tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85782291768243539672024-03-20T21:41:41.375-07:00Surviving MonstersSurviving Monsters is a collection of posts to do with ideas, stories and creative problems.
"Marginal Scribbling" is a collection of my poetry.
My writing and my art can be found on www.ruthhartley.com
As well as on Facebook at Ruth Hartley- Author
Ruth Hartleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01875567732019988946noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-85407931435991214142017-06-19T01:15:00.000-07:002017-06-19T01:15:51.597-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>GRENFELL
TOWER</b></span></span></div>
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<b><br /></b>
</div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Smoke
</span></span></b>
</div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">rushing</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">skywards</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">screaming
</span></span></b>
</div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">swirling</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">burning
</span></span></b>
</div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">blackening
</span></span></b>
</div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">poisoning</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">roaring</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">roiling</span></span></b></div>
<div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff950e;"><span style="background: transparent;">sprinkling
light</span></span> spreading <span style="color: #ff950e;">debris </span><span style="color: #ff950e;"><span style="background: transparent;">sparkling</span></span><span style="color: yellow;"><span style="background: transparent;">
</span></span></span></span></b>
</div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span>
the homes <span style="color: #ff3300;">flaming</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff3300;">flaming</span>
the living core <span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span>
the furnace of families <span style="color: #ff420e;">flaming</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff3300;">flaming</span><span style="color: #ff420e;">
</span><span style="color: black;">choking the children</span><span style="color: #ff420e;">
</span><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span><span style="color: maroon;">
</span><span style="color: black;">blinding the babies</span><span style="color: maroon;">
</span><span style="color: #ff420e;">flaming</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff3300;">flaming</span>
closer to the crying <span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span><span style="color: black;">
the people who perish </span><span style="color: #ff3300;">flaming</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff3300;">flaming</span>
suffocating the souls <span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span>
searing the skins <span style="color: #ff420e;">flaming</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #ff420e;">flaming </span><span style="color: black;">shriveling the hopes</span><span style="color: #ff420e;">
</span><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;">fire-wrapping
</span><span style="color: black;">the black skeleton tower</span><span style="color: red;">
</span><span style="color: #ff420e;">flaming</span></span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">shaming
blaming underneath blaming shaming</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Mail-ing
shaming blaming Mail-ing</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">lying
regulation stuff “get-stuffed” stuff regulation lying</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">underneath
ha-ha ha-ha “get stuffed” ha-ha ha-ha underneath</span></span></b></div>
<b>
</b><div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">ash
and cinders cinders and ash</span></span></b></div>
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<br /><br />
</div>
<div align="CENTER" style="background: #ffffff; font-style: normal;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ruth
Hartley</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">19<sup>th</sup>
June 2017</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj21iExuUaPYCwR6TlO9KgicfwS8QjVFOvuvr5hyzxAszmUzYvdnTAMRBwDBnid8JyHvuGC85N3i6gbgy59kXZDJsrpV_Z8nlG2i55U0E9VpXas0-wPLChOFPi5mWGxp6ZmiycH_kW54pg/s1600/grenfell+tower+.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj21iExuUaPYCwR6TlO9KgicfwS8QjVFOvuvr5hyzxAszmUzYvdnTAMRBwDBnid8JyHvuGC85N3i6gbgy59kXZDJsrpV_Z8nlG2i55U0E9VpXas0-wPLChOFPi5mWGxp6ZmiycH_kW54pg/s1600/grenfell+tower+.jpeg" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-36982347477219852012017-05-03T07:47:00.004-07:002017-05-03T07:47:57.967-07:00Shakespeare is a European - Shakespeare would not and cannot BrexitShakespeare could not have voted for Brexit.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9m4ciQStq4mZcRU2yQLfh0gdlnrb-w6dlSbX-uDHTuryHoTIIcMnUNdxbW8iuhigeJjO106D-5x4_IVvt8JjohpjpfBhjy4_yKqnMemInNVVITOJJZEtHlrzeC5W7k_4KQoLXg5sJN9g/s1600/shakespeare.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS9m4ciQStq4mZcRU2yQLfh0gdlnrb-w6dlSbX-uDHTuryHoTIIcMnUNdxbW8iuhigeJjO106D-5x4_IVvt8JjohpjpfBhjy4_yKqnMemInNVVITOJJZEtHlrzeC5W7k_4KQoLXg5sJN9g/s1600/shakespeare.jpg" /></a></div>
Shakespeare
might, of course, have written a tragedy about Brexit. It's a subject
for a tragedy and farce because it's about lies, misunderstandings,
feuds, boundaries, wars and ambitions all of which bring damage and
death..<br />
Shakespeare belongs to all humans because he wrote about the human condition.<br />
Fundamentally
Brexit is a reduction of humanity. Britons go from being important
actors on a world stage to disappearing up their own ever diminishing
island fundament. Scottish independence is the same. A diminution of
what it is to be human from a universal respect for humanity to a
populist jingoism.<br />
Brexit if you must - but William Shakespeare belongs to the global village - all of humanity - he will never be part of Brexit. <br />
<br />
I found this quote from a paper by <a href="https://episteme.revues.org/600" target="_blank">Richard Wilson</a> <br />
"The Globe Theatre […] would have been for Shakespeare the pattern of the
universe, the idea of the Macrocosm, the world stage on which the
Microcosm acted his parts.<i> All the world’s a stage</i>." The words are in a
real sense the clue to the Globe Theatre."<span lang="en"> It is by <span lang="en">Juegen Schulz, ‘Maps as Metaphors: Mural Map Cycles of the Italian Renaissance’. </span></span><br />
<br />
I borrowed this too -<br />
<a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/keydates/chronologyofcontent2.html">The Settings of Shakespeare's Plays by Date</a> for a chronology of the <i>content</i> of the plays.
<br /><br /><br />
<i>All’s Well that Ends Well</i><br />
Setting: Rousillon, Paris, Florence, and Marseilles<br /><br />
<i>Antony and Cleopatra</i><br />
Setting: Parts of the Roman Empire<br /><br />
<i>As You Like It</i><br />
Setting: Forest of Arden<br /><br />
<i>The Comedy of Errors</i><br />
Setting: Ephesus<br /><br />
<i>Coriolanus</i><br />
Setting: Rome, Corioli, and Antium<br /><br />
<i>Cymbeline</i><br />
Setting: Britain, Italy<br /><br />
<i>Hamlet</i><br />
Setting: Elsinore<br /><br />
<i>Julius Caesar</i><br />
Setting: Rome; afterwards, Sardis and near Philippi<br /><br />
<i>King Lear</i><br />
Setting: Britain<br /><br />
<i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i><br />
Setting: Navarre<br /><br />
<i>Macbeth</i><br />
Setting: Scotland and England<br /><br />
<i>Measure for Measure</i><br />
Setting: Vienna<br /><br />
<i>The Merchant of Venice</i><br />
Setting: Partly in Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia on the Continent<br /><br />
<i>The Merry Wives of Windsor</i><br />
Setting: Windsor<br /><br />
<i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i><br />
Setting: Athens, and a wood nearby<br /><br />
<i>Much Ado about Nothing</i><br />
Setting: Messina<br /><br />
<i>Othello</i><br />
Setting: Venice (for first act) and a sea-port in Cyprus<br /><br />
<i>Pericles, Prince of Tyre</i><br />
Setting: various countries<br /><br />
<i>Romeo and Juliet</i><br />
Setting: Verona and Mantua<br /><br />
<i>The Taming of the Shrew</i><br />
Setting: Sometimes in Padua, and sometimes in Petruchio's home in the country<br /><br />
<i>The Tempest</i><br />
Setting: The Sea; afterwards an Island<br /><br />
<i>Timon of Athens</i><br />
Setting: Athens<br /><br />
<br />
<center>
</center>
<i>Titus Andronicus</i><br />
Setting: Rome<br /><br />
<i>Troilus and Cressida</i><br />
Setting: Troy<br /><br />
<i>The Two Gentlemen of Verona</i><br />
Setting: Verona, Milan, and the frontiers of Mantua<br /><br />
<i>Twelfth Night</i><br />
Setting: A city in Illyria, and the sea-coast nearby<br /><br />
<i>The Winter’s Tale</i><br />
Setting: Sometimes in Sicilia, sometimes in Bohemia<br />
<br />
Go on
then - Brexit - but you can't take Shakespeare away from the world, from
Europe and from humanity - he won't fit into anything so small-minded
even with Boris's putting all his weight onto it.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-1683599190106976802017-04-17T01:35:00.000-07:002017-04-17T01:35:18.229-07:00Pantomime, the Imaginary and the Straight Banana Brexit.<br />
<h3>
<b>Loving the Independence Referendums</b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevKCqpSTIxaQUCtSEdQniM9ngm7xxoK4fGbRK1QINYTStXZAhHyLyT9Xr1PqEY7SeJne38wXz7Fq2R-2omctakHbwly2uG0DTkF8uV_-dj0m12i0UPu1gz-CiJ9P-xTimnwAd_xtgA3mj/s1600/harry-potter-free-256556.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevKCqpSTIxaQUCtSEdQniM9ngm7xxoK4fGbRK1QINYTStXZAhHyLyT9Xr1PqEY7SeJne38wXz7Fq2R-2omctakHbwly2uG0DTkF8uV_-dj0m12i0UPu1gz-CiJ9P-xTimnwAd_xtgA3mj/s320/harry-potter-free-256556.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harry Potter - a modern British hero of the imaginary.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Before the first Scottish independence referendum, I was sad but sure that the Scots would opt for the romantic version of their nation and vote with their hearts. Scottish independence is economic nonsense but it is very pretty, all plaid, pipes, heather and warm whisky heating up what's under the sporran.It's good to have a heart but better when you vote to use both heart and brain. We're all the same though, myself included. We're motivated by a mixture of sense and nonsense, imagination and reason, culture and nurture.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Romance and Brexit and Straight Bananas</b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
Like Scottish Independence, Brexit is also romantic and unwise. It is a myth derived from our parents' actual nightmare memories of WW2 mixed together with the revisionism of popular cultural history in the humour of Dad's army, the gallantry of Brits alone against the Nazi invaders, the altruism of the last man standing holding the flag in some Pinewood propaganda film.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Patriotic Reassurance</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjja2q0dfoquHPOtTYtPB9E3dDPcy5L59HHXiR7F3VI9BUZStC1f99xMZYSXk-SkoqfL89YwqdmevWFtF2pxmtNHcqTdfjMt-lKqPGl_wUzbGjgi1McHGI12ncK6CEOGxnn4bzyUPbOgrCJ/s1600/Dad%2527s+Armyd.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjja2q0dfoquHPOtTYtPB9E3dDPcy5L59HHXiR7F3VI9BUZStC1f99xMZYSXk-SkoqfL89YwqdmevWFtF2pxmtNHcqTdfjMt-lKqPGl_wUzbGjgi1McHGI12ncK6CEOGxnn4bzyUPbOgrCJ/s1600/Dad%2527s+Armyd.jpeg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The local lads at home during a global war</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's teeth-grittingly untrue but of course, we love it. We've absorbed it into our patriotic souls right down to the soles of our hobnailed bovver boy clogs just as we absorbed, but didn't believe Boris's blatant baloney about the EU that bananas had to be straight not curved. In fact we know from nothing to a little about the EU.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<h3>
<b>Real History and Pantomime History</b></h3>
<h3>
<b> </b></h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi03h_YkR2sfshLjVXKySJgpyI6w70Z5UkdONoUDeR29ouLAmXedojH90j2x47V7BkjAy1j5m3D_Lgwwf-J6hgggXb2aywLKSdsxVM2A0Wqb-H8BeMjQfw-rwUVieDf6D_DosrLPQwjJ2YY/s1600/bulldog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi03h_YkR2sfshLjVXKySJgpyI6w70Z5UkdONoUDeR29ouLAmXedojH90j2x47V7BkjAy1j5m3D_Lgwwf-J6hgggXb2aywLKSdsxVM2A0Wqb-H8BeMjQfw-rwUVieDf6D_DosrLPQwjJ2YY/s320/bulldog.jpg" width="206" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An unhealthy thoroughbred leads a mongrel nation?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Yet we have always been a mix like the EU of many cultures and nations. First, we and our rulers were Scandinavian, Danish, Viking and Russian. Alfred was Saxon, Harold, part Viking, his wife Russian, William, a Norman (Norseman) and French, Then our rulers became Dutch, William and Mary, and German, Victoria and all the rest. For 100s of years, English kings and queens ruled France. We absorbed Huguenot refugees, Spanish, Greek, Portuguese, German and Italian immigrants and even some of our African slaves.<br />
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
European Divisions and the Empire that won the war</h3>
<h3>
<br /></h3>
We split Europe up with other Europeans and then split up the world with those same Europeans. After Dunkirk we weren't exactly alone against the Germans - we had the biggest ever<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire_in_World_War_II" target="_blank"> Empire </a>in the world on our side with all their soldiers fighting for us - sorry Captain Mainwaring - but then you did bank colonial money, didn't you? We had the free Poles in our air force and the Free French fighting for us. We were a mongrel nation under Elisabeth 1 and remain so today under Elisabeth 2.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>My generation - children of soldiers</b></h3>
It seems that a large proportion of my generation, the most affluent and educated pensioners to date, born during and after WW2, voted for Brexit. Why I wonder? I do know that there are many different kinds of Brexit voters and many different reasons for voting for Brexit but I am curious about those who make up my peer group.<br />
<br />
<h3>
The Brexit Dream and the Imaginary</h3>
<h3>
</h3>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMA0KAzk-G78a3cGviDlwHOLkFzz9XnfVMLxDZOOYomDGk6CJYGzGthDRQKGWyLeJ8GTT-UEIKaQoi99RgbWcP7QNqOA2BEChKQrwLM2DQZqA0zxgyGMpdDVNNnACvnz_KDSZiG7hjqJBI/s1600/boadicea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMA0KAzk-G78a3cGviDlwHOLkFzz9XnfVMLxDZOOYomDGk6CJYGzGthDRQKGWyLeJ8GTT-UEIKaQoi99RgbWcP7QNqOA2BEChKQrwLM2DQZqA0zxgyGMpdDVNNnACvnz_KDSZiG7hjqJBI/s320/boadicea.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boadicea - our queen - defeated by the Roman Empire.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Brexit is a dream from the past. A trap laid into the brains of a large section of the voting population of Britain by the emotional dramas played out in childhood in our families and our cultural environment. Is it a forward-looking utopian hope for a wonderful future or is Brexit is a retreat backwards into a fantasy world? Is it a regression into an imaginary state? Is Brexit a nostalgic trip into the past to fulfil an infantile wish to live undivided lives as whole personae and heroes in a world without conflict or confused and confusing choices.<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
We are all in it</h3>
<br />
At some level of our beings, all of us, myself, included, inhabit this world of the Imaginary and inside it, we live happily in a state of unreality. It might be described as the world of the Pantomime, the world we understood as children, a world of transformations and magic, a world without facts or cash.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Pantomime characters</h3>
<br />
It is hardly a surprise that those who led us into Brexitland are Pantomime creations in fancy dress acting out stagily contrived roles - Farage, faking it as the genial innkeeper turning away refugees, Boris, as Buttons, Bulldog, Billy Bunter, and our favourite cheeky Churchill-like chappie, IDS, the loyal officer and boring police plod, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, Arthurian aristocrat, and snobby academic. They're pretend people acting out Downton Abbey fantasies to amuse us - and to deceive us. Foolishly, we like what they tell us.<br />
<br />
<h3>
It's Behind You and it Bites</h3>
<br />
Brexit wasn't chosen for common sense reasons but for a dream.<br />
"It's behind you!" shout the audience.<br />
"Where?" asks the smiling yellow-haired clown turning around.<br />
"Its behind you!" repeat the audience.<br />
Brexit and the Land of Pantomime are behind you - imaginary and unreal and not a good choice if you are an adult with European grandchildren who need a real future and not the Imaginary past. Our past may give us great ideals and worthwhile values but they need to be grounded in the reality of today's world. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-79592964339184306712017-02-20T06:07:00.000-08:002017-02-20T06:07:45.148-08:0045 YEARS OF IRAN, IRAQ, ZAMBIA & ME PLUS BREXIT & TONY BLAIR 1972 – 2017.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijlfDsmgxu4ienXHPeqhmZU-e2aUqTIu_buDiklIJ6oMQqs117S52_uO8HhJj22dCx490SLo1i_StXnFJ1IAf6D0oZotr5VhnFtBuO0zOBIzBScJCnMVoVLSso3dHMkGasonQ5SeEWIyZO/s1600/blair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijlfDsmgxu4ienXHPeqhmZU-e2aUqTIu_buDiklIJ6oMQqs117S52_uO8HhJj22dCx490SLo1i_StXnFJ1IAf6D0oZotr5VhnFtBuO0zOBIzBScJCnMVoVLSso3dHMkGasonQ5SeEWIyZO/s320/blair.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>ZAMBIA AND IRAN AND ME</b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This
anecdotal account is about the interconnectedness of the above.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mike,
my husband and I arrived on the Zambian North Bank Power Scheme in
1972. Our news, the Observer newspaper, arrived by post every week. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our
friends, Hamish and Monica, left Zambia to work on another dam in the
Shah's Iran. There was an earthquake in Iran. Soon after the Shah was
replaced by a revolution. They didn't stay. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>ZAMBIA AND IRAQ AND ME</b></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It
was the Cold War. Zambia was punished by apartheid South Africa and
Smith's UDI Rhodesia for its support for African freedom. Oil
supplies were a big problem. Iraq provided oil by tanker – a
pipeline from east Africa was built. Dundiza Chidiza Crescent became
Saddam Hussein Boulevard.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There
was a war between Iran and Iraq in which the west were involved on
one side or the other or on both. It was a moot point as to which was
the worse regime for its people and for its women. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ZAMBIA AND IRAN AND KATE</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Kate,
a US diplomat, who had served in Zambia and acted in Lusaka
Playhouse, was one of those imprisoned in the US embassy in Iran. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, was vilified by the Western press
for his friendship with Saddam. He was supposed to have become a
billionaire and personally owned an oil tanker. Saddam was developing
weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). There was a connection with
Israel, Holland and apartheid South Africa and the Big Gun designed
to deliver the WMDs. Lusaka was a key airport on route for these
deals which may or may not have happened. It was bar talk in Lusaka.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ZAMBIA AND IRAQ AND DAPHNE</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Saddam
arrested an Observer journalist in Iraq who was investigating the
WMDs story. He was executed. That journalist's British friend,
Daphne, was put in solitary confinement. Kaunda arranged her freedom
and she was released to Zambia and the British High Commission.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">KUWAIT</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Saddam
invaded Kuwait. Many of us believed that this was the start of the
Third World War. It was the first Iraq war. The West defeated Iraq
but the war was unfinished. From this point onwards the West
continued to bomb Iraq ostensibly in support of the Marsh Arabs.
