Lev David | Rehumanize yourself.

I'm going back to school!

2007-02-05T23:23:00.000+02:00

Many of the world's great universities are making their lectures
available for download as free audio on their websites and as
podcasts. How wonderful! We can all study stuff while driving,
cooking, pooing. This is one of the best lectures I've ever "been
to", and wanted to share it with you. Download, listen, forward the
link to your thinking friends.

http://www.bath.ac.uk/podcast/lectures/018-podbath-Ursula%20King.mp3

3rd Degree. Sick to the stomach.

2007-01-26T00:22:00.000+02:00

Has anybody else noticed that the obesity episode of 3rd Degree was
purely rubbish journalism? Thankfully, yes. This programme is
increasingly becoming a joke among thinking people. Sadly, it's not
even a good joke; it's one in very bad taste.

The obesity episode starts out talking about eating habits generally
getting out of control. It points fingers at the increasing fast food
culture in South Africa. No problem with that so far. But then, it
moves onto the case study of morbidly obese girl, Hermina, whose
obesity has more to do with a genetic abnormality than eating habits.
These are two different stories.

So, why include it at all? Well, who doesn't want to watch a freakshow?

"We're actually talking about a young girl's life. Is it ethical?"
Deborah asks a medical aid representative about Hermina's medical aid
refusing to pay for gastric bypass surgery.

When last did the 3rd Degree team ask themselves some tough questions
about ethics?

Lev David.

Somebody tell me #1 | 17 January 2007

2007-01-17T17:41:00.000+02:00

Somebody tell me why all these guys are walking around in golf shirts with the collars turned up. They're even doing it in the shade, so they can't justify it in terms of shielding the backs of their necks from the sun. Whether or not you're getting a red neck, you're certainly looking like one.

Somebody tell me if Noeleen passed matric. Standard grade or higher?

Somebody tell me what's up with the whole butter vs. margarine debate. Which one is going to kill me this week?

Somebody tell me why people are giving me directions around Joburg in terms of the cardinal points. "Travel North," they say. Where the hell is North? I'm a city boy. There are no recognisable natural landmarks up here. I have no compass and I'm not navigating by the sun or the handle of the Big Dipper. Give me a freakin' road name.

Somebody tell me how many m's and t's there are in comittee/commitee/committee. And while you're at it, tell the guys over at Independent Newspapers to invest in a spell checker or at least a dictionary.

Somebody tell me why I can't ask a supermarket: "Do you have nuts?" without breaking into a grin.

And, staying on getting lost on the Highveld, somebody tell me why they write the road names on the curb up here. I'm sure Maltese Poodles and midgets wearing heelies are finding those very useful, but the rest of us would appreciate a sign on a pole high enough to be seen from a car.

Somebody tell me whether Mahendra uses the same hairdresser as the Lego Men.

Somebody tell me why I have we have to pay hairdressers when they're essentially taking something away from us.

Dead Man Talking.

2006-11-10T12:59:00.000+02:00

Oi!

I'm very proud to be hosting the Corpse Awards in Durban tomorrow
night (Friday, 10 November).

The Corpse Awards are South Africa's leading awards for corporate villainy.

Find out more at www.GroundWork.org.za.

Me and The Dame.

2006-10-25T10:36:00.000+02:00

Maybe I don't hate Judi Dench. Maybe I just want to be her.

www.LevDavid.com

Grumpy.

2006-10-23T10:09:00.000+02:00

Crap. I've run out of milk. And this pen's out of ink, so I can't write a shopping list. Which means that I'll never have milk. And I'll die of a calcium deficiency.

(If you're grumpy, you might as well amuse yourself while you're at it.)

www.LevDavid.com

Two bad names for dogs.

2006-10-17T15:45:00.000+02:00

Pasty and Nipples.

www.LevDavid.com

Quote of the day.

2006-10-17T13:21:00.000+02:00

"If you're paying attention, your life will almost certainly pass like
a dream." -- Me.

Sometimes I give myself chills.

Two truly crap TV ads.

2006-10-16T22:14:00.000+02:00

1. Nationwide Airlines -- there's a guy on a Nationwide flight who
hasn't flown Nationwide before. Passengers talk among themselves as if
it's a grand scandal. The tone is conceited, the production dull, and
I anybody truly impressed by cameos from rugby players? (I don't think
I want to hear the answer to that.)

2. Tracker's oh-boy-haven't-we-found-a-lot-of-cars ad. First we see
the cars stacked high to the edge of space, proving that Tracker has
indeed found a lot of cars. Then we see a skydiver dive off the stack,
proving that Tracker has indeed found a lot of cars. Waitasec, that's
the same point... twice. It feels like two weak ads held together with
second-hand masking tape.

