Split (1)

train · 2.6M rows

text stringlengths 13 81.7k
Meanwhile, Peter is missing the stories around him, including an Afghan child crushed by an American aid drop: "killed by friendly food", as Naylor puts it. Finding Bin Laden makes its serious points lightly, helped by a backdrop of haunting photographs of Kabul by Sam Maynard. It's amusing, but also makes you contempl...
Speaking of evil, Aleister Crowley - variously known as the Beast, 666 and the World's Wickedest Man - is the subject of a delightful promenade performance in the vault of a church in total darkness.
The audience sits on cushions, while a cast of four illuminate proceedings, using mainly handheld light sources. The work demands a knowledge of the absurd Crowley beyond most people. But it's an enjoyable, hugely atmospheric hour.
‘Everything in South Africa has been mind-bogglingly spectacular,” Njabulo Ndebele wrote in 1991. He had in mind “the spectacle of social absurdity”, the excess, ruthlessness and violence that have accompanied this country’s transformation into a quasi-modern nation.
Ndebele said the era of the spectacular was coming to an end, to be followed by a turn to the ordinary. For Ndebele the “ordinary” was not the insignificant.
It was a bit more than the stuff of everyday life. It was the foundation on which history itself was made. “No civilisation worth the name will emerge without the payment of disciplined and rigorous attention to detail,” he concluded.
In his latest book, Vintage Love and Other Essays (Jacana), Jolyon Nuttall provides a vibrant afterlife to Ndebele’s 1990s literary programme. The latter has seen the development of a young and dynamic tradition of storytelling, unmatched elsewhere in Africa, and the proliferation of autobiographical works. Today, some...
Vintage Love and Other Essays by Jolyon Nuttal. Cover: Supplied by Jacana.
In this chorus, Nuttall’s voice and style are strikingly original. So is his preoccupation with clarity and concision, discipline and attention to detail. He not only curates his own life, he also brings to the fore the murmuring voices of society. In the process, he is fostering the rehabilitation of the ordinary and ...
Why did you choose the essay as the literary format for Vintage Love?
This was a fundamental decision. I was looking for some new format in which to house my writing after self-publishing two books. I found it when I accompanied my daughter Sarah and the rest of the family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2016. The bitterly cold winter encouraged neither the inclination nor the intention ...
On my second visit I wandered down a row of shelves labelled Essays and Non-Fiction Literature. At the end of the row was a small padded bankie [bench] tucked into an alcove. Those shelves and that bankie became my base for the rest of my stay.
From the shelves I withdrew volume after volume of essays by writers who were new to me, with one exception, George Orwell. However, the two books for which he is most famous, Animal Farm (“All animals shall be equal except that some shall be more equal than others”) and 1984, were not on those shelves because they wer...
The more I read, the more I became intrigued by the essay as a distinct literary form that I had not recognised before. It was neither memoir nor autobiography.
So how did this play out when you started writing the essays in Vintage Love?
Everything I have included in this collection of writings happened to me. In the Orwellian sense, I was there. The focus this brought has been astonishing. Abandoned has been any sequential connection between the essays, as might have happened had I been writing an autobiography. They have not been written in chronolog...
The first essay, Can You Cook?, put my newfound format to the test at once. It dealt with an incident that occurred two days after my wife died, in 2013. We planned to move to our seaside cottage at Kommetjie, near Cape Point. She didn’t make it. A sudden illness struck her two days before we were due to leave. The pac...
I looked at him in astonishment. Was this his only concern? I replied that I didn’t know, but I was going to try. Eddie reflected for a long moment and then, switching to English, he stabbed a finger at me and asked, “Can you cook?” It took me a full two days to realise what he was getting at: the roles of husbands and...
Not only could I cook but had been doing so in our household for years with a fair degree of competence. So, unbeknown to him, I took Eddie on and the rest of the essay is devoted to a recollection of how I won a beautiful young girl’s heart because I could cook. The essay, as literary format, stood the test exceptiona...
There are some 20 essays in the collection. How did you come to select the episodes?
It happened in various ways. The very next essay featured the four years we spent in Newcastle in the then northern Natal when my father was appointed as headmaster of the high school. And I say at the beginning that I find it rather extraordinary that, in looking back over a long life, my mind and its memories keep re...
My twin brother and I loved every moment of those years and my father, so enthusiastic to begin with, steadily grew to hate his time there, dubbing the place Poufcastle. Clearly, for Michael [Nuttall] and me, they were formative years.
