A Day in the Life: The passing of the Boekehuis

Champagne and Cake, Goodbye and Good Luck

"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got til it's gone" **

The Boekehuis has closed, it's gone: Goodbye.

It's passing will be mourned for many years to come, not only by those who visited it regularly, but also by the occasional visitor, looking for something specific. I can picture them arriving, and then wondering "Now where on earth are we going to go?!"

There is a distance between author and audience that's rarely narrowed. The commercial imperative of a book signing, the hidden agendas of TV and radio interviews ~ these create and maintain the distance.

If you dropped down the hill from Melville, travelling along Lotherbury Avenue, then turned left at the first traffic light, you would have found yourself at the Boekehuis. For 12 short years, this is the place that you went to if you wanted to narrow the Gap. Most Saturday mornings between 12:30 and half past one, and often well beyond that, the Boekehuis played host to an array of South African talent and their works. And yes, they sold a lot of books afterwards; but not because of hype: no, you bought them because you understood enough to know that you really had to have them.

The formula was simple and straightforward: a 10 to 15 min reading from a particular work, followed by a panel discussion, then an open discussion with whoever was in the audience. The audience was not chosen, the agenda was not fixed, and the interaction between all the people there spontaneous, revealing, often deeply insightful; but never trite, commercial or (most important of all!) boring.

There were special occasions ~ a conversation with a person or group whose work and life had contributed in some meaningful way to the enrichment of the South African landscape: Politics, Art, the Struggle, Literature, or even just Social engagement.

How do I explain the experience? There is so much to be gained by sitting in a small room crammed with deeply interested and engaged people and listening and understanding what drives them to do what they do, how this has changed them and the communities that they live in, and then seeing how this played out in our own lives.

But the space itself is not enough.
The intention, no matter how well conceived counts for little unless you have the right people driving the process through. Rudyard Kipling has his Roman General say to his two young lieutenants "It is always one man's work—always and everywhere!" – before giving them the impossible task of defending the Wall from the Barbarians.

For these last 12 years, this has been the work of an extraordinary person~ Corina van der Spoel is an artist at getting the most out of people: persuading them to take the brave step of engaging directly with a spontaneous, critical, and sometimes aggressive audience. And then ensuring that the whole process is rewarding to all the stakeholders, prompting questions, stepping back when needed, and engaging firmly to keep the conversation at its best level.

Corina keeps a watchful eye:

standing, as always, and

ready to step in when needed

There is a peculiar talent that some people have, of being able to lift or lower their conversation to the level of the person they are talking to, so that the person feels its all about them, that they are being heard: and so they open themselves up. Corina has this knack, whether it is the author, the panelists, or the audience. No matter who you are, you feel you have a voice, and its a valuable voice.

Drive, energy, commitment: a large network of people whose lives have been touched directly by her; the demands to take forward some new project will come streaming in from many sides. I should say her difficulty will be in choosing between opportunities, not in finding them.

I'm not sure what persuaded Nationale Pers/Media24 to bring the project to a close. Maybe the economy is biting too deeply. Maybe they think it's not part of their core business: maybe, maybe, maybe. Who's to know?

What I do know is that so much of what I have absorbed about South Africa, its culture, its people, its failures and successes has been given context from the understandings gleaned from arbitrary Saturday mornings, listening to people who have researched our world, reflected on it, or merely speculated. From the funny to the serious, I will miss them all. Let me say this: for a while I became somewhat reclusive: the only place where you would find me out and about would be the occasional visit to (where else?) the Boekehuis: at 12:30 in Auckland Park for an hour or so, before slipping back to my hidey hole.

Now, like Joni Mitchell, at last I know what I've had.
And that it's gone.
But unlike the singer, we are the richer for the experience: and we can ignore the parking lot :)

All Images copyright © the author
** From Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi Cab song

A Day in the Life ~ My one wish for Rosebank

It's a short walk from my apartment building to the Rosebank mall.

