OCSA’s Tower = Dante’s Inferno
Louis Tonkovich - Staff Writer
Here at OCSA, students sometimes forget what a privilege it is to attend a school as unique as this one. Not only is OCSA among the nations most esteemed art academies, but over it’s 30 years, OCSA has created an environment of acceptance and community. It has a commitment towards celebrating diversity, and seeing each student for who they are. Yes, OCSA is truly a special place.
Of course, there is another reason why OCSA is unique, and it’s the fact that the Humanities Tower building is literally Dante’s Inferno. While most students haven’t realized that the same building they spend most of the school day in also happens to be the physical manifestation of the Nine Circles of Hell, after skimming the first few pages of The Divine Comedy, your dedicated reporter has reached this objective and factual conclusion.
When Dante Alighieri wrote his epic The Divine Comedy in 1320 A.D, who would have guessed that his vivid description of Hell would aptly describe in detail a seemingly innocuous building in downtown Santa Ana?
Everything written by the Italian poet in an attempt to visualize eternal damnation, from “a hemisphere of darkness” to “the dolesome shore which all the woe of the universe insacks” seem to describe our home away from home, the Humanities Tower. I mean, if I started talking about an “infernal hurricane that never rests” or “the land of tears ” and so on, would you honestly be able to tell if I was talking about the Tower or about the fabled realm of everlasting suffering known as Dante’s Inferno?
It must come as a shock to faculty and students that this normal campus building, we have all become accustomed to, is also exactly what Dante described when he wrote of the Circles of Hell. But surely, some authority must be aware of this enormous coincidence. If indeed it is just a coincidence…
I decided to speak truth to power. When I asked Grand Overlord Michael Ciesek what he thought of my groundbreaking discovery, he looked up at me from his copy of The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, and turned the Marilyn Manson down so he could hear me.
After hearing my theory, he laughed and said “Don’t you know there are NINE concentric circles of Hell according to The Divine Comedy, and only seven floors of the Tower?” In response, I asked him if he had ever been to the basement. “That’s only eight,” he said. Then I asked him if he had ever been to the 8th floor, that little landing at the top of the stairs. “No,” he said “because I’m not a lonely emo kid.” But he agreed that the Tower technically does have nine floors. This was just the confirmation I needed to give this story more credibility.
The implications of this discovery are huge. For instance, if the Tower is Hell incarnate, are we, the students, its toiling servants? Did we all die at some point in our previous lives, and only think we are overworked, stressed out art students?
Also, it is unclear to us at Evolution how exactly each floor of the Tower corresponds with each circle of Hell, but have no doubt; they absolutely do. This is what we know; the 2nd floor is definitely the circle of Gluttony, because of the malicious way the cafeteria encourages us to actually consume food. It’s also been concluded that the Basement is the Circle of Violence, because it would be the easiest place to commit a crime. And you know that weird enclave at the very top of the stairs above the seventh floor? That’s Limbo. It remains to be determined which floor is the ninth circle, Treachery, the one reserved for the worst of the worst, but spoiler alert, it’s most likely whichever floor you’re on.
And if this is truly the Underworld of Biblical and literary myth, where is the Prince of Darkness? Where is Lucifer? Who, to put it bluntly, is Satan? These questions do not have obvious answers, although it would be wise to point out here that when you rearrange the letters in the name Matthew Morrison, it spells “I AM THE ANTICHRIST, FATHER OF LIES, THE DECEIVER, BEELZEBUB.” But this is purely speculation.