ktravula - a travelogue! » blogging

Book, Blook, Bloog, Blog…

Kola — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:46:00 +0000

Ikhide Ikheloa has joined the blogging community. This next sentence, otherwise supposed to describe him in a few words and put him in the context of Nigerian and African literature, will however be used to tell you something else: that blogging is the future, or at least the way to it. With electronic data content and text being gradually becoming the most viable medium of communication, it takes no prophet to see that what literature is will also eventually take on a more pro-electronic bias. I have said this before, and let me repeat it here (as if it needs repeating, duh) that the future of literature depends in some form (if not entirely) on the internet. A future Nobelist from blogging, anyone?

You should also follow @SalmanRushdie and @TejuCole on twitter while we’re still talking about the internet as a literary resource.

A Review

Kola — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 06:41:02 +0000

No, not of a book, movie or song although that would be fun, but of the year itself. Yes it’s too early to do that since we still have about nine days to go, but it is amazing to see how close we are already to its end. By this time last year, I was here, same spot, same posture, probably complaining of snow or making a general observation of a particularly fascinating endeavour. The only difference is that then I was a teacher of many young students of Yoruba, but now I’m mostly a student myself. (Speaking of reviews, I’d appreciate you taking a moment to tell me what your favourite posts on this blog has been. There’s a poll on the right side of the blog. Please choose as many options as appeal to you).

I miss teaching in the Yoruba class. It was one of those moments when everything stands still and a continuous flow of knowledge and fun merges into one beautiful experience that lasts for about one and a half hours, two times a week. It’s incomparable, not just because of the things learnt and taught but for the pleasure of being there, and being the vessel for such cultural exchange. I met a few students this semester who said that they registered for the class either because they attended my talk last year or had heard from other students, and wanted to experience the class for themselves. I am thinking of returning to teach that class next semester. What do you think?

I’ve posted less on this blog per month since August, deliberately, and I think that has worked well. I realized at the end of the first blog year that it was better to write whenever I could rather than make posts everyday as I used to when I had all the time on my hands. It was inevitable that graduate school will attempt to suck me dry of all my waking moments. But then, here we are, still talking, and still sharing little moments of laughter. My semester has been made even better to bear by the presence of lovely colleagues who bring me chocolates and other nice stuff (you know yourselves), and those with whom I share nice stimulating conversation somewhere amidst the bustle of the day. There is also the doting host parents who have treated me no different than their own son with free access to their home, their food and their wine. What else could one ask for?

This year I travelled around (some parts of) Nigeria, and that was fun. I hope to complete my tour of that country in a not too distant future. I also got to see a few more of the midwestern United States. A few people have suggested that I should travel with a more critical eye next time (instead of my usually fawning admiration of spaces, I guess). In my defense, I have gone around less with the intention of understanding the people in the places I go and more with the intention of understanding and describing the places in which they live. But now that I know the difference, maybe I should take one more step closer. (You might like this article about the BBC reporter who attempted to understand and describe Americans in a new book). Maybe it is the desire to take pictures and write about places that moves me the most.

When the year ends next week, what I’ll be most grateful for is the general beautiful pleasure of warm human company. There’s still no alternative to that yet.

Interlude

Kola — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 01:23:23 +0000

There is no writer’s block, just laziness. Perhaps.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article for an e-zine on the motivations for blogging, the challenges it provides, and the general pleasure of having things to write (now just “almost”) everyday of the week. Here’s my experience. I sit down facing a blank sheet of paper trying to write something serious or concrete either for a newspaper or for a class project/assignment, and I get stuck. Nothing comes. The part of my brain needed to get the work done just blatantly refuses to start up, and I remain in one spot for as long as possible, beating myself up and wondering why on earth it seemed so hard to do something as simple as writing, and why I’d been so hated to have been given the task that offered no exit, and no mercy. Nothing else to do, I would then go to my blog, open a blank page for new posts, and write something long and pretty – in less then fifteen minutes – in relative ease, loosening my “writerly” tongue and allowing the brain the luxury of admitting that writing could actually be pleasant. It is the same brain which a few minutes before had locked itself up like a clam. It is also the same typing fingers now addressing a different audience. And that has always defied all explanation. Is the conclusion to be drawn that of the fact that life should be smooth, easy, and playful, subject to our moods and whims? Or should it be regimented and organized, subject to the wishes of a remote instructor waiting to mark our work with inks of red? Or that whenever faced with the latter, a mood of the former should be immediately invoked in order to get through the mood?

Here I am, unable to find the first word with which to begin my final class project due next week, writing without stopping for air on a blog that would give me neither an “A” nor a tuition refund. FML(?) Back to work now.

Wine Tasting in the Town

Kola — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 10:52:02 +0000

The last time I went wine-tasting was in September. There was an exhibition of the wines of Missouri and wineries from parts of the state came to showcase what they have. It took place at the Botanical Garden. I returned home with a bottle of Chambourcin.