It's a particularly rewarding walk on a late Sunday afternoon.
Especially in spring and summer, when the jacarandas are either in full bloom or bursting into a canopy of spring purple. Stretching from either side of the street and touching at the centre they drop just enough dappled shade to soften the Highveld sun.

I couldn't help but compare it to the other malls that I spent most of yesterday fruitlessly travelling backwards and forwards to while I hunted down a decent Bluetooth mouse. The biggest of them all, the Sandton mall, well you'd expect it to have everything, wouldn't you? Not a chance. Lots of the same stuff in a hundred and one different shops, just different markups, different salespeople, different storefronts. But that's another conversation for a different time!

Aside from Rosebank, there's not a mall that you can get into without going in by car. Even the short walk from the high-speed Gautrain terminus to the Sandton mall is fraught. There, even the pavements disrespect feet! They are small and cramped, often dirty and populated by the people who keep the place working, not those who shop in the mall. No, you wouldn't see a consumer (with or without kids or partner!) walking along those pavements. Its a place of work, not a thoroughfare for shoppers. Shoppers enter by way of the car parks ~ pavements are for workers or people who can't afford cars.

These malls are built like fortified cities: Everything from tasteless Tuscany  to faux Tudor, and not forgetting the gleaming blandness of glass and steel.

In Rosebank, however, feet are respected. Its pleasant walking there, and no great shakes going home either:

All the major entrances have wide avenues and open doors expecting people to come in from the surrounding suburbs, hotels, and B&Bs. Residents of the area can walk from one tree-lined avenue into the mall and then right across into another. The open-air restaurants, cafes, and sidewalk coffee bars are open both to the sky and to the avenues and walkways that lead to them.

So, if I have one wish for Rosebank, it would be this: that developers will always remember that people are more important than transport, and make sure that all of the people who come in by car or rail do so in a way and using routes that leave the rest of us using pavements that respect ordinary people's feet :-)

There is nothing more satisfying than being able to stroll up into the mall, have a quiet a cup of coffee, drop in to the grocers, or supermarket, bookshop or store and then stroll on home in quiet of the evening.

Please don't change it until after I die, no, definitely not a moment before!

all images copyright (c) the author

A Day in the Life: a Monster Muscles in

(click image to enlarge)

 There's an old Saying that goes ~ you can take the country boy out of the farm but you can't take the farm out of the country boy.

Johannesburg is a Mining city. The City has left the mines behind now, but you'll never take the Mines out of the City. A place is being prepared for this big fellow. He's 80 tons if he's a penny weight, in fact he's so heavy that they had to build a special foundation for him to rest on.

He's arrived early, before the area has been cleaned and the sign erected ~ but what would you expect? When they found gold here, they didn't wait around for the town to form first. Oh no Sir, they just got in there and started digging. Who arrived early went away rich, who arrived late never ate.

That's about the sum of a mining town, and it hangs around for only as long as the gold can be scratched out. But this one didn't hang around and die the death of ghost towns the world over: oh no Sir.

Oh no Sir, it sprawled and bawled and went on to become the Financial bully of Africa, the biggest city not on running water: and along the way (by the way) built the largest man-made forest on the planet. It's a city now, but its still a mining brawl at heart. The mining spirit and culture will always be found here. we don't hang around and wait for the world to decide. We move on and make things happen.

So when I stumbled on this monster muscling in down at the end of Anderson, well I thought to myself, that's just about right. You have to be tough to live in Africa. You have to look out for yourself and your community, because this is not a world of soft pastels and gentle rains. When the rain comes it crashes down, and the thunder and electricity reminds you that you are alive. Even the 6 day Peach rains have that edge to them.

Its a rough and tough area that he watches over, and its a rough and tough city that welcomes him. But walk a short distance East and you will find the largest Financial institutions in Africa, and due North are the Mining Houses that kicked it all off. And just to the left: the Magistrates court. Just in case anyone gets the wrong ideas about whose the who in the zoo. Or veld.

Don't you just love this city?

All images (c) the author.

