Adventures in Teaching and Learning

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

Fantastic. I’m really tired and I’ve just sat and watched / listened to this for an hour. Informative, funny, very interesting. Thanks to Ewan McIntosh, who, despite having changed jobs, is still blogging and sharing interesting stuff!

Samson’s book came out in North America, published by Free Press, on 12 August. Since I forgot to post anything at the time, I thought I would copy here the original post for the British launch. It has been updated to include all the reviews so far.

The Jive Talker is published in the UK by Jonathan Cape, Random House. It is available in North America under the title, “The Jive Talker: An Artist’s Genesis”, published by Free Press, a Simon & Schuster imprint.

“one of the funniest books I’ve read in years” – Gary Indiana, author of Do Everything in the Dark and The Schwarzenegger Syndrome

“Samson Kambalu has a beguiling voice, and The Jive Talker delivers the charming and rare story of Kambalu’s coming of age as an artist in Malawi.” – Daniel Bergner, author of In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa

“Funny, sad, shocking, pacey, bursting with energy and talent.” – Barbara Trapido, author of Temples of Delight and Frankie & Stankie

“… a lively, funny memoir … A pleasure to read, and just the thing to give to a disaffected teenager of a creative bent.” – Kirkus Reviews, New York

“… a wickedly dry memoir … Kambalu’s memoir comprises brief, ironical anecdotes and hilarious cameos of “raving eccentrics” …” – Publishers Weekly

“[Kambalu's] fumbling discovery of girls and pop music, his trials at the ‘Eton of Africa’ Kamuzu Academy and an interlude in South Africa where everyone rips him off, are humorously recounted but poverty and sickness, and above all Aids, add dark textures to Kambalu’s philosophy.” – Metro

“… some cutting observations of life in one of the poorest parts of Africa … The book has a poignancy and an authenticity that are impossible to ignore.” – The Irish Times

“… this is no misery memoir. On the contrary, it is often very funny, as well as original and earnest … the portrait is framed by a thoughtful intelligence that looks far beyond the concerns of adolescence … this riveting, brilliant book” – Susan Williams, The Independent

“This Malawian-born, award-winning conceptual artist uses his background and brilliant mind to craft a truly original book.” – Pride Magazine

“… revealing and touching memoir …” – Jenny Wood, Perthshire Advertiser

“The Jive Talker story [moves] beyond a mere personal account to make clearer Kambalu’s personal idiom in his life as an artist and make plain some of his ideas in art.” – The Daily Times, Malawi.

“In this ingenious, often seditious, book, Samson Kambalu takes no artistic license, writing with witty and powerful prose. The Jive Talker takes you into a period of African history that has rarely been touched on before.” – Travel Africa Magazine.

“It is an African memoir unlike any other I have read … it is absolutely hilarious … the young Samson, a kind of black Huckleberry Finn, full of courage and appetite … Kambalu relates all this with a child’s pinpoint sense of the absurd … Kambalu’s triumph is to give us a portrait of Africa which for once is multidimensional … this is a book filled with wonder, humour and hope. It is a magnificent achievement.” – Aminatta Forna, The Sunday Telegraph.

“[If] the eyes are the windows of the soul, the voice is the door to the logos. Walk in and take the full guided tour (with stereophonic sound effects) … Life wasn’t an idyll, but it was largely ideal. Read Kambalu, cry, clap your hands.” – Iain Finlayson, The Times.

“Samson has composed a brilliant autobiography. In eloquence and style of presentation, it matches the famous Barack Obama autobiographies … There is fun … I am sure that if the book had been written by a white man, he might have been kinder in his portrayal of Malawi.” – Gedion Nkhata, The Sunday Times, Malawi.