Iraqi civilians also died but Saddam often used hostages to defend
military sites.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">AFGHANISTAN</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
Afghan War continued in its myriad convolutions. Fundamentalist forms
of conflicted and divided Islam had been recruiting in Africa for
decades but now in the Middle East they had developed into Al Qaeda
and ISIL. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 9/11</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On
9/11, a brilliantly conceived and successful attack on New York, the
commercial capital city of the USA, took place.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">IRAQ AND BLAIR</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2003
Bush and Blair decided to finalise the war with Iraq and remove
Saddam Hussein. It seems likely that the WMDs used as the excuse were
no longer in Iraq as a weakened Saddam had handed them to Bashir
Assad of Syria who later used chemical weapons against his own
civilians. </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">SYRIA AND BRITAIN AND BREXIT</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">2013
Britain voted not to take action against Assad in support of his
people. The resultant tragedy in Syria caused the huge migrant crisis
which helped an anti-immigrant Britain vote Brexit and may lead to
the breakup of the European Union.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">BLAIR</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In
2016 The Chilcot Inquiry reported. Tony Blair was apparently entirely
and solely the most responsible for the war and all the deaths that
resulted from the American/British intervention in Iraq over the
whole period. He is the single scapegoat in an extraordinarily
complex situation. Is that just?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
security of Britain, Europe, the USA, the Middle East and the
Mediterranean areas are closely bound together now and have been for
over a century. Today British and American troops continue to operate
in Iraq.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Please
explain to me why, in this complicated and interwoven scenario that
has gone on for so long, Tony Blair is singled out as the one and
only bad person? </span>
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Should
his intelligent and patriotic concerns about Brexit be therefore
disregarded?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-90494754805771110572016-07-12T08:57:00.001-07:002016-09-28T03:36:10.210-07:00THE HARD LEFT INVASION WEST HAMPSTEAD 1968<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3C2otqU8ole8MyKkBiegDiTwcAL5DpFVYww24gaGR3EAvIfq5flY51d4ZKwdvzHvXvjkELxshoHvaebZOPDkc6YdHymtTX2U3hjC7WO1at9LbVFwc55_W3S6ziJbFo3yCacUfOMuyVTF/s1600/anti-vietnam-war-demonstration-london-17-march-1968-akkwt4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB3C2otqU8ole8MyKkBiegDiTwcAL5DpFVYww24gaGR3EAvIfq5flY51d4ZKwdvzHvXvjkELxshoHvaebZOPDkc6YdHymtTX2U3hjC7WO1at9LbVFwc55_W3S6ziJbFo3yCacUfOMuyVTF/s320/anti-vietnam-war-demonstration-london-17-march-1968-akkwt4.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">In 1968 my home was invaded by the Hard
Left. I was 24, alone, over 7 months pregnant, my daughter not quite three, and
there was an angry and apparently irrational man barricaded into my flat with
me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">It was the year of the anti-Vietnam war
demonstrations in Grosvenor Square and Trafalgar Square. I had decided to drop
out of my sociology course at the London School of Economics because I was out
of my depth. I classified myself with some irony as a “Marxist” because in South Africa in
1966 it was possible to study “Marxism” at university but “Communists” were
traitors. Early in 1968 I had been admitted to the Charing Cross Hospital
because it was thought I might miscarry. Though I recovered, it wasn’t wise to
go on a demonstration that might be violent. Instead my husband, Mike, a junior
doctor and I volunteered for the LSE first aid post that was being organised to
look after injured demonstrators. We were told to attend a meeting at a house
somewhere in Hackney. The secrecy around this meeting was extraordinary. I kept
looking around the meeting for the police informers and felt sure there must be
police photographers outside. The atmosphere was extremely tense. Had I joined
an illegal guerrilla group planning an attack on the British establishment? I
have since wondered if it was it the headquarters of the Angry Brigade, who I then
hadn’t heard of. 1968 was an uncertain time which felt not unlike Brexit Britain does
today. Anything could happen – a world revolution – the end of capitalism – no
more war? Was Corbyn around then too?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>By
May Mike was working nights and spending whole weeks at his hospital. I didn’t
want to be alone with a small child, in case I went into labour. A flatmate was
the answer. I asked around among my political acquaintances and someone
suggested a young mixed race woman who also had a small child and had just been
evicted from her flat. I’ll call her Sarah. We met and talked. She seemed
unhappy and distressed which, under the circumstances, didn’t surprise me. Her
landlord had booted her out without notice. She gave few details but I agreed
that she could move in. I thought our kids might enjoy each other’s company.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Sarah was very touchy, quick to withdraw
into her room, and very unsmiling. Before long she asked if her boyfriend could
move in. I was surprised. No boyfriend had been mentioned and I didn’t see how
she could have acquired a new one as she never left the flat, but I agreed. I’ll
call the boyfriend Mark. He was Jewish like Mike, a small wiry man, but without
charm. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Sarah and Mark’s relations with me deteriorated
immediately without an apparent cause. Maybe I asked for the rent? I was
disturbed to be told by Sarah that her boyfriend, Mark, was the same landlord
who had kicked her out of their flat and that he had in turn been evicted from
this flat by a south London
council for non-payment of rent. Soon Sarah moved out in a rage. Her boyfriend
stayed on. I arrived home one afternoon to find that he had locked himself into
the bedroom that I had let to Sarah. He had a chamber-pot for peeing in and
climbed in an out of the bedroom through the fanlight above the windows that he
also kept locked. I was sick with stress and fear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Mike had a night away from the hospital.
Sarah’s room remained locked but seemed empty. In the middle of the night we
heard someone break in and we called the police. An officer had a lengthy
discussion with Mark through the bedroom fanlight. Before he left he said Mark
apparently “knew” his rights as a squatter. He was very well briefed both
legally and in left-wing politics.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“If
I were you” one policeman said to Mike. “I would thump him. The man’s a
coward.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Thumping other men wasn’t Mike’s style,
so we were at an impasse. Mike went back to work and I started getting anonymous
heavy breathing phone calls, probably from Sarah, but still terrifying. It was
a living nightmare. A phone call from the local council followed. The council
officer said that Mark and Sarah claimed to have been made homeless unlawfully by
me and were demanding to jump the housing queue. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">“You must take them back,” he said. He was without
sympathy. He didn’t want to help them one bit and he didn’t care about me and
my child. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">This hideous affair must have lasted only
weeks. I was on the point of capitulating when Mark disappeared. It was as if
he hadn’t existed. I didn’t see or hear him go but the phone calls also ceased.
The council must have re-housed them. I never saw either Sarah or Mark again
but I kept well away from the Socialist Workers Party or the Socialist Labour
League after that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Before I met them I had had an epiphany
during the sit-ins at the LSE. I realised that what matters in politics is not
whether you are left-wing or right-wing but whether you act with autonomy or comply
with authority when making decisions about your life and your actions. An
authoritarian is not the same as an authority. (Witness Michael Gove decrying
experts.) Authoritarian personalities tend to fascism, bullying and blame in
politics, while autonomous personalities are natural democrats who welcome
debate and look for equitable solutions. I think, looking back, that Mark and
Sarah were a troubled couple with personality problems in an abusive
relationship. They belonged to the authoritarian hard left of the time. They would
have been just as happily unhappy in any authoritarian cult or religion. As for
me I became wary of any extreme organisation that puts obedience and deference
above self-respect. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of
Labour on the Twitter-fed surge of a new left-wing I have thought about Mark
and Sarah. Describing a socialist as a Trotskyite was an insult back in 1968.
As far as I could determine this was because Trotskyites remained wedded to a
fundamentalist and pure socialism that would never sully itself with any of the
compromises that are necessary to change society. They stuck to the god-given Marxist
word of how and when capitalism would collapse and die and no changes in the
existing world could alter the path prescribed by Leon. Is Momentum’s support for
Corbyn a repeat of some of the fruitless efforts of 1968? Will a fundamentalist
left finally split and kill off Labour and democratic socialists? I hope not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Sarah and Mark may already be dead or simply
incarcerated in a closed anarchist commune (which might be the same thing).
Possibly they joined the 1980 Militants. Perhaps their ghosts fuel the hard
left today, but I doubt it. Unable to work with other socialists, unable to
cohabit with other human beings, they were socially dysfunctional. It seems
that some few of Corbyn’s supporters may be the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">If I was to take a poll among my friends
about their views on Trident, on war, on benefits, on the NHS, on
nationalisation I probably would find that they were as left-wing as Corbyn and
as idealistic. What I would find, however, is that they would be pragmatic,
realistic team-players with what is most essential for good politics – a sense
of humour and a readiness to talk to and to listen to other points of view.
Among the Twitter threats and insults heaped on people who do not support
Corbyn are there any signs of a readiness for a debate that can take the left
forward to a poll victory? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Among all this noise and confusion Jeremy
Corbyn shines like the Virgin at her Assumption. I have seen this rapture
before on the faces of the born-again into new life. It doesn’t last. Corbyn seems a
man possessed by the belief that he is leading the very few faithful into a
left-wing heaven. He is extremely naïve and innocent for a socialist. The rest
of us know all about the friability of celebrity status. Cults are made to die
and cult-leaders who fall from grace aren’t absolved. They go eventually but after
causing the disintegration of their cause. They care little for those who they consider to have left the narrow path.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-61272819995930001322015-01-14T01:46:00.001-08:002015-01-14T02:32:50.389-08:00HERO'S QUEST TO PUT THE WORLD TO RIGHTS: A SPHINX TAIL.<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>SPHINX TAIL</b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWPOJx0yNLYeocyBWEeMKtdsdDEvltzZAi5C6f7rGVJD63mn6jAtccAXjwDP1-I4eN2HH7P_9900EDFx-AFrFEyzvcTn2vyMgz030ULl-8npVgY-eQfQaUqTX8dz48YgJm5gujTjTTGgoT/s1600/friends+and+sphinx+004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWPOJx0yNLYeocyBWEeMKtdsdDEvltzZAi5C6f7rGVJD63mn6jAtccAXjwDP1-I4eN2HH7P_9900EDFx-AFrFEyzvcTn2vyMgz030ULl-8npVgY-eQfQaUqTX8dz48YgJm5gujTjTTGgoT/s1600/friends+and+sphinx+004.JPG" height="234" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>HERO'S QUEST TO PUT THE WORLD TO
RIGHTS.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once
upon a time something was wrong with the world. </span></span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So intelligent, good-hearted,
brave Hero set out on a quest to put the world to rights
by destroying the Enemy.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> 'How will you recognise the Enemy?' asked
Hero's father.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> 'The Enemy is different from me.' replied Hero.
'The Enemy is Death.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> 'Take care.' begged Hero's mother. 'Be good.'
She was a stereotypical mother.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> 'Come back soon.' warned Hero's lover. 'Love
lasts forever, but sex has a time limit.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The first person Hero met was an
Old Man.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Good morning.' said the Old Man. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'I am on my way to put things
right.' said Hero.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Can I help you? I have spent my
life trying to make the world a better place by enacting laws that
protect people from injustice.' offered the Old Man.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'No.' said Hero. 'You are old. You
are a man. You have no new ideas and you do not know what it is to be
a Hero and put the world to rights.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'That may be true.' said the Old
Man. 'The world keeps changing but some of the things my generation
have made might be useful for you to carry with you.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'No.' said Hero</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'As you wish.' said the Old Man who
had plenty of children and was tired of disagreements.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The next person that Hero met was a
Liberal. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Hello Hero.' said the Liberal.
'Where are you going?'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'I am on my way to put things right
and destroy the Enemy.' said Hero.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Can I help you?' said the Liberal.
'I want to put things right too. Perhaps I can go with you some of
the way at least?'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'No' said Hero. 'My only friends
are those who agree to go all the way with me.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'I am sorry.' said the Liberal who
always apologised for her failures and who wore ill-fitting shoes.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The third person that Hero met was
a Moderate.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Hi.' said the Moderate. 'I am
heading in your direction and have already made some progress. Shall
we journey together? I am going to visit my family.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'No.' said Hero. 'My friends are
wholly committed to my quest and you only care about your family.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Okay. Do it your way.' said the
Moderate who because of experience, was given to being pragmatic and
also had transport.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The next two persons Hero met were
an Artist and a Writer.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Wow!' said they said. 'A Hero at
last. We have been playing around with ways of shaking up people and
shocking them into having new ideas so the world can change for the
better. Can we help you? What do you think?' </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Well I'm not flaky and offensive
like you both.' said Hero. 'You simply cannot be relied on to be
politically correct. I know what I think. Your thoughts are all over
the place.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> '<span style="font-style: normal;">Perhaps
and maybe not</span>.' said the Artist and Writer. 'But we have
always fought with the Enemy. Will you free our brothers and sisters
if you defeat the Enemy?'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'When I defeat the Enemy I will.'
promised Hero. 'Artists and writers have a high nuisance value
however, so only if they paint my portrait and write a flattering
eulogy about me.' </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The Artist and Writer shrugged.
