helgé

MENZI at the helm of URBAN ZULU, cnr BULWER AND BEREA ROAD Somethings are just meant to happen.

Coming back from teaching last friday afternoon, the taxi inexplicably stopped at least 300 meters from the traffic lights at the Berea Road, Botanic Gardens Road intersection.

I climbed out and the most appropriate route was to then cross the freeway beneath me along the pedestrian bridge heading towards Glenwood, where I reside. While crossing I noticed a person painting a sign on the ledge above a shop just in from the corner of Bulwer Road and the up side of Berea Road. The sign was saying Urban Zulu and I immediately made a mental note of it....to try and get there some time.

MENZI at the helm of URBAN ZULU, cnr BULWER AND BEREA ROAD The next day, Saturday, I was on a rare squizz through Woolworth's on the corner of Davenport and Bulwer Road when a man approached me and said:
I know you. I looked at him and said: And I know you...from where?
Your son...I know Leo.
Well of course yes....poetry....Bat Centre....? Whats up?
Yeah yeah....Ive started this small shop....a salon, books....clothes...CDs....just up from here called Urban Zulu.
No way...I dont believe this....I walked past there.....yesterday...
Well you must pop in some time...and I have a copy of your book for sale in my shop!
I dont believe this! Seriously?
Yeah.
Yeah cool, Ill pop around....and Ill bring my camera...

And that was how this all started.

Clothes on display @ URBAN ZULU I spent the late morning sitting on the couch and discussing a range of issues - particularly with a man called Bullet - for the good part of 2 hours - with Menzi all the while unobtrusively buzzing around the shop, making himself some breakfast (it was already 12:30 pm), seeing to customers, and chirping in with an amazingly astute observation from time to time. Bullet and I discussed virtually everything from politics, education, the emergence of the new black consciousness, and I left there in quite a tizz of excitement with the feeling that I have at last discovered some light at the end of the tunnel.

AN ASSORTMENT OF NOVELS AND CD'S THE POETRY BOOK - POETRY JAMS - kill the poet.....long live the poet! BULLET (with black shirt) and THOZA S'bu attending to a customers braids. Clothes for sale... JABULANI, NTHOKOZO, THABO outside the shop enjoying a glass of wine!!!

The shop boasts a salon, an interesting assortment of clothing, an even more interesting assortment of books. Menzi says he is open form 9 am to sometimes well past 8 pm in the evenings as people, particularly those interested in books, tended to pop in after work.

Informal discussion groups collect at the shop on Monday evenings 6 pm.


A new magazine (launched December 2007) devoted to matter of literary interest, poetry, novels, etc I bought a copy of 'wordsetc.'

A new magazine (launched December 2007);

devoted to matter of literary interest, poetry, novels, etc...