There are two longer essays in the collection, The Alan Paton I Knew and A Summer in New York. Both shed light on two major South African writers, Alan Paton and Lewis Nkosi.
I first met Paton when I was 10. He was within two years of writing Cry, the Beloved Country. He came up our drive, pushing a bicycle, after a hard day’s ride from Volksrust, as part of a cycling trip between Johannesburg and Durban, on rough dirt roads.
Following him disconsolately was his elder son David, who had come a cropper on his bike and was in much need of patching up and TLC. Alan did not provide those requirements. It was left to my mother to do so and to put him on the train to Ladysmith next morning where he would join up with his father again.
My father and Paton had been friends since their student days … They were to remain friends for life, and Alan spoke movingly at my father’s funeral. My aim was to write about the Paton other people did not know about, the tougher side and the fun side.
The other, longer essay is set in 1961 and recalls the month I spent in New York with one of the brightest talents I have ever encountered. His name was Lewis Nkosi and he had come to Harvard on a year-long Nieman Fellowship as one of the journalists who made Drum and Golden City Press such lively publications.
The price of taking up the fellowship, however, was that he had been obliged to leave South Africa on an exit permit. He could not return home.
I was spending a year in New York, covering the United Nations for my home newspapers from our bureau in the New York Times. I invited Lewis to spend a month with me during his summer vacation, knocking around Greenwich Village. His was a prodigious talent but the essay reflects my sadness that his brilliance was bligh...
I said in a review that the essays curate your life. Do you see it that way?
I’m no intellectual but I can see that, almost unknowingly, this is what they do. Some of the essays I wrote straight after a particular incident, hot off the press as it were. Others just came to me as I became ever more comfortable in the essay as the literary form in which I was working.
Thrill seeker? Quinn Swales safari guide mauled to death trying to protect guests.
Did one Zimbabwean safari guide take unnecessary risks that led to the loss of his own life while out with a ‘touring’ party?
Quinn Swales a Safari guide has been mauled to death after attempting to protect his group from a charging male lion.
According to local reports, the attack took place in the same Zimbabwean park, Hwange National Park where Cecil the lion was illegally hunted down by American dentist, Walter Palmer.
At the time of the surprise attack, the 40 year old guide was tracking lions with a tour party during a photographic walking dawn safari when the group suddenly founding itself targeted by a large male lion.
How or why the party came to be in the immediate path of the male lion is not necessarily understood or whether Swales may have unwittingly put the group in harm’s way by choosing to embark on a walking tour?
The guide according to a statement released by the camp where he worked said Quinn ‘did everything he could to successfully protect his guests and ensure their safety’ during the attack.
‘It is with deep regret and great sadness that we are able to confirm the death of Quinn Swales, a Camp Hwange Professional Guide, who was fatally mauled by a male lion whilst out on a walking safari this morning.
Quinn, a fully qualified and experienced Zimbabwe Professional Guide, was leading a group of Camp Hwange guests on a photographic walking safari. He was tracking lions early this morning, when a Male Lion unexpectedly charged. We can confirm that Quinn did everything he could to successfully protect his guests and ensu...
Apart from Swales a veteran hunting guide, no one else was harmed.
Added Shelley Cox, of African Bush Camps, which owns the Camp Hwange operation: ‘Quinn’s actions in successfully protecting the lives of his guests is heroic and reminiscent of his outstanding guiding skills, experience and training.
According to local reports, Swales was described as a ‘fantastic guide, incredibly knowledgeable and very personable’.
In the wake of Swales death, tributes poured in for the fallen man, with one commentator writing: ‘The news of Quinn’s passing this morning shocked me so badly I could hardly move for hours.
‘I worked with Quinn while flying in Gabon and when Quinn decided that he had enough of flying and he wants to return to Zimbabwe to follow his past career and further his career as a safari guide all his colleagues supported him fully.
LOS ANGELES — One last full-pad scrimmage, a 70-yard bomb of a touchdown pass and a little scuffle between teammates, and USC’s spring football season came to an end on Saturday morning.
The Trojans wrapped up their 15th practice of the spring. The team started five weeks ago with several questions surrounding it. How would the offensive players transition to the new coordinator Graham Harrell and his Air Raid attack? How would the defense adjust to losing several of its key pieces and leaders?
For his part, head coach Clay Helton is excited about how the Trojans answered those questions this spring.
“I really thought it was a successful camp for two reasons,” Helton said following Saturday’s practice.
The first is that Helton feels bullish about how his team is adapting to the Air Raid. The scheme simplifies everything for the players, giving them fewer assignments and plays to remember and focusing instead on execution.
