Saturday, August 27, 2016

Journeyman Wizard... magical tale of very real world


Book: Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery
Author: Mary Frances Zambreno
Publisher: Jane Yolen Books, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1994
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga

Nobody ever thought the priest of the lord, Eben Allons, was responsible for the murder of his own mother, Lady Jean Allons. But he did it to fulfill his selfish desire for fame and political power and concealed it until an apprentice journey man mystic, Jermyn Graves, unveils the 'holier than thou' clergy's hypocritical innocence.
Such are the tales of the fictional reality book, Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery, by Mary Zambreno. The author of the novel paints a vivid picture of what has been happening in some churches. She brings to the fore the underhand dealings of some priests who parade themselves as men of God though they are actually impostors in the corridors of holiness.
But though fiction, the book makes it evident that magical mayhem is the most current thing going on in the name of performing miracles to the glory of God. The hunger for fame, power and wealth leads many people astray to the point of going to any length to achieve their debased dreams under the umbrella of chastity. The irony of public posture and real life strikes as the rarely imaginable situation of a priest in the book who was projecting a seeming nonchalant attitude towards mundane acquisitions turning out later to be discovered to be so materialistic as to go to the extent of killing his mother through magical spells. He was not only out to kill his mother, he was also prepared to kill others whom he suspected could be stumbling blocks to his obsessed intention to acquire his mother's wealth.
In 263 pages Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery is divided into 14 chapters. It begins with the traveling of the engaging hero, Jermyn Graves, who had featured in Zambreno's first book titled A Plague of Sorcerers. Graves travels from the city to a distant village called Land's End, where Lady Allons lives. He went there to receive training under Lady Allons, who was a magical spell-maker. On arrival, little did he expect that he will become involved, first in local intrigue, then in magical warfare, and later accused as well as suspected as a murderer.
The novel gives some insight into magical circles. How to and how not to engage in spell-making, are clearly elucidated with simple diction.
However, when Lady Allons, a widow suddenly died during a crystal ball communication with her student Graves, in a mystical dialogue with his aunt who lives in the city, Graves was suspected of being responsible for his teacher's death. But with Delia, a squirrel which Graves keeps as a spiritual pet, and Brianne Campbell, Lady Allons's grand daughter, the innocence of Graves was proven while the identity of the murderer came to light in a superb awe-inspiring magical narrative of suspense-marked skirmishes. Any lover of dramatics suspense and mesmerising tales will appreciate the pulse of the prose.
The author comes across as someone who is very conversant with the magical sciences. Her adept ply of the tales with explicit details give this out. She captures the dynamics involved in practical and theoretical magical rudiments. These include penetrating expose of the vital bits of the arts of spell-making and healing techniques.
Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery, is an eye-opener to the inherent mystical powers in some animals like cats, dogs and squirrels, which could remind conversant readers of esoteric fictions of the clairvoyant gifts of cats as depicted in such a Lobsang Rampa title as The Saffron Robe, or the mystical capabilities of owls as portrayed in Kara Dalkey's book entitled Euryale. The aforementioned books are also very engaging and enlightening about the activities of mystical sciences such as witchcraft, spells, hexes, astral migration and the mysteries of things happening daily and nightly in both low and high places in the name of love. In a world where people struggle for power, love, fame and wealth, all form of vices and devices are employed by the desperate ones to achieve their goals; Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery also capture these.
It hints that those who keep animals as pets should better be well enlightened about the possibilities of such pets constituting spiritual danger to them, unless they are psychically interconnected or in tune with the spiritual vibrations of the pets.
Zambreno, describes Graves pet, Delia thus: "Delia was his wizard's familiar, the animal that allowed him use his own inborn abilities to pull magical power from the natural world. She was also a skunk. He loved her, but there was no denying she tended to cause problems. Most familiars are cats or birds of prey; any other animal was considered unusual. A skunk was worse than unusual- it was downright peculiar."
