THE ECC SINGERS

I POST this because Miriam and Chippy are in France, and I'm not. And because it's one of my favourite pics of the two of them. Here they are with Judy, reliving their End Conscription Campaign cultural performances from long ago.

VOEL VRY MET VOËLVRY

BLAST from the past, indeed. Lloyd sent me this pic of a Voëlvry moment in Windhoek in 1989, I think. There's me on the left, Grace Catao, Jannie Hanepoot van Tonder, Piet Pers (aka Gary Herselman), Helge Schütz, Steve "The Veg" Howells, Johannes Kerkorrel (aka Ralph Rabie) and Mark "Boesak" Bennett. Hell.

AT VANESSA AND ALBIE'S

ALBIE and Vanessa are returning to SA on 5 July, after spending six months here while Albie was scholar-in-residence at the Ford Foundation. Their apartment, on East 94th Street, is on the 28th floor, and has a frightening balcony: it has perspex (or something like that) walls, and makes one feel as if there is nothing to keep you from tumbling off it. But the view from it is magnificent.

Tony and Hillary Hamburger visited Albie and Vanessa a week or two ago, and we had brunch with them

Jonny and Vanessa ...

... and Albie

VISITORS

LOVELY Steven van Hemert came in April. Here he is in Central Park, in spring.

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MARK Gevisser also visited. He was especially admiring of my new-found skill of putting together Ikea furniture. Clive Cope, who has done a lot of this in France, will vouch for the huge talent it requires to progress from flat Ikea box to a functional piece of furniture. And if he's not willing to, he's lying...

* * *

THEN came Bea and our friend, Hedwig (known as "Piering") Schoonakker (née Van Coller). Bea and Jonny and I drove from New York to Boston, where we collected Piering from Logan airport, and drove to Exeter. Bea wasted absolutely no time hitting the bars to socialise with her school friends from Phillips Exeter Academy, who were all there for their 25th reunion (sorry, fifth reunion). After Exeter, we drove to Conway, in the White Mountains, to stay with Bea's American family, Dick and Connie Brown.

Bea in front of a brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where we live

Bea and her friend Laura, who lives in New York. We went to the opening of an art exhibit with Laura

Bea and Piering shopping for I LOVE NEW YORK shirts near the Empire State Building

Organ pipes, don't you think? Sarah, Bea, Piering and Jonny in front of Inn by the Bandstand, where we stayed in Exeter

Near the library on Exeter Academy's campus

Piering and Bea in the school library, which was designed by Louis Kahn

We went walking with Dick Brown

Bea with her family: Dick, Connie and Liz

WEEKEND STUFF

IT'S the same story: it is outrageously hot today. At 10h30 the temperature had already exceeded the forecast. It should have been 88F max, and when I got up it was just over 90F (which is 32 Celsius). The humidity is already at 62%, and it's normally at its highest by 11pm. This is like Ladismith, where I grew up: it just gets hotter towards the evening, not cooler. Two nine-year-olds, who live in our building, have been filling small balloons with water, “to throw at people on the street”, which, of course, they’ll never do because they are exceptionally well-behaved NY boys. So I suggested to them that they put a table on the pavement with a sign saying, “Pay us a quarter and we’ll throw a balloon at you.” They thought it was a brilliant idea (and it is hot enough to pull it off). They've now set up business on our street corner, and they’re doing a roaring trade. Jonny has been up there to buy a balloon, and got it in the back. He came home all wet. One mother has had to put her work for the day aside since she’s the one filling balloons with water back home, on the stoop in front of our house, while the boys tend their stall. They’re parking off in deck chairs, shouting what they’re selling at the passers-by. All New Yorkers love a bit of business ingenuity, it seems. And their financial reports seem to get better and better: "We've got six dollars fifty!" Hell, they should go run Lehman Brothers.

Last night we had dinner at Jonathan and Nadine's. David Jammy was there, too, and two friends of Jonny and Nadine's, Rachel and Sam. Jonathan grilled sardines on the Weber on the balcony; there was pickled octopus -- I told Jonny it was the closest we'll get to Mozambique this year. Here are two pics of the post-dinner torpor... (There is something intrinsically sad about a Weber on a balcony, don't you think?)

FRIDAY IN THE PARK WITH THE MET OPERA

I'VE never seen "Sunday in the Park with George" (or the Seurat painting "A Sunday afternoon ...", for that matter), but the Metropolitan Opera's summer solstice concert on June 20 was pretty wonderful. The police estimate that 50 000 people attended, and they were sure strung out along Prospect Park's (four blocks from our house) Long Meadow. Huge video screens and a phalanx of giant speakers relayed the action on the stage throughout the meadow; because it is about a mile long, the video and sound signal was transmitted via satellite.

