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

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

• “Peace, Flowers & the Occult? Led Zeppelin’s Secrets Exposed in New REELZ Doc.” About a Led Zeppelin focused episode in the Breaking The Band series that aired recently, and, of course, mentions Aleister Crowley and Boleskine House—”During Led Zeppelin’s rise to fame in the 1970s, people were ‘getting more and more interested in weird and wonderful things like the Occult,’ Templeton explained. People during the ’60s and ’70s were getting more interested in “the darker side of life,’ she added. ‘That was the flip-side of love and peace and flowers — this new interest in the Occult,’ Hoskyns noted. Zeppelin lead singer Jimmy Page even went so far as to buy the mansion left behind by famed Occult leader and magician Aleister Crowley. ‘Why else would you do that? Is it curiosity?’ Uhelszki said, questioning why Page would purchase the house. ‘It’s too much money to just satisfy a curiosity.'” Figure Aleister Crowley.
• “Is America on the verge of substituting woke socialism for Judeo-Christian ethics?” In a discussion of Walter Duranty and Crowley, more poor reading skills, if they even bothered to do any, on display, and perhaps more Crowley Corollary: “What substrate permits these revolutionaries to act? The infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley, who committed horrendous acts of blasphemy and blood sacrifice, defined the governing principle of his anti-religion, Thelema, this way, ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.’ This tenet means do as you like, for there are no higher laws, nor authority, other than one’s self.”
• Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology recently mentioned Crowley: Free Will Astrology: Your weekly horoscope, September 25 – October 1—”SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): ‘A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world,” wrote occultist Aleister Crowley.’ …”
• Arcade Fire’s Will Butler shares apocalyptic new ‘Bethlehem’—”“This tune partly springs in Your Second Coming by [Irish poet] William Butler Yeats:’What rough beast, its hour come round at last/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? `” Butler said, speaking to this 1920 poem.” Figure William Butler Yeats.
• “Following Poetry and Science Fiction to Wherever They Lead.” Discussion about Yeats.
• Explore the Spooky Spots in Pasadena on National Ghost Hunting Day; figure Jack Parsons and his Suicide Squad—”Pasadenans also have great interest in the story of Parsons’ Suicide Squad, named after Marvel Whiteside Parsons, more commonly known as Jack Parsons. He was a researcher at the Caltech-affiliated Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory (GALCIT) Rocket Research Group, which became the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in 1943. Parsons and his team at GALCIT, which included Caltech mathematician Qian Xuesen and laboratory assistant Weld Arnold, who worked as the group’s official photographer, became well known on campus as the “Suicide Squad,” for the dangerous nature of some of their rocket experiments. Parsons was a follower of English occultist Aleister Crowley, and in 1939 converted to Thelema, Crowley’s new religious movement.”
• “Belarion Armillus Al Dajjal – The Father of the Space Age.” Offers a kind of short biographical sketch of Jack Parsons.
• “‘The Princess and the Prophet’ Review: An American Bridge to Islam. How a Kentucky-born vaudevillian reinvented himself as a ‘Moorish’ prophet and sparked the Black Muslim movement.” Review of The Princess and the Prophet: The Secret History of Magic, Race, and Moorish Muslims in America by Jacob S Dorman. About Figure Prophet Noble Drew Ali and the Moorish Science Temple.
• Wyrd and Other Derelictions by Adam Nevill, due October—”Derelictions are weird tales that tell of aftermaths and of new and liminal places. Each location has witnessed catastrophe, infernal visitations, or unearthly transformations. But across these landscapes of murder, genocide and invasion, crucial evidence remains. And it is the task of the reader to sift through ruin and ponder the residual enigma, to behold and wonder at the full horror that was visited upon mankind.”
• Review: The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance, edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff. About The New Aradia: A Witch’s Handbook to Magical Resistance edited by Laura Tempest Zakroff.
