RIP MJ, We'll Always Have Pareidolia

I know, I know this is just adding flame to the raging fire that is the media coverage devouring the death of Michael Jackson. Regardless what you think of his music and/or his eccentric behavior no one can deny he will go down as one of the most famous human beings of all time. His image, as varied as it has been over the decades, has disseminated across the globe with the same verve, reaching the same point of saturation, as the images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

So it should come as no surprise that an example of Michael Jackson pareidolia exists. The first mention of this strange facial apparition appeared back in April at Forgetomori. A reader who had been watching the legendary 1974 “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman noticed what looked to him like the face of MJ (circa 1990s) suddenly appearing in the crowd.

The motion GIF above isolates the apparition’s appearance. Hoax or genuine pareidolia – what say you?

On a personal note, as someone in his mid-thirties my sense of self and my own quirky tastes had just started to take shape when Thriller came out. I’ll never forget kneeling on the floor with my brother, a little tape deck between us, as we listened to the title track over and over again, grinning with demented delight at Vincent Price’s voice and then dancing around the room like zombies. Hearing the choice tracks from Thriller and Off the Wall, along with such Jackson 5 classics as “Never Can Say Goodbye” over the past 24 hours or so, the soul and energy of these songs hold up against the test of time.

Local News Pareidolia Montage

Everyone likes a video montage, right? An editor distills an entire year's worth of death, celebrity imbroglios, new movies, you name it. Thanks to Everything Is Terrible, we can now all enjoy this rundown of 2008's local news coverage of all things Madonna of the Toast! Some of these stories have graced this blog, but others haven't.

Which one is your favorite?

Some Friday Fun

As you can imagine, people like to share their own stories and experiences of pareidolia, emailing me a “Did you read about this one?” message and a link. I figured that since it’s Friday, and because many people like to have a bit of fun on Fridays, I’d share this visual treat with you. Thanks, Ximena!

Follow the directions and see what happens.(Sorry that a bit of the text is lost; I didn't want to shrink the image too much and make it hard to read.) Leave a comment and tell me what you see . . .



Since I’m keeping it light today, I also offer you this funny story about Ron Paul tortillas in the American Southwest, from TheSpoof.com, which claims that these visual manifestations are “now the most popular throughout the Southwest, even surpassing that of the Virgin Mary.” Unfortunately, they didn’t spoof an image of said tortillas, but the story is worth a read, especially since the US Presidential Election is lathering some voters up into states akin to proselytizing fervor.

Have a good weekend!

Rind, Pith, Mary

Sam Nance’s son Marty was slicing lemons at Texas Billiards in Watauga, Texas, when he noticed the face of Mary across the pith and rind of this lemon. According to this Star Telegram report, when Marty brought it home, Sam claims the face didn’t really show itself to him until he snapped a photograph, but then he saw Her.

This is interesting since certain of these examples of pareidolia, both in Madonna of the Toast and on this blog, strike the people that first see the recognizable forms, but often leave viewers of photographs squinting, saying, “What is it supposed to be?” Without straying too far afield with a discussion of mimesis, pareidolia is linked intimately to the difference between an object and an image. Looking at this lemon, we are of course not really looking at the lemon, but a representation of the lemon. The idea becomes even more complex when it comes to religious iconography since the images of Jesus and Mary spotted on all sorts of unusual surfaces are based on images, created and recreated over and over again. All of the stories collected here and in the book are about images of images.

For Sam Nance, however, the proof is in the lemon. He’s a member of the Watauga police force; in his words, “I’m a detective, and I believe in facts.” It would be hard to argue the fact that Marty and Sam Nance claim to see the Virgin Mary here. The reddish discoloring can't be missed, and it does have that semblance of a face so common here on the Toast.

Nance and his wife are religious, though not regular churchgoers. The lemon is in the freezer though, ready to be showed off this weekend. What do you think the congregation will see?

Endings Are Never as Good as the Stories

“The Sopranos is a searching study of the problem of small horizons. The problem is that they are beautiful and they are crushing. Who does not come from a place that mistakes itself for the universe? All metaphysics is local. If it is possible to have a vision of the Virgin Mary, then it possible to have a vision of the Virgin Mary at the Bada Bing. The Sopranos locates the human lot in north Jersey, but the human lot is available everywhere or it is available nowhere.”

Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic, 6.18.07

EVERYONE got in on the whole The Sopranos wrap-up, deconstruct thing. I have never lived with HBO, so my knowledge of the show, and appreciation, stems from catching a single episode here and there, or settling into a three or four episode session thanks to Netflix or On Demand at my folks’ house. I feel no sense of loss. My Sundays feel the same as ever. I have been impressed, and surprised (since I never gave myself over to the show), by how the final episode generated so much analysis. But then again, who the hell keeps thinking about pareidolia, and insists it possesses great cultural significance?

That’s what I like about the above excerpt from Leon Wieseltier; with great acuity, he identifies why such events matter. The import is in the possibility of such events (whether reported as news or reflected in art), as the possibility is a product, and virtue, of “the human lot.”



This tree is located near St. Michael’s Church in Memphis, Tennessee, and once again we have the face of Jesus in bark. Apparently, this tree stands between two other trees, evoking for believers the Trinity, according to NBC5 in Dallas/Fort Worth.

There’s not much information about who first discovered the face and under what circumstances. I’d guess that the face has been there quite some time, unnoticed until the right person walked past and saw Jesus. Perhaps he or she had just heard a stirring sermon, or was on a soul-searching stroll. Impossible to know, of course, but as Wieseltier writes, “All metaphysics is local.” Recognizable faces are found everywhere around the world, but even for the similarities that many of the stories share, all of these instances are unique to a time and place. Everything that stems from these sightings is interpretation, disseminated and reinterpreted.

