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The MAG weekly Fashion and Lifestyle Blog for the modern African girl by Lydia, every Friday at 1700 hrs. Nr 204 8th May, 2026
from 
M.A.G. blog, signed by Lydia
Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.
This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: MET fails gone wild, Chanel, and +233 Jazz club and Grill
MET fails gone wild. The Met Gala is an annual fundraising gala held on the first Monday in May to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute in New York City. It is where fashion is supposed to transcend into art… but every year, a few looks accidentally transcend into confusion instead. And 2026? Oh, it gave us drama, ambition, and a handful of “what exactly am I looking at?” moments that we simply cannot ignore. With stars like Beyoncé and Rihanna gracing the 2026 Met Gala red carpet, Beyoncé's return after nearly a decade away became one of the night's biggest highlights, especially at an event where a single ticket reportedly costs up to $100,000.
First up, the “Living Sculpture Gone Rogue” category. You know the look: structured, architectural, and bold—until it starts wearing the celebrity instead of the other way around.
One star arrived looking like a walking installation piece, complete with jutting metallic extensions that made sitting, turning, or even waving nearly impossible. Art? Yes. Practical? Absolutely not. The Met steps turned into an obstacle course, and honestly, the security guards deserved an award too.
Then there was the “Paint Me Like One of Your French Girls… Literally” moment. A celebrity showed up fully airbrushed in what seemed like a tribute to body-as-canvas artistry. In theory, stunning. In reality? Under the flash photography, the paint read less “ethereal masterpiece” and more “accidentally brushed against a wet mural.” The vision was there… the execution just needed a little less humidity and a little more sealing spray.
And then there’s the “Is It Moving or Am I?” category. Kinetic fashion made a bold appearance, with pieces that spun, blinked, inflated, or shifted shape mid-carpet. One dress dramatically expanded like a blooming flower… and then refused to deflate. Iconic entrance? Yes. Smooth exit? Not quite. The after-party logistics must have been a nightmare.
But here’s the thing about Met Gala “fails”—they’re rarely boring. In fact, they’re often the most memorable.
Chanel. This is an interesting brand, not owned by LVMH or Kering or Dior who own the majority of the big brands amongst themselves. I’ll write about the original founder of Chanel in another blog, quite an intriguing story with lessons for today. Chanel is primarily known for perfumes, though today they do fashion and cosmetics/skincare as well. Chanel Nr 5 is their top performing perfume and also the world‘s top selling perfume. It was created in 1921 by Ernest Beaux, a French Russian national who was the former perfumer for the Russian Tsars (overthrown in 1917, so Beaux was probably looking for a job).
And every 30 ml bottle of Chanel Nr 5 perfume (a “small” size bottle) contains about 1000 jasmine flowers, and about 80 other scents. And not just any jasmine, only jasmine from the Grasse area in France. The real connoisseurs claim that every flower partly takes its scent from the soil it is grown on, like wine. So jasmine from Grasse smells different from jasmine grown in Ghana. Jasmine, a tiny flower, opens at night and is harvested as the sun comes up, when the blooms are at their most fragrant.
Each one is picked by hand; they're too delicate for machines. The harvest ends before the midday heat can damage the petals, which are kept covered with a wet cloth so they stay cool. The blooms are then rushed to an on-site factory where the fragrance is extracted using a 150-year-old technique developed in Grasse.
Speed is essential. If the flowers brown, the scent changes and “they smell of bad fruit”. Jasmine is placed into a vat and steeped overnight, like tea and eventually the concentrated form of jasmine, called absolute, is sent to a factory near Paris where a few drops go into each bottle of Chanel No.5.
Today Chanel No.5 is available in five main concentrations, offering variations from the intense, original parfum to lighter, modern interpretations. The primary concentrations include the Parfum (Extrait), Eau de Parfum (EDP), Eau de Toilette (EDT), Eau Première, and L'EAU. These range from rich floral-aldehydic blends to brighter, citrus-forward versions. A 30 ml bottle of Chanel 5 perfume (the concentrated form) sells for about $250-$300, the same but presented as eau de parfum about 10 times less strong goes for $100-$150 and eau de tolette again 10 times weaker goes for $80-$120.
Let’s hope that climate change does not affect the Grasse jasmine cultivation as well.
Flower fields in Grasse
And careful, Chanel nr 5 perfume stains.
+233 Jazz club and Grill. Dr. Isert Street, North Ridge, Accra, may be going over its top. They recently extended the seating and parking area and have more and more entrance fee events, (150 per person in our case). One could say currently it is the place to be. I like their sound system which is clear and never too loud to block your conversation. But their kitchen starts to suffer. The jollof beef fish was ok, but their beef kebab was over marinated and not juicy again, the pina colada (rhum, cream of coconut, and pineapple juice) is not that creamy any more and the bora bora cocktail (typically passion fruit juice, pineapple juice, lemon juice, and grenadine) tasted more like watermelon, apple and pineapple, and was watery. And though they have 2 vodkas at 25 GHC on the menu they don’t have these, prices start at 35 GHC (which is quite reasonable compared with other places). Their cocktails ranges from GHS 80-120 for a glass of Mojito, GHS 100-150 for their special cocktails and GHS 120-180 for their brandy-based Espresso Martini.
Lydia...
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Existence, du latin ex(s)istere
from Micro essais
Étymologiquement, l’existence est un surgissement. Une apparition hors de l’invisible, dans le visible.
Creusons un peu la question. On dit parfois : « Il n’y a pas d’amour, il n’y a que des preuves d’amour ».