• “‘I’m extremely controversial’: the psychologist rethinking human emotion. How we interpret our feelings depends on where and how we’re brought up, says professor Lisa Feldman Barrett – and not understanding this is making our lives harder.” About Lisa Feldman Barrett’s 2018 book, How Emotions Are Made, and, upcoming, 7½ Lessons About the Brain, due November 2020. Watch “How Emotions are Made.”
• “The Powerful Decide. What makes good or bad design happen anywhere depends on who has the most power.” About Scott Berkun’s How Design Makes the World.
• “Will Self. The half-Jewish English writer’s new drug memoir, ‘Will,’ dives from Hampstead Garden Suburb into an underworld.”—”Unlike his fiction, which locates horror in the seemingly sober, rational, continuous world by scaling the dimensions of that world into grotesque fantasy, Will confronts life as it is lived. Self performs that confrontation, however, by portraying the skirting of every commitment except to inebriation.” “In Will, there’s no sense-making, emotional narrative, or arc of reclamation; no uplift, self-saving, or saving of anyone else. Will is life as sheer consciousness.” About Will by Will Self.
• The Traitor’s Child: Will One Family’s Guilty Secret Lay Bare History’s Biggest Lie? by Mark Townsend—”After a fateful confrontation with the brother he once betrayed, Eric van Kroot finds himself roaming Amsterdam’s seediest streets in a desperate search for the child he never knew he had. His quest uncovers far more than he’d bargained for, however, as he stumbles across the biggest cover up in history. But there are those who will do anything to stop him, for, while many have much to gain, others have everything to lose…” Via John Hunt Publishing—”One city, two religions. Three centuries. Four people; a brother, an orphan, refugee and a traitor separated by time and circumstance, and one dark secret that links them all.” And via by Philip Carr-Gomm—”The story follows the journey of an abused Catholic orphan who, after a failed attempt to find her parents, ends up as a prostitute. It alternates between various time periods and locations, and draws upon the terrifying records of the Spanish Inquisition and the alternative history of the birth of Christianity. Ancient heroes are made villains and vice versa and, as the narrative progresses, various threads come together to form a climax that promises to shake the very foundations of the Church. What if the church had got their saviour completely wrong? What if he had never wanted to found a new religion? What if his closest followers were ALL traitors, except one? And what if he never actually…” Watch a trailer for the book at The Traitor’s Child.
• Free book for kids: “Millie the Witch – Samhain for Pagan Children”
• The Book of Flesh and Feather by Zemaemidjehuty, on pre-order from from Theion Publishing—”A truly spellbinding work, The Book of Flesh and Feather is the central liturgical and ritual book of a devoted group of initiates of the Great Djehuty. The Book of Flesh and Feather is a grand theurgical opus which includes a large number of ritual instructions, exorcisms, spells, amulets, and hymns which invoke the Great God and exalt His BA. The entire ritual cycle aims first at inducing a necessary state of Chaos after which the theurgist is slowly pulled into the Light of Djehuty’s Gnosis. Concluding the work is an elaborate initiatory ceremony which allows the operator to become the Word of God and go forth as an emanation of the Deity.”
• A Purple Thread: The Supernatural Doom of Oscar Wilde by Nina Antonia & Nathaniel Winter-Hébert, currently on pre-order from Peculiar Parish—”Even before his birth, the life of Oscar Wilde was one shaped by dark, otherworldly forces. From a childhood spent in the fabled lands of Tír na nÓg to his star-crossed romance with Lord Alfred Douglas, Wilde’s trajectory through the artistic and social worlds of his day seemed guided by strange fate, some of it prophesied in his most famous works, including Salomé and The Picture of Dorian Gray. In this focused biographical account, author Nina Antonia examines the florid tapestry of the playwright’s tragic ascent and fall, revealing, as Wilde himself called it, “the note of doom that like a purple thread” ran through—and eventually cut short—the life of one of literature’s most celebrated and scandalous icons.”
