It’s not mere laziness. Anyone can be lazy. It’s not that hard to get up in the morning and say, “Today, I will do nothing constructive”. Or even fail to get up at all.

Procrastination is not the absence of accomplishment or the drive to perform like laziness is. It is all this, plus the astonishing ability to convince yourself that there is nothing so drastically important that needs to be done today that can’t be done, say, tomorrow. Or next week.

After all, if there’s one person in the world who will be the hardest to convince, it’s yourself. You already know all of your own dirty tricks, you know when you’re lying, and you alone know the complete list of your own dirty laundry.

And yet we still get away with it. “Those cupboards aren’t that untidy. I’m sure they can wait until Spring”. Which is fine, except that by the time Spring comes, the dust will have evolved into a higher life-form and will have taken over the underwear drawer.

“I still have a week to complete that English essay on Spoonerisms, and besides, with the internet, finding information should be a snap.” True, but the student often forgets the deviousness of teachers who gang up and decide to issue homework in metric tonnages about a day before the essay is due. Also, the stars align to give your teacher a horrible disease which leads to her wanting the work a day early. Oh, yes, and the internet breaks down. Along with the printer.

Procrastination must also be the only form of suffering outside of sadomasochism that is regularly self-inflicted. Students the world over have stayed up until one in the morning completing something that should have been done that previous Monday afternoon. They’ve done it a million times, but invite them for a quick visit to the mall a week before a maths test and watch the eyes glaze over as the Procrastination Node (Avoidus Workus) takes control of the brain functions.

It’s like having a small and incredibly svelte devil on your shoulder. “Don’t worry Dave. I’m sure it’ll be easier this time. I’m sure that Mrs McGregor won’t come down with Bronchitis this time. Go on. It’s just one movie. It’ll all be over in two hours and you’ll be right back.” And then it’s gone midnight, you’re still staring at a woefully empty page, and there’s a horrible cackling in the vicinity of your left ear.

The trick is, of course, to force yourself to get started. You’ll find things being miraculously easy compared to those horrible early-morning slogs, and you’ll be done in minutes, and can enjoy yourself without that nagging feeling of guilt.

As the bungee-jumper motto goes, “The first steps always the hardest”.

Coming again tomorrow Tuesday next week when I’m ready, okay?

Bontage

But I have noticed a disturbing trend in my Sunday fix, and that is the increasing prevalence of advertising material. Pamphlets, circulars and other gaudily-coloured pages of plastic death abound in between the print. I turned the paper upside down prior to reading it and ten variously sized ads fell out, for a collective weight of 750g. Two more (both full page spreads inviting me to purchase electronics for Christmas) were discovered later, presumably not falling out because they were marginally larger than the newspaper sections enclosing them.

Turning to the Sunday Times Magazine (again, a refreshing weekly addiction), I noticed with a sigh of relief that the printers hadn’t (this week) placed a second faux cover over the original advertising some travel destination. Curious as to why they had done this, I decided to survey the magazine itself.

Out of 46 pages, 23 were full-page advertisements. Not, you’ll note, pages with adverts on them (only twelve of the remainder managed that distinction), but whole A4 sized spaces devoted to getting me to buy a product. 6 were two-page spreads, meaning that three times I turned the page without gaining any meaningful information from what was on the other side. Towards the back exists the cartoon section, which hosts the worst of the lot, Supa Strikas, a cartoon which consists of three seconds of actual, angsty action (per week), and yet manages to squeeze an ad for a sponsor into nearly every panel.

Now, I realise that ad revenue forms a major part of any newspaper’s earnings,  but surely we are approaching the point where we will have more ads in our newspapers than actual articles (not counting, obviously, the Classifieds). I mean, we already suffer from those ridiculous ads masquerading as articles labelled “A Commercial Feature”. Isn’t this enough?

Advertising is beginning to dominate everything we do in these modern times. Actually, that’s a lie. They already do. Electronic games, movies and music videos are already mired in product placement. Whole megabytes of my internet quota are being swallowed by the animated (and, quite frankly, intrusive) ads that appear on every page.

