Read My Lips - the blog

Twist on Shakespeare

Does this remind you of the grilled cheese sandwich that they sold on E-Bay? (Or is it sorta like statisticians can provide statistics to prove anything you want them to prove?

Q. A psychology student twists Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" into "All the world's a Rorschach." She says she's serious. Is she on to something?

A. People surely perceive what they want to, whether they're reading patterns in inkblots, seeing "the man in the moon," or hearing messages in shower spray hitting against the curtain, says Leonard George, Ph.D., in "Alternative Realities." Some years ago, a New Mexico woman scorched a tortilla and read in the charred pattern an image of Christ's head amid thorns, with thousands of believers making pilgrimage to see it with their own eyes. Film producer Frederick Jurgenson once said he heard faint mumbles in his recordings of bird songs and believed these were voices of departed spirits.

Then there's "backmasking": Following the suicide of a fan of the rock group Judas Priest, the rumor spread that the phrase "Do it!" was recorded backward in their music, says John Dworetzky in "Psychology." The band was brought to trial. The judge could clearly hear "Do it!" but sound technicians demonstrated that the phrase was really just word parts combined with the sound of one of the guitars.

"I've had similar experiences," says Dworetzky, who recalls frequenting an Armenian restaurant with friends, and though none of them knew the language, soon recognizable phrases began cropping up in the songs--English phrases! In one song, the silly phrase "Scotch tape on a boa" kept coming up. New friends joining them thought this was crazy, until they too were cued in to listen for it at just the right moment. Then they couldn't STOP hearing it.

Rorschach with a vengeance. - source