Leonardo’s Turbine Voodoo Missile
December 18, 2022
In my spare time this past spring of 2022, I made a few small sculptures out of scrap wood, as I’ve done now and then in the past. They aren’t bad, if I say so myself, but I’ll put them up on my site proper, rather than on the blog.
But the sculpture that stands apart, and the subject of this blog entry, is of a more public, civic, and polemical (and even anatomical) nature, so I felt that it deserved its own space here. It’s called “Leonardo’s Turbine Voodoo Missile” for short, and is inspired - provoked, really - by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which strikes me as even stupider and more ill-judged (if not quite as lethal so far) than the American occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and a few other wars big and small that I won’t bother to enumerate. (Vietnam, Grenada… oops, I’ve started - let that be it for now.)
Ordinarily I would use an image of my main subject as the lead-in to my article. But considering the circumstances, and the real object or addressee of the work, I am using an anatomical drawing by Leonardo da Vinci which seemed appropriate. I happened to see this many years ago in an exhibit at the Morgan Library in New York. It was on a sheet that included an anatomical drawing of the vagina - which, I must admit, was awfully clinical, showing the vagina as if opened up wide by means of an invisible speculum. It looked more like a tunnel. But what I found most remarkable about the sheet was his study of the musculature of the anal sphincter. As a non-medical person, I had no idea of the morphology of the anus, apart from the obvious. Leonardo observed and faithfully drew what some might consider “intelligent design”, and from an engineering point of view it certainly is ingenious.
Of course the anus is a muscle, but I never would have guessed that it’s not just a simple ring, but a flower-shaped affair, its retentive power augmented by its structure - a long muscle with five loops. Much stronger than a mere ring-shaped muscle. And it’s much prettier than one would expect, like a forget-me-not. (It reminds of that old novelty toy we used to call Chinese handcuffs: a tube of straw, woven on the bias - if you put your fingers in both ends and pull, the tube just gets tighter.) From the side (in other details, not shown here, of the same drawing) it resembles a fountain. The term sphincter is derived from the Greek verb sphingo, “to squeeze or strangle”, or in the form of a noun, the Greek sphinkter, “lace, band, contractile muscle”. (You’ve heard of the “choker necklace”.) There is also the Greek noun sphinx, “strangler”, but this probably has nothing to do with the Great Sphinx of Egypt, or the sphinx that challenged Oedipus, or other chimeras called sphinxes.) When I first saw this drawing, I also wondered whether Leonardo’s homosexuality had anything to do with his interest, or if it meant no more to him than an elbow. (See P.P.S. below.)
Full title and dedication of the work:
“Leonardo’s Smart-Enough Guided Semi-Ballistic Turbine Hate-Seeking Instant Karma Voodoo Arrow Missile, with Booster Stage”, a model based on a still-undiscovered drawing by Da Vinci, and a prayer dedicated to the quick and nasty end to our new century’s Vlad the Impaler. (The original Vlad the Impaler was a sadistic Romanian prince whose favorite method of execution was to impale the victim on a sharp stake, often from the anus on up, and he enjoyed doing this personally, not just ordering his underlings to carry out this hideousness. Why let the servants have all the fun? And it seems he did this with thousands.)
Putin is still trying to discover this drawing in order to plan his missile defenses against it, and to prove its ties to the russophobic Western establishment, whose hegemony clearly dates from the Renaissance. But he’ll never find the priceless drawing, because I keep it safe under my pillow. The model is on my balcony, guarded by Cerberus himself (themselves? Cerberus has three heads, so this is not just a “woke” pronoun - down, boys, din-din is on the way), and ringed with a series of rat traps - the right animal in this case, no offense to the bears - baited with really good blini.
