Abstract

The riddle of the sphinx has become: What are absolutely identical, but have nothing in common? New riddle, new punishment: Those who cannot answer, or do not even notice they have been asked, must go to the movies every weekend and listen in between to the radio, forever; it is all the same whether they end up at museums, symphony halls, or new music festivals. This punishment is no dilution of the sphinx's classical punitive prerogatives. Its life depends so exclusively on wrong answers; it is so devoted to obfuscation, that it hardly distinguishes mauling its opponents from befogging them mentally.