Archive for August, 2006

Martin Smit has been, and sometimes is, a playwright and singer in a ‘difficult’ electronic band.He runs a website for independent musicians and hosts a twice monthly Podcast which promotes Music Tourism and features eclectic sounds from many strange and beautiful groups. Born in Africa now living in Europe, he believes that music, art and his wife and daughter keep the soul alive.

Martin wrote this for me earlier this summer:

So many thoughts, flying. Fusion, isolation, integration. The world cup starts to today and I am wondering how exactly I should feel about this, who I should support, get excited for, get hopeful for. Four years ago it was easy, I love to support the underdog and my home country (South Africa) was a natural underdog, so I could follow my instincts AND scream and sigh and be patriotic all at the same time.

Now, here in Krefeld Germany, as I type this out, I can feel the streets outside start to get a little tense and the TV with the sound down is practically jumping off its table with nerves. Germany, though, is no underdog and even won the cup a few times…. Mmm ok I think I will just sit and watch and let my emotions tell me what to do, and as I make that very me decision I realise just how ‘not German’ I am and I wonder if that I am dishonouring my adapted country by being like this.

Ok yeah, I think too much.

Fusion.

How do I fuse into the world around me? Well, not as much as others, because I work from home and I work on the internet, so I live and think and create in that hyperspace, that nowhere/everywhere world where if they don’t speak your language, an online translator is just a hop skip, mouse click away, and everyone speaks music.

My PC speaks Deutsch, but my internet speaks English so I find the language I pick up is of the strangest non-functional species in real world terms.

My daughter who now is grade 3 going on grade 4 speaks both English and Deutsch fluently, and I find that along with strange technical terms that I pick up from my pc (which has NO sense of humour by the way) I pick up bits and bobs from kids TV and gossip that she brings home with her.

Still does not help when I need to buy vegetables at the local market.

The fact is, as a natural outsider, I love my strange life here. I have my family and the world of music and I ‘meet’ hundreds of fellow artists every day. I love that in Europe knowledge and curiosity are thought to be good things in the pursuit of independent rock n roll and that with a few € in my pocket I can go quietly mad and get oh so much new CDs and surround my self with the strange passion that only people involved in the rock world can bring.

I do get out though, I play as a DJ at the Hard Rock café in Köln (or as rest of world calls it: Cologne) and that is a strange experience worthy of a blog entry all of its own. In addition, I am a somewhat reserved shy tourist who slowly, very slowly, loves to explore this new world he finds himself in.

So yes, the opening ceremony of the 2006 World Cup draws closer and I start to feel like, mmm I am German, maybe, after all, must be the songs and the way the TV is not just being nervous but also totally dancing around with unusual glee for a Teutonic appliance.

The weather is humid and reminds me of Africa and for once, I don’t feel homesick for my beloved cricket. ( OH, I wish South Africa had qualified, but perhaps its for the best, now I can pick another underdog with slightly less guilt.)

Written by Guest Blogger: Martin Smit

Check out Martin’s show at http://nextbigthing.libsyn.com/ where you can also subscribe to his regular podcast showcasing an eclectic mix of great new music from great new bands and singers.

Following the advice from UK literary agent Lucy Luck, I thought I would share my personal experience of the submission process for the manuscript of my first novel, The Flame Tree.

I was about three-quarters of the through writing the novel when I got a voicemail message from a friend. She had mentioned to some her friends at a dinner party that I was writing a book set in Malaysia with a Chinese heroine. One of the people there was a literary agent. The agent had said “Book by Chinese women are hot right now. Tell Yang-May to send me her manuscript when she’s finished.”

My friend’s voice crackled out of my answering machine, “So, are you finished yet?”

As you can imagine, I didn’t do anything but write like crazy the next couple of months till I had finished the book and polished and re-polished it. When the time came to submit the manuscript, though, I decided to send it to two other agents in addition to my friend’s friend. It was a risk because it might upset my friend’s friend (let’s call her Agent No. 1). But I wanted the option to see a selection of agency styles, personalities and portfolios.

