An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for April 4, 2021

Welcome to the first Omnium Gatherum of this month! As usual, this one is open to all Patrons, so hello, everyone! (Also, as you’ll discover below, hello to everyone reading this on the blog a year from now!) Howdy to all, and enjoy!

I have some news about how I’m doing Omnium Gatherum posts to share. A year ago I started to make twice weekly Omnium Gatherum posts exclusive for my Patrons. I’ve decided when an OG is 1 year old on the library blog I’ll make it available to everyone! So, now everyone can go check out what they’ve been missing, or you can remind yourself what was being ominously gathered around the beginning of the quarantine, on the blog monthly archives for February 2020 and March 2020. And from now on, I’ll open up the next month of year old OG posts at the end of each month, so those from from April, 2020 will be available to the public at the end of this month, and so on …

Omnium Gatherum has gone through a lot of changes over the years. I started them, not for the library, but before I was even Librarian, as asides on my personal blog, with the oldest one I found just now from 2005, apparently, maybe (that appears to be when I started at first glance, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find I was doing them before then) and I’ve done them on both my on-hiatus tech geek blog and, of course, on the active library blog.

As a point of curiosity, on my personal blog, although I’ve not posted there since 2018, I actually have a bunch of subcategories for these asides.

On both active library and on hiatus tech geek blogs, there’s no subcategories per se. Though I do nowadays tend to collect items for the OG posts on the library blog in loose groups around topics within each post. But I don’t label them. Are you curious what those are?

Currently, and I change this up when it makes sense to do so, I gather items in my Omnium Gatherum posts generally around these topic areas: timely, esoteric, books, science, pandemic, tech, paranoia, politics, culture, and funsies. So I try to keep time sensitive stuff at the top and save some fun and silly links for the end, and so on. Then, within these rough categories, I try to group items that are similar or that reflect on each other in some interesting or funny way. And, I may have just, this week, as I do sometimes, changed things up by moving “pandemic” items into “culture” or elsewhere, instead of having a separate topic, which I added some time last year!

Well, that’s a little picture into how I put these posts together. There’s a lot more I could say about the tools I use and so forth, if people were interested in that. I think you might be surprised at how much work goes into creating these posts. I am literally doing something for Omnium Gatherum every day!

As you know I’ve had a subscription option over on Bandcamp for a while now. Generally, that subscription option has been intended as an alternative to the $1/mo tip jar over on Patreon. Although Patrons do get more stuff, like access to the first Omnium Gatherum of the month! However, subscribers on Bandcamp do get one unique thing, and, where Patrons are offered a gratis download for each new issue as they release, subscribers are provided access to the entire back catalogue of exclusive This Is Not An Hermetic Library Anthology Album releases, which I added as a special little perk just for them. Currently, that’s just the last two years, since I started them, but every year there will be more of them, at least in theory!

As something brand new this month, I just added an optional membership upgrade to the gratis newsletter which will be a way to get my Omnium Gatherum posts as an add-on, as an alternative to Patreon, if anyone wants it. These are the same as what I post exclusively for 1 year on the library blog and send directly to ongoing Patrons of the library (so if you’re a Patron, you’ve already got access to these elsewhere!), but, although this doesn’t include any additional perks like patronage does, this is another way to get in on OG as an alternate way to help support my work as Librarian and keep Hermetic Library going and growing online!

Like the membership option on Bandcamp meant as an alternative to the Patreon tip jar, this option is meant as an alternative to the Omnologist tier; though there’s still more perks as an ongoing Patron than these offer, but both of these options exist for those that want them. And, idek, maybe, like how there’s a unique flavour for subscribers on Bandcamp, there might be more things later to help make Membership to the newsletter special and different if there’s enough interest?!

Being an ongoing Patron, I think, is still the best way to go, especially this year as I have been doing the ongoing experiment with Patreon merch! But, I hope that the options provide a welcome diversity and aren’t confusing. On the other hand, I suppose if one wanted to go all Pokémon about it, I certainly wouldn’t complain if people collected them all!

