OZY Daily Dose

I had my concerns.In the month of September, Goree Island, best known for its dark past as a hub in the transatlantic slave trade, hosts an annual Dakar-Goree swim. More than 500 local and expat amateur swimmers start on the tip of Dakar, which is also the most westerly point of Africa, and end on Goree. But the best way to prepare for the 4.5-km swim (almost 3 miles) is to swim from Ngor to Ngor Island. That's about 1.5 km, or almost a mile.

Welcome to The Thread, OZY's brand new weekly podcast, unlocking a series of linked histories starting with the murder of John Lennon and stretching all the way back to the Russian Revolution. Subscribe now to follow The Thread on Apple or on OZY.com.Many men do something bold or adventurous as they approach the age of 40 - some buy sports cars, others take up new hobbies - and even famous rock stars succumb to the urge.

Listicles on the most bike-friendly cities in Europe mostly get things right, consistently naming Copenhagen, Denmark; Berlin; Amsterdam; and Ljubljana, Slovenia, at the top of the list. But, there's a city that's being shamefully ignored: Warsaw. Part of the fifth-largest bike-sharing system in Europe and with 310 miles of cycling routes, Poland's metropolis couldn't be an easier place to pedal the day away.

Bivalves, beware. On the mangrove banks of the Colombian Pacific, a hunter is wading into thick, soupy mud and bending over. Then she plunges her hands down into the earthy broth, finds a mangrove root and feels around for ... there it is! A hard shell containing a succulent little pearl of sea meat.The people call it piangua. Sure, it might be a hard word to force out for the non-Spanish speaker, but piangua is easy to gulp down.

Standing in front of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus in San Jose, California, the kids, my kids, who had previously been excited at the prospect of seeing said circus, were sobbing. Animal rights activists were screaming about the mistreatment of elephants, complete with video, and so it was that the clearinghouse for the wild and death-defying died.

A young woman sits in the stylist's chair, staring intently in the mirror as her newly dyed light purple hair is blow-dried. Within seconds, the targeted hair is transformed into a neon hot pink. As the airstream is directed to another part of her head, the pink patch magically reverts to its original cool violet.Welcome to the world of color-changing fashion, and to the first-ever heat-reactive hair color, Pravana Vivids Mood Color, which hit salons earlier this month.

My father was a Southern preacher. Who was married four times and abandoned me. You see, he cheated on his first wife with my mother, and that's how I got involved in this whole thing.My mom got the idea to move away from New Jersey to North Carolina for a fresh start, though. Which meant: away from my dad's four children from his first marriage, who lived around the corner from us. Away from the ones he called "his kids," as if my mother had conceived me on her own.

EUGENE, SIR: I read your column about “Bloody Love.” Well, my husband and I got into some stuff that scares us a bit. I started harming myself and we still had sex. It was damn lusty and nasty in some kind of way, but we feel like we can’t repeat it. It was hot while we were doing it, but the morning after, when I looked at the wounds, it felt like a hangover. What can we do about it? It was some kind of kick, but we’re terrified that we might need more and more.

India. China. Senegal. These are countries where the NBA has introduced global academies that offer scholarships to educate and train the world’s best young talent. Several more African countries, like Uganda and Kenya, are home to Jr. NBA programs. The NBA sees the world shrinking and isn’t wasting time or resources to better its talent pool. But there’s one place where the NBA has not invested much: the United States.

I was walking across the Collegetown Bridge in Ithaca, New York, when I saw my friend Mark sitting too close to the edge, with his back to the gorge and his feet dangling. It was 200 feet down to a dry creek bed full of boulders the size of cars. A crowd of fellow students had gathered on the sidewalk to watch, keeping a safe distance. There were no cellphones in 1979, so somebody ran to a pay phone to call the police.I stood off to his side about 10 feet away. "Mark, what are you doing?" I asked.