Magnolia: The Number 82

In my last post on P.T. Anderson's film, Magnolia (1999), I discussed the references to Freemasonry in the film, and how those references became somewhat of theme that seems to have no real meaning, i.e. something that happens. There is another prevailing element in Magnolia that is scattered throughout the film as a sort of Easter egg: the number 82, or simply the number 8 and 2 together. I am fairly certain that 82 occurs in more instances than I am presenting them, but the following examples are the ones I was able to catch in the last two viewings of the film; in fact, it is something I never noticed before watching the film again for the purpose of writing the Freemasonry post. Unlike the Masonic references, the number 82 has a more definite place in the film that is relevant to the plot and the general theme of "something that happens" — one might even say that the number 82 has "meaning" in Magnolia.

Magnolia begins with three stories of strange coincidences, all of which are based in reality, though with many dramatic changes for the film.

Prisoner No. 82 (presumably Daniel Hill)

The first story is "The Account of Hanging Three Men": Joseph Green, Stanley Berry, and Daniel Hill, who murdered Sir Edmund William Godfrey in the town of Greenberry Hill on the 26^th of November 1911. (There was in reality a man named Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey who was mysteriously murdered on Primrose Hill, near Regent's Park, London on the 12^th of October 1678). In the film the strange coincidence is that the last names of the three murderers (i.e. Green, Berry, and Hill) create the name of the town, Greenberry Hill.

The three men were hanged, and the last of whom — presumably Daniel Hill — is inmate No. 82.

Craig Hansen's airtanker, No. 82.

The next story is that of a scuba diver, Delmer Darion, whose body was found up in a tree after a forest fire. Darion was scuba diving in a lake when an airtanker picked him up out of the lake and dropped him along with the lake water onto a nearby forest fire. (This is an urban legend that has circulated since the 1980s, and though there is one instance of a scuba diver being injured by an airtanker collecting water, never has a diver been taken up into the payload, as it is nearly impossible for a human to fit through the small aperture). The pilot of the airtanker, Craig Hansen, had been playing blackjack in a casino the previous day, whose blackjack dealer was Delmer Darion.

The number on Hansen's airtanker is 82.

"All I need is a two."

"That is an eight."

Furthermore concerning Delmer Darion and Craig Hansen is that Hansen attacked Darion because Hansen lost the hand. All he needed was two, but Darion laid an eight: 8 and 2.

 1961 AAFS awards dinner starts at 8:20 P.M.

The third and final opening story is that of a fail suicide that turned into a successful homicide of Sydney Barringer. The account is told by Dr. Donald Harper at the 1961 awards dinner for the American Association of Forensic Science. (In reality the story is a fictitious one about a boy named Ronald Opus, and was given by Donald Harper Mills, president of the American Academy of Forensic Science in 1987). The banquet began at 8:20 P.M.

Sydney Barringer about to jump with the number 82 on the parapet wall to his left.

Barringer apartment, No. 682

The account given is that of a boy, Sydney Barringer, decides to commit suicide because of his parents constant fighting, which always devolves into threats of violence with a gun. Sydney jumps, but would have survived because of a safety net below, but was killed by a shotgun blast from his father's gun that struck him as he passed the window to his family's apartment. The gun is usually unloaded, but Sydney had loaded it six days prior in hopes that one of his parents would finally kill the other, but instead it killed him. Thus Sydney became an accomplice to his own murder.

On the parapet wall that Sydney jumps from is the number 82 laid out in rope. The Barringer's apartment number is 682 — the 82^nd apartment on the sixth floor.

The middle two digits of the phone number for Seduce and Destroy is 82.

The film proper starts off with a television ad of Frank T.J. Mackey selling Seduce and Destroy, a self-help program for men who want to get laid (essentially a how-to guide to getting out of what is now called "the friend zone", and finally laying the girl who only sees the man as a friend): the phone number for ordering a copy of Seduce and Destroy has the number 82 as the middle two digits (on a touch-tone phone these numbers would translate into the letters T and A — tits and ass? — as the phone number spells out "TAME-HER"). This may be stretching and twisting the case, but it is not without merit.

"...if you are this person, please leave me a message at box number 8-2."

In the same opening title sequence as the Seduce and Destroy ad is a clip of Officer Jim Kurring going about his morning routine. At one point he his watching a dating service on television, which is airing his own advertisement for a significant other. His advertisement ends with "...if you are this person, please leave me a message at box number 8-2."

Analog clock at just past eight o'clock; presumably 8:02 A.M.

At the end of the opening title sequence is a scene of Officer Jim Kurring in the morning meeting at the police precinct. The analog clock on the back wall is a little past eight, and is presumably at 8:02 A.M. This is probably stretching it a bit, but, again, it is worth mentioning.

82% chance of rain.

Following the opening title sequence the day's weather forecast is given: "Partly Cloudy, 82% Chance of Rain." It is an absurdly precise probability of precipitation.

All of these occur within the first fifteen minutes of the film, and they are really the last of the 82s in the film until it reappears again later as a Biblical reference.

A man in the audience holds up a sign with "EXODUS 8:2" written on it (left).

A sign on a bus stop has "EXODUS 8:2" printed on it (left).

Billboard with "EXODUS 8:2" printed on it (left).

There are three instance of 82's reappearance later in the film: first, when the television show, What Do Kids Know?, begins and a man in the audience holds up a sign with "EXODUS 8:2" written on, to which a security personnel confiscates it; then later — after the rain clears but before it begins to rain frogs — the same Biblical chapter and verse are seen in an advertisement space on the side of bus stop, and a few minutes later as it begins to rain frogs the same thing is seen printed on a billboard.

Exodus 8:2 reads:

"And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs."(KJV)

This concerns the portion in Exodus when Moses is pleading with the Pharaoh to let the Jews go free or God will send seven plagues (to which God deliberately "hardens" the Pharaoh's heart so that he will refuse, thus inevitably unleashing the plagues). And so it happens in Magnolia that it rains frogs — one of those strange, naturally occurring phenomena. So who is the "them" that needs to be freed in Magnolia? Given that the first time we see "Exodus 8:2" written is on the kids' show, so the "them" is probably the kids, or at least Stanley, who is poorly treated by his father and presumably forced to play on the show so his father can take the money his son wins. Stan — who is not allowed to use the bathroom and ends up soiling his pants — at one point refuses to play the game and says:

"This isn't funny. This isn't cute. See the way we're looked at? Because I'm not a toy. I'm not a doll. The way we're looked at because you think we're cute? Because, what? I'm made to feel like a freak if I answer questions? Or I'm smart? Or I have to go to the bathroom? What is that, Jimmy? What is that?"

The situation of the father taking his son's money from the game show, What Do Kids Know?, that is currently befalling Stanley Spector is the same fate that befell "Quiz Kid" Donnie Smith, who was later struck by lightning and suffered brain damage. While Donnie is vomiting in the bathroom at the bar he can be heard reciting Exodus 20:5: "...the sins of the father laid upon the children..."

In fact, one general theme of Magnolia is that of sinful — or simply terrible — fathers: Frank Mackey's father, Earl Partridge, left him and his mother while his mother was dying; Claudia's father, Jimmy Gator, sexually abused her as a child; Craig Hansen (the water bomber pilot that picked up the scuba diver) is an "estranged father of four"; Sydney Barringer's parents constantly fought, and their fighting inevitably killed him; et cetera.

