Pop culture

August 15, 2006 • Photography

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

Tree mosaics, one story. The three pictures are like a three frame comic strip and tell a story.

If you look closely at the tiles, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out what’s the message here. If not, see below.

The whole creation consists of three individual mosaics. All the tiles and the source images come from Flickr, except the picture of George Bush, which was scraped from the net. The second image was also posted on Flickr but not, clearly, by the actual photographer.

The mosaics were created with a trial version of the extremely decent Mazaika.
The idea of the series came from a conversation I had about six months ago, with two friends of mine. After mastering the Flickr API and first considering to write the mosaic-creation software myself, I figured trying out an existing product first.

If enough people are interested, I can ship out posters, at cost. The above picture would come out at around 100x50cm.

The story

Bush’s mosaic consists of 3500 tiles, taken from Flickr, that have ‘iraq’ and ‘war’ as tags. One of those, the Abu Ghraib image used in the second mosaic is in there as well.

The Abu Ghraib mosaic consists of 3500 tiles, all taken from Flickr that have the tags ‘nude’ and ‘woman’. The reason is twofold: First, the tortures in Abu Ghraib have been commoditized, people (in the west) no longer taking notice. Second, although the torture pictures, now, shock no-one, they should. And to offset the shock value of the tortured Arab in the picture, the mosaic consists of nude women, pictures of which are considered shocking in the Arab world.

One of the nude women in the second mosaic is the picture used as the basis for the third mosaic. That mosaic consists of 3500 tiles, taken from Flickr, all tagged with ‘man’ and ‘smile’, for obvious reasons. One of the tiles is the picture of George Bush used for the first mosaic.

And of course, the whole thing symbolises the shallowness of consumption culture.

The next step in crime fighting

August 10, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

We were going to get a visit from some franchiser who sells bolted doors and windows, but when he realised he wasn't going to speak to the owner of the house, he canceled the appointment.

Still, this didn't stop me from getting a new laptop. A small pile of money I had't planned spending, but such is life. I also got a steel cable to bolt the laptop down. Now let's hope my travel insurance will pay up soon (or at all, for that matter).

Having had not much to do, I read a lot. And we attended another opening ceremony of an exhibition. Marie Cruise, a sculptor, is currently showing her work in the David Krut art gallery. I'm not too much into sculpture, but the focus of the exhibition was much more on her preliminary work, the sketches and such, which she did before actually creating the main piece of art.

On Sunday, we went for Chinese in Chinatown (including a free complimentary DVD). Before dinner, we were asked to join a group of celebrators in preparation for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. We were told it was to be aired on CCTV, Chinese television. Chinese friends of mine, have you seen us?

Also, we now have three cats who regularly stop by for a pet on the back, a drink or a bite.

Mamma Mia!

The international cast has come to South Africa. Or more accurately, the international cast is now almost leaving South Africa.

Tickets were hard to get, which is reasonably surprising since there were quite a few shows and the ticket price is steep. Still, we got two and went to see the show.

The comic relief was reasonably enjoyable, although very British and too many jokes were 'lewd', even though the crowd loved those the most.
The mother reminded me of Dusty Springfield and the daughter of the neighbour in the TV series "Love and Marriage".

The whole show is a mix of a British comedy (pick one) with a bit of Muriel's Wedding thrown in, mixed up with a lot of Shirley Valentine and a dash of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.
As a whole, I found the show entertaining, but not spectacular. Maybe I'm just from the wrong decade.

The plot thickens

July 31, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

Before my camera's were stolen, I kept them inside a cupboard. The cupboard is open, but you can't see what's in it from outside. Cables and other peripherals I wasn't using, I kept in the same place.
Today, I finally started to clean up that bit of mess. They didn't take the external light for the video camera. But they did take the external microphone. Or did they? The mic was missing, but most of the wire to plug it into the camera was still there, bitten off.

The spirit of togetherness

We went to see Umoja, a decent show. It tells the history of South Africa through music, rhythm and dance. Tries to be more profound than it should.

