of the evening, was not in the money, but the giving of the spirit that some of the participants showed that evening.
So the next time there is a charity ball, i shall put that cynical imp inside me to sleep, wear a dress, shave my legs and go and have over-priced food, and hope one of the miracles of the evening will be that a heart that is ready, will meet a cause that is true.
The cause for which we were gathered can be seen here....http://www.resturantsagainsthunger.net

It's still there, my people

2007-04-02T06:55:00.000-07:00

The 200 year celebration of the slavery abolition was celebrated about last week everywhere, England held a memorial mass, everywhere else we shed tears....
I was unmoved..who still cares about stuff like that? we have moved from that point as a people, as a world, i said..... we should look at the entire episode as a huge mistake, a blot in the tapestry of our collective experience of the world and only those who had a problem with moving on should remain there....
Well, I was wrong..... I guess the biggest suprise for me shouldnt be that people still have racist views, which naturally can be traced directly to prevalent ideology that allowed the slavery to persist on that scale, for that long anyway....
The terse public stand on views that promote racism still is frowned at in, in official quaters anyway, so I guess that was why I was shocked while watching the TV one night, that a channel as professional as the C-SPAN would allow a hair-ball like a Brian Lamb..otherwise a competent host to display such shameless patrronising when talking to author Ishmeal Beah.
more about him can be found here........http://www.alongwaygone.com/
For anyone to have lived the kind of life that Ishameal has, and to still be here, all bones and otherwise in place to still tell the tale is something that any human should consider nothing less than absolutely miraculous and nearly surreal....
But not to Mr Lamb, no sir...he pummelled into the incredibly intelligent, astute, present best-selling author Ishamel with kindergaten-like questions....
"what will you do with the money from the book" buy bananas..plenty...and eat them all..
"How did you remember all the things that happened to you in the war?" my kodak digital camera,..... and thank good ness for mobile blogging in the sierra-leone jungle in the '90s....
"how many people would you say you killed?" well after the two thousandth notch on the tree, I gave up counting.....
When he learns that an African school boy discovered and developed a love for shakespeare, and american hip-hop......his suprise is not from a nice place of healthy wonder.....
And the incredible, even for a inpet interviwer like Lamb...coup-de-resistance :" where is your country, sierra-leone?" just off Hawaii....you dont need a visa there if you are american...
When will people like this learn, get over it Brian....and the likes of him...its over...black people are free now...thinking they are less intelligent so that it made it easier to sell them, is a defese mechanism that is no longer necessary.....
Im hoping mad..but you know what...dont take my word for it...see for yourself
http://qanda.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1121

Law and ORDER!!!!!!!!

2007-03-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

Are we looking for trouble if we allow the murder of Oluwatoyin Oluwaseesin to go unprosecuted?
http://odili.net/news/source/2007/mar/28/808.html
I think we are......
That is the oluwatoyin that does the unpopular going to work in another state that is far away form her home, family and constituency? ( im still trying to dodge any kind of NYSC that is farther than 200 naira bus fare to my mummy's laps)
Who as a teacher rightly should, refused to allow examination malpractice, and then was stabbed, stripped and burnt, by her students?
????????????
Im so looking forward to the day when the government or judicary will be able to make decisions in Nigeria without nervously biting nails over not wanting to look sectarian, tribal, or favoring some politico-religious grouping over the other.......
This woman is a citizen of Nigeria, and no one has been investigated, charged, invited, queried or called to any kind of order over her?.... But what am i saying? this is naija now?
If this is what it has come to... stop the world..i want to get off

maybe next time ill try venus

2007-03-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

ok, so i know i was being cheap....
but since I have not received any gladdening phone call from my family just yet this week, I can only speculate about the state/ or existence of my allowance, and in the mean time, watch my purse strings....
So they say spring is officially here and we have to have smooth legs....being that there was no way i was going to splurge for a manhattan leg wax, i attacked my pins in the bathroom, with BIC disposable shaver and olay body wash....
It was okay for 2 days and I was still "feeling cool" with myself, i got this spring nicked (without nicking myself in the process)....
Well. this morning woke up to find the entire front of my thighs covered in itchy bumps....(not cool at all).
I took a picture, and was going to put it up (for only the un-squeamish)......
but on second thoughts....naahhhhh......ill figure out how to air-brush cellulite, and get back to you on that one
Peace!

ill huff, and puff, a la Mr Mabiakwu.....

