Back in 2013

We'll be back in the New Year. Thanks as always to our wonderful regular contributors: Ana Drahotusky Bruketa, Gary Cummiskey, Eva Jackson, Danielle Naidoo, Max Moodley, Michelle Nair, Jenny Kellerman Pillay and Victoria Williams. Props also to our guest contributors.

Eva Jackson: 0028

You make me want to study theology
You make me want to lie face down in the sand
And fill my mouth and come up like a sculpture
You let me out of where I was standing
In the rainy corridor beside The Rainbow in Pinetown
With little wet dog-ends and the plastic bags catching on the wire.
You make me want to learn the origins of the poison-arrow frog
Like I knew as a kid
And to be able to explain again to people
How the many kinds of dog
Grew from one
And we made it so, and we make
This so.
You don’t believe in evolution,
And I tried to do the macro- from micro- account
And talking about dogs,
All disorderly
And you are still not convinced.

M

Victoria Williams: 0181

I’m sure that we’ve all had an indiscretion or two when our girlfriends-slash-boyfriends are out of town.

Don’t call me your girlfriend-slash-boyfriend.

Spaza: 0011

Click on photo to enlarge.

The hawker's setup is essentially a deconstructed spaza. She has found a floor. The tree functions as a roof. 

Two re-purposed bread delivery-trays hold her wares, which in turn rest on an easily dissembled trestle table. A standard cooler box sits at her feet. An upturned Coke crate functions as a makeshift seat for her customers. (The crates are often used as seats in informal businesses and spaces.*) 

Bread trays. Coke crates. Cooler boxes. Three mass-produced objects that are ubiquitous in the so-called informal economic sector. They're popular for good reason - they're light, sturdy, cheap or free, portable, and easy to clean. 

*The cheapness and availability of Monobloc chairs and high plastic stools has resulted in the crates not being used as much anymore. 

Wikipedia on Monobloc:

"The Monobloc chair is a lightweight stackable polypropylene chair, often described as the world's most common.

Based on original designs by the Italian designer Vico Magistretti in 1967, variants of the one-piece plastic chair went into production with Allibert Group and Grossfillex Group in the 1970s. Since then, millions have been manufactured in countries including Russia, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Morocco, Turkey, Israel and China. Many design variants of the basic idea exist.

The Monobloc chair is named because it is injection moulded from thermoplastic polypropylene, the granules being heated to about 220 degrees Celsius, and the melt injected into a mold. The gate of the mould is usually located in the seat, so ensuring smooth flow to all parts of the tool. The chairs cost approximately $3 to produce, making them affordable across the world.

Social theorist Ethan Zuckerman describes them as having achieved a global ubiquity:

The Monobloc is one of the few objects I can think of that is free of any specific context. Seeing a white plastic chair in a photograph offers you no clues about where or when you are."

Internet Sentences: 0017

I got your email from a comprehensive online search done by my secretary.

Source: Junk Mail

1-Inch Short by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0027

Starting over

And the poets would begin to read.
One would have a blue silk cap
And hail from far away
One would have the wild long hair.
They would set no store by blushing;
They would give you the stare, and if
You got it wrong, well then.
Some have already used their beginning years,
They have lost whatever shoes they needed to lose
Cast off degrees, suddenly;
By degrees I am buried.

Internet Sentences: 0016

It is with profound respect and humble submission, I beg to state the following few lines for your kind consideration.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0180

Dear Mr. Tolstoy.
How are you? I am fine. My name is Vickie and I am 9. I have three toes on my right foot and I’ve named them Anna, Karen, Nina. It’s my best foot and I’m putting it forward.

Paint