The Four Thieves Vinegar Collective is an anarchist collective dedicated to enabling access to medicines and medical technologies to those who need them but don’t have them.
I urge you to read this fascinating piece about them at 404 Media.
EnsĹŤ is a writing tool that helps you enter a state of flow.
Basically, you write, and EnsĹŤ only allows you to see the most recent lines you've typed. The previous words become invisible so you're not tempted go back and make changes. The Backspace button on your keyboard works, but the arrows don't. So, if you are tempted to go back, you're deleting, not moving the cursor to make changes.
Done writing? Hit the download button in the top left of the screen and a txt file of what you've written drops into your documents folder. Easy-peasy.
It's free on the web, or there's a pay-for-it app. The only thing missing is a Dark Mode.
This post is part of a longer project, Distant Diary — Spain. All entries are gathered on this page, along with an explanation and some background.
DAY 1
Direct from YYZ to BCN. Easy flight. (Aren't they all?) Arrive 10:36am.
SIM card. Sandwich. Metro to the AirBnB in the Gracia neighborhood to drop off my bag and get my key.
Marble stairs, 3 flights. The door is huge + heavy. Mariano shakes my hand, shows me the room, explains the fussy shower.
Head back out. Fantastic bookstores with gorgeously designed and printed books. Pick up a copy of Good Morning, Midnight. Walk. Beautiful architecture everywhere.
The busiest streets I've ever seen. Street corners that somehow aren't. Genius. Scooters everywhere.
Walk to Restaurant Casa Delfin for lunch. So good.
Lots of walking.
715PM — Grab a cocktail at Solange. Read from the Rhys novel. Inspired by a particular passage, I jot in my notebook:
A woman. A nice woman A nice, beautiful woman. A very nice, beautiful woman. It's going to be different this time...
People-watch. Think about working on the novel. Grab the bill.
More walking. Dinner on the rooftop of the Hotel Casa Fuster.
Work a bit on LVGR. Tighten:
I'd tell you I paid good money for the boy, but that's not entirely true because the child wasn't expensive and the money wasn't earned by honest work. I killed a man for it and the cost didn't even eat up what remained after seven months of party and drink.
My wife had always wanted a child and I had always wanted a son so the purchase quelled both our longings. But things change when you swap money for blood. Your life gets harder. Your luck turns. Things fall apart.
For my wife, punishment came as a cancer. For my daughter, it came as a curse, though she wouldn't call it that. "Clarity of identity," she'd say. Something I can never claim for myself. As for me, punishment's still coming, a vision on the horizon I fear is not a mirage.
Unlike my kid, I've never felt I had an identity. I don't know who "I" am or what "me" means. So unaware of what I did not know, I didn't even know I didn't know it. She made me aware of what I lacked, Siobhan. It's an Irish name. Chose it herself. We'd named her Steven, April and I.
1130PM — Head down to the street.
Youth chill in the evening air:
Midnight — arrive back at Mariano's. Total distance walked, 17.8KM.
Nobody Reads Ads is "a small archive of old and new print & outdoor ads + ONE thing each ad does well. Curated and snackable copywriting breakdowns by Miguel Ferreira."
Matthew Hansel's killing it with these colorful nightmares, a series he calls Me, My Shadow and All Our Friends.
A few more here.
Cody Ellington's extraordinary nighttime photography of Japan thrills me, probably because I suck at nighttime pictures.
More pictures are on Ellington's Webflow site and a list of his other projects is here.
He's also a collaborator on Wander the Night.
THE PROJECT
Today's September 4, 2024. Seven years ago tomorrow, I embarked on a three-month cat-sitting adventure in Spain. Regrettably, I didn’t keep a journal during the trip.
Over the next 87 days, I’ll attempt to rectify that by creating an entry each day which will explain my activities on the same day exactly 7 years previous. I’ll do this by jogging my memory with my dated photo gallery, Google Timeline, a weather time machine, and my personal notebook, emails, and texts.
Before we get into it, an explanation of how I ended up in Spain, looking after a cat named Blanche.
BACKGROUND
Doctors informed me that if they couldn’t “get to the bottom” of my 2017 Transient Ischemic Attack (a minor stroke) within the next 12 to 18 months, the risk of a “full-blown” stroke was high. After ten months of tests without answers, I was left with a grim prognosis.
I understand that this may sound like an exaggerated reaction to some of you due to the "minor"ness, but strokes run in my family. My sister was left disabled by a stroke at the age of six months. She died when she was just fifteen. I was ten.
Since I didn't want to die in a record store — I owned a shop called Good Music — I made the decision to sell my inventory to a competitor and relocate to a place where, if my head did pop, it could pop happy and tanned, preferably on a beach at sunset.
After a mere eight hours of online searching, I responded to an ad placed by a woman in Spain who was seeking someone to care for her cat for five months. She quickly responded to my message, asked only a few questions, and within 24 hours made the decision to hire me. It was only then that I conducted some research and discovered that Canadians are limited to a three-month stay in Spain.
Surprisingly, she dismissed this limitation, stating that she had dreamt on it and believed that I was the ideal candidate for the job. Notably, she did not request any references. I'd like to say that this didn't seem unusual at the time (I was a little distracted), but I do recall asking myself, "What's the worst that could happen?"
I booked a return ticket for an 87-day trip, arriving in Barcelona on September 5, 2017, a Tuesday, and was committed to arriving in the town of Oliva, 400KM south, on the 8th. My host would spend the day showing me around and fly out on the 9th.
During this trip, I worked on two personal projects: Burning the Days (BtD), daily poems sent out to a mailing list, and Loneliness, Violence, Grief, and Regret, a novel — my first, which remains unfinished.
For the sake of fairness, but for Blanche, I've changed the names of everyone I encountered.
The project starts tomorrow and will continue through early November.
All entries can be read by clicking on the Distant Diaries — Spain tag on any diary entry.
The Canadian National Exhibition is open 18 days per year at the end of the Toronto summer. Final day for 2024 is today, September 2, Labour Day. Kristan Klimczak is down there right now taking photos of CNE visitors, just as she's done every day it's run since 2015.
The facial expressions on the Ex's visitors and employees pretty much sum up my thoughts of the event, which explains why I haven't been back since 1982. Cement, heat, lack of shade, terrible food, crazy prices, and crowds. It's hard for me to think of any place I'd rather not be. Love the photos, though!
More on Klimczak's site.
Is My Blue is a site that allows you to test your color perception for greens and blues. I did it four times over the course of a day (it takes less than a minute) and got same result every time.
Is my blue your blue?
Test your color perception with this interactive test.
Absolutely floored by Ashley Suszczynski's work exploring "ancient traditions in the modern day."
Kukeri, Kolarovo Village, Petrich Municipality, Blagoevgrad Province, Bulgaria (both)
Kukeri, Peshtera Village, Zemen Municipality, Pernik Region, Bulgaria // Caretos of Lazarim
From Suszczynski's site, which is correctly named Really Good Pictures:
Ashley Suszczynski is an award-winning travel photographer based in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, focused on capturing ancient traditions in the modern day. She aims to tell the story of how lesser known cultures, relics, rites, and rituals have withstood time and evolved in our ever-changing world. Through visual storytelling, she hopes to share knowledge and understanding of these age-old customs in order to continue their preservation and social approval.
Stunning work. More on the site.
