Mad Ravings of a Lunchtime Lunatic

I'm an obnoxiously bubbling burp of a man, overflowing with loopy data points. I'll grab your collar and insist you pay attention to them. Sounds "wonderful" for a movie character, but in real life it's a bit much. Frankly, I give even myself a headache.

After subjecting my tax accountant to my usual hyperbolically zig-zagging conversation amid lunch, and depositing her, exhausted and dazed back in her office, I sent follow-up links, because that's part of my shtick. Jane, stop this crazy thing.

Anyway, why rave fruitlessly at one hapless person when I can rave at the entire Internet? Here's my follow-up email to her, in case anyone out there finds it usefultaining:


This Fresh Air interview with the author of a new book on Koch Industries is super-interesting.

Talk the Talk podcast on linguistics (support them on Patreon for good goodies).

As I mentioned, I bumped into the above while researching an issue raised in Episode 1 of an acclaimed series called “The Story of India” (streaming on Amazon Prime Video) about pre-linguistic mantras possibly having been passed down for 10,000 years in the jungles of Kerala by Brahmins (they are completely unrelated to any language, and seem to resemble birdsong). The show may have overstated the theory a bit, as discussed here on the web and in this episode of “Talk the Talk”. I’d suggest watching the Story of India's first episode before delving further.

Speaking of historical documentary series, Simon Shama has created a number of great ones. Maybe start with "A History of Britain”. You can buy DVD second-hand for $25 at above link and resell at the same price when done.

The linguistics of "Mairzy Doats".

Why I think it’s fallacious to blame bad-not-awful previous Republicans for seeming to have launched a process leading to Trump (i.e. the fallacy of the domino effect).

Season 1 of the super-awesome HBO series " Succession" can be bought/streamed on Amazon (worth it IMO, though, again, it takes a good while to get under your skin...if you actively dislike it, by all means bail early, but if you’re on the fence, keep going!). Season 2 (which is even better, so far) is currently under way, but can surely be bought/streamed eventually on Amazon.