Thus it may be surmised that it is the children who need to be freed from the wickedness of their fathers or "the good Lord bring the rain in"... which so happened to be a deluge of frogs. Of course, given the complexity of the film, these elements can be parsed several different ways and yield a variety of interpretations.

But this not to say that the number 82 is related to the "sins of the father", albeit in way it is; rather 82 is related to those strange things — those mysterious matters of chance — that simply happen, and they happen all the time.

Magnolia: Four References to Freemasonry

P.T. Anderson's Magnolia (1999) is not a simple movie — not by a long shot. It is filled with symbolism, allegory, and a complex web of inter-connecting lives and happenings. The film alludes to several Biblical passages and events, e.g. Exodus 8:2 and Exodus 20:5. But one of the more peculiar and stranger references made in the film are those that allude to Freemasonry: there are three distinct instances and one slightly more debatable instance.

Albert Mackey's The History of Freemasonry (top right)

The first notable instance is when Stanley Spector, the boy genius, is studying in the school library; he has an array of books before him, many of which are meteorological, and one is Wild Talents by Charles Fort (yes, the Charles Fort, researcher of strange phenomena and author of The Book of the Damned), but the book that is of interest here is Albert Mackey's The History of Freemasonry (another point that deserved a mention that may or may not have merit is that this book is written by Albert Mackey, who shares his last name with Tom Cruise's character, Frank T.J. Mackey). It is most probable that Stan brought this book from home (in one of those four bags of books he brings to school every day), as this seems to be an unlikely text to find in a middle school library.

Masonic Square and Compasses on Burt's ring.
"We met upon the level, and we're parting on the square."

The next instance has two Masonic references together: television kids show host, Jimmy Gator, is dying of cancer, and before he goes out to host his first show since he found out he has cancer, his friend and the show's executive, Burt Ramsey, places his left hand upon Jimmy's shoulder and says, "We met upon the level, and we're parting on the square." To which Jimmy says, "In my fucking sleep, Burt." On Burt's little finger is a gold ring with the Masonic Square and Compasses on it.

The phrase "we met upon the level, and we're parting on the square" comes from Freemasonry. At the closing of every Blue Lodge — the First, Second, and Third Degrees — the following is said:

Worshipful Master: Brother Senior Warden, how should Masons meet?
Senior Warden: Upon the level.
Worshipful Master: How act, Brother Junior Warden?
Junior Warden: By the plumb.
Worshipful Master: And part upon the square. So, my brethren, may we ever meet, act, and part, in the name of the Lord.

Clearly this is Burt's farewell to Jimmy.

The level, square, and plumb are the three tools of a Fellow Craft (Second Degree). They have their functional purposes for operative stonemasons, but to speculative Masons they have symbolic meanings. These meanings are given to the newly made Fellow Craft as such:

"...the Plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly in our several stations, before God and men, squaring our actions by the Square of virtue, and remembering that we are traveling upon the Level of time to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns."

(Yes, that last part is from Hamlet, Act III, which I will not get into in this post). In general, Masons are taught that the plumb symbolizes how Masons should act: upright; the level symbolizes equality, so that two Masons meet on equal terms, and that no Mason is better than another Mason; and the square symbolizes that Masons should "square their actions", or right their actions (i.e. right- or ortho- angle) and act virtuously.

Compasses over a laurel branches (right)

The fourth instance is is more subtle, as well as questionable in my mind, but its worth presenting it anyway: among the icons on the square panels behind the contestants on the show that Jimmy Gator hosts, What Do Kids Know?, is a set of compasses placed over two olive or laurel branches. Other emblems on the panels are (from right to left, top to bottom): the tragedy and comedy masks, the Greek letter π (pi), compass and laurel branches, balancing scales, a globe, a paint brush and pallet, Bohr's atomic structure, the Caduceus, a weather vein with the cardinal directions, a hand holding a quill, a harp, and a book with an oil lamp. Context in this case is of little help (aside from all these Masonic references centering around the television show), as the other emblems do not lend much to the Masonic theme, save maybe the seven liberal arts, which are emphasized in the Fellow Craft Degree; but then again, emblems of the seven liberal arts are appropriate to a trivia television show (i.e. the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the first three part of the seven liberal arts). Compasses over a laurel branch is not a Masonic emblem, though it can very easily be interpreted as one: the curve of the two branches resembles in some regards the emblem of a Past Master, which has an arc under the compasses; the laurel or olive branch (both of which are borrowed from the iconography from the ancient Greeks and Roman Empire) denote peace and unity — hence the use of the olive branches on NATO's logo, the olive branch held by the eagle on the back of the one-dollar bill, et cetera — peace and harmony and unity all being virtues exalted by Freemasons.

Emblem of a Past Master

There is perhaps one other reference to Freemasonry in the opening stories, particularly the first story of "The Hanging of Three Men": a gentleman and businessman is murdered by three men who were trying to rob him. This can be argued to be a reference to the Masonic legend of Hiram Abif, Grand Master and architect of King Solomon's Temple (while this legend borrows a little from the Bible, it is strictly a Masonic invention), who is murdered by three Fellow Crafts (known as the Three Ruffians) who wish to extort the secrets of a Master Mason from him. Perhaps this "reference" is coincidental, or perhaps it is actually derived from Hiramic Legend (neither would surprise me).

Exactly why these references to Freemasonry are found in Magnolia is somewhat perplexing, and has no simple answer. Nothing else in the film is even remotely Masonic, save for these four instances. So, then, why are they there in the first place? And what do they mean in the context of the movie?

Oh it probably means something, but from our uninformed point of view it means nothing; it is a coincidence... one of those things that happens. As Stan says while it is raining frogs: "This is something that happens" (something he would have learned from one of his meteorology books and his book of "Unusual Natural Phenomena"). Why does it rain frogs? Because it is something that happens. From an Existential point of view this is something that just happens, and has no a priori meaning. From an Absurdist point of view this is something strange that happens, has no meaning — at least none that is comprehensible or discoverable to humans — but we have the choice to create our own meaning. (I hesitate to bring up Jung's concept of synchronicity, but, there, I have brought it up, so ponder it if you will).

I am certain others have written on the references to Freemasonry in Magnolia, and they probably have some wild speculations as to why those references are in the film, but I refuse to read them. To be honest, the Masonic references placed in Magnolia without rhyme or reason is — in my opinion — something appropriate to the film: it is something that happens (for Freemasons do exist), and the reasons for these happenings is a conundrum from our uninformed vantage point.

To quote the narrator (voiced by Ricky Jay, who also plays Burt Ramsey) at the beginning of the film:

"...And I would like to think this was only a matter of chance. ... And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that this is not just something that happened. This cannot be one of those things. This, please, cannot be that. And for what I would like to say, I can't. This was not just a matter of chance. Oh, these strange things happen all the time."

Plato's Honey Head: Darden's Title Image to Condemned Building

Title Image of Condemned Building by Douglas Darden

In my previous post on Douglas Darden's frontispiece to Condemned Building I briefly discussed the title image of the same book. While I discussed the title image's theme of decapitation as a theme in tandem with the frontispiece's theme of overturning, it is, in my opinion, a cursory and all too brief of an analysis of the title image itself. In particular I wish to focus on the passage from Moby-Dick that Darden inscribes on the side of the guillotine:

"How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head and sweetly perished there?"
—Moby-Dick, Chapter LXXVIII

Before I began digging heavily into Darden and his work I had never read Moby-Dick, which I now regret as I continue to read such a delightful, humorous, insightful, and ponderous tome as is Melville's magnum opus. Rather than actually read Moby-Dick, I instead did cursory search through Plato until I found some references to bees and honey, which of course is not without just reasoning; but the simple fact is that what this passage means can be found in Moby-Dick itself.

