the corner office

Cliff used to make much of the 'music you need to give some time to get into'. The theory being that there's a lot of stuff out there that at first 100 listens you'll probably detest because all the 'features' one usually associates with the concept of 'music' are absent. But on the 101th listen, it might start to make sense. I've kind of agreed with that, and there is some truly weird stuff in my CD collection.

I have to feel that this is exactly what Oneida want you to do with their latest album, Each One Teach One. For the most part the tracks are pretty standard (if that's possible) psychedelic rock. But there's the 14-minute opener called 'Sheets of Easter'. And apart from an intro, and 3 or 4, shall we say, one-beat breathers, the track is exactly the same piece of music over, and over, and over, and over again. Yep, that's organ, guitar riff and rhythm section playing the same droning phrase for 14 solid minutes. Either these chaps were bored senseless, they were tripping out of their skulls, or there's something going on that us mere mortals aren't getting.

Of course, having the album loop on the earphones as I'm working, the track keeps coming back, as background noise. At some point it starts melting into your brain and you realise, oh, ok...

I went out and did some googling, always curious to find at least one person to turn around and say 'bollocks', what are these people on? That didn't happen. I did find a review which I think pretty much covers it:

And when it was time to say goodnight, they thought they'd end the show the only way they knew how: "Sheets of Easter." "Just tell us when we're done," Fat Bobby quipped before the tune began. "You've got to look into the..." Chaos erupts, jumping bodies all around, those who can be bothered to join in are chanting, "light light light light night night night night" and countless variations thereof. As I've said before in discussing the same song, the effect from "Sheets of Easter" is just disorienting, the mind attempting to understand this procession of repetition, a constant stream of monotony that unveils subtle shifts beneath the surface, all being blasted full force directly into the nerve endings with no way to deaden the impact.

Yeah...

I stumbled across Oneida at the excellent epitonic.com website, and had established an affinity for what Oneida music I could dredge up before Cliff mentioned an interest. One took some comfort in finding something new before Cliff did. The last we spoke, he was trying to pull Each One Teach One down via Soulseek. I wonder whether he ever did manage to give the album a listen.

September 11, 1999 saw me on a plane home to South Africa, from a holiday in the USA and UK. It was my first trip overseas and part of that included a week and a half spent in New York. I expected New York to be the highlight of my trip, and I wasn't let down. From the people, the mood, the diversity, the feeling of living in a true urban jungle, the beauty, the size, the sheer magnitude and magnificence of the place blew me away. In that month I saw New York, Boston and London (and a chunk of the Thames Valley where my sister lives). But my overriding experience was falling in love with New York.

One of the pictures I have of that trip, includes a picture looking up at the Twin Towers from the road that ran between them. We relied on a tour bus for transport (the buses did a round trip of uptown and downtown Manhattan every hour, and a week's pass on the tour bus was a lot cheaper than taxis or the subway). Every trip downtown included a drive between the two towers, under the mirror-bottomed bridge that connected them. I never went into the towers, since the tour guide advised us that the view from the Empire State Building was a lot better, and cheaper to boot.

A little over two years later, and those towers were no more.

9/11 will always humble me. When I was on that plane on 11 September 1999, I wanted more than anything to move to New York and spend a couple of years as a New Yorker. I started scouting for jobs, I started researching visa options. If my local dotcom opportunity hadn't come along, I might have actually followed through, and I might have landed work in the US. I might have been in New York when it happened. The odds are getting out of hand now, but I might have been in one of those towers. I know it happened to South Africans just like me. Irrespective; living in that great city, would have been a small dream come true. How many people in those towers were simply living out their dreams?

The politics of 9/11 will rage on for years, but to the people who lost loved ones, the politics don't matter. Not today.

Tuesday was a day I don't ever want to have to go through again.

Mo passed away around 9am in the morning, after they switched off the life support systems. Apparently, his heart held out for 30 minutes, before he slipped away.

At 3 we had Cliff's funeral. Cliff was by no means a religious man, and his friends were by and large not a religious lot, so needless to say the Alberton Methodist Church had a rather diverse lot of people, so much so that the reverend actually commented (to some's surprise) on the diversity of faiths and non-faiths at the church. Either way, Cliff's dad gave a touching eulogy. Sad - I learned things about Cliff I never knew while he was alive. Amanda read a tribute sent from a friend of Cliff's who's overseas - oddly enough a woman who was my stats lecturer at Wits 12 years ago. Outside the church, Matthew whipped out a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label and everyone sent Cliff off with a swig. He'd have liked that.

And then to Mo's funeral.

