As with so many things
of note in this
wonderful world of ours,
events and observations all seem to have their
moment in time,
simultaneously springing to life
from the brushes and pens wielded by a plethora of
simultaneous creators.
This may well be the case with the "Zapped Pyramid" although I've
not heard of any other claimants to date.
It's hardly a parallel in anything other than an
example, but
Isaac
Newton and Leibniz felt the need to argue the "I was first"
approach in when it
came to the evolution of
calculus.
Personally, I
do not have the interest, inclination, temperament or energy to
argue as to who first zapped the pyramid. If you created this image it before me, that's
cool. Just goes to show that my first statement is not without
merit.So - until
otherwise informed - I, Stephen
Goodfellow, take credit for the existence of the "Zapped
Pyramid" logo.
The year 1976 was a very poignant
year for me. I was rubbing elbows with the local writers and
thinkers, some of these wrote for the Fifth Estate, the oldest
continuous anarchist newspaper in the United States.
Being an artist and looking for an outlet to show my work, I was
eager to show what I was made of, so when the Fifth Estate asked if
I could do a logo, I jumped at it.
I'm not sure of the exact date of publication of the first "Zapped
Pyramid" logo, but a rummage through FE's of that year ought to nail
the month.
Ever since I saw my first dollar bill, I had
been intrigued why on Earth someone would place such a strange
symbol on currency; a pyramid with an eye embedded, suspended at the
top of a pyramid. How strange!
The
Illuminatus!
Trilogy which I read the year before creating the logo had a
profound impact upon the way in which I viewed the universe, and set
me on a course of discovery that continues to this day.
In
literature the
latin phrase non serviam was spoken by
Satan as he refused to serve
God. It translates into "I will not serve".
The origin of this attribution to Satan is
unknown. It does not appear in the
Bible, it might have originated in one of Friedrich Nietzsches
works, quoting an older source, but this is unconfirmed.
Lost in the mist of time, it has nonetheless become rejuvenated in
contemporary literature, and you can't but help feel a healthy
measure of respect for an entity that will dare to look the
almighty in the eye and cry "I will not serve!" One of the immediate fruits was this creation
which is the topic of this page. I call it
the "Zapped
Pyramid".
The symbol's implication is self-evident to
anyone who has read the Illuminatus! Trilogy, and also pretty
obvious to those who
have not.
I got some grief for writing "Servium" instead of
"Serviam" in the banner below. Although the point has been argued
without some definitive decision, the Fifth Estate has been quite
happy to publish it as it was originally intended.
In my purely
subjective opinion, since the expression is so vague anyway, I like
the idea of the "Servium" version being generated into literature.
After all, language is a dynamic force, always changing. Shouldn't I
be able to nudge it a little bit? There certainly are enough
references to the use of "Servium"
out there.
In 1993 I was in Seattle. A
patron had offered me a studio to paint in, together with a station
wagon for six weeks for a painting - hard to say no. Walking around
the downtown streets one day, I saw this guy in a leather jacket
with the Zapped Pyramid carefully drawn on the back. I was taken
amazed. Had my logo become part of the culture?
Surely there can't be many people who can say
they gained their life's inspiration from such a strange symbol, but
in my case this is certainly the case.
My fascination with the
eye-in-the-pyramid symbol led me to an
in-depth study of the
Great Pyramid, which in turn led me to the
nature of our solar
system, which again led to the
nature of nature.
The logo continues to
appear in
my artwork and if you have an eye for detail will find the eye
in the pyramid pop up from time to time.
SG |
