Hello Mastodon, After a few months break, I'm back to posting/tooting here under a new username. Here are some quick updates followed by my intro! TLDR: I'm a dad now, we're moving back to the UK, the TFTT pod has grown into a FTP media ecosystem, I'm struggling with a renewed severe depression over Gaza, I finished my PhD, and I'm writing my first book. And after those updates I've written an #Introduction of meself to those of you who don't know me.
So here goes
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Listen to this episode from The Fire These Times: Voices from the Periphery on Spotify. For episode 160, Dana El Kurd, Fabien Goa and Elia Ayoub are joined by Nikesh Shukla to discuss his book 'Brown Baby: A Memoir of Race, Family and Home' which the three of us read with Gaza on our mind (although it was written in 2021 and is not on Palestine). More broadly, we talked about what it's like to raise a brown kid in a world where racialized lives are easily disposable. On Brown Baby: From the editor of The Good Immigrant. We have to believe in hope in these dark uncertain times. Hope brings us together. How do you find hope and even joy in a world that is racist, sexist and facing climate crisis? How do you prepare your children for it, but also fill them with all the boundlessness and eccentricity that they deserve and that life has to offer? Nikesh Shukla explores themes of racism, feminism, parenting and our shifting ideas of home. This heartbreaking, compelling, intensely relatable memoir is a love letter to the author’s late mother – who passed away just before his eldest daughter was born – and to his two young daughters. In Brown Baby, Shukla examines, with humour and sharp, beautiful prose, how to raise the next generation with a sense of joy in an often bleak world. The best way to support The Fire These Times is to: Become a member of our Patreon at Patreon.com/firethesetimes. With a monthly or yearly subscription, you get perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the video and book clubs, merch and more. Leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. This allows us to show up on these platforms in the first place. Tell your friends and enemies about it. Credits: Host(s): Dana El Kurd, Fabien Goa and Elia J. Ayoub Producer: Elia J. Ayoub Guest: Nikesh Shukla Music: Rap and Revenge Sound editor: Mae-Li Evans (May-Lee) Episode designer: Elia J. Ayoub Team profile pics: Molly Crabapple Original TFTT design: Wenyi Geng TFTT Transcripts: Antidotezine
Now some quick intros:
What's your name or preferred username? Elia Ayoub. I used to go by a different first name, but it's now Elia, pronounced E-lee-yah (like Elia Suleiman, the director). Not Elia as in Ee-lie-a, although that's fine too. You can also call me Gandalf the Awkward, but that would be awkward. 10/?
What kind of music do you enjoy? I have a boring answer here as it's almost anything. I go through phases, like a normal millennial.
Do you have any pets? If so, what kind? Two dogs, the annoying kind.
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Elia Ayoub (he/him)