Somebody wrote these ads. Several people signed them off.

10 REASONS OPRAH SHOULD HAVE ME ON HER SHOW

2006-10-07T11:00:00.000+02:00

by Lev David, a minor writer from South Africa.

It's mind-blowing to even consider the possibility that we live in a world where this is possible. We do.
You really should have more people from the rest of the world on your show. Interesting people.
Like you, Oprah, I don't believe in sitting around waiting for something incredible to happen. We get each other.
I'm a heterosexual guy who's not afraid to admit that Nate Berkus is one of the most beautiful things to ever walk the planet. Ain't that refreshing?
There's more to this than this. There's a thought behind it that's big and powerful that I think people will respond to. (But I'll only tell you when I'm on the show.)
I haven't let obscurity change me. I promise I won't let celebrity change me either.
If you're worried about the costs, I'll pay for my travel and accommodation. How, I'm not sure. But I'll find a way.
I promise not to jump on the furniture.
You have to admit, Oprah, it's a damn funny idea.
I'll bring you a T-shirt that says: "I had Lev David on my show and all I got was this stupid T-shirt."

and one more, for good measure:

C'mon! James Frey and not me?

Lev@LevDavid.com

[ Found this funny? Share it with friends by clicking on the little envelope. | Flip through the archives at the bottom of the page to read an intensely ridiculous account of Lev's recent trip to India. | Check out Lev's homepage at www.LevDavid.com. ]

Yay for Gwigwi!

2006-10-06T00:02:00.000+02:00

It rocks, I think, that Pim Street in Newtown is now Gwigwi Mrwebi Street. In the debate over whether it's worth the money to rename streets to "correct the imbalances of the past", I say, yes, goddammit, yes.

Coz it's more than the name of a street, I think. It's an educational initiative. It's saying, rather politely, I think: "Maybe you've heard of this guy, Gwigwi Mrwebi. He was cool, yes? But just in case you didn't, he's worth knowing about and we just thought we'd suggest that you find out a bit about him?"

Of course, a street name is hardly enough. But I embrace it as a start. How about this for an idea --

Put a prominent plaque up somewhere on Gwigwi Mrwebi Street telling us that Gwigwi was a saxophonist. He was huge in the 60's. Well, in most parts of the world. Just not South Africa. No particular reason. Well, no reason that makes sense.

I'm bloody exhausted. Hope you've had as pleasant a night as have I. Goodnight.

[ If you're enjoying the blog, you might want to check out Lev's homepage at www.levdavid.com. ]

Here and there.

2006-10-04T20:49:00.000+02:00

I can't tell you how intensely lovely it is to be back in Joburg. I stepped into my little cottage -- still such a mess from the mad last-minute packing a month before -- and couldn't stop myself from smiling. If it were a littler cottage, I'd hug it.

Still, as I settle in, running on roughly 4 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours, the melancholy sets in. My senses are struggling to come down from the unsustainable high of Colour! Light! Sound! All! The! Time!

It's all so quiet.

I want to be wise right now.

2006-10-03T13:31:00.000+02:00

I really do. With only hours to go before leaving India for Johannesburg, I really want to be wise.

But then I realise: perhaps I was too wise in days gone by. Last night, particularly, when I wrote that letter to a friend. Dammit, I was excessively wise last night. I peaked just a little too early. Now I'm all wisdomed out.

I'll tell you what I said, though. The friend, if she's sensible, won't complain; writers are notorious violators of the confidence of friends.

There's something about being here that demands giving in. Do you scuba? Well, in so many ways, being here reminds me of that moment when you tip yourself backwards over the edge of the boat into the sea. Suddenly, it's all different.

Several paradigms shift clear kilometers in various directions as you step off the plane. Most things are the same, of course. Most things are the same everywhere. Two-legged people, still in the majority, walk about on two legs. Trees grow up. When you fall, it's almost always down. Some things strike you as strange, though.

Of course, there's intense beauty everywhere. But often in the same frame, there are things that turn your stomach. Things that anger, rattle, confuse. It's the habit of a stranded, foreign eye. Ultimately, though, this isn't the kind of thing you can click-click-click through the cold machinery of the mind. …I'm on the verge of suggesting that you could feel it… with your heart or something. But let's avoid that mushy bullshit, shall we? You could, however, feel it in the simplest way:

Against your skin. In your hair. Pressed between your tongue and palate.

You tip yourself in. Backwards off the edge of the boat. And the sea closes its mouth around you, wet. Then quickly sucks you in.

