Blood Brothers

David Kramer's adaptation of the Classic English musical, which has been transferred to Take place in District 6 instead of Liverpool. The story itself doesn't focus on the politics, or race, but rater differences in economic backgrounds. 

It's a story of a struggling mother who gives up one of her new born twins to her well off employer. The boys discover each other, become friends, grow up, but remain unaware of their relationship. Eventually the story ends in tragedy, and the story is very much focused on te guilt trip of both mothers, as the narrator keeps reminding the audience, "the tokoloshe has your number".

The performances are amazing. The brothers, played by Eprahim Landrew and Dean Balie, give very believable performances across different ages, from 7 to 25. The standout performance is by Bianca Le Grange, as Mrs Johnstone (the biological mother), and although M doesn't agree, I also enjoyed the narator's performance in bringing the story together.

It is a brilliant performance all round, and David Kramer's adaptation to South African cultural references is amazing. It is show definitely worth watching. 

JPO's 2nd 2013 Season, 6th Concert

Given the difficult year for the JPO, the final concert of the year started with a few words of thanks - both from the CEO of the JPO and the concertmaster. I think that the JPO needs to do a lot more to overcome its challenges, but that is a post on its own. The concert itself, for me, was a bit underwhelming.

Schumann's Manfred Overture started the proceedings off. Unlike the programme notes, I did not think that the piece conveyed "effectively the urgent despair of Byron's work" - not that I know the poem that the piece is based on. While it certainly had a melancholic ending - there are certainly other pieces that I have heard that evoked sadness than this piece. 

Violinist Yura Lee performed Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto; a very popular piece that I have heard on radio numerous times, in pieces, but not as a full work. Unlike some concertos, it does not seem to require significant individual brilliance; but it is a great piece to listen to; and got great appreciation from the audience.

Brahms' Symphony No 2. ended off the evening. It was certainly a nice piece to listen to, but I found that it was hardly memorable. There was no specific piece that got stuck in my mind, and I don't think I would recognise it if it was played. It was nice; but not great.

The Pudding Shop

The Pudding Shop, in Parktown North, aspires to be a vegan friendly restaurant. That means, the menu is largely vegetarian or vegan (although it is not that easy to see which is which) but also has a few fish items for those that must have some animal protien. The food is delicious, the decor is interesting and it is a great lunch venue; especially on a lazy weekend. And best of all, it doesn't have the preachy holier-than-thou attitude of other vegan/vegetarian places I have been to (outside Asia).

That said the service is quite poor. The waiters didn't really know the menu; and for a vegan/vegetarian venue, their selection of food and drink is actually quite limited. It is not that the waiters are unfriendly - in fact they are very hospitable - but their lack of knowledge of the food being served does not help; especially when the menu is mixed.

Wooden Buldozer

The Rosebank rooftop market restarted last week, and this time it feels a lot more spacious with somewhat better quality. A Malawian stall had hand carved wooden toys; and the bulldozer really stood out. All the parts are movable, including the arms and the tracks. Really impressive craftsmanship!

JPO's 2nd 2013 Season, 5th Concert

Sibelius' 2^nd Symphony is awesome, not only the finale, which is very rousing (and as per the commentary, seen as the unofficial Finnish national anthem) and loud; but also the second movement, which has a very interesting start with the double-basses and cellos; and everything else just seems to fit together. No doubt, part of the success of the performance was due to the conductor Yasuo Shinozaki's experience with Finnish music; and it was one of those magical performances where the music just seems to come alive.

Unfortunately, the first part of the concert was more mundane. The first part of the concert was rather short, lasting just over 30 minutes. Proceedings started with Mozart's La clemenza di Tito Overture, followed by Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme played by Russian born, South African cellist Polina Burdukova. Neither performances were bad - just boring. The symphony did make up for it though!

Macbeth

It's quite cool how some traditional artistic companies are leveraging new technologies to reach new audiences - the Metropolitan Opera and the UK's National Theatre being at the forefront. It opens up their productions to new audiences; and gives different avenues for movie theatres at the same time.