Last Friday evening however, I went for another one – a private event at a local winery in Edwardsville. The house, built in the 1800s, was nicely decorated with warm lights and wall pictures with other cozy features and a live band playing slow music in the basement. The wine was very sweet and distinctive. The company was pleasant, warm and relaxing, and after a few gulps that counted for much more than just tastings, I was loosened enough to go ice skating at an ice rink thirty-five minutes away.

Oh, I almost forgot. We were actually celebrating something: the joy of blogging, and the pleasures/treasures it brings.

Laughing at Myself

Kola — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 05:37:51 +0000

It’s been long since I last laughed at myself on this blog. I should remedy that, I thought this evening. Should I tell you the story of my one of many first encounters with a duvet (often also called the “comforter”), or how I finally became friends with Boo the cat while his owners were far away out of the country? How about my recent reunion with winterboots from last year in very unexpected circumstances, or about how I had been unpleasantly surprised about the absence of roadside cobblers in the US to fix my sandals when the buckles gave way? I also felt I’d talk about my surprise in finding my blog listed yesterday on the BBC website featuring a few Nigerian blogs talking about the nation’s independent anniversary celebration. But I felt that that won’t be funny enough.

Then I thought I could tell you about how I lost my keys last week in town and had the police call my mobile phone just to return it to me. They had obviously traced it with a special number coded on the keys. But that wasn’t funny at all becuase a new set of keys would have cost me a lot of money that I don’t have. Then I resolved to tell you about the private pranks I’ve been playing on the GPS machine these days. I would put in a particular destination in the machine, and deliberately go to a different place through a different route and watching the machine run mad with instructions: “Please turn right in .5 miles… Please make a legal U-turn as soon as possible… Re-calculating route…” etc. As you would see, I’ve been very busy. In another world a long time ago, I’d call two different people with a hidden number, connect them in a conference call and listen to them fall in love after a few false starts and them eventually believing that the lines jammed into each other by some random error in the system and the gods actually want them together. That used to be much fun, just like calling the fire service station while we were young, and telling them that there’s a fire somewhere and watch them laugh at our fake attempts at seriousness, then threaten to tell our parents. Oh the days.

Then I felt that by the time I told you all of this, you’d have at least let out a smile, and I’d be forgiven for not having blogged for as much last month, and for the fact that I would blog less and less as school progresses and my life gets more interesting.

Dotdotdot

Kola — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:57:21 +0000

This is how writing procrastination works: you tell yourself that you have nothing worth saying, and you wait until such a time when you think you do. Usually that time never comes and you stare day by day at the empty page hoping that something miraculous would happen and fill up the page. You could be lucky to have tonnes of other things to do to take up your space and time, but if you have been notorious in the past for writing even under extreme pressures of work, teaching, classes, events and many things else, you would usually not be forgiven for taking any kind of break. Yes, I know the works.

The evil thing about procrastination however is that it never ends. Like the fabled Sisyphus bound to head to the top of the hill with a ball of garbage only to be sent downhill rolling with no brakes, and to be condemned to repeat the same process for eternity, each day comes and goes, and the readers wait, and wait. In some cases the writer gets a kind of cruel satisfaction from keeping them in that kind of wait. Well, I never promised you to publish my everyday thoughts. I keep some of them for private people, or send some of them to newspaper editors in hope that they find them good enough to publish. And well, I’m such a risk taker myself and I wouldn’t mind to hear news that someone actually placed a bet that I would not write as much this month as I usually do. Wait a minute, why am I talking to myself?

All of this make a kind of sense, doesn’t it, and there is a win at every turn. The other thing that could bring a greater fun would be hours spent talking to people about an intending road trip: twenty-three hours on the road towards Las Vegas and California. Now wouldn’t that be something? Yet, it won’t be sufficient excuse to stay off the blog for that period of time. Well whatever, life goes on.

Two-Thirds Gone

Kola — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:27:36 +0000

By midnight today, the second third of this year will be gone for good and again we’ll wonder where all the time went. Just four months more and we’ll be in another year, making new resolutions and running after new goals. In some parts of the world, the harmattan season is beginning to gather and will gain force in a few weeks. In some other place like around my yard, trees will be crying their leaves into the river – to rephrase the line in Chris de Burg’s song.

In my case, I will be buried in books, research, (maybe) movies, and a series of other activities that may or may not take me away from this page. (I’ve always wanted to be able to take one month off this blog in order to do a few other things. I tried it in July but it didn’t quite work. Wonder if this might be a good time, especially at this beginning of serious classwork and other personal endeavours around the city. Hmm.

The Nokia competition is still on. The second question is already up where I promised it’d be. There will be another one tomorrow, and the last two on Thursday. The email address will be provided before noon on Thursday and you may send in your answers. You could be a lucky winner. The winner will be contacted via email on Thursday and announced on the blog either on the same day, or on Friday.

