iconic

Icons, of course, are meant to be easily legible: figures or actions or properties reduced to the most elementary signifiers.   But what if they've been constructively mutilated or collaged?   I've never noticed this figure before, on College Avenue: if it's an angel, rather than Icarus descended, it's most appropriately crossing the road between the Hillel and the Second Reform Church.   But was it created by a believer in ecumenical worship?   And what's that large case in the figure's left hand for?   It looks like the kind of carrier that would expect to contain billiard cues.   But maybe, if they're lightweight wings, one could fold them up neatly and take them on New Jersey Transit?   And why (here I need a normal pedestrian crossing picture, for comparison) is he - I think it's a he - not wearing shoes?   And then, his flying suit looks a little padded and Michelin-man like.   Perhaps that's a hidden property of icons, whether in their original form or transmogrified: they don't bear very much logical dissection.