Retournons la formule : que vaudraient ces « preuves d’amour », sans l’amour lui même ?
Que serait la connaissance, sans l’apprentissage ? Et plus encore, sans le désir d’apprendre ? Que serait la sagesse, sans l’expérience ?
Que vaut l’œuvre, sans l’acte de créer ? Le poème sans les ratures ? Le roman sans les pages déchirées ?
On devine, à travers ces exemples, que la question n’est pas tant de savoir s’il faut croire ou non en quelque chose d’invisible, que de savoir si le monde visible que nous connaissons pourrait exister sans lui.
C’est l’invisible qui tient le visible.
Appelons le désir, passion ou amour. Appelons le lien, liaison, relation. Qu’importe. C’est cet invisible là qui tient le monde, le rend possible et le fait ex(s)iter.
Or, on voudrait nous faire croire aujourd’hui, par culte du rendement, ou de la performance, que seul le résultat compterait.
On voudrait nous pousser, au nom de l’efficacité, à sacrifier, sur l’autel du résultat, le processus invisible qui l’a rendu possible.
Alors que, dans bien des cas, c’est le processus lui même qui constitue l’essentiel.
Voilà pourquoi les gains d’efficacité ne sont jamais neutres. Voilà pourquoi toute production générée par intelligence artificielle ne peut en aucun cas prétendre au statut d’œuvre. Parce qu’elle accélère au point de l’effacer presque entièrement tout le processus nécessaire à sa production, elle passe à côté de l’essentiel.
Je ne suis pas en train de dire qu’il faut définitivement renoncer à l’IA, pas plus qu’à d’autres moyens d’augmenter notre puissance d’agir. Mais il est urgent de réfléchir à ses implications profondes. S’il s’agit avec elle d’accélérer toujours plus, alors nous sacrifierons l’essentiel : la relation et tout ce qu’elle implique.
Contrairement à ce qu’affirment aujourd’hui les penseurs de l’IApocalypse, ce n’est pas l’humanité qui est menacée par l’IA à court terme. Mais plutôt ce qui fait que nous sommes humains. Cela inclut nos faiblesses, nos limites, mais aussi ce que avons de meilleur : le désir de créer, le désir d’aimer, le besoin d’être en relation les uns avec les autres.
Pourquoi écrire de la poésie ?
from Micro essais
Il y a deux questions derrière ce « pourquoi ? » :
La première est celle de l’utilité, questionnable en effet. À quoi sert la poésie ?
La seconde est celle de l’impulsion, qui vient de soi, ne répond à aucune sollicitation extérieure et peut naître indépendamment de toute utilité, réelle ou perçue.
Alors, la poésie, ça sert à quoi ? À faire son intéressant ? À sauver le monde, ou du moins à essayer de le rendre un peu meilleur qu’il ne l’est ? À soigner les cœurs et les âmes ? À mettre un peu de beauté dans nos quotidiens ? À s’évader ? À prendre du recul ? À aider à vivre ? À vivre, tout simplement, mais vraiment, c'est-à-dire ne pas seulement survivre ?
Un peu de tout cela, sans doute. Chacune et chacun d’entre nous pourra trouver, parmi les propositions ci-dessus, celle ou celles qui lui conviendront le mieux, et pourra bien sûr se sentir libre d’en ajouter d’autres.
Je reviendrai sur deux d’entre elles :
La première, c’est la vertu thérapeutique de la poésie. Écrire de la poésie, ou lire de la poésie nous fait du bien. Lorsque mon père était malade, je lui envoyais régulièrement des poèmes, et il me disait que cela lui faisait du bien. Lorsque nous souffrons, la poésie, comme la musique, la littérature ou d’autres formes d’expression artistique, nous apaise.
Mais est-ce vraiment pour cela qu’on se décide, un jour, à écrire ?
Pour rendre le monde meilleur alors ? Quelle prétention ! Et pourtant, deux constats : le premier est que chaque poète en engendre d’autres. Écrire, c’est susciter d’autres vocations. C’est ouvrir pour beaucoup un nouveau champ des possibles. C’est révéler à soi et ouvrir à d’autres la possibilité de découvrir une facette de leur personnalité qu’elles n’avaient jamais exploré jusqu’alors. Il y a donc, par la poésie, une puissance de propagation dont l’ampleur est sans doute bien plus large que ce qui est perceptible, un peu comme un courant de profondeur indétectable depuis la surface.
Voilà qui m’amène au second constat : aucune lutte, aucun soulèvement, aucune mobilisation n’est possible s’il n’y a pas, quelque part enfoui profondément en nous une petite lueur qui nous dit que d’autres possibles sont possibles. Rien ne façonne plus profondément le monde réel que les mondes imaginaires. J’en veux pour preuve l’obsession des despotes pour l’appauvrissement des désirs. Ce qu’avait si bien démontré Orwell dans « 1984 » avec la « novlangue » a été appliqué pratiquement à la lettre par Goebbels : une propagande efficace suppose d’appauvrir la langue, la pensée et donc les désirs, afin de mieux soumettre les populations, avec leur consentement de surcroît.
Aussi modeste que soit la poésie, du moins en apparence, elle est un moyen de lutte. Elle est un ferment à préserver, une braise à entretenir à tout prix, un relai à transmettre entre les individus, les peuples et les générations.
Mais est-ce vraiment pour cela qu’on se décide, un jour, à écrire ?
Peut être. Mais peut-être pas. Je ne peux ici parler que pour moi.