They were used to bad reviews and carrying out worse commissions and
had been invited to a party.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Hero found himself surrounded by a
crowd of travellers who were all arguing with each other.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Who are you all?' Hero asked in
some confusion.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'We are all Heroes going on a quest
to put things right and destroy the Enemy.' said one of the many
spokespeople in the crowd.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Oh.' said Hero surprised. 'I
thought I was the only one on this quest. I am sure it is good to
have companions who will go all the way with me. Please can you tell
me how you are going to destroy the Enemy.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'There is only one way to destroy
the Enemy.' said another spokesperson. 'I am the only one with the
solution.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> At this the argument became even
louder and more fractious.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'First we must go back and destroy
the Old Man's law.' said one.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'No we must rewrite it.' said
another.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Its the fault of the Liberals.
They are too soft and kind and don't realise that they have always
been fortunate. Without them things would be clearer and there would
be more space.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Its the fault of the Moderates.
They only consider themselves and not others. We must take away their
riches.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Its the fault of the Artists and
Writers. We have to teach them what they are NOT allowed to say.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Some of the travellers said 'Lets
go back and tell everyone how to do things properly.' </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Others said 'Lets go forward and
fight the Enemy.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Realising that there was no
consensus among his companions, Hero asked. “Have you seen the
Enemy? Do you know what the Enemy looks like?' </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> This last question caused such a
tremendous row that a fist fight broke out among the Heroes. No one
could decide for certain who the Enemy was or what the Enemy looked
like. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Poverty.' 'Ignorance.' 'Greed.'
'Bigotry.' 'Riches'. 'Sickness.' 'Immorality.' 'Dogma.' 'Lack of
faith.' were all suggested.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'I still think its Death.'
determined Hero. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Neither could any of them agree on
the best way to destroy the Enemy. Apparently everyone of them had
asked an intellectual or an analyst for their point of view with the
result that there were more opinions than people. They all had
developed dreadful headaches from thinking about it. Hero was going
to add that the Enemy seemed to be within their group but nobody was
listening.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> At last a third spokesperson stood
up.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'We have decided to go onto
Facebook and see who gets the most Likes.' he said. ' When we know
that, then we will Unfriend those who got the least and that is how
we will destroy the Enemy.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Are you sure?' asked Hero who had
climbed up a nearby hill to escape the fracas. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> 'Look what is happening! It seems
that the Enemy is also behind us.'</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> At that the Heroes turned around
and found to their horror that the Enemy had divided and multiplied
and had them surrounded. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The Heroes could see that rather a
large number of Artists and Writers had been killed and imprisoned.
Liberals and Moderates were being attacked and wounded on every side.
Most saddening for the Heroes was the huge numbers of dead women and
children that lay about everywhere.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> The Old Man, helpless with tears,
watched from a distance. They were all his children after all.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-73615291939843386832014-11-07T03:01:00.001-08:002014-11-07T03:01:08.864-08:00Dental Surgery in Pau<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUunheq5HkoUP_WLEVhb9Zm0p6Mwaka6gXzXpy1mOmPXR3JseMQOPeih82GrJ-HrxWeVn1PY901VLgqTIfAea5MsxykjDZd67YQBwctcjKVpxyOuJmara2S_311z7AviZj_kFfNTtSAoi/s1600/Dental+medicines+001+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOUunheq5HkoUP_WLEVhb9Zm0p6Mwaka6gXzXpy1mOmPXR3JseMQOPeih82GrJ-HrxWeVn1PY901VLgqTIfAea5MsxykjDZd67YQBwctcjKVpxyOuJmara2S_311z7AviZj_kFfNTtSAoi/s1600/Dental+medicines+001+(2).jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div align="center" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eight months ago I had a bone graft in my upper jaw. It was a sterile procedure done under local anaesthetic. I was losing bone and therefore a tooth and good dental health is good health overall. It took about an hour and was pain free - lots of stitches. Of course I had a swollen face etc afterwards but good after care and recovered well. Seven months afterwards my surgeon said it was successful and yesterday, eight months later he proceeded to put the implant in place. I will have another 6 months to wait before he knows if it is okay to go ahead with giving me a permanent false tooth. Again the operation was sterile - under half an hour, pain free but I behaved quite unreasonably like a baby. My surgeon is excellent and so was his team. I will write and thank him and apologise. Remembered traumas not actual ones made me fearful. My face is very slightly botoxed in appearance on one side but no discomfort. I have to take loads of antibiotics and pills for the moment but am fine. John has been brilliant about driving me to Pau to have the operations and all the previous appointments and follow-ups. Pau is 45 minutes away and sitting in waiting rooms is dull in the extreme.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-51727260025328002642014-09-21T13:38:00.000-07:002014-09-24T03:07:52.514-07:00INSIDE MY SKIN: WHITE 'MADAM' AND 'BLACK' ART<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>INSIDE MY SKIN: WHITE 'MADAM' AND
'BLACK' ART</b>.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am starting again. It is a treat to quote an intelligent comedian like Tim Minchin who advocates nuanced thinking. Nuanced thinking is needed when we consider the petition to ban Brett Bailey's Exhibit B. Like many of those writing about it I haven't seen it. It's 800k away from me across France. I have read the arguments however and they are important to me and my art. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dividing the world into black and
white is plain silly because t</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">he world is not divided into
simplistic opposites and never has been.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brett Bailey's Exhibit B does of
course raise questions for artists and humans with thin skins or
thick hides of whatever shade they are on the outside. Art is
supposed to shake up ideas.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIhrXF_qpYhdy4NVc8YixIu_K00aok5D6kgYkwr2RUqrDiA8WvGBmimekL6vOELiYBNopxFYp2VrJxbyuIg3cgoHYywX13Qj54nupxWbOfIuzwnw-XKbCC85pmUSdvd4Hm8bEGKXIdeAiC/s1600/Brett+Bailey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIhrXF_qpYhdy4NVc8YixIu_K00aok5D6kgYkwr2RUqrDiA8WvGBmimekL6vOELiYBNopxFYp2VrJxbyuIg3cgoHYywX13Qj54nupxWbOfIuzwnw-XKbCC85pmUSdvd4Hm8bEGKXIdeAiC/s1600/Brett+Bailey.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-09-04-brett-baileys-exhibit-b-knots-up-london-knickers">http://mg.co.za/article/2014-09-04-brett-baileys-exhibit-b-knots-up-london-knickers</a></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am white and I have made art about
Africa. I was born in Africa and lived most of my life there. I don't
speak on behalf of other people. I speak of what I feel and think I
know. What I think and know changes as I learn and change. The colour
of my skin should not stop me saying what I feel unless I prevent
someone else from being heard by saying it or if I defame someone. I
should not be silenced but asked to listen.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sara Myers' boycott seems to be
based on the idea that Brett Bailey and all white South Africans are
racist. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">They aren't. He isn't as far as I can judge.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes - there is racism – and
bigotry in the world but banning an exhibition won't change that and
a boycott may be inadvertently racist and bigoted if it doesn't have the whole picture.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The world and art can't be improved
by claiming that there is a clear gulf between what's right
and what's wrong, between what's black and what's white.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The world has never been that
simple.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Going to war for simplistic reasons
is not helpful.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Fighting for understanding is not
going to war.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Banning, boycotting and destroying
art is almost without exception bad for human liberty, freedom of
thought and autonomy. If you don't like Exhibit B then go and make
art of your own- write your own books – start a counter culture,
create a new one. Bad art tends to disappear and die soon enough.
What matters is that art provokes arguments and discussions, it can
change perceptions, it can make us feel and therefore think and
disagree. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Exhibit B and Brett Bailey have made
us see people suffering but he wasn't doing it to humiliate anyone - what would that achieve?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There is resistance to this kind of
show but not because people are callous or don't care or are racist
but because it is painful. Guilt and responsibility are hard to
handle but victims hate this stuff too. Any therapist will tell you
that.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perhaps this is a reason why Sara Myers is
angry with it? I expect it would upset me very much too.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">During the Slave Trade there were white British people who were made poorer by
it, white people who had no connection to it and some who would have
opposed it. The Slave Trade made some people very rich. Though some countries benefited greatly not all their citizens did. Lets hit the right targets.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why did Bailey get such a bad press
when it was okay for black Steve McQueen to make 'Twelve Years a
Slave.' and for white Brad Pitt to produce it?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Perhaps because his show is more
accessible than the film to demonstrators who need to vent their
feelings about it.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The pain and discomfort of the
'exhibits' – the people who 'acted' is what all actors who choose
to play grim roles suffer. It is certainly very difficult and
upsetting to write or make art about abuse of any description. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Freak shows? Is not most reality
television a freak show? Aren't freaks and celebrities often the same
people? Don't we love freaks and learn to empathise by internalising
their suffering? Don't artists and the creative process exist on the
borderlines between 'normal' and 'freak'?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brett Bailey is South African. He
lives in South Africa where all races are equal under the law and
people of all races and colours contributed to the fight for freedom.
He has the right to speak on any subject including slavery. He has
the right to be wrong. No one can shut him up because they don't
agree with him. Free speech is one of the foundations of democracy.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Would there – or should there -
have been this outcry if Bailey had had a black skin? Or been a black
woman? Then again would a black man or woman make this kind of art?
Well - yes they have – there are many examples in contemporary
art. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Look at Kara Walker's 'Sugar Baby' </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYr7wPSIJEhD_tFWDTY82ppp-PryfGU4RNOZu1W8c57wARH_yDhDBFGNcIu6bsYK41COGP9iB2kPCtrDo-1F6arHQ65y_IC9loICWV73OUUWqL3cYu9jwisgFYlh_EH-5NL805KD5-RSU/s1600/KARA-master675.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYr7wPSIJEhD_tFWDTY82ppp-PryfGU4RNOZu1W8c57wARH_yDhDBFGNcIu6bsYK41COGP9iB2kPCtrDo-1F6arHQ65y_IC9loICWV73OUUWqL3cYu9jwisgFYlh_EH-5NL805KD5-RSU/s1600/KARA-master675.jpg" height="166" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/arts/design/a-subtlety-or-the-marvelous-sugar-baby-at-the-domino-plant.html?_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/arts/design/a-subtlety-or-the-marvelous-sugar-baby-at-the-domino-plant.html?_r=0</a>#</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It looks wonderful and probably
justifies its scale and expense. I would like to ask Walker what she
thinks of Exhibit B and of Brett Bailey but I don't know what answer
she would give. It does seems that slavery still creates divisions
between black and white Americans. Why and how that gulf
continues to exist needs to be the subject of another discussion.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I remember in Johannesburg in about
1991 seeing an installation by Penny Siopsis about slavery and its
relationship to the sugar trade – she is a white South African.
<a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/penny-siopis">http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/penny-siopis</a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_Dl5DxGIAVYo4nQCwFiw7SRrGZrfzceWSKUzMFLwGwDent3QbHuqEW5vmmgBDNCEwVWfYz6xssV0iCyZZUSGe5DctPzTyf29nw98VOOD4OODD7s-gI24KEOZvH6ezgU3s7r7F_hcODDa/s1600/Dora+Siopsis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_Dl5DxGIAVYo4nQCwFiw7SRrGZrfzceWSKUzMFLwGwDent3QbHuqEW5vmmgBDNCEwVWfYz6xssV0iCyZZUSGe5DctPzTyf29nw98VOOD4OODD7s-gI24KEOZvH6ezgU3s7r7F_hcODDa/s1600/Dora+Siopsis.jpg" /></a></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So are we judging art or artist or
skin colour when we compare these three exhibitions?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What I personally see as problematic
about the Bailey and Walker exhibitions is their enormous cost and
their position in the 'billionaire art industry of the world' but
that is also a discussion for another occasion.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">How would Exhibit B have been seen
if the slaves represented were white and the slave masters black?
Would that change perceptions? Does this exhibit say that having a
black skin gives you more of a propensity to be enslaved than a white
skin? I don't think so.</span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That is not the lesson of history.
Slavery has been around ever since there were humans. Egyptians,
Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Hebrews, Europeans, Africans – all practised slavery. It seems
there have always been forms of bondage and slavery. Today, though illegal
in most of the world, it is even more profitable. The scale of the
Triangle Trade, its acceptance as normal and its links to industry
and commerce made it enormous and monstrous. The Holocaust was
genocide on an industrial scale which makes it unthinkable though
true but these terrible crimes were not the only ones to happen in human history. Jews and black people, whites and gentiles have been perpetrators as well as victims.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The human scale however is always
personal and humans need to deal with these horrors personally and
individually regardless of their outer covering of skin. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">South African Resistance Art -
another example - was made by artists of different colours.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Art-South-Africa-Williamson/dp/1919930698">http://www.amazon.com/Resistance-Art-South-Africa-Williamson/dp/1919930698</a></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I come from an involvement with art
in Zambia where I facilitated artists, exhibitions and workshops
before 1994 so I was also interested in the art of the other
Frontline States and South Africa. In the 80's when I first worked
with artists in Zambia I was called 'Madam' which I hated but things move on fast and that soon stopped. There have been great changes in Zambia and Southern Africa and
its art since then. At that time Zambian artists wanted to study at art
school but the few white people who bought African art wanted
intuitive and naïve art which they considered more 'authentic'. That
split between artists and among buyers could be seen in South African
art of the same time too. What I learnt from Zambian artists however,
is that they wanted to be equal among all artists. No artist wants to
be defined by their skin or for race to be part of the consideration
of their art. They don't want to make money from phoney 'authentic'
art but to make their own personal art.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This was my part of my installation about the significance of water to expatriate and African women.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </div>
<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_bO_T0rOnJd2Os7FYkS84MSTN3-AzTOMVbz3n0Jm4pMxQeipCjhOWkctgLkOpiJcs_HSdKvM0Ay_rDS1Do9pwRyQ8bg3w2b9d2iNtxVJju7_-jnzQg-wuKFEg-9zYI51WXjKSQGHE5wo/s1600/water+001+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_bO_T0rOnJd2Os7FYkS84MSTN3-AzTOMVbz3n0Jm4pMxQeipCjhOWkctgLkOpiJcs_HSdKvM0Ay_rDS1Do9pwRyQ8bg3w2b9d2iNtxVJju7_-jnzQg-wuKFEg-9zYI51WXjKSQGHE5wo/s1600/water+001+(2).jpg" height="320" width="217" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is my portrait of an artist
from the inside – the inside of my skin. My flesh coloured not skin coloured inside is like everyone's inside.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhaFmnAoVSdOPNIwRNG27VTaXz7OFFrnBy23QxfBE1XSJe8E_qw1pTkPd66d5QKIKD31mRkSsyfSuTWQw8AhyphenhyphenRyVJU7ATztkErwdifFIS_RPODciZeVVIHqdHQpnW_yH0Q_hrg2pruln7n/s1600/Portrait+(3).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhaFmnAoVSdOPNIwRNG27VTaXz7OFFrnBy23QxfBE1XSJe8E_qw1pTkPd66d5QKIKD31mRkSsyfSuTWQw8AhyphenhyphenRyVJU7ATztkErwdifFIS_RPODciZeVVIHqdHQpnW_yH0Q_hrg2pruln7n/s1600/Portrait+(3).jpg" height="308" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It complicates the world to be
simplistic about colour, class, race and people.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Skin, identity, gender and race are not fixed. My own family is mixed and unfixed. Humans, society, the world - they are always changing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Tomorrow's world will not judge people by the colour of their skin but we will still be fighting exploitation, slavery and injustice and we will still be making art.</span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Look at these nuanced and powerful
paintings made by Bulelwa Madekurozwa. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxftii9PAZg4IwPduxbv4RjGTZeJzIeOACFqNOlOpQiZ6wM5__6E-qzOjCYl6cY83FEbtXK9fP20HANeLRhCCcIvaBptSmcLTL5ShQZX973FW8zEEUGXFWQTKDvxtOnO9PrM_jZplynl7v/s1600/Artist+from+Zimbabwe+Gasworks+Vauxhall+Brixton+London+001+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxftii9PAZg4IwPduxbv4RjGTZeJzIeOACFqNOlOpQiZ6wM5__6E-qzOjCYl6cY83FEbtXK9fP20HANeLRhCCcIvaBptSmcLTL5ShQZX973FW8zEEUGXFWQTKDvxtOnO9PrM_jZplynl7v/s1600/Artist+from+Zimbabwe+Gasworks+Vauxhall+Brixton+London+001+(2).jpg" height="320" width="233" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDk8mrXQBWh_r2CA1_apOGk8NsoCTFDwXL5mkm5V5TZvaTu7FjNoR-WFH5qBklzxVnur3LozpdZ5oD4tx6Z6qLzLYA5CoEvOgfRzLrRPicAQGXlReui4ZF8nzapmYtn6PsDrJ8VqaL4JI/s1600/Artist+from+Zimbabwe+GasworksVauxhall+London+001+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXDk8mrXQBWh_r2CA1_apOGk8NsoCTFDwXL5mkm5V5TZvaTu7FjNoR-WFH5qBklzxVnur3LozpdZ5oD4tx6Z6qLzLYA5CoEvOgfRzLrRPicAQGXlReui4ZF8nzapmYtn6PsDrJ8VqaL4JI/s1600/Artist+from+Zimbabwe+GasworksVauxhall+London+001+(2).jpg" height="320" width="229" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><div align="center">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
</span><br />
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-78559354003445062082014-08-25T04:03:00.000-07:002014-08-25T08:04:23.141-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJoq0INQPXmn9feID19T6EyLcz6tVLIgO2sDgBFVhhjz2UQlhB5UF0_4z78lAcMVC8qZp6ePnuhW59OzufH-oEEYpYBOQZGh6vOC5dfjFaOGSMn7JmEjBu6DqrwRJhDP2N_rmacu1y-d6/s1600/highlander-2-732.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJoq0INQPXmn9feID19T6EyLcz6tVLIgO2sDgBFVhhjz2UQlhB5UF0_4z78lAcMVC8qZp6ePnuhW59OzufH-oEEYpYBOQZGh6vOC5dfjFaOGSMn7JmEjBu6DqrwRJhDP2N_rmacu1y-d6/s1600/highlander-2-732.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>THE CALL OF THE TRIBAL</b> </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> I listened to an early Newsnight
debate on the Scottish referendum on independence.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Well that's that!” I thought.