So with the input of my friend, I chose two more agents. Agent No. 2 was younger and just starting to build a portfolio of her own within the agency where she had been a junior agent. She was likely to be “hungry” and work hard to promote my book. Agent No. 3 was a highly respected and influential name within the industry, specialising in high-brow literature and quality thrillers.

I sent out my covering letter, first three chapters and synopsis. And waited.

The calls came within two weeks. They all wanted to meet with me. They were all a bit miffed that I had submitted to other agents besides them. But that was good, because it put me in the driving seat. They all loved it but they all advised it needed work. “Fine,” I said, “Let’s talk and whoever I go with, I’ll make whatever changes you want.”

I made appointments to see them all, one after the other on the same day.

Who would I choose? Agent No. 1 who had come to me first? Agent No. 2 who was young and hungry? Or Agent No. 3, established leader in her field? Who would be my “Blind Date”?

Read more next week…..

It’s the Bank Holiday in the UK - what are you doing at your computer surfing the net? You need to be out there on the beach, getting fresh air and exercise!

Here’s a guy taking a “stroll on the beach” that should inspire you to go search out some sea and sand - and surfing that really gets you wet!

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I was on my way to work on the bus the other day when I passed a glass fronted shop with a curved awning. An arc of words across the large pane said, “Tony’s Cafe”. I couldn’t see clearly inside from where I sat on the double-decker but I knew it wasn’t a “café” but a “caff”.

A “café” (with a fancy French accent on the “e” and pronounced “caf-fay”) is where they serve fancy coffees like cappuccino and lattes and you sit in stylish chairs at carefully placed small tables and watch the world go by. Or write your novel on a shiny laptop. Or kiss your friends on both cheeks when they join you. Or read the latest Booker prize winner.

A “cafe” (with no fancy “e” on the end and pronounced “caff”) is where they serve tea so strong it puts hairs on your chest but they couldn’t make decent coffee to save their lives and they make great, greasy fry-up English breakfasts that will have you dropping dead at an early age and where you say “awright, mate?” when your friends come by or you sit and read a tabloid.

A café is in a fancy part of town like Covent Garden and a caff, like the one I passed, is in somewhere like the Walworth Road in South London.

In Malaysia, the equivalent of a “caff” is a coffeeshop where they make strong, sweet “kopi” or “teh” with evaporated or condensed milk and do mean fried noodles and “chicken chop”. Are there many of these left any more? Or have they all been globalised into Starbucks and Gloria Jeans Coffeehouse?

I love a café when I’m in the mood to be in my head and “un peu intellecto” as they might say in Paris. But I adore caffs and coffeeshops when I’m in the mood to be down-to-earth and scruffy and to eat some tasty fried food. Crispy bacon and sausages with fried eggs and baked beans and fried tomatoes and mushrooms on the side plus a couple of slices of toasted white bread dripping with butter – or better yet, fried bread! I’ll take that any day over a precious little croissant.

To borrow a line from Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of frying bacon in the morning.”

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This is a new, occasional series on words and language. When I was a child, I loved reading the dictionary and learning new words. I loved their sounds and the depth and the layers of meaning waiting to be unwrapped. Words and language evolve all the time - from the clash of cultures when the Vikings and Germans and Normans invaded Britain through the Great Vowel Shift in medieval times to the local flavour that Commonwealth countries splash into their versions of English and the impact of new technologies and new sub-cultures on traditional usage. I hope you will take part in this series by sharing your experiences of how language is used wherever in the world you live and also suggesting words or aspects of language to explore.

It takes an extraordinary person to transform a personal tragedy into a vision of hope for hundreds of children.

Dana Roskey is one such extraordinary man. Out of his personal grief, he gave hope to children in Ethiopia by founding the Tesfa Foundation to provide schooling for young kids. I spoke to him when he passed through London recently. He told me about culture shock arriving in Ethiopia for the first time, coffee and the path that led him to fulfill the dreams of the woman he loved.

Listen using the embedded player below.

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Or, you can listen to this and other Fusion View podcasts by clicking here.

