{"id":16744,"date":"2015-05-08T11:24:20","date_gmt":"2015-05-08T15:24:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16744"},"modified":"2015-05-08T11:24:20","modified_gmt":"2015-05-08T15:24:20","slug":"knowing-what-youre-looking-at-unsure-of-what-you-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/05\/knowing-what-youre-looking-at-unsure-of-what-you-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowing What You&#8217;re Looking At, Unsure of What You See"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tB5-JahAXfc?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: the image being discussed here &#8212; in which Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe somehow occupy the same face, morphing into each other depending on how closely you&#8217;re observing it &#8212; has been making its way around the Internets for a while now. The explanation comes to us courtesy of a YouTube channel called <a title=\"YouTube: 'ASAP Science' channel\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/AsapSCIENCE\" target=\"_blank\">ASAP Science<\/a>, &#8220;Your weekly dose of fun and interesting science.&#8221;]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: David Eagleman, on not-seeing\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2015\/05\/since-you-always-lived-inside-your-own.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Since you always lived inside your own head, you were much better at seeing the truth about others than you ever were at seeing yourself. So you navigated your life with the help of others who held up mirrors for you. People praised your good qualities and criticized your bad habits, and these perspectives &#8212; often surprising to you &#8212; helped you to guide your life. So poorly did you know yourself that you were always surprised at how you looked in photographs or how you sounded on voice mail. In this way, much of your existence took place in the eyes, ears, and fingertips of others.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(David Eagleman [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives,' by David Eagleman\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=-cjWiI8DEywC&amp;pg=PA43#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'Ordinary Days,' by Stephen Dunn\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2015\/05\/ordinary-days-storm-is-over-too-bad-i.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Ordinary Days<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The storm is over; too bad, I say.<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">At least storms are clear<\/span><br \/>\nabout their dangerous intent.<\/p>\n<p>Ordinary days are what I fear,<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">the sneaky speed<\/span><br \/>\nwith which noon arrives, the sun<\/p>\n<p>shining while a government darkens<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">a decade, or a man<\/span><br \/>\nfalls out of love. I fear the solace<\/p>\n<p>of repetition, a withheld slap in the face.<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">Someone is singing<\/span><br \/>\nin Portugal. Here the mockingbird<\/p>\n<p>is a crow and a grackle, then a cat.<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">So many things<\/span><br \/>\nhappening at once. If I decide<\/p>\n<p>to turn over my desk, go privately wild,<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">trash the house,<\/span><br \/>\nno one across town will know.<\/p>\n<p>I must insist how disturbing this is&#8212;<br \/>\n<span style=\"margin-left: 1em;\">the necessity<\/span><br \/>\nof going public, of being a fool.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Stephen Dunn [<a title=\"Google Books: 'New and Selected Poems 1974-1994,' by Stephen Dunn\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=CzavAgAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA256#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Einstein&#8217;s Bathrobe<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wove myself of many delicious strands<br \/>\nOf violet islands and sugar-balls of thread<br \/>\nSo faintly green a small white check between<br \/>\nBalanced the field&#8217;s wide lawn, a plaid<br \/>\nGathering in loose folds shaped around him<br \/>\nThose Princeton mornings, slowly stage-lit, when<br \/>\nThe dawn took the horizon by surprise<br \/>\nAnd from the marsh long, crayoned birds<br \/>\nRose up, ravens, maybe crows, or raw-voiced,<br \/>\nSpiteful grackles with their clothespin legs,<br \/>\nBlack-winged gossips rising out of mud<br \/>\nAnd clattering into sleep. They woke my master<br \/>\nWhile, in the dark, I waited, knowing<br \/>\nSooner or later he&#8217;d reach for me<br \/>\nAnd, half asleep, wriggle into my arms.<br \/>\nThen it seemed a moonish, oblique light<br \/>\nWould gradually illuminate the room,<br \/>\nThe world turn on its axis at a different slant,<br \/>\nThe furniture a shipwreck, the floor askew,<br \/>\nAnd, in old slippers, he&#8217;d bumble down the stairs.<br \/>\nGenius is human and wants its coffee hot&#8212;<br \/>\nI remember mornings when he&#8217;d sit<br \/>\nFor hours at breakfast, dawdling over notes,<br \/>\nJuice and toast at hand, the world awake<br \/>\nTo spring, the smell of honeysuckle<br \/>\nFilling the kitchen. A silent man,<br \/>\nSilence became him most. How gently<br \/>\nHe softened the edges of a guessed-at impact<br \/>\nSo no one would keel over from the blow&#8212;<br \/>\nA blow like soft snow falling on a lamb.