Saturday, December 4, 2021

USA Africa Dialogue Series - At a snail’s pace, poetic thoughts : Progress Report

I'm smiling. I wasn't disappointed. Like death, disappointment as dead line and as end station can only come as a surprise as a result of raising your expectations far too high down here on earth.

Then, it could be like the end of that short Edith Södergran poem : You are disappointed.

Down here on earth when those expectations are not fulfilled, it's always a disappointment. The suicide-bomber blows himself up believing that once blasted up to any of the seven heavens he will be greeted by the lovely seventy two virgins.

What happens if they are not there?

Nothing.

Nothing happens.

Not even a leaf trembles.


"The peace of the brave

Not the peace of the grave"

said Chairman Arafat...

Fact is, that when you quench and the next minute you're in heaven you can't say that you are "disappointed" can you ? Of course not. But should you immediately find yourself in the other place, the other place beyond the grave ("a churning urn of burning funk") needless to say, you will be sorry - very sorry that you did not repent when you had time enough to do so. Therefore the saying, "Better safe than sorry" and therefore my dearest Samuel ( Samuel Oloruntoba) adumbrating in my ear the message of repentance

I tell Baba Kadiri that I'm fasting, and he tells me that I should stop punishing myself unnecessarily that I should be generous, that I should eat and get fat. Why should I do that ? He says , so that I will feed the worms ( well well )

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what's a heaven for?"

This quote popped out of Fry's mouth in the conversation with Dawkins. In that conversation the show-off Fry ( showing off his erudition) reminded me of Anthony Burgess showing off in e.g. his " Earthly Powers "

Smile & please: 

In fulfilment of good intentions I have have just zapped through the first 28 pages of Kperogi's Nigeria Digitalia ( Freudian slip , I almost wrote genitalia) – I zapped through those 28 pages and , and ( gasp - like Gasper Ruiz) and survived , giving thanks and praises to the editorial folks and proof readers for down-sizing / pruning what I intuit must have been stacked as the characteristic overflow. I now understand that the Nigerian Tribune and Gazette do not offer the same kind of editorial facilities that would be a restraining influence on the otherwise unnecessary word extravaganza which can always be so vexing, so very off-putting. Imagine if James Baldwin, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, El Hajj Malik el Shabazz, Muhammad Ali, Cornel West or Barack Hussein Obama talked like that to you and me !

Have also zapped through the first six pages of the more down to earth It Is Well: The Autobiography of Dr. Okechukwu M. Ukaga – the sort of beginning that promises a more " happy ending", indeed the sort of beginning that inspires one to tell one's own psychological tale, four continents, heavily fictionalised of course since salacious details could entail legal proceedings for the variables known as sexual slander, rock and roll defamations of characters encountered on life's pilgrimage , so far - if you're aiming at a best seller not " academia" ( pretentious monkeys)…

It's early Sunday morning and still Kperogi's Saturday column has still not appeared in the is forum although from his point of view a very large crowd ( some thirteen ( 13) people  ( including yours truly) have done their duty, the polite & correct right thing to do, the ritual genuflection to congratulate him 

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