“Heart wins over head! The Yes vote wins! Stands to unreason.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I felt - and feel - sympathetic.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Its about the warm call of going
home – to the family, the village – the tribe!” I told myself.
“They'll go with it.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At school in Africa my best friends
were proud working class Scots 6,000 miles from Scotland. Jazz was
their preferred music. Football their game. Distance enchanted their
view of home.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The reality of Scottish independence
will probably be less attractive when it's not a distant
dream.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the country club near my home in
the bush we danced Eightsome Reels, Stripped the Willow and sang
'Auld lang syne.' and shouted 'Och aye!' We the English were in
transition to the life of lairds and landowners with black peasants.
When we went to the Mother Country we had to visit the Highlands.
England's heart was not folksy enough for homesick colonials.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Colonial whites knew about tribalism
in Africa. We used it to our advantage. We stoked the enmity between
the Ndebele and the Shona. An enemy divided is an enemy defeated. We
chose the most warlike tribe – the Zulu in South Africa – we
could respect them – and put them in charge of 'lesser' tribes.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In history however, we were taught
that the real achievement of civilised people was to join together,
make treaties and alliances. We celebrated every union and agreement
that meant peace even when it gave power to the top dogs.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ah well! Alex Salmond has been
fighting for independence for Scotland for decades and he will likely
win. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What a shame! </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He has thrown the discordant apple of
choice into the heart of Scotland and split it almost exactly in
half. Every nation needs its tribes and Scotland will soon have the
dominant YES tribe and the discomfited NO tribe. Will they learn to
love each other? </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Will Scotland discover that it isn't
run or owned by the Scots in any case but like Britain, is a
franchise of global corporations? Salmond's independence is an
anachronism that doesn't answer the problems of today's world.
Salmond unfortunately is a man of fixed ideas. Will he have served
the Scots well? I doubt it. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If Salmond loses perhaps he'll go
into self-exile in Darien?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Scots talk a 'braveheart' about
being socialists who despise Sassenach conservative toffs but their
socialism is also chauvinism and somewhat conservative too. </span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What happened to the international
socialist dream of a better life for all humanity? </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The fact that the English won't have
the support of Scottish Labour will be a misfortune for England and
Scotland. England might rejoice if Northern Ireland split. The
Catholics could go with Eire and the Calvinists become a Scottish
dependency. If the Scots were to commit the Crimea of invading the
North-East of England and inveigling our last deprived working class
community into a 'union' with them England would be much the poorer! </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Suppose the worst. What if England
breaks up into tribes. The Tower of Hamlets is fortified. The Glastonbury
Wall of sound cuts off South-West England. Norfolk floods its land to keep out
the Essex hordes. Oxford and Cambridge turn the Isis and the Cam into
moats and go it alone.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Imagine with horror that the one
stereotype of an Englishman held up for us to love might be a Farage
of John Bull - all mouth and no brain. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Scotland, don't leave us! </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Save us from ourselves.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We need you!</span></div>
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</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-16021679782377046472014-08-07T07:10:00.000-07:002014-08-07T07:14:03.770-07:00APARTHEID, SOUTH AFRICA, PALESTINE, HAMAS AND MY PAINTING<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>APARTHEID, SOUTH AFRICA, PALESTINE, HAMAS AND MY PAINTING</strong>.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipkXUTKTvRlwDLDSIQwov0Eh0e0ci5dAlgn7XBMf14IoEnLvnmgtoGA_HRm_jp7RFAFyxVg0qOCgY7jv3fhYdTCtZP4JeaoKdh9Y7X9X3MV_8tw7c1TIiLClL_mQD-OJFtkxDVRgOU68JN/s1600/South+African+Series=+Apartheid+1994+001+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipkXUTKTvRlwDLDSIQwov0Eh0e0ci5dAlgn7XBMf14IoEnLvnmgtoGA_HRm_jp7RFAFyxVg0qOCgY7jv3fhYdTCtZP4JeaoKdh9Y7X9X3MV_8tw7c1TIiLClL_mQD-OJFtkxDVRgOU68JN/s1600/South+African+Series=+Apartheid+1994+001+(2).jpg" height="229" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>I
made this painting in April 1994 as a participant in the Mbile
International Artists Workshop in Zambia</strong>.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It
was the same time as the first democratic elections in South Africa
which was where my heart was. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This
is the largest of 3 paintings I called the 'South African series'.
One was called 'Exile', one called 'Freedom Fighters' and this one I
called 'Apartheid'.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
painting represents the evils of apartheid as I saw it and
experienced it in the 1960s. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
blood-stained and damaged landscape is fenced with barbed wire and
empty of people except for those who wait without hope by the
roadside. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
panels on the left and right are about prisons. Those that
incarcerate prisoners as well as those that imprison people's minds
and bodies with fear, bigotry, censorship, racial and sexual
discrimination. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Along
the top are symbols of power and war. Among them are modern bombs and
ancient spears, raised fists, crowns, masks of fear and superstition.
As well as the white Nationalists, I chose these symbols to represent
leaders of the Bantustans who used tribalism and ignorance to oppress
their own people. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At
the bottom of the painting are coffins symbolising those who died to
end apartheid. They include Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists
and others.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>My
painting could almost be about Palestine if I made some changes.</strong> </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The
fenced and bloody landscape would have to be full of suffering
people. The prisons would still be there. I would however, include
Hamas in the top panel as an oppressor of the people, along the
Netanyahu government and along with all religious fundamentalists. At
the bottom there would still be the same coffins – Muslim,
Christian and Jewish and atheist. They would not be those of Freedom
Fighters or heroes. The coffins would be of the victims of terrorism
and fundamentalism – all those who have died in the last 4 weeks. I
would include suicide bombers as victims but not heroes. The French
children and Rabbi, the old lady Mrs Bloch, killed by Idi Amin at
Entebbe. the King David hotel victims, the Palestinians – I could
go back forever. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Instead
I will say STOP NOW!</strong></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
would not choose to make a painting about Palestine as I am not a
Palestinian. I might make a painting about how I would feel about
Palestine and Israel. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAbdplTURcCh1g6DRNHWbMfCGedlFnaTQ4G6xyN4fYDQwEHaba7QBi2krjOS3xfi-w263jjxGY_5kt6J44jTgcRsCrzp38-QtoH9-8KFVwC-Is6_NPYMB88NiQkhHwrH5ElLLBFE5_n-QT/s1600/the+Balkan+war+1999+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAbdplTURcCh1g6DRNHWbMfCGedlFnaTQ4G6xyN4fYDQwEHaba7QBi2krjOS3xfi-w263jjxGY_5kt6J44jTgcRsCrzp38-QtoH9-8KFVwC-Is6_NPYMB88NiQkhHwrH5ElLLBFE5_n-QT/s1600/the+Balkan+war+1999+001.jpg" height="282" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I made an installation about the war in the
Balkans in the 1990's. I showed an English tea table covered with a
fabric on which were printed images from British newspapers of the
ethnic cleansing. The tea cups and teapot were filled with blood.
Next to them rested a copy of the War poems of Wilfred Owen and a
daily paper. Ii is called 'Grantchester ten-to-three' after the poem by Rupert Brooke.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If I was to make a painting today about Palestine this is what I would have to try to show and express - one of my
children is half-Muslim, the others are half-Jewish and that makes
them all vulnerable to hate and race crimes and death threats. How
can I protect them?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I
ask you what you think I should put into my art today?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>The
ANC gave all South Africans a Freedom Charter</strong> – social justice
without racism or sexism – rights for everybody regardless of
religion and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hamas
has not and will not give the Palestinians a Freedom Charter. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It
expects that they will prefer to die and not to live. </span>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Whatever
you feel about Israel and Palestine, please unite against
anti-Semitism and racism of any sort.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-2448317382338673572014-07-26T10:26:00.001-07:002014-07-26T10:26:35.733-07:00KURT VONNEGUT MADE ME CRY.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaM6TflvwZOdP881Onr97L1KlCFILVcAOX4SZVkzImQ6wKpS97zOrGsayh3lhgxJltd-Kt9yvIGxP_m8beNxvXYiQcgoWZTiUo-k13dCCfxAL9OsxsDqO82vYnryMMen7kX09G-VTts10y/s1600/2778055.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaM6TflvwZOdP881Onr97L1KlCFILVcAOX4SZVkzImQ6wKpS97zOrGsayh3lhgxJltd-Kt9yvIGxP_m8beNxvXYiQcgoWZTiUo-k13dCCfxAL9OsxsDqO82vYnryMMen7kX09G-VTts10y/s1600/2778055.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It doesn't happen as often as it
should but the book I was reading made me cry.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It was Kurt Vonnegut's “A man
without a country”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4979.A_Man_Without_a_Country">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4979.A_Man_Without_a_Country</a></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The tears ran down my face and had
to be wiped away.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He is a very funny writer but I
wasn't crying tears of laughter.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is what he wrote that made me
cry.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS, cursive;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Joe,
a young man from Pittsburg, came up to me with one request:</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS, cursive;"><span style="font-size: small;"> “Please
tell me it will all be okay.”</span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Comic Sans MS, cursive;"><span style="font-size: small;"> “Welcome
to Earth, young man,” I said. “It's hot in the summer and cold in
the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, Joe,
you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I
know of: Goddamn it Joe, you've got to be kind!”</span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So what do you think?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was thinking it is impossible not
to feel passionate about what is happening in Gaza to ordinary
people, women, children and civilians.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Passion is needed to make things
better.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was also thinking that the
suffering makes it more important to be dispassionate about the facts
that led to and created the problems of the Middle East.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If we aren't dispassionate at the
same time we will undermine our own arguments.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Vonnegut talks about a one day
massacre that killed 135,000 people. It was inflicted on the 'worst
people in history' – those guilty of the Holocaust - by the 'good'
people of Britain. It was done out of revenge or as an experiment and
was not necessary to end the war.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </div>
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4981.Slaughterhouse_Five">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4981.Slaughterhouse_Five</a><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Those same 'good' people refused to
allow Jewish refugees to travel to Palestine even though there was no
place on earth for them. Many died or drowned. Those same 'good'
people refused to allow the creation of Israel until the Stern Gang
and Irgun, both terrorist organisations, forced their hand. </span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="http://israel_history.enacademic.com/934/Stern_%28Gang%29_Group">http://israel_history.enacademic.com/934/Stern_%28Gang%29_Group</a></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The suffering on the people of Gaza
does not make Hamas any better than it is.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The Holocaust does not justify the
attack on Gaza.</span></div>
<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/gaza-1994-2004-peace-led-war-2014720144816864760.html">http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/07/gaza-1994-2004-peace-led-war-2014720144816864760.html</a><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What can we do? What can I do?</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be passionate about helping people who suffer.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be dispassionate. It is not the
suffering on either side makes people good or bad or justifies their
politics or history.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Be kind to both parties to be fair.
