In his hermetic essay from 1933, “Agesilaus Santander,” Walter Benjamin writes: “The Kabblalah relates that, at every moment, God creates a whole host of new angels, whose only task before they return to the void is to appear before His throne for a moment and sing His praises.”[1] But in an earlier essay on Karl Kraus, he describes the angelic as a kind of monster — part child, part cannibal — a creature who, before passing into nothingness, is either “lamenting, chastising or rejoicing.”[2] Inspired by Paul Klee’s painting, the figure of the angel takes o