J’ai d’abord écrit des essais, puis des poèmes. Les premiers répondent à une logique « fonctionnelle » : transmettre des savoirs, des analyses, émettre des propositions et faire circuler des idées. J’ai toutefois très tôt ressenti le besoin d’y ajouter une note personnelle, plus sensible, un peu comme des respirations.
Mais à mesure que je me suis orienté vers des textes plus poétiques, j’ai bien senti que j'étais face à une nécessité. Un impulsion, profonde, irrépressible, qui répondait à quelque chose qui montait de plus en plus fort en moi : de l’angoisse, de la colère, de la tristesse, face à la destruction systématique de ce que notre monde recèle de plus beau. De la consternation face à l’incurie de nos dirigeants, leur incompétence ou leur mauvaise foi, je ne sais, et donc leur incapacité à discerner ce qui est essentiel, vital, de ce qui ne sont que des moyens. J'étais submergé par une profonde détresse et un sentiment d’impuissance face à ce glissement progressif, ce « crash mou » du socle sinon d’une civilisation, du moins d’une capacité de vivre ensemble, de vivre vraiment, pleinement et épanouis.
Alors, que faire ?
Devenir fou. En crever.
Ou fuir.
Et s’il existait une autre voie ?
Écrire. Créer. Ne pas laisser l’angoisse, la colère, la tristesse, la consternation et l’aigreur gagner et tout emporter. En faire quelque chose, même si c’est peu.
Entretenir la flamme, pour pouvoir un jour la transmettre.
Vivre.
« Mieux vaut allumer une bougie que de maudire les ténèbres »
An eventful journey
from 
The happy place
Today I saw a little girl carefully balancing through the train car with a small box of strawberry jam clutched to her heart, a frown of deep concentration was on her little face as she passed me by
Walking the same path some time later: a big bald man, a miniature whiskey bottle in his giant fist, clutched also
And I got word of a dead relative through SMS from my mum (who I don’t talk to much no more, we’ve run out of things to say to each other)
And I quit my old job, as the new one is lined up finally
And lastly, I saw a man with a big butt crack walking by, wearing black jeans jacket and black jeans. There was something sad I couldn’t put my finger on, his eyes maybe, about his kind face. (I saw this as I went for a stroll to stretch my weary legs …)
An eventful journey indeed
Fenêtre sur ville - Didascalies 1.2
from 
Chemin tournant
On entend la corne d'une locomotive rouge qui traine avec lenteur à travers le multicorps de la ville soixante wagons de marchandises. Puis le souffle de l'eau contre le béton de l'abattoir général, où l’on verse annuellement le sang de quatre-vingt-dix-mille bœufs. Éclate le cri des bouchers à l'adresse d'une bête tremblante. On entend : Tue-le ! et le train, sa voix, ses yeux qui chassent des fantômes marchant sur son chemin de fer. Entrent par vent du sud le relent des vidures, et plus tard du nord, aussi longue à durer dans l'air qu'un sermon de pasteur, l’âcreté des ordures qui flambent encore, du plastique, des herbes à demi sèches qui ne demandaient rien.
#Fenêtresurville #Didascalies
Warum Time Boxing oft besser funktioniert als klassische To-do-Listen
from 
EpicMind
Ich kenne kaum jemanden, der keine To-do-Liste führt. Manche arbeiten mit Apps, andere mit Notizbüchern, Haftzetteln oder ausgeklügelten Produktivitätssystemen. Trotzdem bleibt am Ende vieler Tage ein ähnliches Gefühl zurück: Man war beschäftigt, hat zahlreiche kleine Dinge erledigt – und dennoch scheint das Wesentliche liegen geblieben zu sein. Genau diese Erfahrung hat mich dazu gebracht, mich intensiver mit einer Methode auseinanderzusetzen, die bei agilen Methoden oft angewendet wird: Time Boxing.
Was ist Time Boxing?
Die Grundidee ist einfach. Aufgaben werden nicht nur gesammelt oder priorisiert, sondern erhalten einen konkreten Platz im Kalender. Statt bloss festzuhalten, was erledigt werden soll, wird auch definiert, wann und wie lange daran gearbeitet wird. Eine Aufgabe wird damit zu einem verbindlichen Termin – ähnlich wie ein Meeting oder ein Arztbesuch.
Statt lediglich aufzuschreiben, dass die Steuererklärung erledigt werden muss, reservierst Du beispielsweise am Dienstag von 19:00 bis 20:00 Uhr Zeit für das Sortieren der Unterlagen. Statt „Präsentation vorbereiten“ steht im Kalender: „Mittwoch, 14:00 bis 15:30 Uhr: Folien finalisieren“. Aufgaben bleiben dadurch nicht abstrakt oder unverbindlich, sondern erhalten einen festen Platz im Alltag.
Warum klassische To-do-Listen oft nicht ausreichen
To-do-Listen haben durchaus ihre Berechtigung – sie helfen dabei, Aufgaben nicht zu vergessen und Mental Load auszulagern. Das Problem beginnt dort, wo Listen immer länger werden und dabei jede Aufgabe scheinbar denselben Stellenwert erhält.
Ich beobachte bei mir selbst immer wieder einen typischen Effekt: Kleine, einfache Aufgaben werden bevorzugt erledigt, weil sie schnell ein Gefühl von Fortschritt vermitteln. Schliesslich kann ich so schnell viele Dinge abhaken. Schwierige oder langfristige Aufgaben dagegen werden aufschoben – oft tagelang, obwohl sie eigentlich wichtiger wären.
