The writers who let you watch them write
Werber’s cathedral of strings, Auster’s blue notebook, Tesson’s cabin on the Baikal. On the books that put the writing desk inside the frame, and on what it would take to sit down at one.
By Malak Yacoubi
The Latest
PowerPoint Slides and Other Small Absurdities
A meditation on kittens, capitalism and the bluish colour of veins, and what is left when life stops being a list of milestones.
By Ghita Benhayoune
“Mamma Mia,” is Too Much Actually Too Much Or The Bare Minimum ?
Your girlfriend deserves a proposal like Malak Yacoubi’s, and I will personally hunt you down to the ends of Greece if you don’t give her her Mamma Mia moment.
By Rania Kettani
Zurich Strava Podium Snatcher Runs Triathlon Barefoot
Known on Strava for snatching the podiums on the hardest segments around, Alessandro Motta lined up at the Zurich City Triathlon chasing a real one. A wrong turn cost him a minute; a blown tyre, four kilometres from the bike finish, cost him the rest. Instead of stopping, he ran it barefoot. Interview with Rania Kettani.
By Rania Kettani
Extreme heatwave, an ex advisor to the prime minister & other art shenanigans
By Anas Ben Mejdoub
July 2: Paris is ablaze and every face I meet on Saint-Sauveur street looks like melting wax. I lock my lime bike and make my way to Halo, where César is organizing the second Parisian edition of Bodéga. He’s showing Elias Loudiyi, a 25-year-old French-Moroccan artist, fresh out of Beaux-Arts de Paris. More than one person taking themself seriously in the art world told me he’s a good artist.
It’s 19:00 and I just arrived at Halo, an eclectically classy restaurant. I’m an hour late to the show, yet I am the first one to arrive. César tells me that one hour late is too early in Paris, but I am happy for my disregard for french manners, because I got Elias all to myself for the better part of the next hour. We sit in front of this giant painting he made. A scene where a middle aged man appearing to be his father’s uncle is quarrelling with three young kids playing on the ground, somewhere in rural Morocco decades ago. He explains how his art is an expression of time, of family, of things around the history of his father, of his own.
Business
A Two Year Race To Record Every Human Move.
We’re at the stage of the future where our species seems to be moving past privacy concern all together for the sake of no longer doing exhausting chores. One company will clean your apartment for free in exchange for the footage. In more than 50 countries, the same trade is now being made by the hour.
By James
African VC returns are up
Eleven exits, realised multiples of up to five times, and, rarest of all, actual cash back in investors' pockets.
By James
Scipio Networks signs with Thales
A young German defence-software company, Scipio Networks, has agreed to plug its military-logistics platform into a Thales command system: a Franco-German tie-up aimed at closing the gap between what commanders plan and what their supply lines can actually deliver.
Written by James