The book also paints a picture of how a spell maker appears. Lady Allons the spell-maker is described in the following manner: "Lady Allons was a tall woman; with silver hair curling around a stern face. Her eyes were deep blue and very bright; she wore a sapphire silk dress, and earrings that exactly match its shade. Although her feature were lined with age, her gaze was level and penetrating and her chin was very firm... she used a cane as she came down the stair, but her step was steady- measured, not slow." This description is perhaps the American author's impression of a spell-maker.
Apart from the intricacies of magical mysteries discussed in the book, a subtle romantic touch is also used to spice the story with the admiration of Miss Campbell's personality by Graves, the journeyman trainee as both of them are teenagers. The author says Graves liked the way the little tendrils of hair escaping around Miss Campbell's face caught the light. He also admires her courteous but cool smiles.
One hint in the fiction is that witches and wizards are not necessarily always poor, gaunt and wretched people who live in dirty environments. Some rich and powerful people too practice witchcraft. Maudie, a character in the story is depicted as a hedgewitch. Hedgewitches are described in the book as those who scrabble for a living in remote areas, while healers are also described as wizards too, like spell-makers, if of a different order. In the novel's views, much of magical persuasions and spell-making is an art. "The practice of this art, as of all arts, requires skill, knowledge, and understanding, as well as observation and experiment - the tool of science. These things assist the spell-maker in the practice of his or her profession as a comprehension of the laws of perspective and studies in anatomy benefit the painter...."
References were made to some magical books in the novel such as Venturi Encyclopedia which, according to the author, listed several variants of crystal spells.
Beneath the thrust of Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery is a creatively veiled non-didactic but instructive web of stories to remind the reader that, no matter how one pretends to be good or holy, whereas he is evil minded, a day of reckoning waits at the corner, even though the world may have been looking at the person as a saint. The result of Graves' mystical investigation to find out the cause of Lady Allons's abrupt death established this. Graves was surprised when the truth dawned on him that his teacher was murdered by her own priestly son, Eben. Hence, Graves was dreadfully amazed in his inner mind saying, "So Eben is the black artist...
He must have fought with his mother so he would have an excuse to stay away from her. He was going to be a wizard before he entered the church. As a priest, he works with the 'Powers' all the time. That would cover up most magical mysteries..."
Nonetheless, when the hour of revelation came, Eben screamed a terrible gibbering sound. He lurched backward against a table. Taking shape in front of him was the spirit-form of his late mother, tall elegant, and uncanny. She looked down at her son with contempt in her eyes..."No" Eben said, holding up his arms in front of his face in a futile gesture. "Mother, no! Don't!" late Lady Alloons's spiritual voice registered on Graves mind that moment like the sound of rushing water as she accuses her son thus: "False, Eben Allons... false son, false brother false wizard, false priest. Bear the burden of that falseness- take back your broken oaths." With this occurrence, power poured through the room where the incident took place. Eben screamed again, a keening, an eerie sound that went on and on and on until all the world seemed swallowed up in it, and he was put in a state of "Catatonia mysticae."
A character in the story, Master Eschar, describes "Catatonis mysticae" as "a magically induced condition resembling certain forms of insanity." Moreover, Eben also earned a prison sentence where he has to spend the rest of his life with insanity.
Though the book is a fictional work, it contains a lot of societal realities that can easily be related to things happening among some so-called men of God. It also brings to the fore the dangers inherent in magical practices and its consequences, like what happened to a character named Doctor Faustus, in Christopher Malowe's play, Doctor Faustus.
Journeyman Wizard: A Magical Mystery, is a readable material for all who may be interested in identifying strange vibrations in any environment they find themselves, and how they could repel such negative forces by taking full control of their will power and astral energies as they wish, with telepathic artistry and mastery of their environment and the developments around them.

