Now that I have lived through an actual plague, I totally understand why Italian Renaissance paintings are just naked fat people lying on couches.
@MostlyHarmless how fortunate for the western arts canon that sweatpants and loungewear had not been invented at that time.
@laprice @MostlyHarmless Enh, it'd be historical Italian loungewear. We'd have romanticised it to the point that we thought it was all fancy-schmancy, like ornate codpieces and those weird Elizabethan neck ruffs. Things that are objectively as weird as bell bottoms get a pass if they're more than 200 years old.

@MostlyHarmless @gdinwiddie

β€œβ€¦ 𝘩𝘒𝘷𝘦 𝘭π˜ͺ𝘷𝘦π˜₯ 𝘡𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘢𝘨𝘩 𝘒𝘯 𝘒𝘀𝘡𝘢𝘒𝘭 #𝘱𝘭𝘒𝘨𝘢𝘦 …”?

The #pandemic continues. And it won’t likely end anytime soon unless sterilizing vaccines πŸ’‰ are developed.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-04/covid-2024-flu-virus-vaccine

h/t @erictopol

Opinion: In 2024, why are we still playing make-believe about COVID?

Thanks to the newly dominant strain JN.1, about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.

Los Angeles Times
@MostlyHarmless who’d have thought Italian Renaissance artists could also foresee UK Tories!