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Sermon for Pentecost 2 2017
Posted on June 19, 2017 by John Drymon
One of the things I love about being a priest is that my peculiar manner of dress alerts the public to my vocation, leading to some interesting conversations with strangers. Please understand, I'm not saying this ironically. There are differing views among my colleagues, and I don't fault anybody who for their own sanity decides to get on a flight or go out to dinner without their dog collar announcing their vocation to the world. When it gets humid with temperatures into the 90's I sometimes make a similar decision (though that has less to do with wanting to go in cognito and more to do with my stubborn refusal to wear clericals that have short sleeves or are in any color other than black). In truth, I relish those conversations with people who are bold enough to engage in religious repartee, particularly as a rebellion against my upbringing, in which I was frequently reminded that such conversations are impolite in public.
Anyway, one of the most peculiar conversations I've had along these lines was with a fellow on a bus who asked me, after confirming that I was, indeed, a clergyman what my favorite book of the bible was. This is a surprisingly hard question for me, because the answer is always changing depending on where I am in my own spiritual life and what I've been reading, but I think I said something like "either John's Gospel or the Epistle of James or else Tobit because it's just such a fun, wacky adventure story." I quickly learned that the fellow had really asked me because he wanted to share his own answer to the question, which was fine with me, of course. He said something like "my favorite book of the Bible is Romans, because it's simple enough for a child to understand."
Now, much can be said of the Epistle to the Romans. It's a brilliant work of verbal artistry, combining the best of Greek rhetoric and Jewish Midrash (a style of rabbinical biblical interpretation). It's a magisterial treatise on the nature of Christ and the atonement. It is, I believe, the most important summation of the Gospel message outside the very words our Lord spoke and (over the last half millennium) the most misunderstood book of the New Testament, with the possible exception of John's Apocalypse. But "simple enough for a child to understand" is not the one I had heard.
So, all that said, the lectionary has appointed passages from the Letter to the Romans to be read as the Epistle for Mass for the next three months, and I intend on doing something I've not done in all my eight years of ordained ministry or my half-decade of lay-preaching before that- namely, a sermon series. I want over the course of the summer to really focus in on this important book of the Bible. There will, no doubt, be much worth explicating in the Old Testament and Gospel lessons over the same period. I would encourage those who can to make an effort to attend our Monday evening bible study to cover those topics, as we commit on Sundays to digging in to St. Paul's magnum opus and gaining an appreciation of what it has to say to us today.
First, let's get up to speed on both the occasion of Paul's letter (found in the two concluding chapters of the Epistle which are omitted from the lectionary) and his argument in the four chapters which precede this morning's Epistle- lessons we missed based on that movable feast of Easter falling a couple of weeks later this year than it could have done.
Unlike Paul's letters to churches in Greece and Asia, the Epistle to the Romans is not occasioned by a controversy in a church which the Apostle himself had founded. The Christians in Rome no doubt began within the large Jewish expatriate community which both Cicero and Philo tell us was somewhat insular and consisted largely of the descendants of slaves brought to the imperial capitol a century earlier by Pompey. Now by the Christian era, these Jews had been freed and enfranchised, but imagine the communal narrative and corporate sense of identity if your grand-parents and great-grand-parents had been marched into Rome in chains by this foreign, pagan general who, if contemporary sources are to be believed, donned Alexander the Great's cloak before entering the city. A new oppressor taking on the guise of a previous oppressor, would stick with you well after emancipation- even a couple generations after. And though you would have later been given (according to Tacitus) what amounted to religious freedom in 1st Century Rome, you were still reckoned superstitious by the majority and you lived in tenements in the Trastavere and you stayed well clear of the Senate and the baths and the newly constructed Colliseum.
So, one would assume this community saw non-Jewish Romans as the enemy. Yet, by the time Paul was writing to the Christians in Rome, the parts of this Jewish community who had come to follow Jesus had astonishingly integrated Gentile believers into their number, realizing the most difficult aspect of Paul's unique mission before he had even written you a letter, much less come to visit. This much is clear from Paul's letter. How did they get to that point?
