Provincetown and Siena Are Twins?

A few days ago, Varen noticed that the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown, MA is a duplicate (twin) of a tower in Siena, Italia - the Torre del Mangia (Tower of the Eater). I'm writing this while I chow down on a lovely bowl of bow tie pasta...

P-town looms large in gay history, and also in Var's memory. He spent some pretty wonderful summers there, and he STILL talks about Spiritus Pizza as if it was some kind of holy ground. On the other side of the coin, I have personally been in Siena during the Palio (horse race: Read C Horses) and considering my love/hate relationship with Italy and the Church, it is an interesting conjunction of symbols.

Dev has been digging into the history of John Dee, the Harry Potter of Elizabethan England, and article no. 9 is about the Armada's (foiled) Spanish attack on England. The heraldic symbol of Spain is the twin towers of Heracles (read In the Shadow of Giants) loosely tied together by a scroll with the saying "Plus Ultra".

Tying and bow ties are bound together at Gosporn (read The Holy Tugboat), mostly due to Jesus saying "for my yoke is easy and my burden is light". Or in other words, "my joke is simple and my burden is enlightenment". Always yucking it up, that boy.

I was over visiting some A Gay friends (rarely invited, since I'm currently on the B, or, probably D list, but that's another story) and he's got a stunning dining room table held together with butterfly joints, making a classic bow tie.

I mention how the "bow tie" is a powerful symbol for me, and the host suddenly goes into this intense 10 minute monologue about the history of this table and how intertwined it is with his life and realized I was watching him doing a synchromystic channelling? *shaking head* Anyway.....

Back to those towers. They've been encrusted with considerable (and dubious?) symbolism over the years, however they were originally built not as mere symbolic obelisks, but as functional watch towers, so you could have a bit of warning if a neighboring city-state was coveting your grapes or maidens. Now, remember that faggots (eunuchs) are the traditional guardians of the royal household, and you will perhaps sense a tie-up.