It’s the Edmonton Ukrainian Mens Choir performing a traditional Ukrainian Christmas Carol (Kolady).

Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug) clocked in this morning with his latest emailed rant. This one’s on the Coronavirus and is apparently to be the last that we subscriber readers are encouraged to share, for at least a while.

(Occasional emphasis on the really good lines added by me. JDZ)

2020, the year of everything fake

“The only question left to ask was what would happen after everything familiar collapsed.”

Dec 28

I keep thinking there is some German word, like Schadenfreude or Gemütlichkeit but different, for the inability to take the world you live in seriously. If so, I can’t find it. We live in the future where everything is wrong, but at least you can’t google ideas.

In some worlds, the inability to take the world seriously is a mental disorder. In other worlds, it is normal and universal. And in some, it is a sign of superb mental health.

All of us old sufferers from this old itch, certain as we were, were never quite certain that we didn’t live in that first world. As 2020 ends, there is a certain Schadenfreude in seeing tout le monde heading toward the second—a tragedy, but a hopeful tragedy.

There are probably still people who take the world seriously—or at least, take America seriously. (Since the world still takes America seriously, it’s the same thing.) Even if the tables are starting to turn, we still have a deep moral duty to berate these people. And tables rarely turn—though they often feel like they’re starting to.

2020, for America, was a disaster. For instance, 1/4 of all small businesses are dead. Now, a serious country would try to understand that disaster, the way it understands each and every airplane crash. Who loaded the live oxygen generators into the hull? Why was the passenger permitted to board with her “emotional-support viper?” Read the rest of this entry »

Reuters:

Archaeologists in Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, have made the extraordinary find of a frescoed hot food and drinks shop that served up the ancient equivalent of street food to Roman passersby.

Known as a termopolium, Latin for hot drinks counter, the shop was discovered in the archaeological park’s Regio V site, which is not yet open the public, and unveiled on Saturday.

Traces of nearly 2,000-year-old food were found in some of the deep terra cotta jars containing hot food which the shop keeper lowered into a counter with circular holes.

The front of the counter was decorated with brightly coloured frescoes, some depicting animals that were part of the ingredients in the food sold, such as a chicken and two ducks hanging upside down.

“This is an extraordinary find. It’s the first time we are excavating an entire termopolium,” said Massimo Ossana, director of the Pompeii archaeological park.

Archaeologists also found a decorated bronze drinking bowl known as a patera, ceramic jars used for cooking stews and soups, wine flasks and amphora.

RTWT

An 1896 caricaturist predicted Zoom Christmas celebrations in 2020! Translation (roughly): My wife visits her aunt in Budapest, my oldest daughter is studying to be a dentist in Melbourne, … this does not prevent us from celebrating Christmas with the telephonoscope. pic.twitter.com/0ODROejI8K

— Helen De Cruz (@Helenreflects) December 26, 2020

Es ist ein’ Ros’ Entsprungen is an early German Christmas carol and Marian hymn performed in a harmony written by Praetorius in 1609 by the Dresdner Kreuzchor.

From “Some Ancient Christmas Carols” (1822).

“The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.
Although he was little his honor was great,
Jump up me lads and give us a treat.”