Kerim’s Triptych for Sunday, November 5th, 2023

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Item 1: The Tenebroscope

Let’s start with the basics, though: what, exactly, do I mean, when I say light is invisible? This statement seems to be a reaction to some common misunderstandings about light that arise just from observing it in daily life. When I say light is invisible, I mean that it is not itself luminous — light doesn’t give off a glow when it travels, and the only way we can see it is if it actually enters the pupils of our eyes.

… So light itself does not glow, which likely seems obvious to a modern viewer, especially since the invention of the laser. A laser produces such a tightly collimated beam that one usually can only see the spot where the beam hits an object (movies such as Star Wars notwithstanding). But apparently in the 19th century this was not so obvious to people, and so the tenebroscope was born.

Item 2: Atop the Taj Mahal

Google Street View, but from the top of the Taj Mahal.

Item 3: How to Eat Alone

in an attempt to expand what we think about when we think about food in the movies, I began to look beyond the eroticizing of desserts and red meats and airbrushed breads and towards the act of eating more generally. A lot can be said about what’s eaten, how, and why, by characters on the screen, and women in particular.

Endnote

Triptych will always remain free, but my hosting costs are not. If even a handful of subscribers choose to upgrade to paid accounts (just $1 per issue, or significantly less with a yearly plan) it will help cover my costs and also greatly encourage me to keep going with this experiment. Thank you!