2007-03-20T12:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is very late, I know...but has anyone out there watching the M-net Idols laughed at Dede Madiaku- "Cowell"?
http://www.mnetafrica.com/idols/UBTheJudgeVideoGallery/category.asp?Id=2
At the village square again was a recent atricle by someone who said that, more or less, we should delight in our nature as Nigerians, those attributes of loudness, verbosity, and belligerence, even when in simple conversations or honest discourse...this he said, is what makes us Nigerians, and to ice the fruit-cake (yes, you Mr author..I mean all my puns), this is what he misses most about being in the west, the west of colourless arguements and pale modulated tones.
Im starting this way because I anticipate a lot of people would riposte that the comparison of a "westerner" to a "Nigerian" judge is flawed, so lets kill that one right there, shall we?
Firstly, of all the judges on the panel, Dede's credentials are the ones that I personally would hold to least examination as anyone would rightly surmise, award-winning brother has been around for quite a bit...stage, TV, writer, performer etc.
I have no idea who the Nana Lady is, (probaby my own ommision, mind)and apart from the fact that a radio personality would have a huge catalogue of trends in commercial music, I would not have voted Mr. Foster to be the best picks of musical talent appraisal either...but moving on from this point.....Let pick on some well refined high-points of Mr. Mabiakwu so far....
"West-life? west-life did the song "I have a dream? I put it to you that you are a liar!" "that song was done by ABBA!" the harangued contestant, obviously confused, now questioning her sanity, and began imagining that the boot legged compilation she mimed to practise to, exists in her bedroom drawer, only in a parallel universe.
The shoe, however, was on the other foot when it was whispered to Dede that Westlife had indeed done a cover on the ABBA song of contention.
"How tall are you? I can tell you that your height is exactly the height of your stupidity!" to a rather gangly hopeful who did lack singing talent, leaving poor Dan and Nana, to cringe uncomfortably, and try to dilute tensions with palliatives aimed at both parties
His golden, (even if I can understand since I am mad too) outburst at the poor kid who thought he could catapualt himself, sans trousers, into the stratosphere of fame, via Fela's underpants...,
and his shameful mockery of the contestants by taunting them to render "I believe I can fly"..although I nearly forgave him when I burst my seams as one of the contestants told us that "I believe I can FRY......",
It has been more entertaining to watch Dede's puerile attempts at impersonal, standard crticisms than the intended unravelling of the contestants themselves.
In fact I think its a good thing he has a big mouth, because how else would be be able to judge a show like Mnet Idols with both of his feet firmly tucked in it?

