toli: n. 1. A juicy piece of news. 2. The latest word or gossip. 3. The talk of the town, typically a salacious or risque tale of intrigue, corruption or foolishness. (Ga language, Ghana, West Africa)
Late afternoon at the Africarib market,
The brothers in the know were picking up some yam
Man cannot live on bread alone
(A fresh shipment of puna yam had just arrived from the motherland)
I was more interested in the kenkey that had also arrived that Wednesday,
Driven up from Houston by an ex-military man in a jeep; His wife was the one who prepared the kenkey
The Nigerians were out in force - Yam for their swallow obviously, and much more:
Stockfish, herring and even snails. The shop was well stocked today
One of the elders recounted a long tale about how hard things were back home - believe him
We learned about the three year old child who was suffering, crying when he'd last called home
The story was that two ears of corn had been prepared in the morning - his share for the day
But that before it could be given out, a fowl - unclear whether it was a chicken or guinea fowl,
Had gone behind him - poor thing, and absconded with the corn
And the child had set about on the chase, and duly tripped and fell,
And was now disconsolate, bleeding, and still crying hours after the deed
And hungry too, for the corn was long gone
There was an object lesson in the tale about the hardships that our people were facing,
Inflation, poverty and worse - how for do? Na wow
Now even little ones have to compete with fowls for their daily corn
Just then we saw the headlines On the screen above the check out counter
Breaking news, school shooting... CNN... Two children killed... many injured... More to follow
"So these people... School don open just this week and they go shoot am...
America..." Shaking heads all around.
Our laments about the continent were cut short - these people
I quickly settled with Walter. And made my excuses to the circle:
"I need to pick up the kids from school"
Head nods. We all sobered up promptly, The expected banter postponed for another time
I'll admit, I drove rather fast to the school
Oh! I think I'm going to have to end this presentation now
I... I just got a message... It's on the news?... Oh wow
There's... there's an active shooter at my daughter's high school
What's that? Yes, yes, I have a number of action items
Look, I'll.. I'll schedule another teleconference
I have to go now. Rob can handle things. Um, Rob over to you
Mics unmuted. Gasps. Harrumphs.
Worldwide expressions of sympathy
This is America.
This is the country's regular brand of insanity
Still, action items? Who asked that? Poor form. Absurdity.
What is wrong with you, man? Where is your humanity?
It was a brief encounter, a coyote sighting in the urban jungle
Just the other day on our walk, it was quite exciting
It brought to mind a time of my life that I'd blocked from my memory
A time, long uninterrogated, that I've thought best left forgotten
But once the beast darted out, I could hardly help myself
The memories of those 18 months at Coyote Point returned
The whims of memory lead one to arbitrary endpoints
And so let me try to recall the tale of Coyote Point...
There's a long line of hotel-like establishments
In the mile stretch that leads to Coyote Point
They range from the upscale Holiday Inn hotel
To the lowest of the low, the by-the-hour motel
As to the motels, suffice to say, there were gradations
I guess you could call it a full spectrum of cockroaches
Thankfully providence lifted me out of the worst situations
I eventually settled on the Best Western Plus
A correction, the high end was a Holiday Inn and Suites
Let me not, on this point, Dear Reader, mislead
I lost my driver's license at one of them, was it the San Mateo SFO Airport Hotel?
Or rather America's Best Value Inn, where the pimps had so many stories to tell?
The Best Western Plus was quite swank in reality
But the first time I arrived, my eyes were rather bleary
The Nigerian hotel receptionist took one look at me
And assigned me to room 419. Well played, young lady
The Plus in the name makes quite a bit of difference
As our now 9 year old observed, a couple of years ago
We made the mistake, one weekend, in San Antonio
Of staying at a vanilla Best Western. Lesson learned
Those 18 months were trying, it was hard to understand
I was dealing with the whims of a Never Never Man
Who seemed to sabotage my every want and desire
And enjoyed raising the specter of me getting fired
He wanted me, he was adamant, to work in person
Said he absolutely needed me in the office
Yet I was working with people in India and Boston
Why couldn't I go with the remote option?
It was a strange kind of life if you ask me
But you make your own bed, your own destiny
I'd run headlong into an immovable object
And all I could do was protect my neck
Tuesday morning before dawn I'd get on the SuperShuttle
And head to Austin Bergstrom airport before the morning bustle
Four hours on the plane, find a rental car, drive to the office
Then, to add insult to injury, mostly attend teleconferences
I'd call it a day getting to five, and make my way to my provisional home
It was always a gamble, for I could never remember which was this week's abode
I hadn't expected this to be a permanent situation, I didn't plan this contingency
Nevertheless, living on a week by week basis, I kept pushing on grudgingly
What is there to say about those 100 days of dismay?
