Thinking

It really has been a hectic two months. I've been short staffed at the bakery. That has meant considerable juggling of tasks as well as getting the uninitiated initiated. But we've all survived and learnt new things in the process. The changes have been positive in many ways and for that I can only thank Allah.

As odd as it may seem, but while my hands busied themselves decorating birthday cakes and filling endless savoury or cream croissants my mind went off on a tangent and came up with these questions:

1. Why is it so easy to drift and become lost in a sea of the mundane?
2. What is spirituality? What does it do for the soul?
3. What is friendship, truly, and why do we need it so very much?
4. How does one actually place a monetary value on a 'thing'? I mean, consider a fifty rand note and the endless combination of things it can actually buy.

The last question was sparked by two cups of organic coffee and two slices of cake bought from the local Woolworths coffee shop. The cake was so depressingly awful that I felt horrible about having doled out R24-00 for each slice (one of the biggest drawbacks of owning a bakery). And I thought of all the other things that my fifty could have bought. And I wondered who it might be, in my very neighbourhood, that went to bed on an empty stomach, while I wasted R80-00 on four, not very good items.

Until next time

Oh Allah, bless us in Rajab and Sha'baan and allow for us to reach the month of Ramadaan.

Go gently
S

A Discovery

Remember how I mentioned a card that I received in the mail?

To have a look at it go here

really worth the trek :)

S

The Most Unreadable of Unreadables

I think they sneer. Yes, these meanies really do sneer. They sneer at you for wasting hard earned money on buying them. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they continue their Sneer Fest by deriding your every effort at reading them. And, no, they really don’t give a damn whether you have any other readable read at your side. So you’re left in a lurch.

Marooned on an island, surrounded by a sea of unreadable, unpalatable words. You're left with two choices. Languish or wade. I've gone for one or the other of these options each time one of these Unreadable Reads came to visit. Depending on my personal level of desperation. But more often than not, I chose to languish, awaiting the arrival of a Magnificent Steed of Stunning Words to spirit me away.

To save my fellow Word Warriors the the same fate I’ve finally stolen the time to compile the list of The Most Unreadable of Unreadables according to Afrocentric.

Topping the list, hands down would have to be Rajaa al Asnea’s Girls of Riyadh. I started this so-called novel only to ditch it after a few chapters feeling faintly bewildered by the realization that crap like that can actually be the cause of the loss of trees. Nothing short of sacrilege.

On a scale of one to ten, I’d rate it a minus five. Yes, it’s that bad.

At this point I feel it necessary to add Ken Follett’s World Without End to the list. It felt more like a Novel Without End. Painfully long, unnecessarily detailed. Plus it stank of treachery. A totally unrealistic portrayal of the time period. In his version of reality women spent all their time flashing their fannys at men. Talk of wishful writing.

I actually waded my way through this sea of unreadable tripe, astonishingly enough. But I was desperate. I had nothing else to read. On a scale of one to ten, it scores a stingy three.

I hope you have yet to hear of Kate Furnivalls’ The Russian Concubine. It’s a cliché a couple of hundred pages long. Tragic. What can I say? I’m a demanding reader. It scores a four.

Though I feel a traitor for writing this, but Imraan Coovadia’s Green Eyed Thieves is also on this list. I could not, even with the best intentions and truckloads of perseverance, wade my way through it. Out of touch with reality. That was the lasting impression it left with me. It scores a four.

Okay, don’t toilet paper my lawn for saying this, but Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is also on my list. B-O-R-I-N-G. That’s what it screamed. Even though the style of writing was easy on the eyes. It scores a generous six.

I hunted down a copy of Girl in the Tangerine Scarf by Mohja Kahf. Found it, began reading it, only to abandon it a few chapters in. Too American? I don’t know. But it just missed every chord and some of mine are pretty exposed. I’d rate it a six.

Until next time
go gently
S