I mentioned the sculpture "Kryptos" in my book Solomon's Builders as being one of the clues to the story line of Dan Brown's next book. The longitude and latitude of the sculpture, which sits in front of the CIA building in Langley, Virginia, appears on the original cover of Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." No one knows whether Brown will stick to his guns from five years ago about his next novel's plot involving Washington DC and the Masons (he just announced the name change, from "The Solomon Key" to the new "The Lost Symbol," due in stores September 15th).
Nevertheless, the Kryptos sculpture is intriguing. Wired magazine has a new article about it by Steven Levy on their website. Levy was able to do better than I did at getting in the gate to see the enigmatic, code-filled art in person. I was detained at the gate, had my car searched, and told never to set foot on the property again in my natural life, by very unsympathetic guards wielding machine guns. I didn't think it was the time or place to try the "I'm a taxpayer and want to see what my money went for" line. Nor did saying, "Hi, I'm an author" get me out of detention, even though I'm guessing Tom Clancey has his own damn parking space at Langley.
Check out Elanka Dunin's extensive website with background information and ongoing news about Kryptos.
(Thanks, Nathan, for the heads up.)
Funny Chris, I work with Elonka.
ReplyDeleteLevy probably made an appointment :)
ReplyDeleteWell, sure, ANYbody can do that.
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteWow.
More proof that it is a small world.
And that I wouldn't want to paint it.
I contacted Elonka back when I was working on Solomon's Builders. I was trying to get the rights to use a photo of the sculpture and she was going to pass along a note to Sanborn to request one. Now I see from the article that Sanborn is less than thrilled over interest in it from the Dan Brown throng.