Strange and Dubious Angels

A lot of people (well, one person) have been asking about the origins of the strange and ambiguous angels in Angels of Destruction, and several works were the inspirations for the book.


There are the angels in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the transcendental moment in Emerson where, when crossing a bare common in the snow, he becomes one with infinite space, and the thing with feathers in Emily Dickinson's poem.


Late in his life, the painter Paul Klee also did a series of very unusual angels which strike me as charged images. And the song "Strange Angels" from the album of the same name by Laurie Anderson with the angels who "clean out the refrigerator..." Note the resemblance between one of Klee's angels and Ms. Anderson.