🙃 Taxi strike continues to cause blockages on one side of the highway, and on the other... there's a vallenato band hired for a party in my building.

The following is just a clip of the music, not the horn tooting that comes and goes in waves. Wish me luck for writing tonight!

Still rough on the highway, with smoke in the air and a two-way jam in its vicinity.

But a good walk all the same. And I love my tiendas del barrio. If I need just *one* egg, e.g. for baking? 600 pesos (~19 cents CDN) and I'm on my way. 🥳

Tomorrow I'll be working at the office, designing art & promo for my podcast series, and bringing the "exotic" treat of peanut butter cookies.

For now?

One class, then back to writing. 👌🏻

Night, CoSo! Try not to burn down the barrio with your cooking! 🙃

This is usually around when the cows in my neighbourhood head home, but... 🤔 some grazers just look a little different, you know? #Nature #Colombia

Today's walking episode comes from the LRB, on the "new normal" in Kyiv.

We humans are so dangerously resilient. It's fascinating how we acclimate to disaster. In Lebanon in another era, people would go out clubbing unsure if they'd return, and dance their hearts outs while they could. In Colombia, people still cross themselves before trips because there was a time when one couldn't safely travel.

We form the most striking coping mechanisms for the trauma of our times.

https://pca.st/episode/8b87334c-f826-4c3d-adc9-518dbb5f9207

Fire on the highway, out near the military base. 🤔 There were plenty of strikers making sancocho (a rich soup) in giant pots over open fires a couple of hours ago. Quite possibly a blaze started by lunch.

Time for a quick walk, but in the opposite direction.

New #BugFriend to help me with the work today. #AmWriting #Nature

And a strike parade! What an exciting morning. 😄 Never a dull moment here.

Oh yeah, definitely a traffic slow-down here. The other side of the highway has police with the taxi blockade, and truck drivers are tooting in solidarity as they come past.

What's neat is how this affects local attitudes. All kinds of things can impact your daily workflow here, so how on Earth could people ever think it's entirely their fault if something doesn't work out?

There's so much grace for individual setback in a culture acutely aware of the broader fact of struggle. Dura la vuelta.

Today there's a taxi strike. I *think* these fellows are participating in a traffic slow-down. The police just touched base with them about protocols for what they could & could not do re: blocking the lanes, then went on their way.

Protests & strikes... are complicated here. They can get intense & dirty, with ESMAD brutality at times, but they are also sewn into the fabric of real democracy in a way North Americans sometimes forget.

Todos somos humanos, y el pueblo unido jamás será vencido. 💪

A lovely episode of Vibe Check asks each host for their "modern scripture": texts from the last few years they find themselves returning to for comfort, strength, or clarity.

What a great exercise. I might link to a couple of pieces myself, but what about you? What texts do you find yourself returning to these days?

(& yes, if it's literal scripture, that's welcome here. I hope it surprises no one that this secular humanist talks Bible verse with locals too.)

#Podcasts
https://pca.st/episode/ee75ba4d-671c-4d2d-8b4a-1378ce64c1f7

Morning CoSo. 💫🍵

Lovely day starting here, with cars on the highway making that special soft sound only a little glisten of rain can bring about. Just headed out for a light run.

Hope it's a good one, wherever you are.

The writing life.

Do YOU know where it will take you?

#JustSayNo #NotEvenOnce

Writer Me: *noodling along*

Pragmatic Me: So we're agreed then. This novel gets finished & then we're off fiction for a while.

WM: *nods* Except SFF reviews.

PM: Technically nonfiction, so yes.

WM: And this is so we can focus on articles about more urgent issues for the next bit?

PM: Exactly. Especially with our markets being--

WM: Say! Does this mean we can write that experimental anti-memoir we talked about?

PM: ...

PM: I don't think--

WM: *waving a notebook* Here's Chapter 1!

PM: 🤦🏻

The new students are adorable. A very sweet and nervous couple ready to learn.

Also, I managed to run into *more* possible students in the elevator, but we'll see if they work out.

I don't usually take on so many new students all at once, but, eh, times are tight. If my whole apartment building starts speaking English by year's end, so be it. 👌

(Now back to writing!)

(There will be more long essays from me soon, via Substack newsletter upgrades!)

While looking for materials for students I'm onboarding tonight (first time teaching a couple!), I came across a notebook where I'd written a massive essay about initial experiences in Colombia, back in January 2018. What a whirlwind of a trip.

In some ways, it was a better start than my *actual* migration in February. Then, I would have an awful final night in Canada, & trip into violence my first weekend back in Bogotá. Not great.

My prep trip was full of better memories of culture shock. 💛

Afternoon, folks!

This week's #Newsletter touches on two recent news items in literary publishing: the "small fry" of the Prosecraft debacle (involving author data scraping), and the big news of Simon & Schuster's acquisition by private equity firm KKR.

We have the vocabulary to talk about data scraping. But where is our conversation around the much bigger issue of *asset* scraping, which plagues our industry and so many others?

#BetterWorldsTheory #Publishing #Finance https://mlclark.substack.com/p/the-deeper-financial-grift-behind

😂 I got home and had power back and...

My classes cancelled. One still partying, one caught in traffic on the way back from a lovely weekend out of town. Okay!

Currently watching a movie on my "To Watch When I'm In The Right Mental Space" list, Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Man, I love Frances McDormand when she gets to play tough-as-nails characters.

#CoSoFilms

This is a very good episode of This American Life. Using one family with a complex range of Ukrainian and Russian cultural touchstones, the "eight fights" described here, taking place around Russia's invasion of Ukraine, illustrate key facets of human nature that make even people closest to the violence (*especially* those closest to the violence) struggle to be heard by one another. Human behaviour makes it difficult for us to accept some truths, let alone act on them.

https://pca.st/episode/cb645056-a7d7-4436-961d-0220bd24c44c

Working at the mall is so strange.

I usually have such difficulty writing with noise, but here it's all around me, and... my workflow is different, for sure, but I think something about being on higher alert actually means being a bit more "on" in my writing.

Either way:

Time to stand, stretch, nibble, and switch over to another project before heading home.

Will there be power at home for my evening classes? We shall see! (Someone shake an 8-Ball for me!)