You can also receive this and future Fusion View Podcasts free via iTunes.

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“Tesfa” means hope in Amharic.

To find out how you can help in this extraordinary project for the schoolchildren of Ethiopia, go to www.tesfa.org or www.tesfa-uk.org.

As part of my series on Getting Published, I spoke to UK Literary Agent Lucy Luck about the process of submitting your manuscript for publication. She gives her advice and answers questions emailed by Fusion View readers and listeners about how a literary agent can help an author, what to put in your covering letter, what’s hot in the publishing world right now and much more.

Listen to our conversation using the embedded player below.

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Or, you can listen to this and other Fusion View podcasts by clicking here.

You can also receive this and future Fusion View Podcasts free via iTunes.

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If you would like to submit your manuscript to Lucy, go to her webpage at www.lucyluck.com - please mention Fusion View in your covering letter.

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To enable as many of my readers and listeners to benefit from Lucy’s advice, this post will headline Fusion View until Thursday 24 August 2006 8.30am (GMT+1) when the next post will be uploaded.

On Sunday, the sun came out after a morning of rain so we decided to go for a walk in the woods. We were going to be optimistic and not worry about a spot of rain, if it came. So we put on our light summer jackets instead of our cagoules as we felt the warmth of the sun on our faces.

In the woods, the trees closed their branches over us. We followed a path into the thickening vegetation. The sky began to darken and in the half-light, the air itself seemed shimmering green.

It began to rain and the drumming of the drops on the leaves felt comforting. It was a sound that reminded me of home and tropical rainstorms. We felt smug here on the woodland floor, the soft droplets caught in the branches before reaching us.

The downpour intensified. Fat raindrops powered through the leaves and began to drench the path. Sheets of water fell. There was nowhere to hide, no spreading canopy robust enough to shelter us. In moments, we were soaked, rivulets running down our face and cold trickles creeping under our collars. My trousers stuck clammily to my legs. My feet swam in my shoes.

The streaks of rain across the trees were disorienting. My glasses misted up and rain streamed into my eyes. We wandered for awhile at a point where several paths crossed, trying to remember the one that would take us back to the car. My head was cold and wet and I couldn’t think.

By the time we got to the car, the rain had eased to a drizzle. As we wiped our glasses and dripped forlornly onto the clean, warm seats, the sun came out.

We drove home in a blaze of sunshine.

Typical.

One bright Saturday recently, Angie and I took a day trip to Eastbourne on the Sussex Coast. On the train from my suburb in South London to Victoria, we sat next to an old man with wispy white hair and a sharp features. Two young South African guys, obviously friends, sat opposite us, chatting. In a pause in their conversation, the old man joined in. At first, he asked where they were from and went on to some chit-chat. It’s odd when a stranger invades your personal conversation in a public space and even though it wasn’t my conversation, I felt uncomfortable. In London, it tends to be drunks and tramps and the psychotic who butt in with the confidence of those who don’t have boundaries.

He spent the rest of the 12 minute journey in a monologue, haranguing the young guys with his opinion on employment, unemployment, working on Saturdays and the state of the nation. They smiled politely but did not have the heart to disengage. When we arrived at Victoria, one of them said, “You have a good day now, sir.” On the platform, the old man strode off and from a distance, if you didn’t notice his wispy white hair, he might have been a younger man.

On the train to Eastbourne, we sat by the window. An old lady joined us. Angie was reading and I wrote in my journal. The old lady made a few attempts at conversation. She was immaculately dressed, her hair smartly brushed. I smiled politely and went back to my notes. She caught a young woman passing in the aisle holding a bunch of flowers. “What lovely flowers!” she said as the woman lurched past to the rhythm of the train, “Did you grow them yourself?”

“Uh, no…”

Angie read and I continued writing.

The old lady changed seats and soon, I could hear her behind me, striking up a conversation with an elderly man. He seemed happy to chat but most of the time, I heard her voice, commenting about the weather, the train, the fields that sped by.

I looked up at the golden fields, dotted with rolls of hay.

