deur Philip John
Hy staan in die deur, leun amper teen die deurkosyn langs hom. Agter hom skuifel 'n bedelaar aan die ander kant van die groot ruite krom en verweerd verby. Blonde surfershare, 'n corduroyerige donkergroen broek en 'n liggroen laphemp. Nogal soos ek my voorgestel het. Heel nonchalant, miskien wel 'n sweempie meerderwaardigheid. Dan weer, mens kan nie altyd tussen "cool" en anomiese aanstellerigheid onderskei nie, nè. Ek vang sy oog en hy kom vinnig nader.
Die oomblik is verby dat hy die "Bar Oke" is, soos hy dit in een van sy stukke noem. Dié stuk is in die bundel Water Features, wat 'n versameling is van die rubriek wat hy skryf vir die Eastern Cape Herald, asook kort stukke wat elders gepubliseer is. Hy het ook 'n soortgelyke eerste bundel gepubliseer, Life's a Beach, met 'n soortgelyke aanslag, maar meer op branderry toegespits.
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Een van die filosofiese grondbeginsels van branderry (uit: Life's a Beach)
"Time and tide wait for no man," says the proverb, and boy, ain't it just the truth. |
Op die agterste muur wys die horlosies dit is 06h20 in New York, 12h35 in Londen, 20h10 in Tokyo en 14h35 in Port Elizabeth. Dit mag ooglopend wees, dié verwysing na die kosmopolitiese, maar dit wérk. Angelo's is propvol, die stemme raas, die tramezzini's en die borde pasta marsjeer in gelid uit die kombuis. Maar dis sekerlik ook omdat die kos goedkoop is en smaaklik, die porsies pasta rojaal. As daar gepraat kan word van 'n buzz in die Baai, is dit hier. Buite in Parliamentstraat, soos die res van Sentraal, is dit klassieke Yeoville - of soos dit was in die tagtigerjare. In die ou dae het mense gesê om na die Baai te kom, was om soos op 'n argeologiese reis te wees. Alles vyf jaar agter die tyd: die letties kwaaier as elders, hul haarstyle die kortste in die land, hul vuishoue die hardste; die Sataniste bedrywiger as elders, die afstand wat mens val as jy van die Van Stadensrivierbrug spring hoër... Soos Tinus Horn se karakter in Hemel op aarde sê: hy verkies Johannesburg met al die geweld en misdaad, want daar weet mens darem waar jy staan, maar in Sentraal in die Baai voel jy altyd op die rand van iets anders, onbekends.
Ons sit en hy begin die gesprek:
HE: So, you said you wanted to talk about my books...? How did it happen, is it only Greener Grass that you are interested in?
PJ: No, Greener Grass got me going. I got it last December at Fogarty's. It was amazing to see so many books published by authors themselves. There was a thing by Graham Etherington Black Madonna..
...whooo, that was scary. I read one page and left it...
Yes, good stuff, mixing up the Civil Cooperation Bureau and the Templar Knights, with a Samurai sword thrown in for good measure. And a book about the epic journey of a leopard, I think, and then a collection of letters to Mbeki by some enraged citizen. But Greener Grass grabbed me. I read it in one sitting, although I would have liked to savour it, especially the bits that made me remember and think back. So, that's why. Why do you ask?HE: One always wants to know, get some feedback.
PJ: Well, I can tell you I enjoyed it and wished it a broader readership. You know, and I wanted to find out why you published yourself, and so on. How is it going?It has paid for itself, but it's marginal. It sold quite well here in PE.
PJ: Did it get any attention?There's been some reviews - Student Life, FHM, and then in surfing magazines because my previous books were about surfing. Also in Blunt, Zigzag, and so on. I was lucky because I started doing a column in The Herald. There were people there that enjoyed my writing.
PJ:How did that come about?It was, like I say, I got a job. Basically, they said you have to go out and start reporting. It was actually on one of those scream sheets, those papers
| KRYP "I think the word comes from kryptonite - from the Superman comics. It's that green stuff that makes him lose all his powers." |
PJ: You comment quite interestingly on popular culture in these books, there is always an interesting connection or association made between unexpected parts of our world...I try to say a lot of things at the same time, at a couple of different levels, so I suppose whatever you look for, you'll find it.
PJ: Did you study journalism at all?Ja, I did journalism for three years. At Rhodes.
PJ: Did it make a difference?When I was doing the course? Shuu..t, you know... I reckon I could have learned everything I did there in three or four years in something like six or eight months on the paper. A large part of my time at varsity was spent jolling. It wasn't a total waste and it wasn't the most relevant... I think it is too long you know, it is basically a skill.