The traveling salesman life I lead, groundhog day
Leaving The Wife with infant and toddler in a new town
33 trips, I counted, before finally I threw in the towel
But back to Coyote Point, I only observed the place after work
After checking in, I'd find the Chinese restaurant where I got my roast duck
Because the motel food was little to non-existent and, quite frankly, sucked
Some rooms had a fridge, and a microwave for reheating, at others I was out of luck
The Mother-in-Law visited once, when she was passing through the Bay Area
Checking in on her wayward charge, seeing how I was dealing with this hysteria
That week I'd missed a booking, and was staying at a rather low rent joint
She might have been less alarmed if I'd shown her the best of Coyote Point
Ah right, the lost license, I shouldn't leave that dangling
It's another sad story that doesn't bear remembering
Ever walked up confidently to the TSA counter and opened your wallet
To pick out your license only to realize that it's lost. Woe is me, instant regret
Was it in the rental car? Or at the motel? Which one? Or was it at the office?
I checked my bags and pockets ten times, goddamn, I must have dropped it
The panicked calls to the rental company and the low rent motel
No time to get back to the rental and no ID even then. Well, hell
I'm still surprised that they let me get on that Thursday evening flight
With barely any identifying document, save my company badge, what a fright
It must have been the doctor's note that I carried, and my insurance card
Or was it that I looked so broken by that stage, man, times were hard
True they did give me the full TSA treatment
Examined me more closely than my wife after ten
Quadruple searched my bags, my clothes, and damn near every orifice
Yet I was so grateful this agent let me on the plane, I could have kissed him
Thankfully at the motel, America's Best Value Inn, the one with the pimps
They'd found my driver's license - phew I had escaped an identity crisis
But they were cheap, Mrs Singh and son, they were fixated on getting paid for its return
Man, I sweet talked her, gave a massive reward, paid for the Fedex courier, talk about heartburn
Oh, and after I totalled my car coming out of Walgreens in Hyde Park one night
I scrambled and managed to rent a Zipcar for the week to placate The Wife
And, at dawn the next day, it was back on the SuperShuttle to get on my flight
Praying that Never Never Man and the insurance company would do me right (He didn't)
With hindsight this was all plainly ridiculous, the kind of life I was leading
For the exiled soul and the immigrant, diffidence reigns, it's a self imposed precarity
Pride and vanity is all, we hold on to whatever scraps we hold of the American dream
There's none of the boldness of the American, born-and-raised, unafraid to cause a scene
I never once ventured to Coyote Point proper, my life was quite circumscribed
Now with Google Street View available, I can behold the luxuries I was denied
The motels were only a few blocks south from the edge of the golf course
Virtually browsing vicariously, I daresay I missed out on pleasant walks
It was all work and no play, the motels were the extent of my event horizon
Thus I missed out on a good location for aircraft spotting and birdwatching
But let me not continue in this vein, I assure you there was only trauma
A liminal life as a theater of the absurd piece, or something worthy of Kafka
For whatever reason, perhaps the poorly equipped minibar in those joints
I didn’t drown my sorrows. I remained equanimous, and never got drunk
The only photo I took in 18 months was in the hotel parking lot at Coyote Point
It was of a curious normally nocturnal visitor, I believe it was a civet, racoon or skunk
"Mommy?", her eyes twinkled with a mischievous smile,
"Were you born in the last century?"
Promptly disarmed, we waited to discern her purpose
To learn what aspect she would query about our new normalcy
In the event, she just giggled, she merely thought being old was funny
Thankfully, despite the upheaval, she hasn't lost her child's pose
This wasn't the moment to bring up our fraught modernity
Albeit there is reason enough as this pandemic stands
It was a half formed thought but she could have pursued any number of strands
In prior times, we would have spent the afternoon at the public libraries
Those venues now closed that are the stuff of wist and former memories
So many idle pleasures denied, what paradise have we lost?
...
Gee kindly Doctor Fauci
You know who's getting to be such a bore
The good doctor Walensky
That new CDC Director
Quite unlike her predecessor
Keeps saying that we need to mask up
And that restaurants should restrict capacity
Contra wishful thinking, a touch of reality
She seems to know what's in store
Think about it, would we have Dickens without child labour?
What a world when the youth of Bangladesh, or say, Ghana
Are no longer doing graveyard shifts in the textile factory
Or planting yams and pineapples in the hills of Aburi
Call me a contrarian Scrooge or a prematurely old codger
Our modern day Oliver Twists, Little Annies and Artful Dodgers
Coddled as they are with this modernity,
no longer have the hard knock life
My own childhood, despite my parents' challenges,
was blissfully free from strife
Kids these days have school, not farms and, get this,
activities for enrichment
Moreover they now constantly demand
fondleslabs of mobile entertainment
What about the old toys: stick, ball, string, dirt and box?
Is it nostalgia to ask, what paradise have we lost?
...
Gee kindly Doctor Fauci
Food banks can hardly be the response
To this covidious misery
Starving children don't cry
Tears waste too many calories
No, the kids are not alright
Parking lot wifi out of sight
True, man cannot live on bread alone
But surely you can find some crumbs to loan
Weathering the storm will no longer be available as an option
The mitigation plans will likely include revenue-generating units.
