268 – Jamerica the Beautiful

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People of a very religious disposition have been known to see the face of Jesus in a slice of burnt toast, or the Virgin Mary’s silhouet in a tree. Map-nuts similarly observe simulacra of states and continents in everyday objects.

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“I’ve seen photos of clouds resembling maps, pancake surface patterns,” writes Bjørn Bojesen. “But never a blob of jam.” And then: “I was just making a sandwich, and there it was – America on the chopping board!”

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Both the Atlantic and Pacific coastlines of South America are wonderfully rendered, the accretion of jam at the left hand side evensymbolizing the Andes mountain chain. Central and North America are somewhat less true to life, but their general shape is not that far off. As jam-based maps go, anyway.

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Although “there is something really weird going on in Alaska,” as Mr Bojesen readily admits. The Aleutian islands have morphed from a narrow island chain into a gigantic terrestrial tentacle, sticking into the Pacific Ocean and almost touching the West Coast.

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On the other side of the continent, Cuba and/or other Caribbean islands have hypertrophied and are drifting east into the Atlantic.

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Thanks to Mr Bojesen for sending in this picture of ‘Jamerica’.

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