Tosin Otitoju: 'Lovebirds' (2016)

I. Lovebirds. Poems by Tosin Otitoju (2016) in three sections. This is a new book, Tosin’s eighth. Format:

A TRUE STORY (20 poems)

TWO ANGRY BIRDS (10 poems)

THE LOVE MOVEMENT (25 poems)

From my perspective as a reader, these are some of the vivid tropes and themes in  Lovebirds: technology; social media; business; mirrors; gods; angels; God; marriage; luck.

Permeating Lovebirds, there is a refined testimony of ancient, enduring human themes mixed with contemporary technology and ongoing concerns.

A few poetic samples from longer poems:

“Wishes and Horses”

Everything points to a need for a merger

To save on duplicating auras on twitter . . .

It’s good to be wise, better to be lucky.

(pages 23-24).

“Feedback”

I see in you a blur

 instead of your face a ghost

   question-marks, answers,

     hypnotizing laughs.

. . . black-magic or test-the-spirits

       angels here with us.

(pages 26-27).

“Sometimes You Need”

Misery loves company

And gravity needs distance.

(page 42).

“When the Boat Hit the Rocks”

There comes a point

when you start to yearn

for the simple complexity

of city life.

(page 43).

II. Questions & Answers. Q = me. A = Tosin. 

Q: What is it about mirrors?

A: Mirrors for some weird reason. I'd actually meant to do a whole collection of poems either directly about mirrors or indirectly by writing a poem and an opposite or something like that. I later decided on Love and a couple of other collections to come...mirrors are more abstract...you try to hang a commercial project on mirrors and...I don't know, Nigerians know love and maybe have less time for you to explain that the topic is mirrors - nobody wants the headache. If you want more people to love you(r work), try Arithmetic over Differential Equations. :)

Q: Lovebirds is timeless, but also of the contemporary tech world. What kind of impact does tech have on love and social relationships?

A: In this collection I hoped to do love and romance, but I'm delighted that it also had an interesting setting, namely, tech. So it's romantic, but it's robotic.

Tech is a thing masculine and robot-like, which would seem to be the opposite of romantic. It's physics, chemistry, planets, science, feedback amplification, bits/bytes/packets/cyber, twitter.

By the way, Janelle Monáe did androids too in her music, a whole album titled The ArchAndroid, and that's specifically why I had the guts to choose "Android Love" for the title of the poem I placed first. I think of this as the "overture" introducing the opera, the robot opera.

Q: How does business figure into Lovebirds?  And other systems?

A: Another example of the hard-edged - calculations and robots - in what should be soft and romantic. I mean, in the realm of love, who thinks of mergers and cost-savings, hedges and insurance? Then again, who doesn't - I mean who doesn't among people who think in these terms about almost everything else?

And once you discover that there are planetary systems with multiple suns, won't your love poetry or even your mythology shift to include this image of a "two-sun dance"?

And if your work includes experiencing or understanding positive feedback loops, when you then consider thoughts feeding on similar thoughts, or an image feeding on its mirror image, or two people sharing synchronized feelings, won't you deduce or imagine resonance, system overheating, heightened excitement, or that screeching noise from the microphone-with-speakers?

In summary, at the center of this collection is a love, mystical, old-fashioned, yearning, and poetic. Yet in the poems we find hints of academics, mathematics, technology, science, business, and so on. For example, there is the "Definition" which feels quite formal to me, like something I would do in math and I presume others would do in law for instance - begin a study of a thing with a precise definition and logically go through a proof, examples, corollaries and the rest. I adore this definition of love. I tried to get it in Wikipedia but some gatekeeper kept rejecting it. That was annoying. I'm expert enough to provide a definition of love! I get annoyed with things like this. It would take another page to explore and explain the annoyance.

Q: In several of the poems, there is an interesting interplay between different ways of perceiving reality. For example, gods and God are mentioned, angels, ghosts. Do they all exist simultaneously in some kind of dreamscape?

A: There's a bit I'm not saying about the angels, ghosts, and shall we say more mystical experiences that inspired this love and parts of this collection.

2015 or so, I told my good friend (an ex, naturally) that I was in love with someone online even though it was not an affair and there was no actual talking and how very psychic everything was from day one. I was amazed that he understood.

In public, I won't talk like that for fear that they still lock people up in mental institutions - do they? I also told a very young friend (a veritable cool kid, some sort of art student, teenager, in university abroad) and he understood too. He said, oh, you mean subbing. Apparently, young people did that all the time - relating privately on social media through subliminal but public messages. Then they collectively dumped twitter and moved on to...what was it the youngsters moved on to? Instagram? SnapChat?

