
A perceived sphere (image from AnOpticalIllusion.com)

A perceived sphere (image from AnOpticalIllusion.com)
“My only drugs are silence and solitude.” — Frederick Forsyth in The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue (2015)
[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

Some examples of impossible geometry (poster at Tarquin)

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
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
Chimerical colors (from Wikipedia)
(click for larger)

Abyss-illusion rug in blue and yellow (image from Temu)
“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)