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

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

• “Piranesi.” An excerpt from Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• “Download Considerations on Western Marxism by Perry Anderson – for free! – until Sunday, September 20th!” You may need to click on the eBook tab, as it appears to default to the paperback in the shop.
• Unofficial Britain: Journeys Through Unexpected Places by Gareth E. Rees, out on September 17th, 2020. This appears to not have a proper listing in the US yet. “There is a Britain that exists outside of the official histories and guidebooks – places that lie on the margins, left behind. A Britain in the cracks of the urban facade where unexpected life can flourish. Welcome to Unofficial Britain. This is a land of industrial estates, factories and electricity pylons, of motorways and ring roads, of hospitals and housing estates, of roundabouts and flyovers.” Also.
• “Everything about the new Slaughterhouse-Five graphic novel is beautiful. And nothing hurt.” About Slaughterhouse-Five: The Graphic Novel by Ryan North, &al. based on the Kurt Vonnegut novel. “The first-ever graphic novel adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great anti-war books.”
• “How White-Collar Criminals Get Away With It. Current laws target low-level employees and let the worst offenders off the hook.” About Big Dirty Money: The Shocking Injustice and Unseen Cost of White Collar Crime by Jennifer Taub, due Sept 29.
• How to Think about Existential Threats.” About The Unreality of Memory: And Other Essays by Elisa Gabbert—”‘Terror, disaster, memory, selfhood, happiness . . . leave it to a poet to tackle the unthinkable so wisely and so wittily.’ A literary guide to life in the pre-apocalypse, The Unreality of Memory collects profound and prophetic essays on the Internet age’s media-saturated disaster coverage and our addiction to viewing and discussing the world’s ills.”
• A Kind of Magic: Making the Original Highlander by Jonathan Melville, due November—”The story of an immortal Scottish warrior battling evil down through the centuries, Highlander fused a high concept idea with the kinetic energy of a pop promo pioneer and Queen’s explosive soundtrack to become a cult classic. When two budget-conscious American producers took a chance on a college student’s script, they set in motion a chain of events involving an imploding British film studio, an experimental music video director still finding his filmmaking feet, a former James Bond with a spiraling salary, and the unexpected arrival of low-budget indie film company, Cannon Films. Author Jonathan Melville looks back at the creation of Highlander with the help of more than 60 new cast and crew interviews, including stars Christopher Lambert and Clancy Brown, revisiting the grueling shoot that took them from the back alleys of London, to the far reaches of the Scottish Highlands and onto the mean streets of 1980s New York City. With exclusive writer commentary on unmade scripts, a fresh look at contemporary production material, never-before-seen photos from private collections, previously unpublished storyboards and artwork, a glimpse into the promotional campaign that never was, and a look at the ever-expanding franchise, A Kind of Magic is the book no Highlander fan can be without.”
• The Last of the Hedgehogs. About Conversations with René Girard: Prophet of Envy edited by Cynthia L Haven—”This is the first collection of interviews with Girard, one that brings together discussions on Cervantes, Dostoevsky, and Proust alongside the causes of conflict and violence and the role of imitation in human behavior. Granting important insights into Girard’s life and thought, these provocative and lively conversations underline Girard’s place as leading public intellectual and profound theorist.”
• Check out this tweet thread about Deadwood Dick and leftist cowboy dime novels of the 1870s. Surprise villain revealed is Anthony Comstock, who will be recognized as a reviled villain by anyone familiar with the story of Ida Craddock.
• Did … a non-academic critic write this? “Who let the dons out? Leave literary reviews to reviewers rather than score-settling academics.”
• Progressive Summarization. Tweet thread.
• “Teach What You Love. A modest proposal for professors of literature.”
• “Wolfwalkers is 2020’s greatest animated film so far. Cartoon Saloon’s latest film is a masterpiece.”
• “Disney’s many failed attempts to bring Don Quixote to the screen. For more than 80 years, various parties have been trying to make a film happen.”
• “Netflix’s La Révolution Imagines Something Sinister in 18th Century France.” Watch “La Révolution | Official Trailer.”
• “Stream the 25th H. P. Lovecraft Film Festival & Cthulhu Con. The 25th Anniversary event will be online this year! Get streaming passes (worldwide) and exclusive rewards only through this campaign.”
