We run across strangers resembling friends, family. We feel a tingle, a shock of recognition. What is happening here? Yesterday I was getting something framed and a man in his seventies stumbled onto the scene and asked if I was in the military, reminding him of somebody. I asked if he served on the ship advertised on a hat he was donning. No, his father had been on that ship in the Pacific in 1945 when it was hit by kamikaze planes.
There's a woman in graphics who is also, like the man whose father died in WW2, in her seventies; every time we cross paths she says, "Wally!" She says -- every time -- how much I remind her of Wally from Milwaukee, a dude she dated fifty years ago.
Resemblences, twins, shadow doubles, Doppelgängers, archetypes: what's it all about, Alfie?
Hitting twin nails on the head: Gogol, The Nose / нос (1835/36); Dostoevsky, The Double: A Petersburg Poem / Dvoynik: Peterburgskaya poema / Двойник: Петербургская поэма (1846).
Today's Rune: Signals.
4 comments:
Lana and I have discussed the phenomena of types quite often. There are groups of humans who share great facial resemblance who are not on the surface of things related to each other. SOme kind of genetic lottery I guess.
Erik, I get stopped constantly by someone who thinks I am someone else. I'm just an amalgam of averages that everyone can see someone else in. Happy New Year, Buddy!
Thanks for the comments, y'all -- superb :->
As Charles said, we've discussed this between ourselves at times. There seem to be look alike "groups" of people. It'd be interesting if someone did some kind of study about it.
Post a Comment