Transition in South Africa

                                  

  We are not going soft on the ANC.  In fact, the ball is on the other foot.  -  National Party Director of Information Mr Con Botha, Weekly Mail, July 21 1989.

Security

In the town of Fish Hoek, on the Coast of False Bay, Western Cape, the local police station can have peace of mind:  they are protected by the security service Chubb.  It must be nice to know.

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Image by Will

Madness, like a 'bus

From a Zimbabwean newspaper: While transporting mental patients from Harare to Bulawayo , the 'bus driver stopped at a roadside shebeen (beerhall) for a few beers. When he got back to his vehicle, he found it empty, with the 20 patients nowhere to be seen. Realizing the trouble he was in if the truth were uncovered, he halted his bus at the next bus stop and offered lifts to those in the queue. 

Letting 20 people board, he then shut the doors and drove straight to the Bulawayo mental hospital, where he hastily handed over his 'charges', warning the nurses that they were particularly excitable. Staff removed the furious passengers; it was three days later that suspicions were roused by the consistency of stories from the 20. As for the real patients: nothing more has been heard of them and they have apparently blended comfortably back into Zimbabwean society...

Source

Joenative.com

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Jailhouse Rock: musings

I wonder how many people, smitten in the blast of Elvis's vein-splitting rock, actually experienced the lyric as a ballad.  It seems that most receive the song as an "unspeakable mix", as one commentator put it  -  we need words to this music, but we only hear them in fragments and we really don't care, not in that white-hot intensity.

The lyric has a setting, characters and a punch-line  - it's intriguing, funny and absurd.  Its irony comes from the Blues tradition and the song is largely in the 12-bar form.

That a warder, who is usually a control freak, should throw a wild party in a prison cell block, is unlikely.  The gallery of characters is rich -  Spider Murphy, Little Joe, the drummer boy from Illinois, Number Forty-Seven, Number Three, Shifty Henry, Bugsy and the hip warder himself who cajoles the sad sack into grabbing a wooden chair if he can't find a dancing partner.  

The ultimate absurdity  -  rock music like this has a greater freedom, Bugsy seems to imply, than making a prison break!  

The song, perhaps more from its elemental force than the crafting of the lyric, embodies one of rock's greatest concerns, what one writer called "keeping a free head".  

Jailhouse Rock

                                                                       Elvis in 1957

The warden threw a party in the county jail. 
The prison band was there and they began to wail. 
The band was jumpin and the joint began to swing.  
You should've heard those knocked out jailbirds sing.  
Lets rock, everybody, lets rock. 
Everybody in the whole cell block  
Was dancin to the jailhouse rock. 

Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone,  
Little Joe was blowin on the slide trombone. 
The drummer boy from Illinois went crash, boom, bang,  
The whole rhythm section was the purple gang.  
Lets rock, everybody, lets rock.  Everybody in the whole cell block  
Was dancin to the jailhouse rock. [ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/e/elvis+presley/jailhouse+rock_20048652.html ]
Number forty-seven said to number three:  
You're the cutest jailbird I ever did see. 
I sure would be delighted with your company, 
Come on and do the jailhouse rock with me. 
Lets rock, everybody, lets rock.  
Everybody in the whole cell block  
Was dancin to the jailhouse rock. 

The sad sack was a sittin on a block of stone 
Way over in the corner weepin all alone.  
The warden said, hey, buddy, don't you be no square. 
If you can't find a partner use a wooden chair. 
Lets rock, everybody, lets rock.  
Everybody in the whole cell block  
Was dancin to the jailhouse rock. 

Shifty Henry said to Bugs, for heavens sake,  
No ones lookin, now's our chance to make a break.  
Bugsy turned to shifty and he said, nix nix,  
I wanna stick around a while and get my kicks.  
Lets rock, everybody, lets rock.  
Everybody in the whole cell block  
Was dancin to the jailhouse rock.


Sources
Songwriters: LEIBER, JERRY / STOLLER, MIKE

(Words & music by Jerry Leiber - Mike Stoller) 

Image:  en.Wikipedia.org

Two drawings by Steinberg

                                          The journey between two points

                                              Certainty



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Saul Steinberg, The Labyrinth, 1973 

The Theory of Relativity

                                   Which means PUSH 

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Image by will 

Meet thy tobacconist

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Chinese cigarette box