Alex
pride is not a riot.
les poubelles
Superhuman Industrial
The city of Middleport is a well-known hub for superheroes – not least of all because the Stormsign Initiative is based out of the Uptown Spire! It’s pretty cool, honestly, watching all these superheroes do their thing. And you might not be super-powered, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of the action.
Lucky you, you’re an employee at Superhuman Industrial and Immaterial, Inc., a supercorp dealing with everything that goes into the production of being a superhero – from costume design to public opinion research, SIII does it all.
Type: solo RPG, 1d6. I haven’t played solo RPGs in ages, and I finally just bought dice and a set of cards, allowing me to start playing again. I decided to start exploring my new collection with Superhuman Industrial, which is played with 1d6 and something to record your story (in my case, a markdown…
Some people need killing: a memoir of murder in my country
Journalist Patricia Evangelista came of age in the aftermath of a street revolution that forged a new future for the Philippines. Three decades later, in the face of mounting inequality, the nation discovered the fragility of its democratic institutions under the regime of strongman Rodrigo Duterte.
Some People Need Killing is Evangelista’s meticulously reported and deeply human chronicle of the Philippines’ drug war. For six years, Evangelista chronicled the killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of Duterte’s war on drugs—a war that has led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of fear created when an elected president decides that some lives are worth less than others.
Around the world: Philippines Are you wondering why I read a 500-page book on government-sanctioned murder in the Philippines? Me too. Here, Patricia Evangelista tells us about her story as a journalist covering crime scenes. She weaves it with President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. The man said a dealer or addict didn’t deserve to…
Nickel boys
Dans la Floride ségrégationniste des années 1960, le jeune Elwood Curtis prend très à coeur le message de paix de Martin Luther King. Prêt à intégrer l’université pour y faire de brillantes études, il voit s’évanouir ses rêves d’avenir lorsque, à la suite d’une erreur judiciaire, on l’envoie à la Nickel Academy, une maison de correction qui s’engage à faire des délinquants des « hommes honnêtes et honorables « . Sauf qu’il s’agit en réalité d’un endroit cauchemardesque, où les pensionnaires sont soumis aux pires sévices.
Elwood trouve toutefois un allié précieux en la personne de Turner, avec qui il se lie d’amitié. Mais l’idéalisme de l’un et le scepticisme de l’autre auront des conséquences déchirantes.
J’ai fait une pure Alex en oubliant que j’avais déjà lu Harlem Shuffle de Colson Whitehead et que je ne l’avais pas aimé. Du coup, sur une recommandation glanée dans un article ou podcast quelconque, j’ai récupéré Nickel Boys. Je peux donc vous confirmer que le problème n’était pas l’auteur. Ce n’était pas la traduction,…
Enter Ghost
After years away from her family’s homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. While Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new.
When Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, she joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Soon, Sonia is rehearsing Gertrude’s lines in classical Arabic with a dedicated group of men who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, all want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer and the warring intensifies, it becomes clear just how many obstacles stand before the troupe. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home.
Around the world: Palestine I picked up this book in a bundle of many other books and I didn’t remember which. The cover of this novel is incredibly old-school, which only added to my confusion since I knew I had gotten mostly bundles from 2023 and 2024. It took me about three-quarters of the book…
Récap de juin 2024 / June 2024 in review
It’s been an intense month − again! The month included a lot of documentation triage, so more papers & blog posts links than usual. This trend should keep going for another ~8 months if I manage to keep this rhythm (which is unlikely). During the month of June, here’s some stuff that happened: I went…
En compagnie des hommes
Un virus mortel et incurable a mis l’espèce humaine face au danger de l’extinction. Baobab, arbre premier, arbre éternel, arbre symbole de grande sagesse, prend la parole et réveille la mémoire de l’humanité. Sous son ombre fraîche, hommes, femmes, enfants pris dans la tourmente, combattants farouches pour la survie, vont confier leur lutte contre les ravages d’Ebola : le docteur en combinaison d’astronaute qui, jour après jour, soigne les malades sous une tente ; l’infirmière sage-femme dont les gestes et l’attention…
Around the world + MyReadingChallenge54 : Côte d’ivoire C’est plus un recueil de nouvelles qu’un roman, une collection de vignettes toutes autour d’Ebola. Il y a l’homme qui perd sa fiancée, l’enfant qui perd ses parents, les parents qui perdent leur enfant. Il y a les singes et les arbres et les chauves-souris. Il y…
yes to a happy internet
Jay has a recent post up called “Not The Sort Of Person I Want To Be Online“, and it strikes pretty close to home. It’s worth the click, in my opinion. It opens with:
It would be so so easy for me to open my blog editor every week and vent and rant about the state of the world. About how crazy…