Origins and Where We're From

iRepNigeria image from http://djchronic.podomatic.com
Crossroads image from www.tauw.org





Ok so I've been feeling very patriotic lately. Maybe that's a part of growing up. Your body matures, your emotions develop, your mind expands and then gradually, without being fully cognizant of the process, you become AWARE. In my case now, I'm becoming very aware of the ways in which the richness of my culture informs who I am. I heard a famous figure today (I can't mention names) say that who he is has has nothing to do with where he comes from. His parents were born in Jamaica and he was born in the UK so he thinks they are Jamaican and he is British. Wow! I couldn't disagree more. Yes, he's British. But essentially, at the very core of him, on a fundamental level, I say he is Jamaican. Citizenship and nationality are two different things. It's simply not possible to come from a different place from your parents. You came from them, so you come from where they come from. Period.

Oh Louder, Baby!

Slavery poster from: www.valley-entertainment.com




Olaudah Equiano, or oh- louder as he was mockingly called before the forceful changing of his name to Gustav Vassa; what a celebrity he’s become! Ever since the release of feature film Amazing Grace in March 2007, his name has been bandied about over dinner, over drinks, over the airwaves – endlessly. As I missed the fanfare surrounding his premiere into mainstream consciousness, I had the honour of meeting him today, in a play, African Snow, performed by the Riding Lights Theatre Company. Quite different, I must say, from old familiar Kunta Kinte. Partly, I suppose, due to the fact that Equiano’s account is autobiographical, not quasi-fictional.

I went in there prepared to be disgusted by a Western over-rendered impression of African-ness; by convoluted facts and dramatised excuses. After all, just last month, a sweet looking old lady told my sister and I at the V&A’s Uncomfortable Truths exhibition that slavery wasn’t necessarily bad because ‘the poor slave masters didn’t know any better, the poor souls.’ Probably the wrong thing to say to two proud Nigerian girls on a hot afternoon, but her blush showed us that she obviously didn’t mean it how it came out, so we smiled at her elderly brain fart and moved on.

Nevertheless, that sort of sentiment is what I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised when I found my pre-programmed disapproval challenged. African Snow was a charming discourse between John Newton, writer of the hymn Amazing Grace, and Olaudah Equiano, freed slave turned Parliamentary circuit speaker.

What appealed to me most, was the robustness of the dialogue. The imagery was hauntingly poignant yet not conspicuous. Equiano, gifted with words, sustained moving monologues in a verbal travelogue that led us on the commute between his actual freedom (before he was stolen from the coast of West Africa) and the shifted goal post or redefined freedom (the day he bought his own freedom for 40 guineas). Newton’s rendition of his journey to spiritual enlightenment that caused him to join the Abolitionist cause was made more accessible by the portrayal of his thoughts through his hymns. The combination of these two commentaries, both poetic, both emotional, both raw, worked together elegantly, like an antagonistic pair of muscles. And how’s this for a tasty dramatic subversion – old Wilberforce was played by a black man!

The stage set must be mentioned and praised very highly! A slatted wooden contraption sat at a forty-five degree angle on the stage, in some scenes a ship, and in others representative of the shadow of depravity that many souls wriggled under. Admittedly, African Snow’s concern with the condition of the human soul is one that everyone can appreciate, whatever side of the slavery argument one comes down on.

It’s a good piece of theatre. I would recommend seeing it, if only just to have a new addition to your modern collection of opinions which by now, if you’re truly up to date, should include organic clothing, climate change, and the cancelled Royal engagement at the very least.

African Snow tours nationally until June 30th, 2007.


© April 2007

Ying and Yang Subverted

OK. So a friend of mine sent me this the other day. It's called The Awful Truth. Funny eh? I found it hilarious. While I am (not) of the opinion that all men are bullied by their crotches, I do agree that this photo gives a more or less accurate portrayal of the discrepancies between the male and female dispositions. The subverted ying and yang thing got me thinking as well...is there any significance to the fact that the woman is portrayed in white, the conventional colour of purity/innocence; and the man is portrayed as the wicked voldermort in black. Are women really so innocent and are men really so evil? You can bring this topic up next time you go down the pub with your mates and watch as the opinion line divides the group in two, hahaha.

