h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Missed an opportunity to get some of the Xhosa books out there... there will be other opportunities.

We're going out just now but I don't feel like it at all.

Quite tired actually.

Gosh I feel quite grim at the moment. I'm going to see if Mimi can't get it together to organise a Saturday at Khayelitsha Mall to hand out some of Words in the Xhosa translation. Going to book my flight to Jo'burg and back - I think I'll make it a very short trip, up on Sunday, back on Tuesday morning. Lara has the use of a piano in Rosebank so I may as well stay in the same hotel as last time.

I have nausea vitae at the moment. Very Sartrean.

The Piano Variations are quite hard.

I must go to the copy shop and get more copies of my music made.

Whenever I think of the creative process I feel quite sick. I listen to the Variations and feel as if someone else composed them. I think that I'd never be able to write music again.

Nauseam habeo vitae doloremque existentiae.

Have some nice herbal tea, some solid food wholesome and hearty


Maybe take a nap
Betcha feel better after all that

You might enjoy this - I did!

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/02/walking-city-an-evolving-video-sculpture/

Schmerzen aus aller Welt kommen mir zu und belasten mein Herz mit endlosem Pein.

Hello clare, I'll look at your link when I'm feeling more awake. Just been out to get new tyres for Sipho and the groceries in. I was going to buy my ticket to Jo'burg as well, but they were busy in the travel agent. I'll go another time.

It feels like I've got an infection in my sinuses.

Not v nice. I hope I'm better by Sunday.

Moi aussi Have some nice herbal tea

Mystery, clare: someone calling herself Roxanne has SMSed me saying "sorry we keep missing each other" and saying she can get a flight to Cape Town (from Jo'burg, presumably) next week. I don't know anyone called Roxanne. The pills I take cause memory loss, or stop memories from being made, so it is conceivable that I might have met and given my cellphone number to someone in Jo'burg; but I have absolutely no recollection of this, neither do I know anyone called Roxanne. I am alarmed; I think I'd better ignore it. It could be a Nigerian gangster.

She called me by my name, so she evidently knows me and my cellphone number. I just can't remember or think of anyone by that name.

God is allowing me to go through a hectic time at the moment. I am under considerable stress. I'm also getting used to some new medication which can often be a difficult time. So in my present mood I'm not inclined to want to meet strangers who know my name. They might cause hassles which I don't need. I had better reply and say that I'm going to serve in a leper colony in the Congo or something, and won't be around for anything up to ten years.

Had me tea. Sipho cooked up some pap en vleis. It was lekker.

The window people were supposed to be coming this afternoon but I have heard nothing from them since an initial telephone call advising me they were coming this afternoon. Annoying. Still. Anyway. Got to go to the travel agent tomorrow to get a flight to Jo'burg and back. I'm seeing Lara and giving her the music she will be performing. I'm now not sure about the Cello Suite. David expressed reservations and so did Lara in a mild form. I don't know. How annoying. Perhaps I can compose something else for cello, perhaps for cello and piano? I haven't got any ideas though. I still haven't got any ideas for the Gloria although I'm working sporadically on a setting of verses from the Song of Songs. But not much happening musically at the moment. When I compose it tends to come with tremendous intensity and I am obliged to write the music down, it comes with a great urgency and I experience no difficulty at all; it's like the music is there and all I have to do is write it down. But I can't make this happen; I have to wait for the Muse to strike.

I have got some phrases from "Shir" (= "song", the setting I'm doing of Song of Songs 1:1-4) on my mind. Apart from one memorable occasion I have not yet so far conceived any music other than chamber music, or choral music. There's a Psalm-setting for SATB, violin and cello. I wish the muse visited more often. I have been greatly encouraged by the reception I've had so far for the Piano Variations. I must get the score into PDF format to send to David. It still needs markings; I printed off the score and added some markings by hand, for Lara. She has the mp3 so she knows the tempi, but I must remember to add metronome marks on the later variations.

I might be able to do a short piece for cello and piano using ideas from Shir. Oh, and I've got the "Looking Dance" for violin and piano, but it's very much the kind of music I used to write. How I wish I were as fluent at composing as I am at writing. Not that I'm doing any writing at the moment; I've given up on CCFM, although I have got 2 books out of my work for Helga. I have yet to have Volume 2 translated. I think Sindi is working on the Xhosa translation but I need it done into Afrikaans as well. I'm having difficulties distributing Words; I discover that the Christian book market is all about money and so on, and I am displeased about that. When the larney edition of Words finally appears, I'll send it to that woman from CUM. She was a bit rude. When I told her I was self-publishing she just stopped writing.

Every now and then I have an idea for a tract, and I make a note of it on a piece of paper, which invariably gets lost amongst all the other bits of paper lying around. Gynaicophronesis is a real pita. I might even just go to Khayelitsha Mall myself or with Sipho if she's up for it, or even Sethu. I have a chair which I can sit on; but no table. What's needed is a table from which I would hang paper with the words "Amazwi aphuma kuliZwi" printed on it, and sit behind it, with boxes of the Xhosa edition, giving out to all comers. Theo was curiously unenthusiastic about distributing the Xhosa edition although he says he liked the book, having read it in Afrikaans (I think). I have given him a few copies but he hasn't asked for more. If people don't want my work then I shan't bother doing it. The Christians I know are curiously passive when it comes to my work. I struggled mightily to reach the point where I can achieve the work that I do, but people appear less than willing to put up the necessary fight to complete the manifestation of the work by helping distribute it. I blame television.

They'll lap up a load of boxxols about "Jesus is my CEO" but they don't have time for decent scholarly reliable Bible work. Andrew is coming tomorrow and I'm having one last proofing. I want to mark short e's and o's and I have to force myself to remember to transliterate omega as "oh" and not muck around with the Sydney Allen pronunciations.

I have to radically change the way I think about producing my Bible work. Seems I'm no longer persona grata at the radio station - too inconvenient, too much trouble. Way to go!

Gerry thinks madam might be responsible for the sudden ostracism; I wouldn't be surprised.

The Rabbi has finally moved out; he's staying in the neighbourhood while he gets his ducks in a row for making aliyah, i.e. moving to Israel. He's going to live in Jerusalem! Cool, hey? The centre of the universe.

My gosh! I knew it took a lot of work to produce something like that but, whew, that is WAY more than I even imagined! I am impressed

How on earth does one survive this dreadful world? Impossible. Only by God's grace can one survive this boiling cauldron. We are all gradually boiled to death at the bottom of this deep. Ruach elohim merachepheth al-pnei tehom. They have boiled my brain in my skull for threepenny bits, all of them, day and night. Terrifying world. Where is comfort? Where is peace? Where is rest? Where is healing? Where is comfort? Where is peace? Where is rest? Where is healing? Where is comfort? Where is peace? Where is rest? Where is healing?

I have a nasty chest infection and it is also in my sinuses. Perhaps I should go and see the Doc. I hardly ever use anti-Bs. But that's irrelevant. It's all those other people using and misusing them that makes the bugs resistant. But I am going to Jo'burg and I don't want to struggle with hawking and spitting when I'm there. The infection came on a horse, riding, riding, on a black horse, riding. Andrew is coming tomorrow early on, then I have to go to the bank, or I can possibly download the document I need.