As if by Design

“The equation” here is Einstein’s equation expressing special relativity, E = mc2.

Isamu Noguchi, the Japanese-American sculptor, had forgotten the E = mc2 equation for special relativity while working on a frieze mural in brick and cement marking the forces of his time at the Abelardo Rodriguez Municipal Market in Mexico City in 1936. He needed to put the equation into his design. He had in mind a quiet corner by a window, with a young boy contemplating the equation, surrounded by the turbulence of history. For details of this episode, see Hayden Herrera, “Mexico,” in Listening to Stone: The Art and Life of Isamu Noguchi (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015).

For a full transcript of Fuller’s telegram to Noguchi, see "ENERGY EQUALS MASS TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT SQUARED STOP,” Letters of Note (19 August 2011), →.

The goblin Betaal’s questions posed to King Vikramaditya (Vikram) feature in a famous set of “riddle stories” known as the Vetālapañcaviṃśati, or Betaal Pachisi (Twenty-Five Tales of the Betaal). The Wikipedia entry on the story cycle (see →) has the following succinct plot summary: “The legendary king Vikramāditya (Vikram) promises a sorcerer that he will capture a vetala (or Betaal), a spirit analogous to a vampire who hangs from a tree and inhabits and animates dead bodies. Vikram faces many difficulties in bringing the vetala to the sorcerer. Each time Vikram tries to capture the vetala, it tells a story that ends with a riddle. If Vikrama cannot answer the question correctly, the vampire consents to remain in captivity. If the king knows the answer but still keeps quiet, then his head shall burst into thousand pieces. And if King Vikrama answers the question correctly, the vampire would escape and return to his tree. He knows the answer to every question; therefore the cycle of catching and releasing the vampire continues twenty-four times. Finally, the twenty-fifth question stumps the king, and so the goblin consents to be made captive.” For a note on Raqs Media Collective’s work refracted through the prism of the Vikram-Betaal motif, see Aarti Sethi, “In Rarer Air: Ten Entries in an Untimely Calendar,” Take on Art Magazine 16 (2015).

For a description of Shiva’s “wedding party” see Devdutt Pattanaik, “The Hideous Groom,” in Myth=Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology (New York: Penguin Books, 2006).

Buckminster Fuller, I Seem to Be a Verb (New York: Bantam Books, 1970).

Ibid., Herrera.