• Shashi Tharoor on Inglorious Empire; Oct 5, 2020 05:00 PM in London. “Subtitled ‘What the British Did to India’ the book Inglorious Empire has rocketed to become an International bestseller. It’s author, is the diplomat, politician and commentator Dr. Shashi Tharoor who joins the UKPHA bookclub in conversation with BBC journalist and broadcaster Kavita Puri to present his reassessment of British colonialism and the devastating consequences India sustained from British’s rule over its economy.” About Inglorious Empire: what the British did to India by Shashi Tharoor
• “Funeral in Effigy for the Statue of a Klansman Confederate General.” From Down Along with That Devil’s Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy by Connor Towne O’Neill
• Seven Years—”The argument that an amateur with leisure at his command has not time to study painting seriously may be met by the reply, that since many painters have painted well in their youth it does not need a lifetime to learn the manual practice of the art. It appears to cost about seven years’ labour, when the whole time is given, being equivalent to an outlay of about 14,000 hours.” Quoted from Philip Gilbert Hamerton’s 1882 book Thoughts About Art.
• “What Happens When a President Really Listens?.” From His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life by Jonathan Alter—”From one of America’s most-respected journalists and modern historians comes the first full-length biography of Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States and Nobel Prize–winning humanitarian.”
• From the Uncanny Valley dept: “Desire and Disgust: On Our Fascination with Strange Human Faces.” Excerpted from Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell, part of the Undelivered Lectures series.
• Podcast The Catholic Culture Podcast episode 86 – Karl Marx, “Monster of Ten Thousand Devils” – Paul Kengor—”In this episode, Paul Kengor, author of The Devil and Karl Marx, discusses this (exhaustively footnoted) evidence of the demonic in Marx’s life. What inspired this man with so much hatred that he called for the ‘ruthless criticism of all that exists’, beginning with religion?” About Paul Kengor’s The Devil and Karl Marx: Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception, and Infiltration. I mean it’s basically a screed, so, of course, there’s an inevitable Aleister Crowley mention, around the 37 minute mark.
• “Whoever Said Platonic Love Can’t Be Sexy? (Hint: Not Plato).” Excerpt from Michele Morano’s Like Love—”Crushes. Infatuations. Attractions. Unexpected, inexplicable allure. Entanglements steeped in taboo and disruption. In Like Love, nothing is off limits.”
• “All Hail the Beaver, Mighty Linchpin of the Natural World.” About Bringing Back the Beaver: The Story of One Man’s Quest to Rewild Britain’s Waterways by Derek Gow, foreword by Isabella Tree.
• The Schoolhouse is Burning: What’s Happening to Public Education? Conversation with Derek W. Black, author of Schoolhouse Burning: Public Education and the Assault on American Democracy—”The full-scale assault on public education threatens not just public education but American democracy itself.”
• “Populism, Nationalism, Socialism: Charting the Political Moods of Our Time.” Conversation with John B Judis, author of The Socialist Awakening: What’s Different Now About the Left—”As the pandemic depression lays bare the failure of market capitalism worldwide, and as protesters flood the streets in unprecedented numbers seeking racial and economic equality, many of those disillusioned with the current state of things are looking toward socialism. How did this happen? Why now?”
• “Why Did Renaissance Europeans See Merpeople Everywhere?” From Merpeople: A Human History by Vaughn Scribner—”People have been fascinated by merpeople and merfolk since ancient times. From the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey to Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid and the film Splash, myths, stories, and legends of half-human, half-fish creatures abound. In modern times “mermaiding” has gained popularity among cosplayers throughout the world. In Merpeople: A Human History, Vaughn Scribner traces the long history of mermaids and mermen, taking in a wide variety of sources and using 117 striking images. From film to philosophy, church halls to coffee houses, ancient myth to modern science, Scribner shows that mermaids and tritons are—and always have been—everywhere.”
• “Love and Desolation: Remembering Eileen Chang.” About author Eileen Chang.
• Why Does Everyone in America Think They’re Middle Class? David R. Roediger on the Myth of American Exceptionalism.” About The Sinking Middle Class: A Political History by David R. Roediger, from OR Books. Available from the publisher, but I’m not finding it on elsewhere, neither Amazon nor Bookshop, right now.
