This article accompanies the fable
Kama Sutra


Glass Onion as metaphor?

Lennon's choice of an onion is hilarious but glass has a longer history as a metaphor.

A triumph of Man's ingenuity over the raw materials of Mother Nature? Was God to be found within? Peering into crystal balls, the seers hoped to find the grail; alchemists stared in at the phoenix and hoped stone would transform into gold; in Murano they caught fire in a glass; at Chartres the holy spirit streamed in through the stained glass windows.  Even in the scientific age when it became the looking glass and the hourglass, it retained its magic.

It shattered during Kristallnacht, for glass could be whatever you wanted it to be, and lately it has been appearing as Pyrex dildos in the bedroom and on the coffee table.  A metaphor for the ages.