• The Atlantic Festival, September 21 – 24, 2020. “Experience The Atlantic As Never Before. In 1857, The Atlantic was founded to explicate and illuminate the American idea. That mission is as urgent today as it was then. Join us as we examine the magnitude of the events of 2020, who we are as a nation, and what we might become. The Atlantic’s marquee festival will bring brave thinking and bold ideas to life with four days of can’t-miss conversations, evening headliners, and more. Register now to reserve your spot. The festival is free to attend, but space is limited.”
• “QAnon is coopting a USPS phishing scam. Conspiracy theorists claim the text messages are linked to human trafficking.”
• “Right-Wing Conspiracists Linked Antifa to the Wildfires. Then They Got a Big Boost from Russian Media. How overlapping false claims about the wildfires ricocheted around conservative social media thanks to a bogus story from Russia.”
• Oops. This guy found Waldo. “Could American Evangelicals Spot the Antichrist? Here Are the Biblical Predictions: I’ve reviewed every prophecy on the Antichrist, and what I read blew my mind. (Updated with new signs, 6/10/2020).” Watch. HT almightygod.
• “Conservative group used a bunch of teens to evade Twitter and Facebook moderation. The “coordinated inauthentic behavior” is coming from Arizona.”—”One way to avoid having your repetitive pro-Trump posts tagged as belonging to a bot is to hire teenagers in Arizona to behave like bots — and that’s exactly what The Washington Post reports conservative group Turning Point Action did.”
• “Hate Speech on Facebook Is Pushing Ethiopia Dangerously Close to a Genocide. Ethnic violence set off by the assassination of a popular singer has been supercharged by hate speech and incitements shared widely on the platform.”
• “‘I Have Blood on My Hands’: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation. A 6,600-word internal memo from a fired Facebook data scientist details how the social network knew leaders of countries around the world were using their site to manipulate voters — and failed to act.” “I’ve found multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry, and caused international news on multiple occasions. I have personally made decisions that affected national presidents without oversight, and taken action to enforce against so many prominent politicians globally that I’ve lost count.”
• So far, as I write this, this is unconfirmed, but if true … “‘Like an Experimental Concentration Camp’: Whistleblower Complaint Alleges Mass Hysterectomies at ICE Detention Center.”
• Trump Administration Official Michael Caputo Has Lost His Mind, Is Spouting Unhinged, Dangerous, Crazy Nonsense, and Yet Remains in Charge of C.D.C. Public Health Updates Amidst an Ongoing Pandemic
• Civility and So-Called Objectivity is No Way to Contain a Plague of Lies
• Brave New World indeed. “PepsiCo to launch drink to aid sleep as consumers struggle with stress.”
• “The Bunker Magnates Hate to Say They Told You So. Our paranoid moment has ushered in a run on supplements, survivalist gear, and all manner of prepper accommodations. Welcome to the age of conspiracy capitalism.”
• Living in a Conspiracy Nation
• “Gender reveal parties are harmful in so many ways – why do we treat them as quirky? They’re deeply weird, they reinforce rigid gender binaries – and this week one set off a fire that burned more than 13,000 acres of land.”
• “300 years on, will thousands of women burned as witches finally get justice? Lawyer seeks pardon for 2,500 Scots who were tortured and killed in ‘satanic panic’ begun by James VI.”
• The noonday demon has a name. “Acedia: the lost name for the emotion we’re all feeling right now“—”Rather, acedia arose directly out the spatial and social constrictions that a solitary monastic life necessitates. These conditions generate a strange combination of listlessness, undirected anxiety, and inability to concentrate. Together these make up the paradoxical emotion of acedia.” “Learning to express new or previously unrecognised constellations of feelings, sensations, and thoughts, builds an emotional repertoire, which assists in emotional regulation. Naming and expressing experiences allows us to claim some agency in dealing with them.”
• New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States
• “Between wildfires on the West Coast and storm activity in the Atlantic Basin, there’s a lot of weather going on right now. Even in Massachusetts, the sun has a hazy look from the West Coast fires.”
• Burned jaguars, fire tornadoes: Blazes in Brazil wetland deliver climate warning
• Five cyclones churn in Atlantic Ocean for only second time in history
• “Life in the Forever Fires: Toward Serenity in an Apocalypse. Kailyn McCord on 30 Years of Fire Seasons.”
• “Why Science Has No Idea Whether Porn Is Good or Bad for You. For decades, researchers have tried in vain to prove the “effects” of porn consumption.”
• “A paper we covered has been retracted, and we couldn’t be happier. Magic shouldn’t be offered up as a mechanism in a scientific paper.”
