/ 26 May 2017

Where Should We Begin, Daev Martian and Roll20 are on our Lists this week

('Gloria and Grace')
('Gloria and Grace')
THE READING LIST

The Chimurenga Chronic: “We Make Our Own Food”, April 17 edition: I appreciate how reading Chimurenga makes me feel like I have never been to school, only because reading it is akin to taking a course in a deep schooling of contemporary African existentialities.

This edition features a searing editorial on food production, security and artful consumption, accompanied by an illustration of Robert Gabriel Mugabe in gumboots. It’s followed by a series of dense and meaty articles, such as the historical guide to fufu pounding by Moses März to Paula Akugizibwe’s immigration blues. She contemplates the plausibility of an African Union passport, which, if it comes into effect in 2020, might allow Africans to travel the continent without doing the rigmarole dance of bureaucracy to move between colonial borders. Anything by featured writers Stacy Hardy, Kwanele Sosibo and Shoks Mzolo is always worth the wait. (MB)

THE PLAYLIST

Where Should We Begin: I was listening to the latest episode of This American Life, one of its better ones in recent history, when, in act two of the weekly podcast, they took us into the therapy room of renowned psychologist Esther Perel as she counselled a couple whose decades-long marriage had been crumbled by infidelity. In her new podcast series, Where Should We Begin, available for download on Audible.com, she takes listeners into her rooms, where we get to hear first-hand the stories of couples as she helps them to solve their issues. Brilliant! (MB)

Daev Martian: Last Sunday afternoon, restless and moody, I tuned into Kid Fonque’s 5FM radio show Selective Styles. His featured guest was one Daev Martian, a producer and rapper, whose SoundCloud account located him somewhere in the environs of Sandton, Johannesburg. Martian has an ear for dense, floaty beats that recall the stylings of Iko or Jneiro Jarel. Martian is no biter, so I make comparisons with due respect. And this is just a note in case you were dozing. (KS)

Gloria and Grace: I have been leaning more towards films than books of late. One I recently saw, a Brazilian flick, called Gloria and Grace, about a trans woman who is called to help raise her estranged sister’s children, blew me away with its sensitive scripting and its self-contained aesthetics that make it a world within a world. (KS)

THE GAMING LIST

Roll20 isn’t a game, it’s a virtual tabletop where you play games. Sturdy, cheap, it gives you map space, moveable tokens, a dice roller and camera support. Couple extra bells and whistles if you want to fork out. Where it succeeds, and expensive emulators like Sword Coast Legends or Divinity: Original Sin 2 fail, is in tabletop’s own uncanny valley: the more elaborate the environment, the less the theatre of the mind holds sway and the more the experience palls. Forget 4k immersion, we’re fine with digital pen and paper. (Until VR or AR cracks tabletop — in which case: gimme!) (TSM)

The Lists are compiled by Friday editor Milisuthando Bongela,
arts writer Kwanele Sosibo and gaming writer @TheSerifM