The Trouble with Clouds

Clouds get in your eyes, and sometimes your coffee. Clouds are notorious for evoking wildly disparate images, depending on who's doing the looking. When I circulated a larger version of the cloud photo you see here, everyone saw something different, and erroneous. One person returned a small section of the photo—top center—which, she thought, looked like "the face of a woman with long hair and her head slightly tilted up," although I immediately recognized it as the image of someone's ear. One guy suspected it was actually a bald turtle, but it wasn't. It was an ear.

The truly amazing thing is how much time and effort were wasted focusing on the wrong portion of the photograph. Obviously, the major point of interest is the image of George Washington in the upper right corner, who's plainly scowling at something over there on the left. The Queen, probably.

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: Next time you think you see something in a cloud, it isn't a woman with long hair. It's an ear, or maybe George Washington.

 

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6:45 PM UTC

    Very funny! I think my favorite part is in the middle, where you say "One guy suspected it was actually a bald turtle, but it wasn't. It was an ear." But the last line is terrific, too!

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  2. Anonymous5:23 AM UTC

    [Elvis voice on]

    Thank you. Thank you very much.

    [Elvis voice off]

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