This week's read is "Congo Inc.: Bismarck's Testament" by In Koli Jean Bofane, translated by Marjolijn D Jager. Alternating between satire and horror, it's an account of Congo as the playground/battleground of Western corporations and countries.

Been getting back into features lately. As much as I love well-written tv shows, IMHO features have more room to experiment formally. Look at the camera movement in "Chronicle of the Years of Fire" ('75), the play of light and shadow in "Sinners" ('25), the silence in "Morvern Callar" ('02) /1

Rutgers School of Engineering canceled a commencement speech by Rami Elghandour—an alum and executive producer of an Oscar-nominated film about Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child killed by Israel—because "some" students complained: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... His response (via X):

“We’re seeing the greatest purge of Black power since the era of Reconstruction."

Some days the writing goes well, on others it's like moving a bucket of salt with a pair of tweezers.

Tatiana and her baby boy, Thiago, are trying to find some safety and stability after Thiago’s father was detained by ICE and deported at the end of last year. Tatiana's working an unpredictable retail job while dealing with housing instability and finding childcare www.gofundme.com/f/support-ta...

Heard Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" for the first time in years and goddamn what a beautiful song. Really captures that feeling of being caught between despair and hope, of trying to find a glimmer of optimism in a crummy situation

BJP won or stole West Bengal. This is pretty ghastly

Well. We over at @scyllapublishing.bsky.social are thrilled to be working with Nicole Field @faerywhimsy.bsky.social on this. Subs open! www.scyllapublishing.com/anthology 1) Please read the submissions guidelines, and 2) While you're contemplating your sub, remember that sometimes the sapphics win!

Just saw "Colossus: The Forbin Project." It's a well-made movie from 1970, with good blocking, deep focus, multiple planes of action, proper night scene exposure, and an eye for detail. But it's also the Rosetta stone to understanding Melon Husk. /1

Happy International Workers' Day!

Wow, Mariem Hassan y'all. What an incredible voice. Love discovering new music. Gotta go find some CDs of hers. Thanks to Dr. Fatima's YT channel (which is awesome btw) for playing some of her music www.youtube.com/watch?v=83FN...

SCOTUS should be elected rather than appointed, and certainly not for life in either case. Some of my friends think that would "embroil the court in politics." When has the court NOT been embroiled in politics? Every decent decision is usually just undoing the previous terrible one (or five).

You know what's great? "One Woman One Bra," the award-winning film directed by Vincho Nchogu, casting directed by and featuring awesome Irungu Mutu, will be screening at Tribeca Film Festival in June! Grab some tickets! tribecafilm.com/films/one-wo...

After all these "cloud" sites go down, lose your data, leak your customers' data to bad actors, have AI agents eat their code, and refuse to let you off the hook for subscription fees....maybe it's time to welcome back desktop applications you can run from your office server, sitting in a closet.

The Voting Rights Act is essentially dead and it’s quite possible that we will, like when a similar SCOTUS gutted civil rights at the fall of Reconstruction, see a disappearance of much of the Black congressional representation, especially in the most heavily Black states, which are in the South.

Hey, just thinking some random thoughts about Leon Czolgosz for no reason.

Hey folks, today's a great day to pre-order "The Asterist," by the super-talented @atsayre.bsky.social!

Hey DC area peeps check out the "Sound Scene" festival May 2-3, at Hirshhorn Museum. I contributed some writiing to one of the installations, "The Future Memories Project" - by the super talented Chloe Smolarski and Tasha Darbes, performed by awesome Chinna Palmer www.soundscene.org/artworks-2026

Chiquita aka United Fruit Co, is responsible for some of the most heinous imperialist shit throughout the Americas - hiring death squads in Guatamala, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras; bribing officials; breaking strikes; exposing workers to pesticides, destroying forests historyhustle.com/united-fruit...

Oh look, one group of fasc is upset because they're upset by another group of fasc: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Anyone else on here miss "Bitch" magazine? peoplesgdarchive.org/collection/6...

The Ghorman massacre in "Andor" is a masterfully done sequence. I feel like the showrunners must have watched the similar scene from the Algerian independence struggle film "Chronicles of the Years of Fire" (1975).

