In my history in June 2025
I could claim this article is much shorter than the others because I haven't found anything interesting, but the truth is that I'm so melted by the heat that I've let the articles pile up without reading them. I'm not made to work in temperatures over 25°C, and it's regularly been over 35°C in Lyon, with over 31°C in my flat!
So instead I spent my month rewatching old series (I rewatched The Americans, all of Queer as Folk (UK, US, and the remake)), as well as all the Terminator films, and about a million videos on YouTube (which shows up “a bit” in my selection of the month!).
I'm not sure I'll survive the Lyon summers 🫠
Let's start with my ‘top 10’, the gems you shouldn't miss if you don't have the time to read everything!
#1
Propaganda – Rhinocéros hits the nail on the head again. Maddening, but important.#2
Reading – For Pride month, of course I read only books about LGBTQ+ topics!What I liked:
- Thank you for calling the lesbian line by Elizabeth Lovatt. It's a great book that contributes to the work of remembrance, by celebrating the everyday lives of lesbians. My favourite book of the month
- The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue. It's a lovely novel about the chaos of being in your twenties. It's about love and, above all, about friendship.
- A Gentleman's gentleman by T. J. Alexander, a lovely historical romance with a Regency-era trans lord as the main character.
- Before gender — Lost stories from trans history, 1850-1950 by Eli Erlick. I've read a good quarter of it, and so far it's not bad at all. It's 30 portraits of trans people in the past, because trans history didn't start with Caytlin Jenner 🤡
And the rest:
- I Leave It Up to You by Jinwoo Chong. I like the subject of the book: in 2021, a young man wakes up after 23 months in a coma, and has to start again from 0. Neither his husband nor his career waited for him, and he returns to live with his parents, in a godforsaken area he had fled as soon as possible. Unfortunately, I didn't like the author's style at all. I'd still recommend you give it a go, though, as it's really a question of taste rather than the quality of the book.
- Be gay, do crime: sixteen stories of queer chaos by Molly Llewellyn, Kristel Buckley, Venita Blackburn, Emily R. Austin, Anna Dorn, Temim Fruchter, Marisa Crane, Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Myriam Lacroix, Maame Blue, Francesca Ekwuyasi, Alissa Nutting, Myriam Gurba, Priya Guns, S.J. Sindu, Aurora Mattia, Soula Emmanuel et Sam Cohen. I read half the short stories, I hated eveyrthing about it, I didn't try the rest.
- Cleavage by Jennifer Finney Boylan. The title and cover make this book look good, it's a shame it doesn't exist..
#3
Reading, again – Speaking of which, here's my books page. I added it very recently, to gather my ‘reviews’ (that seems like a big word for what is often a lapidary comment 😅 ) of the books I read. I doubt it'll be very useful, but it's pretty, so I'm happy 😊#4
Ecology – Hole by hole, desertification can be reversed. By digging semi-circles in soil that is too compact for water to pass through during the rainy season, it is possible to avoid flooding, allow water to penetrate the soil and grow grass, plants and trees. The results are amazing, with minimal effort! Well, I say that because I'm not the one doing the picking, but it's good to see these kinds of solutions in the midst of all the techno-solutionist bullshit.
#5
Drowning – Every summer I share this article again: Drowning doesn't look like drowning, because it can save lives.#6
Caffeine – Among the many quirks that give my friends reason to laugh at me, there's my total and absolute love of Nescafé. Yes, that drink that's coffee in name only, and is most recognisable by its burnt tyre aftertaste. I drink 1 to 3 litres a day. I've been drinking it for years. And I'm so associated with this stuff in the minds of my mates that I was sent the link to this marvelous contraption twice on the day it was published 💚It's absolutely perfect, I want it.
The link to the model, in case you want to print it.
#7
Urbanism – Another fascinating video by Not Just Bikes#8
Slasher – Bolchegeek, interesting as always#9
Cooking – I like Doobidobap's channel very much, and I especially recommend those videos:(Yes, I relapsed, and I spent a month looking a bajillion cooking videos. Oopsie.)
#10
Masculinism – The myth of the Alpha Male, great video by Pop Culture Detective- Work – How long does a medieval worker worked every day, every week, every year? How was a workday organised? A fascinating document in the Rouen cathedral answers those questions
- Miam – Tested and validated, Piquín, a great mexican restaurant just under the Part-Dieu station. Their quesadillas are particularly fantastic.
- Midpoint – List of epicene or neutral terms in the Office québécois de la langue française's linguistic troubleshooting database. It can help! (thanks Vincent)
- Sangoku – A cool collection of Dragon Ball covers, you can almost smell the old paper through the screen!
- Linguistics – if there an arabic of France? Linguisticae is always very good. And his video on the language tests added by the "loi immigration" completes it perfectly.
- Protection – I hope you never have the use for it, but it's always good to share it as much as you can: guides to help victims of cyberviolence to protect themselves.
- Onomatopeas – How are the sounds of different animals represented in different languages? I love reading this kind of dataviz article on a topic I didn't even consider before.
- Creatures – An Abundance Of Beasts is a really funny medieval bestiary.
- Cover – I really love this cover of Can you feel my heart by Bring me the Horizon, mixed up with Nirvana's Heart-shaped boxby Fontaines DC.
- Urbanism – A plan of LA dated from before the construction of the multiple highways that divide the city was recently digitalised, and it allow us to observe how the removal of the tramway lines and the reorganisation of the city around the highways were made in a way that purposefuly discriminate the black and poor population. The article is interesting but a big frustrating, I would love to read more about it. I hope a follow-up will be published once the map has been studied more (via Julien)
- Media – Minidisc.pics, nice collection.
- Foreign exchange program – Third language
- Fuck you JKR –
- Colors – You always dreamt of having a website that looks like your favorite Pokemon? It's easy with Pokemon Palette!
- Economy – This video is 10 years old, but it hasn't aged a day:
Funny pics