I used to rush to the cinema, not just to watch a movie, but to spend a good quater of an hour watching cinematic trailers, but now I’m subjected to the Vodacom meerkat and Heineken. No matter how funny, interesting or thought-provoking these ads may be (and they’re generally not), they’re no substitute for watching the trailer for Harry Potter Thirteen: Everyone Dies, or whatever.

Of course, they’re nowhere near as bad as the paper wastage that occurs in the Property Guides every Saturday.

Rent-free,

Bontage.

Thank you.

Movies, like songs, are highly sensitive objects, mainly because they’re made up of so many elements. The plot, the dialogue, the characters and the visuals are all areas in which a film can fall flat on its face. It might be Hemingway and full to the brim of Oscar winners and Dames, but if the camera moves around like someone with Muscular Dystrophy and the sets look as if cardboard would be a step up, you can count on the fact that a movie will be a failure.

Even if a movie manages to pull the above off, the fact that two people look for different things in a film will result in two different opinions of the finished piece. When you go to the movies, what do you look for in a film? Presumably your expectations are tempered by the genre of the film it is you’re going to. If the film is Random Explosions of Death, and stars Governor Swarzenegger,   I don’t think you’re looking for any particular deep meaning. Likewise, if you’re going to Cinema Nouveau or other Art Houses, don’t expect car chases and sultry women.

Even then, we still want certain things from certain films. Above all, we wish to be entertained. We don’t want to spend an increasingly large amount of cash and waste two hours of our life feeling dissatisfied. The problem, again, is that the concept of “entertainment” is a personal one.

For that reason, I treat movie reviews very carefully. Movie reviewers are expected (I assume) to have some form of Classical training (i.e. they can tell a close-up from an establishing shot), which is more than Joe Public has ever had, so already the gap is widening. Roger and Ebert, those American Dons of film, occasionally lambaste teen movies for containing crude and unfunny toilet humour, failing to understand that this is what 99.9% of teenagers look for in a movie. Again, our local Father Cinematography, Barry Ronge, waxes lyrical about the type of movies that send me into a deep slumber.

However, the good reviewers (like all the above) have sense to review the basic elements of any film that appeal to the lowest common denominator (like the acting), telling us what we should be looking for in a particular film. They know, like we should, that watching a film is different, not only for different people, but for the same person at different times. Try watching Big Fish, and you;ll see what I mean.

In the end, the best reviewer of movies is undoubtedly oneself. Don’t like Mrs Pitt? Well, then don’t go and watch her movies, then. If you’re not a fan of blood and gore, then Saw 5 is not the best film to take those kiddies, is it? Of course, you could always wait for the DVD…

Two-thumbs up,

Bontage

But you know who Paris Hilton is, of course. Angelina Jolie and her hubby, Brad Pitt are also persons whom I’m sure you can identify from a police line-up. You’ll also be able to recognise Johnny Depp, Nicole Kidman or any Hollywood A-List VIP (pronounced to rhyme with “pip”).

It’s a sign of our times, I’m afraid, and clearly we are not immune to its effects, as the first four names will most probably attest. They are, respectively, the Presidents of the People’s Republic of China and India (and hence the leaders of one third of the world’s population), and the Prime Minister of Israel and President of the Palestinian National Authority, effectively at the heart of the Middle East troubles that have been raging for, oh, hundreds of years.

The point I’m trying to make here is that there’s something wrong with any society that can’t recognise four very important people (and I think you’ll have a hard time proving they’re not), but which can not only identify relatively unimportant people (I’m afraid, as good as some of these people’s talents are, they’re not that important. They just like to think it), but actively support them, no matter what they plan on getting up to. This is evidenced by the not-so-recent Michael Jackson trial, when hundreds of fans showed up and campaigned for their VIP to be released and the charges against him dropped. Those of you who are mildly perceptive will notice that they didn’t ask for him to have a fair trial (as if it was guaranteed that he wouldn’t), but rather for the charges to just disappear. For Michael.

Now, I have nothing against Michael (so long as he doesn’t hold anything against me), but what makes these people act so? If it hadn’t been Michael, and, say, an overweight 50-year old? For a start, the accusations might never have materialised (since suing a celebrity for whatever reason seems a true-blue American way of making money these days), but if they had, there would have been thousands of people getting ready to lynch the man, irrelevant of whether the charges were true or not.

It must be something in today’s media culture, but I’ll be damned if I knew what it was. Somewhere along the line, we have been duped into believing that these people, who are no different from you or I (apart from the limousines, million-dollar mansions, personal assistants and so on), have some of super-abilities, or a natural innocence, as if being born a Jolie-Pitt would guarantee one an automatic Sainthood.

I suppose, though, that these two disparate worlds of Very Important People and Very Unimportant People are beginning to collide, mostly in America. First an celebrity became a politician (but since Arnie’s managed a second term, he must be good at it), and now a politician is becoming a celebrity (which might just be a good thing).

It is my hope that, in time, we can establish a culture which isn’t so ridiculously centred around people who’s only skills are wearing costumes and talking in accents, but who actually spend their lives making a difference.

Diatribe ends here,

Bontage

Well, if you can that is. For the rest of us, trapped inside offices, classrooms and study sessions, the season is little more than an excuse to activate the air conditioner and start wearing shorts. While the freeloaders are getting their dose of Vitamin D, we’ll quietly suffocate in airless rooms, dying over the last few pages of a company report or Maths Paper.

Technically, I suppose, it’s still Spring, but we all know that the seasons are merely a lie concocted by the government in an attempt to raise the price of electricity (and, lately, to cut it off altogether). Here in Sunny South Africa (survivors of the wettest winter SA has seen in a while may quietly chuckle at this point), Spring occurs strictly during the month of September. In the latter days of August, the cold weather slowly withdraws and the thermometer begins inching upwards. In September, the trees and flowers quickly burst forth, going from dead brown to vibrant palettes in a matter of weeks. Then it’s October, and it’s as if God has loosed a flamethrower onto the world. The roads begin to melt, the mind-numbing jingle-jangle of ice-cream sellers is on every street of every suburb, and the fairer skinned people are turned a bright and merry red.

As soon as we are free of the doldrums of working life, we escape to any environment which does not contain paperwork. Here in the Southern Hemisphere, we slowly abandon Rugby, and break out the five hundred and ninety-two special pieces of equipment needed to play the game that most resembles living death: Cricket.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Cricket has a place in modern society (probably), but a game where the breaks between action are longer than the action itself doesn’t hold much appeal for me. Would you watch Soccer if half time was six hours long? In fact, the only sport more boring than Cricket would be bowls, but there are two reasons why I prefer bowls: One, I’m not subjected to it for five-day long stretches at a time, and Two, only old people play bowls, thus, at a stroke, eliminating a portion of society that would otherwise get in the way. Cricket merely serves as an excuse for twenty-two men to wear white clothing and put their feet up for a week. I’m quite certain that the more professional players, whilst fielding, have the ability to sleep standing upright. Watch closely next time and you’ll see what I mean.

Of course, if Cricket’s not your bag, then you can engage in another fun-filled Summer activities. You can visit a beach (assuming, of course, that you live near one) or its alternative, the pool. All day braaing (that’s barbequing for those of you who don’t understand the concept of boerewors either) is also popular, provided you have a Meister Chef in charge of food preparation (or at the every least someone who thinks they’re a Meister Chef). Some people play sports to relax, and I wish them the best of luck. Ideally, I’d spend my Summer lying in a shady hammock somewhere in the Maldives, sipping soft drinks and watching television. Failing that, staying indoors with occasional expeditions (pack-mule and all) to the pool suits me just fine.

However you like to spend the sunny months, best regards and don’t forget the sun block. Just remember that the Winter is, meteorologically, just round the corner.

SPF 9000,

Bontage

After last month’s (thrilling) article regarding the oldest profession on Earth (storytelling! Not that other thing! Get your minds out of the gutter, people!), I thought we’d continue the foray into Very Very Old Stuff, and take a look at music.

Yes, it’s true. Once there was a simpler time, a time before there were over 300 genres of music (can anyone here tell the difference between punk-rock, emo-rock and modern-rock?), as well as a time before Rap Music.

(Note from the Bontage: Rap is not music. Rap is a despicable wart on the face of melody. Seriously, those music videos of sweaty men clutching their groins while reciting the same three lyrics in different cadences send chills down my spine. At best, it’s Poetry. Performed badly with lots of semi-naked women thrown in to distract you.)

According to scientists (some with real degrees), music began as an attempt by Palaeolithic man to copy the natural sounds around him. Eventually, man discovered the three elements of music: rhythm (close your eyes, and see if you can spell that properly. Then check), pitch (lit: the sound stuff makes) and timbre (lit 2: the way stuff makes sound). After that, it was plain sailing all the way.

For the first few gazillion years (a scientific term, from the above scientists with real degrees) music was used for religious purposes. The groovy Greeks also used it for their Drama, with people singing the chorus of the action. In fact, that’s all the original Drama was. Later, people decided to stick people in funny hats on stage to portray the action. But I digress.

With music came the invention of musical instruments. Bones hollowed out, animal bits strung together eventually evolved to lutes, flutes and…erm…jutes (look it up yourself). With the invention of the printing press in the 1600’s, music styles were able to spread across the world.

In what is known as the Classical period (1750-1800), the sonata, concerto and the all-new symphony were refined by Hit Artists such as Mozart and Hadyn. Later, the Romantic Period (1800-1890) saw people like Beethoven and Wagner use music more to express feelings, rather than to refine techniques or tradition.

Once the radio was developed and popularized, it was time for the real explosion of music. Jazz, swing bands, Sinatra-ism, blues and early (now called Classic) rock were on the scene. Recently, a million-and-one other genres have been created, including (but not limited to) R-and-B, Heavy Metal (don’t go there), Pop, Hip-Hop and, allegedly, Rap.

Along with the music, inventions have arisen to play them. Hi-fis, tape cassettes, cd-players, and the now infamous iPod. Hearing problems have come to a new generation.

Mezzo soprano,

Bontage

Seriously. Stories have always been used as methods of explanation. In modern times we have “Examples” (for example [see?] any word sum known to man and how a mathematical formula might apply to it).

Going further back, to the early dark ages, we have the Viking sagas; long, windy (very windy) quests where Mr Insert-Olaf-Here and his longboat The Miscellaneous vanish over the horizon, spend three years eating whale blubber, and then come home and tell great big whoppers about what it was they spent their time doing.

Go back even further, take a pinch of salt, and you get the allegories from the Bible (and, as a bonus, the complete works of the Parable Meister J.C as well), explaining the beginning of the world, the end of the world, and everything in between.

Go ALL the way back to the very first storytellers, the cavemen, and what did they have stories of? All the things they couldn’t explain, most probably. Since they were cavemen, just about to get to grips with setting each other on fire, and not that far along the scientific curve, there was an awful lot that they couldn’t explain.

Why does it rain? What’s lightning? What is the source of those growling noises outside the cave? Who are we? Who am I? Can I justify throwing this rock at that person? And so on.

Stories started as explanations (the sky gods are angry again), then became a method of data storage and transfer (your great grandfather picked up a stone just like this one and bonked his great grandfather, and our foreign relations have deteriorated ever since). It’s still a marvellously effective tool. You’d be hard put to understand the theory of relativity (in short, and most probably inaccurately, that time is relative to your position and speed, E = m c² and all that), but Einstein tells us the story of how an hour with a beautiful girl seems like a minute and sitting on a hot stove for a second seems like forever. In fact, he may not have told such a story, but the story itself lives on.

Stories can be used to bolster believes or to break them down. Religions are cases in point. While not based on stories (but rather a collection of tradition and moral reasoning), we still refer to stories to justify the point of the Koran or the Bible or the Torah.

