slowly comes the light

(or what to do with a quarter century’s worth of knowledge)
So another year has passed, and this one has not been uneventful. As has become routine, I’ll say a couple of things, sound smart, and then walk away.
Life is like a hill… The beginning is hard, where every day you see is a milestone to achieve, then slowly the climb becomes bearable… Eventually the peak is reached, the height of physical achievement, then the downhill stretch that’s either thoroughly enjoyable or absolutely terrifying happens…
Light is amazing. The smallest light can make a difference, even in the darkest night. Strike a match, and for that brief moment, as the flame swallows up the wood, you can see around you… What you do next determines everything. You could wait for the flames to work their way down to your fingers, blistering them and returning you back to the state of darkness you were in, or you could set something on fire, use the light to change things and eliminate the darkness for that much longer…
Darkness of the mind leads to death of the individual. The mind perceives things, but from the moment we are born, we start closing off the open mind. Cutting off the light leads to atrophy. And the light can’t be substituted for something else…
In everything, therefore, let your light shine…
The title of this post is from the Icelandic cellist Ólafur Arnalds, in the track ‘Hægt, kemur ljósið’

(or what to do with a quarter century’s worth of knowledge)
So another year has passed, and this one has not been uneventful. As has become routine, I’ll say a couple of things, sound smart, and then walk away.
Life is like a hill… The beginning is hard, where every day you see is a milestone to achieve, then slowly the climb becomes bearable… Eventually the peak is reached, the height of physical achievement, then the downhill stretch that’s either thoroughly enjoyable or absolutely terrifying happens…
Light is amazing. The smallest light can make a difference, even in the darkest night. Strike a match, and for that brief moment, as the flame swallows up the wood, you can see around you… What you do next determines everything. You could wait for the flames to work their way down to your fingers, blistering them and returning you back to the state of darkness you were in, or you could set something on fire, use the light to change things and eliminate the darkness for that much longer…
Darkness of the mind leads to death of the individual. The mind perceives things, but from the moment we are born, we start closing off the open mind. Cutting off the light leads to atrophy. And the light can’t be substituted for something else…
In everything, therefore, let your light shine…
The title of this post is from the Icelandic cellist Ólafur Arnalds, in the track ‘Hægt, kemur ljósið’

restarting…

I admit it, I have been neglecting my blog, and watching a lot more movies-based-on books, and reading the books that the movies are based on… It’s a self-propagating process.
But somehow I managed to write a poem that I was meant to perform, but didn’t. I write a lot less than I used to, perhaps because I have so many outlets for what I have to say, especially Twitter… All the same, here it is:

Restart
bridges burned
corners turned
Blistered fingertips from the last match
I used to set the last of my memories
Alight
Fireworks explode
The great leap
off the last stepping stone
that sinks into the past
no assurances
all is lost
there is no undo
Mon Dieu
Am I scared?
Perhaps
Of ghost hands
holding lingering strings
once tied to balloons
limply hanging
Popping, churning up
Cruel memories
jagged pieces
cut into rugged slices
but then a recess
made way for progress
Moving only forward
every so often looking back
at pillars of salt
tall and solid
till it rains
But on I go
To where I know
I start again
I suppose
It’s a cycle

I’m also translating for Global Voices Swahili, so that’s also something interesting that I’m doing on the side…

Hoping to write more soon. And proper stuff as well.