Gawd, I was like soooooo wise last night.

Not now, though. Now, I'm packing my bags. Heading for home.

We'll talk soon.

How does your town rock?

2006-10-03T11:14:00.000+02:00

I'm getting some lovely emails in response to my last post from South Africans expressing love for their own city. I'd like to encourage more! Email lev@levdavid.com and share those little things you love about your city. Maybe I'll get a little token prize of little or no monetary value for the list that amuses me to most.

www.levdavid.com

One more sleep till South Africa!

2006-10-02T19:17:00.000+02:00

I am NOT a patriot. But I'm looking forward to being back in the
country I know better than any other.

This morning, having left the TV on while taking a shower, I heard
that Doo-bee-doo rubbish us South Africans know so well playing on
VH1. I ran out of the shower to sing and dance-along. With great
enthusiasm.

Yes, I prefer humanism to patriotism. It's a fancypantsintellectual
stance to take, and I like fancypantsintellectual stances. Still, on
some level, I'm a fool and gladly so. Hand me that gaudy, Y-front flag
and I'll wave it. I might even get a lump in my throat.

Here are a few things I'm looking forward to, apart from friends and
family (none of whom are getting presents, so get over it already):

Sushi at Tsunami.
Browsing at Bookdealers on a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Drinking water out of the tap.
Dancing my arse off at some truly crap spot around the corner from nowhere.
Glasses of wine at Ant Café.
Stealing wi-fi.
Driving my car. (I hate that I'm looking forward to that, but I am.)
Jacaranda flowers. (Okay, I'm a cheeseball.)
DVD Gurus and Video Spot.
Flirting with girls and not worrying about being picked up by the
morality police.
The Market Theatre.
Parking in the shadow of Turbine Hall.
Horror Café.
The Bassline.
Newtown and Melville and Rosebank as a whole, actually.
My lovely Zoo Lake and, of course, the zoo. (I like animals best in captivity.)
Joburg toughness, combined with Joburg softness: the way strangers
talk to each other as equals and friends... at least in the parts of
Jozi I live, work and play in.
Cold nights in summer, wearing coats.
Vida.
Buying cheese and nuts at the flea market.
Saying "Howzit!" and not being looked at funny.
...Getting a haircut.

And that's just Joburg! I should be in Durbs by the weekend. Cape Town
soon thereafter.

Not a bad little country, South Africa.

So THAT'S what they mean by enlightenment.

2006-10-02T16:23:00.000+02:00

Skin lightening creams are sold everywhere, including South Africa. But in India, they seem entirely uncontroversial -- manufactured by the big guys like Garnier, advertised on primetime TV in ultra-glossy ads, endorsed by celebrities. Lighter skin = success, fame, sex. This is not cool.

Happy birthday, Big G!

2006-10-02T11:32:00.000+02:00

It's Gandhi's birthday and the country's throwing a bloody big party.
Predictably, the birthday boy hasn't shown up.
...He's so passive. And resistant.

(Thanks for the gag, Gabby.)

Don't eat a cow. Or take a picture with one.

2006-09-30T14:24:00.000+02:00

I'm into my last three days.

Y'know the way you have to get a picture with Mickey before leaving Disneyland? Well, I was determined to get a picture of myself and a cow before leaving Indialand.

A serious, brooding picture. Unshaven. Squinting in the sunlight. And that was just the cow.

Then these midgets show up....

...and a tall midget too. Suddenly, I'm surrounded by kidkins.

Brooding? Or broody?

Damn cute/crazylookin' kids. The cow, though, you have to agree, did remarkably well to hold its pose through all this. And I'm still looking at least a little brooding.

This is probably the last of the dry, fantastically witty, intensely sarcastic posts before I get all sentimotional about flying out at 02h20, Wednesday morning.

Bring on the mush.

www.levdavid.com

That old enlightment thing again.

2006-09-27T16:05:00.000+02:00

Back in the departure's lounge of Mumbai Domestic, there's a tourist
sitting immediately to my left reading Shantaram. (There's a tourist
sitting immediately to her right updating his blog.)

So obviously seeking enlightenment, I wonder if she might actually
find it. So obviously not seeking enlightenment, I wonder if I might
actually not.

www.levdavid.com

In my office in Mumbai and, I'm thinking....

2006-09-27T13:33:00.000+02:00

...Why do people keep on disturbing me when I'm pretending to work? Can't they tell I'm very busy-looking?

www.levdavid.com

If you cut me....