• “Litany of Dreams.” By the cover artist John Coulthart, about Litany of Dreams: An Arkham Horror Novel by Ari Marmell, due April, 2021,—”Dark incantations expose the minds of Miskatonic University students to supernatural horrors, in this chilling mystery novel of Arkham Horror”
• At Their Own Pace: Why Reading Is Not an Inherent Moral Good—”Being a parent means discovering how little one knows about things that once seemed obvious, and for me one of these is: Is reading important?”
• Navigating Literary Censorship—and Worse—in Iran
• “Buying Nazism. In the early years of Nazi rule, the vagueness of much Nazi ideology enabled many Germans to see in Nazism what they wanted to see.” About Culture in the Third Reich by Moritz Föllmer, translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe—”A cultural palette that catered to the tastes of the majority helped encourage acceptance of the regime. The Third Reich was therefore eager to associate itself with comfortable middle-brow conventionality, while at the same time exploiting the latest trends that modern mass culture had to offer. And it was precisely because the culture of the Nazi period accommodated such a range of different needs and aspirations that it was so successfully able to legitimize war, imperial domination, and destruction.”
• “How America Taught the World to Write Small. It exported a literature of individualism and domesticity — not one of solidarity and big ideas.”
• Conservative unease with science is global, but extreme in the US. A new Pew project looks at the perception of scientists in 20 countries.”
• “How algorithms discern our mood from what we write online. Researchers and companies are harnessing computers to identify the emotions behind our written words. While sentiment analysis is far from perfect, it manages to distill meaning from huge amounts of data — and could one day even monitor mental health.” Haha, joke’s on them. I only talk to my cats. Wait. Hold on. Oh no.
• “Studying clay-pot residues could help scientists recreate ancient recipes. Ceramic pots retained remnants of last meal cooked, plus clues as to earlier meals.”
• “Magnetic ‘T-Budbots’ made from tea plants kill and clean biofilms.” Watch.
• “First results from Cheops: ESA’s exoplanet observer reveals extreme alien world. ESA’s new exoplanet mission, Cheops, has found a nearby planetary system to contain one of the hottest and most extreme extra-solar planets known to date: WASP-189 b. The finding, the very first from the mission, demonstrates Cheops’ unique ability to shed light on the Universe around us by revealing the secrets of these alien worlds.”
• “Mars Express finds more underground water on Mars.” Watch. Also “Multiple subglacial water bodies below the south pole of Mars unveiled by new MARSIS data.” Also “Astronomers Claim to Spot Multiple Bodies of Liquid Water on Mars.” Also “Buried lakes of liquid water discovered on Mars.” Also “Ancient underground lakes discovered on Mars. Mars could be home to more liquid water than we originally thought.”
• “Spinal Cord Stimulation Reduces Pain and Motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease Patients. In study, 15 patients with long-term PD and chronic pain and mobility impairment showed improvements across multiple measures.”
• “Scientists precisely measure total amount of matter in the universe. UC Riverside-led team’s technique relied on determining the mass of galaxy clusters.”
• “New Enzyme Cocktail Digests Plastic Waste Six Times Faster. The discovery, by a team co-led by Prof John McGeehan, is another leap towards beating plastic waste.”
• “Research confirms link between sleep apnea and Alzheimer’s disease. New research has confirmed long-suspected links between sleep apnea and Alzheimer’s disease, finding identical signs of brain damage in both conditions.”
• Naked Prehistoric Monsters! Evidence That Prehistoric Flying Reptiles Probably Had Feathers Refuted
• Meet the PhD Student Inventing a New Scientific Language in Welsh
• Turkish Archaeologists Uncover 2,400-year-old Dionysus Mask
• Scientist at Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing leads work to identify biomarkers in blood, revealing often-missed minor strokes.