Let's just say this: I am very thankful to the muses for this work, and very thankful to one major muse - wink, and thankful to God, and to ... I usually don't write acknowledgement pages because it's so impossible to truly pin down all the major inspirations for a work. I don't feel as psychic today as I did in those days, and I think it's because this work is done?

Aside, there's a child that lives in my compound, who's back today from two weeks away at Grandma's. I wish I had the talent to write about her - the way her voice makes me feel. It rings like a bell. She talks simply all the time, and I simply die of happiness at her enthusiasm. Oh I love the other kids as well - the one that just learned to talk animal talk to invisible friends, startling her mother, and the littler one whose voice I haven't found yet, although sometimes she cries, and now she calls my name when she sees me.

We had a lot of additional kids here for the holidays - some boys for a change hohoho. Anyhow, I pray one day for the talent to explain the beauty that is her excited talking. She was just shouting something now, I think they were making play-food and she was inviting the others to eat.

Q: What’s next?

A: [See this link]: I'm still writing. 

Note: We did a Q & A session in 2011 that is available in two parts. One of the topics was the beauty of Yemen, but this is too painful a topic to revive here, given the ongoing war and its catastrophic impact. Maybe we can speak of it down the road, when peace is brokered.

October 10, 2011: Interview with Tosin Otitoju, Part One.

October 11, 2011: Interview with Tosin Otitoju, Part Two.

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Anita Nair: 'Ladies Coupé' (2001)

Anita Nair's Ladies Coupé (2001) gives readers a glimpse into some of the workings and manners of India in the late twentieth century. It's really a series of tales related by different women traveling on a train to Kanyakumari.  They are interrelated but could also work as stand-alone stories. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Reminds me somewhat of Tosin Otitoju's Three Sisters (2015) which can be found via here.

Akhila, the main character in Ladies Coupé, has been a primary caregiver for her family. Now in her mid-forties, she's philosophical about life. On the train early on, she chats with a fellow passenger: "'As far as I'm concerned, marriage is unimportant. Companionship, yes . . . The problem is, I wish to live by myself but everyone tells me that a woman can't live alone. What do you think? Can a woman live by herself?'" (page 21). In this way, Anita Nair, the author, also happens to be directly engaging her readers with interesting questions like these. 

Akhila's friend Margaret at one point says: "'Akhila, if there is one virtue I have, it is immunity to what people think of me. Naturally this makes them dislike me even more. People don't like to think that their opinion of someone means nothing to that person. And when it is a woman . . . the thought is intolerable" (page 136).

A couple more quips. "Often Akhila had to remind herself that this woman who gnawed at her nerves like a relentless mouse was her sister" (page 160).

"It seems to me more and more that I know nothing" (page 190).

Given the sometimes long names and nicknames of people, places and things, including foods, I found it helpful to jot down notes to more easily keep track of everything. Now I'd like to eat some Tamil food and think about social expectations and reincarnation. Cool beans!

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Howard Thurman (1899-1981): With Head and Heart ~ Take II

Yeah! I finished a first read-through of With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman (originally published in 1981). There's so much in this book that another round of reading it will be necessary.

One interesting facet: how Howard Thurman traveled around, extensively, despite the obstacles of segregation in the USA, and cultural-political barriers globally. It hearkens to the adage: If there's a will, there's a way; if there's no will, there's no way - a truth that applies to so much in the way of human activity.

Thurman traveled by foot, by rail, by ship, by plane and by automobile. Incidental details of these modes of travel are woven throughout With Head and Heart. And then there's always the matter of where to stay, and how to stay alive and thrive during each journey.

Howard Thurman (Boston University http://hgar-srv3.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/howard-thurman-collection)

While reading With Head and Heart, it came upon me that I have become significantly more attuned to things over the years (or possibly I've become more self-aware of this attunement). In Texas, for example, I've become more immediately attuned to shifts in air quality  -- not only from day to day but also from space to space. Likewise, I've become more attuned to what other people are attuned to, interested in, driven by, fascinated with. 

Besides travel, I'm attuned to Howard Thurman's interweaving of fiscal matters, funding, the costs of moving around, taking up new responsibilities while holding personal space as sacred. Thurman was always attuned to how one must pay for things along the way -- and he took none of it for granted. In fact, he was very imaginative and resourceful.

And a third facet in With Head and Heart that I'm attuned to is Thurman's awareness of both differences and unities. From an early age, he witnessed doctrinal differences between Baptists and Methodists in his home town in Florida (Daytona Beach and thereabouts) -- silly distinctions that often came down to such matters as sprinkle baptism or full immersion baptism. And worse, Howard had to contend with the social damnation by narrow-minded Christians of people like his father, who chose not to participate in Christian rites. Thurman came to think of these differences and prejudices as absurd, and really he developed a spirit similar to that of today's Pope Francis and Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama.

