"But I Digress ..." (18 page)

The sound of one hand clapping

CAPE TIMES, 2 AUGUST 2002

‘M
ASTURBATION IS THE
thinking man's television,” said someone once. I forget precisely who said it – it wasn't Woody Allen, and I would be very much surprised to learn that it was William Shakespeare. I think we can rule out Emily Brontë, although I doubt the sentiment would have been far from her heart. I am also not sure that was precisely the quote. It may have been “Television is the unthinking man's masturbation,” although I doubt it.

I am not sure I entirely endorse the sentiment. Television lasts longer, for one thing, and has more variety (especially if you have satellite) and can be operated by remote control. Still, masturbation has its own charms.

Masturbation has been on my mind lately. You may not consider that masturbation is a fit subject of conversation in a respectable organ that may fall into the unscrupulous hands of small children, but if you think that small children need to learn about masturbation from a daily newspaper, yours was a very dull childhood indeed. I am however aware – indeed, I am frequently reminded by certain members of the public – that this column finds its best use lining the birdcages of the peninsula, so if you find that next week Polly's demands are of a nature more clamorous and unnatural than a cuttlefish and a cracker, I suppose you will have to blame me.

There has been something of a hubbub and brouhaha in recent weeks because two of those critters on
Big Brother
– a man and a woman – are apparently in the habit of pleasing themselves loudly and with abandon in a variety of locations, including the jacuzzi, which is just about what I would expect of a jacuzzi. I have a phobia about jacuzzis. I have never so much as dandled a toe in a jacuzzi. I always have the awful suspicion that five minutes before I arrived, someone had been pleasing themselves loudly and with abandon in that jacuzzi. Even the word “jacuzzi” makes me uncomfortable. It sounds like the surname of a pimp in the old quarter of Napoli.

But I digress. I am not surprised that housemates should be making recourse to the comfort of the hand. Frankly I expected more would. When I first saw them I remember uttering a sentence on the subject that began with the words, “What a bunch of”. But while there are occasions in which masturbation is clearly inappropriate – in public, say, or while preparing the main course at your dinner party – I would suggest that today it is a practice to be actively encouraged. Instead of being frowned upon as the resort of the lonely and the teenaged and the married, masturbation should be celebrated as a positive sexual option that is safe, as well as easy and convenient.

Oh, there are many good things to say about masturbation. No one ever became resentful because they masturbated, then didn't call themselves the next day. No one ever performed an unnatural act on themselves without their consent. Plus, you never have to fake a headache. If you're not in the mood, well, it really isn't an issue. But mainly it is safe. No one ever made themselves pregnant or gave themselves a disease. I am not suggesting you sit your children down and tell them about masturbating. That is just creepy. Besides, they already know. I am just suggesting that it would be better for all if masturbation were more purposefully embraced as a leisure option. It is not often my columns have a social message, but this one does: “Masturbators of the world, unite!” Although I suppose that might be defeating the purpose.

Here's to the ladies

CAPE TIMES, 8 AUGUST 2002

S
AY, DID YOU
know it's Women's Day tomorrow? No, don't roll your eyes like that, Women's Day is important.
Women
are important, if you want my opinion on it. If it weren't for women, we would all be men, and that is just not a fate worth considering.

Imagine a world without women. I mean a world other than certain bars in Somerset Road. If we were all men, no one would ever stop to ask for directions, so when we became lost in our cars we would just drive around in circles forever, scowling at the street signs. Over enough time, the whole world would be on the roads, just driving and driving, everyone growing old looking for wherever it is he was originally going. Imagine the traffic jam. Imagine the road rage. It would be the end of life as we know it. This is how the world would end: not with a bang but with a bunch of guys braining each other with hockey sticks.

Women are important for many other reasons too. If it weren't for women, no one would ever make their beds. Is there a man in the world who would make his bed in the morning if he were left to his own devices? I don't know why women consider the made bed to be such a symbol of all that is good about civilisation, but they do. Women are about as likely to leave their home with the bed unmade as we are likely to leave the bar with some beer left in the glass. What would the world be like if no one made their bed? Would the fabric of society unravel? Would the mask fall from our savage faces? I don't know, and thanks to women, I will never have to find out.

Women single-handedly keep the crockery industry in business. If there were no women, who would bother with saucers? Who would buy a sugar bowl, much less use it for holding sugar? Even dinner plates wouldn't survive without women. If the cardboard box didn't leak while it was being delivered, I always say, there is no call to remove the pizza from it now.