  

The nexus among poetry, politics, culture



 Title: A Flat World
Author: Yusuf M. Adamu (PhD)
Publisher: Adamu Joji Publishers, Kano
Pages: 69
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga
                  

If the ten definitions of poetry propounded by Carl Sandburg (1878) are used as yardsticks to classify Yusuf  Adamu’s poetry volume titled  A Flat World, one could say the seventh definition best describes Adamu’s cosmological verses full with acres of anger.
Sandburg’s seventh definition of poetry says “poetry is the harnessing of the paradox of earth cradling life and then entombing it.” In this wise, as a medical geographer cum poet, Adamu always employ different commendable instruments of geography in his psyche, such as barometer, compass, wind vane, thermometer, rain-gauge, telescope and so on, in investigating both local and international political weather / cultural climates; and voices out his observation in poetic garments.
Hence, in A Flat World, made up of 51 poems that span 69 pages of the volume, the reader encounters various paradoxical situations that are making the world a bitter place for many peace-loving people; due to bullies on both the local and international topography and socio-cultural spheres. Wondering why acrimony pervades human existence, the author rhetorically welcomes the reader with the first poem in the volume titled, Why Do We Fight?
Although, rhetorical questions don’t deserve answers, Adamu generously provide answers in Why Do We Fight? as follows: “Sometimes we fight / For sacred reasons / Sometimes we fight / To emancipate ourselves / But at times we fight / For naïve and selfish reasons / We fight to make life hard for others / We fight to make the world a brutal place / But must we always fight to have peace? / Isn’t there any other way? / Why must we always fight?”
Having set the ball rolling with the aforesaid poem, the poet paints a beautiful canvass of the hitherto peaceful Jos plateau in Nigeria, which has suddenly become a theatre of concurrent genocide in recent times over the years. Listen to Adamu in the poem titled The Jos Plateau I, where he geographically, socially and resourcefully versify the region in a Michelangelo-like artistic imagery thus: “Tin ores and mines / Volcanic cones and dones / Crater lakes and ponds / Spring-water and waterfalls / Escarpments and slopes / Fluvio-volcanic and granitic hills / Spread on the table land / Nations of people / Biroms, Angas / Pyem, Mwhavul / Mada, Irigwe / Hausa, Fulani / Irish potatoes and maize / Vegetables and fruits / Cool weather, fine scenery / Jos plateau / Land of nature and nations.”
This versification of Jos by the poet clearly shows that it is a place of multiple natural blessings. Who knows? Perhaps, Jos is the original much talked about biblical Garden of Eden.
From the first two poems in the volume already discussed, the reader is not surprised why Adamu is so annoyed with the spate of quarrels, killings and disunity among local, national and international folks in a paradise earth created by God for human enjoyment. On this basis, the reader could feel the author’s cup of thoughts winking with worries at the brim of consciousness like a traffic light.
Therefore, with poems such as The Oro Trap; Ungrateful Brothers; Global Village; Arrogance; Prime Suspect; Injustice; Crumbling Blocks; Filters; Strange Irony; Reciprocate With Love Not With Bombs; Branding; New Imperialism; Murder Is Murder; Pretence; The Rich; Stature’s Ordeal; New Freedom; Hypocrites; Cowardice; The Holocaust Card; Immigration Laws; Niamey; Baghdad; International Community; Bushnization; The Migrants; Palestine; The World After Bush; Jos Plateau II, Gaza; Blind Hearts; Fuel Subsidy; and so on, Adamu expresses his unhappiness with the systems of things going on in the world. This is in similitude with some poems in Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga’s Nightmares in Paradise volume, which underline the thinking patterns of contemporary poets.
While conjuring metaphors, ironies, innuendos, amongst other literary devices blended in the frying-pan of sarcasm, Adamu’s poetry hisses with volcanic gases bombarding traitors and oppressors gallivanting worldwide.
Moreover, in some lines, you could feel the temperature of the poet persona’s emotion, eager to imprison every global evil doer. The thermostat of his verses is full of brimstone, sulphur, caustic soda, magma, monosaccharide and disaccharide, belching like an angry anaconda, warning the real terrorists of the world, spreading tongue like dark menacing winds.
In the light of the foregoing, one could say the title of the volume, A Flat World, is a metaphorical microcosm of Jos as an epic center symbol of the entire world, where abundant milk and honey flows, but hatred, sorrow and death are the ‘medals of joy’ some self-acclaimed saints of universal authority shower on weaker people daily.
Despite all the oppressive tendencies of the powers that be from the grassroot to international level, Adamu rolls up every atom of his anger from A Flat World into a ball of defiant hope in the book last poem titled Our Spirit Has Not Broken!. In the epilogue poem, he pays glowing homage to some personalities coupled with prayer in the last line thus: “May Allah help us! Amin.”
Though no mechanical or psychological noise was noticed in the book, there is need for the use of a better legible font for the volume’s title (A Flat World) in the front cover during re-impression. The font used in the current edition’s cover is too blank, and there is also no point writing El-Mina Castle simultaneously in the front cover as it tends to confuse a first time observer of the book, as regards the real title.
Adamu is a professor of Medical Geography at the Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria. He has published numerous works in Hausa and English languages.




