Occasionally, when relaxing on the couch in front of the tv, I like to hang out upside down; not all the way standing on my head, more like a zig zag; on my back, my torso parallel to the couch, my feet up in the air where my head would normally be, and my head hanging over the edge of the seat where my feet would have been. It feels good to be upside-down. For one, it makes my sinuses feel less pressured and breathing is a more pleasant experience and, two, I like the idea that I am fighting gravity (read: “fighting wrinkles”).
So, I was upside down on the couch in front of the tv watching an episode of Saturday Night Live that I had tivo’ed. The skit I watched upside-down was about a store selling “slightly used” wedding gowns. The comic Keenan Thompson played a dress store owner and (I think) Amy Poelher played a model. The dress store owner’s spiel was something like “this beautiful gown has just a slight gravy stain on the front…” (in reality, the gravy stain was all over the dress). Anyway, here is the funny part: I watched this very same episode again a day later only this time sitting on the couch in a normal, upright position - not upside down (this was no experiment - that’s just the way it was).
When I viewed the episode the second time, this time right-side up, my brain told me that I was seeing a new skit (the same story, but staged differently). In this “second skit”, Keenan Thompson stood stage left, not, as in the first episode, stage right. Also in this “second” episode, the model exited the scene stage right, not left. Why had they had made two nearly identical skits? I wondered. And then I remembered, the first time I watched it, I was upside-down; the second time right side up. What a powerful effect this had on my brain, convincing me that I had watched two different events.
ps: those two mona lisas on the right? one is very wrong. turn you or the computer upside down to see.
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