Ori-ade mi Ayinke

2007-03-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

At a recent post on the Nigeria Village Square website, I saw an article called "letter to my son, age minus six months", and It thought to myself...here's a thought.....I have always wished If I could to be able to talk to my children unborn too...What would be the first thing I would tell them? well...her, since Im convinced that I shall first "bring forth a girl"?
Ok...anyway, here goes......
LETTER TO MY DAUGHTER, ORI-ADE MI AYINKE
Ayinke mi, welcome....there must be a reason why God chose of all people, this woman for you to have come through, ....Did you peep over the clouds, chubby and gurgling innocent, given the option to pick from a couple of people who were walking about in the lagos sun, and you had gurgled..that one..? how did you decide to pick me? Is that how it went?
Ayinke, the reason why I talking to you today is that i have been thinking and im worried.
To contemplete what a huge responsibilty it will be to nurture your mind and attempt give you the first couple of pages of your beliefs, is a job that has been fazing me for quite a bit now.
what an enormous responsibility it shall be to raise you, to know your own mind.
It has become a harder world to live in, and not just becasue of wars and pestilences, the biggest problem for me as a citizen of the world pro-apoclaypse has been the ability to decide, once and for all, who I am, and what I stand for, and Im afraid Ayinke, that the way things are going, you might very well inherit, hooks and all, all the facets of my ambivalence...
i shall always bite my nails, with tears in my eyes, as i watch you walk the fine line, hesitant between bigotry and belief, turn back to me and ask....
" Mummy, If Im taught that homosexuality is a sin, how come its the only one that we are now saying the people dont have to judge? We dont leave it to God to judge stealing right?, or isnt it a sin?" well the thing is....it comes to a matter of self-will and choice, and besides, you know you have to keep this kind of argument only inside this house, right?
It will remind me of my own faltering...to the left, and then to the right......
"How come all the money being given by foreigners to African countries is not working?" economics and dynamics, trade-pull power.....emmm...they will teach you in school
"How come the Isrealites were allowed to kill their enemies in the bible, but complain when it is done to them?" Isrealites killed enemies of GOD, remember that..they didnt do it for themselves, they possessed their lands because God told them to, grudgingly, they accepted...
"How come the Pastor uses genocides in the bible to preach like it was good" It was good then because God allowed it to happen, for the ones that he didnt sanction, there eventually has to be a signed global recognition and apology for... "
What does the pastor mean when he says that we should be end-time Isrealites? I thought we were yoruba, why would God choose only only race to be his people, how can we still be all His children?....Ok, keep talking, and its going to be the back-seats of the church for you. young lady?
How can I be a christian mummy and still belive that God allows pro-choice?" Gasp....God does not allow pro-choice, he only allows choice.....the only people that are allowed to change their positions like that are christian politicians, never forget that point!
"How can you give me contraceptives, and say you hope i will not use it outside marriage, and that Im not having sex yet?" Im covering all angles, while hoping that you are covering EVERYTHING........and
"How can you tell me to abstain, when you didnt" I see you have been reading mummy's high-school scrap book again...its not nice to pry into people's private stuff
"Why do people say it not that simple, when I say that countries that produce a lot of food, should simple GIVE the surplus to others that dont have so much?" It makes it easier for them to sleep at night
"Is it true that you are supposed to love me no matter what" yes....thats the general job description, but you'll be a dear and make my job less difficult wont you? there's a dear

P.S: If you have any inside information on who your father will be , could you be so kind to send me an UNEQUIVOCAL sign when I meet him, ...thank you dear...

