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Suitcase Diaries
Il est minuit à Tokyo, il est cinq heures au Mali
Quelle heure est-il au paradis?A couple of days ago, a decent chunk of a city was glued to their screens as their affiliated team produced a classic comeback to win a playoff game. The fifth of sixteen they will want to claim top spot in North America’s premier ice hockey league, for the time being.
I had wanted to join them but found myself exhausted. Falling asleep on the couch, I relented and headed to bed, only for my envisioned nap to turn into a night-long sleep. My energy levels can be an issue when I am away from my regular abode and routines, as I have been for the past two weeks. A combination of interrupted sleep, more arduous daily excursions, and social exuberance needed during times of increased movement.
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Last calendar year, I spent just over four months away from my apartment. (I refuse to call it my ‘home’; that designation has not yet been earned.) Living out of a few bags and transporting myself from location to location, mostly for work and a little on vacation. This year and only ten days into May, I have already racked up over two months in the same situation. Transience has been a regular theme of my life for the past eight orbits. A voluntary one, for the most part – I have enjoyed going to every corner of BC and witnessing transformative projects in person.
No complaints on my chosen path. But I was reflecting on the transitory life; a microcosm of our long existence.
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Weekly Picks – May 5, 2024
Credits (clockwise from top left): NASA/ Johnson; Hamilton Matthew Masters; Knowable Magazine; Paolo Pellegrin/ Magnum for The New York Times.
A few minutes on aligning phases of cyclical cicadas:
This week’s collection:
- Discipline and Protest
- Alien life is no joke: How UFOs almost killed the search for life in the Universe
- ‘Where Is the Palestinian Gandhi?’*
- From toxic fungus to soy sauce superstar
*A companion piece, filed here to underline other, valid responses/ forms of struggle against oppression:
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Weekly Picks – April 28, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Arif Qazi; Arhivele Naţionale ale României, f. Romproiect, 7288; TIO/ NOIRLab/ NSF/ AURA/ T. Slovinský; Zachary Scott; Anthony Rathbun; AP Photo /Teresa Crawford, File; Elle Griffin/ The Elysian
This week’s collection:
- The Architectural Gift
- No one buys books
- The great commercial takeover of low Earth orbit
- Protecting the Darkness in Chile’s Atacama Desert
- How Do We Know What Animals Are Really Feeling?
- How to Eat a Rattlesnake
- Dozens of deaths reveal risks of injecting sedatives into people restrained by police
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Interpretations: Bach, Cello Suite No. 1, Prélude
Do you know it? An introduction to one of the most widely interpreted suites in the history of the humble cello.
In its singular form:
Presented with visual flair:
In context of the full set:
And always inviting innovation:
A late night entry, filed under ‘M’ for mesmerizing.
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Weekly Picks – April 21, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Fairfax Media via Getty Images; Suraj Pokhrel/ iStock; Nicolás Ortega; Nature; Fredrik Lerneryd; Zachary Pangborn; Wang Naigong; Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images. Center: Jim Uruquhart/ Reuters
This week’s collection:
- The economic commitment of climate change
This study has been covered by many outlets since its publication the past week. I share with you the source article. Among its findings – that the cost of damages associated with climate change, already in the trillions, is expected to rise to $38 trillion a year by 2050 if left unmitigated. It will also leave you 19% poorer, through increasing the cost of living independent of non-climate factors. - What is ‘lived experience’?
- Universities Are Profiting From Blocking Drug-Price Reform
- Europe poops in its own nest
- Inside the Kenyan cult that starved itself to death
- Death and Taxes
- Yellowknife to Fort McMurray: lessons from the frontlines of Canada’s worst wildfires
- The Cloud Under the Sea
- The Life and Death of Hollywood
- Welcome to Mass Market Mountaineering
- Winners of the 2024 World Press Photo Contest
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
- The economic commitment of climate change
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On Juries and Verdicts
In the Middle East, another brewing conflict. In South Asia, nearly a billion votes up for grabs. On the other side of this continent, a former President trying to continue his decades-long evasion of conviction. Pause. Yes, on that.
I am struggling currently to write on personal matters, which is totally fine. I do not intend for this blog to be consistently active. More irregular; inspiration cannot be forced and the time to dedicate to following each thread is a luxury. But rather than providing shallow commentary on current affairs, I prefer to point to pieces more wholly formed.
On this matter of law – it reminds me of one of my more controversial opinions, which I intend to articulate at some future date and find some good research on: that law in an ideal society is structured in such a way that it is embedded and expressed within a robust public system that ensures equity for those charged with crimes – that lawyers are to clients in a system of law as doctors are to patients in a functioning and well-supported public healthcare system. That law followed and considered is not dependent on one’s social standing or wealth, and the courts are not another mechanism for the upper classes to delay accountability, or a playground for endless corporate shenanigans. That cases follow a similar path for all, regardless of their means or marginalization. That wraparound supports and alternative functions are present to decide on matters that are more straightforward.