It is possible that by the time this letter was written (the mid-50's A.D.), Peter had made it to Rome, became bishop, and, having already been chastened by Paul regarding the universality of the Gospel, had encouraged this integration himself. I find this unlikely, though, since Paul sends greetings to a few dozen named Roman Christians in his letter but doesn't include Peter. It would be as if I had written a letter to all the Episcopalians in Cleveland and greeted the Dean of the Cathedral and all the rectors and curates and churchwardens of all the parishes in the city and forgot to greet Bishop Hollingsworth.
I don't know how precisely these first Roman Christians had managed this difficult task of integration when they established their church in a context in which said task should have been more difficult than any other city in the known world except to blame the Holy Spirit, and perhaps it is precisely because of this seemingly miraculous turn of events that Paul deigns to send his most fulsome account of the nature of the Gospel to the Christians in Rome, whom he has never met but whom he trusts enough to try to establish as his base of operations for a mission to Spain,a a trip which would never take place because of the martyrdom which cut his ministry short.
Now, to the text itself, and where Paul picks up his argument in the fifth chapter of the letter. Paul opens the letter by reiterating his apostolic bona fides, acknowledging Christ's identity as Son of God and Son of David, and demanding what he calls "the obedience of faith" a concept to which we shall return shortly. He proceeds to posit "the righteousness of God" as the basis of his theological system and that it functions εκ πιστεως εις πιστιν- that is, through or from faith for faith. This he then contrasts with human depravity of all sorts- disobedience to parents, boastfulness, judgmentalness, murder.
There is here an excursus on sexual immorality, the quoting of which has become all the rage in our current culture wars, more, I think, as a function of our own modern obsession with sex than of the importance Paul gives it in the larger argument. I've said to some of you that Paul's denunciation here has more to do with the sexual violence and abuse taking place in Roman bathhouses which his Roman audience would have been all too familiar with than any contemporary controversies that have sometimes well-meaning if usually morally-panicked people clutching their pearls and locking up their wedding cakes. Significantly, there is a particular sin which begets all others in Paul's analysis- namely, idolatry, which can just as easily, he makes clear just a few verses after the sex talk, take the form of moral superiority and legalistic self-regard as anything prima facie licentious or prurient.
This dialectical relationship between the righteousness of God and the wickedness of humanity is bridged by, wouldn't you know it, one of the most difficult verses of scripture if you want a clear, literal meaning. God's righteousness, or justice, is manifested in the most unlikely of ways, justifying humanity "δια πιστεως Ιηδου Χριστου εις παντας και επι παντας τους πιστευοντας." If you are a Reformed Protestant (or reading a bible translation by and for Reformed Protestants) this string of Greek words might be translated "through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." If you're reading it more literally, it becomes something like "either through faith in Jesus Christ or through the faith of Jesus Christ into all and onto all believers." So God's righteousness or God's justice is affected either by our faith or Jesus' own faith and that same righteousness or justice is brought about both within us and upon us. Phew!
The precise meaning here is unclear and one of the reasons I want to take us through a thorough review of Romans over the next several weeks I because it takes Paul some time to explicate his own point. It is not, with apologies to my interlocutor on the bus, simple enough for any child to understand.
Paul proceeds to a typological reading of Abraham, in which this great figure is shown to be a prefiguring of the believer in which the former's faithfulness is revealed as a type of Christian faithfulness. I will over the coming weeks rely on this parallel more explicitly, but (this will give you an idea of where I'm eventually headed with all this) Abraham's faith did not consist simply of an acknowledgment that the voice commanding him to set off on a dangerous journey was indeed God's voice, but depended on his actually following the command he was given.
This brings us at last to the fifth chapter of Romans, where it seems to me the whole point of the Gospel Paul means to proclaim becomes clearer. Being justified by faith we have peace with God. But whose faith, Christ's or ours? Perhaps both, but the faith shown by Jesus himself, dying for us while we were still sinners, surpasses the faith of Abraham, which itself surpasses whatever little faith we manage to show God. The clearer point, it seems to me, is that faith in this context means an awful lot more than simple belief in the same way we believe 1 and 1 makes 2, as I think I've said before in this pulpit. What's more, our justification has yielded peace with God, Paul says, but it has also given us access to grace, or in the Greek, we have been προσαγωγην, or lead to grace, perhaps like being lead to water, but not necessarily made to drink, not necessarily forced to accept that grace. How do we accept it, then. Thank God it's not all up to us. God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us, but acceptance may require suffering which leads to endurance which produces character which makes us capable of hope which will not disappoint, but it seems like there are a few needful steps for us to get to that point, doesn't it?