A painful evening is the only way I can describe it. I thought that a lot of people came to Safiyya's funeral, Mo's was unbelievable. There must have easily been 500 people. Perhaps the fact that it was at night helped, but regardless, it was an incredible testament to how well-liked and loved he was. I didn't see Mo (apart from when they lowered his shrouded body into the grave) - he was laid out inside the house for viewing, but R and R (two of Mo's closest friends) asked us not to go in. Apparently he didn't look good at all, and they asked us to rather remember him as we knew him. Some part of me wanted to see him, but I figured that ultimately it wouldn't make much difference.

I was a lot closer to the grave this time. Hearing the men putting the planks in place is a sound I'll never forget.

Coming into the office today had an air of finality, and emptiness. We had a staff meeting this afternoon, which was pretty sad, but I think we needed to reassure everyone about the business, and to keep everybody focused. The offices will never be the same... today myself and a colleague were trying to follow up on an account, and we looked at our Contacts database, and there were comments posted by both Mo and Safiyya relating to the customer, and I felt a twinge. I spoke to P this evening, and we're faced with the horrible admin issues, like tracking down Mo's laptop, like moving his and Safiyya's IDs to the "No Access" group. It feels wrong, it feels surreal. Most people say they don't have the heart to remove Mo's number from their cell phones or address books. Life has to go on, but it doesn't make it any easier right now.

After the infection and blood pressure spike last night, it appears that Mo's lost all primitive neurological functions. In short, all signs indicate that he's brain-dead. They stopped all sedatives today, and tomorrow, after 24 hours, they'll switch off the life support. Unless there is a gasp or any sign of a physical reaction, indicating that his brain is alive and reacting to stimuli, he'll be gone.

Spending the day knowing that Mo is, in essence, dead, has been awful. Knowing that he won't be 'officially' dead until tomorrow is even worse.

On Wednesday, just about the whole of the office went to Safiyya's funeral. She worked with us, at the office and recently from home, so we all knew her. I've taken some time to reflect over her funeral - it was the first Muslim funeral I've been to (and dare I say, hopefully the last :-(

Muslim funerals are strikingly different to Western, Christian burials. Mo had explained the Muslim reasoning and ritual to me when he went to a funeral a few weeks ago, and a horrible irony that their accident happened as they were returning from another funeral. The Western tradition of leaving the preparation of the body to someone who didn't even know the person, and the actual burial to hired hands at the graveyard makes things abstract. Our desire to protect and remove ourselves from the unpleasantness of death and to assuage the emotional trauma is understandable, but it seems to me that acceptance is the most important part of the grieving process, and we do everything we can to postpone or avoid the acceptance.

The Muslim ritual is hard and unemotional. This is a function of their spirituality, where death is not feared but (theologically) rejoiced, as a person passes on. It's also incredibly pragmatic. Muslim burial is geared towards accepting the death, coming to terms with the person's passing and kickstarting the healing process as soon as possible.

A body must be buried immediately (within 24 hours, but 3 hours after passing is the ideal) - there's no point in wasting time - it has been separated from the soul and there's nothing special about it. (I'm sure a history of living in hot deserts helped with this practice). No time for denial either. Safiyya's body was prepared by the women in her family who had no choice but to deal with the loss immediately. The ceremony (men-only; perhaps my only anti-sexist gripe), was short and to the point. In fact, it was barely a ceremony. A few short, standard prayers. No eulogising. Mo had explained that if you had nothing great to say about a person while they were alive, there's no point in saying it once they've passed. When they're gone, it's too late. Also, no fancy tombstones or coffins - a simple mound of sand to mark your grave and a simple, standard nameplate. Every Muslim is given a pauper's burial, regardless of wealth or social standing. We are all equal in death. Buried on their side in a slanted grave, wrapped in a simple shroud, facing Mecca and covered by wooden planks. The men of the family personally bury the body. Some of the men at the funeral used shovels, other their bare hands to fill the grave, but almost everybody helped to fill the grave - not just sprinkling some sand. Once again, people are forced to come to terms with the reality of death. There is no hiding from it, and I don't think that's a bad thing for the grieving process.

I was amazed by the sense of community. When I die, will hundreds of people arrive out of nowhere, at a morning's notice, and take part in committing me to the earth? I seriously doubt it.

Ronwen & I went to the hospital last night, to see Mo. I'm glad I saw him, although I'd be lying if I said he looks very good. But he is alive and recovering. The worry now is the extent of his head injuries, but we can only hope.

As if one tragedy this week wasn't enough, Clifford Swindells, aka Darklord Smegbreath, Wintermute, Clifford E Sheep passed away on Thursday. Cliff was fighting leukemia, and during his most recent bout of chemo, he contracted an infection which was too much for his body to take.

