links – Page 4 – Allison Thurman

biweekly links 2-7-2018

A Mexican dog in an early modern menagerie: I knew the Xoloitzcuintli (say that ten times real fast) were ancient but didn’t stop to think about when they found their way to the Old World. Despite this painting’s fuzzy provenance I find it entirely plausible that it’s a painting of one belonging to Rudolf II – he collected everything else, why not hairless dogs? Unfortunate factoid: more than a few sightings of the cryptozoological chupacabra are likely pitiably mangy xoloitzcuintli.

Mexican hairless dog looking straight at the camera. Has a sharp white and tan strip of fur down the center of its head — Not a chupacabra, but certainly badass with its little doggie mohawk. Courtesy Tumblr.

AI May Have Finally Decoded The Bizarre, Mysterious ‘Voynich Manuscript’: color me intrigued, though I’d be surprised if this was the first time someone threw modern tech at the problem (anyone, anyone, Bueller?). To my untutored mind it’s impressive that the AI’s algorithm gets known languages right 97% of the time until I remember that these are already known. The folks at CipherMysteries aren’t impressed and explain why in exhaustive detail far above my pay grade. Check out their latest Voynich round-up post if you want to go even further into the weeds.

Grieve The Capital: Derek Jarman’s Jubilee Turns 40: how sad is it that I’ve only ever seen fragments of this movie? Given that it has so many things I like (punk, Adam Ant, time travel, John Dee) and I find myself with free time perhaps the 40th anniversary is as good a reason as any to track down a copy.

biweekly links 1-24-2018: commerce witchcraft

All of these potential additions to the extended weird section conveniently popped up in my Google Alerts this week. Never shopped with any of these so I make no claims re: quality or customer service. I just share the joy:

Hexcellent News: Occult Bookstore Catland Is Launching a Magazine: Catland Books‘ Venefica will be a “celebration of Brooklyn arts and occulture”. First issue coming in the spring; as of 1/18 they were still accepting submissions.

Get your senses going at the Magickal Pathways in Newton: New Jersey shop offering witchcraft supplies and classes.

The Thorn And Moon Magickal Market Offers Magic for the Daring: First Fridays of the month in Houston; if you can’t make it they have an Etsy store.

Mail-order magic: the rise of subscription witchcraft: wow, everyone’s getting in on this subscription box thing! UK article but most of the featured boxes ship internationally.

Black and white newsprint ad of a woman in 1970s Charlie's Angel hair hair holding a cat: The Academy of Mystic Arts Invites You to: Become A Witch! — Mind, weird-by-mailorder is nothing new-hell, the ads sprinkled through the old “Fate” magazine were half the fun! This one’s from the July 1973 issue; find more of the same at Archive.org’s Pulp Magazine Archive.

biweekly links 1-10-2017

Happy new year! New year, new (well, not so new) links:

King-Slapping, Devil-Dressing, and Avoiding Blondes: The Crazy Ways Humans Have Rung in the New Year Throughout History: and to think I just stayed home with champagne.

From the Pentagon’s UFO program to death by cyanide at the UN court: 17 unbelievable stories that got lost in the relentless news cycle of 2017: some of these really would have been striking in any other year: a cholera outbreak, multiple natural disasters, ongoing wars, and smuggled artifacts.

Explore The Largest Early Map Of The World: This 1587 map is beautiful, all the more so for the incredible effort it represents. The article is a good introduction to the history of Monte’s map but go to DavidRumsey.com for truly impressive images.

Why ‘Frankenstein’ Is More Relevant Than Ever: originally published on January 1, 1818, this “first science fiction novel”*’s warnings about the hazards of abandoning of our high-tech creations still ring true.

Nineteenth century illustration of three kittens in a basket. Text: A Happy New Year. — In honor of my cat Spice, who made it one day into 2018 – RIP. Art and Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “A happy New Year.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections.

*Debatable. Does Margaret Cavendish’s “Blazing World” (1668) count as sci-fi?

biweekly links 12-20-2017

Merry Christmas to them what celebrate. Have some linkage:

Sex, seafood and 25,000 coffees a day: the wild 1920s superclub that inspired Babylon Berlin: Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Fresh from rewatching “Cabaret” for the nth time I’m happy to discover that Netflix just bought this new German show about Weimar Berlin. Fortunately (or not) movie and TV studios have the resources to recreate historical settings; in this case the show creators evidently took great pains get Moka Efti right.