Permanent reductions in force provides you with time to pause,
Making the best of this unprecedented challenge,
Facing declines in the weeks and months ahead.
Today, we are announcing the next phase: very difficult steps
Financial mitigation measures likely include furloughs
Due in large part to your dedication, resilience and leadership
And we will closely monitor this unprecedented challenge
Reaching out directly for all you've done
We've always come through in order to mitigate emergency leave
Plans will likely include dedication to employees without work
We've been forced to make the shifts to our world-changing mission.
Leadership in these units has been through hard times before
But the university cannot extend this leave indefinitely
We can't thank you enough
And your understanding and commitment
Has touched every aspect of our learning
Our community has done research and operations
Where needed, adjusting to the COVID-19 crisis
Any budget shortfalls reflect upon our shared journey
An outstanding job with a strengthened sense of purpose
Here's a sign of these covidious times. After 25 years of living in houses equipped with them, I have started using a dishwasher with semi-regularity (now up to 53.125 percent of the time and rising - according to my rough calculations).
My previous aversion to the dishwasher has been a sore topic in my household. "You're washing dishes to avoid the issue" is a sentence that has been heard periodically, although the issue in question has changed with some regularity. Oops, am I revealing too much about marital life?
That last was a recycled joke (I know, I know - but 2006 was a rare vintage), which is still fitting because it's silly season which, as you might recall traditionally starts on the Bank Holiday at the end of May in Britain (Memorial Day in the United States). This year, along with the yearlong Winter in America, quoth Gil Scott-Heron, it has been a permanent silly season. We have a perfectly good English word to describe much of the behavior we are have been witnessing throughout the world during this pandemic: huhudious.
But back to The Dishwasher Situation...
Sheltering-in-place (that's American disaster bureaucratese for staying at home during a lockdown) has meant more meals and snacks at home, more dishes in short, and enough that the daily dish count has crossed a certain threshold where the normally mindless manual labour has moved past the soothing sensation of water and soap suds, and the occasionally-sensual applied fluid dynamics of dirt cleansing to actual annoyance. Sidenote: I pitched that description of hand dishwashing to the 7 and 9 year olds recently, and they were singularly unimpressed - kids these days...
Moving on... The thing these days is that I've started to appreciate what's actually important in life. In related news, Pandemic Eye Syndrome is a new disease affecting human beings that allows them to discern what is actually essential, and, like others afflicted with this new clear-eyed vision - a gift from a tiny clump of viral RNA from Planet SARS-CoV-2 in the Bat-Pangolin sector and the Minkquadrant of the galaxy, I'd rather minimize daily annoyance.
The British and American political response especially, lunacy in action, or should I say lunatic inaction, has left me triggered in that respect. Not that many others have covered themselves with glory, but I think my relatives in New Zealand and Taiwan are sitting pretty in comparison. The whole world can see who was just bluffing, and who failed Comparative Competence 101, and its follow-on course, Pain Mitigation Strategies 202 (Advance Credit). We can all see those who took the obverse class: Pain Inflicted on Populace 101
I worry, however, that this Serpentine Dishwasher Temptation - let's call it by its proper name, branded by perhaps by the Apple of Knowledge, may mean that the frequency of my hand washing may decrease. And, as we all know, until there is a cure for our covidious predicament, the only sane resort is to stay home if at all possible, wear masks when outside, and wash hands frequently with soap.
There's a lot of propaganda about the dishwasher and all these other timesaving devices. I took a peek at the manual just to get acquainted with the hype. Tremendous, tremendous hype. Dishwashers cure diseases it seems. As with any new technology - and dishwashers are relatively new (one needs reliable electricity and water to even contemplate them), there's an adoption curve and I am firmly a late adopter despite my authoring The Toli Technology Series
There was an element of an intervention back then. She had heard about my comic woes during my trip to Catford Bridge, just weeks earlier, when the lack of a cell phone prompted an epic misadventure.
Also I used the word "new" above advisedly, for there was a huhudious tale about my first cell phone:
As part of the house cleaning that I've had time to do during this self isolation period, a quasi-sabbatical for us still-employed non-essential workers - albeit with a 20 percent pay deferment as my employer tightened belts, I've gathered a box of vintage electronic gadgets, equipment and sundry wires and connectors. I reluctantly placed that old LG brick (and its dodgy charger), and its contemporary, that old Galaxy Vibrant in that box in the garage, to be donated to Goodwill, if and when they become part of The Grand Reopening of Texas. One wonders about the protocols for social distancing at Goodwill.
Well actually, there is a larger worry. There is no such thing as a safe workplace in these covidious times. From the White House, to the Kremlin, to Downing Street, let alone a manufacturing plant.