• First measurements of radiation levels on the moon
• Did … a pet write this? “Having pets linked to maintaining better mental health and reducing loneliness during lockdown, research shows. Sharing a home with a pet appeared to act as a buffer against psychological stress during lockdown, a new survey shows.”
• Metal wires of carbon complete toolbox for carbon-based computers
• From the Space Oddity dept: “Faint orbital debris that threatens satellites not being monitored closely enough, warn astronomers.”—”University of Warwick astronomers are warning that orbital debris posing a threat to operational satellites is not being monitored closely enough, as they publish a new survey finding that over 75% of the orbital debris they detected could not be matched to known objects in public satellite catalogues.”
• “Astronomers discover possible 60s-era Moon rocket booster heading back to Earth.” That’s no astroid. That’s space junk! “Stop hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?”
• “Physicists Argue That Black Holes From the Big Bang Could Be the Dark Matter. It was an old idea of Stephen Hawking’s: Unseen “primordial” black holes might be the hidden dark matter. It fell out of favor for decades, but a new series of studies has shown how the theory can work.”
• Tattoos Impair Sweating, Could Increase Risk of Heat-related Injury
• A Wild Monkey Chase: Do Ken Kesey’s LSD-Dosed Apes Still Roam La Honda?
• “The Newly Legal Process for Turning Human Corpses to Soil. Reusable eight-by-four-foot steel cylinders, packed with wood chips, straw, and alfalfa, present an eco-friendly alternative to traditional burial.”
• “The Fungal Evangelist Who Would Save the Bees. How mushrooms could solve colony collapse disorder.”—”‘Oh my god.’ Stamets woke up. ‘I think I know how to save the bees.'”
• “How Does Science Really Work? Science is objective. Scientists are not. Can an “iron rule” explain how they’ve changed the world anyway?”
• “Burning bush, melting Arctic, a deadly virus: nobody said the end times would be boring. For one brief shining moment it seemed humanity’s inability to imagine much beyond our lived experience was irrelevant. Covid was coming for us all.” An essay that will appear in the anthology Fire, Flood and Plague edited by Sophie Cunningham, due in December—”This anthology brings together original work from a diverse collection of Australian voices, from writers to scientists, journalists to historians, all expressing what 2020 meant to them. They write of ash falling from the sky, fish dying on riverbanks, loved ones lost, loved ones reunited, the historical resonance of fire and plague for Indigenous Australians, geopolitical tensions, the changed nature of travel, friendships rekindled on Zoom, the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, the state of the arts and the media, the importance of nurturing our inner lives, communities destroyed and communities rebuilding.”
• Research reveals shocking detail on how Australia’s environmental scientists are being silenced
• “Social-media platforms are destroying evidence of war crimes. Content-moderation policies have led to evidence being erased, sometimes before it is ever seen.”
• Deep algebra for deep beats: The beautiful sounds of musical programming. The beauty of these projects comes as much from sonic textures as from elegant code.
• “When coffee makers are demanding a ransom, you know IoT is screwed. Watch along as hacked machine grinds, beeps, and spews water.”
• Open? You keep saying that word. I’m not sure that word means what they think it means. “It looks like Elon Musk isn’t happy about Microsoft exclusively licensing OpenAI’s text-generating software.”
• “Last phase of the desktop wars?” So, Windows turns into OpenStep, but running on Linux instead of BSD, which became macOS X. We coulda had this decades ago!
• The Political Meaning of Bush v. Gore Today
• Winner-Take-All Electoral College Could Enable Dreaded Constitutional Crisis
• “Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters. Former aides say that in private, the president has spoken with cynicism and contempt about believers.”
• Playing the anti-Catholic card in the Barrett nomination
• Tweet—”That said, they’re using the same tactics as fascists and many of the short-term goals are the same. It’s the long-term goals that are different and terrifying. A depopulated earth is easier for them to loot and control during climate catastrophe. It’s a transnational death cult.” Also “America is now a mafia state. A conversation with Sarah Kendzior, scholar of authoritarianism and vindicated alarmist.”
