Have you ever read the poem “Monte Blanc” by Percy Bysshe Shelley? It seems that old P.B. went and took a look at a mountain in France. Upon viewing, he has what a religious man may describe as nothing less than a spiritual experience.
He has an intense sense of connection with the mountain. On the one hand, he is completely dwarfed and made insignificant by it. However, at the same time he realizes that he and it are interconnected.
This is the magical moment that Animated Meat seeks out. The moment when a human mind is blown. And seeing the Watts Towers in person provides just that.
Why does it do so? Because it goes to work on both sides of the brain. On the one side, the brain goes into overdrive in order to take in all of the visual appeal of the place. On the other side, the rational brain tries to sort through the facts. Simon Rodia was a four-foot eleven immigrant from Italy that spent nearly every free moment of his time constructing the towers. There was no math and no machinery here. Not even a TIG welder. Just a little old man climbing up the side of the towers, all to complete his vision.
And by towers, I mean towers. The tallest of them soars almost one hundred feet above the neighborhood.
God bless all of the people that struggle to keep and present this treasure to the world.