The Checkout Counter #19
May 2024
Delicious in Dungeon
The Palestine Laboratory
History of Shit
Books
- Delicious in Dungeon (ダンジョン飯), Ryoko Kui (tr. Taylor Engel)ryoko kui's art style is so charming. a rich, funny, and lovingly illustrated story that coalesces its themes of food, nourishment, and desire in a wonderfully succinct way.
Comic, adventure, fantasy. To save money, an adventuring party starts cooking and eating the dungeon monsters they come across. - The Palestine Laboratory, Antony Loewenstein"The September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington turbocharged Israel's defense sector and internationalized the war on terror that the Jewish state had been fighting for decades. On the night of the attack, former Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked on American TV what the attacks had meant for relations between the two nations. 'It's very good,' he immediately said. He quickly corrected himself: 'Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.'"
Nonfiction. Details how Israel uses Palestine as a testing ground for new munitions and surveillance technology, then exports them across the globe. - History of Shit (Histoire de la merde), Dominique Laporte (tr. Nadia Benabid and Rodolphe el-Khoury)"Dominique Laporte's History of Shit ties the concept of the individual to the fate of human waste and (…) the history of shit becomes the history of subjectivity. This conflation of the 'highest' forms of consciousness with the 'basest' of human products is examined in various instances of discourse and practice, language and experience. The subtitle to the French edition, 'Prologue,' frames the book as a beginning—a prehistory to modernity and the modern subject." — from the introduction by rodolphe el-khoury
this would pair well with fabiola lópez-durán's eugenics in the garden, with the through line of "clean" equating to "civilized", and how sanitation alters architecture and whole communities.
Nonfiction, history, philosophy. Offers a unique perspective of history and the construction of modern civilization, in which the development of sanitation and managing of human waste are pivotal to how we live today.
Short fiction
- the terrible thing at the edge of the lake, Ave Wiseman
- poltergeist (ghost girl), Ave Wiseman
Games
- the sea god, Christine Mi
Bitsy, narrative. Follow a dead god into the depths. - THE CREASE, isyourguy
Visual novel. Tina needs a change.
Articles & essays
- Ghost in a Rhetorical Machine, Zhanpei Fang