And so, a real mentor for us now, Thurman was able to come to a meeting of the minds and spirits among a diverse group of people, whether Cree and Chippewa in Canada, or Muslims in Nigeria, or Jews and Buddhists in California, or Hindus, Buddhists and Christians in India, or secular people, agnostics and atheists anywhere -- he could meet them all, and did. The unities of people are real: we are mortals, we think and feel, eat and sleep, have a limited time here -- and so on. Good stuff.

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Jeremy Marre's Kokombe: Nigerian Music

Jeremy Marre's Kokombe: Nigerian Music (1980) gives us a fascinating glimpse into the fruitful and sometimes harrowing Nigerian music scene of the 1970s. From this distance especially, it's pretty easy to see cross-cultural influences at play, Nigeria's impact on American and European music and the reverse flow. I remember many of these beats starting in the 1980s: original work by King Sunny Adé (b. 1946), Fela Kuti (1938-1997), talking drums, hypnotizing rhythms, brassy punctuation, and a generally cool sound that still feels both familiar and new. 

There are some crazy scenes in this documentary, ranging from Fela Kuti boxed in with multiple wives (27 by one count) because of his opposition to the Nigerian government -- in the words of Dorothy Parker, "what fresh hell is this?" -- to a mass shallow river-fishing scene featuring hundreds of men with nets and clay jars plunging into the water to the sound of Islamic drummers in northern Nigeria; a blind beggar drummer-singer working for alms; and the Lijadu Sisters, twins (b. 1958, pictured here), dealing with all sorts of obstructions because of their gender.  

Marre's remarkable Beats of the Heart series is available in the USA on DVD -- I was able to find this one via Netflix, and ordered another one for purchase online. Individual film names seem to vary slightly, but the gist is the same.

Today's Rune:  Fertility.   

Defining Lines at the Nasher

Much to see at three thoughtful, absorbing exhibits at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "Lines of Control: Partition as a Productive Space" is one of them. ". . . [C]o-curated by Iftikahr Dadi and Hammad Nasar, brings together art across many genres . . . that have their common theme a preoccupation [pun intended?] with borders, boundaries and lines that divide and demarcate. . . " The British Empire, for one, "brought in its wake the geographic and cartographic division of much of the inhabited world . . ." Obviously, we're still living in the fallout zones from "the Middle East" to Africa and everywhere else in the world as we know it -- or really know it not. 

"Defining Lines: Cartography in the Age of Empire" takes a similar look at dividing lines, focusing on maps as cultural artifacts that carve up the world in ways that favor certain groups over others. "No matter . . . their claims to 'objectivity,' 'accuracy' and 'authority,' maps never simply show the world as it is; they are . . . 'a construction of reality, images laden with intentions and consequences.'" In the end, it's mostly about culture, power and economics. 

A third exhibit revolves around Doris Duke's spectacular "Shangri La" project in Hawaii, replete with beautiful Islamic-themed signs and wonders.

Very impressive all.

Today's Rune: Journey.   

Woody Allen: Annie Hall in Draft Form, Take One

On the way to San Antonio, I had the great delight of stopping in at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. My original intention was to examine some casual photographs revolving around American poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974) and Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola (1920-1997), but I became so absorbed in reading an entire untitled script for what evolved into Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman's shooting script for Annie Hall (1977) that I'll have to save the first two treats for a return visit.

First, the Harry Ransom Center has a beautiful interior that showcases a lot of interesting things around its spaces, items ranging from a photograph of Turkish horse cavalry in the snow by David Douglas Duncan to a manual typewriter employed by novelist John Fowles. I looked around while a courteous member of the staff retrieved a box from the Woody Allen collection acquired in 2005. (For more on its Scope and Contents, here's a link: http://research.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/allen.woody.film.html)

Once the items were delivered for pickup, I devoted my time to reading and taking notes and, much of the time I'll admit, quietly laughing in response to the dialogue. Officially, I was exploring "UNTITLED FILM SCRIPT" dated April 15, 1976. It includes 120 typescript pages with two appended scenes, white and light Carolina blue sheets of paper bound in red leather. Fascinating. It would appear as if certain pages were updated and inserted. And there are some fun inconsistencies. At times, Alvy's (the Woody Allen character) friend Rob (played by Tony Roberts in the completed film) is named Rob, and at other points, Roberts. Usually, Rob/Roberts calls Alvy by a nickname (Max, as in the movie), but at least at one point (page 53), Alvy refers to Rob as Max. This is just a small taste -- there's a whole lot more to underscore about the creative process. Once I sort through my notes, I'll post a bit more on my findings.

In thanks to the staff of the Harry Ransom Center; also in appreciation of Woody Allen and Marshall Birckman; and, of course, for the joy of Annie Hall. 

Today's Rune: Partnership.           

