Cones in Art & Literature

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy

Cone bras, and the pointy conical miracles they conceal, were in fact the first cones that came to my girl-addled brain--yet good taste (or timidity) prevented me from mentioning them.

My timidity usually rescues me from my utter lack of good taste, but not this time, alas.


Lesson from my life # 53: Timidity is really an introvert's suit of armor, because timidity is often interpreted -- by those who don't know the introvert well (which, since he or she is an introvert, is nearly everyone) -- as virtue, innocence, respect, cooperation, good will, etc.

But:
"If my thought-dreams could be seen / They'd probably put my head in a guillotine." – Bob Dylan

Now that I've waxed philosophical (with the indispensable help of Bleak&Icy and "the Bob") everyone will forget what I said about wardrobe cones, right? ... right?

[G. S. Carnivals]

Quote Originally Posted by gveranon

Quote Originally Posted by Bleak&Icy Cone bras, and the pointy conical miracles they conceal, were in fact the first cones that came to my girl-addled brain--yet good taste (or timidity) prevented me from mentioning them. My timidity usually rescues me from my utter lack of good taste, but not this time, alas. Lesson from my life # 53: Timidity is really an introvert's suit of armor, because timidity is often interpreted -- by those who don't know the introvert well (which, since he or she is an introvert, is nearly everyone) -- as virtue, innocence, respect, cooperation, good will, etc. But: "If my thought-dreams could be seen / They'd probably put my head in a guillotine." – Bob Dylan Now that I've waxed philosophical (with the indispensable help of Bleak&Icy and "the Bob") everyone will forget what I said about wardrobe cones, right? ... right?

Not quite. Now the concept (or Cone Sept - a new Social Group?) of a "wardrobe malfunction" pervades my thoughts...

[G. S. Carnivals]

"The town impressed me as being much larger once I was within its limits than it had appeared from the prominence just outside. I saw that the general hilliness of the surrounding countryside was also an internal feature of Mirocaw. Here, though, the effect was different. The parts of the town did not look as if they adhered very well to one another. This condition might be blamed on the irregular topography of the town. Behind some of the old stores in the business district, steeply roofed houses had been erected on a sudden incline, their peaks appearing at an extraordinary elevation above the lower buildings. And because the foundations of these houses could not be glimpsed, they conveyed the illusion of being either precariously suspended in air, threatening to topple down, or else constructed with an unnatural loftiness in relation to their width and mass. This situation also created a weird distortion of perspective. The two levels of structures overlapped each other without giving a sense of depth, so that the houses, because of their higher elevation and nearness to the foreground buildings, did not appear diminished in size as background objects should. Consequently, a look of flatness, as in a photograph, predominated in this area. Indeed, Mirocaw could be compared to an album of old snapshots, particularly ones in which the camera had been upset in the process of photography, causing the pictures to develop on an angle: a cone-roofed turret, like a pointed hat jauntily askew, peeked over the houses on a neighboring street; a billboard displaying a group of grinning vegetables tipped its contents slightly westward; cars parked along steep curbs seemed to be flying skyward in the glare-distorted windows of a five-and-ten; people leaned lethargically as they trod up and down sidewalks; and on that sunny day the clock tower, which at first I mistook for a church steeple, cast a long shadow that seemed to extend an impossible distance and wander into unlikely places in its progress across the town."

Thomas Ligotti - "The Last Feast of Harlequin"

[Nemonymous]

Quote Originally Posted by G. S. Carnivals

a cone-roofed turret, like a pointed hat jauntily askew, peeked over the houses on a neighboring street; Thomas Ligotti - \\"The Last Feast of Harlequin\\"

Another cone in Ligotti! Wonderful! And a peeking hat one!
Thanks.

[Bleak&Icy]

For Mr. Lewis and his cone-capped head:

Gradually the huge thing above the peaks neared the gap, slightly slackening its speed as if conscious of having outdistanced the ghoulish army. For another minute suspense was keen, and then the brief instant of full silhouette and revelation came; bringing to the lips of the ghouls an awed and half-choked meep of cosmic fear, and to the soul of the traveller a chill that never wholly left it. For the mammoth bobbing shape that overtopped the ridge was only a head - a mitred double head - and below it in terrible vastness loped the frightful swollen body that bore it; the mountain-high monstrosity that walked in stealth and silence; the hyaena-like distortion of a giant anthropoid shape that trotted blackly against the sky, its repulsive pair of cone-capped heads reaching half way to the zenith.