Calf’s foot jelly and a tankard of ale? Welcome to the 18th century Starbucks: ye olde coffeehouses had more than just muffins and joe. I’d kind of like someone to recreate this, maybe put it inside the reproduction of the Moka Efti…

Here’s exactly how shrunken heads were made: I was endlessly fascinated by these as a kid, probably due to a childhood visit to one of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Odditoriums. While I’ve read about the process I’ve never seen it done before. Not for the squeamish, though it’s only a pig’s head.

biweekly links 12-6-2017

As we go into the Christmas season, how about some devils?

The Bedevilment of Benvenuto Cellini: artist, duelist, and all-round party boy Cellini also dabbled in the black arts with the assistance of a priest. Another example of the extreme effort of necromancy: this ritual required hours of incantations, magical circles, and a virgin sacrifice (well, bait). Cellini did get his devils, but the inclusion of “drugs of fetid odor” in the process is telling.

For a Brief Time in 1978, Italy Had a Televised Satanic Variety Show: Allegedly created at the request of the Devil himself, “Stryx” ran only 6 episodes and appears to have been an eviled-up version of musical variety shows a la “Sonny and Cher” or “Donny and Marie”. Guests included Grace Jones and Amanda Lear of Roxy Music’s “For Your Pleasure” album cover fame.

Commies, Devils, and Mind Control: How the Christian Right Invented Satanic Backmasking: Ooh, I remember this one! I first read about it in Big Secrets and I remember my sister and I trying to play a Beatles tape (remember those?) backwards. Definitely a phenomena that says more about the listener than the music.

Just to round out the “devil” theme of today’s post. I actually prefer the Who Killed The Kennedys mix [YouTube] but this version’s visuals are more on topic (is the singer dressed up like Vlad the Impaler?):

biweekly links 11-8-2017

Tom DeLonge on JRE: “You Don’t Know What I Know About UFOs (But I Can’t Tell You): Um, yeahhhhh. I’m suspicious of anyone who claims to have The Truth™, especially when they claim they can’t share it – such people are either selling something or being sold something. In DeLonge’s case it might be both: he’s promoting a book that claims to reveal true secrets via fiction, while his unnamed “top government advisors” may be using him for…who the hell knows what. Or maybe the controversy is just fueled by jealous veteran UFO researchers resentful of a newbie with fame and connections. Should I bother to read this, just to figure out what the fuss is about?

screenshot from Raiders of the Lost Ark of government official. Text: Who's looking into the issue? Top...men. — DeLonge’s contacts. Via Memegenerator.

Top 4 Revelations From the New JFK Files: Just the four? From the FBI’s surveillance of MLK to Oswald’s ties to the Soviet Union to wild attempts to kill Castro, there’s something for everyone with a taste for Cold War-era paranoia, and people are still going through these with fine-toothed combs. NPR has put out a call for citizen journalists to share their findings so if you’ve got the time and inclination, go for it.

Religion vs. Superstition: Subtitled “Is Religion Just Organized Superstition? Is Superstition Always Religious?” And yeah, I know I’m wading into a minefield. Talk amongst yourselves.

Reformation “What Might Have Been”s: on the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s 95 theses it’s worth asking: what if the Catholic hierarchy had listened? And did the Reformation ultimately fail because they didn’t?

biweekly links 10-25-2017: the fear edition

These first two links refer to Chapman University’s Division on the Study of American Fears’ report America’s Top Fears 2017. My extremely broad takeaway is that fearful people do and say stupid things, but it’s more complex than that (isn’t it always?) Do check out the site for more details though – it’s a fascinating, if sobering, read.

What do Americans fear most? Researchers release 4th annual Survey of American Fears: the top three are actually pretty rational: corruption of government officials, Trumpcare, and pollution of water. Once you get into the weeds though things get…contradictory. For all the fear of natural disaster, most citizens have no clue what to do in an emergency. Almost a third think Americans need to give up civil liberties to protect themselves from terrorism while an apparent completely different third think exactly the opposite.

From the same study we get Paranormal Beliefs. Roughly 3/4 of the population believes in some unexplainable phenomenon, the top 3 being ancient civilizations, hauntings/ghosts, and ancient aliens. I could be glib and blame the History Channel but:

How America Lost Its Mind: The Atlantic breaks down the reasoning for these apparent irrational fears and beliefs far better than I ever could. There’s a lot to unpack here but the gist is: the 1960s “do your own thing” ethos and conservative fear of the same combined with American exceptionalism to create a present in which subjective belief is considered on a par with objective reality. No one is immune, either, not even the “reality-based community” derided by Karl Rove.

