or: That ain’t Jesus on your toast…
A follow-up post to that post with the clouds.
Why do we sometimes see faces when we look at clouds?
Did you know that your eyes are bombarding your brain with millions of bits of visual sensory stimulation every microsecond? When you are looking at a busy city street or a forest full of trees blowing in the breeze, your eyes are trying to take in and make sense of millions of details. Colors, movement, textures, and everything close up and far away. All at the same time.
Your brain cannot possibly keep up with this flow of information. It takes shortcuts. Sometimes it fools you. If it sees part of something familiar, like a car or a tree, it doesn’t actually try to scan every dent on the car or leaf on the tree unless you focus on them individually. Especially if it is one car or tree among many others. It does this to keep itself from overheating. Your brain just tells you it’s a car or a tree, and it isn’t dangerous, so don’t worry about it.
But sometimes the brain can be fooled when it receives fragmentary information. It fills in missing information by guessing. This is how optical illusions often work. Or magic tricks. Your brain leaps to conclusions by the the shortest method possible. *(Did you notice that I put an extra ‘the’ in that sentence ?)* Go back and look. There are two of them side by side. I bet your brain leaped over the second one because it realized it didn’t need to be there. Your brain isn’t always right.
Did you also know that our brains are wired to look for faces? It is a survival adaptation. It goes back hundreds of thousands of years. Our brains are drawn towards faces. Maybe because we have to be aware of the facial expressions of those around us. Are they mad? Are they looking like they want to kill us? Are we making them happy? Do they like me?
On top of all that, every day in this world, millions of pieces of toast are made. Each, like a snowflake, has a unique pattern cooked onto its surface.
So put all this together and there is one thing we can learn.
That is not the face of Jesus or Mary you see burned onto that piece of bread, no matter how much you want it to be.
Pouring My Art Out 
Is it Jimi Hendricks at least?
It is sort of whatever you want it to be. It is a Rorsach test.
We all know it’s an image of you…playing the guitar…with music coming out of your groin.
We do, do we.
Does this apply to the clouds in my coffee too? If I drank coffee, that is.
Was that a clever reference to a very old song, or are you just being weird…?
Both.
Good for you. But seriously, if you ever do see clouds in your coffee for more than four hours, call your physician immediately.
No.. anyone can see it’s Elvis.
hahahahahahahaha! I’m just glad it’s not Jimmy Hoffa.
no — Jimmy might be in a can of Spam, tho. 😀
I’m so glad you told me! I hadn’t thought to look there.
First pink slime in burgers, then horse meat in Ikea meatballs… and now Jimmy Hoffa in my spam? I might go Vegan.
sorta makes all that Federal digging around Southern Michigan seem rather spurious, don’t it?
It do!
ha
I am so bummed. I had to make every one of my stories private so I can submit them. I feel like I don’t exist anymore.
Can’t you un-private them later?
Yes, I can but for the time being I don’t know who I am. I do not like the way the system works.
I don’t get why you would have to do that in the first place.
Because no one wants to publish something that has been previously published so as I submit stories that have appeared on the blog I must remove them. It irritates the living daylights out of me. My blog is so obscure that what’s up there is hardly defined as published.
So I have this to look forward to if I ever get published by anybody?
Yes, but for you it won’t have such a negative impact because by self-publishing in a tangible form with established customers you have demonstrated marketability. The whole thing just drives me nuts.
I hope you have sent a query letter to the agent I found for you or that you have at least checked the agency out. I think it’s a perfect fit for you.
I am writing a query letter with help from the book ‘An idiot’s guide to getting published”. And I wrote down the info you gave me. I am trying to paint these monkey pictures all in a week because Jessica is coming to visit and she is going to teach me how to send my stuff to the book printing place all by myself… gulp… My second novel might come earlier, but not as an ebook. Turns out that is hard to do.
You GO!
I will feel bad about it… I will send him some bananas.
He’s gone to the bar for a drink. At 72, he’s sick of the demands of entertainment and he’s glad to be retired.
72? That is like 240 in human years.
George has remained active, he follows an intense exercise regimen and eats absolutely no processed foods. He intends to spend the remainder of his life drinking and debauching-look out world!
Now that is going to be my next children’s book.
I wonder if the fact that I published the first novel means I cant get it published by a firm.
Answered already.
ha
So much that they do is.
oh yeah. 😀
Or on a milk carton.
I am going to invent a way to make my own picture on toast. Like a flat metal plate with an etched or engraved picture of my face that heats up and you press in on the bread.
Good answer.
Respectfully disagree 🙂
But we still both get to eat some delicious toast, right? Wait… what part do you disagree with?