Graeme and Claire and Karen Harber came and we had a picnic against a slight rise, from where we had an unobstructed view of the stage. The Met hauled out Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna, "opera's starriest married couple", as the New York Times called them, for a list of arias and duets that were so familiar that they felt as if they're part of one's genetic heritage.

When Bea and Hedwig visited, we all went to a rather rare Jessye Norman recital at Carnegie Hall; from our one-up-from-cheapest seats Jonny gave the stage one look and said, "From here Jessye Norman could very well be Albertina Sisulu." It was almost the case with the stage in Prospect Park, but the screens brought everything brilliantly close.

The Met said they expected about 100 000 people, but it was most probably a marketing stunt. During the first duet a police helicopter buzzed above the stage in a circle, making a huge noise. The audience started shouting and throwing fists at the helicopter, and it left. Sensitive cops...

Graeme Simpson and Claire Wright

The stage being prepared, while Gheorghiu and Alagna practise (this pic is from the New York Times)

PICS FROM LUNCH AT BEA AND RODDY'S

Sunday, 18 May 2008 at Bea and Roddy's. Wish we could do it again soon.

IT'S HOT

I'M trapped: outside it is almost 37 degrees, the humidity is at 48% and forecast to reach 71% by 11pm; inside the so-called "whisper quiet" air conditioner I bought from a woman called Miriam on Sunday night is anything but that -- but it does its job extremely well. I have rarely felt such heat, not even in those gatkant van die aarde villages where I grew up. This feels like Durban humidity, but it is much, much hotter. Everything about this city conspires to trap the heat between the buildings, made worse by the hot air from the subways escaping onto the streets, and the hot air blasting from hundreds of air conditioners on the street-side of the brownstones. The fire department opened the hydrant a couple of metres from our house earlier; cars coming up the street stop in the spray for as long as they can, and the construction workers walk up from the corner, where they are building a condominium, to dip their heads in the water. I live for tomorrow, when the temperature will drop to about 29 degrees.

The neighbouring ladies put their chairs underneath the trees on the pavement,
no doubt for a closer look at the cavorting construction worker

ELLA STEINBERG-MORRISON, PHOTOGRAPHER

As they were leaving school yesterday afternoon, Lulu Bethlehem-Potenza said to Ella Steinberg-Morrison, Jonny's niece, "See you at Jonny's book launch, Ella." When it was time to get ready, Ella put on her Sunday best and took her camera along "to photograph the author". This she did, throughout his speech. Erik Forster captured her at it.

"THREE-LETTER PLAGUE" IS OUT

My friend, Erik Forster, has done me many favours since I got to know him during the Johannesburg Summit in 2002. But I think he did me the biggest one ever today when he went to the launch of Three-Letter Plague at Exclusive Books in Hyde Park and took these photographs. I really wanted to be there, and these images help with the homesickness.

Robyn Arenstam and Philippa Garson with Jonny

Jonny with Alan and Sheila Steinberg

My favourite: Lloyd says hello

SNOW

At least 15-20cm of snow covers Park Slope, Brooklyn this morning. I'm looking after Graeme and Claire's house and dog, while Jonny is promoting Sizwe's Test in Philadelphia and Washington (he's on a train on his way back to NY), so this pic is of the street in front of their house. Nadine Rubin and I were in Union Hall until early this morning, and it started snowing while we were there. I don't think it has let up for a second, because everything has a thick coat this morning. This pic was taken at about 9.30, and it is still falling steadily.

ONE MONTH GONE

On February 11 we were here for exactly a month, and Bea has already forgotten me -- mind you, she does have a hundred children, and she’s scriptwriting, so I’m not blaming her. And Miriam forgot my birthday, which even Nandi and Sam Bauer-Cope remembered; however, in their case they most probably sparked because they couldn’t believe that anyone could be as old as I am and still have teeth to chew with.

Top of the recap list is that February 12 saw the publication of Sizwe’s Test. The New York Times Book Review did a double-page spread on it, used two of Gideon Mendel’s photographs, and got Adam Hochschild (King Leopold’s Ghost) to review it. (I’ll add the text of the review to our website.) Yesterday’s edition of Time Out says: “Not since Abraham Verghese’s haunting 1994 book about eastern Tennessee, My Own Country, has the AIDS epidemic been described so deeply and humanely, and from so many angles. … Steinberg has ended up with a big, brave, poignant look into the heart of his country…”

Just one pic of the book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble, and then I’ll stop being so full of bursting pride.

