 | “Charming spot. Inspiring prospects,” Sir Ian McKellen whispers. He’s perched on the edge of a makeshift stage, glaring into the darkness. Into the gloomy half-light of Oliver Tambo Sports Hall in Khayelitsha. Things are going on. Real things. Not in the play. A plastic chair squawks. An infant squirms. A young girl folds her homework. But the show has begun. ...read more |
Play Nation
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 by Greg Lomas, ilustration by Greg Lomas
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In a Strange Room
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 by Kavish Chetty
 | The lives of the young and disaffected are now spent in a war against boredom. In this fresh century, modern sensations are so easy to find and experience as to have become almost assaultive: they throb on screens, and wail from radios and brush up against your thigh when you’d rather be alone. Experiences that would’ve excited and fascinated entire heritages past are reduced now to plastic playthings. There’s no excuse for anything to be boring. And this was ...read more |
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Chips!
Monday, August 30th, 2010 by Brandon Edmonds
 | We like our chips. Almost R2 billion of the almost R5 billion South African snack industry falls to those salty little heart-stoppers. This is certainly beer, convenience and absent health-literacy related. Quick and cheap is the real ubuntu. The commonest common denominator. But that kind of out-sized market share is a throbbing red dot on the multi-national scanner. So it’s no surprise that Pepsico, the colossus bested by Coke in the great cola wars of the 80s, bought half ...read more |
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Don’t call me dude, call me mister
Friday, August 27th, 2010 by Comrade Sean O’Toole, images by Weegee.
 | It is sometime in 1943, autumn or winter judging by the man’s jacket. His dark coat looks new and, in the black and white photograph, matches the colour of his neatly combed hair. The man in the photo holds a camera. It is tilted sideways and focused on a wall. In the black and white photograph, the camera’s antique flash has already, or is just about to make that Hollywood sound. Pooof! ...read more |
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White Tendencies
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 by Vuyo Seripe
 | “It’s my prediction that in the near future the politics of ‘race & identity’ will be left to uncreative scholars trying to remain relevant in a more logical world.” – Samuel Munene, Nairobi poet, short story writer, and contributor to Kwani? I’ve been accused of having white tendencies many times in my life. A white friend of mine often jokes about us swapping places because she admires black people: especially our kinky, easy-to-dread hair. This makes me feel there’s ...read more |
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Tale of a Rugby Heathen
Monday, August 23rd, 2010 by Luke Mason
 | Behind the boerewors curtain disciples sit steadfast, silent in support of the green and gold. The service is about to start, the air heavy and devout. The barmaid, double chinned and bulldog jowled, pours and skulks, skulks and pours. A T-shirt bearing the slogan “Come have a few beers with us” is tented tight between her sagging boobs and a belly even Buddha wouldn’t rub. ...read more |
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Premature Detonation
Monday, August 23rd, 2010 by Max Sleaze, images by Jurie Senekal
 | I suppose there is no better way to get over that World Cup “come down” than “blowing some shit up”, as my editor so eloquently put it. And by the look of De Waal drive backed up and the crowds that came out on this typically grey, miserable morning, a large part of Cape Town agrees. Maybe a scheduled demolition once a month, at least until summer, will protect the city from the winter blues and keep the newspaper ...read more |
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Face it Boet
Friday, August 20th, 2010 by Brandon Edmonds, illustration by Jason Bronkhorst
 | The horror of Facebook, the deepest one, the most lastingly wounding, lies in how it turns our intimates into information. We’re all confessional blurts to be processed. Rather than rounded selves full of complexity and difference. The closest people in our lives increasingly become the sum of their wall posts. We’ve turned into a proliferating scroll of bulletins. A metastasizing network of confessors. ...read more |
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A Crutch called a Comma
Thursday, August 19th, 2010 by Sean O'Toole
 | Sometimes, although not all that frequently, I find myself wondering, which is, perhaps, in the context of Mahala, a better word to use here than ruminating – more modern, less UCT English Honours – why it is that contributors to this online publication (or possibly ‘zine, but you can call it a blog too) all seem to write in perpetual fear of the comma, that standard issue punctuation mark which, when I last checked, is not endangered, threatened or ...read more |
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The Horn Man Who Died In His Sleep
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 by Greg Davids
 | A Tribute to Ezra Ngcukana. My first exposure to live jazz was at about 12 years old with the Henry February band who at the time boasted a frontline of Ezra Ngcukana on alto,tenor & soprano, brother Duke Ngcukana on trumpet, Winston Mankunku on tenor and later Willy Haubrich on trombone. In the rhythm section was the man, Mr Feb on piano, Kenny Jephta on guitar, my Dad, Robert Davids was on percussion, Max Diamond on drums and Basil ...read more |
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