All of this will, I think, become clearer as we delve deeper into the text over the coming weeks, but I think there is one infinitely important point we can draw from this week's reading and what precedes it and it is a point which conversations regarding the atonement on both ends of the Protestant-Catholic spectrum often fail to acknowledge. We have, for half a Millennium been so concerned about one view or another of what constitutes a salutary faith on the part of the believer (whether it's mere belief or faithfulness shown through Christian living or some affective shift in the believer's heart) that we forget too often and at some peril, who the primary actor in all this is- which is precisely the point I've been going on about Christ's own faith in addition to or even as opposed to our own. Only Jesus was faithful enough to make peace with God on our behalf. Only his one, perfect sacrifice – not prone to an iota of self-interest or grandiosity or scrupulosity, unquestionably pure in motive and substance – could have put things right.
It's my firm belief that whenever the church has gone wrong in one way or another it's because we've lost sight of this. Now some churches may have problems primarily stemming from how their proclamation of this Gospel is hindered by being completely out of step with reality, not to mention the social implications of the Gospel. I'm thinking specifically of the Southern Baptist Convention, which in their annual meeting last week erupted into chaos because it wasn't initially obvious to everybody there (members of a church who have struggled with the fact that they were founded in order to oppose the abolition of slavery) that in 2017 they probably finally needed to formally denounce white supremacy. I can only speak for the Episcopal Church here, but I think whatever issues we might have had has very little to do with a lack of relevance along those lines. Rather, when we get into trouble as a national church or as dioceses or parishes, regardless of the presenting issue, it's usually at its heart because we've fallen into the trap of a kind of humanist, social Christianity which preaches, as H. Richard Niebuhr put it, "a God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross."
I have relatively frequent conversations with colleagues who struggle mightily with the fact that they perceive certain moves in the larger church or positions held by their superiors to be at odds with that single, central claim. They worry the church has lost it's way because decisions are made or positions are staked out or programs are embarked on for every reason under the sun besides the fact that Jesus is Lord, yesterday, today, and for ever. They lose heart when the overriding narrative is that salvation is something other than a miraculous state of affairs effected by the will of God for eternal communion with humankind or when church leaders can't seem to affirm clearly and unreservedly that our Lord really died as a sacrifice for our sins and really rose again to promise us everlasting life. These colleagues run the gamut from high church to low church and from politically conservative to politically liberal. Those issues for them are all secondary to the central message of the Gospel which they see receiving either tepid approval or implicit denial. Why these colleagues come to me with these concerns I don't know, but I'm glad they feel comfortable enough with me to do so.
The Epistle to the Romans, both the passage we heard this morning and the overriding message we'll hear over the next several weeks, is the necessary antidote to our own self-obsession, our own desire to be the central actors in history. It reminds us that we were in need of saving and our only hope in this regard has come and saved us. How we respond to that reality is an open question, but thanks be to God that the hope we've been given in none other than the Lord of Life will not disappoint us.


Investors are often cautious on the day ahead of the government's monthly jobs report, but that wasn't the case Thursday. The Dow Industrials and the S&P 500 both rallied to record highs, helped by the European Central Bank's move to cut key interest rates to near zero. The Dow Jones industrial average (^DJI) gained 98 points, the Standard & Poor's 500 index (^GPSC) rose 12, and the Nasdaq composite (^IXIC) rallied 44 points.
The Dow was led upward by Caterpillar (CAT) and Microsoft (MSFT), both up more than 2 percent. FBR Capital raised its rating on Microsoft to "outperform."
General Motors (GM) edged lower. An internal report on the company's faulty ignition switches found incompetence and neglect, but no conspiracy and no cover-up. GM shares are lower so far this year as the recalls and negative reports about the company's conduct have piled up.
Amazon (AMZN) jumped 5 percent on news reports that it's about to launch its own smartphone.
Barnes & Noble (BKS) gained 3½ percent. It's partnering with Samsung on a co-branded tablet due out by the end of the summer.
