11.21.2008

Ceci N'est Pas Une Coincidence

I was set to write a post about how the Christmas elves had dropped off a boxed train set for the boys, and how the box was too heavy too move beyond our entryway, and how I worried that the boys would figure out what it was despite its plain brown box-iness, and so I'd cleverly written "This is NOT a Train Set"on the box in black Sharpie. You know, just in case the boys learned to read before Christmas.

In planning this post, I went out to Google to try to steal an image of a train set or a box, only to find that the word "Google" was decorated with the raining business men, bowler hats, and green apples common to the art of Rene Magritte, who turns 110 today.

Magritte also painted trains. And, famously, a picture of a tobacco pipe under which was painted the words "This is not a pipe" (only, since Magritte was Belgian, he wrote this in French).

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I really love these odd sorts of coincidences, as when one turns to a semi-random page of the dictionary in order to have a starting poing to find the word one wants, only to find the very page, the very word itself.

Today, while reading an article on Salon.com and listening to the radio, I both read and heard the word "surrender" in the same instant.

These are moments of grace, my friends.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

An interaction with a customer the other day involved she on her cellphone(sigh) and handing me a dollar on which was written the word "birthday" which as I read was uttered by her simultaneously in cellphone conversation. Unfortunately, as she was on her cellphone, was unable to share weird moment...so I now share it with you!