It’s well-known that Leonardo’s genius was multifaceted, and that he designed many instruments of war, such as catapults, giant crossbows, multi-barreled guns, balloons, and tanks. In an age that had scarcely surpassed feudalism in many respects, he offered his services to rulers who needed ways to make war against other lords. Some of these inventions were realized; many were not, but they were developed in the centuries to come and became crucial in the conduct of war. The Voodoo Arrow Missile was one that combined his understanding of the principles of physics - in particular, the action of the turbine, and the stability that would be imparted to a missile due to the spinning that resulted. (Just as a bullet emerging from a rifled gun barrel is much more stable due to the spinning imparted by the rifling.) The only crucial thing lacking in Leonardo’s day was a practical means of propelling the missile. (The Chinese had invented gunpowder, and with it the technology to build rockets for entertainment. But it is said that they understood the potential barbarity of using rockets for war, and so, as civilized human beings, they restrained themselves.)
Crudely made of scrap wood, the model is polemical, and maybe not very good as a sculpture, but created in the Dada spirit of denouncing the madness of the warmongers of the world. The central element is an actual wooden arrow, featherless but with a brass point, that wound up on my balcony several months ago like a foundling, with nary a letter of introduction. It’s the only work I’ve ever made in anger, other than a 1969 collage against another obscene war. (I still have it, though it’s falling apart.)
But since late April, when I finished the missile model, other developments closer to home (the USA) have eclipsed my disgust with the Russian aggression, especially in recent months. No need to specify, but the Supreme Court’s recent decisions are good examples. And so, even though my missile, like most art, is only a gesture, maybe just a middle finger, I realize there’s a lot I could add to my target list. As Pogo said way back, “We have met the enemy, and he is us”.
To any reader who is astonished that that the creator of marvelous and enduring works of art, with a sensibility delicate and humane hardly to be matched by any human being, should also have been an ingenious creator of instruments of death, I offer the following, Leonardo’s own curriculum vitae, which was not mere hyperbole.
Resumé of Leonardo da Vinci
Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim themselves skilled contrivers of instruments of war, and that the invention and operation of the said instruments are nothing different from those in common use: I shall endeavor, without prejudice to any one else, to explain myself to your Excellency, showing your Lordship my secret, and then offering them to your best pleasure and approbation to work with effect at opportune moments on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly noted below.
1. I have a sort of extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be most easily carried, and with them you may pursue, and at any time flee from the enemy; and others, secure and indestructible by fire and battle, easy and convenient to lift and place. Also methods of burning and destroying those of the enemy.
2. I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trenches, and make endless variety of bridges, and covered ways and ladders, and other machines pertaining to such expeditions.
3. If, by reason of the height of the banks, or the strength of the place and its position, it is impossible, when besieging a place, to avail oneself of the plan of bombardment, I have methods for destroying every rock or other fortress, even if it were founded on a rock, etc.
4. Again, I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion.
5. And if the fight should be at sea I have many kinds of machines most efficient for offense and defense; and vessels which will resist the attack of the largest guns and powder and fumes.
6. I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river.
7. I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance.
8. In case of need I will make big guns, mortars, and light ordnance of fine and useful forms, out of the common type.
9. Where the operation of bombardment might fail, I would contrive catapults, mangonels, trabocchi (traps), and other machines of marvelous efficacy and not in common use. And in short, according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of offense and defense.
10. In times of peace I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal of any other in architecture and the composition of buildings public and private; and in guiding water from one place to another.
11. I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, and also I can do in painting whatever may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may.
Again, the bronze horse may be taken in hand, which is to be to the immortal glory and eternal honor of the prince your father of happy memory, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.
And if any of the above-named things seem to anyone to be impossible or not feasible, I am most ready to make the experiment in your park, or in whatever place may please your Excellency – to whom I commend myself with the utmost humility, etc.
Note that only the last two items do not relate to war: architecture and water control in one, painting and sculpture in the other. Perhaps, if he his talent had been even greater than what history tells us, he might have added that he could sing, dance, and play the lute.
Somewhere Thomas Pynchon relates a joke popular among engineers: What’s the difference between an electrical engineer and a civil engineer? An electrical engineer designs weapons, whereas a civil engineer designs targets.
