When anyone silently mouths ‘Italian fashion’ the giants of the couture fashion world spring to mind like a Lotus flower obeys the omnipotent Sun, Gucci and Prada are but a few of these epic wonders that run the multi Billion dollar fashion industry for the moment . But it seems that this prestigious Italian fashion culture has a somewhat tarnished history that is usually glossed over rather rapidly. A publication by Eugenia Paulicelli who is the Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature for Queens College, New York has published a magnificent book that delves into the 1930’s Mussolini fascism and how it spilled over into the fashion industry.
I stumbled across a minute article entitled ‘Is graffiti a public nuisance?’by Lindsay Dentlinger. As you can tell by the title it seems to be quite a sore point for the local authorities as they try to pass a bylaw that will prohibit and enforce removal and restoration of affected surfaces. This as I’m sure you will agree with me will seriously suffocate and squash a community that is only beginning to flourish.
Granted not all graffiti is to everyone’s taste, but expression in any form is yet a taste of creation and borders on godliness in my opinion! Instead of outlawing graffiti maybe the City of Cape Town could take a more positive and passive approach and donate more to the graffiti community in the form of so called ‘approved graffiti spaces.’
The proposed bylaw declares that any form of graffiti within the city’s jurisdiction is a nuisance and subject to removal. If the artist in question is identified and found guilty he or she could be subjected to a fine of up to R20 000. This is crazy!! A valid art form is being denied existence by the powers that be for no better reason other than they don’t understand or appreciate this form of expression. This law has not been passed yet and quite frankly should not be passed. The City of Cape Town has given the public till the 20 August for all to announce their views and opinions on the bylaw. Therefore, now is the time to act!!
Unfortunately there is no forum or digital petition online and as soon as I know how to rally against this agressvie manoeuvre on the City of Cape Town’s part, I’ll let you know.
Good news for all the music fans out there!! At the end of September, 21-23 to be exact, there will be a music festival at Thabazimbi. Christened Metal Farm 2 and described as the ultimate METAL festival… on the Botswana border. With claims that there will be free drinks the whole weekend you can only wonder what Monday will be like? With three bands performing for the first time we can really get to see what’s happening in the local metal scene and also just getting to see some of the older metal heads scream their sorrows away. Yay!! A real treat for us starved metal heads.
I can already hear you asking where in the world is Thabazimbi? With a little help from SA explorer I found out too. J As you can see on the link it’s about 150 km from the Botswana border so if you go make sure you have enough supplies, it really is a bundu bash for those of us who never get to brave the back garden. J I only hope we don’t need off road vehicles to get there!!
All in all there are 16 bands scheduled over the course of the weekend with six bands on the Friday night and seven on the Saturday of which a few will be performing for the first time Rhutz and Hush, to name the first two that come to mind. The talk of Metal Farm 2 is supposedly, The Ocean Doesn’t Want Me, can’t say I’ve heard them before but I eagerly await a titbit of sound! Other bands include Urban Vitamin, Chaos Theory and Forever Will Burn.
With free booze and a weekend of metal you can surly count me in! If you would also like to come through and support the local metal scene at Metal Farm 2 click on this link for prices and ticket availability but I’m warning you now, there are only 500 tickets available and I’m pretty sure they’re selling like hot cakes.
Well the end of the weekend is near and that dreaded Monday is lurking just around the corner. Argghh. But good news has just wafted through my front door here in Sea Point. A little early, granted, but well worth the excitement. The next Iron Man movie is slowly being unveiled with a few photos here and there but also commentary by some of the stars.
Speaking of stars, this will defiantly be the most star studded cast in a one movie I have seen in a long time! With the likes of Mickey Rourke(Sin City), Scarlett Johansson(The Spirit) and Samuel .L. Jackson(Unbreakable) added to the list, it seems that we are in for an awesome movie that rivals the likes of Transformers, funnily enough also a comic book series originally.
The marvel universe seems to be taking the cinema by storm and about time too. With the likes of The Hulk and Iron Man having very similar inter weaving story lines I can only hope that eventually we have ‘fresher’ big budget releases that feature some of the more classic characters from the marvel universe like Captain America and Thor.
I wonder what DC will be doing to siphon some of that box office cash?
