11.22.22 + 1
A serendipitous delay . . .
I started yesterday’s planned post with a story about Tarot associations in the work of modernist icon Marcel Duchamp. By accident (as usual), I’d come across a reference to “The Hanged Man,” buried in the 223 page catalog of this 1968 exhibition:
The Tarot connection is with Marcel Duchamp’s famous, wildly complicated work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. Here’s a snippet:
I intended to share this as a look-what-I-found note, then follow up with a few remarks on the affinities between artistic creativity and Tarot imagery.
But within minutes, I realized that I don’t understand Duchamp’s work even a little bit, and couldn’t make sense of the alchemical connections I was reading about. (I also realized I have an untypical interpretation of The Hanged Man.)
In short, I was flummoxed. And it was clear that I couldn’t write anything worth reading on this topic without a lot of further work. Which I will do!
Not yesterday, though, and not today. After my other ideas for Tuesday’s planned post didn’t seem right either, I decided to take my hands off the keyboard, and wait for inspiration to strike.
That actually happened first thing this morning, courtesy of Howard Stern and Bruce Springsteen. Which may sound improbable, but I promise there is a Tarot connection, through the first five Major Arcana archetypes.
So I tried writing a quick version. However . . . I had a feeling of “wait, there’s more here.” Something about the way we are given clues to destiny at a very young age.
With no time left (either for me to write, or you to read), I decided on a series of Daily Notes for next week, starting with those two topics.
And in the meantime, since there are quite a few newcomers to EP, I thought it would be nice to revisit the very first November post, which featured some lore about cultural theorist Theodore Roszak’s chapbook Fool’s Cycle/Full Cycle: Reflections on the Great Trumps of Tarot.
Also—while looking back at 11/2020—I rediscovered Fiona Marchbank’s brilliant Bird Tarot. It still strikes me as the perfect deck for this season.
Thanks so much for reading. More soon. C