An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for October 31, 2020

Happy Halloween, observed Samhain! Hope you have a good one. Also remember that Astronomical Samhain, ☉ at 15° ♏ (Sun at 15° Scorpio) occurs in the Northern Hemisphere at 22:56 UTC on November 7, 2020. So, feel free to keep the month of Halloween going into November!

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

• Yogis Empowered and Imperiled in the Telugu Account of the Nine Naths by SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies, online course, Wed, 4 November 2020, 12:30 CST. “This talk will introduce Gaurana’s collection of Nāth tales and its portrayal of yogic and alchemical practices.”
• Pagan Portals – Aphrodite: Encountering the Goddess of Love & Beauty & Initiation [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]—”Aphrodite is an often misunderstood goddess, one who is easy to relegate to the love goddess role, but she is a goddess who also shows up as an initiator and, some might say, troublemaker. In this book, we seek to explore the complexity of a goddess who was born on sea foam and who inspires beauty and love, all the while offering a hand toward each one of us to celebrate our full hearts.”
• Yoga, Magic and Deception – IV—”Given the general disdain with which physical yoga was viewed at the turn of the twentieth century, Aleister Crowley’s incorporation of yoga into Western Esotericism is all the more remarkable. (He’s also, by the way, the first western esotericist to develop practical exercises relating to the chakras.) However, in bringing elements of yoga practice into his formulation of magic, Crowley left a good deal out – including any suggestion that yoga practices could lead to the flowering of extraordinary abilities ranging from flight to being able to enter the body of another person. In fact, he seems to have been decidedly skeptical of the very idea.”
• More about this: “Boleskine couple feared for safety from stalker.”
• “‘I worshipped the Devil, ran my own coven and was on brink of killing’: the Antrim pastor who found God after shocking descent into the occult. Co Antrim pastor issues appeal for parents not to be fooled by the ‘innocence’ of Halloween.” Also tweet—”File under: highly doubtful. Always high ranking, never the lay person.”
• “Hell yeah: 10 great songs about Satan and the occult.” Ozzy Osbourne’s Mr Crowley and David Bowie’s Quicksand mentioned.
• Watch A Blaze of Feather’s “Witching Hour,” official video. Also “A Blaze of Feather hails ‘Witching Hour’ on new single.”—”The adjoining hand-spooled video is a haunting 16mm trip through the Cornish countryside in the early morning – geographically, it was shot close to the residence of famed occultist Aleister Crowley.” About the album Labyrinth [Also] by A Blaze of Feather
• “The Toad-Witch Pewter pendant. A pendant in pewter depicting the ‘Toad and Host’, a sign invoking the solitary initiatory tradition of the toad-wtich. A tradition found in the lore of numerous parts of Britain gives the initiation being conferred by the witch circling a church before feeding part of the consecrated Host to a toad – Often the ‘Devi’ in disguise. It is thus a symbol of the Divine spark within all things and the old tenet of ‘All is One’. Please Note: This pendant is currently on pre-order, we anticipate shipping them the last week of November.
• “Keeping warm with the help of the Satanic Temple. Members of the temple’s San Antonio chapter are collecting warm clothes for the homeless.”
• Quartz Weekly Obsession, October 28: H.P. Lovecraft
• “The Map and the Territory. National borders have colonized our imagination.”
• “Who’s Afraid of Theory?”
• “Enoch From Antiquity to the Middle Ages.” About Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, Volume 1: Sources from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by John C. Reeves and Annette Yoshiko Reed
• The Devil’s Footprint by Carl Abrahamsson. “God proposes the challenge of the millennium: if Satan sorts out the ever growing human mess on Earth, God will lovingly take him back to Heaven as his favorite Archangel. Satan accepts, and sets out on a massive operation to balance out over-population, pollution, corruption, and other severely Satanic headaches – many of which he originally helped create… Easier said than done!Satan’s love of the ambitiously mischievous humans is challenged as his own “Team Apocalypse” fervently sets to work. But as the world begins to change quickly and dramatically for the better, a new question arises: can God and his suspicious Archangels really be trusted in this cataclysmic, cosmic undertaking?”
