Ant's nest

A grass fire crackles, snaps and roars through the long grass in the park across the road. The sun is 5 minutes away from setting behind the hills in the other direction. Ash falls from the sky, and with smoke, moodies up what's left of the afternoon, and winter. Sitting on an old couch facing west I try not to think about today. My mind's soot also needs to settle down, give me clarity. It's like a swiss cheese with holes that's crawling with ants.

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Media tribunal blues in SA, again...

Analysis: Media tribunal, the way it should be http://thedm.biz/bJ1loM By Stephen Grootes in The Daily Maverick


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Tweet from @charlesking22

Dusk smudge beautiful across the western horizon; a lone tree acknowledges God as embers glow blood red. I bake potatoes, butternut on a sunday evening fire.

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10 May 1945

I'm working at a book on Miracles at present... To write a book on miracles, which are in a sense invasions of Nature, has made me realise Nature herself as I've never done before. You don't see Nature till you believe in the Supernatural: don't get the full, hot, salty tang of her except by contrast with the pure water from beyond the world. Those who mistake Nature for the All are just those who can never realise her as a 'particular creature' with her own flamed, terrible, beautiful individuality.
- CS Lewis in Yours, Jack (The Inspirational Letters of CS Lewis)

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The mad ones

"THE ONLY PEOPLE FOR ME ARE THE MAD ONES,THE ONES WHO ARE MAD TO LIVE, MAD TO TALK, MAD TO BE SAVED, DESIROUS OF EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME, THE ONES WHO NEVER YAWN OR SAY A COMMONPLACE THING, BUT BURN, BURN, BURN, LIKE FABULOUS YELLOW ROMAN CANDLES EXPLODING LIKE SPIDERS ACROSS THE STARS..." -JACK KEROUAC

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Writing down the bones

"One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive. Art lives in the Big World. One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters. Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves. This process teaches us about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories."
- Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones, Freeing the Writer Within

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Thirsty lizard

A glorious sunday of basking in the sun & looking forward to spring...the jasmine, first sign of my favourite season, is about to bloom..
An almost tame lizard in the hothouse laps up water, then happily plays dead while baking on a potted succulent harvested from a bushveld farm.

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Tweet from @BigIssueSA

Marelise van der Merwe tells the 'Pat a gay day' supporters where to stick it - http://bit.ly/avyDKv >>> Great @dailymaverick column


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Undercliff

10 km from here I realise I'd not fuelled up. Nothing but to turnaround. Fortunately another (two) take(s) on the view will be worth it.

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Coast road to Port Edward

The bridge just outside Port St John. 197km to Port Edward and a curry with Anna.

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Port St John, Transkei

Charles King's location@2:52pm,7/8
167 Beach Rd, Port St Johns 5120, Port St Johns
http://m.google.co.uk/u/m/dDNsPH

Having lunch at Jesters Coffee Shop, a creamy beef and mushroom home-made pie.
I left Grahamstown at 07h22 this morning and I'm headed for Durban.
My guess is that I've done about 3 500km since leaving home last Tuesday evening.
I'm not yet sure how to capture the old world atmosphere of this wonderfully moth bitten, crumpled velvet atmospheric town. I'd love to stop here for a while...everything else had.
Port St John is extraordinary. I'd clean forgotten the Transkei's beguiling charm.
There's a chill, just bearable from within a t-shirt, on the breeze through the thick, overgrown trees and abundant shrubbery.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
Mbizana Local Municipality is a local municipality in OR Tambo District in the Wild Coast Region of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Its name means "little casserole" or "sauce pan" in isiXhosa.
The seat of the municipality is Bizana, the 38th largest city in South Africa, with a population of 279,739. It is situated along the R61 regional road.

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Charles King wants to share their location with you on Google Latitude

Charles King (brainreservoir@gmail.com) wants to start sharing their location with you on Google Latitude. You too can share your location with your friends with Latitude using your mobile phone, computer, or both.

Aww snap. You don't have a Google Account.

