A TRAM IN SP (UNAI ELORRIAGA) AND THE PHYSICAL -CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF MERCURY, WHICH MAKE IT SO ATTRACTIVE

 Mercury, for example. Imagine a drop of mercury on the top of a marble table. Then, lift the table and let the mercury slide. It´s like water but more perfect, because it´s metal and because it doesn´t dry up. If you throw water to a crystal, it spreads and melt. And it dries, besides. Mercury not. Mercury is the most perfect drop that exists. And although steel is really spectacular, mercury is more spectacular than steel because it´s liquid and cold. Mercury is a funny thing

The mercury thermometers used to be one of the first experiences of scientific surprise in the childhood and their desaparition makes the children loose it. When you were ill and the thermometer broke down, the drops of mercury looked like a strange flock.

The mist of fever joined to the amazement made the experience really odd. We were told about this in the poem metales pesados by Carlos Marzal.

In other post, we´ll talk about the Mad hatter from the book Alice in Wonderlad. He was mad because of an intoxication of mercury, something very usual in that job

THE BUSINESS OF LIVING (CESARE PAVESE) AND THE INVISIBILITY OF THE VITAL FUNCTIONS

 Everything our body does, other than the functioning of the senses, escapes our notice. We know nothing of our most vital processes-circulation, digestion, and so on. It is the same with our spirit; except for the superficial pattern of ideas, we are ignorant of its activities and changes, its crises. Nothing but an illness makes us aware of the profound workings of our body. In the same way we realize those of our mind and spirit when we become unbalanced.

The whole physiology occurs in the dark, the human body is like a fridge, dark until you open it. Everything takes place in the dark, hidden to the daylight but microscopically. Only when things go wrong, we are aware of them and begin to pay attention to. " We know about love for what it illuminates, for what it twists and increases and rules". We have to make do with this indirect knowledge of our body, in the way as with the knowledge of love in these lines by Manuel Alcántara