A Day in the Life: Window Boxes in the City

Its a long steady walk up Ferreira street from 45 Commissioner.

Its a walk I do often enough, several times a week, and its always a there and back between 45C and the Simmonds street Superblock complex. To the left and right are the magnificent Anglo American buildings ~ some built in the earlier part of the 20th century during the Oppenheimer hey days: low and powerful and redolent of the Mining Magnates who once held sway in downtown Joburg; and one at least, to the left, the stunning Anglo Head Office structure built in the late 80's shows the shift to corporate respectability.

Normally there's not much time for reflection, you head on as quickly as you can because at the nether end of each trip is a meeting room and a waiting group of people. I could take the shuttle bus: but unless I have a laptop under the arm I prefer the walk.

Yesterday I nearly stumbled into the granite "decoration" around the pavement trees, and that started a train of thought. I was headed North down towards 45C, and today, as I made my way back up South, I was wondering about those window boxes.

Well, there you see how blind you can be to small touches of beauty along the way!

Now, my mother loved Geraniums and Pelargoniums.

There wasn't a holiday or a trip where she didn't embarrass the family by taking cuttings, and she would snip them carefully (as all good gardeners do) and bring them back into one of the many pots and corners of her garden and verandas. Even at their scraggliest, the flowers are rich in colour: making up for their lack of perfume, I suppose. And if you watered them often enough, then the greens of the branches are a pleasure in themselves.

So there I am striding South, and blow me if I don't have a mommy moment ...

Up against the walls of the Ashanti building, doing their best to cover the steel mesh burglar protection, are 6 window boxes planted with my mom's favourites. And there they have been, if the bird's droppings are any indicator, for any length of time.

And all that has kept me from seeing them in these many months (years?) of walking backwards and forwards has been the meeting rooms at the ends of a long stride up and down Ferreira street.

And we have, I suppose, the answer to the window Box question: accross Anderson Street and not 40 meters from the Rocks in the City the answer is ~ Yes, Joburg is getting soft in some of it's corners.

And all the better for it, I should say.

All images copyright (c) the author

A Day in the Life: Rocks in the City

Look at them ... just a pile of rocks around a nice shady tree.
You'd know all about it if you stubbed your toes on them, let me tell you!
Which I nearly did ...
And which made me think ...

What does a pile of Rocks tell you?
Especially a pile of rocks in the city centre?
All neatly arranged around a tree trunk, and every tree on the pavement with its own community of pet rocks?

Rocks

Well now, these are granite rocks, Crushed to size after being blasted and brought up from the depths of the gold bearing reef, deep below.
mini Boulders really, as you would quickly tell if you tried to pick one of them up.
Stop you dead in your tracks if I tossed one at you!
Yet you wouldn't notice them, just to walk by, so tastefully arranged around their trees.
The Pavement runs the length of an office block, and fronts a residential hotel in the heart of the City's business district, right around the group of buildings which the Anglo American corporation owns and has its people in.
... and a short walk from the Johannesburg Magistrates courts, where unruly crowds have been known to congregate. Although, not so often any more.

So, maybe the Building owners don't want you to walk too close to the trees?
Possibly, they like the artistic effect of the stark granite against the bark?
Maybe they are aligning themselves to the mining activities which they service?
Maybe all, maybe nothing at all.
Certainly, it would have taken a pick up truck to deliver the payload. There's more than a wheelbarrows worth there, and they would've been carted quite some distance!

Rocks around trees ...

So what should we read into that pile of Rocks?

Progress.
That's what I read:
I read progress.
After all, whose going to stack piles of granite-hard rock in handy sizes if they thought -
if you thought for even one moment -
that someone might pick them up and chuck them back at at you.
or your nice plate glass windows!
or cars, or ... or ...
Ah.
So is our uncivilised, dangerous, scary city centre being tamed then?

(truth to tell ... it never did feel that scary to me, but, well -

 - you know -

tourists and the media do know best ...)

They do look rather nice, though - don't they?
All we need now is a flower box or two ...

All images copyright (c) the author