I guess that’s why The Sopranos ended without an ending (so I’ve read).



For some more pics of the tree, check out WMC in Memphis.

It's Regional, Not Religious

Yup, that's Elvis on toast. It's not a new sighting, which goes to show you that these sightings happen all the time, and have always happened. Now, if you've been keeping up with me here, these occurrences come as no great surprise. You know what pareidolia is, you know about Madonna of the Toast and you may even know that the book includes a story about Elvis on a receipt.



While the book may be the first of its kind, this blog isn't the first one to report news of strange sightings. Because of that, I'm always amazed by how quickly conventional media outlets pick up on these stories, which, by the way, all lead back to Diana Duyser. Such is the case with this article from the Daily Herald in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The writer is responding to all of the attention the Mayor Donald Stephens sycamore tree has been getting.(Read my last post to learn more.) CNN picked it up from the Associated Press and apparently so many people have traveled to see the face, a barrier has been built to protect the tree.

I'm still not prepared to say that technology influences these sightings, but it certainly informs us about them in mere moments. The more important issue is why does interest in such stories never diminish?



Something else I like about this article from Illinois, is how the writer mentions other religious sightings from the greater Chicago area. If you've really been paying attention, you know that I have been keeping tabs on where these sightings take place. Soon, I will run a tally. The front runners include Texas and Ohio, but it seems like Illinois may be in the running. Just check out the Virgin Mary turtle above and the Virgin Mary roadside stain below.

Boil Me a Star

Where one story ends, another inevitably begins, or continues or, in this case, predates. The Easter story would never have happened without the Passover story. Passover began last week on April 2 at nightfall, and will end April 10 before nightfall. That is a Star of David there in the foam of simmering oatmeal, the first example of a Jewish icon appearing that I have read about. This article from the Jewish Journal indicates that there are no known occurrences of pareidolia in Judaism. Passover oatmeal cookies are common, but this isn’t a Passover story, because Gary Marcus made this breakfast a few weeks ago at his home in the Northridge section of Los Angeles. He called for his wife Marsha to bring a camera, and she brought her cell phone.

I’ve been talking, and thinking, about Madonna of the Toast quite a bit lately, in a way, so it seems, more than when I was putting it together. Part of this is because I’ve been engaging with people about the book, the stories and the ideas behind them. And one question that has come up a few times is, Do these occurrences happen more frequently now?

Because the phenomenon that has become known as pareidolia is such an intrinsic human trait, documented over hundreds of years, it is fair to say that such visual manifestations have always happened, we have always facilitated their appearances. Today though, the rate at which information zips all over the world, has unquestionably accelerated our knowing about – well, almost everything really. With a camera phone at hand and good Internet connection, if you choose to, you can arrange to never miss much, even the unexpected and the previously unknown.

Gary Marcus recently lost his job of 24 years, so Marsha approached a rabbi for a blessing, which had been delivered three days before . . . via email, a common practice for this particular rabbi.

Our understanding of the world we inhabit has changed quite a bit due to technology: the wheel, fire, printing press, television, Internet. Doubtless, all of these factors play into how people react to the visual manifestations of religious and secular icons. A thorough analysis of the matter requires more thought and time, but I will say, when we live in a world where religious piece of mind is emailed, it should come as no surprise that people are eager to share their discoveries, no matter how personal, with anyone that wants to take a gander. We relay stories that mean something to us, and though they may not mean the same thing to others, or mean anything at all, the fact that we can know about them with such ease, weaves them into our cultural fabric. It doesn't so much matter if these events happen with greater frequency these days, what matters is that they happen, and people react.

"Faces, Faces Everywhere"

Up late last night, I checked email around 2:00 a.m. and found a note from my friend Robert Anasi, a man that knows about boxing and the real Indiana Jones. He was the first of many people to direct me to an article in today’s New York Times called “Faces, Faces Everywhere.” Printed in the Science Times section, the writer opens the piece by evoking Diana Duyser and her Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich, which eventually sold on eBay for $28,000. After mentioning a few other high-profile examples of recognizable faces showing up in unexpected places (most of which are included in Madonna of the Toast) the article takes a very cursory look at the scientific process that hopes to identify how and why humans tend to recognize human form in burns, rock outcroppings and anywhere else you can imagine.

While my examination of these phenomena leans towards the cultural ramifications of such discoveries, the piece in the Times bowled me over for a few reasons. First off, I’m psyched that the powers-that-be at the Times deemed this subject worthy of inclusion in the paper. While science has yet to provide any concrete neurological reasons for why we see iconic faces in all sorts of surprising places, the more tangible indicators of human action (like media exposure and money spending) prove what I try to bring out with all the examples in the book, namely that it’s not so much about why we see the faces, but how what we see drives people to action: the media converges, large sums of money are spent, people make pilgrimages.



It amazed me that the “paper of record” was unable to locate Duyser for comment. I speak with her frequently. I would have happily arranged for Duyser to comment on the piece, as this half-a-sandwich has made an indelible impact on her life.

Lastly, nowhere in the article is the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia mentioned. It seems like a gross omission, considering that the piece uses science as its point of entry. I’ve already mentioned pareidolia in very unscientific terms on here over the last couple of days, so I’ll spare you more on that subject.

Overall, this strikes me as a very positive development for the book. Maybe one of these days the Times will come to me and ask me what I think about all of this. If they don’t, at least you can come here and get a sense, and if you’re really keen to read what I think, you can always buy the book!