2006-09-27T12:50:00.000+02:00

Airport security has reached a new level of silliness. Observe below, a stainless steel fork, accompanied by a plastic knife. Of course, a terrorist would never consider using a fork as a weapon. Knives are... stabby things. Forks are... picky-uppy kinda things.

(Yes, another blurry, illegally-taken, cellphone-picture.)

In case you're wondering, the meal you're trying not to look at is an Indian Airlines speciality listed in their cookbook as "Lumps of Stuff".

www.levdavid.com

Fuckoff formula.

2006-09-26T05:12:00.000+02:00

So, your're on a plane to Delhi that will be a minimum of 35 minutes
late, and there's no reserved seating, but you've got the aisle seat,
thank Bob, but you want to preserve the centre seat betwixt you and
windowguy, and you're a little grumpy from a lack of sleep and smog in
the lungs and you need to give off some major fuckoff vibes.

How?

Type emails. Look stern. Do not look up at latecomers searching for a
free seat. Not even the littleoldlady with the walking stick. Whip out
your iPod. Carrying sunglasses? Wear them. In the absence of gum,
pretend to chew gum.

Ooh, cute girl comin'.

"Would you like a seat? ...So, where are you flying to? ...What a coincidence! Me too."

www.levdavid.com

Memories of Kerala.

2006-09-25T11:20:00.000+02:00

I seem forever between places. There's never enough time. But Calicut, Kerala did well in the little time we had together.

They call it God's Own Country. Even this agnostic can see why.

The sweetmeats here rocked my socks. Well worth the risk of heart disease.

I became a bit of a regular at the best restaurant in town... and one of the best I've ever eaten at, Paragon.

Yeekibloodyhell. They have this rice-bread thing that'd make the wings fall off angles... and paratha (spelling?), that had me whimpering. Dammitwow.

And here's a good story:

So, aleady kinda late for the airport, I decided to sneak in one last lunch at Paragon. I'm alone, so I sit alone.

And then, this guy sits down.

At MY friggin' table! Needless to say, I was startled.

(Yes, I know. Time for a haircut.)

Turns out that this is the way things are done here. You sit down with strangers. Because every stranger is a friend.

Babeesh and I swapped numbers, and he promised to put me up at his place and show me around, and whomever else I might be traveling with, when I'm next in Kerala. How bloody awesome?

Sure, he's kinda scarylookin' in the picture. But then, so am I.

I'm reminded of a time not too far back when I suggested to a few friends, out for drinks at Lapa Fo in Emmarentia, Johannesburg, that it would be great to have a restaurant where you went in in a group, and they split you up and made you sit with other people. They laughed. They laughed in my face, dear friend.

Babeesh would not laugh.

Echoing footsteps on cold, stone floors.

2006-09-25T10:57:00.000+02:00

So, Bangalore wasn't exactly impressing the pants off me. The rick drivers kept on proudly pointing out such local treasures as multiplexes and 8 lane highways. I wanted something old and fallingapart.

I found it in the Bangalore National History Museum.

I've said before that I'm quite unsentimental about old stuff, at least on an intellectual level. Still, I have a deep love for museums that I can't claim has nothing to do with growing up with the Indiana Jones movies on instant replay.

(This is a statue of the Surya, the chief solar deity in Hinduism, 12th Century AD. The picture's blurry coz I was sneaking a snap with my cellphone -- no pics allowed, of course.)

The detail, if you can't tell, is plainly nutty. Why would anyone work that hard at anything? I certainly wouldn't.

It's the kind of detail that demands a kind of madness, surely. Probably that flavour of madness we call "faith".

Very few of today's artists have the patience for it. Perhaps that's evidence that we live in a less mad time. Perhaps that's also evidence of how much delusion is part of who we are as a species. A species with not only the ability to imagine the unreal, but to believe it. And, on occasion, to make it real.

(A frieze of a buffalo and a winged horse. 1 - 2 Century, AD.)

This one gave me shivers. I doubt that the picture will, but the movement in this piece is incredible.

Just think, though: there must've been a lot of crap back then too. We've just had the good sense to save some of the good stuff.

Dance like no-one's watching... unless someone's watching.

2006-09-25T10:44:00.000+02:00

I'm back in 'Bai and have a bit of time to tell you tales.

So, there I was, first night in Bangalore, a city with an 11pm curfew, desperately needing to have a bitto dancy-dancy. But there was no dancy dancy to be found. And so, alone, back at the guesthouse, I was slamming it to some Modest Mouse...

...When Srini, who picked me up from the airport earlier, made an unexpected appearence to see if I had everything I needed.

Fairly embarrassing. Played it cool, though. Coz I'm cool, y'know.