A few months ago I wrote a piece titled “The Oros Man” in which I detailed the pressures and inhumanities to which fat people are subjected in order to fit in the corporate workplace. In that particular piece I used the illustrious year-end office function as a tool to illustrate my point of view on […]
Lifestyle
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A weekend in the city
There were so many reasons to get out of the house last weekend and see the city. Firstly, it was my birthday. It was (in my opinion) a significant birthday, and my first as a Jozi resident. Secondly, I have yet another unwelcome guest at my house, and less time spent at home means less […]
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Weekends make us human
Alright, so this one is over and we’re quite resolutely in the middle of a Monday, but I’m beginning to think there’s something almost medicinal about weekends … They give us back to ourselves. How? We can sleep in. Better yet, we can sleep until we wake up, rather than be woken by the insistent […]
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Taxi life: What a ‘joy’-ride!
Submitted by Judy Sikuza Many constituents have labelled the Gautrain as “a train for the rich” and feel that the project is a waste of funds that could go to alternative transportation projects. I am sure numerous taxi drivers would agree with the latter component. After all, who needs a fast, high-tech transport system like […]
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Touch me, feel me: The internet as sensory organ
The Internet is a global stethoscope that allows us to listen in to the world’s most intimate secrets. It is an extension of our nervous system, the thing that connects one of us to the other, allowing us to experience the world and transform our emotional responses. And the ways in which Professor Shinichi Takemura, […]
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Las Vegas unplugged (part 1)
Here are some snapshots live from Las Vegas, the city I’ve been in for the last week. This post may be a bit disorderly, but I’ve got the ring of slot machines in my ears. It’s a sound that follows you everywhere in this city. Every hotel and its resident casino has a gimmick to […]
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High fidelity
Embroiled as I am in an argument with a furious member of the artistic community, I’m feeling the need to clear up some issues about art in this country. And before anyone starts saddling up the old high horse preparatory to riding me out of Dullsville, let me point out that just about the only […]
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The closest I’ll ever come to a threesome …
I had a four-handed massage yesterday. Yip, four hands. That’s two people. It was absolutely incredible, and nearly put me into a coma (of happiness). I popped into the Ubuntu Wellness Centre in Kloof Street (Cape Town) for an Ayurvedic massage, and was lucky enough to get upgraded to the four-hander. If anyone is ever […]
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On being banal about evil and human tragedies (in fiction)
Les bienveillantes is such a huge and, apparently, dense book that even most book lovers are likely to go out of their way to avoid it. The original version is in French and more than 900 pages long; the Spanish-language translation has 973 pages. The English-language translations — one in the US, one in Britain […]
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Low-level discourse
For just about all of my life — from about the age of three — I have had to deal on a daily basis with personal comments aimed at something I have no control over. I am tall (six foot two, to be precise) and for some reason a certain kind of person feels the […]
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An idea so good you can eat it
Anne Taylor blogs for Thought Leader from the Design Indaba in Cape Town. Dutch designer Marije Vogelzang laid out a feast of delicious ideas that the audience gobbled up at this year’s Design Indaba, now on in Cape Town: tablecloths of dough draped over shapes so it dries into edible bowls, revolvers made out of […]
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Playing designer dot-to-dot at the Indaba
Anne Taylor blogs for Thought Leader from the Design Indaba in Cape Town When you’re knee-deep in all that’s trendy and chic at the Design Indaba, there’s something deeply reassuring about a man who is totally unpretentious. Especially if he’s a world-class, world-famous designer. Ivan Chermayeff is clear and simple — and witty in an […]