Helton saw this start to pay dividends by the end of spring. The team mostly focused on simple play calls and short routes, but was able to add more as the camp progressed. On Saturday, quarterback Jack Sears threw a bomb downfield to Michael Pittman, Jr., who completed the 70-yard touchdown play, one of the few succes...
Most of all, though, Helton was impressed with how USC’s running backs performed this spring.
Through it all, Helton was impressed with how Harrell has handled the offense this spring since arriving from North Texas.
The second reason Helton was pleased with USC’s spring camp was the play of the defense. Like on the other side of the ball, the Trojans made a point of getting back to the basics on defense.
This allowed USC to focus less on scheme and more on individual drills, and working on improving positional skills rather than learning assignments.
The position group that benefited the most from this was the defensive line. Redshirt sophomore Jay Tufele was active in the backfield throughout camp, and Helton sees junior Brandon Pili, who recorded a sack on Saturday, as the most-improved player in the defensive front this spring.
Freshman offensive lineman Gino Quinones underwent successful wrist surgery this week. Helton described the procedure as a simple scope and expects Quinones to be back working with the team in three weeks.
Bible scholar to put Jewish spin on original sin – J.
It’s widely assumed that Jews do not believe in the doctrine of original sin. The notion that infants are born carrying the burden of Eve’s taking a bite of forbidden fruit is considered one of the main theological distinctions between Jews and Christians.
But Alan Cooper, provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, says it’s not that simple. In San Francisco for the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual conference, Cooper will discuss various Jewish approaches to the question at a Monday, Nov. 21 talk at Congregation Emanu-El.
His talk — titled “Do Jews Believe in Original Sin?” — is the synagogue’s annual Arthur G. Weiser Lecture for Interfaith Understanding.
In a phone call, Cooper provided a taste of what he’ll be speaking about.
Q: What exactly is the doctrine of original sin?
A: It’s a question related to the perfection of creation. If the first humans were created without blemish or sin, then they’re entirely responsible for the fall, in which case you can’t blame God.
Another reading is that God created a latent potential for both good and evil, and it’s up to us which we’ll activate. That’s a stereotypical view of an important difference between Judaism and Christianity, with the latter view ascribed to Judaism.
Q: How did you come to be interested in the notion of original sin as it relates to Judaism?
One of the most interesting features of traditional Jewish thought is the question of limits. What can you adapt from your environment and where do you draw the line? The doctrine of original sin is a peculiar case of something that is sometimes attacked and sometimes adapted.
When Jews nowadays ask themselves what are the basic ideological differences between Judaism and Christianity, one of the most prominent differences that many Jews will cite is the doctrine of original sin, which really gets down to basic anthropology. What is basic human nature according to Jewish teaching and accordi...
Q: Is it accurate to say that Jews do not believe in original sin?
A: It’s unfair to characterize a uniform Jewish view on just about any topic. As soon as you start talking about different periods [in history], it’s almost impossible to answer any question unless you specify what Jews, where and when. Essentially, uniformity of Jewish thought is impossible to find.
Q: How are notions of original sin relevant to the average “Jew in the pew”?
A: While the theological or philosophical debates don’t necessarily engage the average “Jew in the pew,” I think that most people are curious about human nature. Is it essentially good, evil or neither? And why is it the way it is? At a moment when traditional explanations of good and evil are being challenged by the i...
Q: Can references to original sin be found in Jewish textual sources?
A: There are a couple places in the Talmud where it’s asked, “When did the pollution of the serpent cease?” The very phrase “pollution of the serpent” is surprising, and is probably reflective of what it would mean if Jews were to adopt a Christian premise of human nature.
Even if we agree with Christians that humankind was born in a state of grace, fell, and now requires divine salvation, where we find that salvation is very different. For Christians, it’s Christ, and for Jews, it’s Torah. The Christians tell the Jews that the law doesn’t save you, and the rabbis say that, in fact, the ...
If I go over to the other side and accept Jesus and I’m saved, why would I keep putting on tefillin and observing Shabbat?
Alan Cooper will lecture on “Do Jews Believe in Original Sin?” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 21 at Congregation Emanu-El, 2 Lake St, S.F. Free. www.emanuelsf.org.
Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission, created as a result of voter passage of Amendment 41 to advise lawmakers and government officials on ethics issues, today won a House committee’s approval to move from the state’s executive branch to its judicial branch.
