Beyond the boundary of hills aglow with neon crosses, along the N1 highway: a road travelled before, and before, and now, again, our heads against the car window - “koppe kap teen die ruit van die kar/en ons sigarette aan” – anthems for youth once burning with energy, now seemingly fated to apathy, playing on scratched CDs; sunlight swallowed by thunderheads and overhead the dry rain of falling oak leaves; with them we spiral to Stellenbosch to see the idealist bands of past summers.
Youth: how important it has become. Has this become a generation that only trusts themselves; their contemporaries? “Net die jonk glo soos wat net die jonk van hart kan glo”.
A vacuum of complete stillness, where we scream and rage and fight against nothing, against silence, into silence, or perhaps just against ourselves.
Iconography: the visual images, symbols, or modes of representation collectively associated with a person, cult, or movement. Neon crosses on the hillside, cigarette stars, halo-headed Van Coke.
It's incredibly difficult to take an original picture of Fokofpolisiekar. I had an idea (as well as a lot of vodka) in my head and so..mind-eye co-ordination, despite a swirling night. Messiahs, doemprofete and such.
And yet, still tonight, we will forget, perhaps for a moment, and lose ourselves in the past, in being young, to rock, to roll beneath the lights and the crosses in the sky… For now we follow the stars: lights in the sky, people on the stage, silver in our minds, not knowing what we’re following or where we’re headed in the vast, dim world of understanding.
[passages from Anticipating The Second Coming article in Blacklight magazine]
No comments:
Post a Comment