I have been released, guys
on coming back to writing here
Many people have come up to ask me why they have stopped receiving this newsletter, and I had to explain to them that that was not the case.
You haven’t stopped receiving my letters.
I didn’t just send any.
So, you don’t have to be afraid that you've missed anything.
But why? Why haven’t I sent anything?
It's because I have been stuck. The last issue was so close to my final exams and I just wanted to X1 that first and all. Then I did X it, and a project deadline was hanging over my neck like a noose, and I Xed that on Tuesday (then took pictures at the Central Library on Wednesday posing like Moses, the "Lawgiver").
So, now I am done. Like, done done.
You're happy for me, ay?
I can now spend all my days, listening to melancholic drill (obsessively like I've been doing the past few days), typing drab paragraphs about my life, while I make my WhatsApp status a virtual shrine dedicated to Kendrick Lamar.
And read Koul and Baldwin at night, every night.
Like a free man.
Like a bird, but with limbs and a brain that's bigger than the fiendishly small wraps of akamu they sell these days.
That's why I was alluding to my school as a prison, posting stuff like, "I have served my 5-year sentence" and "proudly an ex-convict" on my status.
Because I felt imprisoned in the figurative walls of that University. I did explore every algae-crusted crack in those walls, but they were walls still.
Just built a new timetable for the next few weeks which revolves around essay writing/reading, short story writing/reading and my French lessons.
A YouTuber is the reason I am going back to my French. It was JCWaldun, who G* recommended as one of the most intelligent people he's met on the video-hosting platform.
So I was browsing his videos. Nerdy guy, nerdy topics. I don't know if he speaks it, or how well if he does, but the way he pronounced a French author and book title on one Short made my heart fluster!
It was flawless.
It was flawless in the reverish sexiness that is the language. It was like his words wore lingerie, and every syllable was a sensual move.
I played those phrases multiple times, and his spezzaturaic execution made me jealous.
As though as a sign, I read later that night that Baldwin (who I have been reading a lot lately) had spent the last 17 years of his life in a famous French village, entertaining Nina Simone, Ray Charles and Miles Davies with champagne (what else would make sense).
He even became fluent, made French friends (one of them translated one of Baldwin's essay collections into French) and won prizes around French-American friendship.
Mhhmm.
The Afrocentrist in me wants to punish me for wanting to learn another European language. But guy, it’s not my fault that they had to teach us from Basic 1. They instilled French love, or amour de Francaise (if this's correct) in me very early.
It's the curriculum's fault.
No one chooses what they'll learn at 6.
But they do when they're in their twenties. And they don't choose Yoruba because it doesn't sound sexy?
Thing is, I just grew up with French.
On milk cartons and biscuit wrappers. In those awfully smelling paper slips in medicine printed with tiny font.
In those beloved classes with Madame Jeanne D'Arc singing an alphabet which had six (instead of five) vowels.
And there are so many speakers around the world, in France, Canada and several Francophone African countries.
That means more casual friends to discuss with, more potential podcast guests, writer friends and collaborators of all kinds. and a bigger dating pool (more so with the French people who allegedly invented love. In the 15th century or thereabout).
You can't blame me.
You'll love me better now. The essays will be more frequent and more PaulMaahesque.
If you like any of these, send them to your friends. Don’t be the selflish a-hole I was in Secondary School; when I’d find an amazingly good book and, and, I’d move it to the most obscure side of the library I knew.
And hide it.
Because it was so good.
(I am ashamed to admit this because people could stretch this incident so much, and write a whole book about my "insecurities" when I become famous).
Don't be like me.
There is sharing in love, abi?
On how much of an a-hole I could be with really good things,
This reminds me of when a close friend and I were up on one of our then-traditional talk-till-morning-and-marvel-at-how-similar-we-are midnights.
And she had sent me this chart with a long list of very personal questions "to ask your bestfriend".
We took turns and the questions were so home-hitting, I felt like I was stripping naked with every silver of honesty.2
But when she asked what crime I could be found guilty of, I didn’t think too much.
Theft.
Of a very valuable book. Maybe one of Da Vinci's sketches, Newton's manuscript, some heart-wringing beautiful piece of art, Eqyptian papyri …
That's one reason I want to be so very rich.
So the curator of the Louvre can give me a private tour of the Mona Lisa,
Or I could rent the Van Gogh Museum for a week,
Or settle down in Florence, Italy.
I am not sure of this last part because they said they have a lot of birds there and I see schools of pigeons literally owning the grounds and patios in movies. I don't hate birds. I just think about how pleasant it would be to frequently step in pigeon poop.
Now, I have changed.
When I find something I really love, I flaunt it.
I scream about how good it is, from the figurative rooftops.
That's why my status is, yes, a Kendrick Lamar shrine.
I will post him again today and you can't beat me.
OK, about admitting to have opposed the open-source knowledge movement at 11, and admitting that a part of me is a potential biblioklept, and that I don't like bird poop,
They said we should be vulnerable, right? I just don’t know if telling people you're vulnerable ruins the thing.
Bye.
Soon,
With love & ink,
Emmanuel.
Yes. X is a verb. It means to end, finish, eliminate. It's in the PaulMaah dictionary alongside eyo.
If I send you those questions, you'd slash all your talking stages to two nights. No cap.
Read Paulmaah Issues ✅
Welcome back Emmanuel, great to have you back here.
And congratulations