Bombay dance

July 30, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Emperor’s palace

We went to see the final showing of Umoja in Emperor's palace. After, we hung around the fake Roman village and I spent a few Rand on the overly expensive DDR machines in the arcades.

As I was dancing, a girl came up to me asking if I wanted to dance on stage in the Hindi nightclub, also inside the palace. Turns out, they were shooting a Bollywood movie and needed some dancers. The snag? I had to be there at 1am.
We hung around the entrance of the club, but everyone we asked was of the opinion that shooting had ended for the day. We left.

Art

July 29, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Parking gallery

We visited another opening of an art exhibition. Interestingly, this one was also closing on the same day, only available for a one-evening showing. The artist, Ismail Farouk, is an urban geographer, which means he’s mapping social networks and community based organisations. He does this in poorer neighbourhoods.

The description of his work, in an article in the Mail & Guardian, intrigued me, so we went to the opening of the show, which consisted of two seperate exhibitions. The first was a series of fires of a Jo’burg house on fire, the second, called JHB626GP, a digital video made up op individual still images of a tour through Johannesburg.

I found the photos a bit of a disappointment. The video was nicely done, although it also felt a tad too ‘gimmicky’.

After the show, we had Chinese in Chinatown before going to Blues Room, where we got together with three colleagues of Betsy and one friend. The live band was decent, opened up with Toto’s “Africa”, but played UB40 reggae most of the time.
At around 1am, we left and had a few drinks at the house of one of Betsy’s colleagues. Only then did I notice what a colourful bunch we were:

+ A Dutch woman who’s a quarter black and lived in Suriname for 10 years.
+ A half Arab girl who came to Holland from the UAE when she was 15.
+ A South African who moved to the Netherlands when he was three.
+ A half Dutch, half Iranian guy who lived in Holland for some 20 years.
+ A Dutch guy with a German accent who had lived most of his life in South Africa.
+ An Indian lady with a Dutch last name of South African origin who had lived part of her life in Holland.

Thinking it over

July 24, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

I can’t help but think that the burglary we experienced last Saturday was targeted. The fence around the whole compound was breached, right where our garden is. My laptop, cameras, cell phone and external hard disk were taken, while mouse, headset, cables and card reader, all of which were on the same desk as my laptop, were left behind, as were the DVD player, TV, CDs, DVDs and whatnot.

In short, all my data-carrying devices were taken. Ain’t that a coincidence.

The preceding evening, I hadn’t completely closed the curtains, leaving a narrow strip to look out, or in. I can’t help but be reminded of a comment my father made to my mother some 30 years ago to keep the curtains closed because they are watching (to understand this in context, read Brieven aan mijn vader, it’s in Dutch). As this break-in came shortly after me publishing those letters, in which I mention it would be reasonable to get the impression based on what I know of my father that he might have been involved in some secretive plot, it would almost be too unlikely to have this be a coincidence. One would be excused to think my data was taken to find out what it is I actually have on file. In fact, it would be interesting to see what would happen if I’d say that I didn’t bring this information to South Africa, but kept it hidden away in my basement in Delft.

I later found out they also took my shoes. One pair I still have, I had forgotten it in the car.

On a completely unrelated note, I have forgotten what the color beige looks like.

Redistribution of wealth

July 22, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

We came significantly closer to being true South Africans this morning. We had a break in.

Last night, after having a great dinner at a colleague of Betsy's, we came home at around 11pm. We started watching a movie, but we were too tired. Betsy went to bed, but I fell asleep on the couch.
At some point during the night I woke up, took of my shirt and sweater and through them on the second couch. Later, just after 4am, I woke up again and went to bed.

Betsy woke up at 6:30am. She had to work early the whole weak and was still in her early-rise routine. As she walked to the bathroom, she noticed how cold it was in the living room. The sliding door to the garden was open, stuff was stolen.
The sliding door was forced, both locks having been forced open. My laptop's gone, my external hard disk is gone, my (expensive) Sony photocamera is gone, my (cheap) Canon photocamera is gone, my Canon video camera is gone and my cellphone is gone.
Oh, my sweater is also gone. Gotta keep warm, even when you're stealing things.

