The Riddle Of The Moving Statues

Blessed,

Here is a poem I wrote entitled The Riddle Of The Moving Statues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X5IQiGiUrs&feature=youtu.be

I wrote it using cuttings from an old issue of National Geographic magazine as part of an ongoing Creative Development project exploring the self. Thanks to the help of my collaborator Zika Crowned who read and edited for me, we were able to put together a little video. I hope you enjoy it =)

(PS- If you search for Faith In A Jar on Youtube you will find a whole channel where I have uploaded video footage from past posts, and many more to come! Apologies for the annoying lack of proper links, Blogger is feeling uncooperative.)


The Riddle Of The Moving Statues

Born in a bruised supercell
by mana, a spiritual force transmitted by powerful ancestors
landscape acquired in the aura of tragedy
descended into civil war and cannibalism.

A dying tornado like this one is said to be in the "roping out" phase.
Whether the story is the island as a cautionary parable: the most extreme case of a society wantonly destroying itself by wrecking it's environment.
Can the whole planet, Diamond asks, avoid the same fate?

But the story is different
don't trust oral history

Rearrange and reinterpret the scattered shards of fact, though,
and you get a more optimistic vision.
No two storms are the same.
No two skies are either.
It was a tough place to make a living.
It required heroic efforts
and some in storm
conspire to paint blusterous murals and apocalyptic tableax.
To document these awe inspiting tempests,
emblems of human resilience and ingenuity

The collapse of their isolated civilization
play host to thousands of visible, violent storms.
This one crept over
isolated no more,
seductive, but not easy.

Beatport's Terry Weerasinghe at SAE Music Business Masterclass for Cape Town Music Week

Blessed,

This past week saw Vice President of Music Services for Beatport, Terry Weerasinghe give a talk at the SAE Institute Cape Town ahead of his keynote speech at the upcoming Breathe Sunshine African Music conference happening in Joburg on the 3rd of October. He shared valuable insight into the trends behind the number of clicks and downloads, giving an in depth look at current trends in all genres of electronic dance music, digital retailing, and integrated social media marketing. The man is truly a wealth of groovy information.

Conversations with Sindiwe Magona x Jazz In The Native Yards

Blessed,

This past Sunday the Jazz In The Native Yards team organised for Marianne Thamm to interview prolific South African writer Sindiwe Magona at her home in Gugulethu. The venue was small, intimate and highly significant; where else would discussions about Home and Heritage be more pertinent?

Sindiwe Magona is a young, black, female writer's dream. She is feisty, fiercely intelligent and very open and approachable. She looks half her age and has quadruple the wisdom =) She felt like a mother telling all of us, her children, about her journeys in life; about how she decided as a young mother to take her life into her own hands and not let an unequal system of oppression define her.She spoke about our homes and the conversations we need to have in them. Why have a conversation about domestic violence at a conference and not in a home? These are questions we need to ask ourselves.

If you search for Faith In A Jar on Youtube you should find my channel where I will be uploading footage from Ma Magona's conversation, as well as other videos I shoot along the way. With the following link you can find a couple of video clips from from the talk and hear the words from the woman herself =)

http://youtu.be/a6BrWhnFh9A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLsM4k-Tlw4

Sunday Recording Session at the SAE Institute Cape Town

Blessed,

This Sunday I went adventuring in Woodstock with my trusty compadre, Zipho =)

Walking into the SAE Institute this Sunday was like walking into the school of my dreams, although to be honest I didn't know it existed until the other day. I was lucky enough to be invited to come and check out an intimate SAE Sunday Session (I don't know if that's their official name but that's what I'm calling it, lol) in collaboration with Cape Town Music Week.

The SAE Institute's Cape Town campus is immaculate, well lit (photographers notice these things) and beautifully designed to make one feel at ease and inspired. It is a beautiful learning environment with top class equipment and some of the best creative minds of South Africa behind the wheel.

Inside we found a variety of artists and sound engineers who had decided to forgo a lazy Sunday and had an intimate recording session instead. The City provided soulful instrumentals while the MC's did their soundcheck. The City's new EP Future Afro will be coming out soon and we are looking forward to checking out what they've got to offer.

Of course there's always time for a selfie or two =)

There are Cape Town Music Week events happening all over so check out their Facebook page and get involved! =)