Milos, by Anis Mojgani

Let us take a sack of spray paint and spray paint over the paintings.
Let’s dance through Paris;
kiss in the shadow of the Louvre,
crawl inside its windows,
scroll manifesto’s over its canvas,
write Morse code on the sculptors,
roll a sleeping bag on the floors to sleep inside of, tell one another a story by flashlight,
unearth everything from before,
bury each inside the other,
feed grapes to the ants,
light fireworks in the fists of sleeping kings; kill a monarch.
Break back outside and find a world to do all these same things to;
up and upon against break the bricks, climb over them,
and when the sirens scream,
laugh aloud,hold my hand and run fast.
Run through the streets with me with a bunch of bottles,
a bucket of gasoline,
a mouthful of matches,
a pocket full of paintings and fresh faced batch of policemen to chase the fires we are lighting,
laugh on a shoulder of gold.
And i thought that the museums where cemeteries where the dead paid the wall to hold what we had so that we could walk through what we once were,
And children take their sculls to turn into gardens,
to pluck for forefathers and farther stars,
that on some nights resemble an armless mother praying for her arms to return.
Every tooth that we tear from our jaw to fling at the black gloved riot soldiers as another shadow that we are trying to lose.
Let every giggle be filled with lust; let us laugh this night away
I could save me by having my mouth around you,
and i will hold you afterwards like you were the pulpit and I was the sky,
and this love that danced between that hardness was a telephone line of holiness that those two things spoke through.
Take me into your heart like I was a saint,
and you were a face of forgiveness blooming in a valley destined to sink further.
Be a river with me;
Be the storm;
the bend in the path;
the front porch; the heat in the south;
be a boot full of banjo strings;
a fist full of written songs;
a mouthful of chocolate dust.
When they come to take us,
stab them between the eyes.
Do not take your hand from around mine.
Make a fist with the other, and punch spines like guilds, spit, sweat, kiss them like a grandmother. How will open mouthed terror love filled?
And when they come to cut out hair and ask to hear penance come from inside us,
say with me loud and trembling,
but loud and clear that:
“I have already emptied myself. I kissed regret goodbye, took the hands of another backwards angel, and rode backwards into the rain”
When the hangman of morrow comes to hang the sun in its daily execution say this with me: “‘Sarah we are apples, our love is an apple; I’m unbuttoning my shirt; painting a circle over my heart, please, just shoot straight.”

life lessons from Super Mario

Thanks to Naija twitter person and all round awesome guy @maurice_nn and the perpetually lovely (and yours truly’s girlfriend) @notmutant for the general inspiration for this line of thinking…
Having been an 80s to early 90s child, there are quite a number of things I quite enjoy till now. There’s the cartoons that made sense, the fact that I could go out and play, get dirty and then go home and play video games… 8-bit video games that had random knockoff titles, like Ending Man and such, that were the cutting edge of console gaming. Cheap enough to be bought as a Christmas gift and child-silencer, expensive enough to be shown off to visiting relatives, especially cousins, they were, for lack of a better word, the ish.
And they had life lessons. Fine, you had to dig through a lot of monotonous background muzak and mock gore to get to the lessons, but they were there… Here is a random assortment from Mario. Because he’s a plumber for one, and he’s saving a princess. That’s enough backstory to keep you playing for days on end.

1. Always try to jump over obstacles
There’s blocks, pipes, random spaces in the ground and other things in the way. You could sit there and wait for the time to run out, or you could jump over the obstacle. Sometimes there’s a spring, sometimes there isn’t. Just jump and get over it.

2. Deal with disappointment
Sometimes the princess is just in another castle. Not much you can do about that, save for move on to the next level and continue with the fight…

3. Money will make your life better…
The more the coins you collect, the closer you get to an extra life. More money, less problems. Suck on that, Diddy.

4. Empty space is not always ‘empty’
Empty spaces have stars, for immunity, 1UPs, steps to other levels and other such interesting secrets… Blank walls are often hiding interesting secrets…
Exploring your surroundings will help expand your horizons.

5. Mushrooms are good for you
They make you big and strong… And you can destroy bricks and such. Plus they also come bearing extra lives…

6. You can always start over
No matter how well (or badly) you did the last time, once you get bitten by the vicious plant thing, or an owl, or the turtle, or you get flamed by the dragon, you can always start over.

