An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for July 12, 2020

Here’s a variety of notable things I’ve recently found that you may also be interested in checking out:

• “William Butler Yeats Memorial in Dublin reopens after conservation. The EUR 300,000 project has rejuvenated the hidden gem of St Stephen’s Green Park.”
• Fear of Humiliation as the Root of Racism
• Don’t Smoke That Cigarette by Kenneth Anger
• The Fantastic Fiction of Hannes Bok
• The New Normal
• “Sarah Kendzior on the America That Made Donald Trump Possible.” About Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America—”a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government”
• Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.—”James Baldwin grew disillusioned by the failure of the civil rights movement to force America to confront its lies about race. In our own moment, when that confrontation feels more urgently needed than ever, what can we learn from his struggle?”
• Shakespeare’s only surviving playscript now online—”What is exceptional here, of course, is that Harley MS 7368 is the only identifiable example of Shakespeare’s contribution to a playscript surviving in manuscript. None of his other plays have been transmitted to us in this way. What is more, in these pages we can perhaps see the master playwright at work, musing, composing and correcting his text: a window into Shakespeare’s dramatic art, as it were.” HT Tweet—”In the so-called ‘insurrection scene’, he defended #immigrants in London from a baying mob.”
• The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs
• Notes: A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman
• I TRULY BELIEVED: An in-depth conversation with Vicki Pollack of the San Francisco Diggers
• Th’infernal Drone: In Praise Of The Hurdy-Gurdy
• “Beyond the Milky Way, a Galactic Wall.” Also “The South Pole Wall: 100 Million Billion Stars Are Found Hiding in the Milky Way.” Also “Astronomers discover South Pole Wall, a gigantic structure stretching 1.4 billion light-years across.”
• How to catch a glimpse of the spectacular comet Neowise before it disappears for thousands of years.” Also “How to catch a glimpse of the comet NEOWISE dazzling the skies right now.”
• Scientists spot four mysterious circular objects in space through radio telescopes
• “Is ‘Planet Nine’ actually a grapefruit-sized black hole? Big new telescope could find out.” Also “Scientists propose plan to determine if Planet Nine is a primordial black hole.”
• A ‘regime shift’ is happening in the Arctic Ocean, scientists say
• From the WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW? Dept. “Christian Summer Camp Shuts Down After Dozens Of Coronavirus Infections. Eighty-two cases of COVID-19 have been linked to Kanakuk Ministries’ K-2 camp for teenagers in Lampe, Missouri.”
• “Ava DuVernay’s Fight for Change, Onscreen and Off. The award-winning film director on the role of artists in a time of widespread unrest, and how film can help hold police to account.”
• Tweet—”Here’s a story about #CancelCulture from one hundred years ago.”
• Tweet—”You have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
• “Supreme Court allows religious, moral exemptions for employers opposed to contraceptives.” Also, tweet—”unfortunately we will not cover the medicine that keeps you from throwing up from pain every month. but we have a good reason! a lady ate an apple in our favorite book”
• Verso Book Club—”Join the Verso Book Club to receive ALL of our new ebooks every month as well as one or more new books in the mail. Now at a discount of 50% to celebrate Verso’s 50th year, all subscribers will also get 50% off ALL of our books.”
• Not hemp or flax, but it’s a start! “US town creates local currency to boost coronavirus relief.”
• “Lost Rolling Stones song with Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page to be released. Scarlet is joined by two other unreleased songs, Criss Cross and All the Rage, on a deluxe version of Goat’s Head Soup.”
• Hadestown: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert—”this took place in the Before-Times. To be specific, on March 2.” I’ve been talking about this since at least 2012. Maybe because I got to see a live cast perform this at Doug Fir, PDX in March 2012, but I continue to be moved by this musical in so many ways. When I saw it, the cast was a lot of local people including “Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker in the part of Persephone, Nick Jaina as Orpheus, Robert Sarazin Blake as Hades, Adam Shearer of Weinland as Hermes, and Alia Farah (The Alialujah Choir), Stephanie Schneiderman (Dirty Martini), and Catherine O’Dell (Hello Mountain) as The Fates”
• “Economic Benefits of Protecting 30% of Planet’s Land and Ocean Outweigh the Costs at Least 5-to-1. First-of-its-kind report shows the global economy is better off with more nature protected.” (See also: “Joel Pett: The cartoon seen ’round the world“)
• “Polynesians, Native Americans made contact before European arrival, genetic study finds. Deep-genome analyses conducted by Stanford Medicine researchers and their collaborators have settled a long-brewing controversy about whether ancient Polynesians and Native Americans had contact.” Also.
• “Programmable balloons pave the way for new shape-morphing devices. Kirigami balloons could be used in medical devices, soft robotics.” Watch.
• Oregon to officially vote on legalizing psychedelic psilocybin therapy
• Insane after coronavirus?
• “Ask Ars: Should you stop using the word “marijuana”? Do words matter? The “Marijuana” versus “cannabis” debate.”
• New study detects ringing of the global atmosphere—”A ringing bell vibrates simultaneously at a low-pitched fundamental tone and at many higher-pitched overtones, producing a pleasant musical sound. A recent study, just published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences by scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, shows that the Earth’s entire atmosphere vibrates in an analogous manner, in a striking confirmation of theories developed by physicists over the last two centuries. ”
• “Spreading rock dust on fields could remove vast amounts of CO2 from air. It may be best near-term way to remove CO2, say scientists, but cutting fossil fuel use remains critical.”
• “The Far Side returns after 25 years, and it’s all digital. Gary Larson embraces digital to bring back the iconic comic strip.”—”Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman.” Also.
• “Debate Us, Cowards. Here’s What You Need To Know About That Harper’s Letter Criticizing Cancel Culture.”
• Tweet—”My biggest issue with the Harpers letter signatories is that despite their power, platform, tenure, financial security, etc they truly believe they’ve done more to defend free speech than protesters in the street or literally anyone just starting out on Only Fans. It’s delusional.”
• “This headshot landed a cow the title role in an A24 film. First Cow director Kelly Reichardt picked Evie out of dozens of cow headshots.” A24, studio behind Midsommar, The Witch, &c.
• “Harley Quinn shows superheroes are better when you don’t take them so seriously. If you love something, you should make fun of it.”
• “Please scream inside your heart”—”Japan’s Amusement Parks Warn Coaster Riders: Screaming Can Spread COVID-19. Park officials hope the no-scream rule will minimize possible spread of the coronavirus.” Watch.

This post was possible because of support from generous ongoing Patrons and Members of the newsletter. Both Patrons and Members get Omnium Gatherum posts delivered immediately and directly to their email. On the blog, this will be exclusive to Patrons for one year, after which I’ll make it publicly available to everyone so they can see what they’ve been missing.