Concerning Bathi

I just got back from my Human Rights Community Workshop - we travelled to the NW Province and, as part of our assignment, visited a group of underprivileged kids in a disadvantaged community near Rustenburg.

This is Bathi, and she is 6 years old. Other than those two facts, I know only that she enjoys writing on people's faces with facepaint pens, and gives great hugs.

It's a beautiful thing, the love of a child. It's a beautiful thing to be unashamedly hugged by a kid who knows nothing about you - not even your name. So beautiful!

Concerning Brothers

See the full gallery on Posterous

I have been so blessed to have so many brothers. Adam and Warren are the scary and protective ones. Matt and Devin the teasing, HP obsessed ones. And Daniel is the one I call when I'm upset and need a hug. They're all so awesome! Love 'em to bits! Plus they'd all make insanely good Amazing Race partners!

Concerning The Stage

The interning job I have at St Martin's School includes staging and coaching drama students. It's. The. Best. Job. Ever.

Man, I love doing this. Drama was such a cool part of my own high school career - it's such a great way to experience emotions and stories and life and other people. It's so great to be there when kids get a glimpse of the awesomeness too.

I'm so grateful to be here, and to be experiencing life in the cool way that I am. And I'm pretty stoked I keep getting reminded of that point with the words of inspiring writers from the mouths of inspiring kids :)

Concerning The Future

Once upon a time, in a city not unlike this one, there were two teenagers who, despite their competitive nature and completely different ideas about chocolate, became the best of friends. Drawn together by a love of electro-indie music and their closely matched skills in the art of craning, the two grew together as they journeyed through high school, college, and eventually a world tour that took them across 4 continents in nothing but a Toyota Hilux and a boat that the more crafty of the pair built with his own hands. They each eventually settled down, and continue to be besties to this very day.

Kids, this is the story of how I met your Uncle Daniel. I love him very much, and now you'll get to find out why :)

bubble wrap

I’ve decided to bring it down a bit tonight. You see, there comes a time when, really, we all find ourselves up at 1:30 in the morning with a bottle of cough mixture in one hand and a guitar in the other. As a good but strangely foreign friend once told me: you just write better songs when you’re drugged up on flu meds. I stand by that, current evidence vindicating.

But this isn’t a post about how I’ve just recently written what I think might be the saddest, heart-wrenching tome I’ve ever set to a standard 4-4. It’s a post about how life (and so much other stuff not included under the heading ‘life’) is like bubble wrap. Having not long ago had the pleasure of being left alone with a deliciously ample supply of what might possibly turn out to be the medium out of which the next Gaga outfit-slash-disaster is crafted, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only does bubble wrap deserve it’s title as Most Loved Packaging Material Ever, it deserves more. It’s just one of those things that has the ability to induce both divine satisfaction and deep, anxious irritation. The unmistakable contrast between the strangely worrying amount of happiness bursting a plastic bubble brings and the freakish paranoia that comes with trying to find one more bubble to pop when you’ve popped all you can and you can’t pop no more is wonderfully fitting when talking about life. And it’s wonderfully fitting at 1:45 in the morning.

Personally, I feel two extremes tonight. One the one hand, I’m an irritatingly keen and perky might-be-spiked bowl of punch for 2011. I love this year already, and am waiting with open arms for all that the next 350-odd days have in store for me. On the other, less thumbs-up hand, I’m achingly close to tears for whatever reason you can think of considering this is a blog and not a confessional. Your avid imagination aside, I turn to about a square meter of bubble wrap as a metaphor to both annoy and console me. It now lies tossed aside, most definitely used up (believe me, I checked, like, 14 times), and that makes me sad. But then again, I can still remember those heady, sun-kissed hours I spent slowly and deliberately popping the hell out of it.

Those were good times. I shall, for the next month or so, never forget them. I fearfully and with exhilaration look forward to better times ahead – for that fateful day when mom gets another parcel from Loot.com bound in that most sacred of protective packaging materials: that destined epoch when I once again experience the joy, laughter, vexation and heartache that is love. I mean, bubble wrap.

the kiff

It's a fact that there are many things which exist that I do not know about. I would list some, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to stuff I don't know. It's also a fact that I can educate you about things that you don't know exist. Forthwith follows my WISHLIST OF THINGS THAT YOU DIDN'T KNOW EXISTED BUT ARE KIFF that has been growing for some time now. Not everything is expensive, but all of them are dubbed "pretty kiff" by yours truly. Hopefully (probably) I'll own some of these one day :)
1. The Global Puzzle
Price: $15
Site: Mental Floss
Link: here

How cool is this thing? I've totally always wanted to learn the countries of the world better. I used to do it here (freepoverty's site is really awesome, by the way) but this is cool too!




2. Air Mail Mighty Wallet
Price: $15
Site: X-treem Geek
Link: here


I love this so much! I have a heart for things that look like other things but are really the first things. Haha :)




3. Bluetooth Retro Handset
Price: $25
Site: ThinkGeek
Link: here


I saw this once in a store at Campus Square and have forever regretted not buying it. Although I don't think the model on the link wouldn't work with my phone (it doesn't have Bluetooth 2.0 capabilities, because 2.0 didn't exist when it came out), I've dreamed for years of the moment when my phone rings amongst a group of cool, sophisticated people, and I pull one of these out of my bag!


4. iPhone App Magnets
Price: £7
Site: Firebox
Link: here


With my own iPhone not so far off in the distance, I think this would make an awesome addition to any fridge. You could pretend your fridge is a giant iPhone! Someone should totally invent a giant iFridge! That would be awesome! :P


5. Ninjabread Men Cookie Cutters
Price: £7
Site: Shiny Shack
Link: here 

If I wasn't so frightened of invoking the wrath of my local Ninja gang by eating their image in cookie form, I would totally buy these.