7. No matter how small you are, you can still jump and get yourself some coins
Even when Mario is a wee little plumber, there’s still some coins he can get. Don’t let your size limit you…

8. Confront your fears. They’ll still be there if you run away
Sometimes the only way to get through to the next level is to attack that Bowser. He’ll still be there when you’re at the end of the level…

9. Use your head
It’s the only way to get coins and power-ups…

10. Keep your eyes on the prize
In the end, the aim is to save the princess. The money and the power are nice, but they’re just there to help you get to the end…

Alright, so these lessons may be inadvertent at best, but they’re a measure of life’s random inadvertent lessons. A plumber with a thing for mushrooms on a quest to save a princess goes level after level, braving lava, water, flying fish, owl creatures, turtles, some boss called Bowser and other such randomness.
That in itself is why Mario is a thousand different kinds of #winning.

information is power

I recently stumbled upon a twitter account operated by the Government of Kenya, specifically the Ministry of Finance. Okay, maybe it’s not the Government itself that tweets, but it’s a really interesting account, called the Kenya Economic Stimulus Programme. Basically it’s a bailout by the Government of Kenya, trying to get money to the people that need it most, to build infrastructure and get things like healthcare and markets established so that the ‘common mwananchi’ (one of those buzzwords I hate…) can get involved in the development of their regions.
It may not be much, but it’s something.
There’s an option within the site that allows you to see how far the projects in your area have been completed, along with amounts of money that have been disbursed and where the money is going. There’s a lot that the program is doing, like building schools, planting trees and building markets in every constituency.
Visit, and see what the programme is doing where you are. You deserve to know.
It’s an interesting plan. I wonder how effective it’s going to be in the long run, but for now, it seems that the Government may have gotten one thing right. You need to spend some money (in the right places, of course…) to make the economy grow.

date a girl who writes

This is not an original post, it is a composite of various posts I found on the internet, titled ‘Date a Girl Who Writes’.

Date a girl who writes. She’ll grab her pen from time to time and write about her man. She’ll work on prose and poetry that will and won’t rhyme. She’ll feed you similes for breakfast and perhaps, metaphors for lunch. Your meals shall be filled with figures of speech-others will not care about.

She’s the one with a journal in her hand, a notebook in her purse, scrap paper in her car, and pencils in her back pocket. She’s always scribbling something, praying it won’t evaporate before she gets it down onto paper. Because she’s always scribbling, she’s always looking down, and that’s why you never noticed her before.

The girl who writes will speak to you and make fuss about details- even the minute ones, the slightest, the tiniest blink of your eye. She’ll make vivid descriptions about many things and you’ll wince at.

Date a girl who writes. She will turn you into an anthology. You’ll open her notebook and there will be anatomy, physiology -every bit, every fiber, every word dedicated to you or everybody.

Date a girl who writes, for she will not only be your external hard drive, she will be the memory holder of the things you will lose and love. She will be a reminder of the times – the moments you will unconsciously leave behind.

Talk to her like any normal person would do. Ask her about her interests. See if she’s interested to respond to whatever comes out of your mouth. She’d be busy thinking at times though, about her next story, a topic, a blog post. A lot of things just pop out inside her mind like popcorn, but just go talk to her. Sooner or later, she’d realized that somebody is willing to listen to her chatter.

Ask her out on a date, because she knows what it means to fall in love, take risks, and get hurt. She knows how it feels, or at least how to fake it. She had been used to twists and turns –they’re already part and parcel of her system. The girl who writes has already been tested by time for she’d been slaying dragons and fighting in wars in her stories, together with the main character and everyone of the cast in the story. Date her for she had been the captain of a ship, the queen of her own castle, the pianist of her own concerto. She knows for it is through writing that she could express what she truly feels. She knows, because it is through writing that she breathes and lives. Just take her anywhere. She’d see the good and bad side of things; she’s already used to them.

Try to understand her actions a few months later. She’s only concerned with how to change the story’s flow, how to surprise you as the story goes, and how to make magic out of mere words. The pen is her wand; it is through which that she gains access through her mind’s eye. Emotions are her vocabulary. Words, sentences, and paragraphs are her helpers. The girl who writes knows how to command them to do things, the way a hunter catches his prey. Stories and essays are her spells. She is literature’s fairy godmother. You, the man who reads, are her secret prince. Try to understand her as she lives on her ordinary life. Try to fathom all her words because she means it, but never get tired of reading her mind. Appreciate her passion. She knows how to please you through her words.