Tosin Otitoju Interview, Part II

Erik's Choice (EC): You’ve lived in Nigeria, the USA, Egypt and Yemen. Your next poetry collection (Yalla! / Let’s Go) was inspired by your stay in Yemen. What is it about Yemen? Do you have any comments about the tumult that’s going on there right now?

Tosin Otitoju (TO): Yalla! has poems from several places - Nigeria, America, Arabia.

What is it about place -- place matters. Humans can move. When one place sucks, you move and guess what? End of tyranny or the particular problems of that place. It describes place, takes the reader to some places . . .

What is it about Yemen? It was the most special place I had been. It was a preserve of something pure, less average. In other countries, the copying from other cultures is so much that new experiences are rare. Here, newness was all around. Love the architecture, lessons for us about choosing functional designs, lessons in attention to beauty. Then I did really feel such happiness, such release from being somewhat depressed in California. I can't imagine not being a little depressed in California. Hot summer days were much better. I did like the food and restaurants. I once had a sunny boyfriend. I did many happy things. But in Yemen I was the complete opposite of depressed.

The tumult -- Yemenis will often fix Yemeni society. Yemen is not about the USS Cole or whatever intersection with US National Security. Sad that for now the economy must be suffering. Proud that they are fighting for something better. God let me go back, Amen.

EC: Nigeria has approximately 155 million people and is about 50-50% Muslim-Christian and also about 50-50% urban-rural. Lagos has some eight million people, fifteen million in the greater area. Nigeria’s population will probably surpass that of the USA in the second half of the 21st century. What is Nigeria’s ideal place in the world? What is your ideal place in the world?

TO: I can't verify the data; I won't be surprised if the US has better data on Nigeria than Nigeria. :) Ideal is what we want it to be and for many Nigerians it would be a return to good values (kill corruption, for instance); respect among nations (living up to the name 'giant of Africa' for instance); wealth (and it's not going to come from oil, it's going to take work, at least some large and efficient structures/organizations, attention to the minimum/the poorest, increased access to capital). I think Nigerians are irritated that we fail so much, when we think we ought to be winners.

My ideal place: I still want to travel. I still want to honeymoon in Yemen (assuming I marry that Rafa character, lol). I learned from Caltech to see work as central to a person's life. This is a little bad, perhaps, but in life I want to be where I'm doing the important work that I must do. This instant it's in Nigeria (in a writer's residency - see? we have one . . .) but I'm considering California again. Variety rocks, so yeah I want to do the Morocco/Turkey axis with its colours and spices, but also the beach -- which Nigeria has, but also the black -- in Africa, Cuba, wherever, but also the Louvre and the cold, the wealthy, the old, the run-down, the natural. I want to see my old friends, I want to hovel in my little room, I want to go on the cheap, and I want to do Monte Carlo in expensive style. Is there enough time to live all these lives? Hmm, maybe I should be an actor, lol.

EC: Can you say something about the different groups such as Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Edo? And the role of OPEC and oil and gas production in Nigeria?)

TO: On Oil and Gas and OPEC - Nigeria fights the so-called "resource curse." For a while now, this distorted our economy, too easy to rob the nation at the center, too easy to ignore every other possible source of income, when you have oil. Cool story: illustrates.

On ethnicity: So many languages. Three are said to be major, but is it really three? Or four?

The North, with predominantly Hausa and Fulani speakers reminds me of Arabia; it's the more Muslim half of Nigeria. I felt at home up North but many Southerners don't see the value in going to the North. I am from the South, in the Yoruba region, i.e. I speak Yoruba. We like to stereotype one another. The distinct groups are still large and important, but there is quite some traveling and inter-marrying so we're not free to really hate one another. There is a system of government in which we try to make everything equal, regionally speaking. It insures against civil war, although some would say it slows down our development.

Cool story: here on stereotypes; and a sad story on the worst of our follies: here.

That writer (former colleague, amazing work) also wrote this.

I've got to rearrange, edit and publish it someday, he's so damn lazy, but it's clear that he has a real insight into our miscommunication across tribes.

Endnote: I've dated a few Nigerians finally but never dated a straight-up Yoruba guy. The closest I've got were mixes. But most Nigerians, even in faraway countries or in mixed cities/universities/environments, seek out exclusively their own ethnic group.

Today's Rune: Movement.  For more, please also see here.

Tosin Otitoju Interview, Part I

Here is the first part of a just-finished written interview with Tosin Otitoju. I first came across one of her blogs thanks to a mutual liking of Euripides' The Trojan Woman (415 B.C.). In the blink of an eye, years have gone by -- so, before yet another year zooms by, here goes . . .

Erik's Choice (EC): You proceeded from a very successful stint at Queens College, Lagos, Nigeria, to Howard University in Washington, DC, USA. How old were you when you set out for Howard University? How did you adjust to the move?