One of the best movies I've seen so far this year... "Chronicles of The Years of Fire" (1975) is a about the fight for Algerian independence, from the POV of a peasant who joins the movement as the French make his life more and more intolerable. Heartbreaking, breathtaking visuals, poetric dialog.

Eugenics is part of the bedrock of all of this - RFK's "policies," the white evangelical worldview, the ethnonationalism of fascism, the ideology behind "strong borders," the GOP...

This spring is the beginning of the 10 year anniversary of so many horrible and great things, that all arrived on top of each other. Going from the job to casting a webseries to visiting mom in the hospital to taking the cat to the vet all on the same day kind of stuff

Just found out that Shelf Indulgence, used bookstore and one of my favorite places in Sarasota, will be relocating to Virginia. The wonderful staff, great selection of SFF, delicious ice coffee and sandwiches was my cocaine. I wrote most of two novels there. www.shelfindulgenceusedbooks.com

Some things I really miss: Business cards. Yes they're a PITA and often they sit in a pile after you're done with a conference. But what's replaced it is worse - an ephemeral "follow" on Insta, an app I have no control over. It's just as much work as a contact management tool if not more

Did you miss yesterday's fab talk on bodily transformation and horror in British and Irish traditional songs? Watch it here! youtu.be/Yfw6wvTFvLI

Everyone should go see Touki Bouki by Djibril Diop Mambéty. I you're looking for a good anticolonialist film, if you want to study the techniques, if you want to watch something that has a poetic heart, it'sll here.

If you don't already know about the forced sterilzation of Quechua indigenous people in Peru under the 90s Fujimori dictatorship - oh yeah, he was the CIA's "guy" in Peru, and a neoliberal shill - you should. This is an example of the eugenics project at the heart of empire building.

What we need are open borders for people. We have open borders for capital, goods, services, culture... Corporations regularly flout borders, imperial powers step over them or rewrite them with impunity.

The people who whine about "illegals" are usually descended from people who came here without papers. It's the ultimate "fuck you I got mine" ladder pull-up, devoid of compassion or introspection.

Currently reading "Bodies That Matter" by Judith Butler and am in over my head. But it's terrific reading, and it's good to stretch those thinky muscles a bit.

Fuck yeah go Hungary! My ancestors will be proud

You know what's awesome? The writers of @bsfwriters.bsky.social ! Here's a page where you can look at their bios and what they've published! www.bsfwriters.com/author-bios....

You know what's awesome? The writers of @bsfwriters.bsky.social ! Here's a page where you can look at their bios and what they've published! www.bsfwriters.com/author-bios....

The best advertisement for government support of technology was the mRNA COVID vaccines. But Kennedy and the other fasc in charge are eugenicists. They only want the gift to invest in tech that will kill or surveil people.

Thinking of the Luddites today for *some* reason First the factory owners destroyed their living, forcing them to work as wagers in terrible conditions for crap wages. They asked the govt to enforce THE LABOR LAWS ON THE BOOKS. The govt ignored them for years. THEN they burned the looms.

If you wonder why I say terrible things about the DNC, this is why. I don't expect anything less than full on sociopathy from the GOP, but I want there to be a party that actually serves us the people as opposed to a group lobbying for a genocidal government. newrepublic.com/post/208890/...

Hear me out: Baz Luhrman directs "God Emperor of Dune."

There is no ceasefire. IDF continued its attacks on Lebanon - against one of the conditions of the cease-fire. Most of the press I've read/listened to skips over that part.

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

15 people have died in ICE custody JUST THIS YEAR. That is 1 death a week. Under this regime, 2026 is set to be the deadliest year for ICE detention EVER. The need for guardrails and meaningful oversight could not be more urgent.

Note that the same turds who argued that all Palestinians are Hamas are now saying that everyone in Iran are shakira law IRGC something something... I'm sure next month they'll say Cubans are all robotically enhanced clones of Stalin. It would be funny except these are the same people shaping policy

There are some things that I should be kept as far away from as possible: 1. A label-maker 2. Pretzels 3. A drumset 4. A pile of free books I think I can control myself in most situations.

And here we are, back where we were when the writers and actors strike happened.

Not to mention mall restrictions, closing arcades, and they defunded every bit of teen programming possible at the libraries, closed all the community centers, and refuse to fund after-school and weekend events...