Beginning with the latter half of Moby-Dick a sperm whale is captured and killed (Chapter LXI), then it is skinned of most of its blubber (Chapter LXVIII) — or as much blubber as could be gathered after the sharks had their feast — then they behead it (Chapter LXX), let the carcase drift into the sea for the sharks to eat, while they keep the head hooked to the ship for some time. Contrary to established whaling practices, Captain Ahab announces that if a right whale should be spotted, that it should be hunted, cut, beheaded, and attached to the other side of the ship; which is then done (Chapter LXXIII).

With the two different whale heads — a sperm and a right whale — attached to opposite sides of the ships, Melville presents a rather brilliant image of a noble and an 'ignoble' leviathan counterbalanced, which is an image that is loaded with symbolism and allegory, but far too afield for the purpose of this post. The two whale heads are presented as contraries (not necessarily opposites, but only different — as the two chapters describing the two heads are subtitled "Contrasted View"), and Ishmael describes the differences in the anatomy of the two heads. The latter of the two chapters describing the anatomy of the two heads ends with this:

"I think his [the sperm whale's] brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. ... Does not this whole head [of the right whale] seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This right whale I take to have been a Stoic; the sperm whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years."
—Chapter LXXV

Next the head of the sperm whale is described as being both like a great wine vat, namely alluding to the Heidelburgh Tun (which holds over fifty-thousand gallons of wine), and a beehive: "The lower subdivided part [of the forehead], called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibers throughout its whole extent" (Chapter LXXVII). This is the portion of the head in which spermaceti is found: that oil in which whaling became well practiced in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and is extracted in order to produce candles, perfume, lamp fuel, skin creams, and other oil-based substances.

Now we have a great deal of references to work with in understanding that passage Darden admired so greatly. The two leviathans are decapitated, and Ishmael regards the sperm whale as Platonic and the right whale as Stoic — justly we can call these two whales Plato and Zeno respectively. Plato's head is likened to that of a beehive containing that precious substance spermaceti, rather than honey. But like honey, spermaceti is described as being fluid, but will crystallize: "Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots..." (Chapter LXXVII). And again the leviathan's head is likened to that of a beehive in an earlier chapter: "...the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the carcase — the rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a beehive" (Chapter LXXII).

Thus, arriving now at Chapter LXXVIII, Cisterns and Buckets, we may comprehend Melville's meaning. The crew have now begun the process of extracting the spermaceti from Plato's head. One of the harpooners, Tashtego, climbs upon the head and cuts a hole into the forehead, and begins to scoop out the oil in buckets. While doing this he slips and falls into the hole and down into the great cavity of the Plato's head. At this very moment some of the hooks that held fast the head to the ship tore out, and the head began to sink into the sea. Suddenly Queequeg jumps into the ocean with a sword, cuts a hole on the underside of the head, and pulls Tashtego out by his head.

The whole scene is allegorical of life and death, birthing and dying. Tashtego falling into the head is like that of a boy who has fallen into a well; he is buried alive, and his grave (the head) sinks into the ocean. Queequeg is likened to that of a midwife and assisting in the birth of Tashtego, who is pulled out of the tomb-womb by the head via caesarean section. In fact, when Queequeg first reaches into the head he grabs a leg, but shoves that back in and grabs Tashtego's head: "...he came forth in the good old way — head foremost." Melville even makes light of the situation by writing: "Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing"; and as the head was sinking into the ocean when Tashtego was birthed, the birth was called a "running delivery." (Furthermore on the note of humor: Tashtego writhing about in Plato's head is depicted as if the head suddenly had a thought: "...they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea...").

Ishmael then begins to ponder what Tashtego's death would have been like if Queequeg had not save him. He believes it would have been a sweet and precious death:

"Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled — the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed."

Here are ideas and symbols swarming like bees about a hive: death, birth, Plato, sperm, temples, honeycombs, catacombs, tombs, King Solomon's Temple, the Holiest of Holies, midwifery, decapitation, contemplation, et cetera. No wonder Darden called Moby-Dick "the greatest novel in American history."

Thus we now have a much more informed idea of Darden's particular usage of this passage from Melville, as it presents an image of a decapitated whale's head and it is written on the side of a guillotine. The object mounted on top of the guillotine, which I suspect is a beehive or some contrivance derived therefrom, is further likened to the scene where Queequeg births Tashtego from Plato's honey head through an incision — the incision being depicted as a labia. In the spirit of the theme of overturning: the head was a tomb for Tashtego, but Queequeg overturns that into a womb from which Tashtego is birthed (mind you that the incision Queequeg cuts is on the underside/underbelly of the head). Et cetera and so forth. I am beginning to conjecture too much. In short, Melville's passage inscribed on the side of Darden's guillotine fits in perfectly with Darden's theme of decapitation for the title image, which is but another expression of overturning architecture to study its "underbelly."

Further reading:
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: or, The Whale. 1851.
Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.

Carcosa, Aldebaran, the Hyades, Hastur, and Other Terms from Chamber's The King In Yellow

Aldebaran (orange star, top left) amongst the Hyades and the Pleiades (blue cluster, right)

The first time I learned of Robert W. Chambers was while reading Lovecraft's essay Supernatural Horror in Literature about three years ago. I then learned that Chambers was one of Lovecraft's inspirations, but I did not really pay Chambers much attention until — like so many others, I imagine — I watched HBO's True Detective Season One, which makes a number of references to Chambers' iconic book, The King in Yellow: e.g. use of terms like Carcosa, the Yellow King, the sign, and saying things like, "Take off your mask."

Now, there is no real need to get into how True Detective uses these terms, names, and phrases in connection with The King in Yellow, as there are plenty of other blogs and forums that have tackled this fairly well. I, however, am concerned and wish to discuss what all those strange, vague, and ambiguous terms and names are in The King in Yellow — e.g. the King in Yellow, the Pallid Mask, the Yellow Sign, Carcosa, Hastur, the Lake of Hali, the Hyades, and Aldebaran — and attempt to define and describe them within the vague usage of those terms in the book. There definitions and meanings are strictly my own, and given with the utmost in-depthness and detail so far as I have been able to determine their meaning.

But firstly, a brief description of the book is in order. The King in Yellow is a series of ten short stories, the first four of which revolve around a fictitious play called The King in Yellow; the fifth story is a romantic supernatural tale (romantic in the sense of an amorous tale, and not in the same sense as Romantic fiction, though Chambers certainly is a preeminent Romantic writer); the sixth chapter is a set of eight whimsical and bizarre short prose writings; the last four stories are not like the standard Romantic horror fiction common of Chamber's early career or like the first four stories of The King in Yellow, but rather amorous Romantic writings that became common in Chamber's later career. But those strange terms that are iconic to The King in Yellow — and would later become a gold mine to other horror writers like H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Stephen King, Donald Wandrei, et cetera who would use those terms — are only featured in the first four stories, with the exception of the name Hastur that is used in the fifth tale. So now to address those bizarre and vague terms and names, their usage, and probable definitions.