Okay, okay, I promise to get back to The Dishwasher Situation, no more digressions
Apparently the latest dishwashers are meant to be green and oh so energy efficient, The marketing materials cite Energy Star ratings and sundry appeals to environmental consciousness. Pshaw, I'm a Dishwasher Greenery Denier, and have long been skeptical about the claims made of reduced water and energy consumption. I've always been proud of the efficiency of my handwashing technique. Oh I might as well admit another sore topic: the way I stack dishes. I'm not a willy-nilly dish-in-sink dumper like The Wife, no, I'm a Serious Dish-in-Sink Stacker. Perhaps it's a compulsion of the nether regions, but it is what it is. When it's time to do dishes, this toli monger exhibits exemplary technique, all claims to the contrary.
Before we bought our present abode, our first piece of property, The Wife and I had always lived in homes with dodgy dishwashers. It was never a checklist item for me (oh, I really can't resist, I'll admit upfront that I'm the kind of person who, like his mother, actually likes ironing clothes. Well, don't you? Alright, alright, let's not get into the ironing business).
Pride of place on my bookshelf goes to Cheryl Mendelson's opus, Home Comforts: The Art & Science of Keeping House. I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to Ben Hyde for the recommendation, I found it as entrancing as a Robert Ludlum joint and treasured the four months I spent reading it intermittently. Home Comforts is my Bourne Identity. It's almost certainly in the Top 100 list of books I've ever read, and this is from someone who had 70 heavy boxes of books, mostly fiction, when we moved into our house a couple years ago. I still remember the look of shock on the movers' faces as they started dealing with my study. There was a visible pause in the entire moving operation. "You've actually read all of those?", I was asked separately three times.
"No", I answered, "Since parenthood has been my lot, there's three bookshelves that I haven't read", I pointed to those four boxes - they were medium-sized U-haul vintage, not the small box type we had been advised to use. I could have sworn I heard a Texan curse beneath one of the mover's breath as he leaned down to lift the first box - I'm still not used to the drawl, but it was impressively idiomatic. Anyway, I made a mental note to deduct 5 dollars from the eventual tip.
Arggh, lest you worry, I tip very well. I learned from my father to pay for service very generously, even if unearned, you never know who you'll need to call on when crisis strikes. The Wife used to say that I was spoiling the babysitter game with the outrageous (to her) rates I was paying. "Our neighbours in Hyde Park will hate your inflationary ways" - paraphrasing, the actual words were very strong, and this joint is a family affair. Especially with the no-drama young ones that we've spawned, a job at Chez Toli was a kind of sinecure that Martin Luther would have written one of his 95 Theses about. Still, that shell game of Toli Babysitters-R-Us has now been thoroughly spoiled with malice aforethought, and covidious intent.
In both our previous rentals, to return to the Dishwasher Situation, we had landlords too cheap to bring their electronic contraptions into the sleek modern era. The Wife complained of lacking bells and whistles, and even mold in one case. I was thoroughly unimpressed. I think I might have used a dishwasher thrice in almost 15 years of cohabitation. They were a waste of space and time to my mind, which is why I've been surprised by this latest coronavirus-induced turn of events. 53.125 percent is almost insane to my mind. Doing the rough math, my rate of dishwasher use has increased an order of roughly 100 fold (0.53 / (3 / (15 * 365)). 100 times of anything is a real shifting of the dial. These are Strange Days.
Slightly related, a couple of hallowed texts I return to regarding the Dishwasher Situation.
I remember Zeldman riffing regarding the dishwasher, this was back when blogging was still a thing.
And, well, you also need to mention Joe Clark's seminal work, How to load the dishwasher which also comes with visuals: How to load the dishwasher, a photo album. I foresee dishwasher loading techniques becoming a fraught topic now that it is being used regularly in our household.
Earlier in my bachelor life, I probably had 3 plates and 2 sets of cutlery. I then upgraded somewhat and got a full set. Corelle was my brand of choice like many immigrants. My supply of dishes has probably quadrupled by, first, marriage, and then parenthood. Marriage brought matters of aesthetics into my life, with all that it implies, and parenthood brought chaos and disorder. Sidenote: My Fair Lady was this past weekend's family movie night and I have renewd appreciation for Rex Harrison's rendition of Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man? - must remember to reread George Bernard Shaw...
There is a complication however with the current Dishwasher Situation, and it has to do with the choice of dishwashing detergent. You see there are chemical sensitivities in our household. One reason I used the dishwasher so seldom was that the preferred branding in some quarters was Seventh Generation, one of those eco-friendly, artisanally made, truffle inspired, feel good, no chemicals were hurt in this production brands. As I've quipped before (whoa that was back in 2011, this is a longstanding affront)
These green, eco-friendly products take too darn long to work. e.g. Seventh Generation "cleaner" takes 7 generations to clean. #WastingMyTime
Anyway that dispute has been overcome (I will not be moved in my domestic wars of attrition), and I've been granted leave to use Finish brand detergent. But there again, the spectre of The New Formula rears its ugly head. Should we be using the old Finish, Finish Powerball (we've had 3 different flavors of this one) or Finish Quantum (2 flavors so far), with all their claims about how thorougly they clean and their ability to remove stuck-on food, and the idea that one needn't pre-rinse anything before packing the dishwasher? It's uncertain terrain complicated further by the constant tinkering.
