The Little Can Opener that Couldn't

Yet another example of pareidolia from daily life:


Most would see a slightly grimy small appliance, I'm sure. But me, I see an annoyed guy, maybe a bit of a cyborg, wearing a sideways baseball cap.
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Past posts that mention pareidolia.

Chalk Up Another One to Pareidolia

Am I the only one who sees a face in this bag?


And a grim clowny face it is.

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My previous mention of pareidolia.

Oh, No! Don't Step on Me!

Are you familiar with how stool pigeons were called "stoolies" for short? 

I recently saw this distressed-looking stoolie:

I wonder what tales it could tell, sitting in the corner, pretending to be a piece of furniture.

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Yes, I admit, there's an increasing amount of pareidolia around here.

Celebrating Pareidolia

Time for a break today from all the angst that is our world. This is my chance to appreciate the Twitter account called Faces in Things (which shows up as By Halloween Costumes in my best of Twitter roundups, but has the Twitter handle @FacesPics).

A couple of recent ones:


Caption: This moth looks like an old man wrapped in a blanket.


Caption: For the love of God, GET IT OUT!

And here's a photo I took myself yesterday while having X-rays taken of my ankle:


Possible caption: Sad cartoon cat, pressed into the service of taking X-rays.

Clearly, I will not win the New Yorker cartoon caption contest any time soon. Anyone have a better one?

Just Watch Me

Scrolling through my feeds of doom, I saw an ad on Twitter for a watch. 

I have no interest in the watch, or ads on Twitter in general (!), but check out the look on the face of this timepiece:

Is it evil or just angry? Maybe it's had enough of our current timeline.

As have we all, watch friend. As have we all.

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Yes, it's yet another post about pareidolia.

Two More Faces in Things

Last summer I visited a famous Minneapolis outsider art landmark for the first time: the House of Balls. But it looks as though I never got around to posting the photos. Remind me if I did already.

But here are two examples of faces in things I saw while there, one that's clearly been played up intentionally, the other.... I'm not sure has been noticed:


The dried fungi on tops seems to have been added to create hair, right?


But I'm not sure these fluorescent fixture choir singers have been spotted.
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See my past posts on pareidolia, the fancy name for seeing faces in things.

A Puzzle in Blue

I've posted a few puzzle pictures in the past (well, at least here and here). What do you make of this one? (Answer below.)




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It's a weathered standpipe, one of those mysterious artifacts of modern cities. And it's also another example to include in my set of pareidolia images.

Ooooohhhhhh No!

I nabbed a free strawberry pot in the alley today, and when I went to take a photo of it to send to a friend, I realized it was another case of pareidolia:


Oh, no! Mr. Bill!

The Happy Card Reader

I see card readers all the time lately when out and about, but recently I realized that one of the common designs has a discernible face...

...and a happy face at that.

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Previous posts about pareidolia.

See You Later, Gate-er

Today's the kind of day (let's face it, this is the kind of time) when you need a photo of a fence latch that looks like a fanciful alligator head or an animal face... or something like that:

These are the days when you have to notice little details because the big things are too overwhelming.

I love the white eyebrows especially.

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So much pareidolia.

Two Eyes, a Nose, and a Mouth

I had to scrape some vinyl window clings off recently and when I set the tool down at one point while it was open, I notice a little person staring back at me:

I'd say it's more of a metallic mug than a red devil, but I'm not the branding expert.

One more for the pareidolia collection. 

 

Saturday Photos

A few miscellaneous photos from the last week of January.

Minnesota cookies at Groundswell Cafe, a newly opened place in St. Paul's Midway neighborhood (at Hamline and Thomas):


Mitch McConnell taking a refreshing spritz before the State of the Union address:


And... am I the only one who sees a profile in this garment, casually tossed on a chair?


Or maybe I have pareidolia.

Another Face

It was right there in my back hall:

I know this example of pareidolia is a bit less obvious than many of the other ones I've posted, but the sun shining through the bottle makes a smile to go with the eyes, which are the bottoms of some battery-powered tea lights. 

Both are objects waiting to go down to the basement for storage. Some day they'll get there.

Box Top, Oooooh Noooooo!

Daughter Number Three-Point-One presented me with this perfect pareidolia photo today, so I have to share it because it's Saturday and there's a lot going on and no time to write about any of it:

I told her if it was set on fire, its distress would be even more evocative, but maybe that's just me.

Faces in the Trees

I know that I'm prone to pareidolia, but am I the only one who sees faces in these two birch trees?


Once you see the eye, the nose, cheek fold, and mouth are implied.


This one is like a cartoon drawing of a sad beanpole.

Another Face, Suddenly

Honestly, I hadn't thought much lately about pareidolia until yesterday's post, because I haven't been noticing faces in things myself. Probably because I haven't been out in the world a whole lot over the past couple of years.

But this morning while perusing the newspaper, what did I see?

There it was in the antique appraising column in the Variety section. I wonder if there's a human over the age of three or so who wouldn't see that as a face of some sort or other. No, it doesn't look literally like a human being, but it looks like a statue or a robot or something. Or maybe a fish. 

And all because of a couple of reflection spots.

It brought over $600 at auction, in case you were wondering.

Three from the Past

I've been seeing a lot of cool old design work lately. Here are three items from three locations in a single week.


I love the use of white ink on this book cover to create steam from the kettles. Why an efficient kitchen needs two teakettles a-boilin', I don't know, but it's a striking design. Note the kettles used in the black border, as well.

I'm not sure if the designer intended to imply a face with the kettles for eyes and the steam for hair, or if I'm just suffering from pareidolia again.

Book seen at the Book House in Dinkytown, Minneapolis. In a glass case, for sale at $100.


Then there's this extra-fine can for buckwheat flour from the Mill City Museum. The ram adds character to what would otherwise be generic claims: pure, purity guaranteed, air tight, sanitary... gee, I wonder if there were food safety problems in those days?


Finally, can you guess what this is? No, it's not a chocolate bar.

What if I told you I saw it at the Museum of Russian Art in an exhibit of samovars, one of which you can glimpse in the background?

That's right, it's a block of tea, pressed to extreme density and imprinted with an illustration and some words. I wish I knew what it says.

A Face in a Table

Doctor's appointment today and I don't know how many times I've looked at the end of an examining table... but for the first this time, I noticed a friendly smiling face:

I'm not sure if that's a second cyber eye on the right, or a beauty mark.

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I've made a few posts in the past about pareidolia.

 

Tree Ghoul in a City Park

I was in a city park having a socially distant picnic with Daughter Number Three-Point-One yesterday when I realized the hackberry tree we were near might be a haunted spirit:

I didn't catch the angle quite right when I took the photo. You have to look at it closely to see that there's a truncated branch off to the right of the left "eye" to give it a dangling right eye, accompanying the moaning mouth. The waving branch arms, of course, are complemented by the branched "hair" that's standing on end. 

 (Yes, it's yet another post about pareidolia. And not even the first one about a tree.)

Smiley Truck

Do you think the driver of this truck knows that — just in back of his head — his truck is smiling at the people driving behind him?

Or is it just my imagination?

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Apologies for the blurry picture... it was taken through the windshield at somewhat a of a distance. 

Other posts about pareidolia (faces in things).