The King in Yellow refers to both a fictional play that drives its readers mad when they read it and a terrifying king in the play. The first story (The Repairer of Reputations) of Chamber's book is the one with the most information on the play: when the mad writer, whose name is not given, published the play it "spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent"; numerous governments and countries banned and confiscated copies of it, and was denounced by a number of media presses and "pulpits" (Repairer, I). Later it is rumored that the author killed himself, but at the same time it is said that he is still alive (Repairer, III). It is also regarded as book of great and monstrous truth: "I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth..." (Repairer, I); "...words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which are more precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful than death!" (The Yellow Sign, III). The play, which is composed of two acts, is written is such a way that the first act leaves the reader uneasy and disturbed; once the reader begins the second act he or she cannot put the book down, and is driven insane (Repairer, I; The Mask, III; The Yellow Sign, III). The King in Yellow himself is described as powerful ("He is a king whom emperors have served," Repairer, II), possibly cruel ("...that bitter cry of Cassilda, 'Not upon us, oh King, not upon us!'" Mask, III), wears tattered clothes ("Where flap the tatters of the King" Cassilda's Song, preface poem; "...wrapped in the fantastic colours of his tattered mantle... ...like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow." The Mask, III; "...for  I knew that the King in Yellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry to now." The Yellow Sign, III), and blasphemous ("...I heard the King in Yellow whispering to my soul: 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God!'" In the Court of the Dragon). It is possible that the King in Yellow is not the rightful and lawful king of Carcosa, but we will return this possibility in the section on Hastur.

The Pallid Mask is a sickly, pale-white mask mentioned several times, and is worn by King in Yellow: Hildred Castaigne, the insane protagonist of The Repairer of Reputations, believes he is the successor to the throne — presumably of the throne of the King in Yellow — and claims "The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask" (Repairer, III). Again in The Mask: "...I thought of the King in Yellow and the Pallid Mask" (Mask, III); and again in The Yellow Sign: "...but still we murmured to each other of the King and the Pallid Mask..." (Yellow Sign, III).

The Yellow Sign is the mark of the King in Yellow, and is probably worn on his tattered robes — Mr. Castaigne in The Repairer or Reputations puts on articles of clothing that he believes are royal articles, but in fact are rubbish, one of which is a "white silk robe, embroidered with the Yellow Sign" (Repairer, III). It seems anyone who receives the Yellow Sign is maddened and enslaved to the King in Yellow: "...every man whose name was there [in a ledger] had received the Yellow Sign which no living human being dared disregard (Repairer, III). It also appears to be a mark or symbol that is not of any known language: "... a clasp of black onyx, on which was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor, as I found afterwards, did it belong to any human script" (The Yellow Sign, II). It appears to be a symbol that is both valued and greatly feared by all who gaze upon it: in The Repairer of Reputations Castaigne hands a beggar a piece of paper with the Yellow sign on it, and the beggar "folded it with what seemed to me exaggerated care and placed it in his bosom" (Repairer, III), but remember Castaigne is mad; in The Yellow Sign Mr. Scott and Tessie argue over discarding the Yellow Sign on the onyx piece, but Mr. Scott cannot bring himself to do so, and a man that has been terrifying the two — in their dreams and waking life — is coming for the Yellow Sign. But at the same time it seems the Yellow sign is meaningless to some — presumable those who have no read The King in Yellow — such as Castaigne's cousin, Louis, who "flung the paper marked with the Yellow Sign to the ground" (Repairer, III).

Carcosa is a city that is ruled by the King in Yellow, and resides along the shores of a lake called the Lake of Hali. Descriptions of the city are few and vague, but those given paint the city as being surreal and dark: "The twin suns sink behind the lake, / The shadows lengthen / In Carcosa. / Strange is the night where black stars rise, / And strange moons circle through the skies, / But stranger still is / Lost Carcosa. / ... Dim Carcosa" (Cassilda's Song, preface poem); "Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the Lake of Hali" (Repairer, I: — essentially a dark city where shadows lengthen in the afternoon, as opposed to shorten); "...the dim streets of Carcosa" (Repairer, III); "...the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa..." (Repairer, III); "...I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon" (Mask, III — essentially the surreal city has towers that are so tall they are seen behind the moon or moons); "...the towers of Carcosa rose behind the moon" (Court of the Dragon). Chambers actually borrows the name Carcosa from a short story written by Ambrose Bierce entitled The Inhabitant of Carcosa. Bierce probably derived the name Carcosa from a medieval city in southern France called Carcassone (or Carsac by the town's ancient Celtic inhabitants, and later Carcaso in Latin when the Romans turned it into a trading post). There is essentially no connection between Chambers' use of Carcosa and Bierce's, other than that Chambers probably just liked the name.

Hastur appears to be either a person or a city in the vague context of the play The King in Yellow, though the name Hastur is used as the name of a person in another one of the short stories, The Demoiselle D'Ys (part I), in book The King in Yellow that is actually completely irrelevant to the first four stories that center around that insane play. My opinion is divided as to whether Hastur is a person or a place, as the references to Hastur are extraordinarily vague. Chambers borrows the name Hastur from another short story by Bierce, Haita the Shepherd; Hastur being a benevolent deity of shepherds. In The Yellow Sign Hastur is mentioned with another person: "We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda..." (Yellow Sign, III). In The Mask Hastur is simply mentioned among a list of places and objects: "Aldebaran, the Hyades, Alar [unknown what exactly Alar is], Hastur..." (Mask, III). It is in The Repairer of Reputations that much can be gathered to speculate on what Hastur is. It is my opinion that Hastur is some sort of rival to the King in Yellow, who may not be the rightful king of Carcosa. Hildred Castaigne, the insane protagonist, identifies with Hastur in his madness: "...I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition..." (Repairer, III). Mr. Castaigne often parades in private wearing a crown he believes is made of gold and inlaid with jewels, but his cousin, Louis, tells him it is only made of brass, along with a silken robe embroidered with the Yellow Sign (Repaier, III). He also comes to believe his cousin to be a king — presumably the King in Yellow — and demands Louis renounce the crown to him (Repairer, III). Castaigne also has an unhealthy obsession with a book called The Imperial Dynasty of America, written by an equally insane friend of his, Mr. Wilde, who is the repairer of reputations (Repairer, II). If Hastur is some sort of rival to the King in Yellow, and if the King in Yellow does not rightfully rule Carcosa, then Hastur might also be a descendant of one of Carcosa's ancient dynasties or imperial families: "He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty in Carcosa... the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever... the Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom of Truth, to Aldones, and then... he began the wonderful story of the Last King" (Repairer, III). He will later refer to himself as "the son of Hastur" and then call himself "Hildred-Rex (Repairer, III). When he reaches the pinnacle of his madness, Mr. Castaigne says: "At last I was King, King by my right in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades" (Repairer, III). It is this last example in which Hastur might be viewed as a city (given the use of the preposition in), possibly a rival city that opposes the King in Yellow. Though doubtful, I have speculated to myself that Hastur could be the name of the planet that Carcosa resides upon: "...the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery of the Hyades" (Repairer, III) — Aldebaran being a star, the Hyades being a star cluster, and the "lakes" being the space between those stars, perhaps Hastur is a planet orbiting two of these stars (remember there are "twin suns" which sink into the Lake of Hali). Hastur could also very easily be the name of a person, a city, and planet simultaneous (I'm certain there is at least one person named Charles lives in Charleston; or the fact there exists simultaneously the goddess Athena, Athens in Greece, and Athens in Georgia). All of this is my own conjecture and interpretation; certainly Hastur is one of the more vague names given in The King in Yellow.