Longtime Readers of The Lost Toli would recall that curious artifact, the New Formula: the propensity of companies to tweak processes and often worsen their products in furtherance of the bottom line. This, I have diagnosed as a pathological hallmark of latter-day capitalism. They just can't leave well enough alone, and constantly give the New and Improved treatment to cherished products, juicing the books with capricious ease, if not disdain.
All my New Formula musings, and even the piece On the Loss of Smooth Mint Gel continue to get a surprising amount of traffic. Why do companies keep changing the formula? The ways of the modern world are already so chaotic that the trauma of changing these previous certainties is overkill.
The last time I went down that rabbit hole, I had to investigate the evolution of the price of soybean futures to explain why I suffered the grievous loss of my prized Oil of Olay Sensitive Skin body wash. Carefully dissecting the extraction of surplus value is what Karl Marx made his name on. There's surely a Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for someone mining the terrain of The New Formula.
And while on the dismal topic The New Formula, I'm down to the last four bottles of Creme of Nature shampoo that I hoarded back in 2004 after that brand was discontinued. The subsequent rebranding with Argan oil doesn't fool me. My stocks run down quite precipitously when I was using it for the little ones but their hair has turned out more like their mother's so I no longer need to share my precious Black Gold hair products with them, more for me. They can have their Alaffia thingimijigs
Quoth Sartre, L'enfer, c'est les autres (that's Hell is other people). Normal married life raises all these small things in myriad ways (e.g. the way people squeeze the toothpaste tub). There'a a surprising spectrum of behaviours - pandemic living merely heightens the contradictions, as it were. I did have an epiphany last year however, ("before coronavirus time", as The 7 year old now labels that distant past) when I noticed The Fork in The Twistie, which has since become my litmus test and favourite classification scheme.
Which direction do you tie twisties? I just realized that I'm in clockwise tribe and that I may have a problem with those Others: the CounterClockwise and the Inconsistent. #SmallThings
Think about it, would we have Dickens without child labour? What paradise have we lost when the youth of Bangladesh, or Ghana are no longer doing shifts in the textile factory, or planting yams and pineapples in the hills of Aburi? Our modern day Oliver Twists and Little Annie's no longer have the hard knock life, coddled as they are with this modernity, they have school not farms, and they are constantly demanding fondleslabs of mobile entertainment.
My Ghanaian parents would be eyeing, with no small amount of skepticism, the state of my household, and the palava I seem to be making. Sidenote: beyond the parent-child authority issue there would also be the gendered question - and traditional African culture is highly gendered. The division of labour in my affairs might be refreshing to some, but unconventional, and fraught to others... I actually know that The Parents don't even care about such things, but I know a certain Ghanaian contingent would be vaguely aghast at the spectacle of a 47 year old Ghanaian man, who is not a confirmed bachelor, mind you, and who is married to a Ghanaian-American, and has two young children who are not toddlers, doing 94.3675 percent of the dishes (again a rough estimate). Delegations would be sent, quiet words would be had etc. There's a paper to be written on changing gender expectations in the Ghanaian culture in the age of modernity. Anyway, moving on...
Ah the children, yes let's turn to them - sidenote: Save the Children, the charitable organization, used to be the tenants in my dad's house in Accra. My children love watching videos of Rube Goldbergcontraptions (more accurately, they like watching any Youtube video, but that's another sore topic, and I promised no further digression). I think that the seed of that love was watching Jacques Tati movies and his encounters with modernity. Mon Oncle went down very well in our house as did Playtime and Traffic. They are digital natives but I would like to instill a spirit of bricolage in them. Resilience and adaptability are going to be essential survival tools going forward, and it pays to start early and deal with deferred maintenance. This kitchen scene was a delight:
With this pandemic, all the great Houses have been affected by Covid-19, from Windsor and the House of Parliament, Monaco, Kremlin, the White House, Champs Elysee, Chechen rogues, Iranian cabinet members. The Wife speculates that Mike Pence's almost month-long disappearance from the public eye was related to a treatment for a mild case of the novel disease of the hour. I wouldn't go that far into conspiratorial thinking, suffice to repeat that principle: Mosquitos don't discriminate.
