An echo of the past

Good morning Staker! Here’s what’s cookin’ today: Pandemic supply shortage is still driving car prices higher; The drink of the summer might just be Tinto de Verano; Reading makes a comeback; and why we love astrology! 🌠

Let’s get into it!

It’s probably fair to say the Aperol Spritz has stood atop the mountain of summer’s favourite drinks for the last few years, but mixologists are saying it’s about to be dethroned.

The Tinto de Verano literally translates to “red wine of summer,” and has “secretly” been a staple of summer in Spain for ages.

However, the cat might be out of the bag, especially given how simple the cocktail is. While related to Sangria, it doesn’t require a bunch of fruit and other sugary additives. The Tinto de Verano contains red wine and citrus juice, poured over ice, with an optional citrus twist.

“I enjoy it at home in my Menorcan garden when I’m making paella for a group, or sitting in a beachside chiringuito (beach bar) with friends,” said Jeff Koehler, a cookbook author who’s lived in Spain for over 20 years.

It’s been a regular part of summer culture in Spain for over a century. It was likely invented by Federico Vargas, who owned Venta de Vargas in Córdoba, about 100 miles northeast of Seville. A summer heatwave convinced him to mix red wine with soda and chill it, creating a pretty and shiny red delight fit for summer in any region anywhere.

Young people have been so inundated with useless information for so long via their endless social media feeds, that for a while there, they forgot about reading for pleasure.

According to a study that leveraged data from the 2025 American Time Use Survey, pleasure reading has been in steep decline for years.

However, it’s seemingly making a comeback, based on the popularity of groups like the Silent Book Club and BookTok, which gather people together for stretches of silent pleasure reading before going heads up and discussing what they read.

Perhaps older adults don’t need as much wrangling to get them to read, but for those who do, there are health benefits that come from it—not to mention the intrinsic value of consuming information with no guided purpose other than to fulfil the soul’s need to shower in story.

Leisure reading can reduce depressive symptoms and stress, and boost cognition while reducing the likelihood of cognitive decline. It motivates us, stimulates various regions of the brain, and makes us more imaginative. In a world increasingly trying to automate every human function, what could be more fundamental than preserving the capacity for imagination?

Espen Saastad is a Norwegian watchmaker, but he also owns an underwater surveying company, and on a trip 2,000 feet beneath the surface of the Skagerrak Strait between Sweden and Norway, his vessel came across the wreck of a ship that was sitting nicely intact and upright.

Measuring 72 feet long, the ship may be of Chinese origin and sank nearly 300 years ago. In its hull, dozens of porcelain cargo sat perfectly intact.

“I had to rub my eyes when I grasped the scale of this find,” said Hanna Geiran, director general of the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage, in a statement. “It is almost beyond belief.”

Two types of porcelain were uncovered: Batavia style, donning blue decorations, and Dehua style, which is mostly white. The latter was considered extremely valuable in Europe, and was referred to as “Blanc de Chine.”

Some experts have suggested it’s unlikely a ship travelled from China to the Skagerrak Strait nearly 300 years ago, and that the cargo was transferred from its original carrier to the vessel that plundered it in the Nordic waters.

The cargo, however, was undoubtedly produced along China’s south coast, areas of which are designated as a UNESCO Heritage Site for their crafting of Dehua goods.

For as long as human beings have possessed consciousness, we’ve wondered two questions: why? and how?

These questions motivate everything, and are probably the basis for the unyielding perseverance of astrology. It underpinned the pagan traditions of Greek and Roman mythology, and today informs beliefs people have about their own destinies and personality traits all over the world.

The physical newspaper is increasingly becoming a societal relic, but you better believe column inches are still filled by horoscopes on a daily basis. Astrology is as pervasive as ever, the global market for which was valued at over $12 billion in 2020, and is expected to eclipse $20 billion by 2030.

In his book What Science Says About Astrology, journalist Carlos Orsi describes the history of astrology, how science easily deconstructs it, and why its adherents could care less about what science has to say.

Similar to the transformation of religiosity during the Industrial Revolution, during which time traditional religion began fading and was ultimately replaced with the inward “spirituality” many have today, astrology also pivoted during the 20th century.

It left behind its claims that predictions of the future could be found in maps dotted with stars, and instead began acting as a revelatory guide for self understanding. Comments like “of course a Leo would say that,” or “typical Aries!” are often uttered by astrology enthusiasts like the recitation of scriptural passages.

I see a little silhouetto of a…?

Get ready to think through the words to your fave tunes, because it’s time for another round of guess the lyric with today’s trivia 😏