The Lake of Hali is simply a lake which Carcosa resides next to. There is not much more to it than that. It appears from previous descriptions cited in the portion on Carcosa that the twin suns that set over the Lake of Hali are seen from the shores next to Carcosa. I imagine the Lake of Hali experiences typical whether patterns we experience on Earth, as it is mentioned as being still and calm in part III of The Mask ("...I saw the Lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind to stir it..."), and as windy in The Court of the Dragon ("...the wet winds from the Lake of Hali chilled my face."), and a bit more dramatic in part III of The Yellow Sign ("...the cloud waves roll and break on the shores of Hali." — similar to the preface poem). It's pretty straight forward. The name Hali is another name borrowed from Bierce's An Inhabitant of Carcosa; Hali being a fictitious author, an excerpt of whose work is given in the preface, and whom the protagonist comes to contemplate.

The Hyades are cluster of stars in the constellation of Taurus. They are the nearest cluster of stars to Earth, as are they one of the most easiest cluster of stars to view with the naked eye. There is another nearby cluster of stars called the Pleiades, which are mythologically related to the Hyades. In Greek mythology the Hyades are sisters whose number varies; they are rain nymphs, and are the children of Atlas and Pleione (or Aethra). Atlas had seven daughters (also nymphs) with Pleione; they are represented as the other nearby star cluster, the Pleiades. Chambers makes several mentions of the Hyades in The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, and The Yellow Sign. It seems that the planet Carcosa resides upon orbits a set of binary suns either in the Hyades or in close proximity to them. It is possible that the Hyades are the "dark stars" regularly mentioned hanging over Carcosa. There are two mentions of what is called the mystery of the Hyades in part III of The Repairer of Reputations and part III of The Yellow Sign; exactly what is the mystery of the Hyades is rather vague and mysterious in its own right. Exactly why Chambers uses the Hyades in The King in Yellow is a bit of mystery: perhaps he liked the star cluster as I like the Pleiades (they are my favorite constellation); perhaps he liked the name. There could be an astrological significance — when the sun rises in the constellation of Taurus (April) it is spring time, a time of renewal and birth, but this esoteric association would be irrelevant to one lives on a planet that resides amongst the Hyades themselves — but this too is extraordinarily speculative.

Aldebaran is a red giant star in the constellation of Taurus, and appears to be amongst the Hyades, but is actually not apart of that star cluster. The name Aldebaran comes from the Arabic, Al-Dabarān, meaning "the follower" (i.e. follower of the Pleiades — perhaps because it appears to follow the Pleiades across the night sky as the Earth revolves). Chambers makes several mentions of Aldebaran in The Repairer of Reputations, The Mask, and The Yellow Sign. It is possible the planet Carcosa resides upon orbits Aldebaran, but this is doubtful given that the planet has twin suns, and Aldebaran does not have another star in its orbit. Exactly why Chambers uses Aldebaran is as mysterious as his use of the Hyades; if the planet is in the Hyades, then Aldebaran would not hold a prominent position in the sky, as it would be significantly dimmer than it is to us on Earth (Aldebaran is about 65 light years from earth and about 90 light years from the Hyades; and as to whether or not Chambers knew this, or even cared for that matter, is unknown). It is possible that, like the Hyades, he might have just liked that star and its name.

There are, of course, other names and terms Chambers uses in The King in Yellow that are vague and mysterious; so much so that it is difficult to know what to make of them. There are two female characters in the play The King in Yellow, Cassilda and Camilla, but very little is known about them: Cassilda has a song, which is given in the preface poem; Camilla screams in the streets of Carcosa (Repairer, III); Cassilda pleads with the King in Yellow (Mask, III)... that's about it for those two. Part III of The Repairer of Reputations gives a number of names that appear to be imperial families (e.g. Uoht, Thale, Naotalba, Aldones), as well as a few others that are too vague to comment in any depth: Demhe, which appears to be some sort abyss or lake ("...sounded the cloudy depths of Demhe..." — compare to "...sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali."); Yhtill, which is possibly a place of exile or banishment ("...the King in Yellow must hide Yhtill forever..."; the Phantom of Truth, which is mentioned with the imperial families, but who or what it is is too vague. Then there is Alar, which is mentioned in part III of The Mask with Aldebaran, the Hyades, and Hastur, but as to what is Alar is indecipherable.

In short, the King in Yellow, who wears the Pallid Mask and bears the Yellow Sign, rules in a city called Carcosa, which is on the shores of the Lake of Hali. The King in Yellow has an enemy named Hastur, who is either a person or a city or both. Carcosa and and the Lake of Hali reside on a planet that orbits a binary star system in the star cluster in the Hyades, or possibly, though less likely, the red giant Aldebaran.

That about sums up the mysterious names and terms in The King in Yellow.

Further Reading:

Bierce, Ambrose. Can Such Things Be? 1886.

Chambers, Robert W. The King in Yellow. 1895.

Overturning Architecture: Douglas Darden's Frontispiece, Lequeu, Duchamp, Piranesi, and Melville

Frontispiece to Douglas Darden's Condemned Building

About four years ago I first introduced to Douglas Darden's "Oxygen House", a theoretical design of his for a man to die in. I did not think much of Darden at the time, but a couple of years later I was privileged to have met and taken several classes with Peter Schneider, former curator of Darden's work, at UC Denver. Through Peter I was fortunate to be able to look at some of Darden's original sketches for his unpublished but completed "immodest proposal" for Sex Shop (omitted from his book Condemned Building for its controversial subject matter) and another unpublished design called Killing Mountain.

