THE GRANDE VITESSE SCHOOL OF PHOTOGRAPHY: A NEW ART FORM IS BORN It’s exhilarating to be alive when an entirely new way of seeing things is uncovered. Reality is transformed. Or perhaps, more correctly, the state of reality itself is questioned. It’s beyond amazing to be as close to it as I have been. To be actually part of it, responsible for naming it, well that is something that seems impossible to conceive. But, please, just try to stay with me. I’ve called it: The Grande Vitesse School of Photography. Yes, I know about the [View Full Entry]

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PYROTECHNICS IN THE KLEIN KAROO AND THE GAMKA SCHOOL GETS FLEECED It looks like the Grand Finale of a botanical fireworks display; only it’s frozen in time. Bottle rockets are being launched simultaneously from the center of every huge aloe in the Klein Karoo. Flame orange showers of sparks seem to emanate from the heart of the thick fleshy plants. They look like Las Vegas fountains designed by a Garden Club that serves peyote buttons with their tea. Selma Nel lives in this paradisiacal place called Matjiesvlei. Her husband Bennie’s family settl [View Full Entry]

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THE KINGDOM OF SWAZILAND: HIPPOS COME TO DINNER, WARTHOGS AT THE CAMPFIRE “When King Sobhuza II died at age 83, he left about 120 wives, with unofficial estimates putting the number of wives and mistresses at more than double this number. The current King Mswati III has 13 wives. The King was the center of controversy in 2001 when he married a 17 year old, two months after imposing a five year sex ban on the Kingdom’s teenage females. The “forced” chastity was imposed to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS. He ended the ban a [View Full Entry]

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KRUGER NATIONAL PARK: DON’T FENCE ME IN, OR ON SECOND THOUGHT… and DINNER WITH ANDRE Kudu poitje. That’s not Czechoslovakian. It’s what Andre cooked up for us on the night we arrived at his bush camp just west of Kruger National Park. Pronounced, koo-doo poyt-key, it’s made in a three legged cast iron pot that weighs more that the cook. Kudu is an antelope. Poitje is an Afrikaans word for stew. Andre’s place, Amanzimlotzi Riverside Bush Camp, is surrounded by private game reserves that are wrapped in electrified fenc [View Full Entry]

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AN INVITATION TO MY FUNERAL I am (was) fifty-nine years old. Almost no one knows that I have three daughters. It has been a well-protected secret of mine for many years. Things often come to the fore after a man’s death, into the light of day, as they say. So here it is. Now you know. My girls are grown women. Funny that I should use that word, girls, because I always told them that they were not “girls” but “ women,” or better still, “people.” Admittedly, I didn’t do such a hot job raising them. I barely knew what to [View Full Entry]

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THROUGH THE PROTEA AND INTO THE CLOUDS I’m no botanist. Actually, I’m barely qualified to mow the lawn. If you sent me into the garden to weed I’d be just as likely to yank up a rare heirloom bulb than to pull up a dirty dandelion. So yesterday, when I chose to hike in the mountains to look at flowers, I surprised even myself. But these are no ordinary flowers, these Protea. In fact to use the word “flower” to describe the Protea seems patently unjust. Flower is to Protea as house cat is to leopard, as guppy is to grouper. [View Full Entry]

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A NON SEQUITOR GREETING ON FREEDOM DAY Hello to all my friends, There’s a man down the street who is slowly walling himself in, literally. I can’t help but thinking of Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado” as we watch the red bricks rise. In itself this should not be an unusual sight. In fact, his house prior to the arrival of the sand and bricks and stone, was one of the dwellings in our neighborhood (perhaps 50%) that did not crouch behind a tall wall, a growling dog, and an automatic gate. In other cities, like Johannesburg, it would be a rarity [View Full Entry]

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THE GRAPES ARE IN, IT’S TIME TO PARTY! Her body moves like water shifting in slow motion. It’s elegant. She looks to have been transported into another plane. The powerful memory in every one of her muscles is overriding the Shiraz. The band is amped up, and a unique form of Afrikaans dance music has the crowd moving, grooving, swaying. It’s contagious. How could I possibly describe it? A wild cross of American Country and Western, Reggae, and Polka? You listen and decide. I am being swept along in the flow of the Oesfees (Harvest Festival) for f [View Full Entry]

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RUNNING WITHOUT SHOES, FLYING WITHOUT LEGS It’s clear he’s already strung as tight as Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, so for me the question is a rhetorical one. But I ask it anyway. “Are you nervous when he competes?” “Always,” he says tersely, then pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lights up. Despite his apparent weakness for the butts, he looks incredibly fit. If there’s an ounce of fat on this guy I can’t see it. His elbows are perched on a railing in Stellenbosch University’s Coetzenberg Stadiu [View Full Entry]

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EASTER, ALOE, AND SELMA'S KIDS RETURN TO MATJIESVLEI The Groot Swartberg mountains rise all around us. Easter morning is stunningly bright, already hot, and we hide in the shade of the front stoep (porch). Across the valley a baboon barks. The mountains are covered with a forest of aloe. These are not the living room variety of aloe, soft little potted plants that one finds at the florist. These are muscled tree-like creatures, robust, with spined “leaves” that are as thick as a Schwarzenegger bicep. They are layered in an impenetrable pattern, b [View Full Entry]

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