And Netflix (NFLX) added 1 percent. It's now blaming Verizon (VZ) for slowing the speed on Internet delivery of its movies. Netflix shares are now up more than 90 percent over the past year. Verizon responded by sending a legal challenge to Netflix, saying there's no basis for its charges.
On the merger front, investors are hanging up on Sprint (S) following reports that it's near a deal to pay $50 billion to buy T-Mobile (TMUS). Sprint lost 4 percent and T-Mobile fell 2 percent.
But Whole Foods (WFM) gained 4½ percent on a report it may be a takeover target, with the large privately held supermarket chain Publix mentioned as a possible suitor.
As for earnings, Rite Aid (RAD) slid 7½ percent after lowering its outlook. PVH (PVH) also cut its outlook. The owner of the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands fell 8 percent. And handbag maker Vera Bradley (VRA) fell 5 percent as earnings tumbled.
On the upside, network equipment company Ciena (CIEN) jumped 18 percent after beating expectations and raising its outlook.
Jos. A. Bank Clothiers (JOSB) reports quarterly financial results after markets close in New York.


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Our guide was written by John Callely.
Night Life - Cape Town
Night life guide Cape Town
Cape Town has a vibrant night life. Nonetheless, there aren't many bars or clubs which are specifically geared for meeting other expatriates (Paulaner Brauhaus and The Dubliner at Kennedy's are two exceptions listed below). Instead, gathering points for foreigners tend to be in delis and breakfast joints such as Giovanni's in Green Point and Raith's in the Garden Centre (see their listings under 'Specialized Groceries' in the Food section). Other manners of meeting fellow-foreigners are detailed under 'Networking'.
That said, you will often encounter expatriates in most of the popular clubs and bars. Highlighted below are a few of the best venues in the major party districts (as well as a few you might want to avoid).
Note that most bars are open from midday, whereas clubs open between 18:00 and 22:00. Live music and DJ's are often scheduled for 21:00 or 21:30, but only really start playing at 22:00 or later. They're allowed to stay open till 04:00, but may close earlier, depending on custom. Most clubs have cover charges on weekends – these range from R10 to R50, though they do go higher for special events and festive occasions.
In terms of finding out about up and coming events in Cape Town, there are a few good music and event publications on and off line.
http://www.whatson.co.za aims to list every event happening in the country, and doesn't tend to fall too short of its ideal. The site features area, category and date search functions to help you find what you're looking for.
Your LMG (Live Music Guide) is a free publication available in most bars or clubs, and can also be viewed online (visit http://www.yourlmg.com/) . It's a particularly good resource if you're interested in learning about the local rock and indie scenes.
The Next 48 Hours is a newspaper-style event guide widely circulated through newsagents and tourism centers. It covers the largest and most prestigious events happening over the weekend, from craft markets, garden shows and art gallery openings to night life and theatre events. You can also view it online at http://www.48hours.co.za.
Long Street
With the incredible variety of clubs, bars and restaurants on this strip, if there's nothing here that meets your fancy, you probably won't enjoy Cape Town very much. Long Street, on your average night, tends to be fully stocked with transient foreigners. This is due to the large number of backpacker-hostels in the area. Of particular note is Carnival Court, a backpacker hostel that doubles as a bar and has two pool tables. With its flexible policy when it comes to drug use, it's a frequent locus for locals looking to smoke marijuana on the large balcony overlooking the street. It can be a fun place to stop in for a drink, but is really quite dingy, and not the sort of venue in which most expats would spend an evening.
Carnival Court: Address: 255 Long Street, Call 021 423 9003 or visit http://www.carnivalcourt.co.za
Right next door, however, you'll find Waiting Room, a relaxed, yet architecturally sophisticated, night club so named as it's the place people meet before going to parties at nearby night clubs and bars. It frequently hosts local bands and live DJ's, and can become very crowded. There are three levels, including a rooftop area with views of Table Mountain, and is one of the nicer venues in which to drink and socialize. It connects to Royale Eatery, which specializes in gourmet burgers.