Very little has been written about Darden, though he is very well known in certain architecture circles. I personally have only ever been able to gather fragments of his biographical details, so I suppose I should write the very little that I actually know about the man: Douglas Darden was born in October 1951 in Denver, Colorado. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1974 with a degree in English and psychology. He attended Parsons School of Design in New York City for two years before studying architecture at Harvard Graduate School of Design from 1979 to 1983. Darden's final year at the GSD he took a studio with Stanley Tigerman, whose idiosyncratic approach to architecture and architectural criticism would greatly influence Darden. Shortly thereafter Darden returned to Colorado to teach at the University of Colorado. The Director of Graduate Studies at UCD's College of Architecture and Planning, my former professor, Peter Schneider, was the one who hired Darden. Peter once told me that Darden had sent his resume to him, which was typed on an old typewriter — Peter said he thought this was so cheesy that he discarded it; Darden later came by Peter's office to speak with him, showed him a single graphite drawing he had done, and Peter was so impressed by that one drawing that he hired him on the spot to teach media and drawing. Darden was — from what Peter has told me about the man — eccentric and intense, to say the least. Darden apparently would wear sets of primary colored suits, i.e. one day of the week he would wear a primary blue shirt, blue tie, blue jacket, belt, slacks, shoes, and socks, and all the exact same hue of blue, and then the next day it would be the same thing but this time yellow, then the next day red, et cetera. But his level of intensity is both something to admire and to abhor: Darden would never assign the same studio project twice; between semesters he would think up a new project, then spend two weeks working and refining and finalizing his design proposal for his project, and if he could not do it in two or three weeks, then he would not assign it to his students to complete in eighteen weeks. He would usually work on the project again or work on a side-project of his with his students each semester. But his studios were so work-intensive and controversial that some students' physicians would sternly suggest they drop Darden's studio — that is correct: his classes were physically and mentally detrimental to students' health. Some studio projects were controversial and dark: for instance one project was to design a hospice, a place to die in, and the one-week warm-up project was to design one's own grave or crypt; another project, Killing Mountain, was to design a structure for Jewish priests to sacrifice cattle per Old Testament prescriptions and rites (pictured below). His personal intensity went well beyond academics, art, and teaching. In 1991 Darden was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukemia. Peter told me in one our talks about Darden that Darden, being Darden, took up exercises and activities that would increase his white blood cell count, namely snowboarding (something he had never done before) and tennis (also something he had never done before). When he started snowboarding he did not just start with the bunny hills; no, he had to start with some of steepest and more dangerous slopes he could find in Colorado. He once broke several bones in his body — practically broke his body — when he ran into a tree. Darden was more intense with tennis than he was with snowboarding. He practice everyday for a year straight, and the next year he entered and won nearly every amateur tennis match he could find in the state of Colorado. That is the intensity that was Doug Darden. In 1988 Darden was awarded the Prize for Architecture from the American Academy of Rome. In 1993 he published his defining work: Condemned Building (dedicated to his parents and Standley Tigerman), a book of ten theoretical architectural proposals, including his infamous "Oxygen House". Over the course of five years of battling leukemia, undergoing chemotherapy, going into remission, then the disease coming back, Darden remained as intense as ever in his work. This is not to say he never rested; he was a apparently a well rested man. I have read that when he would fly somewhere for a lecture or exhibition of his work, he requested a day to rest, as traveling took a lot out of him. Ultimately the leukemia his life in April 1996. He was 44 years old.

Working drawing for studio project, Killing Mountain, Red Rocks, Colorado

There is a long tradition in literature have a frontispiece that artistically illustrates the book in a single image. Giambattista Vico's New Science has a fantastic frontispiece that is heavily symbolic and sums up New Science in a single image. I personally feel that a frontispiece should stand on its own, and Vico felt compelled to give a lengthy explanation of every last object in his frontispiece, which I regard as not only redundant, but unnecessary. A well known frontispiece that stands on its own is the primitive hut frontispiece to Marc-Antonie Laugier's Essay on Architecture. But I must admit that Darden's frontispiece to Condemned Building not only stands on its own, but is immensely rich, enigmatic, and a personal favorite of mine (I personally have a copy of it printed out and hanging up on my wall over my computer where I am typing this). It is this frontispiece that I would like to dedicate this post to: how it encompasses Darden's ideas, how it represents the book it prefaces, and some of inspirations and homages Darden alludes to in its rendering.

Il Est Libre, ink wash rendering by Lequeu

Firstly, Darden was inspired by one of the strangest architects in the history of architecture: Jean-Jacques Lequeu. If Lequeu had to be summed up in a single word, that word would be: insnane. Not much is known about Lequeu: we know he gave up on becoming a professional architect after the French Revolution, and therefore he never built anything, and instead became a draftsman for various government offices, and spent his spare time and the latter part of his nomadic life producing a portfolio of architectural designs for a work entitled Architecture Civile, along with a number anatomical and pornographic drawings. He spent many of his latter days living in a brothel. He was probably deranged and neurotic, and that is greatly reflected in his work, especially his self-portraits.

Lequeu with breasts dressed in women's clothing

One of Lequeu's greatest renderings, Il Est Libre, an ink wash rendering, depicts what appears to be a woman — who is in fact Lequeu with breasts — lying in an archway. This is actually one of my favorite images, as I feel it speaks more to architecture than most buildings. There are two reasons we know this is Lequeu with breasts: firstly, the text written below the lintel between the heads reads: ιλ εςτ λιβρε, which is really il est libre ("he is free") transliterated into Greek letters. Secondly, Lequeu was probably a crossdresser, or at least he liked to draw himself with breasts and in women's clothing from time to time.

To say Darden was inspired by Lequeu is, in my opinion, a bit of an understatement. Peter Schneider was the one who introduced me to Lequeu, and when I went to the library to peruse the book Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma, Peter saw that I had checked it out, and asked if it was the copy Darden had drawn in. Apparently an old copy of Lequeu was in the Auraria Library that Darden would regularly check-out and write and draw in. Sadly the resource librarian of the rare and antique books collection and I never located this copy, but we did find a 19th Century copy of Paradise Lost that was Darden's.

Il Est Libre turned sideways; Duchamp's Fountain, a urinal turned on its side

Duchamp holding his Water Mill within Glider

Darden makes two significant homages to Lequeu's work in the frontispiece of Condemned Building: firstly, Darden takes the archway of Il Est Libre and turns it sideways (like Marcel Duchamp's Fountain, a urinal turned on its side; Duchamp being another influence to Darden) — possibly so that the archway looks like the letter D (it was not uncommon for Darden to work the letter D, and even DD, into his drawings and writings as a reference to his name). At the same time the turning of the archway is probably a simultaneous homage to Duchamp's Water Mill within Glider, a photograph made by Duchamp of himself holding a piece of framed glass with an image of a water mill on the glass; the sculpture itself is supposed to mount onto a wall, but the print of Duchamp holding the sculpture is supposed to be turned ninety-degrees counterclockwise. Darden is simply turning over what Duchamp had already turned over (i.e. normalizing the image)..

The turning of the arch sideways is emblematic of the primary ideological motive of Condemned Building, namely to invert, and "turning over" architectural ideas to examine and understand what truly makes architecture Architecture (with a capital A). This can best be understood with the turtle shells in the frontispiece: the top turtle shell is fixed to a set of cables and is showing its underbelly, while the turtle shell that is hanging from a single cable from the upside-down turtle is showing its topside. The imagery of the turtles is explained in a prose writing of Darden's given on the Contents page:

I am inclined while watching the
turtle to turn it over and study its
underbelly. From this unnatural
position I see how this platonically
solid creature makes its way
through the world.

Dweller by the Dark Stream

The theme of overturning is taken further with the overturning of gender: as mentioned, Lequeu would often depict himself in drag and with breasts; likewise, Darden depicts himself with breasts in his frontispiece, but with that other great homage to Lequeu, namely Darden directly copies Lequeu's ink wash Et Nous Aussi Nous Serons Meres, Car.........! ("And We May Also Be Mothers, Because.........!") — in which a nun is depicted lifting up her habit to reveal her breasts — but with Darden's face imposed upon the nun's body. It is not unlike Duchamp's quasi-alter ego in which Duchamp dresses up as a woman and calls himself Rrose Sélavy (a pun, which sounds like Eros, c'est la vie, in French, which translates as "Eros [sexual love], that is life").

