Story Background
“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1966. It can now be found in The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick. Volume 2. We Can Remember It For You Wholesale on pp. 35–52. This story was originally submitted to Dick’s agent in 1965. During the original publication of the short stories, a real effort was made at chronology using the dates stories were delivered to the agent as a rough estimate of composition. This story should have been in volume 5. This is not the only change made, both in naming of the volumes (which is not a big deal) and in the organization of stories. “Second Variety” was moved from volume 2 to volume 3, putting it out of order. This was done to sell volumes, by connecting volumes to popular stories or stories that have been…
It is often sad to hear Black South Afrikan’s speaking with their in the languages of our colonizers. many parents nowadays do not seem to care whether their children can speak or write in the Mother-tongue. Some are even proud that their offspring cannot hold a decent conversation with their Grandmothers or Grandfathers, they see it is some sign of progress. Some parents are simply too busy struggling to survive in the rat race and they consider language as the least of their concerns.
I have recently come across a sister who posts about Zulu renderings of contemporary English words. These are words we use everyday and we usually have to code-switch each time we get to them or we have invented ways to incorporate them into our language, but the Nguni-Zulu language is a rich and dynamic science by nature, and it is ever evolving. We won’t even attempt to get into the proverbs, poetry and the various other daily uses of the language. It was great to find out that the sister in question has simply found the words on a Facebook page that has existed for the past 2 or more years. I have reached out to them via Messenger so we can embark on an ambitious task, that of translating two ancient works of African literature into IsiZulu and later various other Afrikan languages ( The Ethiopian Book of Henok/Enoch as well as The Book of Coming Forth By Day, also known as The Egyptian Book of the Dead).
I am sharing some of these posts here:
ZULU VOCABULARY
HUMAN ANATOMY (Updated)
Body Parts (Izitho zomzimba)
External: (Izinqotho)
“I plan to retire around five years after I die.” – Warren Buffet
Death has visited the family next door. A beloved daughter, sister, mother, friend has left the land of the living and we all have come to pay respect, and comfort the grieving family. Her body is here, her Soul has departed.
Kunomlindelo, and typically of many Afrikan communities, we are subjected to a few nights of religious singing, call it drumming and chanting but the Drum takes centre stage. Whether she was religious or not matters not anymore, The living Spirit of the dead is literary celebrated and ushered into interstellar space by the singing of hymns, the reading of scripture and the preparation of the living for our own impeding deaths. We are extolled to live righteously and never to forget that we are essentially impermanent, mere visitors to the earth and that our home is beyond all this. We would be wise to learn from the aged prophets, the saints and the dead who lived with their hearts stayed on God.
But the drumming tells me a very different story. There is sublime supplication and something mystically ancestral about the bellowing throb of Afrikan drums. Being in Harare, the land of the Karanga, the Tonga, the Rovzi, the BaThwa, the Ndau, the Zezuru ( All of whom are now either called Shona or Ndebele) – one discerns that the drumming is similar to that of the Nguni/Ngoni sangoma’s of further South rather than the typical ‘apostolic’ or methodist sound. But the polyphony is basically the same. The rhythmic changes are generally similar throughout Bantu Afrika. The drum tells the story of Souls both departed as well as those grappling with the vicissitudes of the living. How much of the drummers own spiritual strivings does the drum really tell, we may not know, perhaps the Christianised drummer is thinking of Jesus Christ on the deathly cross full of life, or he may be thinking about his ancestors or his own mortality. Does it translate into the sound or does he merely keep the usually pattern, the traditional rhythm of his specific congregational tradition?
My wife and I have already attended the earlier service between 7pm and 8.30pm, we hummed along as we do not yet speak the language …but the music is still reverberating after supper and it is now 10.24pm. The drumming is becoming louder and more fervent almost staccato yet still incessant. So I have chosen to re-visit old texts and sounds that deal with the subject of death. Next to my bed I have The Egyptian Book of The Deador the Pert Em Rhu ( Book of Coming Forth By Day From Night), as well as Will Self’s – how the dead live, a brilliant novel published in the year 2000. The books are thousands of years apart, yet they both deal with the endlessly thrilling and imaginative Lives of the the departed from vastly different perspectives. I have my earphones on, decided to escape the trance inducing sounds of the Ngoni to the more mathematical transience of the Electronic Horas Largas by the soulful beat mechanic AFTA-1.
“Let us, from now on turn our backs on 19th century antiquarianism and look forward to 20th century science to assist in learning what we can about Zimbabwe, whose ‘mystery’ now becomes knowledge to be revealed to those who will take the trouble to try to understand. ” – ( Summers, 1963a: 40) – from the book The Silence of Great Zimbabwe- Contested Landscapes and The Power of Heritage
I am now living in Zimbabwe, a new chapter has opened in my life of knowledge, there is so much to take in and so much to learn and unlearn. I began this year with a clear target of completing a book I had started last year, titled The House of Plenty, but now that I have experienced the House of Stones in reality, the plan has shifted – all I can do for now, is talk to the people, take…
It has long become tedious and utterly painful to watch, read or listen to the news. There is hardly ever any good news coming out of Afrika. Yes, there are publications, journalists and even social media groups that are dedicated to sharing the good news about Afrika, and they are appreciated, but the overwhelming daily news is about the status quo of crime, death, corruption and a crippling moral decay, where women are the daily victims of horrendous crimes. The more Afrikan literature I read, the more I find that much of the solutions we seek to our common challenges have long been given.
A great number of our best intellectuals, in every discipline from anthropology, political sciences, poetry, mysticism, natural sciences, arts such as music and visual imagery to engineering have offered us clear and feasible solutions to almost every conceivable problem we face today.
It has long become tedious and utterly painful to watch, read or listen to the news. There is hardly ever any good news coming out of Afrika. Yes, there are publications, journalists and even social media groups that are dedicated to sharing the good news about Afrika, and they are appreciated, but the overwhelming daily news is about the status quo of crime, death, corruption and a crippling moral decay, where women are the daily victims of horrendous crimes. The more Afrikan literature I read, the more I find that much of the solutions we seek to our common challenges have long been given.
A great number of our best intellectuals, in every discipline from anthropology, political sciences, poetry, mysticism, natural sciences, arts such as music and visual imagery to engineering have offered us clear and feasible solutions to almost every conceivable problem we face today.
I am not talking about prophecy or some unmeasurable and philosophical conundrum here, but the everyday economic and cultural jams we seem to be caught up with, the things that keep the continent stagnant in spite of all the talked about Economic Growth and Africa Rising …
We have many heroes and heroines, a long list of healers, liberators and artists, entrepreneurs and technocrats. So what are we missing? Is it coordination, or is it some sense of unified purpose as a continent?
Could it be education, is it adequate or inadequate propagation of the answers? Is it inequality and inequity, or the corruptibility of our so called leaders?
Perhaps it is an amalgamation of all of the above. We shall explore this further before the end of this week.
