The Official Blog of author, filmmaker & storyteller Peter van der Walt

The Official Blog of author, filmmaker & storyteller Peter van der Walt

Welcome to Extremely Foreword – the official blog of storyteller, author and filmmaker Peter van der Walt. Enjoy fresh posts every Monday to Friday. Memes of Consciousness bring some of the funniest, wisest or most thought-provoking quotes to the fore, while SnapShots combine casual photography and pithy observation. The monthly Extremely Foreword column is a cynical rant I really should be ashamed of (generally being such a positive chap) and – fearless as Quixote – we’ll go wherever our fancy strikes us in essays or articles filed under the category of Nomenclaturia Pedestria – which, frankly, was the most pretentious title I could think of. There’s some quality hand me downs and sensational sloppy seconds in FineFinds reviews for you to feast on. Short Stories, Flash Fiction and Poetry are proudly pranced around as and when they become available to the general public – as well as all the latest movies, series and videos from the Peter van der Walt YouTube Channel. The Visiting Post features my stuff on other sites or blogs, or brings other people’s stuff to this blog. Finally, Updates bring you all the press office releases, major moves, minor altercations and snippets of import – as well as any housekeeping. In short, Extremely Foreword is the most comprehensive and up to date collection of everything me – only members of The Lounge Club enjoy more, and more direct access. Everybody else, this is as good as it’s going to get, I’m afraid. At least we can all comfort ourselves with the knowledge that this too shall pass. Potentially like a kidney stone, but still. Anyway, if you’re still reading this scrolling text, I’m impressed. Keep checking in, and THANK YOU for watching and reading.

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Extremely Foreword: Tradition and Masochism

We don’t need Christmas.

I don’t mean the religious thing – that’s fine. Go to Church. Believe what you believe. Do your thing, I have no problem with it.

Even the commercial thing. If you feel the need to relieve your wallet, I won’t stop you. Go all glitzy in the malls and consume more than you should and purchase the affection of your offspring and your spouse – or try to arrest their slide into indifference towards you. Fine.

But do we have to have the whole damn lot over every year?

A good person, wonderful soul, friend of mine once told me that you should be happy washing lots of dishes. Rather than bemoan the toil of the cleanup, he opined, focus on the joy of having had so many folks over that I have dishes to clean. Sure.

Then again, it very much depends on the crowd.

Didn’t quite take into account people who are boringly, immovably, impossibly grey and middle class who still somehow think of themselves as armed factions of La Cosa Nostra. There will be backstabbings, assassinations and turf wars (emotional ones at least) as they vie for power, influence and turf.

You know them, don’t lie to yourself.

The kinds of people who send you messages with their insipid gifts. The old cow has more money than the Vatican and yet when it comes to splurging on you once a freaking year she manages to knit you a pair of vomit-inducing socks herself.

Or the brother’s pretentious wife dropping off new wine glasses because ‘those things you took out last year, my God, would no longer do’.

You watch the kids and their parents show up and wonder how in the hell you share genetic material with any of them. And then you oscillate. Between being shocked by an emotionally dead generation virtue signalling on command from their phone screens, and resenting the lazy autopilot absentees who raised them.

All of it would be bearable, except that through all this, you have to pretend not only to love everyone present, but to LIKE them.

“Hey uncle Peter!” and a fake, bargaining chip, manipulative little laugh.

“Can’t believe it’s been a year already, we really must…” from the snob again.

Why do we do it?

When did masochism become an acceptable tradition?

I suppose I shouldn’t be too grumpy. It’s Christmas, and the Christmas spirit is alive and well (I’ve heard, just not within these walls).

Fine.

Knock yourselves out.

No really, hopefully long enough so I can finish the turkey without having to listen to the buildup of a full blown fight over dinner.

I guess there’s always something to be grateful for.

My very favourite thing?

Not having any dishes this year.

PS – Extremely Foreword will be back next year with a new look as part of the expansion and upgrades. See you all there. And btw – yawl know I’m kidding. Enjoy the beautiful people in your life, and if you don’t have any, enjoy the solitude. Or better yet, suffer, and then use your suffering as a tool to get what you want next year. It’s what you people do…

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Extremely Foreword: Tradition and Masochism

We don’t need Christmas. I don’t mean the religious thing – that’s fine. Go to Church. Believe what you believe. Do your thing, I have no problem with it. Even the commercial thing. If you feel the need to relieve your wallet, I won’t stop you. Go all glitzy in the...

Garden Party

They come to see us on rainy days, all demure and church hat and impressed by themselves for performing the duty for a few minutes. Then they rush away - back to their lives, which they view as far more important. Funny, we view our own time as more important too -...