• Watch The Supreme Court, an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver—”The Supreme Court is about to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future, and if things seem hopeless right now, it’s because, to be completely honest, they basically are.”
• “Call to Action to Block a GOP SCOTUS Pick. Rabbi Michael Lerner and Rabbi Arthur Waskow have developed a strategy in response to President Trump’s attempt to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
• “‘A Giant Middle Finger to the Entire System’: Trans Anarchist Satanist Runs for Sheriff … as a Republican.”
• Tweet—”Channel 4 News investigation reveals a huge Trump campaign data leak, exposing how 3.5 million Black Americans were listed as ‘Deterrence’ – to try to stop them voting in 2016.” Likely will be posted on their YouTube after broadcast at https://www.youtube.com/user/Channel4News
• “How many of Florida’s felons will be able to vote in the swing state? Florida’s Amendment 4 restored voting rights to as many as 1.4 million felons who had completed their sentences, but then things got complicated. Hundreds of thousands of ex-convicts are still disenfranchised just over a month before the presidential election. Lesley Stahl reports.”
• Non-Partisan Watchdog Accuses Trump Campaign Of ‘Laundering’ $170 Million
• Tweet—”Which is why Trump anointed #AmyConeyBarrett Five-Star General of the Footsoldiers of the Patriarchy. ‘Conservative Feminism’ Queen is here to stick her middle finger up smug white feminism.”
• Tweet—”The U.K. government has made an update to school curriculums. Now banned: ‘promoting the overthrow of capitalism’ (socialism). ‘victim narratives’ (colonial regret). ‘accusations against state institutions’ (institutional racism). ‘groups that have violence against property’ (BLM)” Also. Also Schools in England told not to use material from anti-capitalist groups. Idea categorised as ‘extreme political stance’ equivalent to endorsing illegal activity.”
• Welp. They wanted a useful idiot to play as a Nixonian re-enactor that would run the government like a business, and, boy, did they ever get it. My hot take is that this should also reveal what “business” is, really. As small farm is to factory farm, small business is to this. And no one in “factory business” will think twice because they’re all doing it, washing themselves daily in bathtubs of debt bailed out by racist and classist and Xist labor and other markets, like Bathory in villagers’ blood poured in by servants. Their response, will of course be what Microsoft said during their monopoly trial, “It’s what we are supposed to do!” See “The President’s Taxes. Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance.” Also tweet thread. Also Tweet—”Trump has worked hard to keep his debts hidden for decades. @DanAlexander21 has a book out about the president’s financial conflicts of interest, “White House Inc.” He estimates Trump’s total indebtedness to be about $1.1 billion.” About White House Inc.: How Donald Trump Turned the Presidency into a Business by Dan Alexander—”An in-depth investigation into Donald Trump’s business—and how he used America’s top job to service it.” Also tweet thread. Also Tweet—”Here’s one of @realdonaldtrump’s former employees — an undocumented woman who says Trump Org knew she was undocumented — showing she paid more income tax than Trump did.” Also “Trump Tax Bombshell Reveals How the System Is Rigged“—”Seth takes a closer look at Trump being on the verge of putting a third justice on the Supreme Court after pulling one of the greatest tax cheats in American history.”
• Tweet—”The Failing Wall”
• “QAnon Goes to Washington. Twenty-four followers of the grotesque conspiracy theory are running for Congress in November. Where does this end?”
• “QAnon Is Attracting Cops. Armed, empowered—and enthralled with a deadly conspiracy.”
• “QAnon Is Like a Game—a Most Dangerous Game. The conspiracy theory has the best attributes of a multiplatform game, except that it can cause harm in the real world.”
• “If your friends or family have fallen for an internet conspiracy cult, here’s what you should do. The zealotry of QAnon believers can be devastating for their loved ones. But action is possible.”
• “Building a Shared Worldview Among Democrats and Republicans Could Be More Dangerous Than Healing. Bring people together around protecting democracy instead.”
• What Does ‘Home’ Mean During the COVID Pandemic?