I’d like to think myself a champion for the validity of subjective experience, but I have one strong caveat: those experiences are only valid to the experiencer – you can’t demand everyone else play along. In order to do anything in this world people have to work with an agreed upon “baseline reality”, if you will, and that doesn’t include that which can’t be proven. Belief in something doesn’t make it so.

But yeah, we live in a world where that needs to be said aloud.

biweekly links 10-11-2017

Sylvia Plath and the Occult: Interview with Julia Gordon-Bramer: I leave it to the experts to determine how serious Plath was about tarot cards but to my inexpert mind Gordon-Bramer may be onto something.

New documentary is a magic portal into a weird and wonderful library: this 90 minute doc on the Ritman Library explains what they mean by “western esotericism” with abundant gorgeous shots of historic tomes from their collection. Available free through Amazon Prime (at least last week) if you love magical history and/or illustrated manuscripts, check it out. Should I ever get to Amsterdam this library is on my list of must-sees.

Borley Rectory animated documentary: the trailer evokes early horror films and steampunk but I’m willing to see if it winds up being more substance than style. As this “most haunted house in England” burnt down in the 1930s, I wonder what the most haunted is now?

writing on wall: — Ghostly(?) writing from the wall of Borley Rectory. I always found this image deliciously eerie. Courtesy Tumblr.

You Can Now Visit a Witch Museum in Cleveland: the Buckland Gallery of Witchcraft and Medicine has bounced around the states for years and is currently (permanently?) attached to a record store. Advertising is minimal (they’re concerned about how they’ll be received) but open during some regular hours and by appointment.

biweekly links 9-27-2017

Bess of Hardwick in spotlight of new play: about time! Perhaps best known as the woman who kept Mary Queen of Scots under house arrest, she became the second richest woman in Elizabethan England through both strategic marriages and shrewd business dealings. Definitely worthy of her own play. Her stately Hardwick Hall still stands.

How Renaissance Painting Smoldered with a Little Known Hallucinogen: Not THAT unknown. Short version: some artists were heavily influenced by ergot poisoning, either by their own experiences or from observing others in the throes of “St. Anthony’s Fire”. I’m unsure what to make of this – on the one hand artists must get their inspiration from somewhere, on the other it suggests lack of creativity if they were just depicting their hallucinations to the last detail. Full disclosure: I love Bosch’s work and prefer to think he was just that inventive. Thoughts?

Books Discovered Once Again is a Czech-Norwegian project dedicated to identifying, cataloguing, and returning to original owners/libraries non-Bohemican volumes found in the Czech public libraries. Related: According to the historians on this project, the “Himmler’s occult book stash found in Prague” story I linked to last year isn’t true. Thus far they’ve found “common philosophic literature, yearbooks of lodges, some Masonic poems collection and so on” but nothing explicitly occult. Old news offered belatedly and borrowed (thanks Astonishing Legends) but I don’t want y’all running around with the wrong info.

biweekly links 9-13-2017

Sally Quinn’s Next Act: how have I never heard of this woman? Journalist, tv presenter, and fixture of DC “salon society”, she now reveals her belief in the occult in her new memoir. Sounds a bit sensationalistic, but I’m curious how one goes from atheism to casting hexes on enemies (yes, she claims she did that).

Have you got the nerve to take on this spooky tour through creepy cellars and centuries-old cloisters?: The house of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (Elizabeth I’s Lord High Treasurer) is open for “spooky” tours October 18 through 31. Fun fact: Burghley tried to lure Edward Kelley back to England from Prague to share his secret of gold transmutation. Kelley declined because Rudolf II gave him so many lands and titles that it wasn’t worth his time. He wound up in several of Rudolf’s prisons for failing to make gold when requested–though interestingly, he was never accused fraud.

JFK Conspiracy Theorists Are About to Receive the Motherlode: the remaining classified 20% go public on October 26. Though there are as many conspiracy theories about JFK’s assassination as there are conspiracy theorists I’m still curious to know what we’ve been missing for ~50 years.

Tweet from John F. Kennedy: — Too soon? Courtesy Tumblr.

The Museum of Witchcraft & Magic In London Opening: November 2, if you’re in the area. Put together by the Last Tuesday Society, a group that’s been in London since 2006 and is “dedicated to subverting life, the universe and everything bored of the life and world it sees around it seeks to create a new world filled with beauty, wonder and the imagination”. Could be a barrel of fun. Ah, to be in Merrie Olde…