A Walk on the Wild Side – Christmas 1970 on the Transkei Wild Coast
The Wild Coast The Transkei Wild Coast is a scenic wonderland of unspoilt beaches, gently rolling hills… [more]
From Apartheid to Zaamheid – a book review
In the midst of the furore of the Limpopo textbook crisis and the gloom of the world's economic failures… [more]
Blue Notes Memorial Trust Bursary launched
In 1990 two great South African musicians died within weeks of each other. They died in exile in Europe,… [more]
Port Elizabeth’s “great gale” of 1902
"Never before in its history has this port suffered under such overwhelming disaster as we record today.… [more]
Greenmarket Square – a sense of place in Cape Town
“The search for a sense of place in a city is also a search for that place where the city is most itself.… [more]
Featured
Mother – an unfinished lament
An unfinished lament for Margery McGregor I think of your crisp blue eyes and wispy white hairThat framed your face like a penumbra of snowI remember the night before you died and I satOn the floor by your bed holding your handI think I never was as close to you as then, so connectedAlthough we didn’t speak and I … [Read More...]
Giant Steps into the 21st Century
Enough energy to power a spaceship One of the greatest talents among many great talents on Miles Davis's seminal album Kind of Blue was tenor man John Coltrane and he also produced an outstanding album which broke new jazz ground in1959: Giant Steps . "Trane" as he was affectionately called, came from Hamlet in … [Read More...]
Wesley Pepper – portrait of an engaged artist
“I believe in people, art, poetry, music, creativity and love … my art is an interaction between me and my surroundings.” - Wesley Pepper What is the meaning of art in the South Africa of the 21st Century? Wesley Pepper is answering that question by doing art, not theorising about it. The Johannesburg-based … [Read More...]
Pretoria
Public spaces in cities usually attract interesting characters – especially if the spaces … [Read More...]
The most famous book on South African birds is Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa, first … [Read More...]
In the months prior to the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 the government of the … [Read More...]
Jazz
Enough energy to power a spaceship One of the greatest talents among many great talents … [Read More...]
The recording date Fifty years ago this year (2009) trumpeter extraordinaire Miles … [Read More...]
“Then along came Ayler. Holy shit! Brash and bold . . . Wailing, parading Albert Ayler – … [Read More...]
Two mutinies, a man presumably lost overboard, two women crew members and a wreck off the … [Read More...]
