Posthuman Blues

I noticed this cherub on the way back from the coffeeshop. You can't tell from this picture, but the statue is positively caked in birdshit . . .





Back in 2001 I paid special attention to this lion statue in hopes of assessing Richard Hoagland's "feline hypothesis." Hoagland's idea, proposed ten years before the first high-resolution frontal image of the Face on Mars had been taken, is that the Face's eastern half was intentionally designed to resemble the head of a terrestrial cat.

After taking a look at feline statuary, I realized there is indeed a vague resemblance. But is the correspondence intentional or a fortuitous trick of erosion? Although I lean heavily toward the latter explanation, I devoted a sub-chapter in my book to the possibility of deliberate design and what a split-image motif might imply in aesthetic terms.





I don't especially like this next one, but since I walk by it so often I figured I'd include it in my "walking tour" of Plaza statuary. Truthfully, I've always been a bit bothered by the monkey perched on the guy's shoulder -- it looks way too human, like a chimera escaped from a genetics lab. And I suppose you can argue there's something implacably unwholesome in the organ-grinder's smile. Maybe it's just me.