What's more, the thieves had quite a struggle to get in. We live on the edge of a compound, overlooking a farm's pond where, on most days, cows stop by for a chat and a drink.
The bars of the 2-3mm thick iron fence cut and bended. Wires of the electric fence were cut. Apparently, the guards had had a warning at around 1am, probably when the fence was cut, but they spotted nothing.
This also suggests that the burglars could already have been inside the compound at least three hours before they finally broke in to our appartment.

They also took one of Betsy's handbags. The handbag had her passport, amongst other things. Interestingly, the full contents of the bag was waiting for us in our garden. Possibly they made a hasty escape and lost the contents of the bag. On the other side of the fence, beneath some autumn leaves, was the bolt cutter they probably used to cut the fence.

I hope I'll get something back from insurance. What's worse, all the work I've done over the past months was on either the laptop or the external hard disk, or both.

Welcome to South Africa.

PS: If you want to give us a call, try Betsy her South African phone number. My Dutch phone was already stolen before I arrived at our appartment some months ago.

Wine and cars

July 20, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Investment cars

The road from our home in Fourways to IBM in Sandton is lined with expensive car dealers. Your obligatory BMW, Mercedes and whatnot. But also Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini and more. What's worse is that these dealers on this street aren't really exceptional for this city. Expensive car dealers are all over the place.

But as this is South Africa and the white upper crust does feel a little bit guilty towards the underprivileged, there's the occasional get together aimed at sponsoring the little people into a better life with, I'm sure, lots of condom use and happy families.

This night, we actually enjoyed such an event. 'Investment cars', yes this does sound like a contradiction, was hosting a function where most, if not all, of the money goes to the nonprofit Kids Haven. A decent cause, meaning we had to cough up decent money to get inside.
Then again, we did get to see up close and even touch, when inquiring minds weren't looking, Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Oh, there was also extensive wine tasting and great finger food.

After ending with some very decent espressos served by a Portuguese guy running a store selling handmade shirts *inside* the car dealer, we went home. The car dealer isn't far from where we live, yes, we reside in the more posh part of town, but it's all downhill.
We couldn't roll home, we had no choice but to drive up.

Christmas in July

July 15, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Pretoria » American Embassy Recreation Grounds

Since it's winter NOW, here down under, it makes some sense to celebrate in the spirit of Christmas, does it not?
So, with the lovely folks from the JHHH, that's the Jacaranda hash house harriers, if you're wondering, we celebrated Christmas in July today. We had a run, we had christmas carols, there was a christmas tree, there was father christmas, gifts, stuffed turkey, gluehwein. All the things you expect to be there with christmas. And then, still, it was en enjoyable 20 degrees during the day.

See how it runs

July 10, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

With the extra day we suddenly had because of our early return from Botswana, we visited Centurion and danced a bit.

Take a look at the picture of the salt container. There's a picture of a boy pouring salt on a small chicken on it. The small text above the picture says "See how it runs". Very odd.

Getting out

July 09, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » North-Western Province » Hartbeespoortdam

Gabarone is one of the more expensive African capitals, meaning that accommodation is not very cheap at all. We ended up in a place, the Hotel Crystal Palace, which reminded me of communist-style hotels from the 1960. It's clean, but everything is worn out and there's little attention to detail. The worn out bit is puzzling, since the hotel was only built a few years ago.

With not much to see in Gabs, we drove down to Madikwe, a supposedly impressive game reserve on the South African side of the border with Botswana. We tried two gates but were turned away on both occasions. We had to have made reservations upfront before being allowed to enter.
You'd think they'd be happy with any visitor, since the reserve is quite a bit out of the way. But no.