” … it’s a pleasure to have one’s memory sparked by so much well-observed detail … The material covered in The Jive Talker, which charts the ordinary life of a modern Malawian teenager in country and city from his own perspective, has never before been explored … The scenes describing the death of his father, the former fount of all knowledge to whom antipathy is later developed, are riven with contradictory passion … A sense of cleanly freedom – of “exercise” and “exorcise” – permeates this enjoyable book. Football playing and fun are presented as the necessary correctives to Banda’s Presbyterian gloom and the grimness of disease. The revolving heart of The Jive Talker, the Holy Ball idea will be Kambalu’s passport to Amsterdam and then the London art scene, where he continues to kick charmingly about, the living embodiment of good news from Africa.” – Giles Foden, The Guardian.

“His father … gave his son enough material to work with to have mightily pleased V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie and Henry Miller, to name just three writers who seem to have contributed to Kambalu’s antic, Rabelaisian wit … this wildly readable and entertainingly ribald and roughneck book … A real wildman, this. Just read his discourses on rock ’n’ roll and his school band the Crazy Cops and how artist and finger-hardened rocker mate. A remarkable book from a unique sensibility and personality.” – Jeff Simon (Editor’s Choice), The Buffalo News.

“Kambalu’s memoir, The Jive Talker, is another form of exorcism and exercise, a literary, polyphonic performance of exuberance and delight … his tone in this memoir is surprisingly witty, and tautly composed anecdotes create a rollicking and rapid-fire pace … He is a master of the crystallizing and riotous anecdote and is Dickensian in his ability to bring characters to life.” – Joscelyn Jurich, bookforum.com.

“Kambalu’s writing shines with absurdist observational wit. He also deftly interjects relevant Malawian cultural and social history to reinforce his personal narrative. And although his experiences may be less decadent than those of self-crucifying Dandy in the Underworld author Sebastian Horsley, Kambalu’s off-kilter memoir is equally worthy of examination.” – Michael Sandlin, TimeOut New York.

“an unusual picture of Africa, multi-dimensional, comic as well as tragic, and palpably real.” – London Review Bookshop.

You can read more at The Root Magazine, which published a section from the first chapter to mark Father’s Day. If you have a Barnes and Noble account, you can also read the first 30 pages or so of the American Free Press (Simon & Schuster) edition here.

The Jive Talker is on sale now, and can be ordered from (amongst others) Amazon, Borders and Random House.

Find out more about The Jive Talker and Samson’s work at his Holyballism website.

More Clouds

I have been busy since my last thoughtful post … taking pictures of clouds. Well, I was busy doing that yesterday at any rate. Hope you like it!

Strange, the YouTube “post to blog” option doesn’t seem to be working, so here is my “More Clouds” video! This time, I took photos at (fairly random) intervals throughout the day, using (of course!) my tripod, then put them altogether using iMovie (8, I think), with some freeplaymusic that I quite like.

I’ve uploaded it to Google Video … hope it all works okay!

Just a short one since it’s getting late and I have a lot to do in the morning. I have spent some time today reading a variety of blog posts on improving blogs and getting more comments. For example, Problogger had a challenge in September: 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. Every day there were tips posted, and I am making my way through them, although I have not followed all the advice yet! I did do Day 8: Comment on a Blog you’ve never commented on before, and have just being following the advice given on Day 11: Dig into your Blog’s statistics. I realised I have Google Analytics installed, so had a nosey around to see what I could discover. Well, I learnt that there had been 119 visits where the person only visited once and did not return, compared to 34 visitors who apparently have visited over 201 times … could this be me, with a roaming ISP address or something? These figures don’t seem to tally with other figures I have … 56.41% of my visits are from returning visitors (welcome back, over half of you reading this!), with the remainder (obviously) being the first time visitors mentioned above (welcome, to those of you just popping by today – please do call again soon!). The average time a visitor spends on the site is 4:16 minutes, which I suppose is long enough to read a couple of posts! My bounce rate is 55.31%, which I presume is the number of people who call by accident and immediately hit the return key. As to content, other than the home page, the most commonly read posts and pages were:

1) What’s the difference between blogging and writing? (33 pageviews) (6:59 mins average on page)
2) About Me (25) (2:07)
3) The Jive Talker or How to Get a British Passport (14) (1:55)
4) A List of the Software I’ve Used (14) (0:45)
5) Trying to use ICT in the Classroom (11) (3:48)

As for referring sites, I’m delighted to announce that the top source for referrals to my blog goes to … (drum roll) … Ben Annett, so thanks for that, Ben! Twitter is also up there, and I got 5 visits via Terry Freedman’s comments site, which is also why the post on blogging and writing is so high up. I presume.