Some New Moves For 2024

So you might remember from a previous update that I’ll be taking a break (a long, well-earned, couldn’t-get-here-soon-enough break) from this Friday until the middle of January. Next year, Extremely Foreword is expanding so that there’s more action from more sources....

Like Tasteful Makeup

The sky above my city is a perpetual canvas for cloud shows... amazing variety and shapes and sizes and colours. And the sunsets are legendary - far more breath-taking than many places priding themselves on sunsets. The other day it was like God was a make-up artist...

Extremely Foreword: I Got Nothing

I come out here once a month and I whine... It's good for the soul, a good moan is. That's at least part of the reason I do it - but the overarching reason is because, of course, I'm trying to be funny. Entertaining. Be all grumpy guy actually makes the point that...

The Perfect Autumn Picture

Went for an impromptu walk with my better half - and as we enjoyed the autumn stroll (we love walking, and have a special fondness for autumn walks - the conditions being near perfect - not too hot or extreme - spooky landscapes action-packed with inspiration and...

I Love This Land

A town awakes to its own business, unaware of how beautiful it is. They look outside and declare, plans and preference for weather. And only a handful of them venture outside, to go for a walk or a run, to take the dog out, to spend time with their sons on the water....

Extremely Foreword: The Column

Extremely Foreword – The Column is Peter van der Walt’s monthly payload of meltdowns, malign musings and curmudgeon commentary. A thinly veiled passive-aggressive innuendo aimed at some unnamed transgressor that’s been annoying him mightily over the last month (probably you, yes, you personally) – the column considers family, relationships, life, love, kindness, friendship and empathy and asks: is all the pain and suffering really worth it? No turn is left unstoned as Pete purple pills the hell out of the red and blue jellybeans of public discourse – and delivers his bitter judgement on life. It’s not that he’s angry with anyone. He’s just really disappointed.

Extremely Foreword: Tradition and Masochism

Extremely Foreword: Tradition and Masochism

We don’t need Christmas. I don’t mean the religious thing – that’s fine. Go to Church. Believe what you believe. Do your thing, I have no problem with it. Even the commercial thing. If you feel the need to relieve your wallet, I won’t stop you. Go all glitzy in the malls and consume more than you should and purchase the affection of your...

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Extremely Foreword: Tradition and Masochism

We don’t need Christmas. I don’t mean the religious thing – that’s fine. Go to Church. Believe what you believe. Do your thing, I have no problem with it. Even the commercial thing. If you feel the need to relieve your wallet, I won’t stop you. Go all glitzy in the...

Extremely Foreword: I Got Nothing

I come out here once a month and I whine... It's good for the soul, a good moan is. That's at least part of the reason I do it - but the overarching reason is because, of course, I'm trying to be funny. Entertaining. Be all grumpy guy actually makes the point that...

SnapShots

Garden Party

Garden Party

They come to see us on rainy days, all demure and church hat and impressed by themselves for performing the duty for a few minutes. Then they rush away - back to their lives, which they view as far more important. Funny, we view our own time as more important too -...

Like Tasteful Makeup

Like Tasteful Makeup

The sky above my city is a perpetual canvas for cloud shows... amazing variety and shapes and sizes and colours. And the sunsets are legendary - far more breath-taking than many places priding themselves on sunsets. The other day it was like God was a make-up artist...

The Perfect Autumn Picture

The Perfect Autumn Picture

Went for an impromptu walk with my better half - and as we enjoyed the autumn stroll (we love walking, and have a special fondness for autumn walks - the conditions being near perfect - not too hot or extreme - spooky landscapes action-packed with inspiration and...

I Love This Land

I Love This Land

A town awakes to its own business, unaware of how beautiful it is. They look outside and declare, plans and preference for weather. And only a handful of them venture outside, to go for a walk or a run, to take the dog out, to spend time with their sons on the water....

Farmhouse

Farmhouse

No big roads nearby. Nowhere to fly into. A single lane single road takes you somewhere you either really want to go or won't be on. And then hills and valleys makes the slog harder for good measure. Hedges and clusters of trees means you won't even see it, except if...

Honour Guard

Honour Guard

We salute - our movements clipped and precise - assembled here with military precision - for the guests. Those very important parents, children and elderly folk, who will come to break their fast here. We stand ready to be of service to the nation. Proud in our...

Private Headlines

Private Headlines

On a day of rage-inducing, unacceptable, mind-boggling, insane, fear-filled, ominous, dark, painful, shameful and crazy headlines - this was my view. Got me thinking that perhaps making personal headlines are more important than reading whatever activist journalists...

Nomenclaturia Pedestria

I have a little ADHD and a little OCD, which means I always change my mind about what I’m completely obsessed about. Consider these the stable, enduring, bedrocks of my TikTok generation attention span – my articles of phase, if you will. A regular long form feature in which I write about random topics that really require years of in depth analysis but was just particularly appealing to me between tea breaks on that particular day.