From what I've read, Crown Prince Mohammed Bone Saw Salman of Saudi Arabia has retreated to a private island along with the King. Apparently the Saudi royal family has been affected with Covid-19, and the heads of the House of Saud are paranoid about its spread. They simply are testing everyone in sight - their petrodollars outbid even the US's insatiable appetite for Personal Protective Equipment. This inquiring mind wants to know if MBS (and all those aforementioned huhudious leaders) is actually doing his own dishes at this time. I would dearly love this to be the case, enforced dishwashing in lieu of a lifetime sentence courtesy of a Special Court at The Hague - that last of course is a bridge too far, but one can dream. I would like further to know what model dishwasher they are using in case I ever need to upgrade, and their preferred brand of dishwashing detergent. I wonder if, like the Windsors, they have an endorsement stamp like Louis Vuitton - "as used by the Bone Saw man on Bunker Island". Please leak it to the toli, surely I have some Bangladeshi essential workers among my Saudi Arabian readers.
MBS, The Donald, Mister Johnson of Downing Street, Bishop Cummings of Barnard Castle, Bungling Bolsonaro, and all those other huhudious leaders deserve to join Charles Taylor at the Special Court at The Hague on trial for covidious malpractice and other injurious assaults on decency and humanity. Whither Milosevic? Or perhaps like Napoleon, they need accomodation in the island of Elba. The blood on their hands speaks for itself.
A closing quote
He liked his epiphanies American: brief and illusory.
Rather than do a playist about dishes and washing, I thought I'd continue riffing on the underlying topic of whimsy (the discerning of which underlying conditions are risk factors is the most interesting facet of our encounter with this funny novel coronavirus, baldness? blood type? minks? tigers? pangolins? bats?) . This pandemic interlude has allowed me to complete to Toli remix of Derek B's Bullet from a Gun. The original liner notes and a hip-hop photo essay in the vein of South London's vibe are also available for your viewing pleasure: Bullet From a Gun. Enjoy.
The muse wills what she wants, domestic toli was duly delivered.
Postscript the first
You would think that having just written a discursive tome on the Dishwasher Situation, that I would, that same evening, go ahead and load up the dishwasher, press that essential button, the 4 hour delay, and sit back and relax at night. And I was all set to do so tonight, I had even opened the dishwasher. But then muscle memory took over and there I found myself 7 minutes later in the middle of washing dishes by hand. It was a ludic behaviour and quite unconscious, I found my mind calmed by the washing, the occasional sound and touch of the water soothing and perhaps akin to taking a shower. My mind cleared. Then I started thinking about the things that still irk me about dishwashers: the fact that the dishes disappear for a couple of hours while washing and drying; with hand washing, clean dishes are immediately available for reuse. The noise they make - although, with that 4 hour delay button, you can postpone the troublesome white noise and run the wash at the most efficient time (off peak usage is greener and helps the power companies) - the downside of the delayed wash is that dishes that are encrusted are more prone to be dirty after the wash unless of course you have the right deterget), the occasional spots on glasse and the times when things are not as clean as the advertisements would have you believe. The fringe benefit of the mental relaxation and resetting of the slate, however was what lingered. I started having lots of ideas for future toli. Perhaps washing dishes is the siren call of my muses...
Postscript the second
I didn't know quite what to expect, but I'm enjoying the reactions. That's some domestic toli. Is he serious about all this? Does his wife really beat him? Does he really enjoy washing dishes by hand? Has he lost his mind? It's too much, Koranteng, you kind of lost me there. Don't tell anyone, but I too like ironing.
Keep them coming.
A confession: if you've read this far Dear Reader, you should know that you may have been a participant in a minor experiment of mine. I normally write multiple notes at the same time, switching between tabs in my editor as inspiration waxes and wanes. I wrote and completed this entry and the previous one, Herd Immunity at the same time, they merged into a whole while I wrote over a fevered 24 hours. The one was more in the vein of outright whimsy, while the other hewed closely to a more conceptual bent. A coin toss decided which one it would be that I would hit publish first. I'm curious about your reaction if you've read both pieces. It would be fodder for a follow up piece on crafts and entertainments, on arch concept versus unconstrained prose. Do read the other piece even if you don't care to comment, it is the other side of a coin. What say you? Penny for your thoughts.
One curiosity about writing or any craft is that one never knows what will connect with the reader. You toil away on some arch concept to the sound of crickets, yet your throwaway musings on swallowing pills (of all things), or say Ghana must go bags will be your lasting legacy.
Another zoom funeral
Grief unbounded
In unfamiliar settings
Burdened further by social distancing
Families in the diaspora
Dealt with all-too-familiar loss
Exiled souls and flowing tears
A beautiful soul now dearly lost
Flesh buried mid-Atlantic
We all one day will pay a similar cost
The spirit rests in cyberspace
Our rituals provide solace
In darkness we seek relief
Dirty pretty things arisen
After shifts working in care homes
Night nurses all, both young and old
We were in need of a merciful release
Ananse gathered all these burdened folk
To deliver us from unrelenting grief
And so we shared stories
Of laughter and peace
Of our brethren and sistren of yore
Storytelling, some call it folklore
Those precious memories of yesterday
The sour was overwhelmed by the sweet
Our culture and deft social interplay
Even amidst all this modernity
Meant we had riches untold
Tradition is not poverty
It remains our comfort suite
The faces linger, rectangular expressions of empathy
A worldwide gathering of chatroom sympathy
Mics muted and unmuted, a choral symphony
The background noise a nuisant reality
The funeral director, used to American brevity,
Could hardly handle Nigerian internet connectivity
We chuckled, us Ghanaians, with knowing Third World solidarity
We're dragging ourselves slowly into the First World polity
The sounds of uncontrolled sobs
An ingredient oft missing
In Western settings
Duly had to be injected
African customs persisting.
