The Science of Sparkle

Eyes will always reflect light as long as there is light to be seen.

The shapes of the light are distorted by the spherical shape of the eye, bending over at odd angles and producing strange lines and circles and squares atop rich colors of irises. In the eyes of newscasters you can usually count the three lights shining in front of them as they report tragedy and civil unrest, because of the exacting location of these lights, positioned by photographers, in relation to the face of the newscaster.

Just below the top eyelid, with a light shining above it, is a shadow, covering some or all of that reflected light. If the light is coming from below, the shadow will be just above the bottom lid. When the face is relaxed, this shadow is not as pronounced. But when you smile, your eye's surface area gets smaller very suddenly, condensing the liquid originally covering it into a smaller frame. The layer of water covering the eye gets deeper, so that the light that was originally reflected on the eyeball is more pronounced, directly under the darker shadow.

There is more light and more darkness in a smile than any other facial expression.

This is what creates a sparkle. Every eye can have a sparkle, if situated correctly in relation to a light. It's not like only the most beautiful and special of muses are born with constantly sparkling eyes. Hitler's eyes sparkled. They probably twinkled like stars in the light of the moon, the rich, deep color of a Jew's eyes.

No matter how ugly you believe yourself to be, if you sit yourself down just at the right angle beside a window, and if you smile just right, your eyes will sparkle. This is because of the shape of your face when something wondrous happens. Because the corners of your mouth turn up, pushing your face up into your eyes which fight to stay halfway open and produce a great reflection of whatever light there happens to be. And it sparkles.

And if you were to laugh, shoulders shaking head shaking eyes like a facial earthquake, all that liquid on the surface of your eye would spread to the corners in an unrest, like tiny little microscopic ocean waves in a storm, and all that light will scatter, and your eyes would be twinkling. And if you sit there sparkling and twinkling long enough a poet or photographer will inevitably pass by and see that sparkle and remember it and want to see it again.

It is because of this science of the sparkle that absolutely anyone, with enough moisture in their eyes and enough light in the world, can be made beautiful, if only for a moment. The most villainous of souls and lonely of hearts, if made to smile just once, in the right place at the right time, are beautiful.

Why?

Because we like shiny things.

Old Friends and Bad Liars

the artist/mailman and falling in love

A drawing:

A quote:
"I hate seeing mailmen in this cold weather. Yeesh. I'd just hate to have to be stuck with a job like that."
"When I was younger, I wanted to be a mailman."
"... A mailman?"
"..."
"..."
"Well before that, the plan was grave digging. I consider the postal service to be a very respectable business."

A thought:
Sometimes I work really hard writing and drafting and creating something really cool, and it impresses a lot of people and gets me a lot of publicity. And love. 87% daily hug increase. But then there's that place I go to that everyone goes to where we don't have to try because it doesn't have to be cool. That's why sketchbooks are the coolest part of a finished canvas, because they're so full of crap everybody thinks nobody cares about when the crap is all that matters.

And if more people shared more of that crap - well, I think there'd be a lot more artists.

And a lot more mailmen.

An explanation:
Not quite sure where the grave-digging confession fit in there. I guess every time I try and fail, I think back to my goals at six years old and remember what high hopes I had for myself. Then, I start over.

Just a piece of the day.

A Year Of

A while ago I took all the raw footage off my camera - little pieces of film here and there, some I took and some taken by others - and I put a song my dad wrote over it and made a video that basically summarizes what's happened in the past year.

I couldn't figure out how to upload it on here, but you can see it if you click this.

That's all.

Good night.

Silence

I didn't talk today.

Most people have a reason to shut up, something they're trying to say by being silent.

I was silent to find what it is I need to say.

It started with a homemade button and my favorite punctuation, which was mistaken as ice cubes for approximately 90% of the day.

I didn't warn anyone of this, or give any explanation, which made things very awkward for everyone. Being pretty darn sociable by nature, it was quite difficult to enter a conversation without having to say anything. They noticed by the first couple shrugs and laughs and thumbs-up's.

"Are you not talking today?"

They're kind of used to me trying weird stuff out on them.

I'd point to the button and they'd ask if they were ice cubes and I would draw an ellipsis on a sticky note and they would act like they got it.

But the funniest part of it all was what people would say before they knew I wasn't going to say anything:

"Shady! I need your help!"
"..."
"Why does the book start with Jem breaking his arm saying it was Dill's fault?"
"..."
"How did Dill's arrival have anything to do with Bob Ewell trying to kill Jem?"
"..."
"Are those sticky notes?"
"..."
"Are you not talking today?"


"Shady! I love your face!"
"..."
"What socks are you wearing today?"
"..."
"THOSE ARE SO COOL."
"..."
"Hey that's a cool button, too. Is that the button we told you to paint over?"
"..."
"You should make me one!"
"..."
"Haha wow, awfully quiet there, eh?"
"..."
"Garsh why am I so Canadian."
"..."
"I'm not even from Canada though. I'm from Texas."
"..."
"Something feels weird."
"..."
"Are you not talking today?"


"Hey Susie."
"..."
"How much do you hate me?"
"..."
"You're really not talking today, are you."


"I missed you."
"..."
"Sorry, it needed to be said."
"..."
"Well now I feel weird."
"..."
"Is that an ellipsis button?"
"..."
"Shady, why didn't you tell me you stopped talking? I would've done it with you."


Whenever I would have to answer someone, or ask for something, or say thank you and polite stuff like that, I would write it out on a sticky note. Which means now I have a sticky note pad filled with every thought gone expressed today, in chronological order. Which gives an interesting perspective on what it is I am doing with my words.

And a very real answer as to what it is I need to say.

These are the highlights.

I can, and I did, and you should too.

Words are like molecules and constellations, taken for granted and forgotten, though so very, very vital. If we start to use them more sparingly - like a limited resource, for instance - maybe we'll start to realize that all we're ever leaving behind us are bad jokes on sticky notes and footprints in the driveway.

Note - (The plan is to keep doing this kinda sporadically until I get in the habit of saying stuff that means something, all the time.)

wild night

Those are arms.