Give her time to pause, for she knows it’s the best for the both of you. The girl who writes knows where to insert the climax and where to put transitions. She knows how to iron things out. She knows when it doesn’t sound right, or if it would, how to make it better. Her sentences might “run on and on”, but never get tired of chasing her. She loves it when you brood over what she has written. She might not be an expert when it comes to syntax, but she knows how she’d deal her thoughts. Let her write, let her move.

She’s just the girl who reads and the girl who doesn’t rolled into one person, and that somebody in between. She’s just a girl.

Date a girl who writes for she knows how to begin and end your love story. She had it all outlined in one of her sacred notepads, tucked within the deepest recesses of her bag each day. She still doesn’t know what the ending would be, however, for like a pen she’s just an instrument, guided by the power of a story left untold. It’s up to you both on how the story would go: you, the man who reads and her, the girl who writes. But most certainly, it would be another happily-ever-after.

You’ll be annoyed at her musings and get fed up of her rants. She’ll speak of other writers – the language of Shakespeare, the imagination of Tolkien and how she wishes to rewrite Nabokov. You’ll meet Huxley, Tennyson, Hugo, but only through her stories. She will talk of her fictional crushes and you’ll shrink and shrink. She’ll be your grammar police and you will not like it. She’ll charge you with the violation of rules you didn’t know that exists.

But still, date a girl who writes for you’ll find consolation in her words. You’ll find comfort in her cradle of thoughts and you’ll find understanding in her grief. Date a girl who writes for she’ll write to you while waiting.

She’ll start with “I am writing this letter to you while you’re off buying drinks. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever written a letter to somebody sitting next to me on a bench, but I feel it’s the only way I can get through to you”, like Midori from Norwegian Wood.

Love a girl who writes. Despite the flaws of her own handwriting or her manipulation over words, she knows where to begin and when to end. She understands that there is neither good nor bad timing; we actually create our own chances. Adore her story and inspire her to write more.

Date a girl who reads and writes. You must know that she’ll appreciate more if you read too or an expert in making a classic brewed. She knows that taking time is like reading a 10-chapter book. Every chapter is another mystery. Don’t rush her on things. Like a story, it needs time and way a heck lot of effort to make it ripe. She doesn’t want half-baked plots neither rushed proposals. Listen to her when she talks about a bad ending. It’s her way of saying that she could do better than that. Randomly give her flowers or her favorite author at any given day. Small surprises make her experience that fairy tale can actually happen in real life. It’s easy to love this girl. Drop her small notes, spoil her with poetry and love letters. Her deepest joys come from someone who knows how to make her feel magical, fragile, vulnerable and romantically insane within. Find someone who writes. Check the back of her notebook for some simple passages during one of those slow days. She’s the writer. She knows that writing is her way of drawing strength from her inner self. Someone who knows what she wants. This girl will write the story of your lives and make you feel that the world is more than what you thought it was. She’ll take you to an adventure of a lifetime with your kids inspired by Dr Seuss or The Adventures of Alice.

If you find this girl, never let her go.

Better yet, marry her.

irrelevance

Irrelevance: When before the world felt like it spun at your command, that events were in themselves geared towards making you feel needed and necessary, replaced with a foreboding, a feeling that the world has moved on, leaving you behind…
The feeling is cold and dark and all-encompassing, and it has ways of spreading and making things that were a source of comfort and belonging appear like traps, just patches of soft ground that needed lots of careful treading. Like quicksand actually, the more you fight, the more stuck you become…
Then you have to wake up in the morning and find a reason to go out into the world, dodge all the bullets that everyone is shooting at you… Or in your way. You have to see that in the midst of everything, that there is a path that you can walk along. it’s not an easy path, by no means will it be apparent where you are going half the time. You just have to follow it. you have to find something, hope that at the end of the path there is a niche carved out that you will fit in and you will find your sense of belonging. There is no clearly visible and well-lit point in carrying on when you don’t know where you are really going, but you just have to.
Hoping for a sudden sense of relevance to emerge like a burst of sunshine from behind a cloud feels silly, like waiting for a massive tank to fill from the drip-drip of a tap, but haba na haba hujaza kibaba…
The world still turns. It will rotate again and again, till the darkness you are in is broken by a dawn of belonging…

si you’re my fans?: how to be a kenyan ‘artist’

