The Infinity of Lists is a curated selection of curious lists.
A circle rolls into a bar and orders freshly squeezed OJ and don’t skimp on the O and the bartender says why the πr2 face? And the circle laughs and then cries and is lonely you see, been going round in circles trying to find their mirror image, but the bartender is not having that and peers through the bottom of a glass and explains—don’t sweat it, you’re everywhere, my friend. Believe me, I see you so much I’ve been making a list. Show me, show me, pleads the circle. And the bartender says—where do you even begin?
10. Ouroboros
Look, it’s a circle but it’s a snake eating its own tail, forever
Ouroboros illustration, from a 10th-century manuscript preserving the Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra the Alchemist (via Wikimedia Commons)
“One is the Serpent which has its poison according to two compositions, and One is All and through it is All and by it is All, and if you have not All, All is nothing.” - Cleopatra the Alchemist, from The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra
9. Hilma
Look it’s a bunch of circles and they’re mapping out what childhood kind of feels like
Hilma af Klint, The Ten Largest, Group IV No. 2 Childhood, 1907, from the Paintings for the Temple series, which were intended to be hung together in a circular arrangement (via Wikimedia Commons, from the Hilma af Klint Foundation collection)
"Those granted the gift of seeing more deeply can see beyond form, and concentrate on the wondrous aspect hiding behind every form, which is called life." - Hilma af Klint
8. Inferno
Look it’s a bunch of descending circles and on each of them some people are having a real bad time quite specifically
Sandro Botticelli, La Mappa dell’Inferno, between 1480-1490 (via Wikimedia Commons, from the Vatican Library)
“At one point midway on our path in life, I came around and found myself now searching through a dark wood, the right way blurred and lost.” - Dante Alighieri from Inferno Canto 1 (trans. Robin Kirkpatrick)
7. The Zero
Look, it’s a circle but it’s a mysterious underground highway in a game
Kentucky Route Zero press image (courtesy of Cardboard Computer)
“Just get back on the Zero and drive until you hit the crystal. Then turn around. It'll make sense once you get on the road.” - Mary Ann, from Kentucky Route Zero
6. Ring
Look, it’s a circle but it’s a promise stitched into pattern on a quilt that you get on your wedding day
Double Wedding Ring Quilt, artist unidentified, circa 1930-1940 (via the American Folk Art Museum)
“While the typical quilt of the era featured pastel colors and lightweight cottons, the richer colors and variety of cotton fabrics included here make this an unusual example.” - Elizabeth V Warren, from the “Double Wedding Ring Quilt” exhibition label for QUILTS: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum
5. Wassily
Look it’s a circle but it’s got a load more circles inside that circle
Wassily Kandinsky, Circles in a Circle, 1923 (via Wikimedia Commons, from the Philadelphia Museum of Art)
“The circle is the synthesis of the greatest oppositions. It combines the concentric and the eccentric in a single form and in equilibrium. Of the three primary forms, it points most clearly to the fourth dimension.” - Wassily Kandinsky
4. Wheel of Fortune
Look it’s a circle but it’s a wheel that turns and that right there is your destiny
Pamela Colman Smith, Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 10 - Wheel of Fortune, 1911 (via Wikimedia Commons)
“All go, all return, the wheel of life ever turns…existence begins at every moment…the middle is everywhere. The way of eternity is a curve.” - P.D Ouspensky, from The Symbolism of the Tarot (1913)
3. Knot
Look, it’s a circle but it’s been carved into an ancient stone and they’ve done it really well
Detail from the Hilton of Cadboll Pictish Stone, from “A Short Account of some Carved Stones in Ross-shire, accompanied with a series of Outline Engravings" by Charles Carter Petley and published in Archaeologia Scotica, vol IV, 1857 (via Wikimedia Commons)
“The most curious thing, perhaps, of the whole is the ingenious contrivance of the circles. At first sight they appear to have no determinate form, but on examination they are found perfectly regular.” - Charles Carter Petley
2. Achilles
Look it’s a circle but it’s a shield made for Achilles and on it, Hephaestus tried to put the whole world pretty much
Image from book XVIII, volume V of Homer’s Iliad, in the translation by Alexander Pope (via Wikimedia Commons, from the British Library)
_pg_171_Vol_5_The_Shield_of_Achilles.png){kind=link}
“Then first he form’d the immense and solid shield; Rich various artifice emblazed the field; Its utmost verge a threefold circle bound; A silver chain suspends the massy round” - Homer, the Iliad, book XVIII (trans. Alexander Pope)
1. Zen
Look it’s a circle but it’s not perfect but that’s kind of the point
Bankei Yitaku, Ensō calligraphy, 17th century (via Wikimedia Commons)
“…the seemingly simple shape of the circle becomes a fascinating expression of individuality displaying variations in ink tones, brushstroke thickness, shape of the circle, and even the positioning of where the circle begins and ends.” - Audrey Yoshiko Seo
Not perfect—much like this list, the bartender chuckles. Is that the sort of thing you were after? And the circle replies—I’ll let you know in the comments.
(And you can do the same! What did I miss? Which circles send you in a spin? Let me know, leave a comment, draw a perfect circle on a piece of paper with one flourish of your ideal hand and send it to a friend. You love to see it.)