The astronomer Fred Hoyle once observed: “Space isn’t remote at all. It’s only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards.” Which is to say it’s twelve hours nearer to us than Cape Town is to Johannesburg. Imagine such a perpendicular journey: 100km above sea level we cross the Karman line — […]
Lifestyle
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
A little known history of cocaine (Part 5)
For part four of the series, please click here. While some of the most interesting anecdotes and stories of cocaine’s convoluted history originate in the US and UK, Africa has its own tale to tell. While recent documents, reports, and sensationalist articles have reported an “explosion” of drugs on the continent, this is simply not […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, General, Lifestyle
Chess the thing for Joburg inner city
Indifference is a powerful weapon, easily injected into entire atmospheres, hearts and minds. Since the beginning of The Troyeville Bedtime Story, a never-ending Joburg tale that began with a stinking pile of neglected rubble in 2011, my eyes and heart tend toward what appears to be impossible, dysfunctional, overwhelming. I am long suffering from a […]
Posted inLifestyle
A little known history of cocaine (Part 4)
For the part three of the series, please click here. In 1906 the US passed the Pure Food and Drugs Act that formally began the regulation of cocaine and the opiates, limiting their use to the medical sphere. In 1914 the Harrison Act was passed, which can usefully be seen as the beginning of the […]
Posted inLifestyle
Oppikoppi: A field of stars
This is how I used to feel: Whenever someone told me that he or she wanted to become a musician, or a singer, or a new Afrikaans songwriter, something inside of me died. This is what I wanted to say to people who told me this: “I know you think that you are unique, and […]
Posted inHealth, Lifestyle
A little known history of cocaine (Part 3)
For part two of this series, click here. In the previous two articles in this series, I briefly documented how cocaine became seen as a “medical miracle” and how the rise of the first habitué’s revealed to medical science cocaine’s addictive potential. These first “addicts” where not however seen as innately criminal or diseased, an […]
Posted inHealth, Lifestyle, Tech
So, someone you know wants to become a doctor?
Every now and then someone young approaches me for advice on choosing medicine as a profession. They are all extremely bright, capable and enthusiastic semi-adults, with strong desires to change the world and to “make a difference”. With on average 6 000 applicants for 250 places at a medical training university, the odds are against all […]
Posted inLifestyle
SA art at Venice Biennale makes me proud
On a recent visit to Venice I was really impressed by the new South African pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale. Having read about it I tracked it down, prepared to be critical because of the scandal around South Africa’s participation two years ago. On the contrary this time I believe the department of arts […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle
Why I am a (man) feminist
I am a heterosexual man; I have been one for as long as I can remember. I remember three distinct stages of my development as such a man. I remember boyhood. During this time I had a healthy and innocent fascination with girls. I liked playing with them, I liked touching them and their attention […]
Posted inHealth, Lifestyle, Tech
A little known history of cocaine (Part 2)
For part one of this series click here. As I noted in the last part of this series, cocaine became a “medical miracle” at the same time as medical science was legitimating itself as a modern form of enquiry. At first cocaine was lauded, especially between 1884 and 1899, as the first real topical anaesthetic […]
Posted inLifestyle
Dear Miss Dhlomo
I first noticed you on TV in the early 1990s. I was convinced you were the most beautiful person in the world (and that hasn’t changed). Thereafter I saw the work you did with True Love magazine and I became convinced that black women matter and have some space in the world. As a black […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
What art you talking about?
The 31st of July was the deadline decided on by the South African Department of Arts and Culture (DepARTment) for arts practitioners and institutional responses to a revised White Paper they made available (in very limited fashion) earlier in the same month. There was nothing normal about the process but nothing abnormal either. Because this […]