An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for December 27, 2020

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

• Thomas Ligotti’s In A Foreign Town, a short film by Michael Shlain, starring Yuri Lowenthal, Tony Amendola, David Rees Snell, Jack McGraw, Adam Tomei and Strange Dave. Music by Current 93. Watch—”A troubled man recalls a strange childhood journey to a town with no name. And the horrifying apparition that has followed him ever since.”
• Tweet—”Woke up to walk the dog on Christmas morning here in San Francisco and at Corona Heights park a mysterious GINGERBREAD MONOLITH has appeared!” Also tweet—”Fritz Lieberman wrote a horror story about that exact spot.” Presumably Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber. Also “San Francisco residents marvel at ‘Christmas miracle’ of gingerbread monolith in park.” Also “Ephemeral edible: gingerbread monolith appears on San Francisco hilltop, then collapses. Christmas day sweet sighting in Corona Heights park attracted visitors who took pictures and even took a bite.” Gods, what? Safety tip from me to you: Don’t bite strange gingerbread buildings! Who knows what story you’ll end up in, or, you know, what substance was added to the recipe. I mean, this was in San Francisco. I’d be disappointed if they didn’t all trip balls or meet Our Lady of Darkness. Or both. Wait. Can I have a bite too?
• Tweet thread—”It seems like a customary Jewish tradition to eat Chinese food on Christmas, but have you ever wondered where that time-honored practice came from?”
• Hermetic Library Anthology Artist Michael Idehall has started a new podcast: Podcast Premiere.
• Magical Fiction Forum, online via Zoom, February 27, 2021—Via K A Laity: “The Magickal Women Partnership proudly presents the Magical Fiction Forum: Fairy tales, fantasy, magical realism, surreal fiction: this forum aims to bring together leading authors and scholars to discuss the impact and influence of texts that transcend their genre and leave readers enchanted and transformed. Online via Zoom. TICKETS ARE ON SALE NOW. Tickets are £30.00 for the full day. All talks will be recorded; tickets include access to the Zoom sessions and to the videos once the event has finished. We have not finalised the schedule; speakers are not shown in order of appearance. Includes me talking about Leonora Carrington’s The Oval Lady (La Dame Ovale), Terri Windling, Diane Purkiss, Shveta Thakrar, Scarlett Amaris, and Liz Williams. Get the details here! I will post some study questions in advance of the forum.
• “Surprising Christmas History From the Date to Origins of St. Nicholas. Why December 25th? Who is St. Nicholas? An authority on Christmas, Bruce Forbes, discusses the history of the holiday and its religious and cultural roots.”
• “If Santa Is Buried in Turkey, Who Has Been Delivering the Presents? The monk-punching Saint Nicholas, aka Santa Claus, has reportedly been found in a tomb in Turkey.”
• “Why I Read ‘King Lear’ in Advent. Seeing darkness is as crucial as seeing light.”
• “I remember Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”—”The story was pretty rough to start with: mutant child laborer is shunned until the CEO finds a way to exploit his difference, and only then do his peers accept him. And we’re supposed to take that as a happy ending. But there’s something far, far worse that I had utterly forgotten.”
• “The world’s oldest story? Astronomers say global myths about ‘seven sisters’ stars may reach back 100,000 years“—”Many cultures around the world refer to the Pleiades as “seven sisters”, and also tell quite similar stories about them. After studying the motion of the stars very closely, we believe these stories may date back 100,000 years to a time when the constellation looked quite different.”
• “The songs of David Bowie album ‘Hunky Dory’ ranked in order of greatness.”—”8. ‘Quicksand’ … The lyrics are influenced by Buddhism, occultism, and Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the Superman — everything that makes Bowie brilliant. In it, he refers to the magical society Golden Dawn and name-checks one of its most famous members, Aleister Crowley, as well as Heinrich Himmler, Winston Churchill and Juan Pujol. A kaleidoscope of influential figures to match the ranging styles of the music.” “4. ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ … Lyrically and thematically, ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ has been seen as reflecting the influence of the aforementioned occultist Aleister Crowley, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s 1871 novel Vril, the Power of the Coming Race, most notably as heralding ‘the impending obsolescence of the human race in favour of an alliance between arriving aliens and the youth of the present society.'” David Bowie’s Hunky Dory [Amazon, Apple, Spotify]
• “Long before Ghostbusters, fiction’s detectives were exploring the otherworldly.” About Fighters of Fear: Occult Detective Stories [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] edited by Mike Ashley—”A Retrospective Collection of Classic Occult and Supernatural Detective Stories by Some of the Field’s Greatest and Best-Known Weird Fiction Authors”
• The Unnecessary Science: A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory [Bookshop, Amazon] by Gunther Laird, foreword by Bradley Bowen—”The Unnecessary Science is a necessary contribution to the debate over natural law theory in contemporary moral, metaphysical, and legal contexts. The intellectual foundations of natural law theory were laid by Aristotle, expanded by Thomas Aquinas, and refined by modern proponents such as Edward Feser. It is with all three of these thinkers that Gunther Laird takes issue. This book is a meticulous critique of natural law theory, as proposed by these philosophers, with Laird pointing out myriad issues with the theory as pertaining to ethics (sexual and otherwise), essences, religion, philosophy of change, and the existence of God, among many other subjects.”
