Medusa

Medusa

(Medusa is a ceiling fan found in the garage behind the Butte Weekly offices in the spring of 2007 by Robin Jordan. What she made of it, only her Posterity Knows For Sure.)

Medusa is one of the grooviest of mythic beasties. She was able to turn men to stone if they looked directly at her. She is portrayed as having snakes for hair.

Like Medusa, this innocent ceiling fan, baring her glowing, serpentine wires, turns modern man to stone. The stare becomes blank or contemplative. He wants to put his hands and tools into it to figure it out and make it work. The more he looks at it over a period of minutes or hours or years, the less it works "the way it's supposed to."

Woman in general has always had this effect.

The more Man tries to fix her, the less she produces the desired effect. He eventually throws her out and buys a new one in this society.

If he looks at her through the reflection of photography or poetry or song, she takes on a permanent beauty that he can live with, at least in memory. Once she has been captured in a moment, her mystery fades. She is his forever.

This ceiling fan is a slut. A pretty jolly slut, and they shared some great times, but damnit, she never understood him. If only things had been different.

(It's okay to hate me now.)