Speaking of Patreon merch, I did just recently post about the most recent new merch and status of all the rest, so if you haven’t seen that it’s from this week on Patreon. Shipping for the mini print has been ongoing for Omnologists, but I’ve not yet seen anything about fulfilment for the sticker starting for Epistemologists. I’m curious about that, but there’s so little information about how this all works. I presume that stickers will also start going out this month, but who knows? We’ll see! And, then, in addition to the mugs for Ontologist, I added actual 12×18 inch matte finish propaganda posters for a new Propagandist tier at the beginning of this month. Next month, I’ve got big plans for what I hope to add for merch, so if I can get it sorted there will be a lot more to say about that then. Also, I requested a sample of the new wall poster, so I should get that at some point this month, and I’ll share that in the usual places when it arrives.

Okay, that was a lot of Patron stuff to cover! Of course, the TL;DR of it all is: Thank you! Thank you for your ongoing support of my work and helping to keep Hermetic Library going. I hope that you have enjoyed the last month of activity, and that you continue to find value and joy in the coming months as well. I literally could not keep doing all that I do without you and your generous support, so thank you, thank you, and thank you again!

And, as always, if you’ve questions or concerns, or ideas about what would make your experience as Patron better, let me know!

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

• Available for 18 more days: Humble Book Bundle: Mindfulness & Meditation by Quarto. “We’ve teamed up with Quarto to bring you a big bundle of good vibes and tranquility. Relax into ebooks like Eff This! Meditation: 108 Tips, Tricks, and Ideas for When You’re Feeling Anxious, Stressed Out, or Overwhelmed, Love Poems of Rumi, Best Meditations on the Planet: 100 Techniques to Beat Stress, Improve Health, and Create Happiness-In Just Minutes A Day, and Conscious Creativity: Look, Connect, Create. Achieve a more relaxed outlook on life while your purchase helps support the Mental Health Foundation!”
• Crowdfunding with 34 days to go: “KalimbaGo: Joyful Music At Your Fingertips You could play this musical instrument effortlessly like your favorite video game. Its beautiful sound can be a form of meditation.”—”The Kalimba, also known as the thumb piano, is a modern version of the African mbira, which is about 1300 to 3000 years old. It can be played as a solo instrument or as an accompaniment to singers, musicians and dancers. It is relatively easy to make fairly complex and enjoyable music on the Kalimba. The simplicity of the kalimba beckons you to enter the simplicity of the mind. Playing the Kalimba can be like meditation and can also help relieve stress.”
• I mentioned the upcoming self-titled album by the group Satanic Planet, a band with Lucien Graves of The Satanic Temple, before, but they’ve just released Steve​-​O Takes a Trip to Satanic Planet.
• Tweet thread—”As promised, as an expert on the Harrowing, here’s your lesson on parallels between @LilNasX LilNasX’s Montero song/video & the 10th-cent. Old English poem ‘John the Baptist’s Prayer’ (JP for short). You’ll see how LilNasX is a savior figure & similar imagery. #medievaltwitter” Also “MSCHF will not ship its 666th pair of Satan Shoes after Nike lawsuit.”
• The Litanies of Thoth by Zemaemidjehuty is available for pre-order. “The Litanies of Thoth guides the reader deeply into the mysteries of communication with the Great God Djehuty via rites of divination and above all esoteric prayer. After a discussion on the power and essence of prayer within a mystery tradition an entire prayer book for the liturgical year is offered to the practitioner of Khemetic/Netjerist Gnosis. Following the modified Coptic calendar (with the Gregorian calendar alongside it), powerful esoteric prayers are given for every day of the year and important holy days and feasts are noted. The author introduces various methods of employing the prayers for theurgical and magical purposes and has appended a table of Isopsephy to allow further and deeper exegesis of the mystical texts. In addition, various intriguing methods of divination are presented.”
• Reservations for copies of TROLLRÚN: A Discourse on Trolldom and Runes in the Northern Tradition by Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold are available, without obligation to purchase, by signing up for a mailing list. “Subscribers will have the first opportunity to pre-order the book when pre-orders open in the next month or so.” “From the Introduction by Johannes Gårdbäck: In this book Frisvold, being a Norwegian by birth, finally returns to his roots, and in doing so not only sheds a welcome native light on the internationally well-known aspects of our tradition but also serves to bring forth some more unknown gems from the treasure house of Northern magic. From the Presentation by Claude Lecouteux: In this inspired study, Nicholaj de Mattos Frisvold explores magic/spellcraft (trolldom), divination and the runes in the Norse tradition, starting from the old Norse cosmology, then presenting to us fantastic creatures, especially trolls, before switching to rituals and the ancients’ practices, in particular the siðr, which rely on beliefs deeply anchored in mentalities which are still prevalent today…”