• “Testing positivism. ‘The Murder of Professor Schlick’ brilliantly illuminates an ambitious movement in philosophy.” About The Murder of Professor Schlick: The Rise and Fall of the Vienna Circle [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by David Edmonds—”On June 22, 1936, the philosopher Moritz Schlick was on his way to deliver a lecture at the University of Vienna when Johann Nelböck, a deranged former student of Schlick’s, shot him dead on the university steps. Some Austrian newspapers defended the madman, while Nelböck himself argued in court that his onetime teacher had promoted a treacherous Jewish philosophy. David Edmonds traces the rise and fall of the Vienna Circle—an influential group of brilliant thinkers led by Schlick—and of a philosophical movement that sought to do away with metaphysics and pseudoscience in a city darkened by fascism, anti-Semitism, and unreason.”
• “A Great Deaf Bear.” About Beethoven: A Life in Nine Pieces by Laura Tunbridge, The Beethoven Syndrome: Hearing Music as Autobiography by Mark Evan Bonds, Beethoven: Variations on a Life by Mark Evan Bonds, and Beethoven: The New Complete Edition from Deutsche Grammophon.
• “The shadowy spirits that helped advance science.” About Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Jimena Canales—”How scientists through the ages have conducted thought experiments using imaginary entities—demons—to test the laws of nature and push the frontiers of what is possible.” “Science may be known for banishing the demons of superstition from the modern world. Yet just as the demon-haunted world was being exorcized by the enlightening power of reason, a new kind of demon mischievously materialized in the scientific imagination itself. Scientists began to employ hypothetical beings to perform certain roles in thought experiments—experiments that can only be done in the imagination—and these impish assistants helped scientists achieve major breakthroughs that pushed forward the frontiers of science and technology.” “The world may no longer be haunted as it once was, but the demons of the scientific imagination are alive and well, continuing to play a vital role in scientists’ efforts to explore the unknown and make the impossible real.”
• “‘Many Haws, Cold Toes.’ And Other Arcane Ways of Saying It’s Going to Snow a Lot. We Should All Talk About the Weather Like This.” From The Little Book of Snow [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Sally Coulthard—”This sweet book includes entries like how to build the perfect snowman, what gives snow its color, and snow-inspired folklore from around the world.”
• “How the Specter of Islam Fueled European Colonization in the Americas. Alan Mikhail Considers the Historical Ripples of Islamophobia.” From God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Alan Mikhail.
• “Why on Earth Is Someone Stealing Unpublished Book Manuscripts? A phishing scam with unclear motive or payoff is targeting authors, agents and editors big and small, baffling the publishing industry.”
• “The Biggest Literary Scandals of 2020. From J.K. Rowling to Woody Allen, “American Dirt” to “My Dark Vanessa,” this year’s publishing controversies reflected an industry in crisis.”
• “Mass die-off of birds in south-western US ’caused by starvation’. Necropsy reveals 80% of the thousands of songbirds that died suddenly showed typical signs of emaciation.”
• “Parthenogenesis: How females from some species can reproduce without males. Some species experience spontaneous parthenogenesis, best documented in zoo settings.”
• “Mysterious asteroid the size of a dwarf planet is lurking in our solar system. Where did this strange meteorite come from?”
• “The big one’s coming. If we don’t want to go the way of the dinosaur, it’s time to colonize the moon.”
• From the Food Truck on Every Corner dept: “Ancient fast food eatery excavated in Pompeii: ‘We know what they were eating that day’.”—”Pompeii Archaeological Park’s longtime chief, Massimo Osanna said Saturday that while some 80 such fast-foods have been found at Pompeii, it is the first time such a hot-food-drink eatery — known as a thermopolium — was completely unearthed.”
• “Discovery of ‘cryptic species’ shows Earth is even more biologically diverse. Excitement as DNA barcoding technique leads to unmasking of new species tempered with fear that some are already at risk of extinction.”
