recursion

I thought of this passage when I heard the news:

The flat-topped identical twin towers, currently coholders of the runner-up distinction of being the second-tallest buildings in the world, are square-shaped and rise straight up without ornament to a height of 1,350 feet. Although in good weather they can be seen from up to fifty miles away, standing on the horizon like chimneys or milk cartons or salt and pepper shakers, depending on the distance, the towers are more tolerated than admired by New Yorkers, and the large plaza at the base of the towers is generally avoided in any weather. The two buildings create strong winds that buffet passersby, and when you get close to them they seem to loom over you in a way that sometimes makes me think of the colossal ruined statue encountered in the middle of a trackless desert in Shelly's poem "Ozymandias": "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone" somehow survived where "Nothing beside remains."

-- Tony Hiss, The Experience of Place, 1990

Ozymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley