Over the years I've received several comments on the name of my blog. They can all be summed up as a kind of Freudian giggle at the mental image of Nandan's Pillars. "LOL phallic imagery attached (is it odd that attached has only two t's in it? I feel like it should have one before the 'ch'. Is this just me? AM I ALONE IN THE WORLD?) to your name LOL"
Well, now is as good a time as any to address this issue.
Just what do you know about pillars?
"Wikipedia has one article lumping together pillars and columns so looking there for a conventional definition is clearly a lost cause. But open this in a new tab and read it after you've finished reading this blogpost."
Around the time of the ancient greeks, there were 3 types of pillars:
The Doric:
 |
"How did you manage to lose all that weight, Phyllis?" "Oh, stop it.
Truth be told, I can hardly bear a propylon, much less a parthenon" |
The Ionic:
 |
| And here we see the inspiration for thousands of bad hairstyles and worse wigs |
And finally, The Corinthian:
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| "I'll just pick the first thing that turns up on google images. What could go wrong?" |
(Anyone who is shocked is advised to pick up a copy of Neil Gaiman's Sandman)
Thus, we have established that pillars are objects used to prop things up, usually roofs and buildings. Those, however, are simply literal and useful pillars. We must consider figurative and useless pillars as well.
Kabbalah, Sikhism, and the EU are all based on 3 pillars. Not the same ones, one hopes.
4 pillars form the basis of a separatist movement in Moldova.
That blessing to us all, Wikipedia, enshrines 5 pillars as the editorial principles, so closely and religiously followed by 1% of people who edit Wikipedia pages.
Of course, everyone has heard of "Seven Pilars of Wisdom," T.E. Lawrence(of Arabia)'s autobiographical work, concerning his experiences during the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, with the aid of seven enlightened women of Hispanic origin.
Moving on.
One of the odder, more memorable pillars around is the Pillar of Salt. Its origins lie in a somewhat confusing Biblical story regarding, that most common feature of said book, sin and depravity.
Sodom was a most sinful city, and all the inhabitants depraved deviants, too busy being sacrilegious to even give the thumb to The Lawd. This understandably left The Lawd feeling somewhat miffed, and with a mind to rain consequence down upon the blasphemers. At this point, Avi lobbied His Lawdiness in favour of Sodom, and long story short, failed, as there weren't enough decent folk living there to merit mercy for the majority. Just to make sure, The Lawd sent two angelic auditors to Sodom, where they ended up staying at the house of Lot, Avi's nephew, at Lot's invitation. Somehow, the rest of Sodom heard about the newcomers and showed up at Lot's door, desiring to get to know the guests in the biblical sense. Lot, being an excellent host and a better human being, not only refused to give up his guests, but offered the assembled rabble his two virgin daughters, them what have not known man, to do with as they please. The filthy, (implied) homosexuals rejected Lot's offer, and brayed further for the guests. The guests then revealed themselves as angels and blinded the Lot, sorry, the lot of them.
Having thus acquired proof that everyone in Sodom was worthy of being smote with fire and brimstone, barring Lot and his family, they instructed Lot and his family to hoof it asap to avoid destruction. They also warned them (or just Lot; who said debate is only present in the scientific community) NOT to look back while running away. The reasons for this are kinda vague but whatevs what's a good story without vagueness/plotholes.
So. As Lot and his lot are scurrying off, Lot's wife disregards the angel's order, and turns to look back (emotional state unknown) upon Sodom. BOOM! She gets turned into a pillar of salt!
Yeah, weren't expecting THAT plot twist, were you?
There's a LOT (heh) of debate about why exactly she was turned into a pillar of salt. Was she looking back out of longing and was thus punished? Or was the sight of The Lawd trampling the out the wrathful vintage of fire and brimstone upon Sodom simply too much for her human body to handle? No one's sure. What we do know is that because she is now a pillar of salt, Lot and his daughters ended up having to incestify things up.
In his book of nonfic writings,
Fates Worse Than Death, Kurt Vonnegut has a lot to say on why he wishes he were Lot's wife. It's a lovely essay, and you should definitely read it, and the rest of the book.
For those of you waiting to hear exactly why I picked this name for my blog, go back and read the little bit under the title of my blog.
Satisfied? I should hope not. It must've been positively irksome to read through all these somewhat related wordchunks and end up being told that the answer was there, beneath your nose, the whole time. Now you know how all the protagonists feel in stories with
THOSE kind of lessons.
For more vaguely self-aware ramblings feel free to comment or contact me in any manner as long as it isn't too particularly homicidal. Say it with flowers, tolerable. Say it with other species' corpses, I'd really rather not, unless otherwise specified.