• “Embodying a Queer, Pan-Africanist Approach to Spirituality.” About the exhibit Hybrid Spirit at Melrose Gallery, Johannesburg, through November 15.
• “Mexico Asks Vatican for Temporary Return of Ancient Indigenous Manuscripts.”
• “Draconian’s Under A Godless Veil: a glorious marriage of gothic doom and gnostic cosmology. Sweden’s revered gloom-mongers Draconian find new depths of glory on Under A Godless Veil.” About Under A Godless Veil by Draconian.
• Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Brea Grant, illustrated by Yishan Li. “When angsty teenager Mary Shelley is not interested in carrying on her family’s celebrated legacy of being a great writer, but she soon discovers that she has the not-so-celebrated and super-secret Shelley power to heal monsters, just like her famous ancestor, and those monsters are not going to let her ignore her true calling anytime soon.”
• “The Cthulhu Mythos in the pulps.”
• A Dictionary Takes Us Through the Fascinating History of Symbols.” About A Dictionary of Symbols: Revised and Expanded Edition [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Juan Eduardo Cirlot, translated by Valerie Miles and Jack Sage—”A classic encyclopedia of symbols by Catalan polymath Joan Cirlot that illuminates the symbolic underpinnings of myth, modern psychology, literature, and art.”
• The Mirror Tells All: and Other Stories [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Erzebet Barthold—”Peasants, princesses, princes and fighting men. Wives, daughters, fairy queens and friends. They share in common triumph and loss, but what binds them all is love. This collection of includes five previously published and four unpublished short stories by Erzebet Barthold who is best known for her work as a publisher (Papaveria Press and Hadean Press). Inside you’ll find fairy tale retellings, pure fantasy, and the weird, bound together by the subversive notion that while we can be damaged and broken, wholeness is our natural state.”
• “Lost letters reveal JM Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson’s mutual affection. Newly unearthed correspondence shows deep respect between Peter Pan and Treasure Island authors, who never met.”—”Now, the lost letters of JM Barrie to Robert Louis Stevenson – missing for over a century – have been found in a cardboard box in a library archive and will be published for the first time in a forthcoming book. The letters reveal how ardently the young Barrie both adored and admired Stevenson, who was an older and more established writer. A year into their friendship, which was initiated by Stevenson, Barrie wrote to him: ‘To be blunt I have discovered (have suspected it for some time) that I love you, and if you had been a woman…’ He leaves the sentence unfinished.” About Michael Shaw’s forthcoming book, due in November, A Friendship in Letters: A Friendship in Letters: Robert Louis Stevenson & J.M. Barrie [Amazon UK, Publisher]
• “An Incandescent Inanity. A new translation captures the oddity of Russia’s most baffling comic writer.” About The Nose and Other Stories [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Susanne Fusso—”Nikolai Gogol’s novel Dead Souls and play The Government Inspector revolutionized Russian literature and continue to entertain generations of readers around the world. Yet Gogol’s peculiar genius comes through most powerfully in his short stories. By turns–or at once–funny, terrifying, and profound, the tales collected in The Nose and Other Stories are among the greatest achievements of world literature.”
• “Jenny Hval and Alexandra Kleeman Talk Magic Words, Witch Melodies, and Norwegian Black Metal Scene. A Conversation with the Author of Girls Against God.” About Girls Against God: A Novel [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Jenny Hval—”A genre-warping, time-travelling horror novel-slash-feminist manifesto for fans of Clarice Lispector and Jeanette Winterson.” “At once a time-travelling horror story and a fugue-like feminist manifesto, this is a singular, genre-warping new novel from the author of the acclaimed Paradise Rot”
• “Ghosts, Demons, and Depression: Writers and Their Many Hauntings. Claire Cronin on the Literary Fixation on the Supernatural.” Excerpted from Blue Light of the Screen: On Horror, Ghosts, and God [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Claire Cronin—”Blue Light of the Screen is a memoir about the author’s obsession with horror and the supernatural.”
• “How Scary Are Ghost Stories in This Pandemic Year of Wildfires, Hurricanes, and Police Violence? M. Dressler on What Gothic Novels and Speculative Literature Can Teach Us About Life Right Now.” By M Dressler author of I See You So Close, Volume 2 [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]—”The dead and their secrets refuse to stay buried in this thrilling sequel to M. Dressler’s award-winning The Last to See Me, for fans of Lauren Oliver and Kazuo Ishiguro.”
• “A Witch’s Rules of Matrimony.” About An American Covenant: A Story of Women, Mysticism, and the Making of Modern America [Bookshop, Amazon] by Lucile Scott, introduction by Joey Soloway—”A history of mystic resistance and liberation and of five women who transcended the expected to transform America.”
• “25 years of His Dark Materials: Philip Pullman on the journey of a lifetime. When Pullman began to write Lyra’s adventure in 1993, the world was a very different place. He looks back on the creation of his alternative Brytain.” About the series, but also His Dark Materials: Serpentine [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Philip Pullman, illustrated by Tom Duxbury. “This companion to His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust offers a tantalizing new glimpse of Lyra and her dæmon, Pantalaimon. The world-changing events of The Amber Spyglass are behind them, and Lyra and Pan find themselves utterly changed as well. In Serpentine, they journey to the far North once more, hoping to ask the Consul of Witches a most urgent question. This brand-new story, a beguiling must-read for Pullman fans old and new, is a perfect companion to His Dark Materials and a fascinating bridge to The Book of Dust.”
• “The Martin Papers. Martin Amis looks back.” More about Inside Story: A Novel [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Martin Amis, due in a couple days—”From one of the most highly acclaimed writers at work today: his most intimate and epic work yet–an autobiographical novel of sex and love, family and friendship.”
• “Max Weber’s Agon. Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon, reply by Peter E. Gordon.”—”This matters because the paradox Weber put before his listeners is that amid modern disinformation machines, the recrudescent privileging of charismatic authority, and hostile treatment from the corrupt and those seeking to re-enchant rationalized institutions, the sober, everyday work of journalists, scholars, scientists, and politicians is elevated to something higher, something that can lay claim to a kind of spiritual mission—work in the sense of “the artist’s work” or “a life’s work.” A century after Weber’s death, and in the face of egregious obstruction and intimidation from the Trump White House, honest professionalism has never seemed more inspired or inspiring.” “According to Weber a politician must balance sober realism with unwavering conviction, and at some point must have the courage to say (in a phrase attributed to Luther): “Here I stand; I can do no other.” A scholar, however, does not exhibit such absolute commitment to a social good but instead recognizes the relativity of all such goods. Because Weber describes both of these tasks as “vocations,” this difference is easily overlooked. But scholarship and politics on his view are not simply two ways “to lead a meaningful life” (as Reitter and Wellmon write). He saw the social scientist as the final embodiment of our disenchanted world, who is poised in suspension above the value-commitments that all other social agents consider absolute.” “There is indeed true heroism in the labor of journalists, artists, scholars—and even some politicians.” About Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Max Weber, edited by Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon, translated by Damion Searls–”A new translation of two celebrated lectures on politics, academia, and the disenchantment of the world.”
• The Lost Spells [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Robert MacFarlane, illustrated by Jackie Morris—”Since its publication in 2017, The Lost Words has enchanted readers with its poetry and illustrations of the natural world. Now, The Lost Spells, a book kindred in spirit and tone, continues to re-wild the lives of children and adults. The Lost Spells evokes the wonder of everyday nature, conjuring up red foxes, birch trees, jackdaws, and more in poems and illustrations that flow between the pages and into readers’ minds. Robert Macfarlane’s spell-poems and Jackie Morris’s watercolour illustrations are musical and magical: these are summoning spells, words of recollection, charms of protection. To read The Lost Spells is to see anew the natural world within our grasp and to be reminded of what happens when we allow it to slip away.”
