Category Archives: Psychology

Reflet de Robert

by in Literature, Psychology, Quotations, Robert de Montesquiou and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

[I]t was hard to pierce Robert de Montesquiou’s carapace — and he wouldn’t have wanted you to. He was perhaps at heart a melancholic: he liked to say that his mother had “given me the sad present of life”. His restlessness and furious inquisitiveness might have been a response to this. He was vain without being especially self-reflective, one of those who, rather than look inside to discover who they are, prefer to see themselves in the reflections that come back from others. — Julian Barnes, The Man in the Red Coat (2019), pp. 192-3

Elsewhere Other-Accessible…

• Portait of a Peacock — Cornelia Otis Skinner’s essay on Montesquiou
• Le Paon dans les Pyrénées — review of Barnes’ The Man in the Red Coat

Green Seen

by in Color, Optical Illusions, Psychology and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment


When you stare at the cross for at least 30 seconds, you see three illusions:

• A gap running around the circle of lilac discs;
• A green disc running around the circle of lilac discs in place of the gap; and
• The green disc running around on the grey background, with the lilac discs having disappeared in sequence. — Lilac Chaser, Wikipedia

Elsewhere Other-Accessible…

• Troxler’s fading at Wikipedia

Bored Bard

by in Boredom, Language, Literature, Psychology, Quotations and tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Pol. How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a Fishmonger: he is farre gone, farre gone: and truly in my youth, I suffred much extreamity for loue: very neere this. Ile speake to him againe. What do you read my Lord?

Ham. Words, words, words. — Hamlet (c. 1600), Act 2, Scene 2

Bore is More

by in Boredom, Psychology and tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Why boredom is anything but boring — Implicated in everything from traumatic brain injury to learning ability, boredom has become extremely interesting to scientists”, Maggie Koerth-Baker, Nature, 12i2016.

Elsewhere other-engageable…

• Beard Tales — a review of Alan Moore’s The Devotee of Ennui (2013)

Bong of Bongs

by in Music, Psychology and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dopelord, Polish stoner-doom band (photo by Marcin Pawłowski)

“Navigator” by Dopelord from Children of the Haze (2017)

Leaf burns to ashes — Hail the Holy Smoke!
Deepspace traveller, folding time with bong;
Green smoke inhaler — space defeated bends.
Skilled time deflector, holding bong in hand
Holding bong in hand…

Slowly he’s dying,
Slowly he’s turning,
Into stones and into ashes:
Slowly gets high.

Galaxy raider flights the mothership;
Mind decompressor on eternal trip;
Green smoke inhaler — space defeated bends.
Skilled time deflector, holding bong in hand
Holding bong in hand…

Elsewhere Other-Accessible…

• Dopelord at Bandcamp

Post-Performative Post-Scriptum

The title of this incendiary intervention is a paronomasia on Song of Songs, the Biblical book traditionally ascribed to King Solomon and known in Hebrew as שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים Šīr hašŠīrīm and in Polish as Pieśń nad Pieśniami. Please note that the Overlord of the Über-Feral abhors and abominates the taking of all and any drugs. Except the purest and most potent: water, language, mathematics and music dot dot dot

Perplexing Purple

by in Color, Consciousness, Psychology, Science and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

We have three sets of cones (or colour sensors) in our retinas, each of which is sensitive to a different part of the colour spectrum; the brain then constructs the rest of the spectrum by extrapolating from the relative strength of these three. In the case of purple, which occurs when the red and blue sensors but not the green ones are triggered, the brain creates a colour to fill the gap. If your brain were more objective, rather than showing you purple, it would display a patch of flickering grey with the words “system error” on it. — Rory Sutherland in Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don’t Make Sense (2019), section 6.2