NADINE ZYLSTRA AND JOHNATHAN DORFMAN

We saw them last Sunday for brunch at Downtown Atlantic in Brooklyn (again, the Bloody Marys were exceptional). Did anyone know that Nadine got an Oscar -- I mean, an Emmy -- last year for her directing at Sesame Street? She forgot to thank her husband, she says. And he has completed another film (Chuck Palahniuk’s Choke; last year he produced Joshua). They have a really gorgeous girl, Ella, who must be about nine months old; like Damon Galgut she could say “Tyrannosaurus rex” at six months. Obviously. One’s friends only have geniuses for kids. I mean, Ella is Gertrude Stein.

Going down on Atlantic: is that the right orifice?

After walking with the Zylstra-Dorfmans to their really nice house (around the corner from where Heath Ledger lived), we got stuck in admiring the light and black clouds along a street whose name I have now forgotten, and then it started snowing. Actually, it was a blizzard. I am such a snow-struck Karoo boy that my hands had to start bleeding before we went into the subway.

Here’s a pic of the street -- ah, now I remember, it was Court Street, because that is where the bar is that you can sort-of see: it’s called Miriam’s. Never was a bar more aptly named.

BARS, PARTIES, DINNERS

Despite Jonny’s deep insecurities about not meeting enough people and not going out often enough, we are doing wonderful things, even though just being on the streets is almost enough for me right now. We’ve been to dinner at the apartment of a really, really nice guy called Hylton White (he’s straight, single, seriously clever and really good-looking -- who wants to visit?), who we met at Kelly and Leigh-Anne’s wedding at the end of 2006. He grew up in South Africa and teaches at the New School here.

Douglas Rogers took us along to Tom Downey’s birthday party in Brooklyn last Saturday, and that was wall-to-wall with more nice people. I met Tom when Doug and I went out for drinks in April last year.

We sometimes hang out at a bar in Park Slope, called Union Hall, where I have befriended the doorman. We didn’t have photo ID when we went the first time (to see a stand-up comedian who never pitched, but sent a copy of Spielberg’s Jaws in his place), and when we went again, with ID, the second time, it was all hail-fellow-well-met-and-no-go-in-go-in-I-don’t-need-to-see-no-ID. I love that doorman (but he's not the one in the picture).

Union Hall is all huge, solid bar counter and dark corners and deep couches in pools of yellow light and walls lined with books and a fireplace and two bocce courts and a basement where they play great music. Bliss.

And they don't allow strollers, which is causing an outcry. As Douglas warned us: Park Slope is full of strollers and lesbians. The "no stroller" policy made the New York Times, and that's where the pic is from. Wanna move into Union Hall, Janine? Imagine: no kids

BAR TABAC ON SUPER BOWL SUNDAY

Jonathan-Jeremy-Hermann's friend, Douglas Rogers, and his daughter, Miss Rogers, took us to a wonderful place in Cobble Hill, in Brooklyn, for brunch on Sunday. It's called Bar Tabac and makes the best Bloody Marys I've ever had (they beat those of Janine's friend, Nicole, and hers were bloody marvellous). Add this place to your list of breakfast joints for when you come to sleep in our guest room...

Douglas and Jonny frame Bar Tabac's entertainment on Sunday morning: a spectacular tuba-drums-guitar-trumpet combo. I'm sure you can spot the celery stick protruding from the Bloody Mary in the foreground...

MY DOG WROTE A BOOK: "SIZWE'S TEST"

The most exciting news right now is that I have received a copy of Sizwe's Test: A Young Man's Journey Through Africa's Aids Epidemic. It is being published on 12 February, by Simon & Schuster. Read more about it on our website.

A CAR CALLED REPOSSESSION

Our beloved Thomas Tyler arrived at Hogsback in the car you see below. It's not just any car: it's a Porsche; no, wait, it's a Merc; wrong again - it's a BMW 323i something. The most important thing is that Thomas looks spectacular in it. So do we, don't you think: Chip, Jerm, Anthea and I...

Damn shame that Thomas says it will be repossessed by the end of February. Can we start a rescue fund?

WHEN I MISS YOU

This is what I do when I miss you: I look at photographs. I lost all my Vermaaklikheid and Hogsback pics when my laptop was stolen (when I get upset about that, I think of Bea who lost two laptops in one theft), but Debra gave me all her pics, and I found someone's pics of Janine's surprise party on a memory stick that does not belong to me. I think it's labelled "Futuregrowth", and whoever is its rightful owner can claim it back.

So, here are some pics of the brilliant party Chip and Jerm threw on December 31. I wish I could have that party over again.



