[UA] Re: UA Digest, Vol 2, Issue 372

[Shane Ivey]

> I was looking for more pictures of Five Points South
> in Birmingham, and came across all kinds of stuff.

Whoa... Talk of my town. Need to pay closer attention.

> I'm getting ahead of myself.  There are five streets
> that come together at Five Points.  In the center of
> the intersection is the statue, The Storyteller.  The
> statue/fountain is of Pan, (or Baphomet?  he has a
> full on goat's head), sitting on a mushroom, reading
> out of a book to animals.  Right behind it is the
> massive Methodist Church.  The statue of the preacher
> is over to the left.  Using the front of the statue to
> orient, the whole area makes a giant
> pentacle/pentagram (depending on your parlance of
> preference).  

I never knew that, but it gibes.

True story about the Storyteller. Around 1991 or 1992 I was in college at
University of Alabama at Birmingham, down the street from Five Points South,
and hung out there all the time. This was soon after the Storyteller was
installed, along with more statues by the artist, Frank Fleming, at the
airport. 

For some reason I decided to sketch the statue from an overhead POV. I don't
know why. You've seen what it looks like; the thing had my Cthulhu Sense
tingling. I drew the outer circle of the fountain, then put little marks
inside for each of the statues -- five frogs, three critters listening
attentively to the story.

Back then the fountain really worked: The frogs each spouted a stream of
water, one to the other. I drew those, too.

The frigging lines of water made a pentagram inside the big circle.

I'm man enough to admit it kind of weirded me out.

I haven't seen the water spouts running for years now. Maybe the Methodists
whose church has the statue in its front yard got wise and it kind of
weirded them out, too. But this is Birmingham; more likely, the water lines
broke and nobody had the money to repair them.

Shane Ivey
Arc Dream Publishing