Waiting Room: Address: 273 Long Street, Cape Town, Call: 021 422 4536
Right across the road is Fiction. While its décor changes daily, this club generally holds to a retro theme, incorporating imagery of classic movies, pulp fiction and video games. It's where the local artists and creatives gather to listen and dance to Electro and Indie music mixed by some of the best local DJ's.
Fiction: Address: 226 Long Street, Visit http://www.fictionbar.com or call 021 424 5709
To one side of Fiction is Marvel, a small club popular with Africans. It plays Hip Hop and RnB, and gets claustrophobically packed most nights, often with the very drunk. In the opposite direction is JoBurg, a medium-size club with a similar playlist and clientele, albeit a little more breathing room. Neither is particularly worth seeking out.
Marvel: Address: 236 Long Street, Call: 021 426 5880
JoBurg: Address: 218 Long Street, Visit: http://www.joburgbar.com or call 021 422 0142
Directly across the road is the Dubliner, a classic, Irish-style pub and karaoke bar that is known for attracting quite a few Irish expatriates. It can be great fun or a little grating, depending on your mood. Kennedy's upstairs is a very upmarket cigar bar with frequent live jazz and blues performances, and is well worth the visit. It also houses an excellent restaurant.
The Dubliner: Address: Ground Floor, 251 Long Street, Call 021 424 1212
Kennedy's: Address: First Floor, 251 Long Street, Call 021 4241212 or visit http://www.kennedys.co.za
Moving down the road (in the direction of the harbor) you'll find a dozen more bars and clubs. Zula, the afro-themed live music lounge, is good for sundowner cocktails and the occasional gig. Chrome (just up Pepper Street) is a large club mirrored on virtually every surface, and is very fashionable amongst underage teenagers with fake ID's. Long Street's branch of stones, the franchised pool bar, has about ten wonky pool tables and plays the same music every night.
Zula Bar: Address: 194 Long Street, Call 021 424 2442 or visit http://www.zulabar.co.za
Chrome: Address: 6 Pepper Street, Call 083 700 6078 or visit http://www.chromect.com
Stones Pool Bar: 166 Long Street, Call 021 424 0418 or visit http://www.stones.co.za
Further down yet is Neighborhood, the last bar on the Long Street strip, and one of the better ones. It features marvelous décor to a classical, quasi-Victorian theme, along with a very large wraparound balcony and sit-down restaurant (the kitchen's open till 23:30). The bartenders also make rather good cocktails, made even more attractive by their two-for-one happy hour specials.
Neighborhood: 169 Long Street, Cape Town, Tel: 021 424 7260
City Bowl
The Bang Bang Club is a big, chic venue owned by some of Cape Town's top commercial house DJs. It features excellent sound and lighting throughout its three bar areas, and has a large VIP room ideal for special occasions.
Bang Bang Club: Address: 70 Loop Street, CBD, Visit http://www.thebangbangclub.co.za or call Samantha on 082 397 1555 to book. Alternatively, e-mail Samantha@thebangbangclub.co.za.
FTV Bar, a trendy, upmarket cocktail bar and nightclub, is part of the fashion channel's worldwide chain of clubs, and is particularly popular for its Wednesday commercial R&B nights. It holds to a smart casual dress code (requiring that men wear collared shirts and formal leather shoes).
FTV Bar: Address: 114 Hout Street, Corner of Buitengracht, CBD, Visit http://www.ftv.co.za or call 021 426 6000.
On the other side of City Bowl is Assembly, a very large club that appeals primarily to the young, alternative and punk markets, but the décor and design of the place has taken a turn for the better of late, and the club remains one of the most popular in the city. It's known for bringing international acts on the Electro and Dance music scene to Cape Town, and time on its turntables is hotly contested by local DJ's.
The Assembly: Address: 61 Harrington Street, CBD, Visit http://www.theassembly.co.za or call 021 465 7286
Chevelle is an extremely upmarket concept bar that sees a lot of traffic from Cape Town's celebrity elite. It's laid out over three levels, which includes four bars and a double volume dance floor, along with an outdoor olive garden sitting area, making it the largest club around in terms of floor space, as well as the most extravagantly ornamented. It's expensive, and keeps to a smart casual dress code.