Ster-Kinekor is currently screening National Theatre's production of Macbeth starring Kenneth Branagh. Performed in a deconsecrated church (how is a church deconsecrated?), the "stage" is in the centre of the church, with the audience sitting on either side. The action is fast paced, with no time taken for scene changes; and there is a very earthy; middle-age feeling about the play - particularly in the beginning with the water effects (for rain) that turns the stage into a muddy field. 

It is minimalist; at the same time quite impressive in the use of effects. The performances are brilliant, not only by Kenneth Branagh but also by Ray Fearon as Macduff and Alex  Kingston as Lady Macbeth. 

I saw Macbeth in school, as part of the set work - this is the type of production that makes Shakespeare amazing, even when it is not part of schoolwork :)

Meze, Mira and Makeup

A play with only one cast member can be difficult to pull off; and Taryn Papadopolous Louch did an absolutely amazing job in portraying a wide range of characters in the life of Kalomira (Mira) from birth, through to end of her University degree. Although very much rooted in the immigrant Greek experience, I don't think the experience itself is specific to Greek culture - but rather a wider take on immigrant life in the new home; and the difference in experience between the 1^st and 2^nd generation immigrants.

The acting is absolutely amazing - especially in how well the characters are portrayed; and the play is hilarious. The accents and the exaggerated character effects are well portrayed and the performance got a well deserved standing ovation.

Soil

The Auto and General Theatre on the Square is hosting a month of Greek flavoured SA plays. The playwright of the first (Soil) and the director of the second (Meze, Mira and Makeup), Renos, is part of M's writing group; so we got an invitation to the opening day. It was my first time at the theatre, and being effectively next to the parking lot, has its disadvantages - mainly in hearing car doors slamming and alarms going off. That said, the acoustics are pretty good - so you don't struggle to hear the actors on stage.

The first play of the evening, Soil is based on a true story of a South African of Greek-Cypriot descent's return to the house of his grandparents, and meeting the Turkish-Cypriot lady living in the house - a house given to her father by the occupying forces of Turkey. Effectively it is a story about land rights - and although not directly explored - the history of Cyprus (as encapsulated on Wikipedia) it is a long running saga of multiple occupations and settlements.

The play's structure of three parts, makes it a bit difficult in terms of pacing - dragging on the topic a bit. This is particularly notable in the very end - a part that I thought was completely unnecessary; as the conclusion in the story had already been reached. 

It is a topical, and partly political play. However, it doesn't really have a take on the actual answer - the encounter is so specific; it does not really highlight any meaningful solution to the wider problem. It was still good theatre.

Halloween - JPO's 2nd 2013 Season, 4th Concert

I love live music because of the experience - be it the audience, the unique performance or just the sound. Last night's JPO concert had all of these, and was one of the best.

It started with the performance of Musorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, a piece that has all the hallmarks of horror genre. The lights were switched off, lights flashed for lightning, and as dawn broke through lights grew brighter, gradually. It was a totally immersive experience that is needed more often.

Tchaikovsky's long 2^nd Piano Concerto was next, featuring Francois du Toit as the pianist. It was a mesmerizing performance, with a lot of highlights even though the piece itself was not particularly memorable. It had some sorrowful moments, but did not really continue the theme.

Saint-Saens' 3^rd Symphony featuring an organ and a piano rounded off the evening. The organ's notes had an amazing vibration even though it was not a full blown organ that one would find in a cathedral. 

It was a great evening, and I hope JPO can repeat similar experiences more often.

Movie: Blue is the Warmest Colour (Adele Part 1 and 2)

I bought tickets more on the reputation than anything else really - and it was a very last minute decision. It was being screened as part of the annual "Out in Africa" festival, so it was a special screening before a wider South Africa release.

It is a simple movie premise - following the life of a young woman (starting in High School), Adele, through to her late 20's; through the cycle of one serious relationship, with an older woman, Emma. From the incidental meeting at a traffic light, through to "living house", through to a rather impressively acted dissolution, and a few years after; the movie has amazing atmosphere.  The movie uses quite a few clever ways in representing time (through the course of 10 plus years); but sadly the visual appearances of the two main characters remain the same and in some respects there is actually little change in how the characters act and behave in this time period.