• Tweet—”3 people pose for a photo whilst wearing face masks during the second wave of the Spanish Flu in California; 1918.”
• Tweet—”i’ve gone full regency era. i take short slow walks, post some letters, weakly tidy things up, eat bites of soup, drink half a cup of tea, stare out the window.”
• “‘I Can’t Help It’ – 5 People Reveal Why They’re Still Stockpiling. Toilet roll shelves are empty again. Here, people tell us why they’re panic-buying amid the rising Covid-19 cases.”
• “What Socializing Will Be Like This Fall And Winter During COVID-19. Here’s what to expect with gatherings and activities over the colder months of the coronavirus pandemic.”
• “The Difference Between Stress And Burnout (And How To Tell Which You Have). Is your mental health, energy and motivation completely zapped? Read this.”
• “What My Sled Dogs Taught Me About Planning for the Unknown. Working with them in the wilderness means negotiating countless shifting variables. Sounds a lot like the world we’re living in.”
• “I Lived Through Collapse. America Is Already There. How life goes on, surrounded by death.”
• “Our reckoning with racism. As the country grapples with the role of systemic racism, The Times has committed to examining its past.” Also “Editorial: An examination of The Times’ failures on race, our apology and a path forward.” Also “A Black reporter recalls racism in the newsroom and finally gets his day of reckoning . The writer revisits a painful memory from 1992, comparing it to his father’s trauma and the current firestorm at the Los Angeles Times.”
• Whiteness, sovereignty and the body
• Tweet—”When I was initiated it looked like the old heteronormative cisgender ideals of man initiates woman and woman initiates man were slowly being phased out. Fast forward twenty years and here we are still arguing over the same tired old subject.”
• “The Myth of Patriarchy is Unnatural (but it’s also strong)“—”Long-term, the only thing that beats a bad myth is a good myth.”
• “What You Need to Know About the Obscure Occult Group Linked to Toronto Murder. The Order of Nine Angles has been linked to crimes across the globe, including a recent murder. Experts say the group has few followers, but an outsized violent reach.”
• “Survivors of an International Buddhist Cult Share Their Stories. An investigation into decades of abuse at Shambhala International.”
• Watch “Former ‘Battlestar Galactica’ actress part of alleged ‘sex cult’ speaks out.”
• “Why it’s so difficult to abolish sororities and fraternities. Students are calling for an end to Greek life. That goes against some colleges’ financial interests.”
• “With an Army of Sex Soldiers, a Thai King Makes His Great Escape. King Rama X turned his royal consorts into a militarized force and fled the country for Germany. But in the midst of a pandemic and intensifying unrest at home, how long can pleasure win out?”
• “How you perceive time may depend on your income. Research on how the brain processes memories suggests that people who can afford more novel experiences will recall having lived for a longer time on Earth.”
• “How Memes, Lulz, and “Ironic” Bigotry Won the Internet. For years, white-supremacist rhetoric hid in plain sight among cat GIFs and Hitler jokes. Why didn’t we see the danger?”
• Tweet thread—”Private equity sounds like just another source of investment capital, like venture capital or hedge funds, but while these can be incredibly destructive and toxic, private equity has perfected destroying the real economy, ruining lives and making rich people richer.”
• “An Online Archive Tells an Alternate History of US Monuments and Architecture.” About Archive Machines, an online exhibit on the LAMAG website through November 1.
• “The Revolutionary Beethoven. In the year of the great composer’s 250th birthday, we can retune our ears to pick up the subversive and passionately democratic nature of his music.”
• More about Feels Good Man, a review: “Feels Good Man, a film that truly gets how things are passed across the Internet. Exhaustively researched and reported, doc stays riveting no matter your Pepe familiarity.”
• Watch Lupin, official trailer. Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief Arsène Lupin as a “contemporary retelling” will hit Netflix in January 2021. On Netflix: “A contemporary retelling of the classic French story about Arsène Lupin, a gentleman thief and master of disguise. Starring Omar Sy.” “Some books go way beyond a story. Omar Sy is Assane Diop gentleman-thief, in Lupin. Coming in January 2021 on Netflix.”