The cryer's mournful sounds
Provide a deserved sanctuary
Our final respects paid
Amidst the required mask wearing
All protocols observed
As we left the virtual mortuary
Our duty of care intact
We celebrated our mother's legacy
Even as we later clicked
To close the browser tab
For Auntie Ama
This dirge is a slight revision
Of the original spontaneous conception.
I can't bear the thought of editorial decision
Hence both are offered for your reading comprehension.
I simply felt I needed to add some more sweet to my concoction of grief soup.
It strikes me that the two recent covidious funerals I've attended had a missing ingredient beyond touch and presence, in the dearly departed's absence. Contra Western sterility, the African antidote is music and dance. Hence I give you
Start with an Abutia clan funeral ceremony. It was a painful moment for all of us, we had lost Da but you can see the exact second when my Aunt's grief was sublimated and she lost herself in the dance, in fond remembrance of her mother.
I woke up to music this morning and I can safely say that the most exhilarating 9 minutes of recent memory was when The 7 year old and I took out our white handkerchief and comfort blanket respectively, and got down to our Bobobor song and dance circle. We were alone upstairs in the house, 6,000 miles away in time and space, sheltering in place in a pandemic across the Atlantic ocean, yet we were on the road to freedom. Music of the Gods
The push lawnmower broke
'Twas a sign of the times
Three screws and two missing bolts
Nyankopon disposed of them at one stroke
This pandemic's got you reassessing risk
Weighing up trips to Home Depot or taking Lyft
Against the likelihood of us all getting sick.
Nyame calmly suggested going back to basics
Thus it was resolved, no more golden encounters
Now you balance the lure of the one-click shopper
Against the peril for those essential workers
Odomankoma didn't raise any social shirkers
Asase Yaa's solution came with simple terms:
Remember the lesson of the gospel of germs
Stay home, young man, and frequently wash your hands
She recalled Abosom's ancient libation chants
The Grand Reopening of Texas remains your trump card
So these days you've rather been digging up the backyard
Forget curb appeal, real estate and all that it entails
For dinner, you'll serve the family puna yams and snails
Recall that secular priest, Jon Elster, who, as it happens
Wrote sometime ago about the idea of the cement of society
He talked about nuts and bolts, and all manner of pieties
Advice on how to behave and tend to our social gardens
Ananse scoffed and chuckled, he was not so easily impressed
With all this anthropological, high falutin business
For that griot, Burning Spear, had already done all the singing
"It takes behavior to get along", it's a matter of Social Living
Ɔbɔadeɛ quickly joined in the fray
"One simple mistake, and there's hell to pay
You modern folks can have your Social Studies Down here in hell, the certainties are rather muddied"
Ananse continued, you should only worry about planting some herbs,
As for the British and Americantrouble tickets in the Daily News now
Just remember the lesson of that old Ga proverb:
An elephant which is lean is still fatter than a cow.
We are learning the true meaning
Of that phrase herd immunity
Meanwhile, the corporate shell game of looting
Is the real mark of wholesale impunity.
Remember: flesh and blood are never inconveniences Structural adjustments, even with a human face, leaves unanswered questions
Revolutionary justice may well restore some balance
Nyame's claims adjuster resolves the matter with soul insurance
"Human capital stock" is such an uneasy phrase
It comes out of the mouth of wolves rather than that of babes Ananse cast a jaundiced eye and careful gaze
At their White Houses and gleaming palaces
Self isolation, the perils of leaving the front door Protection, your coup drill must also guard the back door
Avoid blame, stay grounded, sit here on this earthly floor
We have already reaped the bloody wages of Thermidor
In lieu of writing (checks to see the alarming length of time since I last clicked publish) as the parental cone of silence has enveloped those routines, I have managed to do some reading of late (and by reading I mean books, not the omnivorous web consumption that is our new normal) (and by books, I mean paperbacks - it's my practice to ensure that I am always behind the latest literary fashion). I've been pleasantly surprised that this past year's crop of books has nothing that should be best left unread, and indeed I recommend all of these. Herewith my year in books.
The master is always more impressive when he writes in a personal mode. The focus on the young protagonists expands the range of the customary humour. Congo's Dickens is at work sketching journeys from the orphanage to gritty streets. Oliver Twist or Great Expectations.
