[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNWagG9U5Vg&w=500&h=300&rel=o]

“Who is the President of the United States of America?”  Side-splitting Nigerian comedy skit.

* The French clothing label, Africa is the Future. Including old man Melvin Van Peebles representing.

* Damon Galgut’s new novel, “In A Strange Land,” reviewed in The Guardian.  (Galgut’s made The Booker shortlist).

* There’s money to be made from gay weddings in South Africa. No surprises that is all about who can get married. It’s all about class and color. [The New York Times]

* If you’re in Cape Town, South Africa, next month diarize the annual Pan African Space Station music festival (September 12-October 12). Detroit dj Theo Parrish is scheduled to make an appearance. Good move.

* An excerpt from Andie Miller’s new book about walking in South Africa. In Hillbrow in inner city Johannesburg. Of course there’s nothing special about walking for the majority of South Africans (working class, mainly black, people), but everyone should be doing it. [EDIT: From Andie Miller: “A small correction–though I’ve just launched my collection of 34 ‘stories about walking,’ the Hillbrow piece isn’t an extract from the book … it’s just a review of the Goethe Institute’s X Homes project which was on a few weeks ago during the World Cup.]

Further Reading

The people want to breathe

In Tunisia’s coastal city of Gabès, residents live in the shadow of the phosphate industry. As pollution deepens and repression returns, a new generation revives the struggle for life itself.

After Paul Biya

Cameroon’s president has ruled for over four decades by silence and survival. Now, with dynastic succession looming and no clear exit strategy, the country teeters between inertia and implosion.

Leapfrogging literacy?

In outsourcing the act of writing to machines trained on Western language and thought, we risk reinforcing the very hierarchies that decolonization sought to undo.