PJ: Do you read?Yes, a lot. At the moment this one by Germaine Greer. I'm still in the early days on that. She's obviously a strong, angry woman, she doesn't pull any punches ...
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Branderryers kan nie funksioneer sonder vrouens nie, soos "The Art of Chick-perving" leer (uit: Life's a Beach):
"Check that body, brah." |
PJ: Ja, I don't know, I like her poetry, but her journalism.... I think she is too angry to be a good journalist.Ya, Partiality.... no, she's definitely not impartial, not even an attempt at impartiality. Maybe in that way she is not a good journalist, but, not all journalism should be impartial. In some cases, .. you know, the TRC, there is a lot of emotions built in there .... You know, it might even be wrong to report about it unemotionally... Ag,.. I'm glad I read the book, that's for sure. I was also .. I was editing at the time of the Truth Commission. And I had to read all those stories, cut them to length, and so on. And even that was traumatic, hey, just working with the stories.
Dit is duidelik dat ons hier op effens ... hhmmm ... onvaste grond is. Miskien 'n te teer onderwerp om 'n gesprek met 'n onbekende te hê... Gelukkig bring die kelnerin 'n onderbreking en die effense ongemaklikheid kan na 'n paar slukke en happe ongemerk verdwyn.It was quite weird, I suppose I thought I put too much into it, you know, trying to be narratively experimental and the theme was quite experimental.PJ: Like I was saying, Greener Grass caught my attention because I thought it had an interesting structure...
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He gambled on love and lost. Now he was lost in the same cross-cultural limbo as all the other Euro-fixated African whities. Sitting in beautiful mother Africa pining for a plane ticket to the Big Smoke. Taking drugs to improve the view in the most beautiful continent of them all. Same as us wankers, popping acid to make Victoria Falls look better. Lurking in dingy basement nightclubs smashing eccies to make us love each other; when we're in Africa, home of ubuntu, love for your fellow man. "That's mos why the dutchmen call us soutpielle," says Mark. "One foot in Africa, one in Europe, with our dicks hanging in the sea. During the struggle I used to get fully bitter about that. But check it out now. We've got democracy, and it's the English that are bailing and the Afrikaners are sticking it out" (Greener Grass, p. 126). |
PJ: People are strange, they can easily be dismissive about that, they pick it up and then see the, what does one call it.... the dialect, what's the word ......vernacular, slang..
PJ:... and they say, hey, subculture ... or something...and they say, it's not literature. But, I mean this is what just about every review that I've ever got said, "great book, it'll never be great literature, still a good read". But I mean, my point is, if you look, I don't know if you've ever read A Clockwork Orange, he basically invented his own dialect, and that is one of the classics of the twentieth century. Dialect is what you gotta do. Look at Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, if you don't know Scottish, you can barely understand what he says. When you are writing about something like that, you've gotta use slang, otherwise you are going to make it so like ... anodyne, so basically .. bland, you are not going to communicate what that subculture is like.
PJ: the subculture, it is also that people don't want to know about...Hhmm, but that's the subculture that a lot of people's children and all that are gonna end up in. ... It needs to be brought to people's attention. It is a cautionary tale in some ways, and in some other ways I suppose it is glamorising. You have to see it from the inside and from the outside..
PJ: How does the surfing fit into all this?
Not so seriously anymore, I do it just to relax, might go this afternoon. I've been doing it since I was a little kid, so I take it for granted that it is my pastime. I really enjoyed it, travelled a lot ...
PJ: How do you fit into the cultural, the art, scene scene, here in PE - is there something like that?A lot of stuff, performance art. People keep busy, but ultimately there is not enough to earn a living from art. People usually end up in Johannesburg, Cape Town... A lot of interesting, creative people come out the Eastern Cape.
PJ: Yes, the Eastern Cape actually has a reputation for eccentricity...Maybe because nothing will have much of a commercial prospect anyway, so you don't have to be shackled by thoughts about whether your work will sell, you can be as creative as you like. The whole question of making a living comes later. When I was at university I enjoyed New Journalism, a hot topic, it was a hot topic when I was there. Writing factual stories in a novelistic way. It is something I enjoy, doing news reporting once in a while. And try to write the story so it seems as interesting as possible. Its one of the main problems with journalism, it is not, it doesn't keep you reading. Often, if you read a news story, you read the first paragraph, and you know what the whole story is gonna be.
