Professor Butter Beard and Paul Klee’s “Angelus Novus”
“When you trust your inner guidance and begin moving in the direction of your dreams (aligned with your individual gifts) you will be cloaked in an armor bestowed upon you by your guardian angel.” ― Charles F. Glassman
I want to believe in guardian angels. To date, I don’t have much practical evidence to support my skeptical optimism. But there are gut-felt experiences that good-naturedly gather to enlarge the evidence file within my soul. Like when you have been searching for eyeglasses at daybreak for nearly ten minutes and they suddenly “appear” on your nightstand patiently resting on top of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” Or when you wake from a dream-filled sleep, knowing exactly what spice will surprisingly tango with fresh blueberries, or spontaneously sense complete confidence and motivation to face the challenge that had left you utterly defeated as you snuggled deep under the comforter just hours before.
I also have come to the conclusion that, if they exist, they are most probably the whispering voices of my mother and grandmother. How else would one explain the sudden urge to wear socks, make your bed even before coffee, unconsciously place sticks of butter in the freezer before walking Nels, or suddenly vividly and overwhelmingly remember a drawing of an angel your mother shared with you exactly fifty years ago?
That very angel was a vision made reality by the Swiss-German artist Paul Klee between the two World Wars. The subject of a century of philosophical debate, and the inspiration for works of poetry, theater, music and film, the angel, called “Angelus Novus,” is a powerfully mysterious figure. The winged spirit intentionally flew into my conscience at first light on Wednesday, and the very next morning, the New York Times reported that Klee’s 1920 watercolor print will have a rare appearance this spring as part of the exhibition, “The Angel of History: Walter Benjamin, Paul Klee and the Berlin Angels 80 Years After World War II,” at the Bode-Museum in Berlin.
According to the Times, the German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, who owned “Angelus Novus” for nearly two decades, wrote one of his final texts about the angel, just before he died by suicide in 1940. “This is how one pictures the angel of history,” Benjamin wrote in notes that would later be published as “Theses on the Philosophy of History.”
In Benjamin’s words: “A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
Benjamin had purchased the picture in Munich in 1921, just one year after Klee had captured his vision in watercolors. He took it with him when he moved to Berlin, and brought it to Paris in 1933 when, as a Jew, he went into exile during tumultuous years when he tried to outrun the Nazi terror in Europe. In 1940, after Germany invaded France, Benjamin tried to escape to Spain on foot, through the Pyrenees. When French authorities stopped him at the border and threatened to hand him over to the Gestapo, Benjamin swallowed an overdose of morphine.
The philosopher had left “Angelus Novus” behind in Paris, entrusted to his friend, the French philosopher Georges Bataille, who hid it in the French National Library, where he worked. Once Benjamin’s will was finally read years later, it turned out that he had intended it for his friend Gershom Scholem, a philosopher and scholar of Jewish mysticism. “Angelus Novus” was sent to Scholem in Jerusalem, where it remained until he died and bequeathed it to the Israel Museum.
Since then, Klee’s angel has been exhibited only periodically to protect it from light, but it has resurfaced frequently in popular culture. The American avant-garde musician Laurie Anderson incorporated parts of a passage from Benjamin’s “Theses” into her song, “The Dream Before,” which appeared on her 1989 album, “Strange Angels.” Tony Kushner, the playwright, also took inspiration from Benjamin’s notion of history for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1991 theatrical epic, “Angels in America.” And, the author Ruth Ozeki touches on Benjamin’s angel in her 2021 novel, “The Book of Form and Emptiness.”
Memories of my mother and Klee’s winged spirit flood over me as we celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend. I vividly remember our last Mother’s Day celebration with her, exactly fifty years ago. I see her, my father and brother and me, bathed in flickering candlelight and red silk at her favorite Chinese Tea Room in downtown Akron. I remember giggling as I watched her sneak the last of the Chinese Almond Cookies into her purse, wrapped in a scarlet red napkin. We privately shared them later that evening, as she tucked me into bed and introduced me to her guardian angel. She suddenly passed away just two weeks later.
They will be forever connected - my mother, Klee’s watercolor spirit and Chinese Almond Cookies. With the very first bite, I am suddenly reminded to put on socks.
Professor Butter Beard’s Chinese Almond Cookies
7-8 Dozen Cookies
Note – Go ahead and make the full recipe. The wrapped dough logs will keep for two weeks in your fridge.
1 ½ cups almond slices, toasted with ½ tsp fine sea salt
1 lb. (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp cool water
2 tsp vanilla paste
1 tsp almond extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Chinese Five Spice Powder
Whole roasted almonds for garnish
1) Toast the almond slices (with the salt) in a cast iron pan over medium heat until aromatic and slightly browned. Pour into a small bowl to cool and then slightly break into smaller pieces with your hands.
2) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and soda, and the Chinese Five Spice Powder.
3) In a standing mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and confectioner’s sugar. Add the eggs, water, vanilla paste and almond extract. Mix to blend. Use a spatula to add this to the dry mixture. Add the crushed almond slices. Work with your hands to mix and then squeeze into a dough. Divide the dough into six portions and roll each into a 1 ½” log. Wrap each log in parchment paper and chill at least 4 hours (preferably overnight).
4) When ready to bake, line your sheet pans with parchment paper and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
5) Slice the logs (one at a time) into roughly 3/8” slices and place one dozen on each lined sheet pan. (Keep the dough as cold as possible by only slicing just before baking.) Push one whole almond into the center of each slice. Bake one sheet pan at a time for 6 minutes, rotate the pan, and then bake for another 4 minutes. The cookies will puff and then deflate in the oven.
6) Cool the cookies on the sheet pan for 6-8 minutes then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.
