OXFORD UNIVERSITY

The dons didn't like me during my 1970 scholarship-level interview at Oxford University, so it gives me perverse pleasure to see one of my drawings of the 1981 Brixton Uprising on this dust jacket. I may not be IN the History books, but at least I'm ON one!

Lambeth Archives used the picture first, on their 2005 pamphlet by John Salway. The original is in The Museum of London, along with a larger drawing of the 1990 Trafalgar Square Poll Tax Riot, which spelt the beginning of the end for Margaret Thatcher, just as the 1981 events had ushered in her regime.

http://www.20thcenturylondon.org.uk/server.php?show=conObject.6029

Check out the 'Brixton Riots Anais Mika' video on Youtube.

ART BEYOND THE ANDES

I finally handed in all my University assignments on Monday. Phew! Six years seems like a long trek, even if it was part-time. The last module, 'Publishing for the Internet, included a blog of my investigation of Santiago de Chile's cultural scene in May 2011. The Graduation ceremony will be next July. I'm reading Ariel Dorfmann's 'Feeding on Dreams' (HMH). He's constantly looking for closure, and sees his task as 'to repeatedly, achingly, liberate all the zones, one after the other, that Pinochet conquered, take back every last corner of this contaminated land'. That corner I found by the Mapocho river is one.

 See a draft of the blog at http://jottify.com/works/art-beyond-the-andes/

FAR FIELDS ARE ALWAYS GREEN

Ariel Dorfman's Death And The Maiden continues its run at the Harold Pinter Theatre. Is the revenge of the victim best served cold? Or do we become as bad as the torturers by indulging in it? (See my effort to tackle the subject in a short story, Anubis, on http://jottify.com/works/anubis/  Marie-Celie Agnant also uses the device of rendering the oppressor helpless in Un Alligator Nomme Rosa, when Antoine catches up with the obese, immobile Rosa Bosquet. He drives her mad, cuts out her tongue (that's the way I read it) and dumps her in an old people's home under a false name, where the residents are strapped to their chairs in front of the television. Perfect. Still, we rarely get our hands on the big fish. Put Hussein and Ghadaffi aside for a moment, and consider the comfortable, untouchable careers of bloodstained creatures like Kissinger, Bush and Blair. Why is Baby Doc back in Haiti? Where would our revenge end? One ends up calling for civil war and guillotines, ushering in more tyrants. I guess it makes more sense when it's personal. Dorfman's PBS interview with Tavis Smiley, http://video.pbs.org/video/2163553821/ , develops the idea of Art ventilating the stench of History's unburied corpses. If we can't have justice, at least we can dream about it and let the criminals know we've got their number. I still wouldn't like to be an investigative journalist in, say, Putin's Russia. Fiction is a safer bet. For instance, a lot of Latin America's recent history finds its way into crime novels. In Russia, who can look at that Mafia State without thinking of John Le Carre's 'vors' spreading their tentacles around the world?

TRAVEL TIPS...AND TRAPS

The reflective commentary that must be submitted with each module portfolio is one of the least popular chores at university. Still, it produces valuable self-critical insights. Binyavanga Wainuna would not have been too pleased with my MAGIC SKIN in the Congo, complete with monkey stew and voodoo skulls! Tough titty; bushmeat protein and magic bones are driving forces, whether he likes it or not. A full belly and a working mojo work wonders in the Heart of Darkness. Reading Herge's Tintin in the Congo (Egmont) immediately after William Galvez's Che in Africa (Ocean) made me want to insert Che's comments into the comic's speech bubbles to produce "Tintin Guevara and the Mugangas". My teenage Kinshasa excursion might be put alongside a young African stumbling through some remote Baltic village, or racist Muscovite suburb, for balance. It's good to be reminded that so many places are mentally medieval. All the same, Richard Stupart's post at http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/travel-illusion-the-awkward-african-diptych-vid/ makes a valid point about the 'exotic' being described by the imperial Centre, especially when that Central Empire is represented by the likes of Robin Wiszowaty.   

MAGIC SKIN

I didn't write about Madame Max Adolphe of Haiti for the Roehampton Writer's competition in the end. Reading French in Marie-Celie's 'Un Alligator Nomme Rosa' (Vents d'ailleurs) and Patrick Lemoine's 'Fort Dimanche, Fort-La-Mort' (Trafford Publishing) took me back to my holiday in Zaire in 1970, in another tropical tyranny. You can see the result in my Jottify story, Magic Skin. I'll be uploading some accounts of a recent trip to Santiago de Chile soon.                               http://jottify.com/works/magic-skin/