pretend

I’ve been listening to Nonyana’s 4 boys pretend to crow early in the morning, afternoon, lunchtime. Pretty much whenever they get a chance. I say pretend because what comes out of their mouths cannot yet be termed a crow. It comes out all wrong. I don’t know how the humans are coping with this but it’s driving me crazy. First comes the scramble up a tree to gain a height advantage and then follows the disappointing gurgle. I can’t believe I was ever like this.

A point of interest about roosters  is their reaction to male offspring. I  can’t stand them!! In the jungle of course they would leave the nest and begin their own family but in these suburban environs it’s up to the humans to find a home for them. Fortunately I have noticed that they don’t yet have names. No names means that the pot has not been ruled out. Shocking you might think!! But I’ve heard of similar things that you humans do to your female offspring. Now that to me is shocking.

Anyway, I am meandering. Pretend. It’s so popular in these new psycho-babble-10-steps kind of ways. This kind of touchy-feely is rampant in the esoteric worlds but I see the concepts have put on a suit and tie and moved into the business world. Must be all those business-types secretly reading their wives energetically empowering books at night. The idea is that one must pretend. I know there is probably a more nuanced word for this, but it  is pretending, it’s playing the character that you want to be. The universe in it’s bountiful way needs only to see the heartfelt desire coupled with some consistent visualisation technique and water is but concrete walkway.

This led me to thinking about a theme that I often find with writers. The notebook. The capturer of those whimsical, fleeting, droplets of pure genius. I often mock this concept but as I turned it over in my mind it seemed to grow hair on it’s chest and a deep throated cockadoodle doo. Yes! So I am going to explore this writing persona. If you see some shady looking rooster furiously scrawling in a dark corner that will be me. It might even be in the queue at the local Spar, I so love perving other people’s purchases.

The gem for my inspiration has been the Guardian’s book section. They have a running series called Rules for writers.

My favourite has been by one of my all time best writers Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood’s rules for writers. They are funny, she must spend lots of time in airplanes. My friend joked that she must also not have ever heard of a pencil sharpener. I laughed but only until I realised the blasphemy of my actions. I throw myself at your feet Margaret.

The other is by somebody I have never read, a man by the name of Michael Morpurgo. Maybe you can enlighten me. I actually liked his rules more. His way of working resonated more with how ideas jump from my head to the screen.

Enjoy. Be inspired.

the buzz about buzz

Ha!! I bet you thought I was going to jump in and join the sadness that is all commentary re dear uncle President Zuma. It is enough to say that I,  like most am disappointed, more than that, I am betrayed. As a polygamist with 8 wives, it has been quite painful to have to see the “I-told-you-so” glee of the monogamist sect. Their vindication of the backwardness, the abusiveness and downright wrongness of the idea of simultaneous love of many has shaken me. My good fortune is that as a chicken, the paradigm is still firmly routed in polygamy.

No, the buzz I am referring to here has nothing to do with politics and other peoples c** stained laundry. The buzz is technology, yup, Google Buzz. I haven’t even tried it out yet. What I wanted to talk about here is the way technology has become like a celebrity in itself. Everybody knows that technological visionaries like of course,  Steve Jobs,  have for a long time held rock star status within the geekeratti- but when the tech outfit has no one with quite that charm, their products jump into the limelight. So it is with Google. You’ve got to love brainyness to find the guys at the helm of that outfit charming but boy do they bring out drool worthy tech.

What’s more, their way of releasing software in dribs and drabs to selected audiences glued to the Interwebs is not much unlike the lines of people queuing outside Apple stores for the next blessing from Jobs. The only difference is that it is like queuing outside of the latest night club on a cold, wet and miserable winter’s night. Why? Because Google chooses who gets to play with their new wonder toy. Google picks you out of the miserable crowd, walks you down the snaking line and walks you through the gates of coolness. You feel like so special dude, those guys at Google chose me…. ME!! Does that mean I’m cool? Have they been investigating my surfing habits and picked me amongst all these googles of people? I’m sure there are people gagging to know their algorithm for choosing who gets to use their new software gadget. It’s probably right up there with PageRank.

Wow!! I must think of something really terrible to say on my first buzz post. What will it be called… buzzing?