There's more on the way; unfortunately this post is competing with the Florida primary's results coming in. My favourite, Mrs Clinton, is beating Barack Obama to a pulp: with 91% of the votes counted, she's 17% ahead. Don't get me wrong - I think Obama is completely fantastic. But he's still a ghost in his own story. She, on the other hand, may wail like a banshee sometimes, but she's brilliant. The frightening prospect is of that unspeakably dull John McCain actually having to campaign. Three months of his face on TV and in the newspapers cannot be contemplated. And he is unstoppable, even though he hasn't won even 40% of the Republican primaries.

GOD BLESS OUR HOME(S)

Jonny’s connection, Ben Carton (he was the seriously attractive man who spoke American at our farewell brunch), arranged for us to squat in his mother’s apartment on the Upper West Side until the end of February. Let’s just say that we live in remarkable turn-of-the-century (the nineteenth, that is) splendour. Ben’s father was an avant-garde abstract painter, who worked in Picasso’s Paris studio for five years after the Second World War, and there are three or four Picassos in the apartment, all done specially for Carton père.

The apartment building, called The Belnord, is a flagship building on the west side of Central Park, and is only three blocks away from it, in line with the southern end of the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. About 30% of it is rent-controlled, and apartments not subject to this most civilised of city laws go for about $17 000 a month.

The Belnord, seen from the corner of Broadway and West 86th Street


The Belnord's courtyard. In New York, one can be anything. Sometimes I am Mrs Astor...

(Good God, I’ve just spotted the most obese human being five feet away in the Starbucks. I’ll avert mine eyes… Fittingly, he’s sitting at the table reserved for disabled people. As Charlotte said about Jackie May’s belly the day before Georgia was born: “You could have had a cheese-and-wine party on that stomach.”)

On the first Sunday after we arrived, we took the tube/metro/underground (what do they call it here? “Subway” refers to a take-away chain, but I think that is indeed what they call it) to Brooklyn to start house hunting. We had more or less decided in advance that we wouldn’t be able to afford to live on Manhattan and have space for guests, so Brooklyn it was going to be.

We started off in Crown Heights and weaved our way through Bedford-Stuyvesant towards Park Slope. We were both really polite about the first two neighbourhoods (which were ghastly) – I suppose because we thought there was a real chance that we would have to make a life there. The streets were wide and the buildings low and bleak – a bit like East Berlin in 1992 – extremely unattractive.

By the time we got to Grand Army Plaza at the edge of Park Slope I knew there was no way I could live in any other area. And then Claire Wright and Graeme Simpson came to the rescue.

597 Carroll Street Apartment 1, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11215

The mother of a classmate of Jake Simpson’s advertised a floor in their house, just among the parents in Jake’s class, and we went to look at it on the same day we trawled through those depressing working-class neighbourhoods. It was not our first choice because it has only one-and-a-half bedrooms, but it is in Park Slope, three blocks from the park and completely renovated (a “gut renovation” they call it here); also, two days later we saw four hideous apartments that were all more expensive than the one that’s now ours, so we decided to bite the bullet and take it. It’s about two streets from Graeme and Claire, which is another plus.

At least we had the pleasure of meeting Larry, the biggest caricature of the gross estate agent I have ever come across, who took us to see the first three apartments. He drives a huge Chrysler something, with his pudgy diamond-ringed hand flat against the steering wheel. He’s short, with thinning grey hair and a synthetic jacket that peels at the collar. He shouts into three mobiles at the same time, and is a rude bastard to all his callers.

“What’s a ‘walkthrough’?” I ask.

“We talk outside. I meet you at the car. I’ll show you a walkthrough,” is his response.

Swine. I’m so pleased we didn’t have to rent anything through him. I had to give him the evil eye right at the beginning already, just to get him remotely in line. And that line was bloody crooked.

597 Carroll Street. Our apartment is the one that should be called "ground floor", but because everything is higher and bigger and better in America, it's on the first floor

HOW TO ARRIVE IN NEW YORK

Friday, 11 January: We took a cab from JFK, and, just before we entered Manhattan, it had a flat. The driver did not even consider pulling over on the expressway, so, with the wheel’s rim grinding on the tarmac, we limped along until we got to 1st Avenue, in East Harlem. The cab company’s maintenance vehicle was summoned, and Jonny and I decamped to a Dunkin’ Donut. Tarek, the Egyptian manager, lit up like one of those Christmas trees that now litter the city pavements would have less than a month ago when we told him, no, we’re not from England (the default assumption here the moment we open our mouths), and instantly started talking soccer. I handed over to Jonny. Back at our fixed cab, the driver also wanted to know where we were from. “2010!” he shouts, “2010! I want to see you in South Africa in 2010!”

I am so pleased not all Americans know about soccer. My conversational skills would have had no exercise.