THE AMORY SHOW

2007-02-27T20:22:00.000-08:00

I have to talk about the art exhibtion I went to on saturday.
Lets take this same saturday to be the first day that I started this blog. ...........garrghh!!!!!
I had wanted not to make any big deal about starting it my blog finaaaaally...hence you might notice the first post did not have any introductory knowing-me-knowing-you's ,
Didnt want to jinx anything by drawing attention to THE BEGINNING.....anyways, much too late now.....
This exhibition being my first deliberate attempts at experiencing the metropolitan angle of the art scene, I blackmailed my poor cousin out of her obviously stretched-to-the-limit schedule to "take me out for fun" or else........
so she found this art show, whose only appeal at the time was the half price fee for students....It sounded better than nothing, so we bundled up and went.
Now there are two things I hate:
1. I hate walking fast
2. I hate the cold
naturally, I should hate walking fast in the cold.....which I did...possibly twice as much as the vector of the two combined.
when we got to the place, the scowl on my face was geniuine, but I suppose it rivalled the one on the faces of the various artists that had already littered the place...probably theirs was just the pained effort of having to inhabit the same atmosphere with other beings that didn't quite "grasp the underpinings of the subliminal message" who didnt know, much less know how "to challenge the status quo in neo-modernism" etc. etc.....
Once upon a time, i thought the tortured souls and dark circles under the eyes of any creative artist to be the sexiest thing in the world....(perhaps part of me still does)...but im a grown girl now...."the world does not understand me" is no longer a pick up line that would work on me...
No, no, Van-gogh,......aint buying, Lord Byron.....
The exhibtion proper? If you imagine that New York is one of the most cutting edge cities in the world, and this exhibtion advertised New Art, you can only imagine how avant garde the combination be.....now take that your imgination, and multiply it by two, and you are nearing what was presented at THE ARMORY SHOW.
First of all, it was HUGE......there was art in its various forms, photography, audio-visual medium, painting, scupture, collage, and some mediums that most of us could not describe...to a dishevelled white female mannequin wearing a battered european work-house dress of the great depression, also singing some kind deep-south blues, you wonder to yourself....so what is on display here? the mannequinn? Le dress? , blues music, or even the depression itself?
The trick is to make you wonder I suppose........
Nudity, naturally was also top dollar, with the ubiquitous female form having some stiff( no pun intended, I swear) competiton from the male bodies......
Politics was popular too...there was an interesting collage made up of quite a bit of the flags of the world...I dont want to bet that ALL the flags were there.....and what was suprisingly brought to the fore, is that GREEN occcurs quite a bit in the colour schemes of most the world's flags......hmmm....Unity or a brewing conspiracy theory? hmmmm...you can see that picture here.
It gets to you after a while I tell you, your brain buzzes, and then practically shuts down with the overload of action of the AMORY SHOW, it was certainly an intense stimulation of sensory neurones...
Just when I was about turn around and re-boot my RAM at home, I caught sight of them.....actually him first......in a photograph by VANESSA BEECROFT.....six-feet plus, carrying a naked baby, with a skin color so dark he was nearly navy blue, he looked like Midnight come alive.......and right next to him, but juxtaposed in context, was the most pristine looking caucasian woman I have ever seen, in pink, holding a clutch of delicate flowers, in mortal trepidation of....something sha...(see the picture in the upload, Im sorry Im a bad photographer, I shall improve...or get a better picture link, so you can understand me....).
There was something absolutely shocking in that picture, in a way that is indescribable as simply good or bad......I was stuck..for several seconds....literarily frozen to the spot where I stood, with my jaw unhinged....
This in fact caused an absolutely gorgeous fair-skinned woman to walk up to me, and ask me what I thought about the picture?...... what immediately struck me about it?
No, she wasnt the artist, but she worked on the project, it was shot in Sudan see, and there were several more from the collection (I have uploaded those ones too)....
Her name is Lehni Lamide Davies, and it turns out that she is Nigerian, like me, part Lagosian, like me....and quite intelligent and radical....well, you get the picture...
I shall save the story of Lamide my new friend for another day...., and leave you with pictures from AMORY for now.......
*All works the copyright of Vannessa Beecroft, and of the various artists whose names I dont know.....
Shalom!

