“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my teenage gay lover when Ali announced the archbishop had come to see me.” So snorts the opening sentence to Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers – almost. Instead of “teenage gay lover” St Anthony uses the word catamite. The sentence […]
Rod MacKenzie
CRACKING CHINA was previously the title of this blog. That title was used as the name for Rod MacKenzie's second book, Cracking China: a memoir of our first three years in China. From a review in the Johannesburg Star: " Mackenzie's writing is shot through with humour and there are many laugh-out-loud scenes". Cracking China is available as an eBook on Amazon Kindle or get a hard copy from www.knowledgethirstmedia.co.za.
His previous book is a collection of poetry,Gathering Light.
A born and bred South African, Rod now lives in Auckland, New Zealand, after a number of years working in southern mainland China and a stint in England.
Under the editorship of David Bullard and Michael Trapido he had a column called "The Mocking Truth" on NewsTime until the newszine folded.
He has a Master's Degree in Creative Writing from the University of Auckland. if you are a big, BIG publisher you should ask to see one of his many manuscript novels. Follow Rod on Twitter @ https://twitter.com/Rod_in_China
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, General
The sacred art of listening
To spend time in silence deep in nature far from other people is to know that everything is listening. There is the profound sense that the world around you is deeply attentive, and by listening to that, you honour the presence of everything. The bruises in bark, stone, leaves, dust, the flicker of a tiny […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Lifestyle
Frogs and queens: Crossdressing, spirituality and Feminism (II)
“The moral failing most common to men is brutishness.” So says “Jill” the wife of a crossdresser. “Jill” writes this in the context of having learned – with limitations – to accept her husband’s crossdressing behaviour as outlined in an appendix to Bert & Lori: The autobiography of a crossdresser, written by Robert J Rowe […]
Posted inEquality, General, Lifestyle
Frogs and queens: Crossdressing and déjà vu (I)
Most of us have split up with a member of the opposite sex. I love the unintended pun: splitting genes, separating the masculine from the feminine. My favourite was Frances. She betrayed me while we were still “an item” for a friend, Angus, who turned out to be a cross-dresser. To everyone’s surprise. Imagine being […]
Posted inGeneral
The wonder and mystery of doors
My first remembered door was a toilet, me traumatised on the wrong side, trapped, wailing. Dad slid under the door a mysterious bit of serrated metal, introduced with the newly minted word, key, key … pick up the bloody key! Then, as I triumphed over the white oblong of wood and its forbidding creaks, three […]
Posted inLifestyle
Our sexuality and the demise of the business tie
My mother was the first culprit, bending down to smooth out my collar and adjust my school tie. The electricity of that touch is what stays. Future women sent glitters down my spine, the pretty Mrs. Martens being foremost in school memory. Blond, full of English literature, Barbie doll clothes equally filled with secrets, she […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence
‘Unwanted, dirty’: The ‘fictitious’ gang rape (II)
(Continued from previous blog) Bend, Not Break largely shifts between Ping’s nightmarish childhood and her adult life in the US. In America she grows, step by painful step, into a successful businesswoman in the software industry. Before this, sometime after the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government demanded she leave China. This is because of the […]
Posted inBusiness, Equality, Gender violence, General
‘Unwanted, dirty’ – reading a Chinese woman’s memoir (I)
— Written while recuperating from a broken hand and wrist How everything is already memory. His broken hand cradled, cupped and listened to as its slow bones knit back. The wonder of watching his fingers and palm go through their re-blooming: the fingers learning again to outstretch, then bunch up like an evening blossom that […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Is Oscar’s attorney really a star?
Why is the defence advocate, Barry Roux, considered a star by the faceless social media when a defenceless woman was killed? One realises there are sub-editors, and part of their jobs is just to make a sensational headline. But the story in reports like these celebrate Roux as if he were a chess grandmaster. The […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Prejudice, racism and entertainment
“South Africans here in New Zealand have a reputation for being aggressive — especially the Afrikaners,” groaned Mark, a fellow English-speaking South African, over a beer. “Why Afrikaners?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “They arrive here with a huge chip on their shoulder, walk into our workshop demanding a WOF for their car and […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Libraries and violence
You know that sensation when you mistakenly walk into the other sex’s dressing room and there is that sudden fluster and flurry of clothing being pulled back up and stifled or not stifled squeals? Of course you do. Well, for the purposes of description, entering a decent library can be the exact opposite, especially when […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Fleeing China
It was the very recent death of his mother that emerged in him during this time, this fleeing from snow-swept China. Now in New Zealand, he felt his creative fingertips for the first time in months. He re-discovered the warmth of Marion’s hands and laugh again, the hearth which had always been there, the arms […]