• Verso Books: “Coronavirus pamphlet series. Looking at the pandemic in its wider political context: all 30% off until November 2nd.”
• The Bottom: A Theopoetic of the Streets [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Charles Lattimore Howard, due November 1. “the bottom: a theopoetic of the streets explores homelessness; fusing theology, jazz-verse and intimate storytelling into a challenging, raw and beautiful tale.”
• Dungeon Party [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by John Webster, due November 1. “A roleplaying group expels a member who seeks revenge through a cynical game of his own making.”
• Aliens, Robots & Virtual Reality Idols in the Science Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson
  [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by John L Steadman, due Nov 1. “John L. Steadman argues that there is little difference between alien indifferentism and alien inclusionism in the fictional works of H. P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson.”

• “Beyond Frankenstein: 7 Contemporary Monster Stories Written by Women.”
• More about this: “NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Successfully Stows Sample of Asteroid Bennu.”—”NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission has successfully stowed the spacecraft’s Sample Return Capsule (SRC) and its abundant sample of asteroid Bennu. On Wednesday, Oct. 28, the mission team sent commands to the spacecraft, instructing it to close the capsule – marking the end of one of the most challenging phases of the mission.”
• How Many Habitable Planets are Out There?—”Thanks to new research using data from the Kepler space telescope, it’s estimated that there could be as many as 300 million potentially habitable planets in our galaxy. Some could even be pretty close, with several likely within 30 light-years of our Sun.”
• “Astronomers are Bulging with Data.Star-studded image shows the glittering central parts of the Milky Way.”—”For the first time, over 250 million stars in our galaxy’s bulge have been surveyed in near-ultraviolet, optical, and near-infrared light, opening the door for astronomers to reexamine key questions about the Milky Way’s formation and history. Using ultraviolet data, and with 450,000 individual images, the team was able to measure the chemical composition of tens of thousands of stars spanning a large area of the bulge. The vast dataset can be explored in spectacular detail in this image.” Watch “Zooming to the Center of the Milky Way.”
• Maybe Planet X was all the rogue planets we met along the way? “An Earth-sized rogue planet discovered in the Milky Way.”—”Our Galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets, gravitationally unbound to any star. An international team of scientists, led by Polish astronomers from the University of Warsaw, has announced the discovery of the smallest Earth-sized free-floating planet found to date.” Also “A Rogue Mars-Sized Planet Is Hurtling Through Our Galaxy. The small rogue planet—a free-roaming rock without a star to orbit—was only detectable for 42 minutes as it briefly zoomed in front of a star.”
• “Juno Data Indicates ‘Sprites’ or ‘Elves’ Frolic in Jupiter’s Atmosphere.”—”An instrument on the spacecraft may have detected transient luminous events – bright flashes of light in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere.”
• “Philae’s second touchdown site discovered at ‘skull-top’ ridge.” Also watch “Where is ‘skull face’?” Also “Doomed Philae lander accidentally did a science by denting the comet. New touchdown location identified where Philae bumped into a boulder.”
• But, I must know, did the spaceship leave latte art? “Spacecraft’s Tumbling Landing Reveals Some of Comet’s Surface is Like Cappuccino Foam. To researchers’ surprise, Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has ice that’s fluffier than freshly fallen snow.”
• Let the Human hunts begin! “Dart-Shooting Drone Attacks Trees for Science. Sensor-laden darts can collect data in hazardous or inaccessible environments.” Also “Raptor-inspired drone with morphing wing and tail. EPFL engineers have developed a drone with a feathered wing and tail that give it unprecedented flight agility.” Also, counterpoint: “These drones will plant 40,000 trees in a month. By 2028, they’ll have planted 1 billion. We need to massively reforest the planet, in a very short period of time. Flash Forest’s drones can plant trees a lot faster than humans.”