Tosin Otitoju (TO): 1997 - I was 16. (Although I first went to HU in 1996 for a summer program in Electrical Engineering - departed right after Secondary school graduation on June 30) I was a worker-bee, so excited to have luxury and "opportunities." I guess my math was very good too and my school was very supportive. I'm sort of lucky it worked out so well at HU: challenging enough - I had to learn computing, African American history, etc., but with enough success -- straight As until senior year (after the grad school applications, the huge senioritis drop-off), good friends and Friday night movies (though I often slept through was sooo tired), internships . . . to keep me interested. Sometime in freshman year, the response to my preliminary application at MIT floated finally to my parents in Nigeria. (They screened international applicants with a small application first). So dad was on the phone like: should we do your MIT application? And I truly wasn't interested, I was like, I already have friends here. Hi Mike Zipf, Ani Onuorah, Lala Spiller . . . (Significant not just because I liked a highly-ranked school but because for years one huge MIT catalogue -- 1979 or so -- had been my window into the world of grown up education).

EC: You were awarded a Poincaré Fellowship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where you were a doctoral student and completed a master’s degree in engineering (Control and Dynamical Systems); you also acted in five plays there. Since returning to Nigeria, you’ve been teaching and have written two poetry volumes. How did you plunge into the arts by way of engineering, and how do you blend them?

TO: Was it five plays? Ok. I was drawn to one rehearsal, I drifted into the auditorium, and luckily Shirley Marneus let me stay. I really see the value of my theater education. I believe the standard Caltech education is highly deficient; utterly strong in a few selected ways. So I'm glad in the end I didn't run away from theater in the name of doing the right thing. I would be quite illiterate now, though way sharper in some ways. I miss Math, miss not being as good as I could be, but hope there's time to learn. Again, good call, Tosin. I'm doing a scene from The Misanthrope with some kids here. I really feel unqualified to direct even one scene, but like any good teacher I'll get the kids to do it themselves - we'll pick a director/directing team lol. I really really like acting; I guess I like the director telling me what to do, in real life don't try telling me what to do. But I let directors.

I can't wait to try some engineering/applied math research now that I know something about creativity and can guide my own work better. Then also there's social change, and how to force some of this "brilliance" to move the world in new, better directions. I don't have the luxury of hyperspecializing through my life, and I'm lucky to really bloody enjoy the challenge.

EC: Your first book (Comrade) is part of the Kraftgriots poetry series published by Kraft Books, Ltd., Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. What is the Nigerian publishing scene like?

TO: Growing. Growing big time. But you wouldn't recognize it -- mostly self-financed publishing, no distribution. But I was delighted to find communities, readings, and such. Tolu Ogunlesi's answer: printing, not publishing, describes the state . . . [Here's a link].  But Nigeria's so dynamic, check again in one year.

EC: Comrade is divided into five sections: Government, Struggle, Haiku, Music, Childhood. Did these cluster organically or did you deliberately write poems shaped for each section, and in this order?

TO: Mostly Clustered. Wait a minute, yes, mostly. But I remember trying to do more "Childhood" poems, or more "America", more this section and that. Then in the end, I had more than ten sections then I met my publisher advised splitting the collection somehow. So Comrade got five sections. Yalla gets 4. And so on. Thank you for reminding me of the process.

To be continued . . .  One of Tosin's blogs is here
Comrade can also be ordered via Amazon.

Today's Rune: The Self.  

Franny Armstrong: The Age of Stupid

Franny Armstrong's The Age of Stupid (2009) does a great service: in a pithy, entertaining way, it is conciousness-raising. How does it work?  Several stories are interwoven in a way that draws the viewer in, from multiple perspectives: a world archivist in the year 2055 (played by Pete Postlethwaite, who died earlier this year), dudes from post-Katrina New Orleans, from Mumbai and France; Iraqi refugee kids living in Jordan; an English family that is trying to establish wind power in their area; and Layefa Malemi, a woman living in rural Nigeria. This approach most definitely personalizes the film, an interesting mix of documentary (present or near past) and fiction (the near future).

Much more to discuss with The Age of Stupid, which was released in that relatively brief period between Hurricane Katrina (2005) and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (2010). It also happens to tie in perfectly with the "Arab Spring," "Occupy Wall Street" and other happenings of 2011 by showing how power structures and resource exploitation are more or less the same around the world -- and tied together.

Today's Rune: Opening.

Distance

I. Time-Space-Distance. Things in the mirror seems larger (or smaller) than they appear to the human eye. The map and the territory are both real, and both not real. Faraway things and events have less impact (distance decay) or more impact (distance magnification) than we initially perceive. Memories are sporadic, accurate and inaccurate simultaneously, but can be refined or confounded later. We will know both more and less. Linear feelings of ticktock time plus gravity's weight equate to age, yet imagination and meditation transcend everything -- and nothing.