Chevelle: Address: 84 Harrington Street, CBD, call 021 461 8701
Three streets up you'll find Mercury and The Shack, the one a night club, the other a pool bar. Mercury mostly hosts live music and DJ's, tends to be crowded and filthy (your shoes will literally stick to the floors), and is popular with college students and high school kids.
The Shack is a pool bar, with five bars arrayed over two levels, including a large outdoor area. It's a fun, unpretentious place to enjoy a drink and a play a few racks.
Mercury: Address: 43 Devilliers Road (Just off Roeland; turn left at the Engen gas station) Zonnebloem, CBD, Visit http://www.mercuryl.co.za or call 021 465 7286
The Shack: Address: 45 Devilliers Road, Call: 021 461 5892
While this much-storied party zone has come down a little bit with the demise of mega-club Opium, it remains the heart of gay culture in Cape Town, and has a few popular mainstream bars for the otherwise inclined.
Starting on the CBD side of Green Point in Somerset Road you'll find a branch of Cubana, the popular cigar lounge and cocktail café franchise, situated next the Harley Davidson store. Cubana serves decent food and cocktails, plays a mix of Latin and pop music, is fairly priced and can be a fun place to begin an evening. It's open from eight in the morning, so it's also a place to enjoy a few drinks when most bars are yet to open.
Cubana: Address: Ground floor, De Waterkant Centre, 9 Somerset Road, Green Point, Visit http://www.cubana.co.za or call 021 421 1799
Bronx is Cape Town's longest-lived gay bar. It's a small, compact club that plays high energy dance music alongside stereotypical eighties hits ("At first I was afraid, I was petrified…"). Bartenders are (for the most part) young, muscular men, who work topless.
Right next door is Beulah bar, a club aimed at gay and lesbian customers. Beulah plays commercial dance music, serves decent cocktails, and is popular as an interim club to drink and dance at.
A short way down Napier street is Crew, a newly established gay club decidedly more upmarket than Bronx. It features a laser-lit, mirrored dance floor and a large, comfortable sitting area. The bartenders also make excellent cocktails, and are attired in imitation of the Bronx fashion: fit, and shirt-free.
Bronx Action Bar: Address: 22 Somerset Road, Green Point, Visit http://www.bronx.co.za.
Beulah Bar: Address: 30 Somerset Road (Corner of Coburn), Green Point, Visit http://www.beaulahbar.co.za or call 021 421 6798.
Crew Bar: 28 Napier Street, Green Point.
A short drive along Main Road in the direction of Sea Point will put you outside Buena Vista Social Café, a Cuban themed establishment that, aside from its excellent restaurant, is a great place for cocktails and dancing on weekends. The club hosts salsa classes on Sundays, and is a fun, social place to learn or practice your dance technique.
Buena Vista Social Cafe: Address: 1st Floor, Exhibition Building, 81 Main Road, Green Point, Visit http://www.buenavista.co.za or call 021 433 0611
The V&A Waterfront
Paulaner Brauhaus is a large, rustic restaurant designed to a German-beer-garden theme. It serves excellent home-brewed beer and hosts regular live music performances, and is a locus for German expatriates who gather there to drink, socialize and enjoy Paulaner's traditional freshly baked pretzels.
Paulaner Brauhaus: Address: Shops 18 and19, Clock Tower Precinct, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, Visit http://www.paulaner.co.za or call 021 418 9999.
Camps Bay and Clifton
By day, Camps Bay beach front is frequently congested as sunbathers pack themselves cheek-by-jowl on the sand and dusk does little to thin the crowds. There are numerous restaurants-cum-bars along this stretch, but because Camps Bay is a residential area, only one club has managed to get past zoning regulations.
Ignite is a large, double-volume night club with a smart casual dress code. Its bar crew serve good cocktails, while the enormous, gazebo-sheltered balcony makes for an ideally luxurious setting in which to enjoy the sight of the sun setting over the ocean (the club opens at 17:00). Ignite plays house, dance and commercial music, and sees regular performances from Cape Town's top radio DJ's.
Ignite: Address: 2nd Level, The Promenade, Victoria Road, Camps Bay, Call 021 438 7717
With its trendy, beach-house décor and a playlist mingling dance and house music, the relatively petit Café Caprice always seems to attract the most tanned, wealthy, celebrity-riddled crowd of any venue in the city. It's also known as the heart of Capetonian nightlife on a Sunday, when you'll often find it still packed at 2am.