The major talking point (and associated controversy) is the very long, quite explicit first sex scene between the two characters. While it starts of as erotic, and manages to convey a lot of passion, it carries on for too long - so much so, that an audience of predominantly lesbian women, starts laughing. It becomes tedious, and together with a number of other long lingering scenes, it contributes to the overall slow paced, tediousness of the movie brought on by its length. 

Overall, it is a good movie, with some good acting, and a good script - but too long. I am happy that I went to watch it; but I wouldn't want to again.

Johannesburg International Motor Show

I have been mulling over on whether to buy a new car, but my current one if working fine, so there is no motivation to really buy a new one (other than having a new car). That said, the Johannesburg International Motor Show was a good opportunity to see what is coming out in the recent future; and I was specifically interested in the electric cars that may be coming to SA soon.

Of the cars, the most imminent is the Nissan Leaf, which is launching next month. But it is not a car that looks like it is worth just under half a million Rands. In looks to other similar priced cars - 3 Series BMW, Audi A4, C-Class Mercedes - and this just doesn't stack up. It does have all the gadgets; it is fairly comfortable and quite nice to drive (I took the short test drive on offer); and the promise of incredibly low fuel costs does provide some of the positives. It has a 24 KWh battery, and a range of approximately 195 KM. Based on current SA electricity price of approx R1 per KWh, this translates to an incredible 12c per KM of fuel costs - far less than any petrol/diesel equivalent. But with a general lack of charging stations (right now at least) and the high investment cost; it may be better off to get a highly economical diesel.

Mahindra was the other "low cost" vehicle manufacturer with an electric car on show - which looked a bit like a bulkier golf car to be honest. Interestingly none of the other Asian manufacturers had hybrids or electric cars on show; except for existing offers from Toyota (and Lexus) and Honda.

The feature car that all the papers were talking about was the BMW i8 due to land in SA end of next year/early 2015. It is a great looking car, but there wasn't much on performance or price (although the agent did comment that it was going to be at the R2 million mark). The BMW i3 is also expected to be launched next year, but at the reported price of R1 million, it is worth two Nissan Leafs, and looks worse!

The i8 was not the only hybrid/electric stunner on the floor. Honda's new NSX is absolutely beautiful, though no other details were available, and is still in a concept phase I think.

There were a few interesting, non electric cars to see also - Chevrolet's Camaro is a classic American Muscle Car, but no further details were available. Giniel de Villier's Dakar Rally Car, a Red Bull F1 car and the Lexus LFA (which Top Gear called best car in the world).

JPO's 2nd 2013 Season, 3rd Concert

The program notes that Japanese conductor Yasuo Shinozaki spent considerable time leading orchestras in Finland. It was therefore apt that his 3 week tenure as the conductor of the JPO started with Jean Sibelius' Finlandia, performed with great gusto. It is a great piece, especially performed live.

Violinist Matthew Trusler performed Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, which was a stark contrast to Finlandia's exuberance. Written during World War 2, it is a melancholic piece (although I am not clear on whether it is mourning the event of a war, or the outcomes of the war); and although there are clearly passages which require great skill to perform (especially in the second movement), it was not a very enjoyable piece in itself. It was amazing to see it being performed - but I am not sure I would like to hear it again.

Rachmaninoff's Symphony No 1 rounded up the evening, which was yet again very boisterous. I really enjoyed the piece, especially the various contrast between the strings and the brass and percussion elements. It was loud, it was interesting, it was happy - almost all the things that the violin concerto was not - and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Movie: Gravity

There are movies that are cinematic masterpieces, and then there is Gravity which sets up an even higher bar to achieve. It doesn't matter that the visuals of the movie were mostly computer generated - it is an amazingly beautiful spectacle. The science may not be perfect and the plot could have focused less on moving from one disaster to another (I was wondering, almost hoping that a great white shark would appear). 

The great acting performances (especially by Sandra Bullock as the survivor in empty space), the masterful depiction of weightlessness and the amazing cinematography are pull together to make an amazing movie.

Side Channel Attacks in the Cloud

I saw this paper (by Yinqian Zhang, Ari Juels, Michael K. Reiter and Thomas Ristenpart in ACM CCS 2012) earlier this year, but thought it was a very specific threat model. In a  one line summary - it is possible to recover private keys when they are being used within a virtual machine, through observations of the activity of the virtual machine from the host machine. It is a very complex attack, and requires at least host access for these observations, so my initial thoughts were that this attack could only be carried out by extremely skilled admins of a cloud hosting provider; but the complexity would probably mean that there was no realistic threat in that regard.