To use Google Latitude, you'll need to sign in with a Google Account. If you don't have one, use the following steps:

1. Create a new Gmail account at https://mail.google.com/mail/signup or create a Google Account for your existing email address at https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

2. Get Latitude on your phone by going to http://m.google.com/latitude?dc=lati in your phone's web browser. Don't have a supported phone? Go to that page from your computer to use Latitude in iGoogle.

3. Open Latitude and add Charles King (brainreservoir@gmail.com) as a friend!

Learn more about Latitude
Go to http://www.google.com/latitude

(c) 2009 Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA. Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

My Location@3:21pm,7/6

My Location@3:21pm,7/6
Rhodes University, Grahamstown 6139, South Africa
http://m.google.co.uk/u/m/zGJuko
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Parliament Gardens, Cape Town

An Amstel draught down on the hatch, on an empty stomach, so - for safety sake - I've dragged myself to one of the few joints (Steers) still serving food in this festival-exhausted 'city'. Sitting here I'm going through my Cape Town pics of last week Friday and Saturday. Sorry for you....

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Africa Media Matrix

Just out of a Twitter for journalism and business workshop/seminar presented by Tim Gane of Creative Spark Interactive. It was held in Rhodes Journalism's Africa Media Matrix.

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Highway Africa

The 14th Highway Africa Conference kicked off today, Monday, 5 July 2010, with MTN celebrating its sponsorship of the event for the ninth consecutive year. Highway Africa is the largest annual gathering of African journalists and media practitioners on the continent.

Grahamstown, Eastern Cape

This is not the winter climate of my student days; instead of high winter rainfall figures and low temperatures, the days appear to be predominately hot and sunny now. And the Eastern Cape is hardly weathering its worst drought in 130 years, so much so that it has been declared a drought disaster area.
Nevertheless the 14th Highway Africa conference kicked off yesterday. The theme, thus far, seems to be a belated African backlash to China's takeover over of the continent. (Maybe it's too late...?)
This is Rhodes University's historical, famous Drostyd Arch.

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Klein Karoo sunset

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De Rust, Western Cape

Greener from winter rainfall I presume. Much greener than from whence I've travelled. A different beauty. I would again presume that the translation of this quaint village's name from the Dutch would be The Rest?

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T Junction

Left to De Rust or right to Prince Albert... I'm going left. And now I'm hungry.

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Paved with gold

Other side of Willowdale saw the bleak scenery change to green, with many more shrubs and aloes.
The shadows are lengthening and the temperature dropping.
40 km to De Rust, 70 to Oudtshoorn.

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Beervlei Dam

Trapping the Groot River...but spot the 'groot' river and win a car. 30km to Aberdeen, then coffee.

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Aberdeen 40km

Beautifully bleak. The heart.

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Graaf-Reinet, Eastern Cape

Listening to Karen Zoid and the Parlotones as I glide into town.
Mental note to self - explore the Camdeboo National Park just outside Graaf-Reinet. And next time pay homage, again, to the magnificent viewpoint over the Valley Desolation.
Damn, I'm on a mission and I can't stop.
Next stop Aberdeen...
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Plains of Camdeboo

This the beginning of the vast Plains of Camdeboo, some of the richest fossil deposits in SA. It was once, not that long ago in the greater scheme of things, a humungous inland sea and crawling with huge dinosauric creepies.
I love this heart of my country.
Not far from here is Nieu Bethesda and its Owl House (Helen Martins), then stunningly preserved Graaf Reinet (thank you Rupert family).
I'm about to drive down the Lootsberg Pass, in the distance is the Kompassberg, the second highest peak.
Bliss.
Coffee anyone?

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My beloved Karoo

Here my soul sings for joy and is at peace. Only in the Karoo.

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Burgersdorp, Eastern Cape

In my many travels around the Karoo and Eastern Cape I've somehow never ended up in Burgersdorp, between Aliwal North and Steynsburg. What a pity. This welcoming, bright and well cared for town immediately put its arms around me as I passed under the railway bridge at its entrance. I wish I had more time.
I could live here...

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