Preface To A Touch Of Velvet: RIP Nelson Mandela

As I started to write this, I learned that Nelson Mandela has died.  It's hard to be serious about a dumb radio show in light of such news.

I wrote on the Facebook that he was one of my lifetime's real heroes.  Like a lot of indie kids growing up in the 1980s, I learned about him from the Specials' song.  I think, for me specifically, it was because Elvis Costello produced it that it found its way into my head - I was a huge Elvis fan & otherwise knew nothing about South Africa at the time.  Later, of course, was the big Artists United Against Apartheid song "Sun City," which, it turns out, I'm lucky to have heard, since half of American stations wouldn't play it because it criticized Reagan.

I took a class in my last year of college, in 1991, which was about the literature of South Africa.  I can't remember the professor's name - I think he was Dutch - he died some time in the 1990s - but the general feel of the apartheid literature was that it wouldn't end without a bloodbath.  Or at least some violence.  Thinking now about the character of Nelson Mandela, it's a wonder the requisite doubts we had were so great.

I don't have much to say - never been to South Africa, you know - maybe never will (although the wife has, & she's loved it).  Just remembering the unforgettable, the greatness & humility & strength of Nelson Mandela.  What a life!