Peenie Wallie: The more you look, the more you see

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July 26, 2011

The more you look, the more you see

So I was going through my old photographs of Amanda Lynn murals, and I saw these two paintings of girls, but I couldn't really place where I'd seen the murals. I knew that it had to be close to the office, but I couldn't figure out where exactly.

After a bit of searching, I discovered that the two girls were bookends on an 'AWR' mural painted on a 20' shipping container. But the shipping container must have been moved away some time ago.

Then, when I was driving into work recently, I saw a place across the street with a bunch of shipping containers. And I thought..."Aha...that's probably where that AWR shipping container used to be..." and as I glanced at the stacks of containers, I realized that it was still there. The same AWR mural with the girls on each end. And I'd driven past it so many times that my brain has learned to tune it out.

Now, when I drive in to work, it's very important not to study the murals, as this leads to a quick, painful death in the SF traffic. But still, I'm constantly amazed at how efficiently our brains tune out our environments. It's a necessary, but confounding exercise.

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