II. O Lucky Man! jumps through the hoops, landing here and now. Once Upon a Time there was a coffee plantation operated at gunpoint. NOW in the WEST, a modern city, an automatic roasting machine. People in white coats inspect the Factory, the processing of coffee beans imported by ship and train and plane from Guatemala and Nigeria. The Nigerian beans, once roasted refined and sealed in small Imperial Coffee bags at the rate of 72 packets per minute, are next sent from England back to Nigeria for distribution, acquisition and consumption. "A cup of Imperial Coffee is the proper way to finish a meal -- be it in a palace or a prison. . . But between the making and the drinking stands the Salesman." One must tempt the English away from Tea. "Selling is psychology. Inspire belief." Toy with the disconnect between production and consumption. Imperial Tea must go. Transfer Sugar, Milk and Honey to Imperial Coffee.

Finally, please Note that soon will be the last day to mail parcels in time for their delivery to, among other places, Iraq. Don't forget Christmas cheer. Go with Imperial all the way.

Today's Rune: Growth.  Note: all quotations (and probable misquotations) derived or extracted from Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man! run through the scrim and screed of my scrawled notes and deposited here for your eyes not only. . .  

Amos Tutuola: The Wild Hunter in the Bush of the Ghosts

Amos Tutuola's first major effort (so far as I know), The Wild Hunter in the Bush of the Ghosts (1948), serves as a stand-alone and prequel to The Palm-Wine Drinkard and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town (1952) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954). Wild Hunter is rawer, more fragmented, but still quite a refreshing break from contemporary writing styles. Each of these works fuel dream states with pep; they might put a Tiger in your Tank of daydreams, too.

The Three Continents Press "First Standard Version" edited by Bernth Lindfors published in 1989 (with illustrations as above by Max K. Winkler) is a good place to start.  At least that's the version I got my hands on. Unlike the later novels, The Wild Hunter doles out specificities in time and names. For example: "It was on the 4th day of May, 1838, that I left the fourth town with tears, and began my journey again, seeking the way to my town" (p. 74).  The Wild Hunter's journey includes stays in Heaven and Hell -- heady stuff, and certainly kind of crazy. His encounters with one "Miss Victoria Juliana" and various other characters are intertwined. 

The Wild Hunter frequently provides commentary with his narrative. Here's a sample:

Alas, our people did not understand what was meant by the fifth town of the Ghosts. We explained that the Bush of the Ghosts was the reserved bush in which both ghosts and spirits of the dead were living as if in their own town. We explained further that though this bush seemed liked an ordinary bush, indeed it was not. Once one entered it, it was not easy to find a way out. One could not travel to the end of it; that was as impossible as it would be for a mosquito to travel around the whole world without perishing. . . (p. 125). 

I can think of several places like that. Places of work, for instance, like energy hives of pulsing intensities, with some co-workers (in the past, of course) rummaging around hallways and rooms like hungry ghosts.  In all truth, things one can observe in North America are not that far off from Tutuola's vision of the Bush of the Ghosts in Africa, despite differences in geography, culture and approach. 

Today's Rune: Journey.

What Completes the Gentleman?

What makes the gentleman complete?

This one dude (though not necessarily a gentleman) loves to drink palm-wine more than anything else. His tapster (not necessarily a gentleman, either) dies in an on-the-job accident, falling from a palm-tree while tapping palm-wine. The one dude who loves palm-wine heads out for Deads' Town to find said tapster. 

Down the road, the village head gives him (the one dude) palm-wine and says he will point the way to the tapster in Deads' Town if he'll retrieve his daughter from a curious creature, known at first as the "complete gentleman." For what had happened was this: she was following him (complete gentleman) to an unknown place. But as she was following the complete gentleman along the road, he was telling her not to follow him, but the lady did not listen to what he was telling her, and when the complete gentleman had tired of telling her not to follow him or to go back to town, he left her to follow him.













DO NOT FOLLOW UNKNOWN MAN'S BEAUTY

Down the Road: Complete Gentleman began returning parts of his body to those who rented them out to him apparently in order to make him "complete" while earlier gamboling at the village market. 

Now this complete gentleman was reduced to head . . . now the complete gentleman in the market reduced to a "SKULL" and this lady remained with only "Skull".

THE LADY WAS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR FOLLOWING THE SKULL AS A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN

Can the palm-wine drinkard retrieve the lady (who is village head's daughter) from Skull? Will village head tell palm-wine drinkard where his tapster is located in Deads' Town?  Finally, what will palm-wine drinkard do if he actually does find his (dead) tapster?