• Wicca 501—”The problem with Wicca 501 is that there is no Wicca 501. What would Wicca 501 look like?” “We tend to think of the Craft as a certain set of rituals and magical techniques. Oh, but it’s so much more.”
• “Scientology is shrinking fast and getting richer. How is this possible?”
• More on this: “Baker Street Irregularities: What is the Dawn Order?” With mention of Figures William Butler Yeats, Florence Farr, and Form Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
• “Golden Dagger is a fresh start for a beloved Lincoln Park music venue. Formerly known as Tonic Room, the venue has been revamped with a coffee bar, a market of local goods and patio seating.”—”When the building at 2447 N Halsted Street [Chicago] reopens later this month, it will shed the Tonic Room name in favor of a new title: Golden Dagger. The name was inspired by a dagger that was found inside of the walls of the building (which dates back to 1894) by one of its previous owners, possibly a relic of the location’s past as a purported meeting place for a secret society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Shortly before the onset of the pandemic, Biggins’ staff framed the dagger for him—it will be on display in the reopened venue.” Here’s a picture of the venue, from 2016, “The Tonic Room, North Side Irish Gang Speakeasy Hangout.”
• “Poetic reflections – words upon the Irish Rep theatre window pane. The Irish Rep deserves fulsome praise for being the only working theatre in New York throughout the pandemic. The Irish Rep’s mission to bring art to the life of the city never stopped. This week the theatre’s latest initiative features the reading twenty-two poems split between three films that are each about 10-15 minutes in length.” “Meanwhile Yeats/Gonne: Echoes Over Time is the title of a discussion of the lives and legacies of William Butler Yeats and his muse Maud Gonne.” Watch an archive of the livestream: “Yeats/Gonne: Echoes Over Time: With Authors Kim Bendheim and Joseph Hassett.”
• “The Problem Isn’t Human Nature, The Problem Is A Few Manipulative Sociopaths.” Mentions Discordianism and Principia Discordia: “‘WELL, THEN STOP.’ As you would expect from a joke disguised as a religion (or religion disguised as a joke), this is both funny and profound.”
• The Divine Feminine Tao Te Ching: A New Translation and Commentary [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Rosemarie Anderson—”The first translation of the ancient classic that reveals the feminine nature of the Tao. Restores the feminine essence of the Tao Te Ching as well as the simplicity and poetic undertones of the chapters. Offers commentary for each of the 81 chapters and key Chinese characters to reveal their profound wisdom. Translated from ancient silk and bamboo slip manuscripts, the oldest known copies of the Tao Te Ching” “In this book, Rosemarie Anderson shares her discoveries of the Divine Feminine Tao alongside her original translation of the Tao Te Ching. Working from ancient silk and bamboo slip manuscripts, the oldest known copies of the Tao Te Ching, the author slowly translated all 81 chapters over the course of two years, allowing each section to reveal its intimate poetic and spiritual nature. To her surprise, she discovered that the Tao was unmistakably feminine, consistently referred to as “mother,” “virgin,” and the “womb” of creation. Anderson explains how the Tao is a feminine force, the Dark Womb of Creation, the Immortal Void renewing life again and again in ordinary times and in times of crisis. She offers commentary for each of the 81 chapters to help reveal their profound wisdom. The author also restores the chapters’ simplicity and musical undertones, explaining how, in the original Chinese manuscripts, the text is poetic and rhymed because the Tao Te Ching was often recited or sung–yet most English translations are written in scholarly prose with long sentences and complex syntax. She shows how the great Tao’s message of wei wu wei–“act without acting” and “do without doing”–offers a path of peace and well-being for ourselves and for our relationships with others and the earth, a path that arises from spontaneous action that seeks no gain for the self. Capturing the original feminine nature of this ancient text, Anderson’s translation sheds new light on the esoteric wisdom contained within the Tao Te Ching and on the mystical feminine essence of the Tao.”
• “‘The Prisoner: The Official Companion’ – A Retrospective.”—”Twenty years on, film & TV expert Robert Fairclough reflects on his first book, and how it changed his life.”