We drove down to the Hartbeespoortdam instead. The lake and its surroundings feel like Switzerland and it's a place which, on weekends, is overrun by day trippers from Jo'burg and Pretoria. It's not bad, as it feels a bit more authentic than the malls in both these towns.

Karaoke in Gabs

July 08, 2006 • Blog

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World » Botswana » Gabarone » Shell station on the road to South Africa

We were looking for an Indian restaurant in the Africa Mall in Gabarone. A restaurant which, allegedly, also served up Mauritian cuisine. Mauritius, if you're wondering, is a tiny island in the south west Indian Ocean. Never having eating Mauritian fare, it made sense to check this out.
As I've found the Lonely Planet less then accurate on several occasions for locations not heavily frequented by travellers, this restaurant was no longer to be found and we ended up at the newly opened Gold Coin Thai Restaurant, which, according to the owner, doubling as an employee, or possibly the consul himself, of the Thai consulate, serves up 90% Thai food (100% Thai food only being available in Thailand and the only other contender in town, 25 degrees east, serving up only 1% Thai food due to the Indian cooks there).
The food was quite decent indeed, but what made the visit worthwhile was the daily karaoke show, from six till ten. We did our Aha, ABBA and then some, but the few locals went wild, choosing Chinese songs and rapping away with texts of their own. The Thai consul loved it, but was a bit confused by the locals' powers and instead chose to dance away at Betsy and my efforts at singing.
Afterwards, he couldn't stop talking about the benefits of Chinese tea. Chinese tea makes you stronger, apparently. If you get what I mean.

There's not a lot to do in Gabs. We saw pretty much everything in the town, spent some time at the Gabarone yacht club, visited the malls (the most impressive of which suffered from a power cut on the Saturday afternoon) and visited the few pubs worth visiting, like the Bush & Bull.
The country, however, appears to be much better off than South Africa. Shortly after independence, in 1966, diamonds were discovered, meaning the former colonial overlords, for once, didn't get the lion's share of the profits.

While driving through Lobatse, on our way from Mafikeng to Gabarone, we stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the sights of the town: A mental hospital, the country's largest abattoir and the supreme court. Not that these three things really interested us. We were there for the seventy year old St. Marks church, built like a typical African house, with a very nice thatched roof.

The lowdown on Mafikeng

July 06, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » North-Western Province » Mafikeng » R&R Guesthouse

As a Dutch foreigner, you get a temporary residence permit valid for 3 months, upon entering South Africa. My three months are nearly up now, so instead of diving into the bureaucratic hell for extending my residence permit, we decided to leave the country for a weekend. Coming back, receiving a new 3 month residence permit, all should be well again.
So we went to Botswana, the nearest 'abroad', from Jo'burg. Maputo isn't that far, too, but we already visited that capital. And even though we already knew that Gabarone wasn't going to be the most spectacular capital, chalking up that one extra country on the board was just too appealing.

Botswana, the size of France, is huge and empty. Only some 1.6 million people, most of them living in the south east, close to the South African border. Pretty much the rest of the country is desert. But that's also where the beauty of this country can be found.
In the south west, there's the, supposedly amazing, Kalahari desert and in the north west, there is the Okavango delta. When in Gabs, as Gabarone is mostly called, we found that the road towards the Kalahari is not really suitable for a regular car but that the road to the Okavango is decent tarmac all the way, 900 kilometres, but still. So if we ever consider going to Botswana again, we most likely will drive to the swamps of the Okavango.

On our way to Botswana, we stopped for a night in the provincial capital of the Northwest province, Mafikeng. Under siege by the Boers a good 100 years ago, it was here that good ol' Baden-Powell played around with young boys for the first time, creating a cadet-corps of white youths below fighting age.

There's three large malls in Mafikeng, and that's pretty much all there is to see in the whole town. The city doesn't have a Chinese or Indian take away, even, and we ended up drinking and eating at Tony's corner, something of a living room with hints of an English pub. The Portuguese food Tony served wasn't too bad.

Mafikeng also used to be the capital of what became Botswana. Yes, a capital outside of the borders of a country.