Answer: I know some but not all because I am still reading Amos Tutuola's book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard and his dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town (1952).  Italicized lines transcribed directly from said book.

Today's Rune: Journey.

Television-handed Ghostesses

When I was a small child, definitely under five, there were often ghosts floating up from grills and vents, goblins coming through cracks in walls, and witches roaming. I don't remember how or why, but even then I knew the naming rituals, I knew these apparitions as entitities and manifestations called ghosts, goblins, witches.

That's what I'm reminded of when diving into Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954). It's weird, but seems dead-on as channeled through a child's Gestalt: rationalized as dreams, hallucinations, nightmares and imaginings to the reflective adult, what is real and what is surreal?   

To give some idea of the contents, here are some chapter titles: 

A Cola Saved Me
At a Ghost Mother's Birthday Function
My First Wedding Day in the Bush of Ghosts
On my Way to the 9th Town of Ghosts
Barbing Day in the Town of Short Ghosts 
I meet my Dead Cousin in the 10th Town of Ghosts
Hard to say "No" and Hard to say "Yes"  

About halfway through My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, I fell asleep and when I was awakened several hours later, there was an eerie hush in the air. 

As a child, did you encounter ghosts, goblins, witches or something else entirely?  

Today's Rune: Flow.

Grove Press 1984 edition of The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola.

Oily After Dark

Excellent book, recommended for all audiences: Peter Maass, Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009).

Reads like a series of adventures set around the world, the author mixing it up with folks, mostly men, high and low, all connected in some way to petroleum. A very male-dominated system, come to think of it. Which reminds me of Marlon Brando's quips as an oil tycoon in The Formula (1980) -- more on that, too, at some point, but one of them goes likes this: "Ah, Arthur, you're missing the point: We are the Arabs."  In any case, petroleum dependency is like Slavery (the human bondage kind mostly, belatedly, abolished in the 19th century): it gets worse before it ends.











In Crude World, Former Exxon-Mobil CEO Lee R. Raymond comes off as a decidedly creepy and very rich man. Maass calculates Raymond's income at $6,000 per hour, which may not sound like much at first blush, but think about it!  "Raymond fascinated me," Maass admits. "Despite his stature and power, he was nearly unknown outside the environmental lobby, which despised him; the financial industry, which swooned over him; and the oil industry, which feared him" (p. 117).  Raymond presided as Exxon's president during the Exxon-Valdez spill in 1989 and is now living "in retirement."*

Dig it: chapters titled Scarcity, Plunder, Rot, Contamination, Fear, Greed, Desire, Alienation, Empire and Mirage. That about sums up the role of petroleum and petrochemicals from Iraq to the Gulf of Mexico, from Iran to Alaska, from Russia to
Nigeria. . .  

*(According to Forbes.com, Raymond has served as a Director for J.P. Morgan Chase and Company since leaving ExxonMobil, drawing a $90,000 per year salary and $170,000 in stocks per year, except for 2006, when his stock awards amounted to $402,078.00.  What's a filthy rich man to do but pile up more wealth? Yes, he was there before during and after the crash, and still counting.)  

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts: A Return

Some cool items to check out: Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts from the 1950s and the Byrne-Eno collaboration, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981)  -- plus remastered edition (2006).  

Hard to believe it's getting on thirty years since these first blew my mind . . . or that I was still a teenager at the time . . . In any case, think world beat, global, Earth Day, rhythms, beats, backloops, eeriness, dreamscapes  . . . all perfect for long distance night driving, among other things . . . I'd love to see feedback from anyone else familiar with these artscapes . . .

Today's Rune: The Self.

We Almost Lost Detroit

Thanks all, for the Christmas wishes! And mercifully thanks also, a terror attempt at Detroit Metro was thwarted. It's one thing for those who want to commit suicide; it's another thing entirely when such people try (and sometime succeed) to take down others with them.  I don't care what religion -- Islamic or any other; and I don't care what ideology -- kamikaze or any other:  kill yourself. Go ahead. Leave others alone.  This latest attempt by a young man from Nigeria is more chilling than an attempt by a half-wit like Richard Reid, the shoe bomber.  And though thwarted, his actions do disrupt travel, do strike fear. And to try it near Detroit adds insult to injury. Am I wrong?  In a couple of days, maybe I can be more rational about it, but for now . . .

Today's Rune: Strength.

My Kingdom for a Horse

Yesterday, Lana pointed out in a comment that the U.S. imports more oil from Canada than from any other single country. This is true. It's also true that the U.S., despite rhetorical hostility between the governments of Venezuela and the U.S., imports quite a little bit of Texas Tea from Venezuela -- and Mexico. All very interesting.