• “Leveraging a 3D printer “defect” to create a new quasi-textile. Tulle-like DefeXtiles can be 3D printed with no custom software or hardware.”—”Forman has printed these flexible and thin sheets into an interactive lampshade, full-sized skirts, a roll of fabric long enough to stretch across a baseball diamond, and intricately patterned lace, among other items.”
• “312 Days in the Stratosphere. The innovations leading to Loon’s longest flight.” Also watch. Also.
• “Int’l Study Uncovers Secret Surfing Life of Remoras Hitchhiking on Blue Whales.”
• “Why Some Memories Seem Like Movies: ‘Time Cells’ Discovered In Human Brains.”
• “Ancient skull a new window on human migrations, Denisovan meetings. New sequences also show Denisovans were living at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau.”
• More about this: Great Barrier Reef: Scientists find reef taller than Empire State Building—”An enormous coral reef has been found at the northern tip of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the first such discovery in 120 years, scientists say.”
• “NASA Discovers a Rare Metal Asteroid That’s Worth $10,000,000,000,000,000,000.” That’s 10 quintillion.
• But, if it is half way there, doesn’t it have to go another half way, forever? NASA’s Perseverance Rover Is Midway to Mars.”—”Sometimes half measures can be a good thing – especially on a journey this long. The agency’s latest rover only has about 146 million miles left to reach its destination.”
• How a tiny bit of lacquer grounded new Falcon 9 rockets for a month.—”Rocketry is tough and requires a lot of attention to detail.” After all, successfully launching into space a thing with a million parts each that only ever fail 1 in a million times is still a minor miracle.
• Oh no. “In a first, researchers extract secret key used to encrypt Intel CPU code. Hackers can now reverse-engineer updates or write their own custom firmware.”
• “Grin and Bear It. On the rise and rise of neo-Stoicism.”
• “Editing Commentary: A Conversation. How this magazine has survived and thrived for three quarters of a century.”—”Good editors, really good editors, are very rare, in fact even rarer than good writers. It’s a special kind of talent because it takes two qualities that rarely go together in the same person. On the one hand, great arrogance, and on the other hand, great selflessness. The arrogance lies in the fact that you, the editor, thinks he knows better than the author, who is usually a specialist, on how to say what it is he wants to say. The humility or selflessness, which is very important, is that you are willing to lend your talents to someone else’s work without getting any credit for it.”
• “Saving Russia. Dostoevsky’s life and times illuminated by his great critic.” About Lectures on Dostoevsky [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Joseph Frank, edited by Marina Brodskaya and Marguerite Frank, foreword by Robin Feuer Miller. “From the author of the definitive biography of Fyodor Dostoevsky, never-before-published lectures that provide an accessible introduction to the Russian writer’s major works”
• “Why This Ex-Wall Street Intern Walked Away From Porn Stardom. Paige Jennings made headlines when she left Wall Street for porn. Then a disturbing experience with Markus Dupree led her to quit. Now she’s out to revolutionize the industry.”
• “‘The Office’ Warned Us About Dwight Schrute. When “The Office” originally aired, its resident fool made for easy comedy. Fifteen years later, it’s hard to watch Dwight without seeing tragedy.”
• “I Bought a Witches’ Prison. In 2005, Vanessa Mitchell moved into her dream home, a former medieval jail where England’s witches waited to hang and burn. When paranormal phenomena forced her to flee, she became convinced it was possessed by evil spirits. This is her true story.”
• “‘Well, What Do You Mean, We Can’t Join the Klan?’ Inside the bizarre, secret meeting between Malcolm X and the Ku Klux Klan.” Excerpted from The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Les Payne and Tamara Payne.
• “No One Fights QAnon Like the Global Army of K-Pop Superfans. BTS stans built the trolling blueprint for 4chan types, and they’ve proven they can disrupt it.”
