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THE VILLAGE NEWS
FROM THE EDITOR
21 April 2021
Let’s share our resources
While human beings are social animals, living in close proximity to one another is not always a piece of cake. Let us not forget that we are earth’s super-predators. There is no one higher up the food chain to keep our numbers in check, so we turn on one another instead, or even worse, we take out our frustrations on defenceless animals. Or both… The level of violence in this country, and indeed the world, is frightening. We are killing each other for greater control over the resources. Indeed, we are rapidly destroying the very earth itself through our uncontrollable greed. Looking back on this pandemic year which
came at us from the left field, a lesson that many of us thought we’d learnt during the first weeks of lockdown, just a year ago, was that we could live quite comfortably without all the ‘stuff’ with which we surround our lives and homes. Yet, as lockdown lifted, it took many of us no time at all to revert to our old habits of mass consumerism, while poverty continued to escalate across the country.
Take the matter of baboons, for example. Is it because their habits are so similar to our own, that we can’t find a way to live with them? If food is easily available, they will take it, just like us. The only difference is that they share it amongst themselves and don’t waste it; neither do they decide to chase us over the mountains or even euthanise us, so that they can have more for themselves.
And instead of nurturing the spirit of human kindness that characterised our response to the crisis, to a large extent we have given up loving our neighbour and resorted to squabbling amongst ourselves at best, or murdering one another at worst.
Many of us have decided to live in this beautiful part of the country because we love being close to nature, but when nature strolls through the open door, we scream and run for our shotguns. And then, on top of it, we fight with one another about how to deal with the problem.
NEWS PUBLISHING EDITOR
Hedda Mittner
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Similarly, when the economy starts to pick and ‘we’re all right, Jack,’ why do we so quickly forget about the inequality on our doorstep? One thing Covid should have hammered home to us is the fact that we are one community and what affects the most vulnerable of us, affects us all. If for no other reason than our own survival, it is absolutely imperative that we find a way to share our resources with the less fortunate. And with our big brains, we can. This is the good NEWS – Ed.
Writer’s cramp vs writer’s block
THE VILLAGE
De Waal Steyn
With our huge brains, surely we can find a less confrontational means of finding a win-win solution.
By Murray Stewart murray.stewart49@gmail.com
studied nor had any interest in at all. Who would, really?
tualism, she was persuaded to take part in a séance. “It’s all codswallop anyway,” she scoffed.
T
he For Fact’s Sake columns are – according to Google research and the Duck ’n Fiddle’s archives – based in truth.
Phantom of the Author Hélène Truter, who shares this space with me, recently started her Sugar & Spice column with: I’m staring at a blank screen. I have to find a topic for my column… Well, Hélène, you’re not alone. Even internationally acclaimed columnists will sometimes encounter that vacuum. They/we first need to find an interesting topic, then hopefully write about it in a way that prevents readers from dozing off in the third paragraph. Well, we’re about to launch into paragraph three, so seatbelts please – things are about to get a bit weird. One lady, who inexplicably didn’t have this ‘blank screen’ vacuum, was a certain Mrs Pearl Curran from St Louis, Missouri. She was a regular housewife and mom – not a scholarly type at all. She had no interest in history, seldom read a book, and knew nothing about the subtleties or nuances of writing anything longer than a grocery list. Why would she? But with no literary aspirations at all, and a family/pets/household to run, all that changed dramatically one July evening in 1913. Despite her disdain for mediums and spooky spiri-
The intelligence and wit of the elusive Patience Worth continued to baffle psychologists for years, but to Pearl she was just a spiritual soulmate who pitched up regularly to recount fascinating tales of days gone by in far-off lands.
Then, with her hand on the Ouija board, she spelled out the name ‘Patience Worth’– someone she’d never heard of. But from that moment on, Pearl and the phantom Patience – whoever or whatever she was – became close friends.
Anyway, either Shakespeare or Zappa wrote, You gotta get out of it before you get into it, and I’m sure different wordsmiths have their own dubious methods of seeking inspiration from the Muse, some of which – I’ve been told – actually work. But artificially stimulated creativity aside, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Patience would just pop in now and again for coffee and an afternoon of dictation?
Through her writings – dictated telepathically to her by Patience – she penned a set of historical novels over the next few years in a variety of period styles. They ranged from The Sorry Tale, set in the time of Christ, to Hope Trueblood, a romantic novel from the 19th century which received wide acclaim.
She would no doubt come up with an interesting topic for our next column – instead of being the topic of interest in this one. So, if anyone is having a séance soon, please let our editor know. We writers need to find out more about Patience. Does she dictate in Afrikaans as well? Can we maybe Skype her? Is there an Ouija board app?
One critic wrote: “Definite and clear-cut characterisation, good dialogue and arresting runs of subtle expression.” I’m sure we’re all delighted that she can arrest her runs. Expressively. Anyway, she was so prolific, she’d often flipflop seamlessly between two or more books – one chapter at a time – depending on what Patience dictated to her. She not only wrote novels and poems, but would reply in period prose to a range of subjects put to her by historians, scientists, the clergy and a pole-dancer (the latter unverified).
Now, for our younger readers, the term ‘writer’s cramp’ in the headline (Lat: scribulatis agonium) refers to the hand-pains experienced from scribbling frantically for extended periods while clutching a pen or pencil. Remember them? They’re those long, thin things with a point at one end where the words come out.
However, her remarkable knowledge of language and style led to her most highly acclaimed work, Telka, a novel set in medieval England. It was written flawlessly in ‘ye olde English’ of the time, which Pearl had never
Oops, gotta go! Screen’s full, and my laptop needs sharpening.
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The next editon of The Village NEWS will be out on 28 April 2021.
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