Hinzu kommt, dass To-do-Listen selten realistisch mit der verfügbaren Zeit abgeglichen werden. Viele Menschen planen an einem einzigen Tag Aufgaben für zehn oder zwölf Stunden konzentrierter Arbeit ein, obwohl gleichzeitig Sitzungen, Unterbrechungen und spontane Anfragen stattfinden. Das führt fast zwangsläufig zu Frustration.
Time Boxing zwingt zu einer anderen Perspektive. Die zentrale Frage lautet nicht mehr nur: „Was muss ich tun?“, sondern auch: „Wann genau tue ich es – und wie viel Zeit ist mir diese Aufgabe tatsächlich wert?“
Wie ich die Methode im Alltag anwende
In der Praxis funktioniert Time Boxing vor allem dann gut, wenn Aufgaben möglichst konkret formuliert und in kleinere Einheiten zerlegt werden. „Wohnung putzen“ ist eine schlechte Timebox. „20 Minuten Küche reinigen“ oder „15 Minuten Unterlagen sortieren“ funktioniert deutlich besser. Dasselbe gilt beruflich: „Projekt vorbereiten“ bleibt zu vage. Präziser sind Zeitfenster wie „45 Minuten Konzept skizzieren“ oder „30 Minuten Offerten prüfen“.
Wichtig ist ausserdem, den Zeitbedarf realistisch einzuschätzen. Analytische oder kreative Arbeiten dauern häufig länger als zunächst gedacht, und konzentrierte Arbeit ist anstrengender als ein Tag voller kleiner Aufgaben und Unterbrechungen. Ich plane deshalb bewusst Reserven und freie Zwischenräume ein. Ein lückenlos gefüllter Kalender sieht zwar effizient aus, funktioniert in der Realität aber selten. Time Boxing wird erst dann wirklich nützlich, wenn es nicht als starres Korsett verstanden wird, sondern als flexible Struktur das eigene #Zeitmanagement unterstützt.
Der eigentliche Vorteil: Konzentration statt Dauerreaktion
Der grösste Nutzen liegt für mich weniger in besserer Planung als in besserer Konzentration. Viele Menschen verbringen ihre Tage in einem Zustand permanenter Reaktion: E-Mails beantworten, Nachrichten lesen, kurz etwas prüfen, auf einen Anruf reagieren – und dann wieder zurück zur eigentlichen Aufgabe, bis die nächste Unterbrechung folgt.
Das Problem dabei ist nicht nur die verlorene Zeit. Ständige Unterbrechungen erschweren tiefere Konzentration. Komplexe Aufgaben benötigen oft eine gewisse Anlaufzeit, bevor produktives Arbeiten überhaupt möglich wird. Während einer klar definierten Timebox versuche ich deshalb möglichst konsequent, Ablenkungen auszuschalten: kein offener Messenger, keine E-Mails nebenbei, keine „kurzen“ Kontrollblicke aufs Smartphone. Selbst Fokusblöcke von 30 bis 60 Minuten können dabei erstaunlich wirksam sein.
Diese Methode funktioniert übrigens auch im Privatleben. Viele Vorhaben scheitern nicht an mangelnder Motivation, sondern daran, dass sie keinen festen Platz im Alltag erhalten. Lesen, Sport oder persönliche Projekte bleiben diffus und werden auf später verschoben. Wer bewusst Zeitfenster dafür reserviert, erhöht die Wahrscheinlichkeit deutlich, dass diese Dinge tatsächlich stattfinden.
Die Grenzen der Methode
Trotz ihrer Vorteile ist Time Boxing keine universelle Lösung. Kreative Prozesse verlaufen selten linear, und nicht jedes Problem löst sich innerhalb von exakt 45 Minuten. Übertriebene Planung kann schnell ins Gegenteil kippen: Wer jede Viertelstunde kontrollieren und optimieren möchte, produziert zusätzlichen #Stress statt mehr Klarheit. Time Boxing funktioniert aus meiner Sicht am besten als pragmatische Orientierungshilfe – nicht als Versuch, jeden Moment maximal effizient auszunutzen.
Ein einfacher Einstieg
Wer die Methode ausprobieren möchte, muss dafür nicht den gesamten Alltag umstellen. Oft genügt es, zwei oder drei wichtige Aufgaben pro Tag bewusst als Timebox im Kalender zu reservieren – besonders solche, die sonst gerne aufgeschoben oder von Unterbrechungen verdrängt werden. Hilfreich ist, die Zeitfenster eher etwas kürzer zu halten und bewusst Puffer einzuplanen. Viele Menschen stellen nach kurzer Zeit fest, dass sie nicht unbedingt mehr arbeiten, aber klarer und konzentrierter. Time Boxing funktioniert übrigens besonders gut im Kontext des Task-Batchings, eine Methode, die ich auch schon vorgestellt habe.
Time Boxing hilft letztlich nicht nur dabei, produktiver zu werden. Es schafft vor allem ein bewussteres Verhältnis zur eigenen Zeit – und damit auch zur Frage, womit man seine Aufmerksamkeit überhaupt verbringen möchte.
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Bildquelle Philippe de Champaigne (1602–1674): Vanitas, Musée de Tessé, Le Mans, Public Domain.
Disclaimer Teile dieses Texts wurden mit Deepl Write (Korrektorat und Lektorat) überarbeitet. Für die Recherche in den erwähnten Werken/Quellen und in meinen Notizen wurde NotebookLM von Google verwendet.