Cafe Caprice: Address: 37 Victoria Road (Corner of Van Kamp), Camps Bay, Visit http://www.cafecaprice.co.za or call 021 438 8315
Dizzy's restaurant is a late night eatery that makes seafood, burgers, pasta and some pretty good pizza. The kitchen stays open according to demand, often until the wee hours of the morning. Adjoining is the ever-popular Dizzy's pub and cigar lounge, a small bar-cum-club that hosts DJ's, local cover bands, and regular karaoke evenings. This is a fun place to go on the odd weeknight when there's nothing happening in the CBD.
Dizzy's: Address: 41 The Drive, Camps Bay, Cape Town, Visit http://www.dizzys.co.za or call 021 438 2686
La Med is a bar and restaurant with a large deck overlooking the football fields between Glen Beach and Clifton 4th. It serves cocktails and a variety of seafood, as well as gourmet burgers and pizzas. It's popular for sundowners, and often long after sundown, as it frequently plays host to top radio DJ's and local musical acts, attracting massive crowds to its bars and dancefloors.
La Med: Address: Glen Country Club, Victoria road, Clifton, Visit http://www.lamed.co.za/ or call 021 438 5600
Observatory really doesn't have anything to speak of if you're hoping for a glamorous night on the town. True to the bohemian image of the area, clubs are usually informal, cheap, and often grunge-level filthy.
The bulk of the clubs in Obz are arrayed over Lower Main Road, where you'll find a very large branch of Stones with around 15 pool tables. Just across the intersection with Station Road is Barmooda, a mediocre little night club with a relaxed atmosphere, suitable for a stopover drink if you're at a loose end (it opens at 21:00).
Next door is the biggest club in the area, Roots, a Rastafarian-themed club most popular on its weekly psytrance nights (every Wednesday). It has three bars, all built from island-style raw wood and thatch, and a large, sand-floored outdoor sitting area, and can be great for a night of (slightly dingy) revelry or laid back fun. It is more of a student hangout than anything, though, so if you don't fit into the under 30 bracket, you might want to think again. The typical cover charge on Wednesdays is R10.
Barmooda: Address: Corner of Lower Main and Station, Observatory, Visit http://www.barmooda.co.za or call 021 447 6752.
Roots: 96 Lower Main Road, Observatory, call 021 448 7656.
Gandalfs is about half a kilometer down Main, and is the local rock and Goth haunt, with an interior cheaply painted to look like the inside of a castle. Their gig venue, R.O.A.R., hosts rock bands (usually metal), while DJ's downstairs cater to more mainstream musical tastes with a mix of classic and commercial hits. They're known for extremely cheap drink specials, so be aware that Friday and Saturday nights can get a little rowdy.
Gandalfs: Address: 299 Lower Main Road, Observatory, Visit: http://www.gandalfs.co.za
Cape Town's secondary business centre has a few clubs that are particularly popular with the local studentry. Most of them have strict ID policies –People in their late twenties without ID are often turned away, so be sure to have yours on hand to avoid disappointment (drivers license cards are also accepted).
Foremost amongst Claremont's night spots is Tiger Tiger, a very large, fairly upmarket club with four bars arranged in a circular format around a central dance floor. Tiger plays commercial dance, pop and RnB hits, and draws big crowds on Tuesdays (student night), when it offers great drink specials. This is at the expense of a large cover fee (between R50 and R100) and a dress code that calls for collared shirts and leather shoes. If you can get your name on the guest list, do so, as busy nights see late arrivals standing in Tiger's queues for hours at a time.
Tiger Tiger: Address: Upper Ground Level, Stadium on Main, 103 Main Rd, Claremont, Visit http://www.tigertiger.co.za or call 021 683 2220
Situated just next door is Tin Roof, a nigh-on equally popular club without the cover charges or dress requirements. It plays commercial hits, and features a very long bar that makes getting a bartender's attention less challenging than most of Cape Town's clubs. Its dance floors are usually great fun, but the venue has been known to attract large groups of local teenage rugby players and bodybuilders, which can result in a somewhat tense atmosphere, punctuated by the odd fight.