Oh, I like women for many reasons. They buy more books than men do. Admittedly, they mainly buy
The Naked Chef
and inspiring Oprah book-club choices about women who overcome personal hardship or the kidnapping of their children, but that is better than nothing. If it weren't for women, our book stores would sell nothing at all besides the memoirs of American CEOs, and weak parables about corporate change. No, women are great. They smell better than men, provided they do not happen to be carrying a baby or a cat, and they live longer than men do. Especially those rural Frenchwomen. The oldest women in the world always seems to be living in the French countryside. Bless them. If I weren't able to say, “There is a 120-year-old woman in rural France who has spent her entire life smoking and drinking,” I would have no defence for my lifestyle whatsoever.

Good for women, I say. They get the thumbs-up from me. Ladies, I wish you a good Women's Day tomorrow. I am not entirely sure what women do on Women's Day, just as I am not entirely sure what women do between the time they say “Okay, I'm ready to go” and the time they are actually ready to go, but that is none of my business. Whatever you gals will be doing tomorrow, you deserve to enjoy it. Here's to you.

The penis

CAPE TIMES, 30 AUGUST 2002

I
T IS A
peculiar thing, the penis. Oh yes it is, and don't pretend you haven't noticed. I don't ordinarily much think about the penis – like the hidden shafts and sealed chambers of an Egyptian pyramid, I consider it a mystery best left unprobed – but recently I found myself in a situation in which I could scarce avoid the damn thing. Everywhere I turned, there was a penis. Penises jiggled and bobbled around me like a field of wheat after a long dry season.

Where was I, you ask with narrowed eyes? Was I in the forest with a band of painted men carrying tom-toms and trying to reconnect with their inner selves? Was I in the casting offices of a popular daily South African soap opera? None of the above (or, in a way, all of the above). I was in the changing room of a local gym.

Under normal circumstances I am not much by way of a gym-goer, but I had lost a bet and … oh, it's a long story. It is tricky, being in the men's locker-room, because you just can't stop yourself inspecting the fittings and appliances. There I was, surrounded by the naked male form in its various incarnations and configurations, and I don't mind telling you I was fascinated.

Obviously I have seen a penis before. Everyone takes a sidelong glance at the fellow beside you in the men's room, but that is just idle curiosity, and from that angle you aren't doing much more than absent-mindedly comparing size. But there in the locker-room you are exposed to the bewildering range of styles and shapes that constitute the irregular legion of the male member. Frankly, ladies – and some gentlemen – I don't know how you do it.

Under any circumstances the penis is not one of nature's showcases. Unlike the fiery sunset, say, or snapshots of the noble whale sporting in the salty brine, the penis is unlikely to be included in Mother Nature's collected portfolio of “My Best Work”. Still, I can tell you after my day of research, there are some that pass muster, provided your aesthetic criteria are not too rigorous. Neatness and symmetry and a sense of your proper place will get you far in this world. But ye gods there are some infernal works out there.

I don't want to be too graphic, but let me just say that there are stranger things between the thighs of men than are dreamed of in our philosophies. One particularly misshapen corner of the room resembled nothing so much as a convention of those kiddy-party clowns who specialise in tying elongated balloons into humorous shapes. With my own eyes I spotted at least two dachshunds, several Loch Ness monsters and one weirdly lifelike rendition of Darren Scott.

It was a harrowing afternoon, and it left me with a renewed respect for the sheer audacity of phallocentric patriarchy. Well done, men. Any group with the cheek to construct an entire system of myth and value around such frankly unpromising raw material deserves all the unfair advantages it can lay its hands on. But mainly I was left with a profound appreciation for the heterosexual women of the world. You – yes, you – are our real heroes. Oh, how sorely at times you must be tempted to buy yourself a shapeless denim jacket and a pool cue and a spiky haircut and move to Observatory. How you can even look us in the eye without bursting out laughing is beyond me. I am mystified but eternally grateful. Here's to you again, ladies. And thank you.

Nothing but fear itself

CAPE TIMES, 13 SEPTEMBER 2002

B
OO
!
NO, NO,
wait, don't be scared, it's only me. Sorry, I was just fooling around. I didn't mean to give you such a fright. Please come back. I won't do it again, promise.

Gee, why are you so jumpy today? I hope it doesn't have anything to do with Friday the thirteenth.

None of your medieval superstitions here, if you please. I like to think of this column as a small corner of enlightenment in the general Dark Age that is our daily lot. We are all free-thinkers round this neck of the paper. We spill salt with impunity round here. We step on cracks in the sidewalk with a song on our lips, we walk under ladders with scarcely an upward glance. I don't remember that a black cat has ever actually crossed my path – I always seem to be heading in the same direction as the black cats I meet, which suggests that I am either doing something right or something very wrong – but if one ever did, I can confidently claim I would hardly turn a hair.