We Will Rock You

July 02, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Johannesburg Civic Theatre
Website

Freddy makes a vocal appearance four times during the show and, it has to be said, these moments are almost magical. As I was a mere 13 when Queen last toured the globe, I never had the chance to listen to the music on anything else but a stereo set, event though at times the set was not half bad.
The show is highly enjoyable and the music is great. The voices of the players range from reasonable to very good and it's a good thing they seldom try to exactly copy the Queen originals as the few times they do try to emulate Freddy's vocal ranges, they fail easily. And it's near-blasphemy to try and sing Queen songs and get away with it, anyway.
Still, that is not to say that most of the performances are highly enjoyable. The closing song, after the story proper has ended, Bohemian Rhapsody, is done very well, live, in full. Something Queen, for obvious reasons, never were able to manage.

The storyline, a future where rock music is outlawed and a bunch of bohemians fight to get it back is a bit flimsy and, at times, contrived, but you could argue that any excuse to play Queen music is a good excuse. What was a pity were the cheap, sometimes 'risky' jokes, which would have been better in some show from the '80s. Meanwhile, the jokes referencing South Africa's pop history were enjoyable, not in the least judging by the roaring crowd.
The ending is a bit of an anti-climax.
Several of the Queen songs have been changed slightly to feature buzzwords like 'internet' and email. Innovative, but it also gets old after a while.

The show relies to some extent on large LCD screens on which images relevant to the show are displayed. On several occasions, I was reminded of "Queen, 'The Eye'". When you read up on the game, you'll find it has some interesting parallels with the musical.

The show apparently has 32 songs by Queen, but I'm a bit biased against this. Praising musical artists who died too young, the track "No-One but You (Only the Good Die Young)" is sung. Indeed, it does show up on the album "Queen rocks", but was recorded after Freddy Mercury died for an album that, basically, is a 'best-of' CD.

Oh, the venue, Johannesburg Civic theater, has a ridiculously short intermission.

Somewhat busy week

June 30, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

After fromIran.com, I’ve gotten the taste of using the Flickr API to make different things and created SkipDistance.com, where you have to guess English sayings where they are displayed using images pulled from Flickr. As I’ve been doing with most of the stuff I’ve created recently, I based the design on stuff I pulled from OpenWebDesign.org.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on writing a proposal for a web-project in Tirana, Albania. It’s with UNDP and if this works out, it could truly herald a new era.

Finally, DDR ZA . com has gone into private beta. It’s been a pain to get the hosting right. Readyhosting, until late last year the provider with which I hosted all my sites has quickly gone downhill once they were acquired by a third party. Although, potentially, what they offer is still good, their service is extremely friendly, but also not very knowledgeable.

Then, I proposed a professionalisation of Carotta.de. Francesco Carotta is the author of the book ‘Jesus was Caesar’. Status pending.

And I’m submitting some pictures to a Spanish photography competition. The pictures listed below are the ones from which I want to choose. Help me out to select the right ones by giving your opinion.

Hash, palace, birds and defeat

June 25, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

On Saturday, we once more went on the Jacaranda Hash, which saw us running through a dry riverbed most of the time after which we had a pleasant cheese fondue, mostly with veggies and meat, not bread. South Africans can *not* go without their meat, hey.

After the hash, we originally wanted to go to what appeared to be a Japan-oriented bar, but on later inspection seemed to be more of a regular club than anything else. Instead, we went to Emperor’s palace, a themed mall close to the Jo’burg airport. Where Montecasino is ‘faux-Tuscan’, Emperor’s Palace is ‘faux-Roman’. It’s actually not as good as Montecasino as it’s basically only one ‘street’, running from the arcades on one end to the huge casino on the other.
We spent some time at “Marc Anthony’s”, a pub with an above average singer doing all sorts of average songs. All fun and games until the Steve Hofmeyr support band was urged on stage and went completely wild. This included a Joe Cocker-like singer, a rocker on electric guitar, a virtuoso pianist and two girls on violins. Steve himself, who decided to take it easy and enjoy the show, stayed in the audience.