PJ: Are you involved in other literary things?I also do a little magazine here in town. I've done three issues. It's called Skyf, it's like an entertainment
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Ook in Greener Grass (vir die volgende besoek aan die Baai):
Joe's your basic drug house. Semi-detached Central digs. | |
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PJ: What does the support from readers look like?The people love it, but you end up just giving it away.
PJ: Have you ever thought about leaving PE?Hey, I must.
PJ: Why?Well, I suppose to get a bigger audience. If you're in Cape Town you get to meet more people. Here I don't get the feeling of being part of a community. There's a lot more things happening there and the more things happen, the more inspiration you get.
Sy selfoon lui en hy praat met iemand oor reëings vir die res van die middag. Wanneer hy afskakel, vra hy om verskoning. Nou ja, dis seker al iets.Life here is peaceful, you know, but it can get a bit much. I've lived here my whole life. You can get into a rut, too much of a comfort zone is not always good either. I always think of Athol Fugard, he never really left, but I mean, not everyone is Athol Fugard. And things were probably a lot more exciting then. But then, look at the exciting times we have. You just have to find the issues to write about, the stories.
That's the hardest part. You can find the actual narrative, like, what's gonna happen. You have to keep the readers attention. You can write more interesting stuff where nothing is happening, just meandering. That's what I find myself doing, when I'm not concentrating on a particular story, you know, what's going to happen next.
PJ: You know, what particularly caught my attention in Greener Grass was what I would call some "circular element" in the structure...in what way?
PJ: If I remember correctly, it starts quite close to the beginning where the dog mugs this one character in a toilet and steals his dope, and this dog then appears in all the stories, he crosses everyone's path..Like a little linking device, yah, I suppose. Originally that story was by itself and I wanted to tie them all together.
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Daar's lewe in die Baai, ook:
"Joey? Shoo. He's not so little these days. He's dealing with some big boys. Nigies, ous from the northern areas... The dude got mugged by a dog the other day. It was the weirdest thing." (Greener Grass, p. 119). |
PJ: For me, it has interesting implications, because it ties together all these different communities.Yah...
PJ: But that would be unsettling to a lot of people because it is through dope, the only unifying......the only linking between people... hey, I stand by that. In a lot of ways that is the only link. That's why I called my magazine Skyf. If you think of the social scene, you basically define yourself, the subcultures basically define themselves in terms of their drugs of choice. Either you smoke zol or you drink booze, or you do heroin, or you are on crack, or cocaine or ecstacy. It's very much a specific drug that defines what that subculture does to relax or whatever.
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Vir my klink dit soos iets uit Greener Grass (p. 32):
"But that's where you're wrong," he exhales wheezily, eyes wide and bloodshot, resin all over his fingers as he makes his point. "The system poisoned her mind against pot. The same way they've poisoned everybody else into thinking zol is bad, so they won't even entertain the idea that it's actually the healing of the nation that will save the planet. (Al wat die karakter soek, is 'n bietjie dagga, maar wat hy kry, is 'n uitgerekte sosiokulturele analise). |
PJ: I just had to say that, you know..It's cool. You know how many people smoke. The Rastas say, it will be the healing of the nation, that's what they talk about. So, who knows?
PJ: healing the nation...Bringing people together. The thing in the book was trying to get into that whole kind of thing, into the dope culture. It was a kind of anthropology issue as well. In twenty years time...
PJ: it can be a kind of social document in terms of the slang...Initially you have to be quite brave to be as honest as you can.
PJ: The slang also shows how people take from other cultures...Of course. Daar's baie leenwoorde, and that kind of stuff.. I really enjoy the Eastern Cape in that way. I think we are quite, uhm, integrated in that way, compared to other places
PJ: I went to the CNA to buy a gift voucher and asked the woman at the till - she's Afrikaans - I asked her for 'n "geskenkbewys" and she told me to go see the supervisor, who just laughed and told me to tell the woman at the till that I want a "gift voucher".Casper de Vries has a skit about exactly that, about Afrikaans people and proper Afrikaans words for things that are not really used. Like, what, he does one about the Afrikaans word for a doggy bag, is a "woefkardoes". So he wonders what you get when you go, "Kelner, ek wil asseblief 'n woefkardoes hê vir my vrou". Ja, but it is like that, Afrikaans words in English, English in Afrikaans. Actually, you know, I wrote an article about that, the English people must get a bit more, you know, wys. Because Afrikaans is such a dynamic language, there is so much ad hoc things that people are taking from other languages. It works so well, this kind of mengelmoes, it is so South African. And the English are a bit more aloof, they don't seem to always be prepared to take on the other languages. Maybe it is because the little pockets where English is spoken, tends to be isolated.
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Besoek Hagen Engler se tuisblad: | |
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