∴ ◊ ∵ may ∵ ◊ ∴
       ۞ 2025 ۞

In the spirit of kipply’s things read/digest posts and Tyler Cowen’s assorted links, I will start posting interesting things I read or discovered. I’ll start on a monthly basis.

May has been a great.

• A compilation of Álvaro Mutis’ poems which I couldn’t have read in a more adequate location. Favorite poem here:

• Alessandro Baricco’s Oceano Mare, a metaphysical romanzo written in poetic prose. The narrative itself flows like a changing tide. I particularly enjoyed the counterpoint between its characters; especially the ironic duplo of Bartleboom and Plasson, who have contrasting approaches of the irreducible and mysterious oceano mare.
• An anthropology.net post on the Laschamps excursion, when the “Earth’s magnetic field […] flickered and faltered”.
• Wikipedia’s entry on the Zanclean flood, a flood that reconnected the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea after the Messinian salinity crisis in a matter of months! It is estimated “that water rushed down a drop of more than 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) with a maximum discharge of about 100 million cubic metres per second (3.5 billion cubic feet per second), about 1,000 times that of the present-day Amazon River.” Imagine that!
• About ingressive speech. I first learned about it through an Instagram reel that my wife showed me. It particularly caught our attention because locals in villages near where we live in Mexico also use a kind of inhaled “yeah”. I wonder if this linguistic trait was passed down through Spanish or through Náhuatl!
• Learnt about slothful induction. I have started to point it out :)
• And these two, which are fun: Wojtek, the bear and Italian brainrot, so in honor of Wojtek:

Wojtek, the Bottiglione Bomborsone

🍀