November 15th, 2008
Portal Through
Have you ever wished you could feel through an airplane’s wings? Generally, do you feel like you are at a distance from the world?
EDIT 1: It seems I have inadvertently drawn an optical illusion. You can see it as a portal (my intention), or as a roll of toilet paper against a pink background. So I decided to shade the clouds and the blue sky. Below is the original, so you can see what all the toilet paper comments are about.
The original image, portal or toilet paper?
Transcriptorial: I have seen the world pass by / but have I ever touched it?
Yes.
I love flying, everything seems so much more beautiful from above. And in a way, it gives perspective.
I got the idea for this one when I was seated next to someone flying over some mountains, and she was captivated by them.
I put some shading into the sky and clouds to make the portal a little less like toilet paper. Hope you still like it. I left the original in the post above so people can compare.
Seriosuly, did you just put a tiny filmcamera inside my brain and have been feeding off my feeling for the last, say… 10 months?
This is a-mazing. Loved it.
Ten months? Is that when you started reading, or when said camera slipped into your brain? :-)
I just look up to the sky and never think about the ground…i think that’s why i run into things head on.
Lucky for airplanes that there is not anything to run into up where they fly.
Except large birds, hang gliders, and other airplanes of course…
When I was a child I used to like touching random strangers in public, mostly in line-ups with my parents. I was scolded for this, and so I stopped doing it. I wonder if I should start up again? There are so many strangers every day that I would love to touch. Especially short and sweet elderly ladies.
I mustn’t be able to see straight, because this image looks like a roll of toilet paper to me. Well now. Wait a minute.
I’m eager to let my thin little fingers loose on the big bad world. I think I’ll start by sleeping naked with produce. Carrots and cucumbers. Yes yes yes.
It really looked like a roll of toilet paper to me too, at first. Then I got it, haha. I’m always slow.
Funny! As soon as you wrote “toilet paper”, I could see it, too. It seems I have stumbled upon an optical illusion. I’m glad you all pointed it out and I added a note above.
I suppose I should be ashamed that I will now have to go look up the word “portal” (for a definition) and see if I can find other images with which to compare this one.
I should have been a badass science fiction geek child. Many times my guy friends invited me to join them playing video games, but I preferred to stay at home with Anne of Green Gables! How different life would have been if I’d overcome myself and joined them instead!
I stare at a portal and see nothing more than a roll of toilet paper with pretty designs on it against a pretty pink background! Have I ever touched the world? In any sense more profound than that of wiping myself? Ugh.
That said, the poetic lines actually work with the toilet paper image, don’t they? If one is twisted enough? ;-)
don’t hate me, but i really thought it was a toilet paper too :D with clouds!
I added some shading. I don’t like to change what is done, so I left the original in the post as well.
i think it’s the red circle on the top that makes look like something like a toilet paper.
Oh well, then, I surrender. I’ll never be a master at drawing airplane portals. You can’t read the text, it’s too small, but I inserted some fine print into the image. It says, “Close to Prevent Glare.” Maybe once someone has seen the toilet paper, they will always be able to see it.
it’s actually what i was thinking as i typed the previous comment;
once you thought it was a toilet paper; it’s pretty hard not to see it anymore.
well, you’re very good at ‘opticial illusion’. :]
The shading works for me. Good bye Cottonelle, hello world.
I thought S. had started to draw lines reminiscent of “quilted” TP and then got bored…
The world does seem to pass me by. I observe it through the medium of television documentaries and cinema.
I’m agoraphobic…I don’t get out much.
“Underground, that’s the place to be… when you’re underground, nothing can get at you.” (The Wind in the Willows)
excuse my bad english;
i know exactly how you feel since i don’t live like others people; going to work/ school.
& i’ve been agoraphobic for years, not taking metro/bus.
but i wouldn’t say that ‘underground/underworld’ is the place to be, because even if you can observe the world thru television/books/cinema, — it’s never like talking to someone, and share experience, discussing about the last book you read or anything like that.
but sometimes, it feels more comfortable to be alone– ‘nothing can get at you’ so you’re not disappointing, hurting by anyone/anything, but life is it only that? if you think that you’re falling in love with someone and you ‘re having so many doubts that you don’t even meet that person, and don’t take any risk. Is life worth living?
Merci, femmzele. Vous avez compris parfaitement.
I know…I can’t have it both ways. I am always the person on the edge of a group, and I do value my solitude, but I get lonely sometimes. Particularly since my best friend of many years drifted away.
And you’re right…never turn down love. There isn’t that much of it about. I have learned to do things even when I’m scared, but do them. I think the more situations I survive, the more I will dare to risk.
Perhaps.
Merci bien.
Now that you mention it, a television would make an interesting image for the same text above. I wonder if TV screens soon will be convincing enough people really will use them like windows, like they do in some sci-fi flicks. Anyway, I uploaded a shaded version of the sky just now. I left the original up, too, for reference.
Often the screen IS my window on the world…be it a documentary or the internet…
Is life worth living if we don’t “take risks” in love, or in general? What a peculiar question! But it is one of the pressing questions of our time, and a pet obsession of the internet.
Night gardens are as beautiful as rare, like silence or a woman amused by the innocence of my wanting her.
One unexpected, swift and blissful slap to the face: Beauty strikes at will.
The question “is life worth living?” is true no matter how you answer it. Its a philosophical enigma, because if you truly believe the answer is “no, life is not worth living” than it isn’t, and vice versa. The answer influences itself.
True enough. To clarify: When I wrote “in general,” I meant to refer to “taking risks,” not the general question of whether or not life is worth living. But true enough.
If you ask me, enigmas are one of many things that make life worth living.
…are you enigmatic?
Nah.
Pity
Not if you listen carefully.
Indeed.
I ceased flying due to both low funds and protest against the ridiculously ineffective ‘security’ measures the government is forcing on air travel. But that never halted my flight by dream. I view all sorts of worlds in Dreamtime and get this effect, or something similar, regularly…
Yes, it can either be clouds through an aircraft window or a roll of Charmin. Mike Escher, master of portals, rules.
Flying is at the same time amazing and banal, a privilege and a hassle, safe and frightening, indispensable and utterly wasteful. I can’t even begin to sort out how I feel about it. I’ve shaded the sky just now, by the way. I left the original up for reference, but even though I don’t ordinarily try to change what’s done, it seems the Charminesque quality of the original was just a little bit too distracting.
Did you draw it on that flight from Barcelona to Manchester? I just came across the pad where you wrote down your website…it took me almost an year but I’ve got to say your work is genius.
Have a safe flight.
G.
Yes, I did draw it on that flight, and I’m so glad you found your way here.