Obzlife

The shuttered remnants of Gandalf’s - for about 20 years the main place for undergrads and other young people to go and enjoy cheap booze, crowds jacked up on youth hormones, and rock ’n roll music. Ian McKellan was once photographed hanging off the sign while shooting something in the area. I played a couple of good shows there though even when the place first opened I felt like a teacher chaperoning at a high school dance. Rock ’n roll is now on its last legs as a mass youth movement.

Off Lower Main Road Obz yesterday. Not much is holding out against gentrification now. The city is content for the few who weren’t already pushed off to distant wastelands by Apartheid to be pushed off to distant wastelands by rising rents and redevelopment. At top right is a mosque that I didn’t know existed. The daily call to prayer is emblematic for me of our diverse city and the history of that diversity in building it. Islam in SA began with Indonesian and Malaysian slaves being sent here by their Dutch colonists. Political prisoners too. The first book ever written in Afrikaans was the Qran, translated by a political prisoner from ‘Dutch Batavia’, Tuan Guru. ...

Trying out new jpeg settings on my little Fujifilm XE1. Never used a digital camera I liked this much. Straight out of camera jpegs can be tweaked to look so great.

Alarming how denial of Stalinist, Maoist, Cambodian etc.

Rush hour at the bird hide in the South African Astronomical Observatory.

More Obz Victoriana on the new street.

Summertime sleepiness for Skitten and her no.1 fan, Mr. Salacious Crumb.