Tin Roof: Address: Corner of Main Stegmann Roads (Opposite Steers), Claremon, Call 021 674 6888.
The area also features a branch of the franchised pool bar Stones, with the usual Stones blend of commercial music with terrible pool tables. Right across the road is the original branch of Cubana. It has a large outdoor area with couches and umbrellas, good for enjoying cocktails and a hookah pipe on a summer evening.
Stones: Address: 72 Main Road, Claremont, Visit http://www.stones.co.za or call 021 674 4223
Cubana: Address: Aska House, Main Road, Claremont, Visit http://www.cubana.co.za or call 021 683 4040.
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You are here: Home1 / Opinion & Reflection2 / The Crastina Column: Put back the "I' in science – a poetical plea...
The Crastina Column: Put back the "I' in science – a poetical plea
This Crastina Column by Mala L. Radhakrishnan, a professor at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, initiates the theme "Science & Poetry" at the crastina.org website.
Photo by Sohil Parekh.
I usually comment on poetry as an educational tool in science – how it catalyzes learning by making science relatable, and how combining it with personification, storytelling, rhythm, and rhyme can make scientific concepts more accessible and memorable. As someone who has engaged audiences with educational, humorous poetry about chemistry in places ranging from bars to theaters to college chemistry classrooms, I appreciate poetry's role in science pedagogy and communication for scientists and nonscientists alike.
But today I'm championing another reason why scientists should embrace poetry: While, as I usually argue, poetry can help bring science to humanity, it can also – perhaps more importantly — bring humanity to scientists. Many years ago, I was inspired by Alan Lightman's essay "I = V/R" from his book Dance for Two, in which he eloquently argues that while presentations of scientific studies must maintain objectivity and reproducibility, they often come at the expense of dehumanizing the process and distilling away the struggles and excitement of the people involved. When we read a scientific paper, often written in the passive voice, we learn nothing about the scientists' stories. Did they overcome obstacles? What mistakes did they make along the way? What were their most exciting moments?
Poetry, on the other hand, is purely personal. While two scientists might (and should) reach a similar conclusion about the world, their personal connections to it would certainly be different. How wonderful would it be to see, as a companion to a scientific article, a unique, personal, poem from each author? Perhaps one author would write a slam-style poem and another a sonnet. Perhaps one might describe the joyous emotions accompanying an "Aha!" moment while another might detail balancing health or family struggles with late-night experiments. Still, another might create a haiku about frustrating, broken equipment. Whatever the individual perspectives, such poetry could help us all remember that science is not a state function; the "truths" might exist independently of us, but the journeys to discover them make us who we are.
The beauty, struggle, passion, frustration, and camaraderie within science and the scientific community – while metaphysical – are entirely real and should be celebrated just as much as the objective findings and models for which we strive. Poetry serves as a perfect avenue for this celebration: Just as science involves creatively working within constraints to understand the world, poetry involves creatively working within our own constraints to understand ourselves, our emotions, and our relationship to that world. I ask that all scientists take time to write poetically about their personal scientific stories and share widely with each other, so we are regularly reminded that science is a human endeavor — and that it is more than ok to feel emotions and simply be ourselves while doing science.
Of course, poetry has the added virtue of brevity, also highly valued by scientists. Accordingly, the hundreds of words of text above can be summed up in a tetrameter couplet I previously wrote:
The reactant in chemistry that is the most relevant
Is not what we think—it's the human element.
Mala Radhakrishnan is the Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought and an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Wellesley College. As a computational biophysical chemist, her research involves developing and applying computational models to analyze and predict biomolecular interactions. She enjoys making interdisciplinary connections in both teaching and research and is the author of two books of chemistry poetry: Atomic Romances, Molecular Dances and Thinking, Periodically.
Visit "Science and Poetry"
April 24, 2019 /0 Comments/by Olle Bergman
Tags: africa, Crastina Column, slider
https://crastina.se/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/mala_square_CrastinaColumn.jpg 400 400 Olle Bergman Olle Bergman2019-04-24 09:35:272019-07-16 16:08:02The Crastina Column: Put back the "I' in science – a poetical plea
The server that enables African research to be shared worldwide Science to Poetry and Back – a reflection by Ushashi Basu