| | | 'It's a violent time to be human': Hurray for the Riff Raff on making joyful music under fire | | by Rachel Aroesti Dec 30, 2021 | | Self-described ‘nature punk’ Alynda Lee Segarra turned to the natural world for solace during lockdown – in 2022, they will return with an album that tackles climate catastrophe yet brims with hope Alynda Lee Segarra is practising radical joy. The musician – better known as Hurray for the Riff Raff – has decided to embrace happiness in spite of this era’s particular horrors. “This is a violent time to be a human – it’s kind of always a violent time to be a human,” they explain over Zoom from their airy New Orleans home. “How do we stay present, how do we intensely feel joy, and not just the crushing weight of it all?” The answer is trees. “We’re hit with hurricanes every year yet plant life is thriving. It was very comforting to look at these living beings and be like: ‘I don’t know how to survive this. How the fuck do you survive this?’” they say, recounting pandemic-induced walks around their lush local landscape. Growing up in a cramped apartment in the Bronx, New York City, they felt the natural world was reserved for “very wealthy people who go on elaborate vacations. It felt like a class divide.” Now, plants aren’t just offering Segarra strength and solace – they’re also helping them craft a whole new genre. Continue reading... | | | | | Romantic fiction writers creating a more diverse happily ever after | | by Aamna Mohdin Dec 30, 2021 | | How book-loving communities on social media are helping authors break barriers to become bestsellers Talia Hibbert was rewatching a Spider-Man film and eating a meal in her living room when she received life-changing news. Her romance novel Act Your Age, Eve Brown, which she wrote at the beginning of the pandemic, had entered the New York Times bestseller list. The lighthearted romantic comedy, published this year, follows the escapades of a young black British woman who crashes into the life of an uptight B&B owner. Continue reading... | | | | | Cop by Valentin Gendrot review – a searchlight in the Paris police | | by Houman Barekat Dec 30, 2021 | | Gendrot’s account of his time undercover as a support officer in France reveals a force beset by racism, machismo and misogyny When Valentin Gendrot applied for a job with the Paris police in 2017, he didn’t expect to get through the vetting process. A thorough background check would have revealed that Gendrot, then aged 29, was an investigative journalist who specialised in exposing dubious working practices: he had previously worked undercover at a call centre, a debt recovery agency and a car plant. His application was, however, successful and he began a two-year stint as an adjoint de sécurité (ADS), a position roughly equivalent to a police community support officer in the UK. Things got off to an underwhelming start when, on completing the obligatory three months’ training, he was assigned to a dreary posting at a mental health facility, charged with transporting patients from one psychiatric unit to another. After 15 months in this role he earned a transfer to Paris’s notoriously restive 19th arrondissement, where he was finally able to experience front-line policing. Continue reading... | | | | | The best movies of 2021 … that you didn't see | | by Simran Hans, Jordan Hoffman, Radheyan Simonpillai, Adrian Horton, Steve Rose, Pamela Hutchinson, Lisa Wong Macabasco, Benjamin Lee, Peter Bradshaw , Andrew Pulver and Guy Lodge Dec 30, 2021 | | Guardian writers pick their favourite hidden gems from the year including a jumpy supernatural thriller and a tender queer romance Makwa (Phoenix Wilson) may smoke cigarettes and wear a tough-guy leather jacket, but his face betrays the soft, doughy features of a preteen boy. Alternately neglected and beaten by his father, he’s an emotionally inarticulate knot of coiled rage. Cruelty is learned behaviour. The idea, that those who experience trauma are destined to repeat the cycle, is at the centre of the sinewy debut feature from Indigenous American writer-director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. In the film, Makwa, a young Ojibwe boy living on a reservation in Wisconsin, commits a violent crime and escapes the consequences. When we revisit him as an adult, this time portrayed with icy detachment by a transfixing Michael Greyeyes, he’s reinvented himself. Living in Los Angeles, with an office job and a blonde wife, he’s attempted to scrub himself of the culture he grew up around. But generational trauma leaves a stain. Simran Hans Continue reading... | | | | | | | |
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