• “Janis Joplin’s scrapbooks reveal the flipside of a rock’n’roll tragedy.” About Janis Joplin: Days & Summers: Scrapbook 1966-68 [Janis Joplin (Deluxe),Janis Joplin (Collectors), Publisher]—”‘We’ve had Janis’s scrapbook for a long time. It was really important to her. Scrapbooks may sound quaint and old-fashioned today, but by sitting down, cutting these things out, sticking them in place and annotating them, Janis has given us a unique record of the period.’ – Michael Joplin. In her handmade scrapbook Janis Joplin created a personal record of her meteoric rise to fame and the flowering of Sixties counterculture in which she was to play a lead role. From the singer’s earliest intimate blues gigs in local coffee houses, to her first appearances with Big Brother and the Holding Company, to the band’s breakthrough performance at Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, Janis’s story is remarkable. Throughout it all, she collected posters, souvenirs, press clippings, photographs and records, and annotated them with her comments. More than 50 years later, Janis’s scrapbook is revealed for the first time. Featured alongside are previously unpublished items from her personal archive, including letters she wrote home to her family and a preceding scrapbook from her senior high school years, 1956-59. The book’s in-depth text is written by the people who really knew Janis and musicians inspired by her, with an introduction by Grace Slick and an afterword by Kris Kristofferson. Collectively, Days & Summers offers a brand new perspective on the Port Arthur girl that transformed into a rock goddess, setting the world on fire with her talent.” Also watch “Janis Joplin: Days & Summers – Scrapbook 1966-68”
• “Symphony of a Thousand Millennia.” About The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Michael Spitzer—”A colossal history spanning cultures, time, and space to explore the vibrant relationship between music and the human species. 165 million years ago saw the birth of rhythm. 66 million years ago was the first melody. 40 thousand years ago Homo sapiens created the first musical instrument.” And The Life of Music: New Adventures in the Western Classical Tradition [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Nicholas Kenyon, due June, 2021—”Nicholas Kenyon explores the enduring appeal of the classical canon at a moment when we can access all music—across time and cultures”
• “A Modern Feminist Classic Changed My Life. Was It Actually Garbage? Rereading Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth 30 years later.” About The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Naomi Wolf—”The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity.”
• Morally Naked.” More about The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good? [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Michael J. Sandel—”The world-renowned philosopher and author of the bestselling Justice explores the central question of our time: What has become of the common good?”
• Watch “Scientists Find Our World Could Be Ruled By Secret Patterns.”—”Scientists are using Alan Turing’s theory about patterns to grasp a better understanding of nature’s hidden design; from tracking migrating birds, to conserving whale sharks across the world.”
• Watch “Mushroom Coffins Turn Bodies Into Compost And Make Death Less Toxic.”—”People pollute the earth even after they die. But the Loop coffin made from mushroom mycelium may finally put toxic funeral practices to rest.”
• Watch “Microbes Don’t Actually Look Like Anything.”
• “Saving Endangered Bonobos Teaches A Lesson In Empathy.”
• “22 Mummies Are Moved in a Glittering Display in Cairo. But the made-for-TV spectacle also underlined the jarring divide between Egypt’s celebrated past and its uncertain present.” Also “Myth of ‘pharaoh’s curse’ dismissed as Egypt parades ancient mummies.” Also “Egypt mummies to pass through Cairo in ancient rulers’ parade.”
• “How long would it take to walk around the moon? It might be quicker than we originally believed, but it’s a logistical nightmare.”
• A few from Futurism: New App Claims to Make You Trip Like You’re on Lsd. According to Reviews, It’s ‘Surprisingly Good.'” Also “Artificial Placentas for Human Babies Coming Within Five Years, Scientist Says. The Tech Could Offer a Lifeline for Babies Born Too Early.” Also “Gene Therapy Injected Into Eyeball Restores Blind Patient’s Vision. One Shot Granted More Than a Year of Vision.” Also “People Are Experiencing a “Contact High” At Vaccination Centers. Truly Getting High on Life.” Also “NASA Says There Are Still Easter Eggs on Its Mars Rover That Nobody Has Discovered.”
• “Welsh rabbits serve up prehistoric finds on tiny Skokholm Island. Stone age tool used 9,000 years ago dug up by burrowing bunnies on island off Pembrokeshire.”
• “NTU Singapore scientists design ‘smart’ device to harvest daylight. Device can be used to illuminate dark, underground spaces in daytime.”
