Seasons greetings everyone. I know that, as you read this, Christmas will have passed — it’s almost time to usher in the New Year. I write, sitting in a sumptuous sunken garden, surrounded by leafy abundance, in a friend’s Graskop, Mpumalanga home.
It’s a moderate 24ºC here on the very edge of the escarpment. The little town of Hazyview in the Lowveld, a mere 30-minute descent into the valley below us, registers a hot and humid 35ºC.
News from Johannesburg and Durban is that the country is in the grip of a heatwave so intense that warnings have been issued. The old, infirm and very young need to stay indoors and keep hydrated. Here in Graskop, clouds have gathered over the vast valley floor below us and are being blown towards the high shelf on which we sit.
It’s like an angry fight raging in your hat when those soggy black clouds dump their load, with much hissing and spitting and steam coming off the pavements and the hot earth. It’s that close.
I’m a little obsessed by temperature at the moment, consumed with the thought of being very, very cold or blisteringly hot. It’s not surprising since I’ve been subjected to extremes in the past few weeks.
At the beginning of December, I flew into New York where the night time low was -3ºC and the daytime high never more than 3ºC. Moving quickly from -3ºC to 35ºC is uncomfortable even if it seasonally appropriate (despite the temperatures being unusually extreme).
The brands, the labels, the fashions, the trends, the food — almost everything your heart desires is available in all the capitals of the world
Being very cold then very hot and sticky started me thinking about the differences, but mostly the similarities, of a world that has begun to look the same, no matter where you are. McDonald’s arches in Bangkok or Bethlehem; Prada outlets in Sydney and Singapore; Korean barbecue in Seoul or Sintra.
The brands, the labels, the fashions, the trends, the food — almost everything your heart desires is available in all the capitals of the world. Same Same, the Thais call it. Which is why in situ experiences are so precious, and revealing about the things that are being assimilated into our cultures, making us different, but more alike than we have e ever been.
“Technology,” my 25-year-old nephew said to me as I bemoaned the loss of that lovely distinct flavour that hit you when you arrived in a foreign destination. Technology has given us all equal access to information and therefore, the homogeneity of the world is underway.
Massive Mao
We were standing in a very packed room in front of Andy Warhol’s enormous portrait of Chairman Mao, the mass murderer he painted disrespectfully with rouged cheeks, eye shadowed lids and stained lips. It’s a massive work, two floors high at least.
An aside: The Whitney museum is one of my favourite in Manhattan, visited at least once a month when I lived in New York in the late 1990s. It was recently moved from museum mile on the upper East Side to the lower west side, gloriously situated next to the Hudson River with breathtaking views of the river and the city from the top floor terrace.
Back to Andy Warhol, who remained a man of mystery despite all the hundreds of hours devoted to documenting and recording his life. The comprehensive retrospective of the work of this intriguing 20th-century artist, whose life has become the stuff of legend, is awe-inspiring.
His illness, his depravity, his genius, his passion, his shooting by Valerie Solanas in 1968 — all these elements, and a lot more, have been examined in detail. Walking around the extensive collection I felt a deep sense of pride: I’d seen a lot of these works already, knew parts of his story. I’d seen them in Johannesburg, in July 2017, at the Wits Arts Museum.
There on the Whitney walls were Warhol’s artistic depiction of utilitarian things: soup cans, coke bottles, kitchen scourers; his silk screened portraits hung together to form a giant portrait of faces; his naughty line drawings; his collaborated work with famed graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat; his movies and interviews…
It was in front of the giant, made-up Mao that I realised how we South Africans need to stop beating up on ourselves as a cultural backwater. It was the same feeling I had at The Met, watching a production of Puccini’s La Bohème, one of my favourite operas.
Like the roads that criss-cross Johannesburg, New York’s main avenues and streets are riddled with pot-holes
I watched the old Franco Zeffirelli production that I’ve seen many times before, marveling at the new stars on the stage. Unknown names to me: Vittorio Grigolo as Rodolfo, Kristine Opolais as Mimi, Susanna Phillips as Musetta.
The same opera put on by Gauteng Opera in July last year had me just as excited. It might not have been as slick as the Lincoln Centre version, and the sets might not have been as grandm but the voices of Vuyani Mlinde and Khayakazi Madlala although lighter, were also sweet. Factor in, too, that my Johannesburg ticket cost R300, and my New York ticket cost R4,500.
Joburg vs the Big Apple
I found other similarities between the two cities that I love, Johannesburg and New York, and not good ones.
Both have to deal with ageing infrastructure. Like the roads that criss-cross Johannesburg, New York’s main avenues and streets are riddled with pot-holes. Travelling along 9th Avenue one evening was a bumpy affair. Not only was the street pockmarked with loose fillings, but large tracts of the avenue were blocked off to traffic — both for road repairs and, it seemed, to fix leaking water pipes.
Cities need constant maintenance and New York, a Wall Street banker friend told me, was almost broke. He said that the legalisation of marijuana was being considered — just to pay the exorbitant bill estimated for the clean-up and rejuvenation of a decaying city.
Something has to give when millions of people occupy the same small space.
The one thing we can be proud that is different between these two cities is this: we are Trump-free. It’s something that makes us South Africans sigh with relief.
Just this week, Trump made a secret trip to Iraq to visit American troops after he’d shifted US foreign policy and announced the withdrawal of 2,000 US troops from Syria. The Middle East, and US allies went into panic.
On his return from the unscheduled PR trip, Trump took a stance against one of America’s staunchest allies, Israel, saying the US gave the country enough money to defend itself.
His autocratic style is, well, reminiscent of someone we recently got rid of … remember our own law unto himself Jacob Zuma? Are you not relieved we don’t have a Trump in charge?
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