Daily Bafflements

• It is the 199th anniversary of a volcanic eruption that you’ve likely never heard of, but which changed the course of the 19th century as much as Napoleon’s wars, says author Gillen D’Arcy Wood.

• From Bookforum, here’s Benjamin Kunkel on what it’s like to be seen as a Marxist, or a “Marx-ish,” intellectual today.

• Bloomberg Businessweek brings us the perhaps-not-so-baffling news that Wall Street investors are putting big bucks into trailer parks. (Also described here as “down-and-dirty investments.”) The piece profiles two moneyed dudes who “are part of a white-collar exodus to rougher industries, as investors seek yield amid chronically low rates or steady income after being case out from finance or law.” Oh yeah, and the demand for trailer rentals isn’t going down any time soon, because of the whole “U.S. middle class sliding into poverty” factor, as the article helpfully explains.

• Number of times the word “dirty” appears in the above article: three.