Richard Williams LUSH LIFE: A BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hajdu (Granta, R89,95) Jazz has produced several memorable threnodies – one thinks of John Lewis’s lament for Django Reinhardt or Charles Mingus’s salute to Lester Young – but none more affecting than Blood Count, recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1967, a few […]
Some call burning flesh a `rite of passage’. Others say it’s an ugly throwback to slavery. But it’s a hot fashion statement, writes Lonnae O’Neal Parker Imagine a carefully fashioned coat-hanger, slow-roasted over the blue-green flame of a Magic Chef range, heading for the fleshy expanse of your upper arm, your chest or the side […]
Lizeka Mda Luvundu Junior Secondary School looks very familiar. After about 8km of gravel road out of Willowvale, I drive around the bend and there are the two characterless cream- coloured blocks of classrooms, joined by a shorter one for the staff room and principal’s office to make a U-shape. A new block of five […]
Derek Malcolm Not quite the movie of the week This year’s Venice festival kicked off with a new work by an old master. At least some would call Woody Allen that – rather more, as he keeps on saying, in Europe than in the United States. He was not in town for the premiere of […]
The most famous lover of all time spent his twilight years as a librarian in a little- known Czech town. Kate Connolly reports Macaroni, crayfish, and duck in marmalade sauce was on the menu at a strange little dinner in a dilapidated castle in northern Bohemia last week. The guests were as weirdly diverse as […]
code Nick Hopkins and Keith Devlin When The Bible Code was published, even the most grudging cynics had to admit something astonishing was afoot. The book claimed to have discovered hidden messages within the scriptures which predicted major events in world history. References to World War II, the Gulf conflict, the assassination of John F […]
After Jackie Brown and Get Shorty he’s hot in Hollywood and hailed as a literary genius by writers like Amis and Bellow. But few realise that the king of crime fiction thinks most filmed versions of his novels have been junk. Lawrence Donegan reports In the Squad Seven room at 1300 Beaubein beats the dark […]
Mungo Soggot A 48-year-old father who was beaten into a coma by police is launching two legal battles against the police. Farouk Juman and his family were driving through the Johannesburg suburb of Lenasia in April 1996 when he accidentally bumped into a policeman on a corner which is notorious for criminal activity. Three policemen […]
Wealthy and successful South African women are taking their place in the business world, writes Ferial Haffajee Meet the uptown girls … if you can get an appointment. Everybody’s clamouring to wine and dine Hazel Ralefeta, Wendy Luhabe, Salukazi Dakile-Hlongwane and their friends. If you don’t know the names, get to know them fast. These […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon In Wachthuis mugs did Meyer Kahn A stately drivel-dome decree; Where George, the sacred fuzzman, ran By canons measureless to man Down to a Muf’madi. I think we’ve got ourselves a real treasure in Meyer Kahn, CEO of the South African Roundheads: Atmosphere for Crime Control Division. Not only is our […]