His full name uses an astounding 22 letters of the English alphabet. Can you spot the four letters not used? Hint: They correspond to four NYC subway lines. Wheel of Fortune would have to go to commercial break if Vanna were to turn over all those letters. His name looks like snippets of text from the Kryptos sculpture in front of the CIA building in Langley. Maybe he's the clue to decoding the text that is still encrypted.
When the story broke about the kids and their guide trapped in the cave in Thailand we learned that the name of the leader of Thailand is: King Maha Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayyavarangkun, an name that uses a puny 15 letters of the alphabet and seems almost pronounceable by even newscaster Ted Knight on the Mary Tyler Moore show.
As always, we learn things from obituaries. What does Ladysmith Black Mambazo mean? Well, Ladysmith is a city in the Uthukela District of South Africa, and Black Mambazo means "black ax" in Zulu. You have to wonder how big are the birth certificates in South Africa, or how big the window envelopes are to accommodate a full name like Joseph's. It is no wonder it was shortened just a bit.
Ladysmith itself has a story behind it.
On 11 October 1850 the [city's] name was changed to Ladysmith after Juana María de los Dolores de León Smith, also known as "Lady Smith," the Spanish wife of Sir Harry Smith, the Governor of the Cape Colony. Sir Harry Smith was the British general governor of Cape Colony and high commissioner in South Africa from 1847 to 1852
Johnny Cash's song "One Piece at a Time" told the tale of a GM worker sneaking out enough parts over the years (1949-1970) to build his own auto. However, there were so many parts from so many styles and years of GM autos over the years that Johnny tells us it took the whole staff at the DMV to type out a title that weighed 60 pounds. (Perhaps an exaggeration.)
Ladysmith's association with Paul Simon is duly noted. And there might be those who remember the kerfuffle that veteran civil rights leaders like Harry Belafonte caused by accusing Simon of exploiting Zulu, black music, for white people.
A anti-Simon campaign was launched. I distinctly remember a black student wearing a Harvard sweatshirt who was on TV criticizing the "theft" of African music.
It was embarrassing for these people, because all Simon was doing was exporting great music to a wider audience. Ladysmith was already quite well known outside the United States at the time. The obituary duly notes Joseph embracing Paul Simon when he approached Ladysmith to collaborate with him on the Grammy Award winning album 'Graceland': "He came to me like a child asking his father, 'Can you teach me something?' He was so polite. That was my first time to to hug a white man."
Lucky for us, the death of Mr. Shabalala does not mean the end of Ladysmith. Three of his sons are part of the group.
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