The controversial bit relates to private law and its unbearable drawbacks. To eliminate it entirely and introduce prejudice-minimizing procedures into court that draw on our best understanding of human psychology and power dynamics. That is right, no private practices or firms. A system built for the public by the public. And as amazingly naïve as that may sound, it is entirely possible. Justice is inherently difficult to achieve within any setup. The processes of interpreting, framing, and regulating societal norms (law) are an ongoing struggle to define. Particularly in a capitalist modality that offers incredible financial incentives for the entire judiciary to maintain the ridiculous status quo.
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Weekly Picks – April 14, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Jesse Darling; Toho Company Ltd./ Wikimedia; Adrià Fruitós; Mary Turner/ NY Times/ Panos Pictures; Paolo Gerbaudo/ Phenomenal World; Justin Maxon for The Atlantic; Ben Jennings; Matthieu Bourel/ Illustration for Foreign Policy
This week’s collection:
- Many of us have the wrong idea about poverty and toughness
- There Is Only One Spaceship Earth
- The New Idea of India
- Inventing the Crisis: The anti-trans panic and the crusade against teachers
- The trauma ward
- End of Innocence
- The Truth About Organic Milk
- The Electric Vehicle Developmental State
- The Toxic Culture at Tesla
- Reality, as Seen by Godzilla
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Unwritten Understandings
Just a brief comment to finish the week, on social contracts encountered behind the wheel.
One of those small, highway-side towns, somewhere between Clinton and Prince George. Just a couple weeks ago, but I cannot recall exactly where. The signs change from 90 to 80, then to 60. Slow down, there may be pedestrians ahead. Keep it at 50 in case you see any kids walking on the shoulder. Stay alert.
It is a two-lane road entering the town. Leading a long line of vehicles from the oncoming direction, a giant white eighteen-wheeler. A little bit of cloud cover, but still plenty of daylight around to not require any headlights. Yet this truck driver has their lights on, and blinks them, twice, as they pass me. Alright, cop ahead.
I know flashing lights can mean a lot of things. In rural Canada, at least where I drive, it usually means watch for animals or cops. But in the past seven years of traversing BC’s vast paved network, this caution has only been shared with me when there are police around. It seems like most drivers who are members of the headlight warning brigade almost exclusively use it to warn of speed traps. I am not sure why this level of solidarity is easier stuck to than others, but I guess it is not too difficult to acknowledge the annoyance or hate towards law enforcement. Out on the road, most divisions ebb away and the ‘us vs. them’ line is drawn between those wanting to make quick time of their long journey and those who seek to slow them down. The latter to prop up their usefulness or to manage public safety – or to do one under the guise of the other – that is where the debates lie.
Sure enough, just past the gas station, there they are. Three white RCMP SUVs with those distinctive lights, colors, and reinforced front bumpers.
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They Say
I must listen to what they say, because I cannot see it myself. At least not unfiltered; a distortion of the event, a hazy retelling, is how I bear witness. Jumping into and out of meetings a continent’s breadth away as the occurrence unfolds.
They say this happens all the time. Every eighteen months, or thereabouts. But unless you have the means and the dedication, the chances of experiencing it firsthand are minimal. A gliding shadow, uninterested in our gaze, darts swiftly, sweeping across the rock we call home over peaks and troughs unreachable, or skies opaque.
They say you should watch this one. Take in the Baily Beads, signifiers of a landscape not unlike ours, its jagged irregularities enough to produce a perfect optical symphony. Or watch for the Diamond Rings, flashes of brilliance that will sandwich a long-awaited marvel.
They say that this one is special. It will deliver one of the longest interplanetary hide-and-seek games for centuries. The result of our lunar companion being further away and therefore obscuring a greater area of our solar parent. Usually we get a couple of minutes – this time it will be nearly four.
They say the stellar flares are spiking. This increased activity will be a boon for researchers on the ground, in the sky, and above the atmosphere. An opportunity unlike any other to better understand the mysteries of an unapproachable cosmic shore.
They say the anticipation is palpable. A gold circle slowly loses its luster as a species swarms to a dimming flame. The excitement increases as the shape morphs into waning crescents, hinting at the rhyming clockwork of celestial companions.
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Weekly Picks – April 7, 2024
Credits (clockwise from bottom left): Gaia Moments/ Alamy; Patrick Meinhardt for The Intercept; Paul Sahre; Gary Hershorn/ Getty; The Canadian Press/ Jeff McIntosh; Marc Dozier/ The Image Bank via Getty Images
This week’s collection:
- The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’
- Ufologists, Unite!
- Our tools shape our selves
- “It’s Dirty Water”: Rio Tinto’s Madagascar Mine Promised Prosperity. It Tainted a Community.
- The Contested World of Classifying Life on Earth
- Fossil fuel subsidies cost Canadians a lot more money than the carbon tax
The first article also reminded me of a debate on NDEs that took place a decade ago. I fall firmly into the “there is no life after death” camp. Our brain’s complex mechanisms are capable of creating plenty of intricate and maddening illusions, some of which we depend on to cohesively structure a picture of reality around us, while plenty can lead us astray. In case the debate is of interest:
And finally, a note to all that you can watch the upcoming solar eclipse from anywhere in the world, in case you are not within the path of totality.
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.