And let’s not forget that it’s hi-story. History is essentially the story of everything that has happened before. Once, that story was limited to what Grandma Og could remember at the ripe old age of twenty, but now it’s the version trapped in books and newspapers and computers the world over. It’s NOT the facts as they happened, I must point out, but our interpretation of the facts. History, it seems, is the best and most reasonable story we can come up with. So we don’t know for certain what killed the dinosaurs, or who wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare (not 100%, anyway), but we have some marvellous stories to explain it. The ancient Egyptians were aware of this, as there history of erasing monuments and lying about battles shows. The victor, as we are all aware, writes the story.

Somewhere along the line stories became entertainment. People found out that jokes (in themselves, very short stories that may even contain one or several morals and viewpoints) were more fun than a recitation of the day’s catch. People became interested in something more than real life. They wanted to hear tales of Gilgamesh and King Arthur and Sherlock Holmes and all the rest.

Nowadays, stories are big money, as J.K Rowling and Johnny Depp can attest. People will pay good money to be told a good story. They want to be involved, entranced and taken away from this dreary, depressing world. They want interesting characters (all the better if they remind the reader of themselves), far-off places (alien planets, magic kingdoms and the distant 1920’s in equal measure) and a spine-tingling plot that leaves in wonder and amazement.

Storytelling, in any form, will continue for a long time to come, and will probably never die. Facts become tales, tales become myths, myths become legends and legends live on forever in the human psyche. Perhaps, one day, in a far away century on a far-off planet, people will entertain each other with the legend of Earth and its history.

Come to think of it, it would make a great story…

Bontage

It’s true. I’m famous. I have to be. Why else would someone steal my dirty laundry?

I jest you not. This previous Saturday someone took the time and effort to break into the minimum-security clothes-drier (with its devilish depress-once-to-open door) and removed, still wet, two pairs of longs and a pair of jeans. Clearly, I’m being stalked by some fiendish person who’ll stop at nothing until they own every single piece of material that has ever come into contact with my skin.

The alternate hypothesis, of course, is that it was a run of the mill thief who took the opportunity to make himself an extra few bucks by selling my clothing at wherever illicit pants are sold. I take comfort in the fact that Cape Town is experiencing the advent of Summer, and thus the thief will expect to get very little for his hard work, as who buys jeans for Summer?

That’s not the point of this article. Why do we have thieves? Is it poverty? I’m no psychologist, but I assume that whoever can afford to be in my university residence and attend UCT isn’t exactly suffering. Now, I’m quite sure there are people who steal because they have no other course of action, but clearly that doesn’t apply here.

I suspect that the culprit’s culprit is merely the giving in to temptation. As Oscar Wilde once said, “I can resist everything except temptation”. Someone must have seen my pantaloons, heard a tiny voice saying “My, those are mighty fine garments,” (though Heaven knows why they might think this, re: Lookin’ Good), “I’m sure the owner won’t mind us walking off with half his lower wardrobe”, and given in.

We’ve all had a similar temptation at some time or another. We possible White-Collar criminals are tempted mainly by money in all shapes and forms. The lost wallet we pick up, the person in front of you who drops a cascade of coinage, the change handed over after a transaction which may contain three or four rand too much etc. Of course, if positions were reversed, we would go red-faced with indignation at the thought that someone is trying to defraud us.

But what causes people to go the next step up, from pocket change to cellphones, bank accounts and, naturally, pants? My money is on a mixture of laziness and self-indulgence. Why earn your money when there’s a quicker route to self-gratification? Don’t worry about the fact that you’d have to save money for a year to get that shiny red bike, little Johnny. If you pilfer enough goods, you’ll have it in a month or two! Hell, you could have it right now if that bike shop didn’t have security cameras. Bastards.

And so on.

South Africa’s most visible problem is that of crime. No doubt, with a massive rate of unemployment and sluggish government action, there are people who must steal in order to feed their families. I doubt, however, that the people who make a habit of breaking into people’s houses, robbing banks or mugging people have no other option for supporting themselves.

For a start, they could pawn their guns. That should get them something.

Mr “Ooh, a Shiny Five Rand Coin!”,

Bontage

Not to fear, though, Sunday WILL have an article up (Sticky Fingers, and, no, it’s not about candy). Tune in then.

Seven. Count ‘em, seven.

Bontage