• “The Self-Driving Car Is a Red Herring. Ghost roads of robot workhorses will power cities through the shocks of the 21st century.” About Anthony Townsend’s Ghost Road: Beyond the Driverless Car [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]—”A penetrating look at near-future disruption as truly autonomous vehicles arrive.”
• “Glimpse the gold mine where scientists are searching for dark matter. An elaborate camera trap, buried a mile below the Black Hills of South Dakota, could reveal the makeup of the universe.”
• “What We’re Voting for: Public Health. The US has the power to stop pandemics before they start.”
• “The latest Section 230 hearing showed that Republicans want to make the internet smaller. We know what happens when you add liability to tech platforms, but lawmakers want to hear it.”
• “Animal Crossing fans are making run-down islands on purpose. Trashcore is in now.”
• “The Craft: Legacy is a featherlight reboot where The Craft was a cult-hit addiction. And the new film shows how Wicca is changing, in movies and reality.”—”The girls dance with joyous abandon at a party, after standing up to judgmental bullies who make fun of their looks. Their witchcraft bestows confidence and begets community. The new film dangles its intersectional feminism without flaunting it, and suggests a potent link between witchcraft and activism that young viewers may find inspiring. Our current political maelstrom seems the perfect atmosphere for conjuring some equitable, earthy wisdom, an antidote to patriarchal tyranny. These are the daughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.”
• “Rituals of Housekeeping, Memories of Home: On Marilynne Robinson’s First Novel. Madelaine Lucas Explores the Tensions Between Creative Work and Domestic Life.”
• Eat butterflies with me?.” About Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews and Letters to the Editor [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy.
• It begins. “Elon Musk’s SpaceX Will ‘Make Its Own Laws on Mars’ ‘No Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities,’ SpaceX claims.”
• “Humans have been living in space for 20 years straight. Since 2000, there have always been humans living and working on the International Space Station—and the streak could just be getting started.”
• I mean, everyone needs a hobby. “Booze, weed, gambling, porn, candy, sloth: Will our pandemic-acquired vices hang around after COVID-19 wanes?”
• Pandemic caused by dyed-hair, confirmed. “McAlister: Navigating the new apocalypse.”
• “Virtual Influencers Make Real Money While Covid Locks Down Human Stars. The pandemic isn’t a problem when you’re computer-generated.”
• “New Study Suggests COVID-19 May Age Some Patients’ Brains By 10 Years. The cognitive effects of the coronavirus can last for months in certain cases, according to researchers.”
• “Pope Francis’ COVID advisers raise concern about no mask: ‘We’re working on it’.” Also “Masks Work. Really. We’ll Show You How. A visual journey through the microscopic world of the coronavirus shows how masks provide an important defense against transmission.” Also “A room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through the air. The risk of contagion is highest in indoor spaces but can be reduced by applying all available measures to combat infection via aerosols. Here is an overview of the likelihood of infection in three everyday scenarios, based on the safety measures used and the length of exposure.” Also, there’s a place for everything and everything in its place … in Hell: watch via tweet.
• “The Simple Rule That Could Keep COVID-19 Deaths Down. The longer we can prevent infections, the better prepared we will be to treat them.”
• “Even in death, pot candidate upends Minnesota US House race.”—”His death in September from an apparent accidental fentanyl overdose set off a legal battle over whether the contest should be delayed until February. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that it won’t be. Now, according to a published report, Weeks left a voicemail for a friend in which he said he was recruited to the race by Republicans solely to siphon votes away from Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in a competitive suburban-to-rural district south of Minneapolis.”
• “‘This administration is ridiculous’: Schumer shreds Trump plan to prioritize Santa performers for COVID vaccine.”
• “Data is the lifeblood of a functioning government. Over the past four years, the trump administration has destroyed, disappeared or distorted vast swathes of the information the state needs to protect the vulnerable, safeguard our health and alert us to emerging crises. This is an accounting of the damage.”