Topic #ProductivityPorn
Listen to Your Mother 2026 is Tomorrow!
from 
The Poet Sky
Photo by IMMAGINÉ PHOTOGRAPHY
Listen to Your Mother 2026 is TOMORROW! We've got a talented cast bringing a lot of heartfelt stories to the event, and I still can't believe I'm one of them. It's from 7:30pm to 9:30pm tomorrow, May 9th, and I highly encourage everyone to attend.
Tickets are here. The show will be streamed on YouTube if you can't be there in person, and available after the show if you can't afford $15 for a livestream ticket (which I understand, I'm unemployed). All proceeds go to the Teen Empowerment Center in Rochester, NY.
I'm so honored to be a part of this cast. I cannot overstate how powerful and emotional every story is. We each have a different experience, no two of us are alike. It's wild to think that I auditioned for this with no dream that I'd be chosen, then yesterday I was rehearsing with the rest of the cast at Hochstein.
I hope everyone can make it. Love you all!
#ListenToYourMother2026
from bios
8: The Rehabilitation Of Necessity
He escapes from the clinic. Weeks of complaining about his feet, aching, sore to walk on, walking around the rehab wincing. There were discussions, in the three years he's been in rehab he has tried to run twice before – but now his feet are so sore. He walks barefoot around the rehab, wincing when anyone looks at him.
His job is to scrape the pap off the bottom of the pot, the giant pot for forty five people, every morning and night, and he complains that he can no longer do it. No one else will scrape the pot. And so they took Sbuda to the clinic. Just before he leaves he asks that they get his sneakers from the clothes he has locked up in the office.
It takes them five days to find him. They look for him by waiting. He returns shoeless, in an openbacked hospital gown and a medicated daze. He had tried to walk to home and gotten half way, to the city centre, where after three days of walking, he had smoked. Passed out from hunger, exhaustion and nyaope he was found and taken to a hospital. Identified. They phoned his people, who had the rehab pick him up. Another six months they said. Three years six months in the rehab. They have never once visited him, they do not want him home, they do not want to deal with him. They pay for him to stay here. Scraping the pap from the pot, sleeping in the drone of the stepwork, frustrated by endless repeated viewings of the John Wicks, the Transporters, Despicable Mes.
“Wrestling,” he says, “why can't we ever watch the wrestling.” Whenever he asks, someone says, “Hey Sbuda, where are your shoes?”
The TV is cracked. There is one USB stick. No wifi. No way to download new things to watch. No staff in the office to do it if there was.
Sbuda has spent most of his life living under a bridge near the airport, hustling for money at the entrances, stealing scrap, smoking. He does not imagine any other life.
Someone else escapes during a football match against another rehab. He scores a goal and then vanishes. He told everyone he was going to do it in the afternoon meeting the day before, after he had led us in the third step prayer. His girlfriend is pregnant he has heard, he needs to know if he is the father. Soccer is banned from then on.
Scofield is so named because he has broken out of this rehab eight times, once by setting it on fire. One section of the dorms was rendered uninhabitable and so many sleep on the floor of the common area -the squatters, the rest packed into bunks three high, welded by inmates, the admitted, whoever. Badly welded. Often breaking under the movement of a skommel. Scofield was bought here in chains by the green beans. He has been in thirty two rehabs in his life. He is twenty six years old. Willingness.
Another arrives on a pole, strung up as if to slaughter, hashtagged by his own people, ranting that if he closes his eyes the world will end. He cuts his foot open on the broken tiles in the shower while dancing and trying to keep his eyes open. There are no bandages, he waits bleeding into toilet paper for a day until one of the staff can take him to the clinic. This is his third time here.
The dorm and clinic visits are managed by two former attendees of the rehab. No homes that will take them back, they have been absorbed into ebb and return. No way to navigate any discernible future. At least they are not using. One clean for two years, one going on eight.
He's 20 maybe and comes in willing and then soon confesses he is doing this not for himself but for his people. He will smoke as soon as he leaves. He spends large portions of his time talking to the ancestors, or the wall. After two weeks he tries to escape through the roof, is pulled back in by his feet, and chained to his bed for three days. After that is two weeks of short steps and dishes duty. It makes for so much happiness when people are punished with dishes, then everyone else gets to take a break.
“It's not so bad, two weeks,” he says. His previous rehab, somewhere in the forest, everyone was on short steps, the whole six months, and chained to your bed every night. “Only church, no stepwork, prayer and garden work, and ntwala. Not like these small ones here, big ones, you could never sleep, so we slept away from the beds, standing up.”
He is enthusiastic in step class, always vocal about finding recovery, after three months he leaves and is in hospital after three days — caught smoking, his brother has beaten him into intensive care.
A youngster, maybe 16 comes in for meth, hashtagged in reported fervour by the dorm managers, in his own bathroom, at his father's place, he thought his father loved him, but here? He still wants to party, he is after all, young. His people want him to stop cigarettes as well, they are not allowed to give him smokes from his tuckshop, he trades duties for two gwaai, will sweep, mop, do dishes, anything for gwaai. There is an established informal economy around these situations. Trading crips, goslows, stoksweets, eleven rand mylife, anything from the ten rand a day tuckshop to get out of duties. A system of privilege has formed around those who get sugar, coffee, tea smuggled in by the dorm managers. The two dorm managers are barely paid -their lodging and food and a small stipend of R2500 a month for the most senior, who has maintenance and debt, nothing for the junior – they extract a percentage of these smokkels for themselves, for control. Three months in a meal can be sent to you by your people, KFC and shoprite cakes mostly. Building up to a three month mark is a plague of begging, “what duties can I do for you?”
