All right, #Trekkies. 🖖

I really wanted to re-watch the latest episode before posting, but 'twas not to be.

Nonetheless, we dive into a lovely musical of an episode this time on #StrangeNewWorlds. In it, we explore the role of play in our lives, recognize that harmony requires the celebration of difference, and... embrace the collapse of not one but *two* alternate realities within this very silly but also *deeply* #StarTrek improbability field.

#Humanism
https://onlysky.media/mclark/singin-in-the-subspace-rhapsody-music-and-the-quest-for-harmony/

My apartment tower had the rotten luck to malfunction on a holiday weekend. This first weekend of Feria de las Flores has a Monday holiday (for the Battle of Boyacá in 1819, a critical victory for Colombian independence in Simon Bolívar's fight for what was then Nueva Granada), so everyone's been off celebrating flower fairs and similar. The emergency mechanics in this city have been too busy to show up.

So... no power yet! Another day in the mall. Hope I can still pull off online meetings! 🤞🏻

Still no power! 😭

Well, I have a candle! And a notebook! And some books in Spanish I still haven't finished reading! 💪🏻 Annnd myyy braiiin! 😬

(Okay, 3/4 ain't bad.)

Will get back to your lovely messages tomorrow. Thank you! Must conserve data & battery for the rest of the night. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, imagine that I died in classic slasher-film style: the kind of gripping departure from this plane of existence only really possible back when we had nothing but landlines to cut. 😱🔪😉

Before the pandemic, we had vegetarian bouillon cubes. Then, in pandemic, the distribution systems massively shifted. Instapots etc that didn't get to North America in time for Christmas were dumped in Latin American markets. And veg flavours were refocused to meet North American demand.

*Specialty* veg products started showing up randomly, but veggie cubes haven't returned. (Pollo reigns.)

I do fine without, but you only realize what you're missing when a RARE SIGHTING shows up in the wild. 😅

Thank you again, lovely CoSo.

All of July, I was feeling deeply saddened by the decision to put a huge part of my identity to bed - for a while, at least.

When I did this with academia, it broke my heart. & yet... my research skills showed up again in future labours. One day, too, I *will* turn my dissertation into a pop-sci history of stellar evolution in the 19th century.

Similarly, I feel like a weight's been lifted--in novel writing, & in articles.

Life keeps on keepin' on.
We do, too. 💪

Whew. A reader shared some comics by the cartoonist Ron Cobb (1960s, 1970s), and it is both clarifying and heartbreaking how many of these still reflect politics today. We're not exactly fighting new battles, eh?

http://www.roncobb.net/cartoons.html

(Warning: some of the comics are more graphic, including lynchings and scenes of extreme deprivation.)

#Comics #History

Stand-up comedy is one of the hardest things to understand in a second language, because a huge part of comedy is misdirection, unexpected transitions and connections around a given topic, while a person operating in a second language is *always* relying on context-cues to hold on to meaning. When I returned to the mall I hung around long enough to catch *and follow* the start of a new bit about our ridiculous behaviour online. :) Happy little non-native speaker right here. Now back to #Writing.

Still no power! Climbing up my many flights of stairs to get a couple things and drop off some others, and... back to the mall I go. 🙃

Well! At least I won't lack for exercise today.

We're at the part of the weekend afternoon when the mall is filled with wee little kids demonstrating the evolutionary power of having excellent vocal range / lung capacity when young enough to be lost in the wilderness. :)

Also, there's another Feria de las flores musical event about to start up in the main square.

Time to go home. Hope the power is waiting for me when I do! 🤞

Okay, readers! 📗🎉

Today for #OnlySky, Humanist Book Club Series 2 begins.

This time, we're tackling Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future - but we're doing it a bit differently. No chapter summaries. Instead, we're looking at different approaches to climate change reform addressed in this work of near-future sci-fi.

No need to have read it! But today I explore why fiction can be *so* good for combating the helplessness in our news.

#CoSoBooks #Humanism
https://onlysky.media/mclark/how-do-we-talk-about-impending-doom-so-that-people-will-listen/

Headquarters for the day. There *is* an interview in process at the next table, and reggaeton playing in the distance, but we will persevere. 💪🏻 #AmWriting

The local version of eggs & toast. Tourists often complain that Colombia doesn't have many interesting dishes. The complaint misses the point. Colombia is *very* rural culture oriented, despite all the sensationalism of Netflix shows. A freshly made arepa topped with farm-fresh cheese, taken with a scramble of onion, tomato, cilantro, & a dash of cumin, plus hot chocolate or tinto, is a lovely connection with local campesino culture. No one's *trying* to be fancy; just leaning into simple joys.

New #BugFriend just dropped. I will *definitely* freak out the weirdos who for some reason don't like arachnids by informing all of you that this cutie-patootie is a *great* jumper. 😁 #Nature

Still no power, so it's off to work at the mall's study centres with me.

Wish me luck! (Or at least a table where there isn't someone watching videos without headphones, or loudly hosting a whole video conference from his laptop! 😅)

Okay, power is definitely off for the night.

Showering in the dark and then off until the morrow to save battery on the phone. Maybe writing by hand in the early morning light if it's not fixed by four? 👀🤞🏻

Best of luck & beautiful nights to you all. 🕊

One tell-tale sign of a newcomer is that they'll beg by telling you that they're not thieves, not trying to trick anyone; they just want to eat.

And you'll look up & down the long line of mums out with their babies, the elderly, the disabled, the down-and-out youth, & think incredulously... no one here is trying to thieve by begging with candies. Everyone's just trying to eat.

But they haven't fully adjusted yet.
They will.
They always do.
But being looked at like scum when in need is *hard*.

The power's been out for hours, & probably will be for the rest of the night.

Helped a family on the way back from a second walk while waiting for power (it's Saturday night; repair will take a beat). They're fresh from Venezuela, 2 weeks here, & stood out because like most newcomers they were skittish of other street folk. I encouraged the mum to talk to the other street moms & showed her the best values at the discount store while she talked about adjusting to begging. Not an easy transition.

You know, I love kids (parentified eldest of four: kids are blameless for being in tough circumstances & deserve to be treated as full people), but there's also something... so important about the almost amusing look of pity I get when a family out begging with kids finds out I don't have any of my own. There's this nasty, simplistic notion that poor people "shouldn't" have kids, but the flash of pity is genuine: being cash-poor doesn't mean some don't still see themselves as rich in other ways.

I've had a few people these past few weeks assume I'm Brazilian or Portuguese from my accent - and even when I explain that I am very much a 13-generation Canadian with the usual British/French/Irish/Scottish settler mix, some *still* insist that I must be Portuguese because of my accent.

What finally clicked today, when I spied a Canadian tourist fumbling in Spanglish, is that my accent is transformed enough I don't sound anything like the 🇨🇦ns they're used to. 😅 GOOD!

#Languages #GettingThere

My park got new bars!!

Currently filled with teens, but I will be back pre-dawn. 💪🏻👀🥳