Thanks to Montana, with whom this topic was discussed at length, with lots of ranting, but mostly laughs in the end.
There are quite a number of entertainers in Kenya. I use the term ‘entertainers’ carefully here, because some of them do nothing more than repeating themselves over and over, thinking that the screams from the crowd are from sheer delight/pleasure rather than horror and pain.
Many people are of the opinion that it takes some class of genius to become an artist in Kenya. Indeed it does. But then it also takes a bit of scandal to help you rise above all the other pretenders to the throne.
Here’s how to achieve artist-itude in 5 easy steps.
1. Create a scandal
Everyone remembers a scandal. The best thing is to do something completely out of your character. If you’re the one with dreads and the whole Jamaican bobo shanti vibe going, have pictures ‘accidentally’ taken of you getting a manicure at some uptown salon with those pseudo-French names. Get a shocked face, try to hide if you can, and make sure the one doing your nails gets asked all the questions. Tell her to tell the curious public that you go there all the time, and that you do a lot more than get your nails done at the place.
Suddenly you have an audience. Which leads to step number 2.
2. Ignore your fans
Certainly, with your ‘art’, you will attract a fanbase. Maybe it’s your neighbour, or that guy you owe money so he’s constantly asking you for his cash back, being as you just bought a ridiculously overpriced phone you can’t use… With time, you get recognized. That’s the nature of the game, or whatever you artist types call it.
So with time, you will be afforded the luxury of a fanbase, people who listen/look out for your stuff. Ignore them when they stop you on the street or at an event. What do they know? You’re important now, a celeb even. Say it out loud how you wish there was a way to keep some people away from your events. they’ll still show up, right?
Who’s the important one with his face on a t shirt? You of course.
So your face is on a t-shirt, and people are paying good money for it. Time for step 3…
3. Buy something ridiculously expensive that you don’t even need
You know that diamond-encrusted nose-hair trimmer you’ve always wanted? No? Now you want one. Fame = money = image. Image is everything. Look like you have money, otherwise nobody will want to listen to you. It works. Have you not seen the stuff people have lying around in their houses, or that they drive around? Get a car that needs its own oil well to maintain. You deserve it.
So you’re making money… People are paying you to show up and lip synch along to your own track, right? Time to burn some bridges, or as we say it in the biz, on to the next one, number 4…
4. Diss people
The best people to diss are those you admire. that will get their attention. Other good people to diss are the ones that made you. No, not your folks. Wait… That can work. The people that put you where you are, that gave you the push that got your ‘artist’ career started. What do they know? Fine, they got you where you are, but if they didn’t do anything you would still have ended up where you are, right?
Go on, write that diss track. How else will you honour them?
Bridges have been burned, and those clowns don’t want anything to do with you… But who needs them? You made it. In fact, you made it so hard that you can quit altogether… Which is where number 5 comes in…
5. Be a one-hit wonder
The best way to be remembered is to do one smash hit and then disappear into obscurity. That way there is no way you can top yourself. Leave the country. Blame things on invisible people and the ‘haters’. Haters will always bring you down, right? Who cares if they’re real or not. They hate. That’s a bad thing.
Even better than a one-hit wonder, constantly remix your one hit. Do collabos. Make enough remixes to fill an album and sell it to those fans you ditched back at #3.