A handyman is bought in to start repairing the fire damaged dorm. He is outside working on a door when the kid spots his chance to escape. Over the back wall. He makes for the freeway. The family next door shriek, “Faithy go tell the Uncle one of his people is getting out!”. There is a scramble for the chains and the car, as they head out. They find him three blocks away, lost, he does not know the area and everyone he passes is running back to the rehab, whatsapping, telling him to go back, for his own good. They pull up and he gets in, they hashtag him anyway, he'll be in short steps for two weeks.
There are no medical professionals here. It is handled by the dorm managers, sometimes they forget. Methadone is for five days maximum and the withdrawals kicking convulsively in the night are surrounded by threats, to shut the fuck up and stop crying. Those who snore are woken up, those who dream loudly are told to stop dreaming. Everyone sleeps on their own particular precipice.
Three months in being kept awake by the shadows of these kicks, still inhabiting my bones, unwilling to let me sleep, when I hear a bird in the night, I look up at the crumbling chipboard of the bunk above me, and try to trace its flight across the unimaginable sky. Closing my eyes its cries are bright pin pricks in a line against the darkness.
In the spasms of the night the shadow of a cat, the rustling of a crips packet under a bed somewhere.
“It's the ancestors!”
“Cat's are evil, get it out, get it out!”
“It's the mouse, you guys must clean up your snacks man.”
In the bathroom sometime in the hushed rhythm of other people's breathing, re-reading again The Eagle Has Landed – the only book on the fucked shelves that has it's ending intact, most are ripped out to use as dustpans for morning duties – addicts, man. Here is where I escape the no-sleep of three months in, the bathroom door has a hole in it, the stalls no doors at all, the toilets no seats or broken seats, the shower handles no handles, the mirror is scraps of reflection after an ancient tantrum, my legs kick unbidden while balancing on a three legged plastic chair trying to quiet a mind awake with regret and the opportunities I must grasp when I get out, for I have a life to rebuild, occasionally punctuated by the shitting of someone, half asleep, trying not to catch my eye.
Signalling it could be time to try get some actual sleep, around three thirty am the seekers of hot water start whispering in to the bathroom – where there is no bath – lining up and otherwising. There are shouts of shutthefuckup walking back through the common area, a double volume cold space, maybe fifteen by fifteen and ten high, where we eat, watch TV, have meetings, step classes, and where some sleep. This was once a mortuary, then a church, then a gym, apparently the guy who ran the gym needed to get clean, so he started a rehab. Passing the just waking dorm guy, who is up to start the porridge, three hours of stirring a pot that is three times too big for the only plate that is working on the stove that strains under the weight of the stirring. Between stirs he sleeps on a thin sponge in a former coldroom and scrolls through chattering upbeat tiktok motivationals, how to get that money yo, how to get that bitch yo.
Sleep comes just in time for Sekunjalo, the six am call and the bashing of feet for the slow to get up, Se! Kun! Jaloooo! Often self appointed kings of the rehab will try to do this five minutes earlier than the dorm guy, he lets them – mostly they are tolerated, ignored.
Morning meeting, readings from the NA Daily Reflections, identifications, airing of issues, then din pap, two sugars, no milk, no butter, fights break out daily over who gets the few extra bowls. Standing in the three by fifteen concrete yard, crowding around those who might let go of a sip coffee, eating pap before it gets cold, sitting on upended old paint buckets, the chipboard comes out and good natured arguments break out over who gets to play with the single set of dominoes. Milling, milling.
A scuttled together kennel of sorts houses Bullet, black dog, grey in years, the longest inmate here, shuffles, wobbles out to the pap pot scrapings Sbuda dutifully shovels into an icecream bak. The bored tease Bullet until he lashes out, too old to actually bite. Step class is at eight thirty. It's enough to just stand in the dust and feel the sun, until it's time to peel off to mop, to move the room around, bring in the desk and chairs.
Step class is given by someone who was here, is now years clean, about eight pay attention, the rest sleep on the side benches. The diligent copy out the questions, third time round, fourth time around they'll also be sleeping. The person giving class is often too beset with all the admin of the place, organising gwaai, toiletries, visits, intake, etc, that step class is given by other people, sometimes those who've been longest in this place, sometimes people who've passed through, live in the area, have free time. There are lots of those, there is a cycle of months clean, years clean, success stories, with free time. Sometimes one of them simply no longer appears..
Tea is a quarter loaf of powder bread, margarine and thin juice. After step class lunch is a quarter loaf of bread and gravy, sometimes three tins of fish divided, sometimes dahl, sometimes salted carrots but always the packet gravy. After lunch the rush to rearrange the room to set up the TV to be in front to re-watch John Wick or Power Book: Ghost, all of it. A mishmash of din sponges and threadbare blankets and sleep and bravado.
By two pm in the dusty yard we are circling the tuckshop door, it is just punctuation. Something that happens in the midst of all this nothing that happens. There is step work but there is no sense of the outside. Of what to do when you get out, and it translates into a sort of listlessness, a tired impatience with everything. “Tuckshop must open now. These guys are fucking around.” The dorm guy arrives back with packet crips that must be repackaged and someone gets that privilege. Bullet digs in the 30cm square attempt at a vegetable patch, from seeds hustled from kitchen duties preparing the supper, stywe pap with gravy, some boiled down vegetables, maybe a russian, sometimes chicken pieces, cut in two, half per person.
