volume one
confessions of a model
simone christian
You would think some animosity would transpire because we’re all vying for the same job, but this is hardly the case. When one of us gets called in, because the director has joined us finally, we give words of encouragement and genuine smiles.
We hear one another’s stories and what brought us here –
And by the end of the waiting period, you’re left hoping someone else more worthy gets the job.
Someone who needs it more than you do.
This is the industry.
'her' changed my life
review
Mukisa Mujulizi
Samantha: So, what was it like being married?
Theodore: Well, it’s hard, for sure. But there’s something that feels good about sharing your life with somebody.
The movie ‘her’ (2013) written and directed by Spike Jonze, is ostensibly about our main character Theodore’s relationship with his artificial intelligence, Samantha. But it is about so much more than that. When we meet Theodore, he is in a state of unrest. He is lonely, listens to melancholic music, barely keeping in touch with his friends, and seemingly out of touch with the world around him. The very first scene of the movie portrays Theodore demonstrating his ability to love and care for others through in his work as a letter writer, yet he does not love or care for himself. We are, therefore, immediately presented with the first conflict of the film: Theodore desires to care and be cared for, and yet he is alone.
Butter River’s Boob Baby
Beth Rowley
"Long legs blossoming out of the car and out bursts
the casual bliss of woman, big bosomed, proud,
she walks into the house tits-first – bright eyes blazing,
hands like guns on her hips, her belly fat, a bowl
of caviar – and about to get her period. In a cool tragedy
of hormonal delusion she spots a single wild egg on
the windowsill: light, pure, plucks it, clutches it, and o
what an idea! Lo and behold – she nurses it between
her breasts. How brilliant. How beautiful..."
Selloane Moeti
moving out and on
"Often the things that are the most important are the most difficult to capture with words. Poets have managed to wrangle the abstract beasts of love and mourning with metaphors and chewy similes and some of them can stand victoriously over the conquered animal, a work of art subdued. But, the most beautiful things are difficult to even name."
Ashley Allard
the duality of physical touch
"There is something undeniably homoerotic about men’s rugby. You probably aren’t supposed to point that out, but there is. While watching the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final, one of my girlfriends queried, “This is quite sexual, isn’t it?”. And honestly, she isn’t wrong. Bodies, dripping in sweat jumping on one another; passionate, unselfconscious embraces; figures mounting one another in pursuit of the ball. Rugby revolves around touch: tackling, scrumming, rucking, mauling. There is hardly a moment that goes by when one person’s body is not brushing (or thrashing) against someone else’s. When a team wins, they hug, cry, kiss. They hold one another’s faces and smile, their teeth mirroring one another, close enough to clash. After the Springbok’s quarter-final game against the World Cup’s host nation, France, a video surfaced of Siya Kolisi, South Africa’s captain, planting multiple kisses on his fellow teammate Jessie Kriel’s face. Many of these interactions, from the intimate moments to the aggression shown between members of opposite teams, would be condemned, or censored off the field. However, mid-or-post game, these actions are viewed as displays of secure masculinity, a confirmation, if anything, of their unwavering heterosexuality."
Steff Malherbe
review
Mukisa Mujulizi
"The linear progression of time, while beautiful, often obfuscates one desperately wretched reality; that there is no going back. Like a wave, every moment will come and go, with its own unique make-up, its own pace, and its own timing. The same wave that retreats into the ocean will never be the same wave crashing again. It is one of life’s greatest treasures as it forces us to acknowledge our mortality. But it’s a poignant beauty, one that enables me to celebrate something as inconsequential as the taste of a truly wonderful pineapple or as consequential as the writings of an activist begging humanity for a modicum of respect and dignity."