Be merciful to be just.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span> </div>
<a href="http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/jews-and-arabs-refuse-to-be-enemies/">http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/jews-and-arabs-refuse-to-be-enemies/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-63830490093435318822014-07-22T06:28:00.004-07:002014-07-22T06:31:02.683-07:00MONTMORILLON BOOK FAIR AND RUTH HARTLEY'S 'THE SHAPING OF WATER'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIMU8fHpoPXGjHkRvBwhBgSYC6Knbt2Vnjy7NsA1hS263ssDWtzBWTsG9s8EcfzcdYtIMU3uxb1XcYMzSZBaaXw-yaUkszHaCCB-NNwZGAgrSycA3RzSx4k9RiKyf5mnVZ3QoQv-rquQD/s1600/June+July+2014+trip+to+UK+and+Montorrillon+006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIMU8fHpoPXGjHkRvBwhBgSYC6Knbt2Vnjy7NsA1hS263ssDWtzBWTsG9s8EcfzcdYtIMU3uxb1XcYMzSZBaaXw-yaUkszHaCCB-NNwZGAgrSycA3RzSx4k9RiKyf5mnVZ3QoQv-rquQD/s1600/June+July+2014+trip+to+UK+and+Montorrillon+006.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.ruthhartley.com/">www.ruthhartley.com</a></div>
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Ruth, with her novel 'The Shaping of Water' outside The Glass Key in Montmorillon</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_8hMqGDGyQgRfWcJ16MIIeHEKbuC7dLDItceMvuKrwrUcPvNu-2qt326kchFNlTiQFkClu3VxxiJ0GknRNkX4TE8u1xNN0qre_9fTU69h2B1ZfE6UwkXo9UG39jHbAHay4-YyXgJJ2rw/s1600/June+July+2014+trip+to+UK+and+Montorrillon+016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_8hMqGDGyQgRfWcJ16MIIeHEKbuC7dLDItceMvuKrwrUcPvNu-2qt326kchFNlTiQFkClu3VxxiJ0GknRNkX4TE8u1xNN0qre_9fTU69h2B1ZfE6UwkXo9UG39jHbAHay4-YyXgJJ2rw/s1600/June+July+2014+trip+to+UK+and+Montorrillon+016.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://glasskey.wordpress.com/">http://glasskey.wordpress.com/</a></div>
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A wonderful second-hand bookshop and antique shop specialising in antique fabrics.</div>
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The Glass Key is run by James and Patsy Fraser who do an internet order service.</div>
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There are wonderful books to browse through and to buy. James and Patsy are very helpful and knowledgeable. </div>
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Lunch with James, Patsy and the other boutique owners during the book fair.</div>
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The book fair and discussions by writers. All French of course!</div>
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Montmorillon is a beautiful town between Limoges and Poitiers.</div>
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I didn't sell any of my books but gained a great deal of knowledge by meeting and talking to other writers about writing and selling novels. John and I had a very pleasant weekend indeed.</div>
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It is lovely to be back home again and once again working away on my next novel.</div>
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From the Glass Key I bought and read 'The Reader' by Bernhard Schlink. A really good novel. Highly recommended</div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101299.The_Reader?ac=1">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101299.The_Reader?ac=1</a></div>
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I much enjoyed Dashiel Hammet's 'The Glass Key'</div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30007.The_Glass_Key?ac=1">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30007.The_Glass_Key?ac=1</a></div>
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Also a book of poetry by Adrienne Rich </div>
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The Will to Change' </div>
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81704.Adrienne_Rich_s_Poetry_and_Prose?ac=1">https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81704.Adrienne_Rich_s_Poetry_and_Prose?ac=1</a></div>
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and as research for my novel - 'George Grosz' 'Les annees de Berlin' </div>
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<a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Grosz">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Grosz</a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-2791514754574689472014-07-21T13:06:00.004-07:002014-07-22T03:25:12.841-07:00 A RESPONSE TO GILLIAN SCHUTTE'S 'MANDELA DAY'<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> A RESPONSE TO GILLIAN SCHUTTE'S
'MANDELA DAY'</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I find Ms Schutte's article confused
and confusing.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">True, Mandela has been subjected to
hagiography and reinvention. All important historical figures
worldwide suffer in this way. Gandhi, Kennedy, Martin Luther King are
all examples. Some do well out of it and some not. None of them will
escape criticism forever or keep their reputations intact. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Time and historical research will
rebalance and reassess Mandela's contribution and there will always
be arguments about his value. That's good. Remember too, that Mandela
was turned into a brand and a money-making legacy on his death bed.
He was denied dignity as his life ended so others could make
political capital from him and this was done by his immediate family
and by senior politicians, none of whom were white. This behaviour
may be reprehensible but it is also human. Human behaviour is human
behaviour – not white or black behaviour.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is true that black leaders
throughout post -colonial Africa have been given an unjustifiably bad
press from the West. Nevertheless leaders will always be criticised
and deserve to be criticised because they will all inevitably make
mistakes and sometimes prove corruptible. Mandela and Gandhi
included. What is needed is for people to be well-informed and not
leap to defend or decry any leader because of the colour of his skin
or his culture or traditions or religion. Leaders ought to be judged
by the egalitarian way they fulfil the constitution of their country.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ms Schutte's anger is directed
against rich privileged whites and neocolonialism. Justifiable?
Useful? Relevant to the South African situation? One might ask how
helpful is her polemic in effecting change for the better for those
she advocates for – the poor black folk who lack agency. After all
there is a new colonial power searching for mines and farms in
Africa. It's emissaries are relatively poor Chinese workers.
Everything will change.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ms Schutte talks about the 'dominant
discourse' but what does she mean exactly? I take it, and I apologise
if I am wrong,that she means to identify those who hold power and
have control of society but she uses this term rather broadly. Is she
talking about the global dominant discourse or specifically the
dominant discourse in South Africa? They should not be conflated even
where they impact on each other.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Ms Schutte quotes Richard Dyer's
book 'White'. I haven't read it but it sounds interesting.
He is talking she says, about the construction of Western imperialism
in the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries which was
undeniably built upon racism and the slave trade. Does his analysis
fit today's situation as well?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Global power and wealth has changed
and is concentrated in a few giant corporations who are controlled
by a small number of individuals. This may be disturbing and
frightening but how white is this concentrated power and is the
selection of the powerful based on race and wealth or just wealth? In
the present mix of global power are there not also people from the
Middle East, the Far East, Russia, China and Latin America? If there
is one dominant group its not static but changing all the time
especially with regard to race and culture. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Power today may in fact be
'colour-blind'. I wonder if Ms Schutte isn't directing her energy at
a moving and changing target and doing her cause far more harm than
good by indicting 'whiteness' as if it is the main and only cause?
According to Dyer 'whiteness' is not located inside the physical body
and therefore can be an attribute of people whose skins aren't white.
Schutte though, returns to the surface colour of people to make her
point. She is rather selective with facts and analysis which weakens the validity of
her argument.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The dominant power/discourse today
probably doesn't care about race or the colour of anybody's skin. It
may also be unconcerned if ordinary folk regardless of their colour,
hate and kill each other because they are black against white, Sunni
against Shiite, Catholic against Protestant, fundamentalist against
free-thinker. By identifying the enemy primarily as white Schutte
could be unintentionally arming racism and racists and losing
potential allies because they have white skins. </span>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have seen very unpleasant examples
of extreme white racism among some white Africans but isn't this a
small group who are noisily vociferous when provoked? Attacking this
group might make them implode in fury damaging the innocent when
they do. Better to take the oxygen of angry attention away from them.
My guess is that most whites are ashamed of apartheid and racism but
if they are made to feel guilty about it they will become reluctant to adapt.
That's human too. Learning how to live together can't be done through
blame and humiliation. That was how apartheid managed and enforced
separation.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Racism is not exclusive to pale
people in any case. All people were damaged by apartheid. Racism,
nationalism, chauvinism and tribalism start from the personal and
they have to be understood and defeated there. People of all
gradations of colour need to do this. Providing education and
information gives the power to ordinary people to make up their own
minds and change their own prejudices. I doubt that Ms Schutte's
tactic of haranguing one group of South Africans in her article
entitled 'Dear White People' was effective in changing attitudes.
Those who approved of it were already in agreement. To change the
minds of people you have to first show them respect even when you
disagree with them. Mandela understood that.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the moment there may be more
well-off white people in South Africa hanging on to any vestiges of
privilege they can than there are well-off black people who feel
threatened by the poverty around them. Its possible that both groups
might together form a new South African elite that disregards the
poor. How do you change that for the better? Not by reducing people
to their surface colour but by understanding their fears and their
aspirations. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Can the case for change be made
without referring to skin colour? </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I believe it needs to be. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/gillianschutte/2014/07/18/mandela-day-a-postcolonial-exercise-in-the-commodification-of-the-good-black/">http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/gillianschutte/2014/07/18/mandela-day-a-postcolonial-exercise-in-the-commodification-of-the-good-black/</a><br />
I am posting the link to Ms Schutte's article for information</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-7851217209235611152014-07-14T06:54:00.003-07:002014-07-14T07:04:28.211-07:00THE SHAPING OF WATER - BOOK SIGNING AND QUESTION AND ANSWER AT PELEYRE.<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong> 'The Shaping of Water' Ruth Hartley</strong></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><strong>Book signing and Question and Answer Session at Peleyre.</strong></span></div>
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Ruth answering questions about her novel 'The Shaping of Water' Jacky Barry leading the discussion and the Question and Answer session.</div>
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Display of 'The Shaping of Water', books and Zambian artefacts</div>
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The audience</div>
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Zambian art at Peleyre for the book signing of 'The Shaping of Water'</div>
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Many thanks from Ruth to Jacky Barry and John Eden and Peleyre for hosting this wonderful session.</div>
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Many thanks to John Eden for making the video of Ruth Hartley talking about 'The Shaping of Water'</div>
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<a href="http://www.ruthhartley.com/">www.ruthhartley.com</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peleyre/171029206322245">https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peleyre/171029206322245</a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-67101250219054267622014-06-19T05:28:00.000-07:002014-06-20T03:23:30.318-07:00'The Shaping of Water'. The People's Book Prize and Montmorillon Book Fair <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAuII_jCOcSqGpW-ttdQ6bVkeuZgfGxT3LMjsWiahsCku9jdhCb8QNHvlxam9Q5BURIPVvI6XoIzGMmDrBv0FpkIRv_AQUEJNA6rOWSV3tmmDNCl9xIPLn3sk2GhLMN8h4dHeB1ExvpRW/s1600/montmorrillon+and+art+013+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAuII_jCOcSqGpW-ttdQ6bVkeuZgfGxT3LMjsWiahsCku9jdhCb8QNHvlxam9Q5BURIPVvI6XoIzGMmDrBv0FpkIRv_AQUEJNA6rOWSV3tmmDNCl9xIPLn3sk2GhLMN8h4dHeB1ExvpRW/s1600/montmorrillon+and+art+013+(2).jpg" height="203" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is the video about the book - please click on the link.</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6JuSsero0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6JuSsero0</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Please support me by tweeting the People's Book Prize and voting for 'The Shaping of Water'</span> <br />
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<div class="js-tweet-text tweet-text">
You can now vote for The Shaping of Water by <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/RuthHartley9"><s>@</s><b>RuthHartley9</b></a> to win <a class="twitter-atreply pretty-link" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/PeoplesBkPrize"><s>@</s><b>PeoplesBkPrize</b></a> Fiction category! <a class="twitter-timeline-link" data-expanded-url="http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=1113" dir="ltr" href="http://t.co/V42mVuNvTW" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=1113"><span class="tco-ellipsis"></span><span class="invisible">http://www.</span><span class="js-display-url">peoplesbookprize.com/book.php?id=11</span><span class="invisible">13</span><span class="tco-ellipsis"><span class="invisible"> </span>…</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is all the information about my book on my website. Do look at the video about the book</span>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.ruthhartley.com/">www.ruthhartley.com</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Saturday and Sunday I will be at this Book Festival - it looks like a wonderful way to spend a weekend.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.citedelecrit.fr/">http://www.citedelecrit.fr/</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I will be sitting outside James and Patsy Fraser's Book and Antique Shop "The Glass Key" with 'The Shaping of Water' hoping to find more readers for it.</span><br />
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<a href="http://glasskey.wordpress.com/">http://glasskey.wordpress.com/</a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I write because I have stories to tell - I want readers to enjoy my books. I am looking for more reviewers for my novel. Feel free to write one about the book.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Here is an unsolicited review of 'The Shaping of Water' by Helen Baggott from the Amazon site.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.helenbaggott.co.uk/">http://www.helenbaggott.co.uk/</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Ruth Hartley has produced a novel that covers a period in modern history
that's remembered for brutality and injustice. With our ability to
reflect on those past events, there could be a sense of impending doom.
Instead, the author has created an air of change - you could almost
smell it in the air.<br /><br />The story is told through the experiences of
a number of women, all connected to the region of the Zambezi Valley
and the man-made lake that shapes the water. Through their lives we
witness the birth of new states and new regimes.<br /><br />A common thread,
violence and change aside, was the struggle to develop and nurture the
earth - for gardens and for food. The determination to turn a patch of
dust into something full of life and life-giving seemed a metaphor for
the struggles in this land.<br /><br />Whilst I wasn't necessarily drawn to
Charles and Margaret - the two main characters, I did feel the others
were carefully crafted and complete. In particular, Jo and Marielise had
a passion for their country and each other. That passion leapt from the
pages. Perhaps the staidness of Charles and Margaret was a deliberate
contrast?<br /><br />With her wealth of knowledge, the author has created a
piece of work that is immensely detailed. At first I was a little
baffled by the movement of time - back and forth. But I decided to go
with the flow, enjoy each chapter and accept that I would eventually
find my place in time.<br /><br />The book contains so much factual
information that there were times when I found it a struggle to fathom
the details. But this is a complex subject and perhaps it shouldn't be
an easy read - although occasionally I found the facts were being shared
in a heavy-handed manner. This is the challenge of writing a novel
based on such an involved topic but on balance, the author got it about
right.<br /><br />A little polish would have made this novel really sparkle, but it's still a gem.<br /><br /><span style="color: #660000;"><strong>Edited
17th May: I've thought long and hard about this wonderful book and feel
I've been a little harsh with my four stars - so I'm delighted to 'up'
my review to five stars. Yes, a little polish is needed here and there -
but it is one of the best books I've read this year."</strong></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am grateful to all my reviewers - I learn to write better because of them.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More than anything I want readers but I also write to make a living so I need more readers - more discriminating readers - too.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My next novel <strong>'The Tin Heart Gold Mine'</strong> is set half in Africa - half in London. In it Lara learns how to make art, but not
how to make money; how to make war - and how not to make love.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I am also writing a memoir <strong>'A Bad Girl in Search of Love'</strong> which will both shock and delight you!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">Thank you Troubador Publishing!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana;"><a href="http://www.troubador.co.uk/">http://www.troubador.co.uk/</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-62994677567383624972014-05-30T12:31:00.003-07:002014-05-30T12:41:15.119-07:00"The Nature of Boundaries" Ruth's art in the chapel at the church at Mazeres<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJUB2bo3xjbcdJPELubWjI2znn8C8xJwyvWkJhCEbDqbFfAhAI9c7MFV9NTR2XmSiLvgqNuU9zVybPkeWkdZWzFNtwdTA7lauyzLNqI_A1cUCLfBT-KKFvqLZ_uoMo4XX2cV3dt3Sx1nt/s1600/mazeres%252Ccats%252C+garden+026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLJUB2bo3xjbcdJPELubWjI2znn8C8xJwyvWkJhCEbDqbFfAhAI9c7MFV9NTR2XmSiLvgqNuU9zVybPkeWkdZWzFNtwdTA7lauyzLNqI_A1cUCLfBT-KKFvqLZ_uoMo4XX2cV3dt3Sx1nt/s1600/mazeres%252Ccats%252C+garden+026.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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The archway into the chapel</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaOHgD6UM5GYEyJEHIXs8YAKAV-rrl9YaZbaaGQ0QWqOAm2IT7WgcSWBGFRa01y0IQ9gLmwk60MkWRUf8wJb_QSDzPdJmY3igaDFMkiKt4_IgitxvpLze8zFGLLCtDAHH86L67Q2RlhNHj/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaOHgD6UM5GYEyJEHIXs8YAKAV-rrl9YaZbaaGQ0QWqOAm2IT7WgcSWBGFRa01y0IQ9gLmwk60MkWRUf8wJb_QSDzPdJmY3igaDFMkiKt4_IgitxvpLze8zFGLLCtDAHH86L67Q2RlhNHj/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+046.JPG" height="320" width="230" /></a></div>