Enjoying the show where a bunch of Durbanites who clearly already had had too much fun and drinks. One of them, a one-trick-pony only able to slowly move her ass from left to right and back again, left a decently sized mark on the dancefloor when she became violently sick.

On the Sunday, we finally visited the Montecasino bird gardens, which really was a blast. Betsy got bitten by a cuckatoo while a bunch of Macaws (Dutch: papegaaien) were trying to eat my shoes. Lots of fun.

And, indeed, Holland lost against Portugal. I’m not much of a soccer fan and know even less about soccer, but it was pretty clear, even to me, that there was a lot of ill-luck involved here.
For once, we didn’t visit the Holland House in Fourways Gardens. I hope the pub is still standing after tonight.

Soccer, sad and Flickr

June 16, 2006 • Blog

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World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

Had a bit of a sad bout this morning while browsing through the Exclusive Books store in Sandton. I was waiting for the stationary store to go open and was overwhelmed by the many good books I'm never going to have time for to read.
One interesting book, to me at least, was The Dead Man in the Bunker. For obvious reasons.

Soccer fever is in full swing here, even though South Africa didn't stand a chance at making it to the final 32 at the World Cup. In 2010, SA will be hosting the event so at least, then, they will make it to the last 32. Now, on the telly at least, they're going crazy for every and any African team. Not that any are currently set to make it to the last sixteen, but anyway.

Since I don't have too much work to coming my way, I'm upgrading several of my websites and creating some new ones. For one, I'm tightly integrating Flickr with my own site. The pictures below are stored on Flickr but can be seen here. This will allow me to move this website away from my current host and to the host where I'm currently hosting some 20-odd websites.

Ask a ninja

It should be obvious. I'm not all too busy over here in SA. But with a decent enough internet connection, I was able to stumble upon and check up on an old favorite. The rather interesting series of 'Ask a ninja'. As I also look forward to killing you soon, I very much loved this episode. Of course, because it features Dance Dance Revolution.

Ex-Dragavant Nights 2

June 10, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

No, that’s not a typo. It’s a drag show. It’s entertaining enough, but not nearly deserves the Mail & Guardian calling it ‘highly risque‘. It’s so very much 70s or 80s (for a dutchman) or so very much Priscilla, Queen of the desert.

More entertaining than the show itself was the crowd’s reaction. They really went wild, all the time.

Inside Pilanesberg

June 05, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » North-Western Province » Pilanesberg national park » Bakgatla resort

Visiting Pilanesberg, close to Sun City, I now decided to travel the longer route to get there which, indeed, was much, much faster, even though quite confusing still.
Pilanesberg is a national park, with the big five, and is by some considered a better experience than Krugerpark. This time, it was still a bit too wet, this time of the year, meaning there’s too much water and too many watering holes. The animals can be anywhere in the 500 square kilometre park. Still, we did get the opportunity to see elephants, giraffes, rhino, hippo, wildebeest, buffalo, zebra, and more. One of the better sightings was a mere turtle, swimming along in a small lake, looking up at us, while we were looking at the turtle, sitting from a ‘hide’, a secluded, more or less hidden hut close to the watering hole the turtle was swimming in. The turtle kept straining its neck, looking straight up but swimming on. Until it bumped into one of the posts of the hut.

During the Braai, this -is- South Africa after all, we talked and at some point wondered how a blind man knows when he’s finished wiping his butt. Well, how?

Ball radio with a twist, literally

May 29, 2006 • Blog

World » South Africa » Johannesburg » Fourways » Shingara Sands

I dreamt up a radio in the shape of a ball. Nothing new, except you tune the radio by rolling it in one direction and adjust the volume by rolling it in another direction.
Actually, what I dreamt of was exactly this, with the difference that the radio also became heavier as you rolled it, but that’s a bit hard to implement, I suppose. And useless.

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