• “A New Population of Blue Whales Was Discovered Hiding in the Indian Ocean. The whales in the group seem to sing a unique song.”
• “How to Revive a Dead Language. Although it was the language of sacred texts and ritual, modern Hebrew wasn’t spoken in conversation till the late nineteenth century.”
• “The moon has way (way) more craters than we thought. Scientists found more than 100,000 craters.”
• “Scientists Identify New Flower From a Forest That Existed 100 Million Years Ago.”
• “Japanese Spacecraft Brings Back Asteroid Chips That Look Like Charcoal. Scientists hope the samples will provide insight into the origins of the solar system and life on Earth.”
• Atomic-scale nanowires can now be produced at scale
• “Is This Tiny Island Really the Lost Home of the Aztecs? Many in this island of 800 people hope that the myth of its origins as the lost city of Aztlán help bring a much needed tourism boost.”
• “Gold coin stash from time of Henry VIII found in English garden.”
• From the Huginn and Muninn dept: “Ravens May Parallel Adult Great Apes in Cognitive Performance by Four Months of Age.”
• “Dark Vortex on Neptune Changes Direction in Never-Before-Seen Phenomenon.”
• “New Magic Mushrooms Could Fix Depression, Addiction, Epilepsy, and More.”
• From the Ophiolatreia dept: “World’s oldest python fossil unearthed.”
• “Scientists think they’ve detected radio emissions from an alien world.”
• “There’s a Human-Made Barrier in Space, Surrounding The Entire Earth.”
• “The World’s Most Loathed Industry Gave Us a Vaccine in Record Time. At least one thing went right in 2020: Pharmaceutical companies came through. Thank you, science.”
• ““Rudderless” QAnon may reinvent itself after US election, warn experts. Trump’s defeat hurts movement, but influencers continue to hype conspiracy theory.”
• “QAnon and the ‘Trump coup’ have more in common than you might think. Dan Brooks. Two political fantasies show how many Americans have become frustrated with democratic politics.”
• Tweet thread—”we got to remember that QAnon is a religion grounded in pop culture”
• “When a Flat Earther Refused to Concede and All Hell Broke Loose. The forgotten saga of Zion, Illinois, is evidence that America’s political situation could still be a whole lot stupider.”
• “It’s Up to You“—”The United States of America is not at a turning point. We took the wrong step years ago. We’re now having breakfast in the ruins of the American promise and watching the chickens coming home to roost. … The path to progress is both simple and difficult, but it takes clear vision and determined will to see it and to follow it. … I choose to reject violence. I choose to care about other people. The rest is up to you.”
• “Throw Money at the Problem. Progressive are waging and winning the fight for direct payments because, in a pandemic moment, people need cash to survive.”
• “Why efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better.”
• From the ⁂⁑‽※↬ dept: “Why this forgotten punctuation mark should be revived for 2021. Why a piece of punctuation proposed in the 1960s was adored, ignored, and should be brought back.”
• Tweet—”In 2017, a Name was given to a Certain Kind Of News Story. ‘Perseverance Porn’ It highlights a struggle to survive in our modern hellscape, instead of THE COMPLETELY PREVENTABLE HELLSCAPE ITSELF. Instead of Rocking The Boat, It NORMALIZES THE FLOOD.”
• “On treating sex with the utmost reverence.”—”For my last post of this garbage year I wanted to write you something festive. Maybe about commemoration, or compilation, or Christmas traditions of some kind. Then I logged into twitter and well lord forgive me, but it is time to go back to the old me.”
• “White Noise, White Silence: Who Gets to Be Loud in Today’s America? Kelly Coyne on ‘the Sonic Color Line'”
• Watch Black Jesus, an episode of Heart and Soul—”Jesus’ identity and colour has taken on a new significance in this year of protest.”
• Watch House of Hades Yule Log [4k]
• “Firefly Reboot Coming To Disney+”
• “Divination with Polyhedral Dice. A short booklet explaining a method of divination for use with polyhedral dice (the kind used for D&D and other tabletop RPGs). I have also included a collection of dice compatible with my app, Sophie’s Dice. You can roll these dice to read the meaning of the dice faster than by using numbered dice.”
• From the Glossolalia dept: Tweet—”Italian singer Adriano Celentano released a song in the 70s with nonsense lyrics meant to sound like American English, apparently to prove Italians would like any English song. It was a hit, and resulted in this: THE GREATEST VIDEO I HAVE EVER SEEN.” Also watch Adriano Celentano – Prisencolinensinainciusol.

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