From odes to code to the odd homage to fromage… what can I say? A mind is for changing.

Defending The Dark And Demented

Defending The Dark And Demented

“Fiction,” said one Stephen King, “is the truth within the lie.” He also speaks at length on the catharsis of scary stories in his non-fiction examination of the horror genre – Danse Macabre. Or take Hitchcock: “I aim to provide the public with beneficial shocks. Civilization has become so protective that we’re no longer able to get our goose...

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Defending The Dark And Demented

“Fiction,” said one Stephen King, “is the truth within the lie.” He also speaks at length on the catharsis of scary stories in his non-fiction examination of the horror genre – Danse Macabre. Or take Hitchcock: “I aim to provide the public with beneficial shocks....

Mind The Gap

When some folks hear I make films, they assume I’d do anything to be given a shot in Hollywood. The truth is I am not interested in Hollywood – at all. I am interested in telling good stories, and I would of course like the stories to be seen as widely as possible. I...

The Eye Of The Entrepreneurial Storm

There’s a lot to be read on the subject of entrepreneurship. Some nuggets, some nonsense. Entrepreneurs are lots of different things… including very juicy targets for every two-bit hustler with an online course or self-published book to sell. Sigh. There are some...

Humanity’s Most Important Try-Fail Cycle

The importance of story in the human psyche and polity can't be overstated. Without the power of stories, there would be no human civilisation - tribes of semi-advanced primates could maintain at most alliances in the hundreds, as Yuval Hariri illustrated in his...

Reflecting On Coronation Weekend

This weekend, aside from a handful of nuts and attention ho rumblings from passe peed-off intellectuals, the whole country celebrates the coronation of His Majesty Charles III. I am, perhaps, the world's most unlikely monarchist. Grew up a white trash little Dutch Boy...

Short Stories

Short Story: Better Angels

Short Story: Better Angels

In a future rife with inhumanity, Bob Hadfield's work exposes him to the worst of it. And in this conquered city after the next great war, even doing your best work can get you in real trouble.This is by far the darkest short story I've written. Set in a distant...

Short Story: The Home Stretch

Short Story: The Home Stretch

Those things are out there, and it’s every man for himself. So far, Andy survived by sneaking and hiding. He doesn’t want to die – not like that – not flayed open and skinned alive. His tactics seem to be working, until he meets another survivor. You can now read The...

Short Story: The Friend

Short Story: The Friend

Mr. Swindley lies for a living. True, he’s a charlatan – but the people he ‘helps’ with his psychic abilities get peace of mind – so that’s fair game. But he’s latest job may reveal far darker things lurking in shadows than he ever pretended…You can now read The...

FineFinds

A collection of tantalising tales, fabulous finds and riveting reads, these are more recommendations than reviews. I skip everything I don’t like and pass on only the best of the best to you. Don’t expect high literary criticism, however, I’m providing context to nice people, rather than pontificating critiques. Critics are eunuchs in a harem, it has been said – and I’m hardly qualified to be one of those. 

The Best Old Thing

The Best Old Thing

The investment world is full of BS. More than marketing - if you can believe such a thing. A lot of guys who did relatively well at mathematics consider themselves the smartest guys ever, and so they play, and then they offer you their games for fees, and very often they close. Not just because their next best thing is so shiny and bright, but...

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The Best Old Thing

The investment world is full of BS. More than marketing - if you can believe such a thing. A lot of guys who did relatively well at mathematics consider themselves the smartest guys ever, and so they play, and then they offer you their games for fees, and very often...

Abundant Heart

If you have a young person in your life - a nephew, a son, a daughter, a mentee - and you want to give them a few books that will really help them along in their lives, close to the top of that reading list should be a book by a Jewish Rabbi, whether you are Jewish or...

Peace Of Mind

Mention my name and ask people what jumps to mind, and the words "spiritual" and "mental health" are sure to be mentioned right of the bat... right? What do you think? BS? Obviously. I'm not known for being a giant of general spirituality. Nor am I the most indulgent...

Your Brain On Narrative

Reading about writing and learning to perfect one’s craft as a beginning writer is important. The problem is, there is a whole cottage industry aimed at ripping off new writers. And like any semi-lucrative con, there are plenty of bad books on the subjects. As already...

Negotiating Like Some Else’s Life Depended On It

There's this whole subgenre that I like to call ex-books. They can be found in the business category and they were all written by ex somethings: ex Navy Seals, ex marines, ex CIA agents, ex FBI guys, ex SAS operators, ex somethings. These books bring the front line...