Et Nous Aussi Nous Serons Meres, Car.........!; Duchamp dressed a woman

This overturning of gender and sex is actually a matter of examining and understanding what gender and sex is. This is the case particularly with Lequeu, who — like Charles Le Brun's studies in physiognomy — believed that a persons personality is dictated or influenced by their physical characteristics (i.e. physiognomy). Lequeu did a number of physiognomical studies in which he tried to demonstrate what the geometry and proportions of the ideal person looks like — down to the exact curves and measurements of the ears, distance between the eyes, the exact shape of the nose, et cetera. Using this geometrical datum Lequeu thought he could discover what kind of a person someone was based on how they diverged from his perfect image (hence why the breasts are perfect hemispheres). Thus personality and character would be the perfect union of masculine and feminine personalities if one were a hermaphrodite; hence Lequeu, and ultimately Duchamp and Darden depicting themselves in drag and with breasts.

Pornographic illustrations by Lequeu (trust me these are not even the worst of them)

Lequeu took the study of physiognomy pretty far. Not only were a number of his pornographic illustrations an extension of his physiognomy studies, but so were a number of his self-portraits; sometimes they were as simple as how character changes when "making a face" (e.g. frowning or winking), but can be as subtle and off-putting as having an extra tooth in the center of the upper jaw.

Self-portraits of Lequeu (note middle tooth in the right portrait)

For Darden overturning does not just occur in images, but in words and phrases. Lequeu's il est libre is overturned in Darden's frontispiece, written sideways and overturned into a question: Is he free? Darden would continue to overturn architectural notions and design around those anti-architectural concepts throughout Condemned Building. He used ten overturned architectural notions; they are described by Darden to be like a plow overturning the soil for further growth and cultivation, and are presented as such:

The ten works of architecture cited in this book were constructed from a particular canon of architecture that has persisted throughout the centuries and the varieties of architectural styles. The buildings are a turning-over, one by one, of those canons. Like the action of the plow, this was done not to lay waste to the canons, but to cultivate their fullest growth. The canons and their reversa are as follows:

Architecture posits the authentic.
Architecture posits the fake.

A monument is for remembering.
A monument is for forgetting.

Architecture domesticates our fears.
Architecture locates our fears.

Light is the revealer of form.
Darkness is the revealer of form.

Architecture is the reconciliation with nature.
Architecture is the irreconciliation with nature.

Architecture takes possession of a place.
Architecture displaces.

Architecture is accommodation.
Architecture is confrontation.

Architecture fulfills desire.
Architecture objectifies desire.

Man is at the center of divine creation.
Man is off-center of divine creation.

A house is for living.
A house is for dying.

 

Title illustration of Condemned Building

In tandem to the theme of overturning is the theme of decapitation. It is subtle in the the frontispiece, but more prominent in the title image. In the frontispiece, just behind Darden is a cable, which presumably connects to the cables above, which in turn connect to what is probably a guillotine. The guillotine is depicted far more prominently in the title illustration, as the metal blade bears the inscription for the title and subtitle of the book. The guillotine hangs over a broken concrete wall with steel reinforcement protruding jaggedly; the concrete ruin even has a rustic channel for the neck to rest upon as the blade falls, and seen just behind this concrete ruin is a metal pan for the head to fall into. Above the guillotine is what is presumably a vaginal-shaped beehive (the vagina might be a reference to Lequeu's pornographic works), half natural and half artificial. Inscribed into the right montant is written (sideways, like Is he free?) the following:

How many, think ye, have fallen into Plato's honey head and sweetly perished there?

The passage is from the 37th chapter, "Cisterns and Buckets", of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, a very beloved book of Darden's. Peter once told me that Darden had numerous copies of Moby-Dick, each one of which was heavily written in, drawn in, dogeared, unlined, and highlighted; apparently Darden would read and work in a copy until it was so full that he would have to buy a new copy and do more. Darden even dedicates one his ten architectural designs in Condemned Building to Melville, simply called "Melvilla". Darden writes in the introduction to the Melvilla: "The building honors Moby-Dick as the greastest novel in American history."

The passage from Moby-Dick is one of Melville's critiques of Platonic philosophy, as it is a reference to Plato's Republic, Book VIII. 552c: "Shall we, then, say of [the beggar] that as the drone springs up in the cell, a pest of the hive, so such a man grows up in his home, a pest of the state?" Exactly what is Melville's meaning in this and why Darden uses it is somewhat of a mystery to me, and is now getting beyond the scope of this writing. I digress: Plato's honey head seems to be allegorically depicted as the beehive situated atop of the guillotine, a device used for taking off heads. (It is also possible that the vagina shape in the beehive is a reference to the hole in the sperm whale's head that Tashtego falls into in Moby-Dick).

Piranesi's Carceri, Plate IX

Two last things about the title image before returning to the frontispiece: in the background behind the guillotine is a heavily darkened copying of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Carceri (Prisons), Plate IX. Other than Piranesi being an aesthetic and design inspiration to Darden, there really seems to be no other deeper reason for Carceri IX to be in this image. Lastly, the blocks of wood at the bottom with letters carved into them simply denote the names of the ten projects in Condemned Building (e.g. TF = Temple Forgetful; OH = Oxygen House; M = Melvilla; et cetera — interestingly enough, the only block that is not wood is veined marble and is inscribed MI = Museum of Imposters).

Understanding the title images's use of the guillotine as an emblem of the theme of decapitation-overturning, some of the subtle decapitation elements become more recognizable in the frontispiece: Lequeu's nun is decapitated and the head replaced by Darden's head; the four heads supporting the lintel from Lequeu's Il Est Libre has been removed and replaced by two turtle shells; and, finally, the oddly shaped object at the top connected to a series of cables and pulleys can be understood as being some strange modification of a guillotine.

For what it is worth, this does not even begin to sum up Darden — all I have done is give an analysis and interpretation of his frontispiece through his inspiration from Lequeu, Duchamp, Piranesi, and Melville. His work is dark and deathly — but not morbid (the last project in Condemned Building is "Oxygen House", which must have been personal to Darden and reflected his own suffering with leukemia, was designed to be a house to die in) — it is erotic, inhuman, but still very much human, and borderlines on the deranged and insane. The man Darden was intense and eccentric, but I also understand he was kind and warmhearted. A close look at any of his drawings and anyone will realize that not only did he know where every nut and bolt in his designs were, but he even thought about what angle the groove in a flat-head screw is turned. But through the eccentricities and intensity, through the dark and erotic — I would very much like to end on a lighter note — Darden concludes in the Afterwords "Six Aphorisms Envisioning Architecture":

I      Architecture is the meditation on finitude and failure.
II     Architecture is the symbolic redistribution of desire.
III   Architecture is the execution of exquisite barriers.
IV   Architecture is the fiction of the age critiqued in space.
V    Architecture is the history of a place told in broken code.
VI   Architecture is carried out by a resistance to itself.

Further reading:
Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.
Duboy, Philippe. Lequeu: An Architectural Enigma. The MIT Press. 1986.
LaMarche, Jean. "The Life and Work of Douglas Darden: A Brief Encomium", Utopian Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1. 1998.
Schneider, Peter. "Douglas Darden's 'Sex Shop': An Immodest Proposal", Journal of Architectural Eduction, Vol. 58, No. 2, November 2004.
Schneider, Peter and Ambach, Barbara. "Douglas Darden's 'Sex Shop': Digital Reconstruction of the Situation of Architecture's Dream', 9th Iberoamerican Congress of Digital Graphics (Lima, Peru) No. 2, November 2005.
Neveu, Marc J. "On the Uselessness and Advantage of Studio", Strange Utility Conference (Portland, Oregon), March 2013.
Chapman, Michael and Oswald, Michael J. "The Underbelly of an Architect: Discursive Practices in the Architecture of Douglas Darden", 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand (Melbourne, Australia), Vol. 1. 2004.