With the NSA revelations of the past few months, this is an interesting approach that could be taken by an agency (such as the NSA) to recover private keys from cloud providers, without getting actual access to the servers themselves. Given that PRISM does provide such access to hosts, it is not inconcievable that systems that are hosted on public cloud services such as Amazon's EC2 could be monitored. However, given the description of events relating to Lavabit, it is likely that this type of attack hasn't been operationalised yet - but remains interesting on what could be achieved.

1820 Settlers National Monument

The 1820 Settlers National Monument is just outside Grahamstown, offering fantastic views of the town. A monument celebrating English settlers, it is in many ways a monument to colonialism - especially with cannons pointed towards the town; although the monument website talks about anything but that. The foundation building itself was closed on Sunday, but the views were worth the stop.

Grahamstown

This is my 3rd time in Grahamstown, though the first extended stay here. It's a small town with impressive colonial architecture (at least in the central part). The weather hasn't been great (quite chilly actually) it's a nice plae to visit regardless.

JPO's 2nd 2013 Season, 2nd Concert

Pianist Jan Hugo was completely focused on the keyboard as his fingers sped across the keys. He looked at the conductor for his cue, swayed slightly when it was just the orchestra; but mostly he was focused on the piano keys. It was a mesmerizing performance of Mendelson's 1^st Piano Concerto, which got a rousing applause from the audience; so muh so, that the pianist obliged with two encores.

Before the concerto, the JPO played Mozart's Magic Flute Overture; and finished off with one of the most well known symphonies - Beethoven's 5^th. Once again, conductor Daniel Boico brought great energy to the performance - especially for the symphony.

Yet another great concert from the JPO, and a great selection of pieces this week.

Movie: RED 2

I enjoyed RED, and the sequel is much more of the same. As in previous movie, ex-CIA black OPS, Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and his best friend Marvin (John Malkovich) are being chased by a number of governments relating to an old operation known as Nightshade. Set up across 4 countries, there are brilliant performances by Anthony Hopkins as the deranged villain and Helen Miren gets to play the queen again - although this time it's in a psychiatric ward. 

Despite some amazing stunts, the movie felt less slick than the original. The plot has a lot of holes, the dialogue seems to have been written by different writers (of different abilities) and the story sometimes looses steam. It is still funny, and a very good antidote to the run of the mill action story.

JPO's 2nd 2013 Season 1st Concert

There was a noticeable influx of youth (well anyone under 50 would be young right?) at yesterday's JPO concert - in the audience, in the orchestra, which was also led by the relatively young conductor Daniel Boico. Daniel Boico brought some amazing energy to the orchestra - especially in the opening piece; Rossini's William Tell Overture. I have heard this piece performed before, but this JPO performance was something special.

Luis Magalhaes played Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 4 next, which was sadly not at the same level. It was a strange piece - and it just didn't have the wow of Rachmaninov's earlier concertos. 

The evening ended with  Dvořák's Symphonny No 8. While it is not as recognisable as his 9th, it was a good mixture of emotional mood and was once again energetically conducted and performed. 

For an orchestra that flirted with its demise due to funding problems, this was the exact statement of revival that was needed. It's a pity that the hall wasn't sold out ...

Sport Development and Diversity

Business Day has a great article exploring why black rugby players who seem to succeed on the field in junior rugby do not succeed as they go up the age brackets.

It is an argument I have made before, in my experience with badminton in Cape Town. Sports development is not only about training and coaches - it is about nutrition, about emotional support, about family support, and a whole lot else. If kids are going to spend hours to get to training, development is not sustainable. If kids are not going to get good nutrition at home, they will physically not develop regardless of the hours they spend in gym as part of their training. If they do not get support in their education and family life (which may be in non traditional family structures) they will have other things to worry about.

That said, I am not sure that boarding school, as advocated, is the solution. In my own experience in Cape Town, the fact that top players (including national players) stayed an played in the community was in itself a promoter of the sport. Ultimately, I think a balance is required and it required support from multiple spheres of government and civil society.