<br \/>\nHe&#8217;d fly down from the heights to tie his shoes<br \/>\nAnd cross the seas to get a glass of milk,<br \/>\nBismarck with a harp, who&#8217;d doff his hat<br \/>\n(As if he ever wore one!) and softly land<br \/>\nOn nimble feet so not to startle. He walked<br \/>\nIn grandeur much too visible to be seen&#8212;<br \/>\nAnd how many versions crawled out of the Press!<br \/>\nA small pre-Raphaelite with too much hair;<br \/>\nA Frankenstein of test tubes; a &#8220;refugee&#8221;&#8212;<br \/>\nA shaman full of secrets who could touch<br \/>\nPhysics with a wand and body forth<br \/>\nThe universe&#8217;s baby wrapped in stars.<br \/>\nFrom signs Phoenicians scratched into the sand<br \/>\nWith sticks he drew the contraries of space:<br \/>\nWhirlwind Nothing and Volume in its rage<br \/>\nOf matter racing to undermine itself,<br \/>\nAnd when the planets sang, why, he sang back<br \/>\nThe lieder black holes secretly adore.<\/p>\n<p>At tea at Mercer Street every afternoon<br \/>\nHis manners went beyond civility,<br \/>\nKindness not having anything to learn;<br \/>\nI was completely charmed. And fooled.<br \/>\nWhat a false view of the universe I had!<br \/>\nThe horsehair sofa, the sagging chairs,<br \/>\nA fire roaring behind the firesecreen&#8212;<br \/>\nImagine thinking Princeton was the world!<br \/>\nYet I wore prescience like a second skin:<br \/>\nWhen Greenwich and Palomar saw eye to eye,<br \/>\nTime and space having found their rabbi,<br \/>\nI felt the dawn&#8217;s black augurs gather force,<br \/>\nAs if I knew in the New Jersey night<br \/>\nThe downcast sky that was to clamp on Europe,<br \/>\nThat Asia had its future in my pocket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Howard Moss [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'Einstein's Bathrobe,' by Howard Moss\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/239792\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>..and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The maintenance of sanity required some recalibrations having to do with memory and sight. There were things Clark trained himself not to think about. Everyone he&#8217;d ever known outside the airport, for instance. And here at the airport, Air Gradia 452, silent in the distance near the perimeter fence, by unspoken agreement never discussed. Clark tried not to look at it and sometimes almost managed to convince himself that it was empty, like all of the other planes out there. Don&#8217;t think of that unspeakable decision, to keep the jet sealed rather than expose a packed airport to a fatal contagion. Don&#8217;t think about what enforcing that decision may have required. Don&#8217;t think about those last few hours on board.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Emily St. John Mandel [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'Station Eleven,' by Emily St. John Mandel\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Station-Eleven-Emily-John-Mandel\/dp\/0385353308\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Morning in May<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Grass grows in the night<br \/>\nand early the mockingbirds begin<br \/>\ntheir fleet courtships over puddles,<br \/>\nupon wires, in the new green<br \/>\nof the Spanish limes.<\/p>\n<p>Their white-striped wings flash<br \/>\nas they flirt and dive.<br \/>\nWind in the chimes pulls music<br \/>\nfrom the air, the sky&#8217;s cleared<br \/>\nof its vast complications.<\/p>\n<p>In the pause before summer,<br \/>\nthe wild sprouting of absolutely<br \/>\neverything: hair, nails, the mango&#8217;s<br \/>\npale rose pennants, tongues of birds<br \/>\nsinging daylong.<\/p>\n<p>Words, even, and sudden embraces,<br \/>\nsurprising dreams and things I&#8217;d never<br \/>\nimagined, in all these years of living,<br \/>\none more astonished awakening.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Rosalind Brackenbury [<a title=\"The Writer's Almanac (May 6, 2015): 'Morning in May,' by Rosalind Brackenbury\" href=\"http:\/\/writersalmanac.org\/episodes\/20150506\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: the image being discussed here &#8212; in which Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe somehow occupy the same face, morphing into each other depending on how closely you&#8217;re observing it &#8212; has been making its way around the Internets for a while now. The explanation comes to us courtesy of a YouTube channel called ASAP [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,95,250,50,251,3477],"tags":[179,1209,2174,2188,3855,4039,4040,4041,4042],"class_list":{"0":"post-16744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-science-medicine","10":"category-art","11":"category-language-writing_cat","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-fantasy-06_writing","14":"tag-stephen-dunn","15":"tag-illusion","16":"tag-optical-illusions","17":"tag-david-eagleman","18":"tag-albert-einstein","19":"tag-marilyn-monroe","20":"tag-howard-moss","21":"tag-emily-st-john-mandel","22":"tag-rosalind-brackenbury","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4m4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16744"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16753,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16744\/revisions\/16753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}