“Concentration is the desired end, as in an anagram whose density is the measure of its destiny.” — Man Ray. 1948. Alphabet for adults. Beverly Hills [Calif.]: Copley Galleries
In my last post I pointed out there are at least two hints within the Pines Card where Zodiac has cleverly crafted a “clew” with two equally plausible interpretations or referents. Here I discuss an example of George Hodel’s penchant for this type of double entendre-based puzzle, and relate it to another Zodiac communication, the October 1970 Halloween Card.
One of George Hodel’s hobbies during the 1920s was photography, and many of the works that survive are character portraits of various acquaintances. For example, there’s one of a youthful Tom Evans, a long-time associate of Tony Cornero, the racketeer mob boss who made his bones landing Canadian whiskey on Southern California beaches back in 1923. According to a 1925 news article on a downtown LA exhibition of his photographs, Hodel described these portraits as “character analysis by photography.”
A 1924 self-portrait bears the intriguing title, “Merlin Gazes at Cracked Mirrors.” So, what is George hinting about himself in that title? In their book, Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder, art experts Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss speculate that he was referencing Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I beg to differ.
I have searched the full text of Don Quixote and, while Merlin and mirrors are both mentioned within its several hundred pages, I find nothing apposite. On the other hand, “Cracked Mirrors” has an obvious literary association — The Lady of Shalott by Alfred Lord Tennyson.1 And, if we plug in that guess as to the allusion for “Cracked Mirrors,” we find it is supported by the rest of the title, in that the poem is set in the world of Arthurian legend, also evoked by Hodel’s self-characterization as Merlin, the magician of Camelot. Only, Merlin does not feature in The Lady of Shalott — the “fella” in that poem is Sir Lancelot. However, Tennyson did write one poem focused on the wizard, namely Merlin and Vivien in his Arthurian cycle, Idylls of the King.2 There is an interesting parallelism between the two poems, relating to an idea near and dear to George Hodel — the power of sex. I propose that the self-portrait’s title is a dual reference to these thematically linked poems.
In Merlin and Vivien, the brilliant magician of King Arthur’s court is lured against his better judgment into a forest meeting with Vivien, the Lady of the Lake. This is the “bad,” Circe-like, scheming harlot-enchantress Lady of the Lake, not the “good” version of the character who is perhaps more familiar to us. In the forest, Vivien seduces Merlin and tricks him into revealing a powerful secret spell. She immediately unleashes the spell on Merlin, leaving him trapped forever inside a hollow oak tree.
Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead,
And lost to life and use and name and fame.
Then crying "I have made his glory mine,"
And shrieking out "O fool!" the harlot leapt
Adown the forest, and the thicket closed
Behind her, and the forest echoed "fool."
The Lady of Shalott concerns a chaste lady “imbowered” in a tower on an isle near to Camelot. A magic spell compels her to look at the world only indirectly, through a mirror in her chamber, while she weaves at a loom. One day, “half-sick of shadows” and attracted by the sight of Sir Lancelot in her mirror and the sound of his voice below, she cannot resist taking a peek through her window. The mirror cracks from side to side and she is instantly doomed by a curse. Though she leaves the tower and makes her way to Camelot in a boat, she dies en route, presenting a beautiful corpse to the townspeople and to Sir Lancelot after the boat arrives ashore.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down from Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash'd into the crystal mirror,
'Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:'
Sang Sir Lancelot.She left the web, she left the loom
She made three paces thro' the room
She saw the water-flower bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott.
I think if you put the dual poetic allusions together you get the general drift of the self-anaylsis offered in 1924 by the former child prodigy and future Black Dahlia Avenger.
Both of the Tennyson poems have been the subject of numerous artworks, by Doré, by the Pre-Raphaelites, and by other artists, e.g.:
Also by George Hodel, I think:
The best-known modern allusion to The Lady of Shalott is in the title of Agatha Christie’s 1962 novel, The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side. Christie was inspired by real-life events, to wit the incident in which movie star Gene Tierney contracted rubella from a fan who had broken a quarantine while she was volunteering at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II. Pregnant, she gave birth to a severely disabled child. This led to Tierney suffering a mental breakdown and the failure of her marriage to Russian aristocrat fashion designer Oleg Cassini. Tierney moved to Topeka, Kansas to undergo treatment at the Menninger Clinic, for a time working as a shop girl in a local store.
Idylls of the King is heavily alluded to by Raymond Chandler in his novel, The Lady in the Lake. Interestingly, the movie version, Lady in the Lake, came out about a week after the Black Dahlia murder and was written by Steve Fisher, one of the Hollywood writers who claimed to know the identity of her killer. There are hints of a thicket of Arthurian allusions just below the surface of the Halloween Card — to Graves’ The White Goddess and to The Battle of the Trees and the Ogham “tree alphabet” discussed extensively therein. The “Tahoe Mystery” of Donna Lass has certain parallels to the plot of Lady in the Lake, so perhaps that association spurred a train of thought.