All the best. You are officially a Kenyan ‘artist’. Get ready for guest spots on all those deejay shows they have. Heck, get your own show. And build your career. Leave school. School is for sad people who wear suits and make boring speeches about the bottom line. You are the cutting edge baby, yeah…

what is love?

Pray tell
What is this love
That is dreaded and longed for in equal measure
That both puts the heart at ease and raises the pressure
That hurts and heals
That builds and destroys
That fills and makes hungry
That quenches thirst and dries the throat
That fills one with words
And takes the same words away
That opens the mind
And closes it at that instant

What irony is this
That love should be blamed for so much ill
And the very same love
Is touted as the cure to these ills
That love should be so open in its appearance
And cloaked in mystery
So routine and mundane,
Yet bursting at the seams with newness
Feeling so right
And yet so wrong…

What is this love
That blinds so many
But opens their eyes to other things
As high as the highest mountains
As wide as the boundless oceans
As deep as the valleys of the earth
As narrow as the space between you and me

Such is love
Its meaning is lost when you try to understand it
But to go unguided risks getting lost
It is personal
But felt by everyone
It is the end of ends
The beginning of beginnings
It is the indulgence of the body
It is the victory of the soul…
It is, after all, love…

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Dance or Die – Janelle Monae ft Saul Williams

Cyborg, android, d-boy, decoy,
water, wisdom, tightrope, vision,
insight, stronghold, heartless, ice cold, mystery, mastery, solar, battery

Some will pull the gun because they want to be stars
Snatching up your life into the blink of an eye
And if you see your cloning on a street walking by
Keep a running for your life cause only one will survive
War is in the street and it’s an eye for an eye
Run on for your life or you can dance you can die
She’s praying in the sand like she’s the last samurai
It’s a stick up stick up and a pick up pick up
Telling lies and telling lies will put your face on fire
Run and tell your friends to never dream, never win
Ghettos keep a crying out to streets full of zombies
Kids are killing kids and then the kids join the army
Rising and a waking, yes sir here comes the sun
March into the war and with the kick of the drum
The wiser simians have got the bombs and the guns
So you might as well keep dancing if you’re not gonna run

A long long way to find the one
We’ll keep on dancing till she comes
These dreams are forever
Oh these dreams are forever
And if you wanna wake the sun
Just keep on marching to the drums
These dreams are forever
Oh these dreams are forever

Now I’m not saying it’s better to bailar (Spanish for dance)
You can pull the trigger or you can build you an ark
My words are rather kind you keep them held in contempt
Looking for a nine and then a droid you can tempt
Zombie, zombie, zombie, where do dreams come from?
A little bird is chirping and she’s singing a song
She’s shaking em and waking em and giving em mas
As the clock tick tocks and the bodies drop
I’m gonna lay myself so far way down right in your chops
Modern day example of the wolf vs flock
Freedom necessary and it’s by any means
Frozen they were stolen all the kings and queens
Sudanese and Congolese who put the roll in the rock
From here to Sudan, Metropolis to Iraq
It’s a minute to the dawn and yet the sun ain’t back
It’s still a war in all the stress and yes freaks will dance or die

A long long way to find the one
We’ll keep on dancing till she comes
These dreams are forever
Oh these dreams are forever
And if you wanna wake the sun
Just keep on marching to the drums
These dreams are forever
Oh these dreams are forever

Angel, blossom, gunshot, dodging,
dream, bright, beat, light,
breathe, live, help, give, focus, trance, wake up, dance!

I’m praying for the man sitting without much time
May he understand the clock will never rewind
Wisen him and sharpen him and give him a motto
hate no more, said he must hate no more
You see the daylight comes into the kingdom
But the kingdom’s full of ignorant men
Just keep rebelling away, you gotta dream it away
Because the weatherman on TV ain’t creating the weather
This man wants to see another jubilation
And that man wants us in emancipation
And then there is the man who wants a stronger nation
You see we really got to and i think that we ought to
Protect the mind from degradation
Sow in the seeds of education
They run from us, are we that dangerous?
There’s a war in all the streets and yes the freaks must dance or die!