 
6. 500XL Speakers
Price: £24.99 
Site: Shiny Shack
Link: here 

I want them! They're so cool! Plus, if I ever find out I have a giant relative, or wanna treat my pet elephant to some classic tunage, I'll be sorted! :) 

 
7. Gunbrella
Price:  £14.99
Site: Shiny Shack
Link: here
  
I like this for 3 reasons: (1) I don't own an umbrella, and it's raining outside. (2) This is awesome. (3) This is awesome. 






8. Vinyl Style Recordable CDs
Price: £7.99
Site: Shiny Shack
Link: here


Ahh I need new adjectives! These are cool and awesome too! :) I love making mix tapes for people (and love getting them... *hint*) and I think these would make them so much more... awesome!
 
9. A Retro Flip Clock
Price: £32.99
Site: Shiny Shack
Link: here


Eish, I don't think I would pay as much as R300+ for this, but I can't let my dreams of the phenomenon in Groundhog Day happening to me just die, can I? And how could it possibly happen without an awesome retro flip clock?




10. Ice Invaders Ice Tray
Price: $7.99
Site: Silly.com
Link: here


I just think these would be so much fun to eat - revenge I say! And there's nothing like killing an invader by putting it in your Coke and watching it melt to death!!







And that's that! Top Ten Things You Didn't Know Existed But Really Want Now! If I did this every time I spent the day sick in bed with the flu, the world would be a much happier, less ignorant, altogether kiffer place :)

i heart darwin

There’s just something about this time of the year – New Year, I mean. It’s already half-way through January and I’ve still got that endless-possibility look about me in the mornings – that idea that it’s Blank Page Time, Square One Hour. I’ll be lying if I said I didn’t form this opinion until Chris tweeted about it, but it’s true – this, second only to those crisp Autumn Saturday afternoons in May, is my favourite time of the year. I feel newer. And older. And shinier.

It’s the fact that this atmosphere that January fills me with (let’s call it ‘freshativity’) is so specific and unique that makes me think of how certain things I come across (specifically music) can remind me of equally distinct periods in my past. Be warned, the next examples do reveal my horrific taste in music when I was younger.

Old Linkin Park albums (like Hybrid Theory and Meteora) take me straight back to my geeky, loner days in Grade 7. Crunchy guitar and not-so-hardcore-anymore screamo moments made me feel appropriate amounts of antiestablishment-ness. Fall Out Boy’s Under the Cork Tree record, however, conjures up a slightly less lonely, slight more punky Judy. I totally killed this one, and it will forever remind me of how I spent the whole winter smitten with a guy who ended up breaking my poor teenybopper heart. Aww! Oh well. I guess Fall Out Boy’s mostly indeterminable drone-like lyrics and sore excuse for a bassist (let alone person-in-general) were a perfect fit for the clearly disillusioned child I was back then. Other albums include The Arrows EP, Relient K’s MmHmm, John Mayer’s Room for Squares, Regina Spektor’s Far, Harris Tweed’s The Younger and (duh) Sara Barellies’ Little Voice.

So considering that moments of my life are marked by artists (or so it seems), I have an urge to define my January 2011 Freshitivity Official Album, and it is – it is - the self-titled record of the new-to-me-fabulous Darwin Deez.

I’ll admit I might be jumping on the indie-folk bandwagon here, but I’m convinced that it’s more than just the avante-garde that makes me want to take this LP out to a nice dinner-and-a-movie with scrumptiously evil ulterior motives. This is my kill-album of the week, my I’ve-only-had-this-album-for-four-days-and-I’ve-played-it-fifteen-times kill-album of the week. An explanation:

It’s awesome. Darwin Deez may take some getting used to, but you have to believe me and wait it out. I recommend a full listen-through at least 3 times before you make any kind of decision about him, because my first impression was not the gushing I so freely pour forth today, oh no. I thought it was drone-like, that his voice lacked any expression, that the similarity of the electric guitar sounds in every song was due to laziness and that (for goodness sake) if you’re going to sell an album, do not put that guy’s face on the cover (moustaches… ew). But you see, that’s all changed.

Each of the ten tracks on the album (plus two bonus songs) are equally distinctive in both lyrical content and composition. The simplicity is intriguing – there are blank spaces everywhere, often just lines with net vocals (and who has the guts to do that these days?). The ideas behind the numbers slowly flesh out the more you listen, and leave me with a feeling that Deez knows how to put a conflicting emotions into songs with an ease that simultaneously frightens and delights me. “Deep Sea Divers” uses a haunting metaphor of scuba-diving to express how it’s complicated when you love someone and they’re just sad all the time, and “DNA” uses a double helix to describe the humiliation of realising you’re not loved anymore. “Up in the Clouds” and “Bed Space” also talk about lost love, but I’ve never got the feeling that this is a mellow or emo album at all – “The Suicide Song” (from the window ledge I fall / watch my necktie whip back in the wind / from the top of an office building / I can’ t even see why I should live) is one of the most upbeat, vibe-y recordings on the whole CD. Deez changes it up in a way that lets me listen and have fun, or look up lyrics and feel melancholy. It’s the choice that makes it cool, that makes it awesome.

My personal favourite on the whole album (which was 99.8% influenced by this – seriously, click the link, you need to) is “Bad Day”. And if you haven’t clicked that link already, you’d better do it now, because that is justification enough, and I won’t give you the satisfaction of a written explanation just to save you 5 minutes and possibly let you make the saddest missed opportunity of your week.

So go get it. Try it out. It’s not up on iTunes yet, but it’s here and here. And his cute site is here. Let me know what you think, but at least give Deez the time and opportunity he deserves first – the opportunity to become on of your favourites ;)

P.S. All credit to Dave (who is awesome) for the introduction. High 5!