• From the Popeye dept: “Decellularized spinach serves as an edible platform for laboratory-grown meat. The veiny skeleton of a spinach leaf shows for the first time it can support the growth of artificial meat, a Boston College researcher reports.”
• “Experimental hearing implant succeeds in registering brain waves. Researchers at KU Leuven have succeeded for the first time in measuring brain waves directly via a cochlear implant. These brainwaves indicate in an objective way how good or bad a person’s hearing is. The research results are important for the further development of smart hearing aids.”
• “Revisited Hubble telescope image reveals Veil Nebula in exquisite detail. NASA and ESA’s space telescope snapped a gorgeous supernova remnant, and it’s even more beautiful after a new round of image processing.”
• From the Starseed dept: “First interstellar comet may be the most pristine ever found. New observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) indicate that the rogue comet 2I/Borisov, which is only the second and most recently detected interstellar visitor to our Solar System, is one of the most pristine ever observed. Astronomers suspect that the comet most likely never passed close to a star, making it an undisturbed relic of the cloud of gas and dust it formed from.” Also “Interstellar visitor Borisov could be 1st truly pristine comet yet seen.”
• “These weird lumps of ‘inflatons’ could be the very first structures in the universe.”
• From the Little Green Martians dept:”What’s up with this weird green rock on Mars? Perseverance rover is trying to find out.”
• “NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover takes a selfie with the 20ft-tall ‘Mont Mercou’ rock formation.”
• From the Homunculus dept: “Scientists Create Simple Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides Normally. New findings shed light on mechanisms controlling the most basic processes of life.”
• Not content to just punch fishes now, are they?! From the Fightin’ Mollusks dept: “Australia: Geologist beaten up by ‘angriest octopus’ on beach. A man has been whipped by what he described as the ‘angriest octopus’ while swimming on holiday at a Western Australian beach.”
• From the Toxic dept: “Humans Will Probably Evolve to Be Venomous.”
• From the Have You Tried A Bidet? dept. *cough*: “Scientists discover X-rays coming from Uranus for the first time.”
• From the Calgon Take Me Away dept: “Astronomers find the ‘safest place’ to live in the Milky Way.”
• “Ancient coins found in Rhode Island may solve mystery of murderous 1600s pirate. That 17th century pocket change — among the oldest ever found in North America — could explain how pirate Capt. Henry Every vanished into the wind.”
• “Physicists give antimatter the chills. If anything’s odd about antimatter, we need to slow it down to enough to see.”
• Oops. Too big not to fail, amirite?! “Half a billion Facebook users’ personal information may have been hacked.”
• “15 Years is Enough Time: Silicon Valley’s Rape Problem.”
• “The Unending Assaults on Girlhood. Rape culture permeates adolescence. The lessons that it teaches girls cast long shadows.” About Girlhood [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher] by Melissa Febos—”A gripping set of stories about the forces that shape girls and the adults they become. A wise and brilliant guide to transforming the self and our society.”
• Some heavy ’90s nostalgia going on here! Watch “Space Jam: A New Legacy“, official trailer. Also “Welcome to the Webspace Jam—”By all rights, the Space Jam site should have died back in the 1990s, lost in the shifting sands of pop culture attention and flashier sites arriving with each passing day. But it didn’t die, go offline or get replaced with a domain hosting advertisement or a 404. Unlike a lot of websites from the 1990s, the Space Jam movie site simply didn’t change. It persisted. … Years turned into decades. … Then the unthinkable happened.”
• “Who Really Broke the Discourse? Online moderation has a long history, and the predominant model today — reactive deletion of posts — is not the only one that works.”—”For Moore, the positivity of the Rude Tales of Magic Discord has upended his sense of the possibility of virtual community. Since it started, they’ve only had to expel one person. ‘It’s not like we’re building a machine,’ Moore said. ‘It’s more like we’re gardening. You need a good patch of land, sun and water, and you give it all that and hope the tomatoes turn out okay.'” Also, you might be interested in my own paper Crazy Together: Searching for dialogue in the age of social networking (2009).
• “Inside the ‘Lord of the Flies’ factionalism now plaguing Trumpland. Distrust, whisper campaigns and a bit of backstabbing are rampant as aides scramble for access and power.”—”Right now, it’s like a daycare if you took all the adults away. There’s virtually nobody with organizational skills left.”