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The ancient church at Mazeres</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHTaEbtYWttnX7cemJEiveIZ7F6BWv1RTLD4nXV5oSnDHhyHH-jFOT3n-_9OJvPO9P2Qs_3E7lwyaKAnFUPBWGwWh78BPcFt3WXFra-ADAmHh9wvT2038ZELQJM9PBH8-Jvd71w3exvJw/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBHTaEbtYWttnX7cemJEiveIZ7F6BWv1RTLD4nXV5oSnDHhyHH-jFOT3n-_9OJvPO9P2Qs_3E7lwyaKAnFUPBWGwWh78BPcFt3WXFra-ADAmHh9wvT2038ZELQJM9PBH8-Jvd71w3exvJw/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+036.JPG" height="320" width="235" /></a></div>
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I began work on these panels in 2000 using my body as a template and playing with the ideas from my MA in Women's Studies I was questioning the preconceptions we have of our separateness as a limited being contained in a skin. In fact the boundaries of self are porous, changeable, and often indefinable.</div>
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Panel Four</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIW_0iUj80G6thODcWAtzLEhxFF6V2zvkSp6eWs_z8pqVZree4Miifp4YQgsi6x_VTS6iMWAEOEhAUU_LJ3tTXcTmT8GWIANEIsuMnnvjQuuFN6YakfsMj65k2HOksNmqKNvVmE5OqAaxp/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIW_0iUj80G6thODcWAtzLEhxFF6V2zvkSp6eWs_z8pqVZree4Miifp4YQgsi6x_VTS6iMWAEOEhAUU_LJ3tTXcTmT8GWIANEIsuMnnvjQuuFN6YakfsMj65k2HOksNmqKNvVmE5OqAaxp/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+042.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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John made all the supports for the18 paintings and one for the transparent panel of new work.</div>
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I decided that the work would be better free-standing. The church is beautiful but a listed building and the walls and floor are not easy to place work on. My art is part of an exhibition by several other artists in the main body of the church. The problem is of course lighting.</div>
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Panel Five</div>
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The new panel created for this exposition.</div>
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It is a work in progress. I would like to make it in better materials but as usual work with what I have or can afford.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhErG5BNdJ0_JfvC6xqie6FrIztZy7cO0OHB5bXNAy9lqU-mU0n2IjP_K1JI9Vv-iDqYDFv2kegoN4wFl8hJ1UrcL2-CoUkqpTUAmAF01MhYROLzampBMyAXA4puY5qEi_oesVNF42MjcJC/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhErG5BNdJ0_JfvC6xqie6FrIztZy7cO0OHB5bXNAy9lqU-mU0n2IjP_K1JI9Vv-iDqYDFv2kegoN4wFl8hJ1UrcL2-CoUkqpTUAmAF01MhYROLzampBMyAXA4puY5qEi_oesVNF42MjcJC/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+044.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This panel is called Margin of Error and features a transparency of a recent photograph of my face taken by Geraldine de Haan, an artist and photographer.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTKHm6_QmUw-aB1nAryHbTZtXPwoxJ_N3vKBtKu0AsLMHdYlsCktiLUHP-QcfIGTseYtfQBNZCWO9kJaP8GZ_b6jTjF2KxNcL-cutMMTGMrA-6uoZAS-ShYxhYzURutSGTeW0ijGAXBvBF/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrPn6JPZpiM2pci_6nyBoaAPcoSOqRJml7RkAwC9axZ0kexXPOSCXA35kq7d8O4Z11uftOgUFqcAxL3bdAkODqGDnHiKZbITupjU-pgFgAfRvHqQvhoyCe_OmLeMk4MGf54kZAoQbzHURY/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrPn6JPZpiM2pci_6nyBoaAPcoSOqRJml7RkAwC9axZ0kexXPOSCXA35kq7d8O4Z11uftOgUFqcAxL3bdAkODqGDnHiKZbITupjU-pgFgAfRvHqQvhoyCe_OmLeMk4MGf54kZAoQbzHURY/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+031.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydKBuZr-sliXUrElYlKzlwJFkbS378kyfiRh6hHHA0oDzK35V6HFhkVk-EpDhsrRB4n8JMuFXEeXY4a_H6qjxza4OoUa3cm0dqqnAJFPo-sX_zGPGld8pkch5cay-Oc8L61KpT8lCn6L3/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydKBuZr-sliXUrElYlKzlwJFkbS378kyfiRh6hHHA0oDzK35V6HFhkVk-EpDhsrRB4n8JMuFXEeXY4a_H6qjxza4OoUa3cm0dqqnAJFPo-sX_zGPGld8pkch5cay-Oc8L61KpT8lCn6L3/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+032.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfKgwJi_uPqMmdnTUARENdNbjeI1k3lB6zwrCDFvvIlTeVs5smU8Vu6-Yb89n9WlicfUUHPcPPLXxN8GOUpQqXhsKUruPj0voTzTn3j8C7Q5IwS-SYp8-I9joOimUYqwkWcY_CZhRQsBCZ/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfKgwJi_uPqMmdnTUARENdNbjeI1k3lB6zwrCDFvvIlTeVs5smU8Vu6-Yb89n9WlicfUUHPcPPLXxN8GOUpQqXhsKUruPj0voTzTn3j8C7Q5IwS-SYp8-I9joOimUYqwkWcY_CZhRQsBCZ/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+033.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Panel Five and Panel One</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga_IzroVUjJi7VjVmUVq9ZSaJ5bkg05Ws5wOSdbUXE9SgEE9MGKjws1ZCcbcXsHKahjyXebFJSOyDoQJto4m5rjrVVrYiY4ACCCMojrT2I1EhT2tNfcbbdohkV2AtmdLQyewmxf-v5_kO9/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga_IzroVUjJi7VjVmUVq9ZSaJ5bkg05Ws5wOSdbUXE9SgEE9MGKjws1ZCcbcXsHKahjyXebFJSOyDoQJto4m5rjrVVrYiY4ACCCMojrT2I1EhT2tNfcbbdohkV2AtmdLQyewmxf-v5_kO9/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+034.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcSyduT0toDPuaPiu2mI7r_C8jS0qW69XbKt8CLqUB41hyphenhyphen3Rfk0xQEHVCFeclOrNk8b2xjqAYSvr05fS3qB7KJQuxy3nOHMt1hLFeulH0B9UmQsH_6L9-Fo8IoZNiHT7EJfv1p_59TkmrO/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
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Panel One and Panel Two</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPPIugK2uwtEr76aRWU11UfM90zUE8fLmMlQ0unpP0YCTG2qaHeYEcmId-JsmHb5h582KlsPQRWz3FHhw6XInaa_AT9q4vzBlgv9jONYvDyzkkblypWJ6MWmU9tGIAUFC9jI7g8nfFLI4/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+027.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPPIugK2uwtEr76aRWU11UfM90zUE8fLmMlQ0unpP0YCTG2qaHeYEcmId-JsmHb5h582KlsPQRWz3FHhw6XInaa_AT9q4vzBlgv9jONYvDyzkkblypWJ6MWmU9tGIAUFC9jI7g8nfFLI4/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+027.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Panel Four and Panel Five</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEievMrdA5TifD2GXx0MeT1gkBKxSvLE5bs3eiTHya0sB5OAOKAZDwkqb2RduoIzkqW281RqAoA0uWyzHcsOyUkfINtOFGU_OOfiFa_JkB6q-DKAvPfgvX9ek4LzzQN-ShYB1FtcoR0AoeoG/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEievMrdA5TifD2GXx0MeT1gkBKxSvLE5bs3eiTHya0sB5OAOKAZDwkqb2RduoIzkqW281RqAoA0uWyzHcsOyUkfINtOFGU_OOfiFa_JkB6q-DKAvPfgvX9ek4LzzQN-ShYB1FtcoR0AoeoG/s1600/mazeres,cats,+garden+029.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div align="center">
Panel Two and Panel Three</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfFtjR-_FX6MHC0tEW9cTBSFKPlL8xcN4gw9n3se-vlRMxGpGS1MfonZnACBkYd1mVJz_sAr1Fi2rT52vogj3tVAM8rD4dtauqjNNJnY-dVb8YwQ-bcRPx3cOSNPugAHgauuzorrdL98_P/s1600/mazeres%252Ccats%252C+garden+038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfFtjR-_FX6MHC0tEW9cTBSFKPlL8xcN4gw9n3se-vlRMxGpGS1MfonZnACBkYd1mVJz_sAr1Fi2rT52vogj3tVAM8rD4dtauqjNNJnY-dVb8YwQ-bcRPx3cOSNPugAHgauuzorrdL98_P/s1600/mazeres%252Ccats%252C+garden+038.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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</div>
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Panel One and Panel Two.</div>
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John is sorting out the internal lighting for Panel Five.</div>
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Contrary to the apparent size of John the panels are 8 ft high approx. and the figure is life-size. My life-size and shape 14 years ago.</div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>THE NATURE OF BOUNDARIES” RUTH
HARTLEY 2000 – 2014</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;">18 paintings questioning our understanding
of how our bodies contain us and keep us separate from other people
and the world around us. My art asks questions about life. It also
questions the art market and how art is selected, promoted, sold and
owned.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;">The paintings can be rearranged and
reconfigured in different ways. Some of the quotations are
philosophic ideas borrowed from Cixious, Ettinger, Kristeva; some are
inventions of the painter.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;">Acrylic and oil stick on canvas. Panels
constructed by John Corley.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>PANEL
ONE</b></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I am fluid and my body is a process</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Unwriting the body</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Materiality is necessary to manifest
desire</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">If I wrap my skin around me, close my
eyes . . . what do I see?</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>PANEL
TWO</b></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The boundary between flesh and spirit is
imprecise.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Paint is a skin.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Where are my edges?</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Scratch the skin and the memories leach
out.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Earth is the second disguise. Paint is
the third disguise.</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>PANEL
THREE</b></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Texts require surfaces</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Cover spirit with a skin and then it can
be named.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Reach. Skin is the original
mask/disguise.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Love is the confusion of boundaries.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Grounded.</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>PANEL
FOUR</b></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">To find the essential requires much
splitting.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Hold. The embodiment of my concerns.</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The nature of boundaries</span></div>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Mupane. The caterpillar sheds its skin.</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>PANEL
FIVE</b></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Margin of Error. 2014 Acrylic drawing on
Plexiglas.</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div align="RIGHT" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>« LA NATURE DES LIMITES »
RUTH HARTLEY 2000 – 2014</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;">18 Tableaux qui questionnent nos
connaissances de comment nos corps nous contiennent et nous gardent
séparément des autres gens et le monde qui nous entoure. Mon art
pose des questions sur la vie. Il questionne aussi le marché de
l’art et comment l’art est sélectionné, promu, vendu et
possédé.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;">Les tableaux peuvent être redisposés et
reconfigurés de manières différentes. Quelques-unes des citations
sont des idées philosophiques empruntées de Cixous, Ettinger ou
Kristeva, quelques-unes sont des inventions de l’artiste. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, serif;">Les médias sont acrylique et oil stick.
Panneaux construits par John Corley.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>PREMIER
PANNEAU</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Je suis fluide et mon corps est un
processus</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Déconstruisant le corps</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">La matérialité est nécessaire pour
manifester le désir</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Si je m’enveloppe dans ma peau et
ferme les yeux…qu’est-ce que je vois?</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>DEUXIEME
PANNEAU</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">La limite entre la chair et l’esprit
est imprécise</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">La peinture est une peau</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Où sont les limites de mon corps ?</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Grattez la peau et les souvenirs
s’échappent</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">La terre est le deuxième déguisement.
La peinture est le troisième déguisement</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>TROISIEME
PANNEAU</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Les textes exigent les surfaces</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Couvrez l’esprit avec une peau et
ensuite il peut se nommer</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Jusqu’où? La peau est le
masque/déguisement original</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">L’amour est la confusion des limites</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Enraciné. </span>
</div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>QUATRIEME
PANNEAU</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Pour trouver l’essentiel il faut
beaucoup d’élagage</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Tenir. L’incarnation de mes
inquiétudes</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">La nature des limites</span></div>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Mopani. La chenille mue.</span></div>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>CINQUIEME
PANNEAU</b></span></span></div>
<br />
<ul>
<li><div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Marge d’Erreur. Dessin de 2014 en
acrylique sur plexiglas</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
<div align="RIGHT" class="western" lang="fr-FR" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 0.77cm;">
</div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-29629035736817252942014-05-26T02:43:00.000-07:002014-05-26T02:43:01.694-07:00
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Y5n5bDUFQR6GnPnqUjYYlMeieuX0VQFQhcPlAdGo8hmLEo07vJHU-iSGPSyhvnIv995HR_aerxezNUT77_kI2TbNEMYnKzhSFQQZfEqRHMx0ZNZIYHREWoyE3ZIc7G_5yZm5A4oRWh1N/s1600/b+and+w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Y5n5bDUFQR6GnPnqUjYYlMeieuX0VQFQhcPlAdGo8hmLEo07vJHU-iSGPSyhvnIv995HR_aerxezNUT77_kI2TbNEMYnKzhSFQQZfEqRHMx0ZNZIYHREWoyE3ZIc7G_5yZm5A4oRWh1N/s1600/b+and+w.jpg" height="320" width="235" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/ruth-hartley-411023.html">http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/books/ruth-hartley-411023.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6JuSsero0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz6JuSsero0</a><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>1 About 'The Shaping of Water'</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The Shaping of Water is unique.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">It is a story that has never been told
but that needs to be heard. It is set in a little known part of the
world that is beautiful, fascinating and challenging. The historical
events did take place but they are part of a history that is not
widely known. The characters are fictitious but entirely believable.
The novel weaves together the characters, the lake, and the
historical events with the themes of political damage, environmental
damage, damaged relationships and the survival of individuals. It is
a very readable book with a compelling plot.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>2 The central characters in the story.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The main characters are all very
different to each other. The times they live through are exceptional.
Charles and Margaret are a conventional couple from a colonial
background, but committed to the land and people of Africa. Marielise
and Jo are radical South Africans and Freedom Fighters who want to
build a different kind of future. Manda and Nick each have a troubled
past and have to survive a changing world, as do Natombi and Milimo
whose village home lies drowned under the new lake.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>3 Affect your heart, change your
ideas, remain in your memory.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">My readers have said that my novel does
the three things that any good book will do and any good writer would
hope to make happen.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> It makes the reader care about the
characters even those who are bad or mistaken.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> It offers a new perspective by
understanding what motivates these characters. It opens the door on
new places and different cultures</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> It makes the characters, the places they
loved and lived in, and the risks they took for their ideals and
beliefs memorable.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>4 My life in Africa</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I was born In Africa and have spent most
of my life there. A Chinese proverb says it is a curse to live in
interesting times and I certainly have. It is true that during my
years in Africa I have experienced pain, loss and some degree of
trauma as I grew up in a world of racism and Apartheid. I have
however learnt very much and my life has been enriched by the
generosity and the dignity of the people I have known who have
suffered much more than me and shown much more courage as they tried
to change that world and create a better one. Some of this experience
I have tried to reflect in my novel.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">More than anything I grew to love Africa,
its people and its landscapes. This is the place I write about in
this book.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>5 Art School in Cape Town.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">As a child I lived in a world of books
and fantasy inventing stories in which I was a cowboy hero. I drew
comic strips of these stories and had lucid dreams in which I lived
them out. At Art School I discovered that women were second class
citizens. Racism and sexism made the life and art difficult. For a
large part of my life creativity came second to political action, to
family and to children. Somehow I kept secret notebooks and continued
to try to paint and write, to dream and to fight for women's rights
and for the rights of all humans. For the last twenty years writing
and making art has been my focus.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>6 Travelling around Europe</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I always wanted as a child to 'see the
world' – to travel, to learn, to look at art and architecture, but
most of all to find out what life was like for other people in other
places. It is my good fortune that I have a partner who wanted to do
this also. As soon as we stopped paid employment, we set off for a
year in a camper-van and made a huge figure of eight journey that
took us from England all over Europe, to the Arctic Circle in Norway
via Finland and the Baltic states until we looped down again through
Croatia across Turkey and back to France through Greece and Sicily.
We saw extraordinary landscapes, tragic and inspiring histories and
fascinating and amazing people. Art and poetry and writing has come
and will come from this experience.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>7 Settling in France</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">My partner and I were looking for a way
to live better, more simply and more economically. Every day we have
experiences that teach us something new. Life is a challenge and a
pleasure and we enjoy our rural country life. Most of all it has
given me the opportunity to concentrate on my creative life and in
this I am generously supported by my partner.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>8 Next.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Writing and making art, while also
working for Women's rights continue to be occupy me fully. My next
book, under the working title of 'The Tin Heart Gold Mine', is an
exciting mix of wild Africa, London city life, art, sex and political
intrigue all experienced by Lara, an artist, but also a mother who
does not know which of her two lovers fathered her child, Tim the
journalist – or Oscar, owner of the Tin Heart Gold Mine. For “The
Shaping of Water” I used and recommend the excellent Troubador
Publishing. Like me, many good writers of quality books have no
option but to self-publish as the world of books, publishing,
marketing and digital changes and competition increases.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-77452372037925828002014-05-26T02:19:00.000-07:002014-05-26T02:19:49.555-07:00A TRIBUTE TO LUTANDA MWAMBA, ARTIST AND FRIEND.