• Was the password to this also “maga2020!”? “Wisconsin Republican Party Says Hackers Stole $2.3 Million.” Also, have they checked Trump’s pockets? Just sayin’.
• “Portland is living in America’s terrifying future.”—”The federal units brought in to ‘police’ Portland protests weren’t really ‘police’ in any meaningful sense of the word. They were an armed extension of the Trump Administration.”
• “How Much Longer Will Donald Trump Be Our Con-Artist-in-Chief? The story of the ill-starred Trump International Hotel & Tower, in Chicago, is another reminder that Trump may well be the most successful con artist in American history.”
• “Four Wasted Years Thinking About Donald Trump. It’s very hard to catalog all the things we’ve lost under the presidency of Donald Trump.”
• “This Is the Coronavirus Election.”
• “America Is About to Choose How Bad the Pandemic Will Get. If Donald Trump is reelected, he will continue to downplay the threat of the coronavirus, and more Americans will fall ill.”
• “Art After the Plague. How painters through the ages have responded to contagion, pestilence, and deadly epidemics.”
• “The Misinformation Superhighway: A Roundtable on the Rise of the Great American Conspiracy. Renata Salecl, Jonathan Berman, and Tea Krulos Talk Anti-Vaxxers, QAnon, Incels and More.”
• “Losing It: Does Virginity Even Matter Anymore? Societal construct? Religious belief? Here, 13 members of Gen Z tackle the endless debate between purity and pleasure.”
• “The Death Of Seasons. How the climate crisis could forever change winter, spring, summer and fall.”
• “‘We Are the Rifles Our Ancestors Didn’t Have’: Female Collective Protests for Armenians.”
• “The Corporate Feminism of NXIVM.”
• “How the Instagram Influencer Aesthetic Is Being Used to Sell QAnon.”
• Watch “What Can You Do About QAnon?“—”Q is not going anywhere soon. So what can you do?”
• “Study Shows Republicans Closely Resemble Autocratic Parties in Hungary and Turkey.”
• Let’s Polarize Together—”If everything is evolving—people and houses, nations and companies, flightless birds and more flightless birds—where will we go next? Do we know what seemingly foundational element—flight, perhaps, or freedom—could disappear tomorrow?”
• “Scholars Who Attack ‘Originalism’ Should Know What It Means. Historians and literature profs without real knowledge are weighing in on legal debates.”
• “Police took a Black toddler from his family’s SUV. Then, the union used his photo as ‘propaganda,’ attorneys say. The social media posts told a powerful story of a vulnerable child being rescued amid chaos by hard-working police officers. But lawyers for the boy’s family told The Washington Post that story was a fabrication.”
• “‘Guns, Protests And Elections Do Not Mix’: Conflict Experts See Rising Warning Signs.”—”Members of a Quaker congregation in Maryland are so concerned that President Trump will prematurely declare victory when states are still counting ballots — a process that could take days — that they are ready to take to the streets in nonviolent resistance. They say such a scenario would amount to a “coup” — even if it involves legal fights and not military action.”
• “What Abolition Looks Like, From the Panthers to the People. Calls to defund prisons and policing is neither new nor hopelessly utopian.”
• “What Is The Internet Doing To Boomers’ Brains? Social media platforms are sucking a generation into a misinformation rabbit hole.”
• “‘Brave New World’ Canceled By Peacock After One Season.”
• “Greta Thunberg reflects on living through multiple crises in a ‘post-truth society’. In an exclusive interview with National Geographic, the teen climate activist considers the successes of the youth climate movement and the challenges it will face.”
• “Inside the Secret World of Covenant Communities. The tight-knit, restrictive, and obedient religious groups whose views shaped the country’s newest Supreme Court Justice.”
