so this is about semi-unintended portals, and this is one — because at one point will and lyra run for safety to a BELVEDERE and this explodes a bunch of ideas in my head PP maybe didn’t mean bcz
i. belvedere just means a place that is good to gaze from
ii. belvedere is a suburb of shrewsbury where i grew up, where my school (aged 8-12) was, and the art college my sister went to, and my dad’s current GP, and the place i had my first grown-up job — i don’t know why, as it is NOT a good place to gaze from
iii. this escher picture is called BELVEDERE (click for full size)
iv. the only lectures i went to in my third year maths at oxford were by ROGER PENROSE = the guy (with HIS dad) who developed the optical illusions escher turned into these (to me) utterly evocative lithographs
v. my great friend dr vick is related to escher which is awesome!
vi. all of which amplifies PP’s precise intention only glancingly, to be sure, except that it’s about travel between worlds, and the power (and mortal peril) of imagination, and our own ability to connect
vii. and plus also THREE WORLDS dude, which is an even better escher picture (also click)
oops sorry click and get exactly the same size :(
But click that other picture to get the full size!
oo yes! it sort of fits the theme even!
Grr. I hate Roger Penrose.
he was still teh cuet when i were a lad :(
(ie had not written that giant big stupid emperor book yet)
come to think of it his lectures were also glimpses of OTHER WORLDS = all the infinite variety of non-euclideana
mainly he drew little pictures of them on the blackboard!
For my art gcse I did a critical study of Escher, and it was the most enjoyable thing I did in all of school, cos Escher is ace, and in a remarkable instance of Alix is odd I decided on the day of submission that I didn’t want to hand it in, pretended I hadn’t finished it and said ok, I’ll drop a grade, who cares, went home and stowed it in a drawer.
… but IN the drawer was the world in which alix hadn’t done any work at all but NOW had a whole escher project to hand in and did and went on to become WITCHQUEEN OF ALL NARNIA FOREVAH HURRAH in yr face so-called ASLAN
In this world all that happened is that I once worked with a man called ASLAN.
did you long to bury your face in his fur?
Who let the Maugrims out?