Allen Schill, December 2022
P.S.: I have recently discovered (for myself) an extraordinary writer, Sigizmund Khrzizhanovsky (1887-1950). He was born in Kyiv to Polish-speaking parents. He spent most of his career living (as a “transplant”, as he called himself) in Moscow, and he wrote in Russian. Very little of his work was ever permitted to be published in his lifetime, as he was completely indifferent to the demands of the Soviet state only for writing that served the “socialist” system. He wrote mostly short stories, and can be compared to Kafka, Borges, Gogol, Bulgakov, and others, but he was truly sui generis. Metaphysical, absurd, funny, wise. I have read most recently ”Autobiography of a Corpse”, a collection of eleven stories, each one more amazing than the others. One (the most relevant here) is called ”The Unbitten Elbow”, about a man whose goal in life is to bite his elbow. When he is told that this is impossible, he answers (in Spanish), ”Lo posible es para los tontos” - the possible is for fools. For an artist, for an idealist, for a nonconformist, this is a precious maxim. This story was just about the only one to be published in his lifetime, in a literary journal, in 1939. So one can read something of Khrzizhanovsky’s life, attempting always to do the impossible, in this story. (I won’t tell you how the story ends.)
To a book of slightly more than 200 pages are appended 26 pages of notes - a very welcome thing, as there are many references in the text that would be confusing to almost all readers. The notes do not only clarify the author’s meaning, they amplify it as well, and are very informative in themselves. The first note for ”The Unbitten Elbow” explains the title, and I will quote it in its entirety: ”The title of this story derives from a Russian idiom - blizok lokot, da ne ukusish: literally, “your elbow is near, but you can’t bite it” - used to denote something that seems easily doable and within reach but is actually undoable and out of reach. “So near and yet so far” is the rough English equivalent.“ (The book is translated by Joanne Turnbull with Nikolai Formozov. My Russian is almost nil, but I find this a very pleasing and fluid translation that seems to preserve the spirit and personality of the author.)
Anyway, when I read this note I thought immediately of Mr. Putin and his attempt to subjugate Ukraine. It seems that Putin is trying to bite his elbow. Somebody ought to tell him! (In case my voodoo missile doesn’t work.) Anyway, months after I had made the sculpture, and soon after I had read Khrzizhanovsky’s story, I added the slogan in both English and Russian to the sides of the base.
I will add a relevant anecdote: when I was back in college, my young lady friend went weekly to a psychiatrist. She had some serious issues with her father. After hearing quite a bit about him, the good doctor told her that her father suffered from ”anal-olecranon confusion”, explaining that this means simply that he didn’t know his ass from his elbow. I don’t think you will find the term in the D.S.M. (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), but it ought to be there.
Allen Schill, March 2023
This collection, as well as other books by Krzhizhanovsky (”Memories of the Future”, ”Unwitting Street”, ”The Return of Munchausen”, and ”The Letter Killers Club”), are published by New York Review Books, and I heartily urge the interested to obtain those editions. But if you’d like a taste, here’s a link to the text (without the notes, but you have the essential one from me) of ”The Unbitten Elbow”:
https://electricliterature.com/the-unbitten-elbow-sigizmund-krzhizhanovsky/
P.P.S.: I hope this addendum is not too frivolous - but if it is, just deal with it. Anyway, my thought was that Vladimir Putin, at his age, could well be experiencing some diminished virility, and thus a certain frustration. Considering the overcompensation that many men of this age bracket display on account of this (I will not say “mature men”, as that is another thing entirely), I suggest that it might be a good idea to send him a good supply of quality sildanafil, better known under its proprietary names as Viagra, Mydixafloppin, Mydixaflaggin, and Mydixafailin. (Maybe that Russian Viagra is just no good.) Satisfying, safe, effective, and much cheaper than missiles and tanks.
P.P.P.S.: Igor Mukhin is an outstanding Russian (and, before that, Soviet) photographer whose forte is street photography. Look him up - he’s made many arresting images. This young person, although not an elbow biter, is doing the next best thing. What with the position of the hands, it could very well be a yoga asana. Try it, it’s good for you!
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