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>A TRIBUTE TO LUTANDA MWAMBA, ARTIST
AND FRIEND.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyveRKu03CF46oF2WW_mCCxmOoehHohEj3PaCO5jRey5gyqP3jha_h9vrc6gi-xhDVI9vxfWcz4sGLJStr-dmczT3Lq-TxWMY3YtgSiVym7m30cLZPOqxV7mA4e-zOeHlT79_qdYGRiTqD/s1600/lutanda+mwamba+001+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyveRKu03CF46oF2WW_mCCxmOoehHohEj3PaCO5jRey5gyqP3jha_h9vrc6gi-xhDVI9vxfWcz4sGLJStr-dmczT3Lq-TxWMY3YtgSiVym7m30cLZPOqxV7mA4e-zOeHlT79_qdYGRiTqD/s1600/lutanda+mwamba+001+%25282%2529.jpg" height="307" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Lutanda Mwamba was a student in my class
when I was teaching art at the International School of Lusaka in
about 1982-3. He was a quiet and shy boy of about 14 or 15 years who
appeared rather isolated among the other students. He was unusual, as
I discovered subsequently. ISL students came from relatively wealthy
backgrounds and many were from expatriate families. Lutanda's devoted
and hard-working mother, a single parent, lived in Chilenje and the
family were poor, but she was determined that her mixed race son
should have the best education she could afford. Lutanda had a very
long, very hot walk to school each day. This was but one of many
things that put him at a disadvantage among his fellow students.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I noticed Lutanda at once as he showed a
natural talent for drawing in my class. When I asked him about his
future plans he told me that he hoped to be an electrical engineer. I
suggested to him that art was a good way to make a living in a place
like Zambia which offered at the time so few opportunities to people
from poorer backgrounds, but Lutanda was set on his course. Another
ISL teacher had told me of Lutanda's long walk to school and from
time to time one or other of us would give him a lift back to his
home. He never wanted to be taken all the way. I think that he was
not given an easy time in Chilenje either, though he always had one
very good friend there, another artist, David Chibwe. I had an unused
bicycle at home and in the end I gave that to Lutanda for his school
journey.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I was obliged to give up teaching as it
did not fit in with my husband's work and I did not see Lutanda again
for some years. A few years later I was working at Mpapa Gallery in
the Pilcher Graphics building in Cha Cha Cha Road. One evening
driving back from the Lusaka Showground I passed Lutanda and David
Chibwe and recognised Lutanda at once, though he was now very tall
and thin and had dreadlocks. He saw me also and came around to my
home that same day. He told me that he had got his GCSE exams but had
not been able to get any work at all apart from occasional gardening.
He had left home and was finding it hard to afford food. He still
wanted to become an electrical engineer.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I tried to help Lutanda find employment
that was more appropriate for his qualifications and abilities but
any job was hard to find. Not even Lewis Construction was able to
help. Finally after consulting with my partners at Mpapa Gallery-
Cynthia Zukas, Joan Pilcher and Patrick Mweemba, we decided to offer
Lutanda a trial period as a gallery assistant. Also at this time
Lutanda married his wife Mary, and they had their first child.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Lutanda was such an intelligent,
hard-working, and able assistant that he very soon became
indispensable to the gallery. There is no doubt in my mind that
Lutanda played a very important part in the success of Mpapa Gallery
and therefore in the success of Zambian artists and Zambian art at
the time. What thrilled me was that in the context of the gallery,
and through Lutanda's contact with artists like Patrick Mweemba,
Henry Tayali, Style Kunda, and many others he began to experiment
with art himself and very quickly became one of the best printmakers
we had.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">His talent and ability meant that he was
offered a place at Reading University to study printmaking and the
very generous Lechwe Trust was able to fund his further studies
there.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Circumstances forced me to leave Zambia
in 1994 and regretfully I lost contact with many friends and artists.
In 2012, thanks to Cynthia Zukas, I was able to meet Lutanda, his
wife, Mary, and his children at the Henry Tayali Gallery. It was a
very happy and pleasant encounter that did my heart so much good. I
was very proud of Lutanda and cared very much for him. The news of
his death is deeply tragic and my thoughts are with his wife, Mary,
and with his family and friends. He is a great loss to Zambia and to
Zambian art.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">I shall always treasure the gift that
Lutanda and his family gave me.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-23299921325416714052014-04-26T02:53:00.000-07:002014-04-26T02:53:59.909-07:00THE CHILD WHO KEPT HER MOUTH SHUT.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkIY33HXKI8PZPF1bPVHzUPMVCo0LAIzyBER7lbcuAg2_cIx-OHAYQQWkbCjVuy7rz9nQlnIyh7yhfSQHtXtd9LMVIyq3jntLwz_wVQk6iBeH9pZ5QVg2Zh7bIXMJYLMWXq2UpojR8ZMa/s1600/Ruth+8+001+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkIY33HXKI8PZPF1bPVHzUPMVCo0LAIzyBER7lbcuAg2_cIx-OHAYQQWkbCjVuy7rz9nQlnIyh7yhfSQHtXtd9LMVIyq3jntLwz_wVQk6iBeH9pZ5QVg2Zh7bIXMJYLMWXq2UpojR8ZMa/s1600/Ruth+8+001+(2).jpg" height="320" width="202" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"><b>THE CHILD WHO KEPT HER MOUTH SHUT</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The child kept her mouth shut and did not
smile in photos. When she daydreamed and her mouth fell open, her
father tapped her under her chin.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “Careful or you'll look like a
half-wit.” he said.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">He meant it kindly. He kept his chin up
and his top lip stiff. He was never rude or unkind to those he
considered half-wits though he would get very angry with employees
who behaved like half-wits.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">When she wasn't daydreaming she made sure
her mouth was shut because though she was nine years old she only had
one front tooth. The other children in her class at school had sung
to each other, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!”
Soon they all had two front teeth.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">She would whisper, “All I want for
Christmas is my other front tooth.” but it did not appear.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Her baby teeth had all become loose one
after another. They had wobbled in an interesting fashion when she
pushed them with her tongue but they hung on by tiny red threads of
flesh. Her mother had suggested using string.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “Tie one end to your tooth, tie the
other end to the handle of an open door. Slam the door shut quickly.
It won't hurt.” She had smiled. It was her joke.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">In the end all the little teeth had come
out one by one, as easily as pearly orange pips. Only a couple had
little black spots of decay. Each had to be treasured in her sticky
palm, then it went into a spare matchbox for safe-keeping till
bedtime. It would be carefully tucked under her pillow. Her father
always forgot to give the tooth fairy the silver coin she needed to
pay for the tooth and he had to hand it to the child at breakfast.
Perhaps it was this casual neglect of the tooth fairy that prevented
one of her front teeth from growing. All she knew was that if she
smiled a grown-up would ask.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “Ooh! What has happened to your front
tooth?”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">So she didn't smile and they simply said,
“What a solemn child!”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Then she was ignored because solemn
unresponsive children are dull.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">At last her watchful mother took her to a
dentist whose surgery was on the third floor of a dark building. To
reach the surgery her mother shut them into an iron cage with doors
that expanded, then clanged. It groaned all way up and squeaked
faster all the way down. The dentist's room seemed to be all made of
dark brown sagging leather with shiny lumps and bumps. Behind the
white-coated dentist, there was a machine like a giant dissected
spider's leg. In front of him was a metal tray with detached silver
spider’s fangs arranged on it. The dentist and her mother talked
together for a time and then they both looked at her for a while.
They put cheerful smiles on their faces. She even had a hard machine
pushed into her mouth to take an x-ray. The dentist explained that
she had an extra little tooth in her mouth and it had stopped her
adult tooth from developing as it should.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “I will have to cut the extra one
out,” he said. “I will give you an injection so you won't feel
anything.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">After the appointment with the dentist,
the child's mother took her hand and they crossed over the road to
the office of the Christian Science Practitioner. The Christian
Science Practitioner was a nice lady with tight curly hair, teacups
and sugar cakes, spectacles, tight clip-on earrings and tight
stockings.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “It’s mind over matter.” she said,
“If you have the right thoughts in your mind, you will feel no
pain. I will pray for you.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The child however, was very frightened
and her mind did not win over the matter of the pain. The injection
hurt and its numbing effect did not seem to last very long but she
sat very still while the tears ran down her cheeks and the blood ran
down her chin. Her mother and the practitioner didn't look cheerful
at all.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The ordeal ended of course, her mouth
healed, and the child put the matter out of her mind. One day when
she and her father were in the town, a man in a bow-tie and tweed
jacket came up and greeted them.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “Hello, how are you?” he said to
her. He had a kind smile. The child had no idea who he was but she
did not smile at him because she still had no front tooth. Her father
looked at her surprised.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “Don't you recognise your dentist?”
he asked.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “No.” she said, also surprised.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">Two years later she was no longer a
child, but a girl in her first year at boarding school. She still had
no front tooth. She still kept her mouth closed. She even looked
serious when she was daydreaming. Daydreaming meant that she was
often last in the line for going to classes or even for going into
meals. One day she was so late that all the other girls were seated
at their supper tables when she stepped through the door. The teacher
on duty was a plain, shapeless, almost young, woman who could not
remember what it was to be a child or to be happy.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;"> “Stand up!” she ordered the girl.
“How did you get to be so useless and toothless!”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-indent: 1.25cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, serif;">The girl kept her mouth closed as her
father and her life had taught her. She knew that no grown-up worth
their salt would ever be rude or unkind to someone without a tooth.
Besides she knew that her tooth had begun to grow. She could feel its
razor-sharp edge against her tongue and she knew that one day the
spicy bite of revenge would be hers to savour.</span></div>
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-35971202650522643012014-04-15T08:25:00.001-07:002014-04-15T08:25:38.988-07:00THE NOVEL 'THE SHAPING OF WATER' BY RUTH HARTLEY AND THE KARIBA DAM CRISIS TODAY.<div align="justify" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong><em>An excerpt from my novel in which the current crisis is foreseen by Nick one of the fictional characters in the book.</em></strong></span></div>
<div align="justify" style="text-align: center;">
<strong><em><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span></em></strong> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcVZtsAgzp7hNRO0MlgpMYMbYMr-D7xrtL5DVc9R4m0oqd8AQ66YGaqP3Yq3x7pP_e04ef-atKBF0TtaNFH20m-k8gks7tEEh1rsw5jL0pQBblgUQ_rl0cbCZQ9rl6sJAIMB0rGhla8yMd/s1600/Hartley_cov+13.11.13+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcVZtsAgzp7hNRO0MlgpMYMbYMr-D7xrtL5DVc9R4m0oqd8AQ66YGaqP3Yq3x7pP_e04ef-atKBF0TtaNFH20m-k8gks7tEEh1rsw5jL0pQBblgUQ_rl0cbCZQ9rl6sJAIMB0rGhla8yMd/s1600/Hartley_cov+13.11.13+(2).jpg" height="34" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="justify" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong></strong></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong></strong></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>MANDA RETURNS TO THE LAKE AND TO NICK</strong></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijUlGMNx6r-tUtYn_mv00ifjcETxll3n8sNdR45qu5gCMlClfWchdvEKaMWlS6LMn8NZXrLIb5_7KlWdik8jKOD8oOt13KtCYnQp2rOE4D-IWEm2cHeaUDk3i1qhbMn7eu0bAuBokUr2q5/s1600/SHAPING+OF+WATER+IMAGE+Girl+at+the+New+Lake+painting+by+Ruth+Hartley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijUlGMNx6r-tUtYn_mv00ifjcETxll3n8sNdR45qu5gCMlClfWchdvEKaMWlS6LMn8NZXrLIb5_7KlWdik8jKOD8oOt13KtCYnQp2rOE4D-IWEm2cHeaUDk3i1qhbMn7eu0bAuBokUr2q5/s1600/SHAPING+OF+WATER+IMAGE+Girl+at+the+New+Lake+painting+by+Ruth+Hartley.jpg" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Now
on her return journey, Harare was behind her, with all its stylish,
glossy smartness; its supermarkets, galleries, cinemas, gardens,
tourists, aid workers, hospitals and its bitter, scarred memories of
the Bush War. Manda would not go to Chirundu this time to cross the
border. She would leave the Great North Road at Makuti and take the
scenic road to Kariba through the valleys full of trees, rivers and
wild animals. Every mile would take her closer to the lake and the
cottage that felt like her real home in Zambia. She would go past
Kariba Airport, along the lakeside drive and climb up to the Zimbabwe
border on the south of the dam wall where a colony of hyrax or
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>dassies</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
had their home among the boulders. Once she had cleared customs and
immigration, Manda would make that extraordinary transit over the
arching concrete wall. On one side, she would see a 300 foot drop
through air, empty except for flying swifts and swallows, to the
bottom of the gorge where the Zambezi once again continued its
muscled flow to the sea. On the other side, she would see and feel
the pressure of almost 200 billion cubic metres of Lake Kariba water.
Then she would be back at the cottage in Margaret's beautiful, green
garden where Milimo would have magically arranged the household and
her children and Nick would be waiting for her with smiles of
greeting. </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">That
hot evening, Nick and Manda sat together on the dark veranda
mesmerised by the extraordinary stroboscopic light show exploding
over the Matusadona Hills. Phosphorescent sheet lightning made the
towering blue thunderheads continuously visible. Jagged gold streaks
flashed and crackled across the sky and hurled themselves at the
endangered earth. The constant noise of thunder rolled back and
forth, above the savage din and crash of lightning strikes. The wet
and fecund smell of rain reached their nostrils. The threatening
storms made lush promises.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">“Isn't
this wonderful!” said Manda in awe, “Aren't you happy to see the
lake filling up again Nick?”</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nick
nodded.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black;">“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yes”
he said quietly. “It will be good to go out sailing again without
the danger of clattering into those iron-hard dead trees and holing
the boat.”</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> “It's
amazing that they haven't rotted away,” Manda said, “I rather
like their dramatic appearance and the cormorants like them too.”</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Aquatic
life generally likes them,” Nick continued. “No one really knew
what would happen to the </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>mupane</i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
trees when the lake filled. Everyone calls them ‘petrified’ but
of course they haven't turned to stone – they are just hard. The
drought exposed many more of them even though vast areas were cleared
of trees for the fishing industry.</span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> “Do
you know that the water from the floodgates has scoured out a plunge
pool below the wall that is almost eighty metres deep? That was not
expected and it is quite close to the dam wall foundation.”</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-indent: 1.25cm; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;">“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Let's
face it – in many ways the lake was a giant experiment. Just like
our life is.” </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Nick
turned with a smile to Manda.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Manda
smiled back. She looked at her husband, wondering momentarily if his
words signalled an awareness of his need to change. There was no sign
of any self-knowledge. It was with a curious sense of relief that she
turned again to watch the storms and see them reflected in the lake. </span></span></span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">She
said after a while, “I feel sad though, for the Zambezi River, lost
and dispersed in the lake.”</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> “No
– it isn't!” Nick responded, “The Zambezi continues to flow
through the lake as an identifiable current and so does the Sanyati
River. The smaller rivers that dry up in the rainy season don't
continue but the Zambezi is always there.”</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Manda
looked up at her husband's face in the uncertain light under the
storm lanterns. She wondered about the strong, dark and secret
currents of his personality.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; text-indent: 1.25cm; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;">“<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So,”
she said softly, watching again the gentle ripples on the surface of
the lake, “the drowned river is still there, flowing onwards
through its valley.”</span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-20/zimbabwe-s-kariba-dam-may-collapse-threating-millions-newsday.html">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-20/zimbabwe-s-kariba-dam-may-collapse-threating-millions-newsday.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/35m-in-danger-as-Kariba-Dam-faces-collapse-20140320">http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/35m-in-danger-as-Kariba-Dam-faces-collapse-20140320</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=46822">http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=46822</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ruthhartley.com/">www.ruthhartley.com</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-7757291121925113932014-04-07T02:32:00.000-07:002014-04-07T02:32:12.147-07:00GASTROPODS AND GARDENING IN GASCONY
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<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>GASTROPODS AND GARDENING IN
GASCONY</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Saturday I felt well for the
first time in 2 weeks and summer happened.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We gardened.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I collected a bucketful of snails
from around the compost heap and John and I wondered about eating
them.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the kitchen sink later, I saw two
heads ducking below the window along our back wall. Gerard, our
neighbour, had warned us earlier about local thieves so I jerked the
window open and asked what was going on.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Two men smiled up at me - they were
collecting snails.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> “Oh good!” said I. “Tell me
how to keep them, feed them, prepare them, and purge them.”</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In the end they took away the snails
I had collected and offered to bring me snail soup made with vinegar
and vegetables. Claudine tells me that this is a Basque/Spanish
recipe. The soup will be at least 3 weeks away if the process of
raising snails is followed. I must find out about their nutritional
value.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don't use pesticides or slug
pellets and giant red Spanish slugs destroy much that I
plant even though I make extensive use of beer traps. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Gardening was impossible while it
rained so hard and so continuously because of the jelly-like state of
the clay on which we live. Impossible to mow the plot so we just enjoy the dandelions - we can eat them too. I haven't yet.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This week John has started on the
repair of the raised beds in the <i>potager</i>. It will be a two
year project we think. I have dug in my green manure and planted
potatoes, onions and beans and a few store-bought salad plants. I
also am planting my courgettes inside bottomless plastic buckets that
once held fat balls for birds. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hope this protects against slugs
too.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My strawberries are into a third
anti-slug plan and being grown on window boxes on an <i>escalier </i><span style="font-style: normal;">this
year</span>. I hope it works! I reckoned the cost of the <i>escalier</i>
was the less than the cost of building one ourselves.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Oh and what a delight! This year we
have tadpoles both frog and toad. Do goldfish eat them?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Our moles appear to have all drowned
this year or moved miles away to higher ground. As they did not seem
to have much impact on the slug population I will enjoy not having
molehills everywhere for a while but I expect they will return.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-72144052251412359862014-03-28T03:57:00.002-07:002014-03-28T04:07:49.342-07:00THE BEDROCK ERODES . . . <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zuuc_qlqlxBIyJ2cS0sx0P0e6XLU7tSQljNMGCWx_RgClg-VdCpNZiUz2zfJ9OGx5Li8wvUVRhZVatGn1KwX2ZblVD5RJG3WjO0594sc82offyqmI4hVA-18QMLcM17TPb5w1DoCuk58/s1600/Hartley+spine+of+book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9zuuc_qlqlxBIyJ2cS0sx0P0e6XLU7tSQljNMGCWx_RgClg-VdCpNZiUz2zfJ9OGx5Li8wvUVRhZVatGn1KwX2ZblVD5RJG3WjO0594sc82offyqmI4hVA-18QMLcM17TPb5w1DoCuk58/s1600/Hartley+spine+of+book+cover.jpg" height="34" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYT9T5201e0s6cgiFu1KqVUyibaRwjJ3B2ur_QLl8Hq2LMePEszHsEoUJsHpIHfzlxxKKNbZ7yY-qbZ7IH98eGqPBpVRsJIorja3ttF5qU_u6ffMSI7CaIYL2cpxSpCUO7qxvaMwybI9-n/s1600/Kariba_Dam_Construction_2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYT9T5201e0s6cgiFu1KqVUyibaRwjJ3B2ur_QLl8Hq2LMePEszHsEoUJsHpIHfzlxxKKNbZ7yY-qbZ7IH98eGqPBpVRsJIorja3ttF5qU_u6ffMSI7CaIYL2cpxSpCUO7qxvaMwybI9-n/s1600/Kariba_Dam_Construction_2.jpeg" height="320" width="207" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>The bedrock erodes -</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A troubled writer's responsibility.
A writer's troubling responsibility.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Or simply a troubled person – me!</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many questions are tumbling around
in my troubled mind at the moment.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I chose to write in the context of a
particular place and about a particular time in history.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What was I trying to do? Why write
about that historical context.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My current business card quotes
Camile Paglia - </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> “Emotion is chaos. Art is
order.”</i></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I write, draw and tell stories to
find meaning and order but only of a sort – it is always
conditional and compromised. There are no laws to be laid down –
the bedrock crumbles -</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Writers write because they are
writers – to tell a story - to communicate and to share. The story
starts us on a journey – or a quest with an end. No matter how
inconclusive the ending of the book may be - the book – or the
story comes to a stop.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My story is about the people who are
left out of history and are not considered important. They are not
fashionable and did not do or shape anything that was world-changing.
They are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of them are
white. In the context of the time that may make them doubly wrong –
or does it? It is what happened at that time and in that place. To
quote Shakespeare's Hamlet.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>“The time is out of joint. O
cursèd spite,</i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i> That
ever I was born to set it right!”</i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But the time remains always out of
joint and everyone always has to work to set it right.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is hubris to imagine that
anything I wrote might have an effect on a current event. I suppose
that very successful writers may be able to create trends but I doubt
that is the reason why they write.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is even more ridiculous to feel
responsible for compromising events and places by writing about them
when they were already compromised.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is ridiculous to feel that the
danger to Kariba Dam now openly acknowledged, is made worse by the
unplanned coincidence of the publication of my book. This is
superstition and fantasy but writers do feel responsible and are made
responsible and are punished for what they write. Messengers are
shot. Harbingers of ill-luck are unlucky. Swallows are responsible for spring and
one magpie is responsible for sorrow.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The characters in my novel discuss
the dam and its potential for disaster. As their creator I feel
appalled at the latest news about Kariba Dam even though the latest
news is in fact old news and has been known for a long time.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I trust that solutions will be found
and the catastrophe averted. The builders knew that they could not
claim that the dam would last forever.</span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<a href="https://www.newsday.co.zw/2014/03/20/kariba-dam-wall-faces-collapse/">https://www.newsday.co.zw/2014/03/20/kariba-dam-wall-faces-collapse/</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1023056">http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=1023056</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-44551.html">http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-national-byo-44551.html</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ruthhartley.com/">www.ruthhartley.com</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-36085905532145950122014-02-11T02:24:00.000-08:002014-02-11T02:24:43.239-08:00
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXIRDUhm0PTr_Jabdjg_kaxmg2R8kdVjHhNYPdO35GK3ojFHAAdmQi4hLHnGE6FKtqXwSLdCYe2A4baBtzQpDBsE5gMs7Xlf4WFFBSxrOKE7uzfG36r85S9jR0Bf2uYoydK9LXZDJlDGY/s1600/blog+books+003+(2).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkXIRDUhm0PTr_Jabdjg_kaxmg2R8kdVjHhNYPdO35GK3ojFHAAdmQi4hLHnGE6FKtqXwSLdCYe2A4baBtzQpDBsE5gMs7Xlf4WFFBSxrOKE7uzfG36r85S9jR0Bf2uYoydK9LXZDJlDGY/s1600/blog+books+003+(2).jpg" height="237" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="CENTER" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>WHITE WRITING
RIGHT</b></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Before
the end of Apartheid South African writers who questioned racial
privilege were simply known as writers not </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><b>white</b></i></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
writers. Alan Paton, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer, Andr</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">é</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Brink and J M Coetzee were great writers. The main protagonists in
their novels were often white but engaged with their world in some
way that countered the 'dominant discourse of white superiority'.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"></span></span></span></span></span> </div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
read them all, admired them, loved them and learnt from them.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">These
writers still open doors onto new perceptions and new empathies. They
still shine lights that illuminate the road to change.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Today
writers who write about people different from themselves are
questioned as to their motivation and authority. That may be as it
should be. We want to hear an authentic voice but do we also want to
prescribe limits to a writer's imaginative and creative abilities? If
writers were to be forced to contain their intuitive and empathetic
leaps into other states of being and other worlds then we humans will
never understand each other. There will be no future Charles Dickens,
no future William Shakespeare, absolutely no future science fiction
or fantasy and a future Ursula le Guin will not be able to imagine a
world where there is no racism or sexism. Autobiography might be the
only acceptable literature or perhaps there would be a cultural
apartheid where writers and books only served their own communities.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
a western culture and society which has largely legislated for racial
and sexual equality but not yet achieved it, there is a vociferous
and necessary debate about the complex ways in which privileged
positions are maintained including those in literature. The safe
position to adopt would be not to write, not to speak but to hide
one's thoughts. The result of that position would be not to learn,
not to adapt, not to develop ideas and not to hope to change the
world. Writers must write, thinkers think and speakers speak out for
their beliefs. Questioning whether a particular writer understands
what it is to be without privilege and not white is quite different
to saying either, that if writers are white they must not write on
this subject, or if they do, what they write will be biased. All
writers have a bias and their readers will take that bias into
account and judge them for it. Readers have their biases too and the
writer's task is to challenge this fact.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Good
books have been written about Africa by writers who were not African.
John Le Carr</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">é</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
wrote two books set in Africa, 'The Constant Gardener' and 'The
Mission Song'. Barbara Kingsolver wrote 'The Poisonwood Bible'.
Should a literary version of the Bechdel Test for movies be applied
to these books? For example the number of black protagonists who are
not servants, the ratio of main black characters to main white
characters, even the blackness and cultural authenticity of the
characters. Would black writers have to have the same questions asked
of their books? The Bechdel Test fails movies where female characters
are objectified or reduced to stereotypes. Good literature will have
fully drawn characters and good plots and also be well written. </span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Good
writers do not write to a dictated political formula. </span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="font-weight: normal; line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Good
writing may however be political.</span></span></span></div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
There are therefore questions I have to ask myself and to keep asking myself.</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
<div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
How am I to write today? What am I to write about? Who am I to write about? What am I? What kind of writer am I?</div>
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
</span><div align="JUSTIFY" lang="en-GB" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm; orphans: 2; widows: 2;">
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-17785637582520140432014-01-23T09:39:00.000-08:002016-12-19T05:25:03.677-08:00HIDING FROM THE ENEMY AND THE BOMBING.(Discarded chapter on the Tin Heart Gold Mine)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxBoiKpTRQSpx3FuwasjnMk23YHfwgCLpot_VbxL0YMPkM3j9O1GpAGK6Xd2-1PHsSQl1je0CXBLZA8wxcvc0N-cPTangfbA7T_MXVZ9cbJSpMKYFtbI39B-AYfVKe7bjyMzVh-Hzx91rq/s1600/Children-trapped-inside-t-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxBoiKpTRQSpx3FuwasjnMk23YHfwgCLpot_VbxL0YMPkM3j9O1GpAGK6Xd2-1PHsSQl1je0CXBLZA8wxcvc0N-cPTangfbA7T_MXVZ9cbJSpMKYFtbI39B-AYfVKe7bjyMzVh-Hzx91rq/s1600/Children-trapped-inside-t-007.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">There were dreadful and terrifying noises
everywhere and all the time but the noises were at their loudest in
the silence.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">The silence roared and hummed. The
silence made panting sounds and drummed and throbbed. Straining to
hear what might be approaching through the deafening stillness
terrified him. When there were bangs or shouts, explosions or
engines, whines or cries, or all of them together, then he was
allowed to bury his face into her bony ribs and to pull her circling
arms over his ears and not listen and not think, just feel the breath
and beat of her body. Thinking demanded knowledge and explanation and
nobody said what was really happening. How could he understand when
he could not think and no one spoke to him?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">The noise was worst in the silence
because then she pushed him away and he was alone, detached from
safety in the small room, staring at the window. In the girl’s
thundering arms he could force the noise away by filling up his small
rigid body with screaming and tears. She was not a stranger. She
always responded to all his needs except for that for more food
unless she was simply not there – absent – disappeared – as
happened most days at sunset. When she made him stand up on his own
with her fingers across his mouth, he had to be absolutely quiet and
then the noises invaded him like bees, humming into his ear-holes and
shrilling in his brain. That was her vanishing time.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">There was no time past, just the
deafening and eternal present and the small room-world that they hid
in. As soon as it grew dark, the pale girl would slip away and the
noise would settle into a threatening out-of-breath monotone until
whoever had gone returned and brought back the wailing. After that he
could return to the thudding cradle of her arms.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">As it grew brighter each morning they ate
a little and dozed. Then tiny fragments of memory swam into the
sunlight of his dreams, quiet comfortable words, a woman’s voice,
clean warm fabric cosy around him and a song that vanished when he
stirred and found he didn’t have the words or the questions to hook
the feelings back before the noise overwhelmed him once again.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">There must always have been noise – he
would never get used to it but it had always existed and it would not
stop - ever. He knew that. He accepted it but he fought against it
with every breath. Whereas the girl kept the noise at bay by her
quiet dumbness, he kept the noise away from them all by the physical
effort of surrounding himself with a sound barrier.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">If that barrier ever broke –</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">what would happen if that barrier broke –</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">if it broke and the girl - and finally
himself became the noise -</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">if he became the screaming he would
annihilate the only world he remembered - his world - this room –</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">What would happen to them then?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , serif;">What had happened before today had been
so terrible that he would never let himself think of it or remember
it. It was secret that must be kept forever.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8578229176824353967.post-20910079383793887062014-01-02T06:39:00.001-08:002014-01-02T06:39:08.544-08:00“THE SHAPING OF WATER” Writing the novel – the origins of the book.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpQvyxu6Oyb2ehPTd4n3K6Yq7KbZ70pd5kPakR5O1zc7wNk3gQt1oFXJUvYPCVxgxIFjkLL3UX3fEEea39lBGYq0eZJ75LUABija-fThTVd3M4b-TnFURYFlC-0KPnHn86a4nhRfW242Hy/s1600/The+New+Lake+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpQvyxu6Oyb2ehPTd4n3K6Yq7KbZ70pd5kPakR5O1zc7wNk3gQt1oFXJUvYPCVxgxIFjkLL3UX3fEEea39lBGYq0eZJ75LUABija-fThTVd3M4b-TnFURYFlC-0KPnHn86a4nhRfW242Hy/s320/The+New+Lake+001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>THE SHAPING OF WATER”</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="CENTER" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Writing the novel – the origins
of the book.</b></span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My father took me to see the Lake
Kariba dam wall being built when I was sixteen. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That is quite another story.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I first saw the lake in 1972 when my
husband went to work for the North Bank Construction Company and we
lived there for a year. Once we were settled in Lusaka, the lake
became our favourite weekend retreat. It was beautiful, strange,
dangerous, vast and mysterious. A human experiment with the
environment on a scale that was difficult to comprehend.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This painting made by me in the late
70's or early 80's tried to capture my conflict about the lake and
its destruction of the environment. The girl holds a stone and a
stick. The lake has reduced the earth and the forest of the valley
to its elements. She stands on the shore full of doubt and wonder.</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is too simplistic to condemn the
builders of the lake and the dam but the questions remain to be asked
even if it appears there are no easy answers. My novel is a story not
a argument for or against but perhaps it will be thought-provoking. </span>
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For anyone concerned about the
proposed Batoka Dam – ask the questions and keep asking. The
environment will and must change but how and why, how much and for
whom?</span></div>
<br />
<div align="JUSTIFY" class="western" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0