I wondered as if in a fable, did this neatly dressed old lady ride the train back and forth from Eastbourne to Victoria and back again, chatting to strangers, just to hear the kindness in another’s voice?

Later, in the bright crisp light you get by the sea, we strolled along the promenade. There were a few families and middle-aged joggers and roller-bladers. But the population seemed so fragile and pale. Old men and women moved slowly by with walking sticks and crutches. Some were wheeled in wheelchairs by people who were hardly any less old. Others had their own motorised scooters and whizzed by jauntily.

A woman limped by in khaki slacks and a white shirt, opened to reveal a light vest. Her hair was a burnished auburn and she had a rich tan. Only her skin and her unsteady walk gave away her age. A little while later, I noticed her on a deck chair on the pier, sitting alone, eating her sandwich.

As we headed back to the station, a beautifully dressed old woman with pearls and bright hair ready for a party smiled at us. “Are you enjoying your visit to Eastbourne?” I felt like a guest at a cocktail drinks she was hosting. We paused in the street and exchanged pleasantries. She told us about the active social life in Eastbourne and the society she belonged to where the Duchess of Devonshire had come to give a talk. She used to live in Brent in North London - “not the place for a widow on her own,” she said.

Back at home in London, after dinner, I lay my head on Angie’s lap as I often do in the evening as we chat before going to bed. We had had an enjoyable day out in the sun, refreshed by the cool breeze, calmed by the endless vista of sea. But the dark of evening surrounded us now.

Angie said, “I keep thinking about those little old ladies.”

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Photo: “Eastbourne Pier” by Angie Macdonald. “I took this picture because I’m on crutches at the moment and seeing these old ladies disturbed me. It made me think about how my future might be.”

Here are two guys with two much time on their hands, making beautiful liquid art with 2-litre bottles of Diet Coke spiked with the sweet Mentos. What they have created out of reviled junk food is bizarrely, hypnotically beautiful…

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You can also go onto the production website and read all about the science behind this performance at http://eepybird.com/dcm1.html

Since starting this blog, I’ve been exploring the world of blogs and new media and loving the connection that the internet is enabling between people from far flung corners of the world.

Through this blog, I have hooked up with writers in Malaysia, South America and the US as well as across the UK and I know from my site statistics that people I don’t know ranging from Japan to Australia to Africa and France are dropping by to sample my writing and podcasts and film clips. In my turn, I read blogs from all over the world, commenting and emailing some of the authors and merely passively dropping by once in a while on other’s sites. For me, it’s a fantastic opportunity to learn from and share our ideas and knowledge at a global level - from the comfort of my own home. I’ve drawn on discussions and styles from other bloggers and I know that other bloggers have taken some of my ideas and developed them for their own needs. It is as if creativity sparks more creativity that in turn sparks more creativity.

I am particularly fascinated by how video and audio is used on the web - with relatively cheap technology and easy to use software, there has been an explosion of short films and podcasts in the last year on the web. I love surfing to find a witty film (Where the Hell is Matt? and the Response to Where the Hell is Matt) or a clever mashup (Brokeback to the Future) or a video of people’s wild and daring antics (Don’t Try This at Home and a surfer riding a mountain of a wave coming up on Bank Holiday Monday (UK)). I’ve come across a lot of terrible stuff but also others that can only be described in that catch-all phrase of the moment: “awesome”. I am also impressed by the patience and meticulousness that some of these creative artists have to carry out their stunts - eg the dancing fountain made out of Diet Coke and Mentos pellets and the domino chain made from household items that will be coming up in the next few weeks.)

In the old days, people would collect stamps or build things out of meccano. No doubt, some people still do. Certainly, singing in choirs or taking part in amateur dramatics has always been around and will continue being around. Organising, filing, making prototypes, rehearsals, learning script by heart - it all takes effort and focus and time. It’s like work except that people do it for fun. The bloggers and filmmakers and young guys seemingly doing pointless but clever things with Coke bottles aren’t very different from these others - only the medium for their creativity and patience is different. And their audience isn’t just their mum and dad or the local village but a global headcount that can extend into millions.

Awesome.