Nevertheless, I thought I'd file it in my MC's Crimewatch - Girls against Goons section. Like I said (maybe) not all men are one track minded, but keep this image in your head to guard you pschologically, sublimally, subconsciously against the ones that are.

And guys...you can take a joke right? x

© April 2007

Scrying off the Emails

Image: I Told You So from http://www.jigboxx.com.

Ha! My most recent rant couldn’t have been better timed (That’s True for All Times/19th April 2007). What’s that you say? How flattering. No. No, I’m not a prophet. Just take a look at this forward I got. Not only is crime rife in the the capital, but the criminals are more brazen than ever – they rob people in broad daylight. The night crusaders of old have evolved into a highly sophisticated operation that no longer needs to hide under cover of darkness! And in Central London, no less. Phah! Run for the hills, I say. Adopt a countenance of paranoia and run for the hills.

No don’t; don’t be silly. Just be careful. And invest in a nice big pair of scandal shades – and possibly a portable music player. Never mind that you’ll look like the architypal 21st century consumer – apparently, these accoutruments make it harder for goons to distract your attention. Although, wait a minute…if you do insist on plugging up your consciousness with some noise or other, so that you can’t even hear your phone ring, how do you expect to notice when the goons are dancing at your elbow? Eh?

At the risk of sounding totally mean (which I’m not, by the way) I think that Londoners should use a bit more common sense. Yeah, yeah, so you’re a career girl at large in the capital, but for goodness sake! Don’t stand around juggling a sandwich, yakking on your daytime contract to your friend in Notts with your bag gaping and all your other shiny consumer electronics glinting in the sunshine! If you do this, you will get robbed!! Be observant, and consider the fact that a guy checking you out might be doing so to see what he can nick off you. So stop flicking your hair and elongating the ‘this is me drawing lots of cash from the ATM’ pose. You get the cash, you stash the cash, then you leave.

Ok. Now read the email. x



From: Withheld for obvious reasons

Sent: 17 April 2007 at 14:31

To: Everyone

Subject: FW: Warning: women being targeted at central London cash points

Just as a quick warning to you - I just got assaulted at an HSBC cashpoint in Hanover Sq at lunchtime (broad daylight, with a queue behind me) and £200 was taken from my account. Turns out there's a gang of very smart Romanians (in my case it was 2 guys and a girl) who are posing as free-newspaper-giver-outers - they waited until i'd keyed in my pin and hit the 'Get Cash' option before coming up from both sides, jostling me and thrusting their newspapers at me and trying to persuade me to take one. Behind the papers, the guy on my left hit the £200 button and the girl on the right grabbed the cash - they were so fast that no one in the queue even saw them take it, and just assumed they were harrassing me to take a paper (my card got returned to me out of the machine). It was only when I went into the bank to tell them there were people harrassing cashpoint users and to double check they hadn't taken any cash that we realised. Went to the police and it turns out they've been targeting women around Mayfair and Goodge St and elsewhere around Oxford Circus with a huge number of incidents in the past couple of weeks - all in broad daylight and in very open places, and always taking £200. The advice is to use cash machines inside banks or get cashback if you're in these areas."

© April 2007

Words

This is the back garden at home. I used this image because it's one of my favourite places to write. Sitting under the tree, it's so peaceful and laid back. The only thing you have to watch out for is random splogdes of bird poo that occassionally come flying down, hahaha!

Why do words fascinate me so?
Both to listen and to speak.
Aren’t they so pretty?
Ledges on which to ponder
While gazing at the sky.

Or perhaps they are the sky,
Under which we wonder.
Up to which we aspire
Beneath where we burgeon and grow.

