Blanc autour

Read Blanc autour by Wilfrid Lupano

1832, Canterbury. Dans cette petite ville du Connecticut, l’institutrice Prudence Crandall s’occupe d’une école pour filles. Un jour, elle accueille dans sa classe une jeune noire, Sarah. La population blanche locale voit immédiatement cette « exception » comme une menace. Même si l’esclavage n’est plus pratiqué dans la plupart des États du Nord, l’Amérique blanche reste hantée par le spectre de Nat Turner : un an plus tôt, en Virginie, cet esclave noir qui savait lire et écrire a pris la tête d’une révolte sanglante.
Pour les habitants de Canterbury, instruction rime désormais avec insurrection. Ils menacent de retirer leurs filles de l’école si la jeune Sarah reste admise. Prudence Crandall les prend au mot et l’école devient la première école pour jeunes filles noires des États-Unis, trente ans avant l’abolition de l’esclavage.

Trente ans avant la fin de l’esclavage au Sud, et en pleine ségrégation au Nord des États-Unis, Prudence Crandall, au Connecticut, accueille des jeunes étudiantes noires. Et je suppose que je ne surprendrai personne en disant que ça ne se passe pas très bien. Mon ami Loïc m’a prêté plusieurs BDs de Lupano, et celle-ci…

Do people IRL know you have a blog?

Replied to Do people IRL know you have a blog? by bacardi55bacardi55 (bacardi55.io)

Yet another non usual technical blog post today… But something I have been thinking about for a few weeks… So I thought that writing it here might get it out of my system (and maybe raise intersting responses). Maybe with the reply july challenge (even though I’m not officially participating),…

Not only do people IRL know I have a blog, but I don’t let them forget it. I’m extremely obnoxious about the upsides of having a personal blog and wanting us all to use RSS feeds and comment sections and/or webmentions. More importantly, I use my blog as a repository of answers to conversations or…

Superhuman Industrial

Played Superhuman Industrial and Immaterial, Incorporated by Written by Linda H. Codega (@_linfinn) with Mandy Szewczuk (@junketss) for the #BeyondSupersJam hosted by riley rethal (@jaceaddax). (itch.io)

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

Read Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista

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

Read Nickel boys by Colson Whitehead

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

Read Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad

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…