"Ostrischizocracy" – British Library, Euston Road, London, England

David Normal is a San Francisco painter and animator. Born in 1970, he is the son of Paul Butterfield Blues Band keyboardist, Mark Naftalin. Normal’s "Crossroads of Curiosity" is a suite of murals that extends the notion of a "cabinet of curiosity." The traditional cabinet of curiosity is a rectilinear arrangement of objects displayed in glass cases. Normal’s version seeks to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples. Normal used Victorian Era book illustrations exclusively from the digitized collection of the British Library to create the artwork. Beginning as black and white collages, the four pieces were developed into 8’ x 20’ lightbox murals that were arrayed around a common base.

"Ostrischizocracy" is a portmanteau neologism meaning: "Rule by Schizophrenic Ostriches." It is derived from the word "ostrich"; the prefix "schizo"; and the suffix; "cracy." Ostrischizocracy was the first of the four compositions to be made. In some respects it is the simplest, but in other respects it is the most comical of the four paintings. It sets the stage with a number of motifs that are used throughout the paintings: Roman bathes, unconscious women, androgynous prophets with empty books, and hybrids of humans and birds. Look carefully at the series and you will find these motifs repeated and varied in a number of instances in the artwork. In particular, you will see images of:

- ostriches;
- Joseph Chamberlain (a late-19th century British cabinet minister who espoused the cause of imperial expansion);
- Guy Fawkes;
- Hataska (a barbarian princess, swooning in the bathing pool, commits the sacrilege of fondling the Muslim's beard in one hand, while holding the sacred lotus flower in the other hand – perhaps the very flower that has intoxicated her);
- a prophetess;
- and Chinese Convicts.