Look, obviously I don’t expect everybody to share all my obsessions, but since I got “hooked on obelisks” (title for a book?) I see them everywhere. Why only this morning this image of an obelisk by Athanasius Kircher popped up unbidden, and inscrutably, on my Facebook feed:
A little research reveals that it’s from Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae, and it’s demonstrating the principle of the camera obscura, the devil being associated with shadows (I think).
Then I found this image by Edward Gorey (he was quite a man for an obelisk) – and as I’ve said before, everything’s better with skulls, even obelisks.
There are also two lines by Gorey in a poem titled "The Chinese Obelisks" that run as follows:
A was an Author who went for a walk
B was a Bore who engaged him in talk.
B was a Bore who engaged him in talk.
And then last night I was walking past Amoeba Music, a shop that’s been in business in LA about as long as I have, with the consequence that the mural on the side that runs down Ivar Avenue, is looking a little faded these days.
But then – holy smokes – I see that in the two bottom corners there are fantastical beasts and obelisks! Coincidence? Synchronicity? The universe sending me a message? You decide.
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