While doing some war reading, I came across this stunning little note:

"In December, 1941, in siege-bound Leningrad, Druskin, ill and starving, along with Kharms’s second wife Maria Malich, trudged across the city to Kharms’s bombed-out apartment building to take charge of a trunk full of manuscripts."

Druskin & Malich's actions saved the #poetry of two others from utter eradication...

But what a staggeringly human act: to strive to save the best of what we create, even amid the worst of it.

*Finally* caught up on all paid tasks. Good grief, were those weighing on me.

After feeling behind on everything for weeks, I'm going to approach the newsletter with a clean slate. I have many drafts in queue, but I don't like any of them, and stressing over them just makes it worse. Will post something nice, simple, and accessible next, then rewrite the tough ones this weekend.

Also:

If anyone else is going without something for the next few weeks: Cheers! May it be a good reset for us all.

🙃 Remember, kids:

"Mejor estar solo que mal acompañado."

(Better to be alone than in bad company.)

Kindergarten rules are in effect tomorrow.
It's not V-Day here in Colombia, but anyone who wants one is getting a card.

(😁 I hope you like #NudiPics!)

I take back everything I said in today's newsletter.* Maybe some good could come out of sensational reporting after all!

*Just kidding, of course, but if this sensationalism keeps some of the creeps away, good! Last night I read a report on the uptick of child sex trafficking in Medellín for foreigners that had my blood boiling.

I was looking through a log I'd kept two years ago while doing therapeutic fasting to kick Long Covid, and for the meals during my adjustment to normal eating thereafter.

It was a nice reminder of how I'd been living at my kindest to myself.

After a year of reduced living, I need to rebuild that way of being. Aim to believe in a future, and act like it here and now.

Not easy, when there's strange comfort in routines for coping, rather than thriving.

But something to strive for, all the same.

Perennial reminder that I love every grouchy, prickly, pre-caffeinated, post-inebriated, overworked, frayed-nerved, driven to fury &/or despair by the state of the world, ready to pick a fight at the drop of a hat just to feel something again... bit of you wonderful rotters.

We work well here because we don't expect perfection, and we try to meet people where they are one day at a time.

#WeBeTheHumans, as one of our sages says.

I hope you're all living well in your stinkin' meatsacks today. 💛

Fire update:

The nasty burn smoke is gone (I think it was tar at the build site), but the fire has spread up from its original source, and sparked another fire downwind. This lighter fire type will burn out overnight, but it definitely sucks for those living in the smokeline for now.

Okay, today's mountain fire is more dangerous. Started on a built-up property, accounting for the range of cloud smoke. Firefighters zipped out, but we'll see what else is set alight soon enough.

Walkies (not in that direction), then sending off two paid pieces.

Some newsletters just aren't fun to post.

This is one of two pieces I've been dragging on--not because they're not important, but because they're depressing.

Today, I talk about why we have a responsibility not to be shocked when legacy media chooses gamified coverage over any real duty to provide civilians with the tools to make informed assessments of the world.

We talk propaganda here, in war and peacetime alike - and how hard it is for civilians to rise above it.

https://open.substack.com/pub/mlclark/p/the-problem-with-expecting-truth

Going to one of my (many) happy places.

Join me in watching John Oliver chat about human catastrophe while eating hot wings. 🔥

https://youtu.be/p-3HZggJzwk