The Vitruvian Man: Erections

Cesare Cesariano's Vitruvian Man from his translation of Vitruvius' De Architectura

Everyone is familiar with da Vinci's iconic sketch, The Vitruvian Man. The sketch is so famous, in fact, that by referring to the Vitruvian Man most people simply think of da Vinci, though there is a whole tradition of study around the geometry and proportions of the human body — da Vinci just so happened to have done an extraordinarily well done drawing of the geometry and proportions of the human body as described by Vitruvius. I have a significant digital collection of Vitruvian Men done by artists, architects, and scholars throughout the centuries, many predating da Vinci and many that came after him: Cesariano, Giocondo, di Giorgio, Taccola, Agrippa, Dürer, Fludd, Cataneo, Martin, Caporali, Barbaro, Sagredo, Le Corbusier, and the list goes on.

In all the Vitruvian Men I have found over the years there are three oddballs, namely Vitruvian Men that appear to have erections. Firstly there is one of Cesare Cesariano's Vitruvian Men — from his Italian translation of Vitruvius' De Architectura (the first instance of translating Vitruvius into a vulgar language), which he also illustrated with woodcuts — which depicts a man in a square, arms raised up and legs spread out so that the hands and feet touch the corners of the square, and then inside of a circle (pictured above). Cesariano's translation and illustrations were published in 1521. Upon close inspection one will notice that the penis appears erect.

Giovanni Caporali's Vitruvian Man

In 1536 a similar image (more than likely copied from Cesariano's) was produced and published by Giovanni Battista Caporali in a newly illustrated printing of De Architecture (but in Latin). This one, like Cesariano's appears to have an erect penis.

This type of posing of the human body with the legs spread and arms up inside of square is not unique, as Agrippa did a similar image in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy in 1533, but Agrippa's illustration does not have an erect penis. But there is a third Vitruvian Man by an anonymous writer — possibly a certain Giocomo Andrea da Ferrara, who very little is known about, but was a familiar of da Vinci's — in an illustrated manuscript of De Architectura found in Ferrara, Italy, in which a figure stands next to a set of meters that demonstrate Vitruvius' descriptions of human proportions and measurements (i.e. six feet make the height of a man, et cetera); this figure, too, has an erection.

Vitruvian Man from the Ferrara Manuscript

It is this last Vitruvian Man that, in my opinion, actually has an erection. I am in agreement with Sgarbi ("Newly Discovered Corpus of Vitruvian Images" Anthropology and Aesthetics, Vol. 23, Spring 1993) that the above Vitruvian Man from the Ferrara Manuscript was probably drawn using a live person. Another Vitruvian Man from the Ferrara Manuscrupt depicts a man in a circle and a square that bears a striking resemblance to da Vinci's (it actually predates da Vinci's — Sgarbi concludes that da Vinci may have copied it), but whose eyes are closed, so was probably a cadaver. Exactly why this Vitruvian Man has an erect penis — for it most certainly is a standing figure with an erection — is uncertain; it is possible that the author simply wanted to illustrate that this was a living figure. Sgarbi writes: "It is possible that while the compiler digested the first paragraphs of Book III [of De Architectura], two complementary but polarized images formed in his mind: one of a moving, living man, with an erect penis, and the other of a man with his eyes closed, possibly dead, crucified and fixed in tripartite perfection."

I personally have a simpler solution, and it comes straight from Vitruvius. Vitruvius writes in Book III (Chapter I.3) of De Architectura: "For if a person is imagined lying back..." and then he proceeds to describe the whole circle and square aspect of the human geometry. A person lying on his back. That is, in my opinion, more or less the key to whole erect penis ordeal in both Cesariano and Caporali's Vitruvian Men. It would seem difficult to measure and draw a person standing upright and posing as Cesariano or Caporali depicts it, so the logical conclusion would be that the person or cadaver was probably lying on his back. Penes do not always hang downward when a man is lying on his back, but if the legs are spread, then the testicles may fall in between the legs and the penis may rest upon them... it is a gravity thing — note that the penis in Caporali's Vitruvian Man lies off to the side, where Cesariano's lies in the center; penes tend to lie as such when lying on one's back, for they do not always hang downward toward the testicles. At the same time, the penis in either image does not appear enlarged or engorged as would be expected of an erect penis (neither does the Ferrara Manuscript image), at least no more enlarged or engorged than the penes in their other Vitruvian Man images. Thus the logical conclusion is that the persons or cadavers used in these two Vitruvian Man studies were lying on their backs and gravity was doing what gravity does to flaccid penes when posed as such.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's Vitruvian Man from his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Book II

On the other hand there is Agrippa's Vitruvian Man in the same pose has the penis hanging downward, which would lead one to conclude that Agrippa's model was standing upright. Possibly, but I have speculated the contrary to myself. Without getting too far afield in the esoteric sciences, the lines that overlay the body form a version of a geomancy board, and the signs of the zodiac would further this argument. The sign Aries is above the man's head, and give how geomancy boards are laid out (i.e. Aries is laid in the east, which means, from the perspective of the geomancy board — no one ever said the esoteric arts were simplistic or wholly comprehensive — the east is on the left-hand side of the board; that is the left-hand side of the board from the perspective of someone looking at the board), this person should be turned ninety degrees counterclockwise, which is absurd unless the person is lying on his back. So why then is the penis hanging downward? Well, either Agrippa did not care how the penis points (highly unlikely, in my opinion), he wanted consistency with his other five Vitruvian Men who also have their penes hanging downward, some strange and obscure esoteric reason, or the fact that penes do sometimes point downward when lying on one's back and the legs are spread.

Clearly in in the past three years I have spent researching and collecting Vitruviuan Men I have had some time to think about these three Vitruvian Men and their erections — in particular, why are they erect? Thoroughly revisiting Vitruvius over a year ago more or less gave me what I feel is the most logical answer (i.e. they are lying on their backs). Revisiting the subject in general recently has led me to some researchers who appear to think that there was some sort of phallus fixation amongst the Renaissance artists and thinkers (see Jill Burke's blog), but I am inclined to disagree. With the Vitruvian proportions illustrations of the Ferrara Manuscript, all the other Vitruvian Men appear to be nothing more than anatomical and philological study (i.e. they were simply reading Vitruvius and drawing from living or dead people). They are no more penis-fixated in their art than their Greek and Roman predecessors left them — ever noticed that the penis is usually tiny and never erect except in the case of phallic deities? (Freud and the Victorians sure did leave a mess of human sexuality in society, especially in how we interpret ancient art). I even found a blog somewhere were someone proposed da Vinci's Vitruvian Man has an erection, but it is pointed directly at us (I would rather not link to that article, as I find it to be utter hogwash).

I am certain that, with the exception of the one illustration from the Ferrara Manuscript, that none of the Vitruvian Men have erections, and even then I am not sure if the Ferrara Manuscript image has an erection at all.

Further reading:

Vitruvius. The Ten Books of Architecture.

Sgarbi, Claudio. “Newly Discovered Corpus of Vitruvian Images,” Anthropology and Aesthetics, Vol. 23, Spring 1993.

Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius. The Three Books of Occult Philosophy.