Cliff was quite a character in the local alternative scene and I don't think it was until he took ill that anybody realised just how wide and varied his circle of friends was, both in real life and online. Not bad going for a self-professed misanthrope. He was fiercely anti-establishment, anti-authority, anti-everything, but his sense of humour and sheer capacity for the surreal, the obscure and the irreverent was second to none. I met him early in '98, and I have many, many, many good memories since. I was even lucky enough to play in his and Chris Moon's band, Atmosphere Control Unit, for a while. A chunk of my CD collection is thanks to music he recommended. His music knowledge was obscure but encyclopaedic, and if told me to check something out, chances were good I'd like it.

I hadn't seen him much the past year or 2, apart from occasional banter on discussion boards, mailing lists and email. I only saw him once while he was in hospital, and we traded a few mails when he came out of chemo. I regret not visiting more often, or calling or even sending the SMS I planned. I just took it for granted I'd see him or drop him a mail when he came out of chemo again.

If anything, this week is teaching me not to take anything for granted.

Last night was J's surprise birthday party at Capitol Records in Rosebank. The man has joined the ranks of 30-somethings, eh eh. Slowly my friends also slip into the other side of 30 and I don't feel so alone... :-)

Capitol Records isn't the kind of place I'd go to often of my own volition, but nonetheless an intriguing idea and fun experience. A club, if you will, which is more of a chill-out spot than rave club. Many couches. A kitchen, a bar, and many turntables, and many vinyls. The idea being that you can give the vinyls a spin on one of the gazillion turntables, before making your purchase. While knocking back a few and chillin' with your mates. Think record bar meets nightclub. Really clever idea.

J's been DJing for a while now, and he did an honorary birthday set, first time I've seen him at the decks. I'm a philistine when it comes to the nuances of rave/techno DJing, but there certainly is an art to it. I'm not much of an electronic music fan, but Mr B certainly looked like (and sounded like) he knew his shit :-)

Ronwen wasn't feeling too great with a shoulder that decided to semi-dislocate itself somehow, and so we left earlyish, and then drove around Randburg trying to find an open pharmacy to get something for the shoulder.

We got home around midnight, and Tupac (the uber-cute hound from next door) was seemingly locked out for the night. Rather than wake the guys next door, we just hauled her inside and she spent the night on her special blanket (yes, it's sad) in our flat. Nothing quite as uh, cuuute as a dog semi-snoring and making comfy next-to-the-heater sounds throughout the night. Ronwen & I would love to get pets, but with our working hours, it seems a little unfair. So we compensate by treating Tupac like our own. Which is great, because we get all the affection without having to clean up after her :-)

I was going to say 'no nicotine' but that's not true, since the Quit spray has nicotine, but still. No smoking for over a week now. Cravings going down (at least the physical craving, the habit of smoking I'll never stop missing, I suspect). I'm down to one or two sprays a day, and they're hardly because I'm climbing walls.

I think the biggest risk here is becoming complacent and deciding that having mastered it, I can quit whenever I like so may as well start up again. For example, I was re-reading Just For Fun (Linus Torvalds' autobiography) while I was waiting in the car for Ronwen to get her ballet shoes this morning, and I read a line about Torvalds' mom being a chainsmoker. Simply reading about someone being a smoker, was enough to give me the 'aw man!' feeling.

Anyway. Enough obsessing, one week down for Ronwen and I. Cool!

I'm wrapping up Lou Gerstner's book 'Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?'. I found it an interesting, if less than encyclopaedic treatment of the IBM 'turnaround'. A few things jumped out:

1. I didn't know that Lotus was a hostile take-over by IBM.

2. I was surprised to see the emphasis Lou Gerstner placed on Lotus maintaining its autonomy. Which they certainly did - back in my short tenure at Lotus, we never thought of ourselves as IBMers, although the noose progressively tightened in a number of subtle ways even while I was there.

3. Lou Gerstner makes a big point of the culture changes that happened at IBM. Good lord, if the current IBM is the new IBM, I can only dread to think what it was like 10 years ago!

4. IBM laid off nearly 14,000 consultants in the past 3 months. Not the kind of stuff you'd want to be happening as you publish a book reflecting on IBM's successes in the past decade...

On balance, his perspectives of the challenges facing a CEO, and the often painful things you have to do to drive a company, make it worth a read, especially if you're either in business yourself, or interested in 'corporate' biographies.

On the smoking thing, it's the end of day 5, and still going strong. Much as I do miss smoking, I'm enjoying the feeling of waking up in the morning and actually feeling clean-lunged. I have little mini-obsessions about smoking, but I just think about what I feel like in the mornings, and get over it.