So, what should I do with all those statistics? Well, I think I’ll need to spend some time later on following ProBlogger’s advice on How to Keep First Time Readers to Your Blog! However, I think many of his tips are aimed more at people who are professional bloggers and therefore in some way “need” to have more visitors, whereas I am probably more interested in “quality” rather than “quantity”! (Anyone reading this obviously counts as quality!) Although these statistics are interesting, I am more interested in the social aspect of blogging, and the sharing aspect, rather than the numbers. Which brings me round in a circle to the starting point, which is by far the most interesting: commenting.

The blog which lead me to ProBlogger was the Bamboo Project, more specifically the post, Six Reasons People aren’t Commenting on Your Blog. In turn, Michele Martin was inspired by Chris Brogan’s commenting challenge, where instead of writing a post, he encouraged his readers to read and comment on the comments in the comments box. I have to say, it is inspiring reading the comments on other people’s blogs … it would be lovely to have just a few of them (thanks Ben and Zak for your comments today on my animation!), but I understand it is a perennial blogger’s problem. (On the other hand, occasionally on a popular blog there seem to be too many, and I don’t read them all!) (Oh dear, I’ve just started browsing Chris’ site a bit more and found a post featuring 50 Online Applications – just my sort of post!) Right. Sorry for that interruption. (As you can see, this is more stream of consciousness blogging rather than planned and edited writing, Terry, if you’re reading!!) Back to Michele Martin. I found her blog through Diigo, and bookmarked it for future reference. These are her reasons why people don’t comment on blogs, as well as my reflections on my own blog:

1) You sound like a press release. Well, of all the things I sound like, I hope it’s not a press release! Except, perhaps, when I add to Samson’s book reviews.

2) You sound like an infomercial. Hmmm. Perhaps at times I post short posts with links to interesting sites … but I don’t think I sound as if I am trying to get any money out of them, for example!

3) You sound like a know-it-all. Well, I certainly don’t know it all, which is why I post here – I like finding new things then sharing them probably mainly so that I can come back and find them later! However, perhaps I don’t ask enough questions do engage the reader and show that I need your advice, feedback and comments – what do you think?

4) You haven’t shown them how. This one might be true. After all, I started blogging on a course which most of the other participants also had to blog on, and many only put up a few posts and haven’t written anything since. So perhaps my other readers have enough knowledge and understanding of the web to find my site, but the comments button (well, it’s hardly a button) is too small to be obvious. So I’ll need to think about making the commenting easier. Perhaps I could start by posting a link to Tessa’s excellent and clear instructions on how to post a comment? This might also be an appropriate place to point out that I do moderate comments, so please don’t be put off if your comment does not appear immediately. Also, I think – I must check this out! – that you have to enter an email address. Don’t worry, this won’t appear on the blog, although I may send you an email depending on the nature of the enquiry!

5) You haven’t created the right atmosphere. I’d like to apologise if anyone has felt put off commenting because you thought you shouldn’t! I would love to hear from anyone who drops by – whether or not you are involved in education, in ICT, enjoy reading books, have an interest in Malawi, like reflecting on life … Whoever you are, please let me know that you dropped in, perhaps tell me how you found the blog or the post, and add any questions you might have, comments or reflections on what I have written, share examples of how you might have used the applications I talk about, agree or disagree with my views … You are welcome! (Oh dear, I hope I haven’t gone over the top now and sounded all needy!)

6) You just don’t seem that into it. Apparently the blogger needs to sound passionate about their subject. That’s a tough one … do I get that passion and enthusiasm for ICT in eduction, for RE and for life in general across in my posts? I hope so, but I need you, my faithful readers, to let me know if I am succeeding or not!

Michele’s readers have left many comments on her post in relation to these suggestions. I think I may go and leave one of my own now … and hope that some of you might do the same here! I look forward to being overwhelmed with comments!

