The same puzzle presented itself in two forms in two days, one was a piece of art, the other an anthill – or hills; they also could be seen as man made and nature made.
I saw two shiny glass squares embedded in a downtown sidewalk about ten feet from each other, they had a three-inch black dot in their middles. I knelt down to examine one, it reflected the trees and sky above me so clearly that they must be pieces of mirror; and the big black dot in the middle was actually not a dot at all, not something added to the glass; it was where the sliver paint backing of the mirror was scraped off, in the shape of a circle, strokes of silver paint still visible make it look like the paint was wiped away by hand, not by a machine, texture; like rubbing a clear spot in the frost of a window. Looking through the dot, the pupil, showed another image of the trees and sky, except, it seemed to be a reflection from a mirror down at the bottom of a long black narrow tube, the same diameter as the big black dot. Neat. Well, that is a rather mechanical description, the experience implied looking downward into the ground and seeing green trees and blue sky where dark dirt or a lower floor or some other more reasonable thing is expected. I felt like I was looking into some other place, somewhere separate from here; to say ‘another world’ seems too big, but that quality is there.
Something else was ‘wrong,’ the reflection at the bottom of the tube didn’t look right, “What is it?” pause, “Ah ha!” I couldn’t see me! I waved my hand behind me looking for the reflection, silly, as if I would not see my face but would see my hand waving. The other square exhibited the same behavior.
What then was the reflection of? Where was it coming from?* I thought, the reflection must be from the other square. I placed my sunglasses on the dot and went over to the other square, and their at the bottom of the ten foot tube was an image of my sunglasses. Neat. So the squares are not simply two ten foot deep tubes with mirrors at the ends. The squares are connected; a tube must connect them; maybe the whole thing looks like the letter U with the horizontal part of the contraption being about ten feet long. I’m guessing two more mirrors are needed, say at just the right angle at the bottom of each vertical section of tube. Very cool installation.
So what about ants? Well, about my cat first: I was having my morning coffee outside when I saw my cat attack an anthill as if it was attacking a mouse or catnip toy. It batted the tall, complex, multilevel structure into a flat, duneless, wasteland of sand – then laid on top of it. After a minute, it got up and walked away with a sort of half bored, what now saunter. I went over to survey the damage.
All around were ant hills, the ants exploited any size area where the gravel was thin enough and showing sand. One hill had a most interesting feature: a worn path, i.e. the path had that smoothness of wear that old stone stairs show at their leading edges. What is interesting to me is to think a trail of sand could be compacted by the trampling of such itty bitty creatures as these. Anyway, I wondered if that anthill and a nearby ant hill – about a foot away – were connected underneath the surface. It was a sort of horror thing, in that, if all the anthills were connected underneath the surface, well that would give the situation an unknown quality: how much more is underneath there? maybe the colony is huge and scary and icky – I’m not a big ant fan. Then I noticed that ants leaving one hill go to the other hill, single file, a few a minute, but quite consistent. Does this behavior mean the ants cannot get between the two hills by underneath the surface, or does it simply mean this is the path for these ants, whatever their class or role?
That’s when I realized the similarity of the two puzzles, that’s all.
* dangle
