![]() ![]() These questions are not so much answered as provoked by “Invisible: The Dangerous Allure of the Unseen” (Chicago), by the British science writer Philip Ball. These strategies differ so dramatically that they raise an obvious question: just what is invisibility? Is it the condition of being transparent, so that all light passes through you undisturbed? Or of being cloaked in something all-concealing, like Harry Potter sneaking around Hogwarts? Or does it mean to be incorporeal, so that you exist but are made, like a thought, of nothing? Or does it simply mean to be overlooked? Is it always a property of whatever is unperceived, or can it be a limitation of the would-be perceiver? And why do we count as invisible the things that we do? Ghosts, gods, demons, superheroes, ether, X rays, amoebas, emotions, mathematical concepts, dark matter, Casper, Pete’s Dragon, the Cheshire Cat-what is all this stuff doing in the same category? And why have we ourselves expended so much imagination and energy in trying to join them? Hunching your shoulders and staring at the ground isn’t foolproof, but it beats “The Joy of Cooking Cats.” Recent high-tech efforts to turn invisible are not, as yet, significantly more successful than magic beans, but they are more reputable, more lucrative, and, in the long run, more promising. ![]() ![]() Getting someone to distract your would-be observers works (ask a pickpocket), as does good camouflage (ask an octopus). Alternatively, you can endeavor to turn invisible through far more prosaic means and stand a decent chance of succeeding. If you’re going to fail to disappear, you may as well do so through methods less gross and felonious: by reciting the names of demons in Latin, for instance, or carrying around a slip of paper with twelve numbers arranged in a mystical pattern, or trying on a lot of hats and cloaks and rings. You’ll know you’ve turned invisible when you turn invisible. Let it simmer for twenty-four hours, fish out whatever remains, throw the meat over your left shoulder, then take the bones and, while looking in a mirror, place them one by one between the teeth on the left side of your mouth. If you don’t have eight days to wait, you can, instead, gather water from a fountain exactly at midnight (invisibility spells are fetishistic about time management), bring it to a boil, and drop in a live black cat. Pop one into your mouth, and you will turn invisible. On the eighth day, the beans will sprout, whereupon you must persuade a little girl to pick and shell them. You then bury the head, together with seven black beans, on a Wednesday morning before sunrise, and water the ground for seven days with fine brandy. One characteristic spell, recorded by the British polymath John Aubrey around 1680, instructs you to begin by acquiring the severed head of a man who has committed suicide. It is possible, according to many sources, to become invisible, but you must be patient, methodical, and willing to eat almost anything. The condition of being unseen is a fantasy of power, and a metaphor for powerlessness. ![]()
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