• Not a remake, but a sequel! Watch The Craft: Legacy, official trailer, streaming October 28. “In Blumhouse’s continuation of the cult hit The Craft, an eclectic foursome of aspiring teenage witches get more than they bargained for as they lean into their newfound powers. Written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, the film stars Cailee Spaeny, Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone, Zoey Luna, Nicholas Galitzine, with Michelle Monaghan and David Duchovny. Blumhouse and Red Wagon Entertainment are producing the film for Columbia Pictures.” Also tweet—”…So who else is up for a full feminist restorative justice remake of THE CRAFT, where everything stays exactly the same, except the climactic scene has the coven realiz … (…and then we can do a GINGER SNAPS crossover.) #NancyWasRight” Furthermore, with David Duchovny attached and apparently Pam Grossman and others. who know well enough to hopefully help, consulted on this, let’s hope it isn’t just another Blumhouse filmwreck, but something good.
• Watch “From Hill House to Bly Manor“—”The Haunting creator Mike Flanagan and Executive Producer Trevor Macy talk about the road from 2018’s The Haunting of Hill House to The Haunting of Bly Manor, arriving October 9th on Netflix.” A Behind the Scenes feature about The Haunting of Bly Manor—”Dead doesn’t mean gone. An au pair plunges into an abyss of chilling secrets in this gothic romance from the creator of ‘The Haunting of Hill House.'” “From ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ creator Mike Flanagan, based on the ghost stories of Henry James.”
• “Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut is a bold summation of his career. Tilda Swinton stars in The Human Voice, a 30-minute Jean Cocteau adaptation.”
• Watch “Brewing a Potion Just For You…ASMR”
• Watch “Dark ASMR Three Wise Monkeys ‘Hear No Evil’”
• “ASMR Is Overwhelmingly White. Here Are Some Black Artists To Watch. Hushed, relaxing ASMR videos are wildly popular on YouTube, but Black creators rarely get featured.”
• The grim truth behind Britain’s stately homes— “Many of these country estates are indelibly linked to brutal legacies of slavery and colonialism. And while their grim origins may have been previously overlooked, they’re now facing a new level of scrutiny that — amid raging debates over how Britain reckons with its imperial past — has exploded into its own cultural conflict. At the center of the controversy is a new report into the matter by the National Trust, a heritage body created in 1895 to preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Published this month, the report identifies 93 places, roughly one third of all of its properties, that it says were built, benefited from or connected to the spoils of slavery and colonialism.”
• Watch “Heaven & Hell in Art: The Birth of the Italian Renaissance.”
• Watch “Public Trust“, “a feature-length documentary about America’s system of public lands and the fight to protect them.”—”Despite support from voters across the political spectrum, our public lands face unprecedented threats from extractive industries and the politicians in their pockets. Part love letter, part political exposé, Public Trust investigates how we arrived at this precarious moment through three heated conflicts—a national monument in the Utah desert, a mine in the Boundary Waters and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge—and makes a case for their continued protection.”
• “Parrots removed from UK family safari park after teaching each other to swear – and laughing about it. ‘Because they were all quarantined together it meant that one room was just full of swearing birds'”
• Twee—”Verdammt! Willst du mich verarschen?” The black beemer tore out of the Oberhausen bunker. Two and a half hours to Frankfurt. Sixteen hours to Ushuaia. The virus had bought them a little time, but they knew the stakes. 1/” A short story inspired by “Russian scientist claims team battled creature under Antarctic ice.”
• From the I See Sigils dept: “Artist ‘Logos’ from Iconic Jazz Album Covers.”
• Tweet—”Virtual meetings are basically modern seances. ‘Elizabeth are you here?’ ‘Make a sound if you can hear us.’ ‘Is anyone else with you?’ ‘We can’t see you, can you hear us?'”
• Tweet—”only one person in this meeting room at a time.”
• Tweet—”fight for the things you care about”

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.