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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 2 OcTOber 2018

Mickey Mouse gets African wardrobe options for 90th birthday

By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA just glad that someone else
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — has the same problem as
Mickey Mouse is getting you."
an African look for his 90th Prominent artists who were
birthday. inspired by Mickey Mouse
Ten South African artists over the decades include
each painted and adorned Diego Rivera and Damien
a statue of Disney's cartoon Hirst. Walt Disney and Sal-
character, using styles that vador Dali also collabo-
reflect the continent's cul- rated. Novelists E.M. Forster
tural diversity and giving and John Updike wrote es-
him more wardrobe op- says about Mickey Mouse,
tions than the usual white a children's favorite and
gloves, red pants and yel- commercial force for gen-
low shoes. erations.
Mickey Mouse made his Disney Africa asked the
debut in the animated South African artists to stay
film "Steamboat Willie" on away from sensitive issues
Nov. 18, 1928 and cente- such as politics and religion
nary events are being held in their Mickey Mouse im-
worldwide, according to agery, according to sev-
Disney Africa. He was black eral artists. Buthelezi won-
and white then, a contrast dered how she might have
with the vibrant colors, pat- tackled the project without
terns and imagery burst- A child poses beneath a Mickey Mouse statue at an exhibition at Sandton City in Johannesburg, those limitations.
ing from his South African Sunday Sept. 30, 2018. "I don't do incriminating or
clones. Associated Press insulting work," she said.
Disney's South African proj- "But then, I still had that
ect was an opportunity to high-energy street dance nius" for developing a cul- ists worked side-by-side on question: What would I
"make him African," said that evolved in black com- tural phenomenon of such them for a week at Johan- have done without those
artist Phumzile Buthelezi, munities during white rule in longevity. nesburg's Art Eye Gallery restrictions? How would I
adding: "Somehow I por- South Africa. "That's art for me — just and Studio , interacting in have approached it?"
trayed my history." Artist Cassius Khumalo was send a message out there," a way that some found re- Another artist, Trevor Cole-
Buthelezi's Mickey Mouse inspired by the face masks Khumalo said. "But again, freshing in an often solitary man, said he was drawn
wears the brightly colored and body paint of chalk don't forget to be playful." line of work. to art as a young boy after
waistcoat and trousers of and ochre used in Ethio- The exuberant mice with "That was the highlight for seeing Disney's 1940 "Fanta-
a ceremonial outfit tradi- pia's Omo Valley. He de- outstretched arms are on me — working with other sia" movie and, at age 82,
tionally worn by Zulu men. scribed the invitation to display at a Johannes- people," said Louis van den is "just a bit younger" than
Artist Nika Mtwana's statue work on Mickey Mouse as burg shopping center and Heever, who incorporated Mickey Mouse.
has the hat and shoes as- a "gift from the gods" and will also travel to Durban African animal patterns into "To me, Mickey Mouse is
sociated with "pantsula," a said Walt Disney was a "ge- and Cape Town. The art- his Mickey Mouse. "You're happiness," he said.q

'Gone So Long' takes its time, but is worth the trip

By ROB MERRILL of her father, Daniel. At ing professor even as she Daniel, on his southern road
"Gone So Long" (W.W. Nor- its heart, "Gone So Long" struggles to write her own trip ending who knows
ton & Co.), by Andre Dubus is a meditation on regret story. In that time, readers how, pondering that fateful
III and anger — how people go deep inside the heads day that changed so many
An Andre Dubus III novel process and cope with it of the various characters, lives: "(He) can still see the
is a slow burn — never so throughout their lives and who in addition to Susan way her chin was raised up
searing that you can't turn how destructive it can be and Daniel include Lois, like she was going to do it
the page, but incremental- to keep it bottled up. the grandmother/mother- with or without him, and
ly hotter each time you do. Susan's father served al- in-law, for whom forgive- maybe that's when he be-
"Gone So Long" isn't a thrill- most 15 years in prison and ness is impossible. There gan to know too that she
er, but it's taut with tension. has lived a life of redemp- are dozens of flashbacks did not love him all the
Dubus manages to keep tion apart from his fam- as we learn about Susan's way yet, and so everything
readers on edge despite ily. He drives the elderly to promiscuous youth and her he did after that moment
telling a tale in which very doctor's appointments and father's decade and a half he did like a man trying to
little happens in the pres- helps a battered woman in prison. catch and keep a dove ..."
ent. This cover image released by on the street late one night. The characters are com- To say much more would
The story begins in the W. W. Norton shows "Gone So It's his decision to find his plex, but Dubus' writing is spoil the enjoyment of the
Long," a novel by Andre Du-
voice of Susan, a daughter bus III. daughter that sets the pres- simple as he fleshes them novel. "Gone So Long" is
staking out the house of her Associated Press ent-day plot in motion. out. Susan as she unbur- a multilayered character
father's parole officer, then But it takes hundreds of ies her past on the page: study, told in flashbacks
abruptly switches to third able crime. pages for Daniel to travel "... she was beginning to and memoir excerpts and
person on page two, as The crime isn't the central from his Massachusetts sin- glimpse something real just present-day prose, slowly
fragments of memories re- mystery of the story, and gle-wide — "a forty-by-forty inches and feet ahead of revealing the strength and
turn to Susan and we learn Dubus trickles out details patch of ground he did not her, something she could resilience of its two main fe-
that the novel will hinge on as he moves in and out of earn" — to Florida, where only find with words, words male characters and end-
a decades-old, unthink- Susan's head and the head Susan works as a writ- that were not lies." And ing with a hint of hope.q