Hello! Today, as usual, fandom and politics, a film about maths and space, Tsitsi Dangarembga's classic coming-of-age novel, Italian music and a new section about stuff I've learned from. 

Article: My Little Pony Fans Are Ready to Admit They Have A Nazi Problem by Kaitlyn Tiffany, published by The Atlantic in June 2020
This article is about several things I'm interested in: online communities, weird-to-me fandoms, and the even-weirder-to-me continuing rise of neo-Nazism in both. In this case, My Little Pony fans. Their story is not dissimilar to other stories about unregulated, mostly unmoderated message or image boards: "In supposed deference to principles of free speech and openness on the internet, the presence of self-described Nazis within a fandom that idolizes compassion-oriented cartoon characters has become a coolly accepted fact." In the wake of continued BLM-protests, bronies are now taking a closer look at what they've ignored in their own fandom (including a, and I quote, "sexy" fandom pony with a swastika on its flank... okay...). This is an interesting case study at a time when bigger platforms like Reddit, Youtube and Facebook are finally reckoning with their own racism problems.

Film: Hidden Figures (2016), directed by Theodore Melfi
It's been an intense few weeks in my household, so I've been watching the audiovisual equivalent of comfort food. That means that after a break of several months, Supernatural is back on my screen and in my heart (yes, it is Bad but I'm on season 10 [yikes] and need to know what happens to the Mark of Cain). And I've been watching films about space. I love films about space. This is mostly because I love nerds, and space is full of maths. And sometimes, adventures. I love watching films where someone dramatically solves an equation on a huge blackboard, especially when my partner offers a running commentary on it all. Inspired by (though not wholly accurate about) real events, Hidden Figures is the story of three black mathematicians who made major contributions to the NASA space programme in the 1960s: Katherine Johnson (formerly Goble), Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. All worked in different capacities to help send an American to space, doing some impressive maths, engineering, and computational work along the way. Their story is great and super rewatchable. I do wish it hadn't been directed/written by someone who included an invented scene of white saviourism in the film though.

Book: Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988)
I used to think that the bookshops in my hometown weren't particularly good because they didn't carry a lot of Anglophone books. Then I grew up and realised that they're just fine, I just had to get over my fixation on the Anglo-American hegemony. And anyway, more often than not I do come across an Anglophone book that I really want to read and never thought I'd find here. Last Saturday that was This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga. I'd been considering ordering it from the US for a while because it is the long-awaited sequel to Nervous Conditions, a stone-cold classic that I love. Nervous Conditions is a bildungsroman told from the perspective of Tambudzai, a young girl growing up in, and coming to terms with, a Zimbabwean society shaped by British colonialism and patriarchal structures. After her brother's death (iconic first sentence: "I was not sorry when my brother died"), Tambu takes his place at school. At first delighted to escape the hard work and small world of her home, she soon struggles to reconcile her new, Western education with her growing awareness of injustice. Tambu is one of the most compelling protagonists I've encountered (don't you just love teenage narrators?), and Nervous Conditions has it all: it's funny and thoughtful, with issues of gender, class, culture and race explored in a classic story of a young person growing up and finding herself.

Learning: The YIKES Podcast ep 2: Can lifestyle change save the planet? by Mikaela Loach and Jo Becker
I thought I could start sharing whatever resources I've learned from this week. For a while now I've been thinking a lot about what approaches we stress when we talk about the climate crisis, and how green capitalism encourages the same behavioural patterns of consumption – but now supposedly sustainable! – that got us into this mess in the first place. There've been so many t-shirts with "all proceeds going to charity", but how many of those proceeds went to the workers who made the t-shirts, and do we ever really need another t-shirt? (Even if that t-shirt says Change Hockey Culture?) At the same time I've been trying to work through my own approach to the climate crisis, which has been focused on energy and fossil fuel consumption with a side serving of food (thanks to some formative years working in a science museum); I've been less aware of other contributing factors and I certainly haven't done much more than police my personal behaviour and vote for and financially support Green parties. The second episode of the YIKES podcast helped me think through some of these issues.

Other: Volare! Canzoni italiane degli anni '50
With apologies to my Italian friends: I've been listening to this compilation of Italian music a lot and it's been a total delight.

That's it! Tell me what you loved this week and take care!