© April 2006

That's True for All Times

'Dancing on Lies' from www.nicholsoncartoons.com
'Crime Does Not Pay' from www.samueldesign.com/comics
'Sherlock Holmes' from www.nachshon.org

It’s rather uncanny how people like George Simmel, writing in the late 1800’s, managed to capture city living so minutely. In 2007, we tend to think of those times as the dark ages, but everything he’s written about people living in the Metropolis, is painfully true – the paranoia, the mannerisms, the psyche, the fear. How did he know all that? Could we have changed so little?

Veblen spoke about showy nouveaux riches in America just after the Industrial Revolution, using their women as mannequins to display their wealth. Has anything changed? Isn’t it the same now? People get a bit of cash and all of a sudden, the only thing they deign to eat is organic fair-trade gluten free sashimi.

And the powers that be still lie. For those of you who didn't know, Sherlock Holmes was very partial to a shot of heroine now and then, when there were no crimes to solve. Or so he told Watson. When, in the history of London, has there been a time when there were no crimes to solve, eh? I suppose his shooting drugs wasn't necessarily criminal, not like it was for the crooks he brought to justice - old Sherlock was just a little bored, that's all! Give the geezer a break, will you?

Apparently, crime in London has dropped consistently over the last four years, and we are now the safest city in Western Europe. Yeah right! Do we all look that stupid? Someone tell me this isn’t reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984? How can they tell us crime’s gone down, when we all know it’s gone up, probably higher than ever. I bet they'll have the Thought Police after us next - Oi you, you disbelieved when we told you crime had gone down, you'll be tried for treason! I forget who, but someone suggested recently that the powers that be, be made to take lie detector tests publicly. Whoever you are that suggested this, I think you’re a modern day genius.


© April 2007

Preoccupations

Has anyone else noticed that authors are incredibly themed creatures? Once I read something from an author and like it, I have to unearth their whole back catalogue, and by doing this I’ve noticed that many of them harp on and on about a given subject place or topic. It’s not a terrible thing I suppose; in fact I don’t think it can be avoided, because if they can come up with an average of 1000 combined pages of material relating to one thing, then it has to be a pretty integral part of who they are, right? Actually, maybe it’s a good thing, because when we pick up a book by our favourite author, it’s because we enjoy what they obsess about, and we know, to some extent, what to expect. Allow me to share their obsessions, but we can call it inspiration if you’d prefer. Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list…

Author Preoccupation Titles

1. Joanne Harris

Food & Drink, Rural France, Magic

Blackberry Wine
Chocolat

The Lollipop Shoes
Five Quarters of the Orange

2. Tony Parsons

Infidelity and Families

The Family Way
One For My Baby
Man and Wife
Man and Boy

3. Lily Brett

The Holocaust, Sex, Germs, Poos

New York

Too Many Men
Just Like That

4. Lisa Jewell

Yuppies with messed up love lives

Vince and Joy

A Friend of the Family
Ralph’s Party

I think it's really funny how the lofty art of novel writing is merely a reflection of our mundane collection of fixations. So much for my delusions of grandeur; I wonder what will appear on this list in a few years, when I’ve written a few books. I shudder to think what people will be able to list as my obsessions…hahaha!

Minjiba Cookey © 2007

What Friendship Should Be

The nectar of humanity
Peeling back like a flower
Moments of absurdity
Residing in friendship’s power

Some blood is undiluted by water
Some water never sullied by blood
The complexity of disagreement
Demystifying the illusion of enlightenment

Cider ruminating on the past
And beer foretelling the future
Really the conversation should last
Until dreams are combined by suture

The accommodation of different music
Appreciation of another taste
Walking the mile a deux
When there’s only so far your legs can go

And why should Friendship get less than love
When from her shoulders, he launches his acrobatics
She's a firmer bottom line to have
The rest is purely semantics.

Minjiba Cookey © 2007