An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for July 30, 2020

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

• Holy hack! “Beijing-linked hackers targeted Vatican.”
• Holy hike! “Hajj 2020 Pilgrimage Begins In the Age Of Coronavirus.”
• QAnon, coronavirus and the conspiracy cult
• Strange Flyers Around Portland, Oregon
• ASMR The Element Series | Water
• Devotional Dance: The Elements
• Equus, limited edition blue-ray release, due in August
• Don’t forget the marshmallows! “Solar Orbiter’s first images reveal ‘campfires’ on the Sun”
• One-third of US Museums May Never Reopen, Says American Alliance of Museums
• “‘Messengers of Goodwill’: America’s Tokens of Friendship and Power. In early cultural exchange programs, the act of sending gifts abroad often doubled as an opportunity for children to rehearse and reinforce narratives about their own national superiority and exceptionalism.”
  
• “Trump defends doctor who claimed medicine is made from alien DNA and walks out of briefing mid question. ‘I thought she was very impressive'” Also: Trump Retweeted a Doctor Who Believes in Alien DNA, Demon Sperm, and Hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 Treatment.—”Spend a few minutes reading her own tweets — if anything, The Daily Beast underplayed just how bonkers she is.” Also: Viral sensation Dr. Stella Immanuel says Jesus will destroy Facebook if her COVID video doesn’t go back up. Also: Trump’s New Covid Expert

• “Oh God, Not the Peloponnesian War Again. Western strategists need to learn some new history. Here are eight suggestions from Asia.”
• Just in time for macOS Big Sur! “Big Sur land returns to Esselen Tribe after 250 years.”
• “These Are The Books Brits Have Been Reading During The Coronavirus Pandemic. Normal People, Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race and Pinch Of Nom all made the list.”
• The Fiction of Winners & Losers
• Why We Need Dystopian Fiction Now More Than Ever
• “In Search of Shakespeare’s Mind.” About How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education by Scott Newstok
  The Danielle Steel of Communism—”a turn-of-the-century novelist, playwright, and publisher whose racy stories of women liberating themselves from men and capitalism were so widely read that the Russian literary establishment feared she would soon eclipse Tolstoy in popularity.” About Anastasia Verbitskaya, author of The Keys to Happiness.

• “A Little Fellow with a Big Head” From The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro, by Fernando Pessoa, translated from the Portuguese by Patricio Ferrari and Margaret Jull Costa. Also: “The Literary Life of Pessoa’s Alter Ego.” From the introduction to The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro.
• Meet the Mozarts. The family that plays together…” About, in part, Mozart: A Life in Letters.
• “Great men, great myths. The complex relationship between charisma and celebrity.” About Men on Horseback: The Power of Charisma in the Age of Revolution by David A Bell. Also: “Charismatic Models, David Bell’s Men on Horseback.”
• “How to be an emperor. Re-reading Fergus Millar’s The Emperor in the Roman World.” About Fergus Millar’s The Emperor in the Roman World.
• “How Should One Live? This is the question that tormented Søren Kierkegaard, perhaps the first great philosopher to process our modern world—and it comes to life in Claire Carlisle’s unconventional new biography.” About Philosopher of the Heart: The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard by Claire Carlisle.
• “Minds Stocked Only with Opinions.” About Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life by Zena Hitz.
• “Study: Magicians’ priming techniques are effective at influencing choice. Card trick priming technique used by illusionist Derren Brown inspires psychologists.”
• Czeluść Post-Witch House Collective Bass Poland Krakow—”For a collective whose name translates to “Abyss,” the Czeluść story runs fittingly deep. What started fewer than three years ago as a party for 60 people in a…”
• Hidden library behind a painting at clients house
• “Ancient trash heaps reveal the Plague of Justinian’s economic toll. Israeli sites show how the plague impacted the fringes of the Byzantine Empire.”
• “We can see the true face of Van Eyck Lamb of God after latest restoration. Combining different imaging techniques helped document the changes made over time.”
• “Archaeologists find the source of Stonehenge sarsen stones. Evidence suggests the monument’s Neolithic builders shopped local, for once.”
• “Forget what you know about 1619, historians say. Slavery began a half-century before Jamestown.”
• Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism Studies in Honor of Alexander Golitzin, edited by Andrei A Orlov—”Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism explores influences of Jewish apocalypticism and mysticism on the development of Eastern Christian theology, demonstrating that recent studies of apocalyptic literature, the Qumran Scrolls, Gnosticism, and later Jewish mysticism throw new and welcome light on the sources and continuities of Orthodox spirituality and liturgy.”
• “Giant waves of sand are moving on Mars.” Bless the Maker and all His Water. Bless the coming and going of Him, May His passing cleanse the world. May He keep the world for his people. Shai-Hulud.
• Apollo 15 in 60fps: Rover Traverse To Station 4—”Apollo 15 Rover Traverse to Station 4 16mm footage interpolated from 6fps to 60fps with DAIN-AI. Colour corrected and synchronized with audio.”
• Chipmunks, fattened up on acorns, are driving people nuts
• “App Lets You Destress By Screaming Into Icelandic Wilderness.” You no longer have to (only) scream in your heart!
• “Curtain twitchers: what citizen scientists revealed about nature during lockdown. Scientists received help from people tracking wildlife from their windows during lockdown. The data has brought new insights.”
• “Hulu’s Helstrom trailer introduces a Marvel superhero who’s the spawn of Satan. He and Jessica Jones’ best friend used to date.”
• Convenient for sleeping with demons! (Things I Learned Reading Gothic Novels) “Meet The ‘Nap Dress,’ The Latest Pandemic Clothing Trend. Don’t call it a nightgown.” Or, a nightshirt, or, you know, kaftan, er, um, I mean “Freedom Muumuu” …
• Fleabag becomes the hot priest’s daemon: “Um, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is playing Andrew Scott’s dæmon in His Dark Materials.”
• Daft Trump – Harder, Woman, Faster, Camera

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