Video

Freshly served and directly from the Peter van der Walt YouTube Channel, here you will find all the latest productions from Privateer Media. We’ve got trailers, we’ve got behind the scenes, we’ve got short films and webseries and shorts. Occasionally, we might even have weird experimental stuff – photo galleries set to music and such things – what I’d call my French Stuff. 

Mind’s Eye Theatre Episode 2: The Home Stretch

Mind’s Eye Theatre Episode 2: The Home Stretch

Those things are out there, and it’s every man for himself. So far, Andy survived by sneaking and hiding. He doesn’t want to die – not like that – not flayed open and skinned alive. His tactics seem to be working, until he meets another survivor...Episode 2 in Peter van der Walt's illustrated short story series, Mind's Eye Theatre. The Lounge...

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Mind’s Eye Theatre Episode 2: The Home Stretch

Those things are out there, and it’s every man for himself. So far, Andy survived by sneaking and hiding. He doesn’t want to die – not like that – not flayed open and skinned alive. His tactics seem to be working, until he meets another survivor...Episode 2 in Peter...

The Story of Stories – Episode 1

Episode 1 of a casual web documentary exploring the history and development of English storytelling. Episode 1 looks at Anglo-Saxon and Middle English stories, and ends with Chaucer, Shakespeare and the Renaissance. Watch now for free - on the Peter van der Walt...

The Friend (Mind’s Eye Theatre Episode 1)

Mr. Swindley lies for a living. True, he’s a charlatan – but the people he ‘helps’ with his psychic abilities get peace of mind – so that’s fair game. But he’s latest job may reveal far darker things lurking in shadows than he ever pretended… Audio and Illustration -...

Trailer: Mind’s Eye Theatre

If you like dark short stories as well as podcasts, audiobooks or radio dramas - you'll love Mind's Eye Theatre. The Trailer for the first season is now available to view over on the YouTube Channel - link below. Mind's Eye Theatre brings together the stories of Peter...

Flash Fiction & Poetry

Stonestare

Stonestare

for shaun numbers and letters how they fail to convey the depth of your night the glow of your day a name and a date how utterly incomplete a draft of the story of your fall at my feet 'he will be missed' a rhetoric refrain imparts to us not your joy nor your pain...

The Photograph

The Photograph

I was rummaging around the backroom and found an old photograph, of me and my dad. I started crying. The picture was old and faded with age. The corners curled up or down. A cruel indent slashed across it, as if it disapproved of its own sepia colours and the memory...

Legion’s End

Legion’s End

The mists curl around you like skeletal clutches. The silence is weaponised to play on your insecurities. And in those woods are people unbelievably savage – practicing all kinds of obscene magics and worshipping vile and foreign gods. The missions to this land have...

Visiting Post

Assorted assortments & miscellany: links to external articles and guest bloggers. This regular long form feature either brings guest writers to the Extremely Foreword Platform, or takes Extremely Foreword writers to other platforms. The Visiting Post allows for some cross fertilisation and a variety of voices.

Extremely Foreword has some visits planned already. We’ll call you🙂

Visiting Post: The Aesthetics of Power

Visiting Post: The Aesthetics of Power

Power looks good, doesn’t it? Those who wear it well look great in it. You see it at Davos, where the people parade as if their forum was a catwalk. Those in the know can detect who is wearing who – you do not need to see the label to know, darling. They look good because… well… they must be good. It is not just the suits; it is the confidence....

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Visiting Post: The Aesthetics of Power

Power looks good, doesn’t it? Those who wear it well look great in it. You see it at Davos, where the people parade as if their forum was a catwalk. Those in the know can detect who is wearing who – you do not need to see the label to know, darling. They look good...

Visiting Post: The Story Of Malik Ambar

Born in 1548, a captured Ethiopian herdsman is sold as a slave in Yemen, taken to Baghdad and from there to present day India, Malik Ambar not only raised his own armies, but casually replaced kings when they became annoying. A remarkable true story that is not nearly...

Visiting Post: Scruton in the New Criterion

Pete is off sick - and likely to only be back within the next few days. In the meantime, what better way to celebrate his absence than with this top notch piece of political writing? Because there is a shortage of unsolicited political opinions online, you know....

Updates

Some New Moves For 2024

So you might remember from a previous update that I’ll be taking a break (a long, well-earned, couldn’t-get-here-soon-enough break) from this Friday until the middle of January. Next year, Extremely Foreword is expanding so that there’s more action from more sources....

2023 upDates

Supreme Lovelies, Dear Readers and Viewers, Snoopers, Tire-Kickers, Friends, Family, Brethren All... As we get toward the downslope of 2023, I can report that I am happy, and in good health, and very, very tired. 2023 has been quite the year - laying a foundation that...