Commission members Dan Grossman and Sally Hopper, both former state senators, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that the move came after the commissioners experienced some uneasiness over a request by the state Department of Personnel to take an employee whose job was being cut. The commission at the same t...
Ultimately, the commission did take the employee “and everything’s fine,” said Sen. Dan Grossman after the hearing. But the situation prompted the commission to investigate its housing options. It initially contacted the governor’s office. After some discussion, the Judicial Department, which houses a number of indepen...
The two-employee, five-member commission will be required to pay its share of rent. The Judicial Department is currently housed on the fifth floor of The Denver Post building, at 101 W. Colfax Ave. A new judicial center will soon be under construction at the corner of 14th Avenue and Lincoln Street.
10 DEPARTMENT, EFFECTIVE ON THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS PARAGRAPH (a), 11 AS AMENDED.
'Radio Times' speaks to 'new' Doctor Who Tom Baker, alongside Terry Nation, the writer who created the Daleks back in 1963.
Although Tom Baker had made his full debut as Doctor Who in 'Robot' three months earlier, this was his first 'Radio Times' interview about the role. The article coincided with his first encounter with the Doctor's most enduring enemy, in a story by Terry Nation called 'Genesis of the Daleks'.
BAGHDAD, Iraq—Three months ago, U.S. occupation officials predicted that by June, Iraq would be producing enough electricity to keep the power on for 18 hours a day throughout the country.
Electricity in most parts of Iraq is still as sporadic as it's been for the last year—on for a few hours, then off for a few hours. The missed goal is one of the occupation's greatest failures.
Although vast sums of American taxpayers' money will continue to be spent in an effort to turn Iraq's electricity back on, no one's prepared to say when that might happen. An increase in sabotage and violence is the main reason the target was missed, according to a report by the General Accounting Office, the investiga...
"Our happiness is related to whether the power is on or off," said Sadoon's wife, Sawsan Abdul Jabar. "We are not enjoying our life."
Texans QBs: Where are they now?
Now that Bill O’Brien has taken over, the Texans have are on their eighth starting quarterback with Tom Savage taking his turn this week.
Traded almost as soon as possible once O’Brien took over, Schaub was with the Raiders in 2014 and only appeared in two games. He landed with the Ravens for 2015 and started twice at the end of the season, going 1-1. He’s back in Atlanta where it all started for him, serving as a backup for Matt Ryan.
He got 12 starts in O’Brien’s first season and went 6-6. He was traded to the Jets, where he started all 16 games in 2015 and the team went 10-6. He’s started 10 games this season with the Jets but is 2-8 and was benched with four weeks left. An injury to Bryce Petty might get him back on the field.
Acquired from the Patriots just before the start of the 2014 season, he was dropped midway through 2015 after missing the team’s charter to Miami. He landed in Baltimore – which was the home for wayward Texans QBs in 2015 – and got two starts, going 1-1. He’s still with the Ravens, backing up Joe Flacco and has appeare...
Everyone’s favorite Texans QB was 2-0 in O’Brien’s first season. He was traded to the Rams after the 2014 season. He started five games in St. Louis in 2015 and was the starter this season when the team moved to LA. But after going 4-5, he was benched in favor of the team’s top draft pick, Jared Goff, who is winless in...
Signed as a free agent to be the starter last season, Hoyer went 5-4 in an up-and-down regular season then was terrible in the 30-0 playoff loss to the Chiefs. He was released after the season and landed in Chicago as a backup to Jay Cutler. Hoyer had four consecutive 300-yard passing games after Cutler was hurt before...
The former Texan was picked up to replace Mallett in 2015 and got his two wins before tearing an ACL in his knee. He was out of football until the Dolphins signed him last week in the wake of Ryan Tannehill’s season-ending injury. He is the No. 2 QB behind Matt Moore.
After being dumped by the Cowboys after going 0-3 in place of injured Tony Romo in 2015, he landed with the Texans in time to make one start and get a win. Comfortable as being a backup, Weeden has been the Texans No. 3 quarterback all season while making $800,000 in salary plus a nice roster bonus of $937,500.
The Texans big free-agent signee was benched after throwing two interceptions against Jacksonville on Sunday. He was 8-6 as a starter and won’t be too far away from the controls as the No. 2 quarterback to Savage, who will make his first start on Saturday against the Bengals.
LONDON — A disturbing new video campaign that depicts a woman being groped and intimidated on the Tube is prompting women to report sexual harassment on public transport in London.
See also: Suing an employer for discrimination is agonizing, so why does anyone do it?

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.