There is space out back to grow a proper vegetable garden and it's a common thing to want, but it will never happen, if allowed out there someone might try to escape.
Faith appears on the roof of the house next to the rehab, punctually as tuck shop is open, whatever time it is open, and she always calls out, “Het iemand seep?”
She is maybe ten, and her parents smoke – at night we smell the indanda seeping into the dorm window, the smell of plastic burning, copper being mined from the broken appliances mined from other people's discards – but fresh from school she is on the roof asking for soap, for rollons, for crips, for stoksweets. She only takes toiletries that are still sealed. She will take anything from the tuckshop, even the smallest leftovers of a goslows. She will talk for hours with anyone, any conversation always abbreviated into wants, needs, but also long enjambements about her friends and her brother, and what shit they caught on at school. She disappears when other opportunities present. “Okay, bye, but tomorrow as jy he' seep.”
Just before supper is the afternoon meeting, on hot days out in the yard, and never is there anyone willing to share, there is a list and generally when it's time there is an excuse and a battle to get someone anyone but not the same perpetually willing who share the same story over and over. On lucky days someone from outside who has free time, clean time and free time, and will fire everyone up with hope.
After dinner, the seeds saved from the whatever vegetables are taken outside in darkness, and we plant them in the dust of Bullet's diggings. The sky is sodium orange light from the nearby factories and security zones, barely a star is visible. I point to the evening star.
“That's a satellite”, I am told, “they're all satellites.”
“How can there be so many satellites?”
“I only see two.”
I cup my hands into a sort of shield against the orange miasma and ask him to do the same and look directly up.
“Oh no, yassis, those can't all be satellites”.
There is thumping music from just, it feels just next door, friday, saturday, sundays. Sundays is slow jams, nineties RnB. I start to anticipate my Janet Jackson moment as soon as the thumping starts on Fridays nine pm, just before weekend lights out. On the first night I hear it I imagine a two story building, a nightclub above some sort of shopping centre, a dancefloor, booths. I imagine wrong.
Dreaming of being out one slow jam sunday in the dark, there is the occasional “Jirre daai nommer!” from the bed above me. I say something about wanting to go dancing there, at that place. It is not a place for dancing. What I am hearing is a car wash. An open area where on weekends one guy parks his car and pumps tunes, other people pull up in their cars to listen, and to smoke, and assumingly buy, meth. Sure there is dancing, but it is not a club.
In a two kilometre square radius from the rehab there are nine other rehabs. In this area, a grid of streets, of falling down smartly kept houses, a merchant is in walking distance on any road. The local economy is spazas and meth – two giant supermarket chains suck money out of the community, employing few. There is little here to do with time.
The rehab prepares for bed in the same settling way night after night, everyone slowly peeling off to bed, small conversations. Just before this, lights not quite out, an argument. Muffled shouts and suddenly someone is on the floor and everyone is piling in on the beating. It takes the junior dorm manager to stop it, he separates the other dorm manager from the relapse patient. An old disagreement, an insult. The patient is punished, chained to his bed, given duties. The dorm manager is verbally disciplined the next day, but who else will wake up at three to make the din pap, and manage the tuckshop and cook all the meals and keep the peace.
The food is shit because this rehab costs R2800 a month, the services are limited, the counselling is limited, there is no preparedness for finding work, or even getting your ID or going back to school because this rehab costs R2800 a month.
R2800 a month is more than a third of the average monthly salary in this area. It is an entire pension. But it is cheaper than having an addict in the house.
This place is an organic response to a need. It is not registered, filling in a gap, cannot apply for funding, must stay under the radar. Kunjalo, nje.
Woken by mumbling underneath the symphony of uneasy breathing, Sbuda at the window, clutching at the bars, mumbling and crying. Touching him on the arm starts him awake. Dazed, he says, “I thought I was at my grandmom's house.” Behind him, beyond the shadow of Faith's roof, a night bird cries it's path beyond the sodium haze, against an invisible sky. .
He makes his way back to his bed, lying down in a crackling of forgotten crips packets.
“Is that the cat,” shouts from the other room.
“Ek sal dit vrek maak, oor de muur gooi!”
“Skommel jy Sbuda?”
“Hey, Sbuda, where are your shoes?”
Shared Visions Founding Assembly
from 
Shared Visions
This May, in Nikšić, we gather to do something we have been working toward for two years: the founding of a international cooperative of visual artists, headquartered in Belgrade and built across the region. From 16 to 20 May 2026, the Shared Visions network travels to Montenegro for its founding assembly. Five days of working sessions on cooperativism, organising in culture, art market research, solidarity economies and digital tools to build more just and equitable art infrastructures.
Three sessions are specifically crafted for public:
→ 17 May, 10:00-12:00 at City Museum Nikšić — Mapping the Visual Arts Market. A presentation of comparative research across Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and North Macedonia, alongside reports from the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and Ukraine.
→ 18 May, 20:00-21:30 at Black Metallurgy Institute Nikšić — Archiving the Ungovernable. A talk and convivium with Landscape Choreography and MACAO (Milan), drawing on more than a decade of self-organised cultural practice and fight for the commons.
→ 20 May, 14:00-17:00 at Black Metallurgy Institute Nikšić — Founding Assembly. The day we formally constitute the cooperative and celebrate! Come for one session, come for all of them. The questions we keep returning to, for whom are we producing art, whose is the art infrastructure, how do we sustain artistic work outside extractive logics — are not ones we can answer alone.
from 
G A N Z E E R . T O D A Y
STATUS
#status
51.
from 
Meditaciones
Aprovechamos cualquier problema para sacarle punta al lápiz.