A Cameroonian take on the child soldier narrative. Haunting stuff that made for gripping reading. I will nitpick the ending - although I later realized that I had missed the fact that this was the third novel in a series. I'm with the 99%.
Modern Britain is yet to come to terms with race and the probing essays in this collection broaden the perspective, lucid without being didactic, personal yet universal. I await the follow up on that deals with this side of the Atlantic.
Hey, Oprah recommended it and man did he deliver. Applause all around. There was a vibrant literary scene at Harvard just as the dot com boom got going. Kevin Young, the late Philippe Wamba, and others all had oblique takes our modern condition. Colson Whitehead remains one of the most original of that cohort.
A crowd pleaser from our greatest writer. Every detail works. Even this musical obsessive couldn't play gotcha. How's that, not even one anachronism; it isn't fair.
A late pass as ever, I'm forever fascinated by what he omits in his published works while grateful for what we do get. Here's willing him back to the blogging front. As Abbey Lincoln sang: Throw it Away.
I am savouring these modern Senegalese folktales with all their delicious twists. Having been brought up on Ananse stories and Arabian Nights, this is right up my alley. I treat myself to Diop's tasty morsels. He's my Peggy Appiah.
A tech support guy (last name: Bundy) sent me an email that started with "Hi Orangutang, Are you able to reboot..."
The Trouble Ticket
Arrgh, broken office phone
Let's file a service request
You prefer the old designation:
A trouble ticket
Ah: musical notification
Open the unread mail
"Hi Orangutang,
Are you able to reboot... ?"
!!?
Oh, hell no.
Memories of childhood taunts
Visions of lynch mobs
His last name: Bundy!
You briefly saw red
At this monkey business
Clicked that Reply button
Far harder than it deserved
The sinews loosened
Keyboard avenger:
Believe me Sir,
I would never have opened
A service request
Had I not tried
Rebooting.
I am curious however
About your rendering
Of my name (below)
Am I to assume
Slips of the Freudian sort? ...
Stop
That furious reply
A firing offense
For you, right after that guy
Don't click Send
Take a deep breath
And a moment to reflect:
"Words are like bullets. When you release them, you can't call them back"
The boy who cried wolf, they didn't cut him any slack
You might well be criticized for a hair trigger tendency
Or unjustly fired for writing the word niggardly
Stew
Then
Just a few minutes later
Chimes sound again
The inbox darkens
Message quoted below
"My spell checker
fouled up your name!
Sorry about that!"
Great catch, I'll say
The mood lightens
Phew
That's clearly better
Don't hold back the nervous laughter
For indeed, would you really rather
Prefer Freud to an errant spell-checker?
Better the benefit of the doubt
Than yet another racial bout
So. Like your three year old daughter has began to say
In that amusing and delightful way
With that high-pitched, nasally voice
It's really the obvious choice: "Awkward".
You are truly your father's son
You never, ever, jump the gun
"Remember: anger and the African man."
Pragmatism born of painful experience
There's even continuing historical evidence
That lesson of the United States of America
Always defuse tense moods with quiet laughter
And, above all, maintain that calm, level-headed posture
Your strategy for the incident report
Never mention it, simply avoid the court.
So. Delete your impertinent second sentence
That premature act of literary vengeance.
But keep the Sir designation
Your passive aggressive intimation
Or, should I say, capitalized rejoinder.
Also, delete the offensive text,
That implied reminder.
You don't want to hear later:
"He's not a team player".
This treacherous modern world to which you belong
The bewilderment in determining right from wrong
But do look him straight in the eye
If, and when, he deigns to come by.
The two of you might well have a laugh one of these days
Replace the veil, return to your mild-mannered ways
The reverse of the coin termed white privilege
That undercurrent, or rather subtext, of repressed rage
It's ugly, and surprisingly close to the surface
Even for you, there's a hint of coiled menace
You think of yourself as above the fray, literally mid-Atlantic
Yet for a moment there, you were about to get very frantic.
While you wait for your replacement phone
You'll navel-gaze and write a short poem
Choosing a typically idiosyncratic meter
And rhyming scheme, that occasionally peters
Out
And turns to, let's call it, doggerel.
But, hey, that's alright because well:
The resolution to this new trouble ticket:
Incident closed: operator error
A case of an errant spell checker.
"Just because a lizard nods its head, doesn't mean it's happy"
You smile at your rejected naming choice: Mister Bundy
I'll only add that I haven't heard a better album than Ice Cream Everyday this decade short of the second coming of that guy. Amel Larrieux remains my favourite singer, as always she was inspired to "make the music cry". It's her Talking Book (Morning was her Innervisions).
Also: reboot a phone?
Steps to reproduce
- Clean install of Mozilla Thunderbird (English)
- Compose an email with the name of the chief toli monger in the body
- Check Spelling
Result: Orangutang is suggested as a replacement
Workaround: add said name to the user dictionary
Proposed fix: add said name to the standard dictionary