• “Panic Rooms, Birth Certificates and the Birth of GOP Paranoia. How America’s center-right party started to lose its mind, as told by the man who tried to keep it sane.” Adapted from John Boehner’s On the House: A Washington Memoir [Bookshop, Amazon, Publisher]—”Former Speaker of the House John Boehner shares colorful tales from the halls of power, the smoke-filled rooms around the halls of power, and his fabled tour bus.”
• Tweet thread—”Thread: The story of how @mattgaetz became a target of the Trump justice department is even crazier and weirder than you can imagine. It involves blockchain, blatant fraud by a local tax collector, and a scheme to steal people’s government ID. This is NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE.” Also “Gaetz investigation complicated by overture to his father about ex-FBI agent who went missing. Facing a sex-crimes investigation, the Republican congressman has insisted his family is being extorted.” Also “Feds looking at alleged payments Rep. Matt Gaetz made to women and online solicitation: Sources. Gaetz previously denied having a relationship with a 17-year-old.”—”Sources said Gaetz was part of a group of young male lawmakers who created a “game” to score their female sexual conquests, which granted “points” for various targets such as interns, staffers or other female colleagues” Also “Gaetz showed nude photos of women he said he’d slept with to lawmakers, sources tell CNN.” Also “‘A 10ft pole is not long enough’: Matt Gaetz isolated in sex-trafficking scandal.” Also “No defense: Gaetz finds few Republican allies amid investigation.”
• Watch “7 Ways to Actually Tax the Rich” with Robert Reich
• “Two Iowa Students Among Plaintiffs Suing U.S. Department Of Ed Over LGBTQ Discrimination. Two students at a western Iowa university are among those suing the U.S. Department of Education, alleging some private religious colleges are discriminating against LGBTQ individuals. The class action lawsuit argues the practice is unconstitutional because the schools receive federal funding. The lawsuit takes aim at religious exemptions issued by the DOE, which the plaintiffs argue give the schools cover to institute anti-LGBTQ policies and practices, leaving students open to expulsion, denial of housing and health care, harassment and severe social isolation because of who they are.”
• Tweet—”The LDS Church has been pro-vaccine for decades, but there are some anti-vax church members who see this as the church’s one (1) flaw. This week the church added a new section to its general handbook, officially codifying its pro-vaccine stance, LEST THERE BE ANY CONFUSION.”
• “How will our bodies be put back together? What about those eaten by cannibals? A brief history of Christian resurrection beliefs.”
• “The strange journey of ‘cancel,’ from a Black-culture punchline to a White-grievance watchword. It was born after a bad date in New York. Forty years later, it’s haunting hotel ballrooms in Florida.”
• Watch “Gay priests: Breaking the silence.”—”It’s believed that a significant percentage of Catholic priests are living closeted lives, despite the Church’s teachings that acting on homosexual desires is a sin. Correspondent Seth Doane examines the Vatican’s wish that gay priests keep silent about their sexual identity, and talks with a Wisconsin priest – one of just 10 openly gay priests in the U.S. – who was welcomed by his congregation after coming out.”
• “Bhutan’s 350-year-old recipe for wellbeing. In this secluded kingdom, a secret incense formula believed to promote healing and happiness is known by only two people.”
• “Living in a World Without Stars. This great reset offers little hope for the future of humanity.”
• “When Tragedy Strikes, What Does Criticism Have to Offer? It’s easier to find meaning in fiction than in the senseless mass killings of our reality, which seem to render the critical perspective pointless, even silly, at times.”
• Watch “The Secret of Synchronization.”—”How does order spontaneously arise out of chaos?”
• Nothing But Blackened Teeth by ScentFromHell—”Inspired by Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing But Blackened Teeth. An obscene inversion of bridal florals deepens with notes of rosewood, cassia bark, and cedar. Tucked away in the earth, a bride smiles with a mouthful of blackened teeth. And she’s so, so hungry. Notes: Top-Rosewood Timbers. Middle-Cassis, Otto Rose, Green Olive, Cassia Bark. Bottom-Cedar, Black Amber, Sandalwood, Sheer Musk. 8 ounces of clean burning soy wax and fragrance. Approximately 50 hours of burn time.”
• If you’ve got access to Disney+, check out Inside Pixar, s01e02, “Inspired: Deanna Marsigliese, The Art of the Pivot” especially around ~10:00, but the whole thing struck me as a particularly nice bit on creativity, inspiration, and being your best, fullest self.

This post was possible because of support from generous ongoing Patrons and Members of the newsletter. Both Patrons and Members get Omnium Gatherum posts delivered immediately and directly to their 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.