An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for July 16, 2020

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

• Hermetic Drift! I’d like to call your attention to the reboot of Perry Mason on HBO. A key character in season one is Sister Alice, played by Tatiana Maslany. Sister Alice is clearly based on real-life controversial early radio preacher Aimee Semple McPherson. Aimee Semple McPherson started International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, based on a “vision of a four-faced creature she interpreted as typifying Christ’s fourfold role as Savior, Baptizer, Healer, and Coming King.” This four-faced creature is from Ezekiel, as McPherson explains: “As he gazed upon the marvelous revelation of the Omnipotent One, he perceived four faces: those of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle.” Of course, you’ll probably also recognize these as they are also represented in the cardinal directions of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, appear in the illustration for the cover of Liber Aleph, and are correspondences to the four archangels.
• Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of The Fern Loved Gully by Amy Hale, from Strange Attractor Press, due November (limited hardbacks late-August)—”The first in-depth biographical study of the British surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun,
  This book offers the first in-depth biographical study of the British surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, situating her art within the magical contexts that shaped her imaginative life and work. After decades of neglect, Colquhoun’s unique vision and hermetic life have become an object of great renewed interest, both for artists and for historians of magic. Although her paintings are represented in such major collections as Tate Britain and the National Portrait Gallery, Colquhoun’s rejection of both avant-garde and occult orthodoxies resulted in a life of relative obscurity. Her visual and written works have only recently received adequate recognition as a precursor to contemporary experiments in magical autobiography and esoteric feminism. After rejecting the hectic social expectations and magical orthodoxies of London’s art and occult scenes, Colquhoun pursued a life of dedicated spiritual and artistic enquiry embodied in her retreat to Cornwall. Genius of the Fern Loved Gully balances engaging biography with art historical erudition and critical insight into the magical systems that underscored her art and writing.”

• “Leila Slimani on Sex and an Ethics of Women’s Liberation in Morocco” From Sex and Lies: True Stories of Women’s Intimate Lives in the Arab World by Leila Slimani.
• “Monopolies Make Their Own Rules. Zephyr Teachout’s new book lays bare the private legal system that shores up their immense power—and hides it from public view.” About Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom From Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money by Zephyr Teachout, due out in a few days.—”Every facet of American life is being overtaken by big platform monopolists like Facebook, Google, and Bayer (which has merged with the former agricultural giant Monsanto), resulting in a greater concentration of wealth and power than we’ve seen since the Gilded Age. They are evolving into political entities that often have more influence than the actual government, bending state and federal legislatures to their will and even creating arbitration courts that circumvent the US justice system. How can we recover our freedom from these giants? Anti-corruption scholar and activist Zephyr Teachout has the answer: Break ‘Em Up.”
• Reading Every Unread Book on My Bookshelf During the Pandemic
• Get your free curious colouring bool from Museum of Freemasonry, London—”If you are stuck at home with the kids, or just looking for a little hobby and entertainment, Museum of Freemasonry has collected some of its images from the Library and Archives to share with you.”
• “Surrealist Dinner Party. Show your hosting prowess and treat your favorite Surrealist artists and writers to an excellent dinner party!”—”Surrealist Dinner Party is a family strategy game featuring famous figures from the Surrealism art movement! On your turn, bring new guests to the party, serve food and drink, or have guests socialize with their neighbors at the table. Each guest also has a unique ability, so pay careful attention to who is sitting next to whom! Of course you want to make all the guests you’ve invited happy, but if you can arrange for your opponents’ guests to start a little drama, that’s okay too!” Some of the surrealists featured in the game are Lenora Carrington, Remedius Varo, André Breton, and more!
• Blast sends star hurtling across the Milky Way
• “Scientists achieve first complete assembly of human X chromosome. The first end-to-end (‘telomere-to-telomere’) completely gapless DNA sequence of a human chromosome is a major milestone for genomics research.”
• Imaging breakthrough pinpoints exact location of chronic pain
• Navan Fort: Researchers believe ‘huge’ religious structures found
• “‘Sensational’ Egypt find offers clues in hunt for Cleopatra’s tomb. Exclusive: discovery of two ancient mummies filmed for Channel 5 documentary.”
• “Stealth infections. From the Black Death to polio, the most dangerous pathogens have moved silently, transmitted by apparently healthy people.”
• “It takes a village. Can local cryptocurrencies protect small communities from major economic downturns? Kenya is trying to find out.”
• The Old Guard buries the ‘bury your gays’ trope with queer commandos.” About The Old Guard by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez. Also The Old Guard, on Netflix, starring Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Marwan Kenzari.
• Tweet—”Typefaces of Protest: A Short Survey.” Including Paranoid Light and Illuminati Bold.
• “Simple Letter Stencil. Free print-at-home stencil — make any letter or number with 4 shapes you cut out.” Watch
• “The necessity of awe. In awe we hold fast to nature’s strangeness and open up to the unknown. No wonder it’s central to the scientific imagination.”
• Plague bingo! “A squirrel has tested positive for the bubonic plague in Colorado.”
• “Coronavirus Is Attacking the Navajo ‘because We Have Built the Perfect Human for It to Invade’. A traditional Diné storyteller explains how disadvantage and injustice have shaped her people’s encounter with COVID-19.”
• “What will happen to the Hagia Sophia now that it’s a mosque again?. This isn’t the first time the former cathedral has been repurposed.”
• “Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media. How a controversial rationalist blogger became a mascot and martyr in a struggle against the New York Times.”
• “The QAnon Candidates Are Here. Trump Has Paved Their Way. The conspiracy theorists accuse Democrats and even fellow Republicans of being beholden to a cabal of bureaucrats, pedophiles and Satanists. President Trump has cheered them on.”
• Pandemic Syllabus
• Timeless Quaker Wisdom for this Perilous Present Moment: An interview with Paulette Meier
• Disney reopening video as an A24 trailer
• The Green Knight: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game—”An original tabletop roleplaying game inspired by David Lowery’s upcoming fantasy film The Green Knight.” Watch
• “Massive Attack – Massive Attack x Young Fathers – Eutopia EP.” Tweet—”It’s one of 3 tracks from their new EP Eutopia inspired by Thomas More’s book Utopia.”
• Doppler
• when god told noah to build an ark

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