#Art

A couple of years ago I started a “Hidden Joburg” series – a quest to visit all 28 places in the book Hidden Johannesburg, by Paul Duncan and Alain Proust. Then I got sidetracked. I published my last Hidden Joburg post in December 2022. But finally, almost two years later, I have a new Hidden Joburg place to add to the series: the home of the late sculptor Edoardo Villa in Kew.

I still haven’t finished telling you about my gallivant around Europe, which happened back in March and April and is fast becoming ancient history. I’m going to keep on peppering you with one or two European posts a month until all the stories are told.

I’m struggling with this post. I keep writing stuff and then deleting it because I don’t know what to say about Hillbrow that I haven’t said before. I’ve been blogging about Hillbrow since 2011 (that first post was embarrassing though), and I’ve used up all the Hillbrow clichés. I’ve even created some clichés of my own, like “Hillbrow is hard to know.” I wrote that in 2017 and then almost used it as the title of this post, until I realized it’s super pretentious.

Thorsten and I recently spent three days in Munich, Germany, at the beginning of our whirlwind European trip. We went to Munich because it was a logical place to meet up with Thorsten’s kids, who live across the border in Austria, and because we wanted to visit Thorsten’s friend Susi, who was his schoolmate many years ago at the German School in Joburg. Susi lives with her family just outside Munich, in the quaint town of Pullach.

Regular readers will know that I’ve written a couple of posts about Noordgesig – affectionately called Bulte, which means “Hills” in Afrikaans – lately (see here and here). Last year I befriended Lavinia and Fabian Otto, who live in Noordgesig, and they’ve been slowly introducing me to Bulte’s unique history and culture.

Last Tuesday I put on my big-girl pants – or, more accurately, my young-girl pants – and stayed out past midnight to attend the Sawubona Music Jam in Chiwelo, Soweto. I’ve known about the Sawubona Music Jam, which happens every Tuesday night, for years. But as a middle-aged person usually in bed by 9:30, I could never find the right time to travel to the far side of Soweto for a weeknight show that runs until 2:00 a.m.