Desmond Tutu, the Patron Saint of Longboard Skateboarders

Shameless self-promotion: “Board Games” is a short documentary video I did for my friend Kent Lingeveldt who runs the independent Alpha Longboards company. I just showed up at his workshop when he told me to, followed him where he told me to, and drank coffee when he told me to. The video is “a day in the life”–or “a few days in the life”–of Alpha Longboards, and of Kent himself. Kent is something of a veteran and an enigma in the Cape Town skating scene, and was one of the first longboarders on the Cape Flats. The aim was to explain what made Alpha different to other board companies; they use local wood, every board is shaped and carved by hand, and every piece of artwork is unique. Also, how many other longboard companies have Desmond Tutu as a patron?

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.