• BBC ‘no bias’ rules prevent staff joining LGBT pride marches. Director general Tim Davie introduces new social media guidelines and ban on ‘controversial’ gatherings.” Also tweet—”honestly not sure how to process the fact that expressing my identity or discussing my life is now such a radical political act that it could potentially disqualify me from holding the position I previously held at the BBC”
• “Taika Waititi To Co-Write & Direct ‘Time Bandits’ Series In Works At Apple From Paramount, Anonymous Content & MRC.”—”Thor: Ragnarok filmmaker Taika Waititi has boarded Time Bandits, the TV series adaptation of the beloved Terry Gilliam-directed movie, which is in development at Apple.”
• Stardust, official trailer; directed by Gabriel Range, with Johnny Flynn, Jena Malone, Marc Maron. “David Bowie is one of the most seminal legends in music history; but who was the man behind the many faces? In 1971, a 24-year-old fledgling David Bowie (Johnny Flynn) is sent to America to promote his newest record, The Man Who Sold the World. Leaving behind his pregnant wife Angie (Jena Malone), Bowie and his band embark on a makeshift coast-to-coast promotional tour with struggling Mercury Records publicist Rob Oberman (Marc Maron).”
• Instructions For A Ritual by Chris Bissette. “This ritual is for educational purposes only. Loot The Room accepts no responsibility for harm – bodily or otherwise – that befalls you if you carry out this ritual. Bodily possession by summoned spirits may be harmful to your health.”
• Watch “The Flight of the Bumblebee performed on the theremin.”
• Off to the races! Watch “Katelyn Tuohy Drops 5k National Record!.” Watch “I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike.” Watch “Marble marathon on the Great Wall of China.” Also “Earth’s Magnetic North Pole Has Begun Racing Towards Siberia. The magnetic North Pole has left Canada, passed the geographic pole and is now heading towards Siberia.”
• “Elvira Is Staying Home for Halloween This Year. ‘Everybody thinks you’re a weirdo, but the thing about Elvira is she just keeps going on about her business,’ the horror icon tells InsideHook.”
• “Fearsome Yakuza Really Miss Halloween This Year. Japan’s government banned the legendary gang from handing out candy to neighborhood kiddos—and both the children and the mobsters are really sad about it.”
• “You’re a cat. You’re also a wizard. There are ghosts, and you fight them with magic.” Google’s Doodle for Halloween 2020.
• “Hell Is for Children: The Revolutionary Politics of ‘The Omen’“—”Damien’s smile, though, was perhaps premature. The forces of reaction and Christian nationalism are not so easily overthrown. In retrospect, The Omen warned not of the devil’s child, but of those who hunted him—all those blank-eyed patriarchs and their long knives.”
• “Read Shirley Jackson’s Eerily Contemporary Letter About Fear.” From The Letters of Shirley Jackson [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Shirley Jackson, edited by Laurence Hyman and Bernice M Murphy, due July 2021—”This bewitching collection of never-before-published letters from the renowned author of ‘The Lottery’ and The Haunting of Hill House brilliantly draws out flashes of the uncanny in the domestic, sparks of horror in the quotidian, and the veins of humor that run through good times and bad.”
• “Wonder or Horror? On the Dark Side of Our Reverence for Nature.”
• “Check out Polygon’s jack-o-lantern tributes to video game ghosts. Polygon carves up some pumpkins.”
• “‘There is power in them’: mysterious stone figures to be moved in Gaelic winter ritual. Figures of the ‘wise woman’ Cailleach deity and her family are part of a tradition that may be centuries old.”
• Hallowes Night by Morvoren, a single from their forthcoming album, Music for the Devil.
• Watch “[Deepfake] Ron Swanson as Wednesday Addams.” Also watch “HALLOWEEN WORDS in IRISH | OÍCHE SHAMHNA as Gaeilge ??” Also watch “Spooky Samhain – The History of Halloween In Ireland | Clisare.” Also “HALLOWEEN COCKTAILS & SPOOKY SAMHAIN STORIES / Irish Girl makes Halloween Cocktails | Ciara ODoherty.” Also “Halloween in the Time of Corona | The Daily Social Distancing Show.”
• Our Halloween Sun—”Active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face on Oct. 8, 2014″

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