See ya around.

A Case for Blogging

Kola — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 00:26:24 +0000

‘”The book is dead” – Ikhide. “Ikhide is dead.” – The Book ‘ – Grafitti.

There is no doubt that new technologies taking over the culture of publishing have sort of made the book redundant. But how total is that overthrow of the almighty good old hard cover material once known as the book? In the beginning, there were scrolls, nay, first there were hieroglyphics and scrawling on stone cave walls. And that was after communications went on via drum beats, gongs, and loud whistles across farm fields. Skip to the present, across generations of texts, scrolls and patches bearing thousands of important scriptures, texts and messages for generations.

We have the ebook, and many electronic ways of communicating ideas, almost like the book. Almost like most ancient means of communication. The iPhone could as well be a smooth but feathered pebble sent across from a far village to transmit a short message from a dying man to another – aroko; a phone call a mystical connection of voices between distances. Even babalawos might be able to explain that with some of their ancient texts. The man rubbed his head three times, chewed on the sour kola as he stood on top of the hill and called the name of his son seven times, and from where he was thousands of miles away, the young man rose from his sleep, dusted his mat, and headed homewards, without even saying goodbye to his expectant wife… From generations to generations, communication has evolved and will continue to do so, surprising each generation after the other. The graphic design of a recent cover of the Economist has Apple boss Steve Jobs holding two iPads on either arm. The headline was The Book of Jobs but the image was that of Moses returning from the mountain with two stone tablets – each as big as the iPad – in his hands.

The book should die, if it must, as soon as possible. For one, it will remove the pressure of traditional publishing, and an author of a short story in an anthology of eleven might not have to wait forever to lay his hands on the first copy of such a work. Where does the book get off with that distinct characteristic of charm that breeds suspense, and an always pleasing first touch, smell and feel? Try as we may, that first touch never fails to surprise and to please. Yet I protest. How many words does it take to write a novel? Forty to a hundred thousand? How many words have I written on this blog so far? Over two hundred and twenty- seven thousand words and over a thousand nine hundred pictures. Bollocks! Die book, die! A magazine editor won’t publish an already blogged poem. Bollocks. A newspaper requires exclusive rights to published articles and won’t allow for reprints on the author’s blog. Die book, die!

But who am I kidding? Until the Nobel Committee decides on a day in the distant future to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to an author that writes using only the blogging medium will that day have truly come when the book is totally dead. And members of that Nobel Committee would have to have been first generation digital natives, born and bred in the world of hypertext. Until then, maybe we could do with a little amendment to the criminal code that gives the opportunity of only a phone call to an arrested suspect. If you want to arrest and lock me up, why don’t you give me internet access instead. All I need is twenty minutes for my next post, then you can have me in for all the time you want. At least until the next day when the next blogging cycle begins.

The book is dead. Of course it’s not. But long live its very many other manifestations, including the one you’re now reading.

New Interesting Blogs

Kola — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 05:21:46 +0000

I stumbled across the blog 17 years, 8 months, 15 days last week, I think, from my WordPress stats page. It details the journey of a woman returning from Canada to Nigeria for the first time in years to reunite with the father of her baby. From the little I’ve read on the blog, it is a moving and interesting story of faith, hope and love. Check it out.

The Nigerian Blog Awards 2010 have provided a new opportunity to discover new blogs by Nigerians all over the world. Check out their webpage for blogs by Nigerians listed on the right. And remember to vote not only for KTravula.com for the categories it is nominated for, vote also for fellow KTravulans Aloofaa, Bookaholic (writing), Bumight (student blog), Jaycee (personal development) Myne Whitman, Nigerian Curiosity, Nigerianstalk.org, Nnedi Okorafor (writing), Solomon Sydelle and Verasitically Livin’ (use of media). They have all given me interestings to read during the year.

Nominated!

Kola — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:49:25 +0000

This blog was yesterday nominated for eleven categories in the Nigerian Blog Awards 2010. This is overwhelming for a blog less than a year old. And for that, I say a big KTravula thank you to all of you who did the nomination on behalf of our fans, friends, readers, commenters and guest-posters. Big hugs to you.

Voting for the categories start on May 31 and ends on June 6. A full list of the categories and nominees can be found here.

Winner for the Nigerian Blog of the Year gets to be the president of Nigeria for one day, and gets a chance to make any government policy s/he wants. Oh, I wish .

ktravula - a travelogue! » blogging

Book, Blook, Bloog, Blog…

Related Posts

A Review

Related Posts

Interlude

Related Posts

Wine Tasting in the Town

Related Posts

Laughing at Myself

Related Posts

Dotdotdot

Related Posts

Two-Thirds Gone

Related Posts

A Case for Blogging

Related Posts

New Interesting Blogs

Related Posts

Nominated!

Related Posts