Besides, Friday the thirteenth has never been especially unlucky for me. Quite the contrary. It was a Friday the thirteenth back in 1982, I remember, when Shelley Whitfield first sent a note with Heidi Tydlesley to tell me that she liked me. Ah, first love! Nine unimaginable days of passion and bliss in the sultry Durban summer, before she left me for Steven Kenton. I still can't shake the feeling I could have made it last longer if only I had worked up the nerve to actually speak to her … oh, but never mind that now. My point is that foolish superstitions never helped anyone.

There are people so afraid of today's date that they refuse to leave their beds all day, which will certainly prove unlucky should the house catch fire. There are others – triskeidecaphobics, if you want the fancy word – who have a morbid fear of the number thirteen itself. It makes no sense, but phobias seldom do. There are as many phobias as there are people to be afraid. Most phobias have names – “chrematophobia”, for instance, is the unreasonable fear of money. So is “working for a newspaper”.

But there are many other phobias, far more reasonable in these troubled modern times, that do not have names. There should be a word, for instance, for:

•  the nagging fear that you have just sent a saucy SMS to the wrong number;

•  the whispering fear that everyone else is at a party to which you were not invited;

•  the gnawing fear that mullets really are coming back in fashion;

•  the choking fear that at any moment old friends from out of town might ask if they can come and stay with you for a couple of days;

•  the lingering fear that you may already have met Mr or Ms Right, but you were too busy thinking about lunch to recognise them at the time;

•  the lonely fear that you are the only man in the whole world who doesn't see what the big deal is about Anna Kournikova;

•  the slow fear that maybe, one day, despite your best efforts and your deepest convictions, you really will die after all, just like everyone else.

No sir, it is not true that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. To those with eyes to see, there are plenty of other things to worry about.

People of the book

CAPE TIMES, 11 OCTOBER 2002

G
EE, IT MUST
be fun being a novelist in South Africa. I say that, but I don't really mean it. I am being sarcastic. I don't like being sarcastic – sarcasm is a quality in print which, like sincerity, must be carefully handled if it is not to be extremely unattractive. I apologise for my sarcasm, but I was driven to it by an experience earlier this week. (Incidentally, it will gratify those Cape Town patriots who have been sending me misspelt hand-scrawled faxes yelling “Cape Town – luv it or leaf it!” to learn that this was not a Cape Town experience.)

I was in Johannesburg for the Alan Paton Book Awards, at which cash prizes are awarded for the best South African fiction and non-fiction of the past year. It is a rare joy to see a writer receiving money for something other than ad slogans or giving good service at a restaurant. The fiction award went to Ivan Vladislavic for his novel
The Restless Supermarket
. I was pleased because I know Ivan Vladislavic to be a good writer, and I was mildly ashamed not to have read the book.

Later in the week I trotted out to the nearest branch of a major book chain to buy a copy. They did not have a copy. Nor did the next branch I tried. “Have you sold out because of the sudden rush of interest?” I asked.

“No,” said the lout behind the till with the Metallica T-shirt and the earring in his eyebrow, “we just haven't ordered any.”

At the third branch I was feeling testy. “Do you have
The Restless Supermarket
by Ivan Vladislavic?” I asked.

A shaven youth eyed me blankly. “That's a strange name,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed, “it is.”

“What's it about?” said the shaven youth.

“I don't know,” I replied. “I haven't read it yet. I was hoping I might read the copy I am trying to purchase from you.”

“Huh,” said the shaven youth helpfully. “I wonder. So, is the author Russian?”

“No,” I said through narrow lips. “He may well prove to be of Eastern European descent, but he is South African, he lives two blocks away, and his book has just won a major literary award.”

“Huh,” said the youth. “Cool. No, nothing in stock.” He paused a moment in what passed for thought. “It must be cool to win a big literary prize, hey.”

“Yes,” I said, “it must make the world of difference to your sales.”

I was being sarcastic again. I don't know Ivan Vladislavic, but I felt angry on his behalf. It must be difficult enough being a novelist in a society in which the majority of the few people who do buy books only seem to pop in once a year for the latest Naked Chef – you might expect a prize-winner to get a little extra help. I have seen next to nothing in the national media about
The Restless Supermarket
. I haven't seen it advertised. I haven't even seen it on sale. It is not this or that person's fault – it is the mood of a society that doesn't much care about its writers or its writing. If that is our mood, then I suppose we must be happy with the general quality of the writing in our magazines and newspapers and with watching
Big Okes
and
Mr Bones
, and with the fact that our best talents turn to advertising or producing corporate videos. We must be happy, but sometimes it turns me a little sarcastic.