-- "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" by HPL

[Bleak&Icy]

In the centre Ani kneels before the god upon a reed mat, raising his right hand in adoration, and holding in his left hand the kherp sceptre. He wears a whitened wig surmounted by a "cone," the signification of which is unknown. Round his neck is a deep collar of precious stones. Near him stands a table of offerings of meat, fruit, lowers, etc., and in the compartments above are a number of vessels for wine, beer, oil, wax, etc., together with bread, cakes, ducks, a wreath, and single flowers.

*

The Sem priest next presents to the deceased (Fig. 9) a cone-shaped offering,[2] and at the same time the Kher-heb says: "Open the mouth and the two eyes, open the mouth and the two eyes. Thou hadst tightly closed thy mouth, thou hast [again] opened thy two eyes."

*

Ani standing before a table of offerings, with both hands raised in adoration. Behind him is his wife, wearing a lotus-flower and a cone upon her head, and holding a sistrum, and lotus-flower in her left hand.

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD
The Papyrus of Ani
IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
THE EGYPTIAN TEXT WITH INTERLINEAR
TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION,
A RUNNING TRANSLATION, INTRODUCTION, ETC.
by
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE
Late keeper of Assyrian and Egyptian Antiquities
in the British Museum
[1895]
scanned at www.sacred-texts.com, Oct-Dec 2000.

[Bleak&Icy]

CONE OF POWER:Psychic energy raised and focused by either an individual or group mind (coven) to achieve a definite purpose. The most interesting Cone of Power raised in recent history was that of the Witches of England who stood together, despite their differences, to turn Hitler back from the shores of their beloved country.

--Witchcraft Dictionary by Aleister Crowley

[simon p. murphy]

Des,

there is a cone motif in Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows", although he refers to them as 'funnels'. I suppose I would consider a 'funnel' to be an inversion of a cone...

"For just as the body swung round to the current the face and the exposed chest turned full towards us, and showed plainly how the skin and flesh were indented with small hollows, beautifully formed, and exactly similar in shape and kind to the sand-funnels that we had found all over the island".

Also, one of my own stories makes explicit reference to the horror of cones:

"Curmudgeon kept his eyes to Uncle's body as he spoke, prodding and kneading the sallow gray flesh with his unusually long fingers. He paused to once more light the wick of his mask before he spoke again:

"You are aware that he thinks in cones, aren't you?" smoke bellowed from the doctor's beak, those oil-dark lenses remaining trained on the writhing flesh of the creature that lay before him". - S. Murphy, 'Uncle Driew'.



The reason I chose the notion of 'thinking' in another shape at all was to confer a spatial sense of the unfamiliar. The cone for me personally also symbolizes concentration or amplification (like a megaphone) so whatever passes through it (in this case, psychic energy) is magnified. It is also significant that Uncle Driew's approximation of a brain was also shaped like a cone. Those upon whom his thoughts were directed experienced a strange and unpleasant nudging from cone-shaped forces of unseen origin.

[Bleak&Icy]

I have no idea what any of this means, but news sites reporting on Hurricane Gustav have mentioned something called "the cone of probability"--for example:

"The 11am CST (10am Cancun time) update shows Gustav is out to sea and speeding up once again which means the cone of probability has narrowed."

"You’ve seen it. You’ve heard about it. You’ve read about it. And you’re probably talking about it more than you could ever have imagined. The National Hurricane Center calls it the Forecast Cone, that unsettlingly familiar graphic depiction of the projected path of a storm and the surrounding area representing the margin for error. The Center provides an exquisitely detailed definition of the Cone, based on historical tracks and circles of error and other meteorological minutiae. Joe & Jane Six-pack are spared exposure to such head-spinning calculations thanks to the Cone. The Cone is supposed to make things simple for us simple folk, but, alas, such is not the case."

"As for Southwest Florida, the region remains out of the "cone of probability" of where the storm might strike. However, Daily News forecaster Jim Syoen recommends keeping an eye on the storm throughout the weekend. Check Jim's forecast at the Daily News' weather page or back with naplesnews.com for the latest updates."

I'm sure Nemonymous, master of cones, knows what all this means.

[Nemonymous]

Gustav was named after Gustav Holst (composer of the Planets).

But this is out of my solar system!

Not heard of this 'cone of probability' - but what a lovely concept.

Thanks!