Funny business

The publicity which the Nandos ad featuring a puppet named Julius is receiving seems to have eclipsed the attention which this, much funnier ad deserves. I really love Evita Bezuidenhout. Perhaps when I finish my dissertation (and the subsequent book) on Karen Zoid, I should write a book on Evita.

#Amazonfail

This is the most thoughtful commentary on the recent Amazon debacle I have yet seen.

Afrikaners and South Africanness

Elections are such rich times for research. I just wish the official transcrips of Zuma's meeting last week actually included all the juicy bits. The document up on the ANC website leaves the best bits out (though no one thought to edit for grammar when they were cleaning the rest up).

Real South Africans

Jacob Zuma is doing some serious sucking up ahead of the elections this month.

some research resources

My dissertation proposal is still in development, and I'm not really ready to share too many details in this public forum, but as this remains a collection of resources for my proposal (despite its numerous other functions over its several years life-span), I decided today to link to some of what I'm currently reading.
First: The South African Gay and Lesbian Archives (GALA) at my undergraduate university's most beautiful library, the William Cullen Library, is absolutely going to be one of my archival sites over this summer, along with the South African Broadcasting Corporation Sound Archives (the website is very clunky and slow, mainly because it is huge, which is shocking considering the bandwidth issues in SA, but there you have it).
Second: This horrendous report on homophobic attacks on South African lesbians was released last month by Action Aid. Read it, sign the petition, and then spend some time, with me, exploring some of the organizations that are working with survivors: POWA, the Triangle Project, Behind the Mask, the Human Rights Commission, the Treatment Action Campaign, GEMSA, the Gender Equality Project.
Third: two books. Defiant Desire edited by Edward Cameron and Mark Gevisser, and Gender and Sexuality in South African Music edited by Stephanus Muller and Chris Walton.

So what does all of this have to do with South African music? I'm not quite ready to publicly join the dots yet, but come and hear me speak at the International Council for Traditional Music conference in Durban in July, or if you won't be in SA, at the 10th Feminist Theory and Music Conference in North Carolina in May, you'll get a glimpse at my project in development.

FAK Sangbundel

I am currently writing about the FAK Sangbundel in the lit review of my dissertation proposal. I consider myself something of a collector, and have a first edition of the book (a little worse for wear, but all the pages are intact), but not even that can exceed the novelty value of the entire current edition in Midi format. Click on the title for the words, or the music icon to the left of each title for the midi. Also, here is a list of editions and related books that is a great bibliographic resource.

Live Blogging

I just discovered live blogging. It is such fun to follow a news event as it unfolds. Just a pity I was following a complete embarrassment caused by some daft undergrads here at NYU, but at least it's over.