Great Minds Think Alike

Lately, I’ve been reading a massive 5 volume collection of the writings of Frank Lloyd Wright, 1894-1959. As you can imagine, it contains numerous insights, beliefs and other interesting tidbits. As I was working my way through volume 4, I found this picture:


Photograph by Deiner

It is a pleasant, if somewhat stiff, shot of Frank and his third wife, Olgivanna. The thing that really caught my attention, however, was on the book shelf behind Mr. and Mrs. Wright. Almost exactly between the couple, on the top shelf, sat a dark book with a distinctive, 5-stripe design above a cartoon figure on its spine :



Where had I seen that before?



After 1903—What?, is a collection of short essays by the humorist Robert Benchley.  I’ve featured the book’s sublime illustrations (by Gluyas Williams) here a couple of times. The book, as a whole, is only sporadically funny today; it was a whole different world back then.

At any rate, I’ll take the coincidence as proof of the noble spirit I share with FLLW.