• Tweet—”Scientific American has never endorsed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now. The 2020 election is literally a matter of life and death. We urge you to vote for health, science and Joe Biden for President.” Also “Scientific American Endorses Joe Biden. We’ve never backed a presidential candidate in our 175-year history—until now.”
• Gene editing to produce ‘super dad’ livestock
• Science Notes – Studying the stones of Stonehenge
• Dipanjan Pan demonstrates new method to produce gold nanoparticles directly in cancer cells with possible applications in x-ray imaging, cancer treatment
• “Is it possible that Neanderthals had a spiritual life?. Astonishing finds suggestive of shrine in a subterranean cave in the Aveyron continue to baffle anthropologists, says Rebecca Wragg Sykes.”
• As someone who can clearly see how algorithms make my social media posts only reach a vanishingly small percentage of people following my accounts … “How Algorithms Are Changing What We Read Online. The AI of the internet determines what’s relevant. One day, it decided my work wasn’t.”
• Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain and Portugal
• Okay, okay, you’ve probably already heard, because everyone’s talking about it, so first let’s just have a look at XKCD’s Evidence of Alien Life. Now, tweet—”This won’t surprise many of my followers but there’s a lot of rumors that tomorrow the Royal Astronomical Society is going to announce that an international team has discovered what is likely microbial life on Venus. They’ve discovered phosphine in the atmosphere. Which, at least on Earth, is a “conclusive bio-signature.” As far as scientists know, there are only two ways to produce it, either artificially in a lab, or by certain kinds of microbes that live in oxygen-free environments.” Also. Also “Venus is hell, but science is seriously looking for life in its skies. Researchers float a hypothesis about how microbial life could actually survive in the clouds above the toxic and overheated planet.” Also, tweet—”It is fitting Carl Sagan co-authored a paper about life on Venus on September 16th, 1967 almost that exact date life in 2020 that the evidence of life was announced on Venus. I postulate there is a signature of a tardigrades-like life form in the clouds.” Also Life in the Clouds of Venus? by Harold Morowitz & Carl Sagan in 1967. Also “Is there life floating in the clouds of Venus?.” Also “On Venus, mysterious traces of gas tease the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Scientists are scouring the galaxy for ‘biosignatures’ that could provide evidence of simple forms of life. They didn’t expected to find one in our solar neighbor.” Also “Life on Venus? Astronomers See a Signal in Its Clouds. The detection of a gas in the planet’s atmosphere could turn scientists’ gaze to a planet long overlooked in the search for extraterrestrial life.” Also “Life on Venus? Unexplained discovery in the clouds has scientists buzzing. Phosphine gas has been discovered in the clouds of Venus. Scientists are yet to explain where it comes from.” Watch. Watch. And so on, and so on. Penultimately, don’t forget: C S Lewis’ Perelandra trilogy, set on Venus: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength. Finally, tweet—”Old and busted: humans are a device to end ice ages by digging up buried carbon. New hotness: humans are a device to boil the oceans, preparing Earth for our Venerean overlords.”
• On the trail of the Knights Templar and Holy Grail in western Poland
• Watch “Music Theory to Explain God’s Absence.”
• What Becoming a Mermaid Taught Me About Being a Modern Woman
• Harlequin’s black mask
• The One Thing Needful—”There is one thing one has to have: either a cheerful disposition by nature or a disposition made cheerful by art and knowledge.”
• “THE COMPANY – corporate survival horror. Play as employees of a multi-national corporation responding to industrial accidents and experiments gone wrong.”
• Watch the animated witch fun in Katy Perry – Cry About It Later
• Watch The Unchained Art of the Renaissance—”Waldemar Januszczak challenges the traditional notion of the Renaissance having fixed origins in Italy and showcases the ingenuity in both technique and ideas behind great artists such as Van Eyck, Memling, Van der Weyden, Cranach, Riemenschneider and Durer.”
• “‘The Karen’ Is the Most Fitting Halloween Costume for 2020. This October, mask up like you want to speak to Halloween’s manager.”
• “The sad life of NFL mascots during a pandemic. What is a mascot’s life when there are no fans?”—”If a mascot’s job is to bring mirth and entertain, does that mascot still exist if nobody is there to enjoy it?”
• More pandemic fallout: No Peeps for Halloween and Christmas

This post was possible because of support from generous ongoing Patrons and Members of the newsletter. Both Patrons and Members get access to Omnium Gatherum immediately and directly via web and 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.