(Finally … I have also signed up to CoComment which should track my own comments in order to see the conversations I am involved in. You could probably find me there or follow me on Twitter, if you are interested. I quite like Twitter! More on that later, though!)

NOTE: I’ve just realised that I started this post by saying “Just a short one” … I think it may be my longest so far!! Really must go to bed now …

I was inspired by Tre Greer’s blog to try out GoAnimate. So here is my first attempt …

It’s not really that realistic! (I hope it plays … so far I have not been able to see an animation on any other blogs, I’ve always had to go to the Go Animate site … Hope this gets fixed soon!)

NOTE (6 Aug): I’ve just made my second animation. This time it’s for school!

Last Thursday was a very special occasion, since it was the official launch of Samson’s book, The Jive Talker or, How to Get a British Passport. This was published by Jonathan Cape (Random House) in the UK on 3 July, and will be published by Free Print (Simon and Schuster) in the USA and Canada on 12 August.

We had a lovely evening, hosted by Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts) at Rivington Place. Samson installed 52 Holy Balls; to those who have already read the book, these hopefully made sense, and to those who have yet to read the book, their meaning will soon become much clearer! Those who bought Holyballist Bibles have had their numbers recorded in the Book of Life.

It was great to welcome so many people from so many different walks of life to the launch. There were family and friends from Scotland, old friends from Malawi, colleagues and curators from Nottingham, curators from the Netherlands and Belgium, teachers from London, people involved in publishing and in art from London and other places around the country. Many people bought books, even those who had one or more at home already, and Samson spent the evening talking to people and signing books.

I was sort of in charge of talking photos, at which I failed miserably. We had just bought a new flash which I didn’t know how to use, so for the first half an hour it was switched off altogether, and when Samson realised and turned it on, I still didn’t realise I had to give it a chance to charge up again between takes, so at least half the photos are either too dark or too yellow. My own camera was running out of battery – I kept expecting it to tell me to “change the batteries”, but I should really have made my own decision and done that earlier, then I could have taken lots of nice photos on a camera I know and understand! So that was a disappointment the following day, but fortunately it did not spoil the evening at all.

A couple of the special literary guests were Susan Williams, who wrote the excellent review in the Independent, and Steve Chimombo, a well known Malawian writer who also writes tirelessly about the arts in Malawi in order to promote them and who has therefore followed Samson’s work and written articles about him, for example in WASI and as the biography section in Black My Story, the book that went along with the exhibition of the same name at the Museum de Paviljoens in Almere, the Netherlands. I can’t begin to mention everyone else that came along to celebrate with us, including other artists and writers, but may I take this opportunity to say thank you to you all, and I hope you enjoyed the evening as much as I did!

I am about to add some photos below, but if you are interested in a more unbiased post on the launch, you can read a review in Cally’s Kitchen; the Dunadan has also written a review of The Jive Talker. (And it’s always nice to visit a different blog!)

Right. I am now about to find some photos to upload …

52 Holy Balls, Iniva

Installation at Iniva, Rivington Place

Another installation view of 52 Holy Balls and some Holy Bibles

Speeches during the launch

People with a Malawian connection

Exercises and Exorcisms at Rivington Place

Samson and I at the end of the evening

http://www.pimpampum.net/phrasr/?id=13051

I wonder how this will show up … another Flickr mashup from PimPamPum.

This is an experiment in making a book using my Flickr photographs. However, I have also had a bit of a bizarre experience. When I clicked on PimPamPum, I was greeted by a song in Chichewa! Zikomo kwambiri, Mulungu … I then clicked on who, and PimPamPum, which has links to a variety of Flickr mashups, consists of two Barcelonians, so it’s a bit of a bizarre coincidence, but a nice one anyway!

NOTE: I suppose I should really take the above paragraph out, but it has really made me laugh, so instead I’ll update it. I have since discovered that the Chichewa singing was not coming from a Spanish website at all, but my friend Victor’s blog, which I had open at the same time! Since he is Malawian, that makes much more sense!!