Half Celibate is better than none

2007-02-27T13:47:00.000-08:00

So I’m sitting here o, minding my own business, have lied about having the flu to my preceptor so I can get out of going to school today je-je, and have stayed home instead to spend the day innocently surfing the internet.
I think for all of 2 seconds that if only my preceptor knows what my chat ID is, and manages to see me permanently signed on in the yahoo chat engine, instead of sniffing, coughing and feeling down right suicidal under the sheets that having the flu should rightly do to me…..then again, I think that he already sort of knows….I don’t think I did the cough-cough, sniff-sniff impersonation over the phone too well….
Anyway, see me see trouble o…I had thought that at 9.30 on a Monday morning and signed in ready to chat, only a few people would be around to see you, being that the greater population of the world’s other wise employed would be at work/school/garage/….
”Ping” goes my computer…someone wants me to know they are online, and has buzzed me.
Its my friend, …now me and this woman had lost touch for about 15 years, since like primary school basically…and had only by chance hooked up again last year…God Save the Internet…even though our paths had been in close tandem a couple of times, it just didn’t happen till she googled me. (by the way, until someone tells you that…Oh…I didn’t know where to look anymore, than I hit google and found a couple of stuff you had done, accessed those sites and sent them an email, and then found your address….you haven’t lived….)
Anyway we arranged to meet in person about Christmas, and we did, and it was nice. Fun, laughter, no awkward-ities……we both agreed that : being elitist-posh is SO out, throwing disdain in the direction of the elitist-posh is IN, we were unmarried because all men were dumb/blind/wolves/just-too-stupid, cheaters. etc.. and generally promised not to let the silence of 15 years repeat itself again.
When she headed back to her base in America, we promised that this time we would never part.
Well, it didn’t quite happen like that, instead of jumping on a plane, train, bus, whatever to see each other the minute I got there, our earlier enthusiasm for each other’s “hilarious company” and “sparkling conversation” had cooled somewhat.
I wasn’t in blazing hurry to spend money go see her, and the way she kept on pulling exams, schedules and impromptu weddings out of a hat, I’m guessing ditto for her too…However, we still managed to keep up general jists on the phone and do some thirty minute senseless online natter sometimes.
So it was this morning when she pinged me, after we had done the usual kabuki-like ritual dance around each other….
”you…you fashied me…”….
”me?…ah-ha it was you that has jaboo-ed me now…” etc.
out of that molar-grinding nonsense came a jocular jab…(to me)
In fact the whole thing went thus
Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: what is wrong with you sef? I think you are stressed

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: my dear, don’t mind me jare

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: I think you need sex*

(Huh?.......), *Note: allegation of no…or only spurious relation to prior subject matter, I promise….

Oh well in the spirit of the turn of the conversation
Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: hahahah! That wont be bad o, shay you will borrow me your man for a bit?

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: well,…..( frostily, the screen went cold I swear) I’m sorry, if you want to know, I have been celibate for 7 years now……waiting for my honeymoon night, I only said YOU need sex…..

Huh?

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: oh really, that’s great, for religious purposes?

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Yes, that and the fact that it helps keep the wolves away…..

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: You are right, that’s a honourable thing to do

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Besides, God loves me more

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: God couldn’t possibly love you more, He loves you the same. Sin only makes us unable to accept that love

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Well I feel his love more, so I guess we are saying the same thing

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: I suppose you are right…but wait o, me I always have to ask when people tell me they have been celibate,…so you mean celibate as in celibate…..no kissing not touching, nothing, nothing

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Ah! No-o, I kiss, even make out once in awhile when I feel like…in fact that was the reason why I was uncomfortable with (…lagbaja) he always liked to make out, that’s why we broke up…..

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: errr….Ohhhhh-ok…..em…I have to get to work

Iminnthemoodfordisclosure99: Oh yeah, I was just on my way out myself, talk to you later

Chattingsenselesslyonmondaymorning1: Ok sweets, bye…

Right! Another one of those…just when I think I had met one of the true genuine ones, (to inspire me, mind) turns out to be just like the rest of them of the quasi-celibate creed.
Me I have never understood it. The good book is very clear on what it states about pre-marital sex, and its reasons for that doctrine are easy to understand….basically, lust for each other’s flesh and acting on it will bring dis-honour to the marital bed, that which is sacred, and undefiled.
But a worse evil than not following this law, is not follow it under the false impression that you are compliant, and to take the cake, further trick yourself into looking at other “full-time” offenders as graven sinners, complete with that slow shake of the head.
With the amount of my vitriolic in this post, it’s a little easy to see how much I, personally have defaulted the law, (and that’s all I’m saying about my sexual history present, past AND future on this blog), but I have never for once not realised that on those grounds: I’m a sinner, and in big trouble, and I better find my way back if I know what’s good for me
But this self-righteous half-and-half behaviour makes it easy for me to do my own (self-righteous by way of conscious sinner) head shaking of my own.
In fact , that healthy dose of moral superiority I got on Monday morning, was strong enough to make me get dressed, call my preceptor, re-cant my lie (well, not quite, I told him I was feeling much better, which I was, thanks to coming tops in a moral war the poor, unfortunate other half didnt even know they were fighting) and headed off to school.
Another day……..