The Yeaster
It’s been a trip. Well more like a trip to the vet. Oh wait, I’m human shaped, so make that a trip to the local doctor. Cold sweats, rushing fever and headaches will drive you into the sterile confines of the local quack. Who will gleefully pile you with questions, follow that with a nonsensical diagnosis and close the deal with a pile of pilletjies. And make you pay dearly for the temerity of seeking help when you’re feeling poorly. Lucky for me, this time round the quack was replaced by an actual healer who just also just happens to be an actual doctor. That’s a double actual. Not quite Love Actually but it’s Easter and not Christmas.
Finding a healer and not just a quack is a rarity in our bean counter, hedge fund led global economy. Aka Vulture Capitalism which is not my preferred term but the title of a recent book from Grace Blakeley. I’ve not yet been gifted a copy but the wish has been set free; so as with everything, the book will land with me at exactly the right time. For now, the extracts from the book, reviews and interviews with the author; I’ve come across are unequivocal. Vulture Capitalism is an incisive, well written treatise on the economic (dis)order and how this has shifted our lived reality from a society of human beings to consuming units lorded over by things parading in human form.
But this is not a book review; despite becoming rather adept at how-not-to-write-book-reviews. If you’re new to Oppi Stoep, you can find my award-winning reviews of Pamuk’s The Black Book, Joanne Joseph’s Children of Sugarcane and others elsewhere in this wildly disorganised series of blogs. Think of it as my Easter pressie to you, happy hunting.
Back to the healer, who did indeed heal me with a combination of unquantifiable healing, modern medicine and an old-school jab in the butt cheek. Well mostly, some things take longer to heal than others. Throw in the rather busy planetary movements and alignments we’re in the midst of and you can be forgiven for also feeling a wee bit off-centre. Just be extra careful if you’re piloting one of the vulture capitalists giant-ass ships near long span bridges. You might stuff that up spectacularly.
Also if you are planning to be on the roads in the holy land this season, take extra care; the locals’ egos tend to be bigger than their SUVs. Throw in their dull middle class arrogance; disregard for the old-fashioned things like knowing what the road rules are or being corpus enough to adhere to them; and you have another annual death race on the roads.
And we’re not even at the election season killings in KZN yet. Staying alive (or having luxuries like running tap water and electricity) in the holy land has never been so much fun. Try your best. You’ll be doing better than the entire political class.
The Yeaster is your Easter reminder to breathe deeply while it’s still mostly free to do so.
© Jesh Baker for Oppi Stoep 2024, All Rights Reserved
