Litnet

"I suggested that it might be useful to think of Modisane’s history like a kind of monstrous Large Language Model (LLM) – a bizarre and monstrous simulacrum of human intelligence trained on our basest reflexes and insecurities."

"The question is ultimately a simple one: which groups of people has social media made it harder for you to see as fully human?"

"We have no idea how things are ultimately going to look in the Holy Land, but I believe we can use Blame me on history as a text to think about the durability of the human spirit, how to be witnesses to pain, and how to be witnesses who are also implicated in that pain."

"Like South African hardegatheid South African softness also maybe has a particular cultural significance."

"It’s interesting to me that as South Africa lurches from crisis to crisis and potentially monumental elections loom next year, the mood at this year’s festival was so strikingly apolitical."

"It’s true that an attitude of good humour can ease the difficulties of everyday life, at least on an individual level. But does humour offer us anything more than that – an individual escape?"

"Thus while Die gelofte is not the innocuous romance it claims to be, as a reactionary manifesto it also fails. The script is too reluctant to stare into the void of its ideological roots. It retains only the aesthetics of old-time nationalism and a vague but passionately asserted sense of victimhood."

"Masks and capacity restrictions were finally history after almost two and a half years of lockdown, but the abrupt and almost off-hand nature of the government’s announcement had left people wondering – could it really be true? Were we allowed to be here, carefree, barefaced? This was the first in-person National Arts Festival in two years; would it also be the last? And if people weren’t going to show up for theatre, dance, comedy and music in this strange little town, was there any hope for the arts in South Africa?"

"I had the honour of making several long visits to Stephen in 2019. They always followed the same pattern. Since he didn’t have a cell phone, I would wait for his little red Volkswagen to arrive at my gate, and we would be off."