This is a picture of Chicago, reflected in a huge titanium egg. I took the picture but I don't see myself in it anywhere. All of Chicago got reflected but I got left out, and it was my bloody picture! That's what oval will do.A friend of mine has twin boys. One just breezed through everything, seemingly without effort, while the other, just as smart, often felt out of place, stupid and just wrong. When he was about 6 he tried to explain how he felt to his mother, and the term oval-headed was the one he chose to describe it.
Oval-headed. I know what that feels like. Sort of dorky, nothing fits quite right or feels quite right or goes quite right. Nothing is a complete disaster but you always feel like you're on the edge of discovering that you're naked in public when what you want to be is invisible.
So somehow I accomplished that. I took that picture. It reflects all of Chicago, a bunch of it anyway, and you can tell where I must have been standing to take the picture, and there's no reflection of me.
Cosmologists tell us that there is no center of the universe. I have always believed that were as many centers as there were intelligences wondering where the center was, each being at its own center. Over the years I have taught probably thousands of kids of all ages, each the center of his or her own universe. Most of them, at one time or at more than one time, have felt oval-headed, no longer at the center of their own universe, no longer visible, no longer wanting to be visible. It turns out that being oval-headed is a common experience. It is so nice to finally have a name for the feeling, and a picture that proves it's real.
Oval-heads, we are not alone. We just need to figure out a way to see one another.
6 comments:
After reading this I wanted to weep, in all my oval-headedness. You have just perfectly described my sense of self throughout my entire life, and all this time I had no idea you knew.
What does function call mean? Is that the sort of question I should ask anonymously (as in, the kind that everyone on the planet but me knows the answer to)? I worry that whatever you say is going to give me a moment of regret that the highest math class I took was Math for Poets. However, ask it I have.
"Function call" is a computer programming term. A "function" is a piece of code that does something specific, like take the numbers the user typed in and multiply one by the other. Functions can "call" one another - like the right side of your brain might "call" the left side to provide a word for an image it has conjured up. Its a communication attempt between discrete, or indiscrete entities.
Very funny comment on the math winners that you left me, Granmark!
I reallly love that photo. Leaving aside for a moment the motivation for placing a giant reflective *egg* in the middle of Chicago, I keep wondering if the designers didn't have one specific purpose in mind, namely to award photographers with an image that shows them they have yet to find their place in the universe. I want to go there now with a camera and a notebook and find out if one gets the same result from every angle. Or do you need to look at the universe from a certain perspective to see where you fit in?
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