La came isole
from 
Turbulences
Il promettait tant, pour rien. Mais ne donnait rien, pourtant. Tu cherchais du réconfort, Dans l’oubli d’un alcool fort.
Mais rien à faire. La came isole. Après, c’est l’enfer.
On dit qu’il délie les langues, Qu’il brise la glace, qu’il crée des liens. Mais à un moment ça tangue, Et tu repars d’encore plus loin.
Car rien à faire. La came isole. Après, c’est l’enfer.
Tu cherches refuge dans l’alcool, Il faut bien que tu te console. Mais plus ça va plus tu t’isoles. Jusqu’au moment où tu t’affoles.
Non, rien à faire. La came isole. Après, c’est l’enfer.
Et qu’importe la substance, Il faut que tu garde le contrôle. Ne laisse pas la dépendance, Entrer dans ton existence.
Sinon, rien à faire. La came isole. Après, c’est l’enfer.
from G A N Z E E R . T O D A Y
My plan was to dive into PROJECT HOURGLASS by May 1st, but I'm not yet done with PROJECT ROSEWATER or KILLJOY, partly because getting anything built and/or installed in Cairo demands undivided micromanagement.
Kitchen is now a hair away from final-final completion (whenever you think you're done, a new loose thread seems to reveal itself). Renovation on the unit upstairs is finally finished (exceeeept for a minor plumbing thing and some woodwork that needs mending). Today I try to get mirrors installed on a big unfinished wall in the building entrance (the original plan was to create an original mural for it, but I'm learning to take things off my plate when the pile gets too high. and the mirrors will be a good fix).
Other things needed for the studio are: – Closet – Storage Unit for Works on Paper – Shelves and Cabinets for the washroom/storage room – Sofa (in an effort to make my life more difficult, there's a particular design for it I'm looking to get made). – Rocking chair (which will serve as my reading chair—settling into my old age with acceptance). – Side table (to go with said rocking chair—already have the marble slab that will serve as the tabletop, cut out of the kitchen counter to make way for the electric stove top, which means said table will need to be custom-built). – Floor lamp (for the reading/rocking chair) – Additional table on casters (also have a design in mind for it 🙃) – 3 Assorted table lamps – 1 wall-light fixture – Assorted mirrors (to reflect the light around the eerily dark corner of the studio) – 2 floating shelves
And then and only then will I finally feel situated in my new digs. Which puts me at... what? 50 years from now at this rate?
#journal
from folgepaula
What love wants is to be wise.
Dad has cancer, he told me two weeks ago, as casually as someone saying, “pass the salt, please.” I decided to dance his dance, to give him the comfort of following his tone. So, just like someone passing the salt, I answered: “Hm, and how are you feeling?” He told me about the radiotherapy treatment that will start soon, that he isn’t afraid of death. I joked and said: the last time I visited you at ICU (that was in 2017, when he had a heart attack) I brought you some books to keep you entertained in the room, since they wouldn’t let you have access to anything. After bringing you a pile of books, I asked: “Dad, anything else you want?” and you answered, “Yes, I want to be cremated.” We both laughed.
And then I told him I was reading The Symposium by Plato. That in 380 b.C, the greek philosophers got together to discuss what is love. And what love wants.
The conclusion from Plato is, what love wants is to be wise.
Saturn, by castrating his father (Uranus), who is the sky and the time (which makes a lot of sense, because the sky is the imprint of time, literally), creates a cave with his semen, and inside it he keeps humans. The cave is an allegory for our system of beliefs. We're constantly moving in life from one cave to the other. We start life in the mother uterus, then we move to the family uterus, the friend's uterus, the university uterus, the work uterus, and finally the final uterus, which is the grave.
Saturn is fundamentally this force that tries to control things. Tries to keep us inside the cave, as if that it could prevent us of being devoured by Uranus (time). But there is no way to escape. Thinking of other traditions, like the jewish one, what greeks call “Saturn” I understand in Kabbalah being represented as “Binah”.
Binah is the feminine, the great uterus that gives shape to this infinite masculine energy flow known as Gevurah (in greek mithology, “Mars”). Without the vessel (Binah), this flow is nothing but infinite potential. The irony is: what limits, what contains, is also what gives shape and forms life. Creating does not exist without the two elements.
He told me he still hasn’t shared the news with my older sister, his daughter from his first marriage, because he wasn’t sure how she might react and she had already her other concerns in life. Then he asked me what I thought. I answered: “Well, you clearly think I am on vacation, right?” And he laughed a bit more. I suggested he might wait another week, start the radiotherapy and see how it goes, and then give her a call, since she deserves to know. The cave is always destroyed, but it is nice to have some time to process things. He thought it was indeed a good idea. And then he said he knew he should talk to me from the very beginning, not because he thinks I am in permanent vacation (haha), but because he knew I could hold it. And I think in that moment my dad did more for our connection than he has done in a long time, because he trusted me. And that's all I actually need from him.
/May26
Comfort
from An Open Letter
I think I’m starting to feel comfortable being the person that I am. I feel like I’ve now had an avenue to meet essentially an unlimited stream of people through 222, and I feel like that has really given me a lot of confidence on depart like I felt like I couldn’t control and so I’m feeling like a complete lack of dread and I feel like that makes me feel more content as a person.
Qué
from 
Micropoemas
Ni él sabe lo que quiso decir, pero le da risa. Y a mí.