I found this data courtesy of the U.S. Government:

Total Daily Imports of Petroleum (Top 15 Countries)
Country/Dec 2007:

CANADA -- 2,360,000
SAUDI ARABIA -- 1,686,000
VENEZUELA -- 1,387,000
MEXICO -- 1,322,000
NIGERIA -- 1,271,000
ALGERIA -- 600,000
ANGOLA -- 439,000
VIRGIN ISLANDS -- 387,000
IRAQ -- 378,000
RUSSIA -- 306,000
UNITED KINGDOM -- 238,000
ECUADOR -- 201,000
BRAZIL -- 178,000
KUWAIT -- 158,000
NETHERLANDS -- 157,000

Source: US Energy Information Administration, March 3, 2008


Meanwhile, the Amish in America have their own alternative -- horse power.

In Detroit, another snow storm today. Regular unleaded gas is running about $3.25 per gallon, so less petrol-powered driving going on, I'm guessing.

Today's Rune: Gateway.

Things Fall Apart at Fifty

The river of human time keeps flowing, marked by rituals, disbelief, and wild flailings about. Last year ushered in the fiftieth anniversaries of Sputnik, On the Road, and On the Beach; this year, to the latest cycle add Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe's classic first novel (1958). Set in Nigeria and using both Western and African narrative techniques, Things Fall Apart follows the tragic arc of local leader Okonkwo as he struggles under the blows and stresses of colonialization, missionary activity, and internal conflict.

Here we are, just fifty years later, experiencing comparable pressures from -- if not outright colonization -- globalization. In the intervening time, Michigan (where I live but am not from originally) has become a socio-economic disaster where things have fallen apart and will never be the same because everything changes. Like Okonkwo, we must adapt, seek refuge, or go under.

There's much more to say about Achebe and his writing -- at some point. The Nigerian-born writer, now 77, teaches at Bard College in New York.

Yesterday's Rune: Harvest. Today's: Breakthrough.

Where's the Beef?

There are two things we Americans hold dear to our hearts: TV and mobility.

Sick of all the smoke, mirrors and general b.s. about all the changes in the works, I did a little research and came up with a few essential facts according to the latest policies.

Traditional analog TV broadcasts will end "no later than February 17, 2009." This means that everyone who wants to watch TV in the USA will need to convert to digital TVs or have digital converters within the next two years. I'd wait until they make us do it in 2009 or later (if there are political delays).

New passport laws: According to the U.S. State Department (verbatim):

Beginning January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air [emphasis added] between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport, Air NEXUS card, or U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Document, or an Alien Registration Card, Form I-551, if applicable.

As early as January 1, 2008, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda by land or sea (including ferries), may be required to present a valid passport or other documents as determined by the Department of Homeland Security. While recent legislative changes permit a later deadline, the Departments of State and Homeland Security are working to meet all requirements as soon as possible. Ample advance notice will be provided to enable the public to obtain passports or passport cards for land/sea entries.

Finally, here are the State Department's places to avoid. Notably, Cuba is not on the list, though you're still supposed to sneak into that colorful country via Canada or Mexico or elsewhere. And we can't, ridiculously, legally buy Cuban cigars, even though Detroiters can safely smoke them in Windsor or anywhere else in Canada. Too bad the Loyalists didn't win back in the day. We might now have a multi-party system and a truly representative parliament if they had instead of a bogus two-party farce. And the right to smoke the best cigars in the world in our own homes.

Iraq and Afghanistan are on the list. I wonder of any of the Poor Bloody Infantry have pointed this out to their commanders, and with what success?

Current Travel Warnings

Travel Warnings are issued when the State Department recommends that Americans avoid a certain country. The countries listed below are currently on that list. . . . .

Lebanon 12/22/2006
Algeria 12/20/2006
Central African Republic 12/19/2006
Saudi Arabia 12/19/2006
Congo, Democratic Republic of the 12/18/2006
Côte d'Ivoire 12/18/2006
Nepal 12/08/2006
Pakistan 12/05/2006
Chad 11/20/2006
Syria 11/13/2006
East Timor 11/01/2006
Sri Lanka 10/23/2006
Yemen 10/13/2006
Iran 10/10/2006
Sudan 10/05/2006
Uzbekistan 10/04/2006
Syria 09/14/2006
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza 08/29/2006
Iraq 08/28/2006
Nigeria 08/24/2006
Kenya 08/10/2006
Haiti 07/07/2006
Burundi 06/23/2006
Afghanistan 06/22/2006
Philippines 06/16/2006
Eritrea 06/05/2006
Somalia 06/05/2006
Bosnia-Herzegovina 03/30/2006
Liberia 03/30/2006
Colombia 01/18/2006
Indonesia 11/18/2005

Today's Rune: Breakthrough.

Bon Voyage -- if you're allowed to leave the country.