Tuesday, August 23, 2016

-- Book Review: Focus on the fundamental values of the Nigerian culture and family

Book: Domestic Daddy
Author: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga
Publisher: Bulkybon Publications Company, Lagos
Pages: 230
Reviewer: Jes Fuhrmann


I met Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga through Facebook and what impressed me first about this gentleman was his unspeakable appreciation for the little things that many Americans take for granted such as sharing a posting about his book in order to unselfishly help promote it to others.

I had the honor of reading "Passport to Success" and now "Domestic Daddy" and both stories allowed me the insight to the Igbo culture that I'd never find in any American textbooks. Adjekpagbon places so much focus on the fundamental values of the Nigerian culture and family.

It is endearing that he truly is a man who emphasizes the benefits of education and honesty, yet is unafraid to pay mind to the natural qualities in all human beings such as the sexual and hormonal development of adolescence and its impact on Nigerian students.

I enjoyed drinking in "Domestic Daddy" word for word, exploring the Nigerian culture and reading with a racing heartbeat as Adjekpagbon brought it's readers to those taboo places yet branching away just as you thought he might just cross the border into eroticism.

"Domestic Daddy" was a beautiful read that came full circle from beginning to end and leaves one feeling that the best qualities in human beings settles down to hard work, dedication, honesty and wholesome goodness. A beautiful book for all ages!! Thank you for caring and paying it forward by sharing!


NOTE: Jes Führmann, is the author of "The Diary of Pink Pearl, A Bird's Eye View” and "The Diary of Pink Pearl Continues: I'm Wide Awake and Born Again!" (First trilogy and quadrilogy of a three part series about a Moluccan cockatoo and the adventures of Pink Pearl’s Parrot Rescue).

Monday, August 22, 2016

Prescription For Improvement Of Nigeria's Educational System

By Marianne Van Der Wel,
Retired lecturer,
McMaster University,
Canada.



The issues that face Nigeria, a country that was forced upon groups of people that did not like each other very much in such a way that I do wonder if recovery is possible. The soical-economic-spiritual issues facing Nigeria are deep and very, very complex. I have read other books Adjekpagbon has sent me. If I were to put these books in my school system, perfectly acceptable when I was in school here in Canada, in the 1950s and 1960s, today, I would be arrested for child abuse.

There is a video you can listen to, to gain some understanding as to the reasons your school system, which I find very 1950s, based on the British model, is failing the younger generation. Colonization and British law and order was adopted in Nigeria in a way that it serves no Nigerian well and is not bringing you closer to your African ways of relating to your young the way you used before "my" peoples arrival and MEDDLING.

I think, it is time:
- to leave Queen Victoria behind,
- rename that HORRIBLE example of an island in terms of helping Nigeria find its way towards peace, harmony with a more equal distribution of its wealth, that Island named after Queen Victoria that sits off of Lagos City State,
- lose those funny white wigs in your court system
- and rewrite your National Anthem so that it does NOT sound like God Save Britain's queen

Your young are not motivated by how we used to do things in school and neither are ours over here in Canada [for different reasons]. I too hated reading (and still do) but I know how to motivate myself to do that which I hate doing when I see the importance of doing so. Yours will too once we develop a way of life that can see it through their eyes, eyes that are on the Internet relating more with their fellow young people, all over the world, than their own parents and teachers. That I see as a recipe for disaster world wide since the young still need their elders to guide and mentor them.

That said, we old people (I am 74), who spent my career teaching computing to adults but volunteered as a Girl Guide Leader for 25 years thus a mentor to young girls, I had to change the way I motivated the young and not so young learn, constantly. A good mentor must always be a good learner first and be constantly learning from the people we mentor...not to be like the people we mentor but to help those we mentor become their own best selves while we stay true to our own best self. We do not need more Carbon Copies of who I am.

When fresh eyes meets life experience, without losing our personal identity as we help those we mentor find theirs, under a banner of a whole some inner discipline, knowing and acknowledging our boundaries and constraints, only then can our true spirits soar.

NOTE: The video could be accessed on facebook at Bulkybon Publications Company's group. Just copy and paste this link on your browser thus: https://www.facebook.com/groups/323877500990092/1232015660176267/?ref=notif¬if_t=like¬if_id=1471862237175459