Monkey See; Monkey Do

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Digging deeper, it turns out there is an entire NASA site devoted to displaying photographs of Earth, taken by astronauts. The opening page is fun, as a photo of a random location on earth is presented, and you may choose from a set of 3 choices as to its’ location. It’s another place to get lost, looking at different parts of the world you have lived in or visited or are planning to visit.

Imagine a book, vividly and somewhat bizarrely illustrated, written in a language for which there is no known translation. Imagine further that the pretext for the book is a travalogue or scientific study of an alien world … one that is a perverse reflection of our own!

You would have imagined Codex Seraphinianus, a collection of original artwork by Italian artist Luigi Serafini.

In the book, the evoked topics are: gardening, anatomy, mathematics, geometry, hairstyles, cards, machines to be flown, transport, chemical analyses, labyrinth, Babel, costumes, foods…

This topic very much reminds me of the work of Borges, in the sense of how they could both work the edges of absurdity in such a brilliant manner! There has been at least one effort to to rationalize and interpret the text, but it didn’t get very far.

There is even a website that is nominally wriitten using the language of the Codex Seraphinianus, which has some images from the book on display. There’s something evocative of the tenuous connections we have with others in real life reflected in the intriguing image below:

The Atlantic Online has published an insightful article on the topic of introversion. Among other points, the article tries to dispel one myth: that introverts are, by definition, shy. Introverts suffer less from shyness than from simply not needing as much human interaction as other people, and especially not as much as extroverts.

Speaking of extroverts, the article was almost as much about extrovert bashing as it was an exploration of the topic of introversion. Also, I save the “oppressed” label for people with real problems, suffering true oppression, so the article’s labeling of introverts as such was a bit much. Still, all and all it’s worth the time to read, expecially for folks who deal with (potential) introverts (large parts of the hi-tech industry).

One of my favorite albums, (long since out of print, and only available via MP3!), is Neil Young’s introspective work called On the Beach. Perhaps after reading the Atlantic article I’ve a better understanding of my affinity for this album. Here are a couple of relevant lyrics:

I’m deep inside myself, but I’ll get out somehow, … Motion Pictures, Neil Young

I need a crowd of people, but I can’t face them day to day. On the Beach, Neil Young