The Miracle Leaf

Sometimes the simplest things are the most mind-blowing. Plus more recursive images and a new Inconspicuous News Roundup!

Note: This post is not paywalled. Enjoy! — Paul

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I was hanging out with my neighbor Jason on his porch this past Sunday. As you can see in the photo above, we were enjoying some popcorn and beers (the latter of which I was drinking out of my new favorite glass), when something caught my eye across the porch.

“What’s the deal with that leaf?” I asked, pointing at the piece of autumnal detritus.

“I was hoping you’d notice that!” said Jason. “I was going to mention it if you didn’t say anything. It just showed up today.”

I walked across the porch for a closer look. It was a picture-perfect maple leaf, ablaze in autumn gold, and its stem had somehow gotten lodged in a gap between the shingles:

There was a bit of a breeze that day but the stem was stuck in there pretty securely, so the leaf was bobbing while remaining anchored in place, as you can see in this little video clip I shot:

At the risk of sounding like the guy who filmed the plastic bag in American Beauty, my mind was pretty well blown by the Perfection of the moment. But as a reporter, I felt obliged to engage in at least a modicum of due diligence. Had Jason placed the leaf there himself? Absolutely not, he assured me. Was there any chance that his roommate or upstairs neighbors had done it? Definitely not the type of thing they’d engage in, said Jason.

That was enough for me. Inspired by our recent story about the Miracle Fish, I dubbed our new foliage friend the Miracle Leaf. If anything, the prospect of a leaf falling off a tree and having its stem just randomly getting wedged in a tiny gap between shingles seemed even more miraculous than an osprey dropping a fish down a chimney.

The leaf, I decided, had the makings of a great photo project. I envisioned how the next week or so would go: Each day I’d check in on the leaf and take a photo to document its condition. I figured it would slowly decompose, which would be sad, but hey, Great Circle of Life and all that, right?

Unfortunately, those plans were scuttled the very next day, when I walked across the street to Jason’s house and found that the leaf was gone. Dang — miracles, it turns out, can be fleeting.

That might have been the end of the story. But the morning after that, I was sitting down to breakfast when I glanced up at the birdfeeder that’s suction-cupped to my dining room window:

Biscuit and Waffles like to keep an eye on the latest developments at the feeder.

Another leaf! At first I thought it had somehow gotten stuck under one of the birdfeeder’s suction cups, which would definitely qualify as a miracle. But upon closer inspection, I found that it was actually stuck in the small space between the top of the suction cup and the back of the feeder:

That bird swooped over to the feeder as soon as I finished taking photos.

Okay, so maybe that isn’t quite full-on miraculous, but it’s still a pretty neat trick. I’ve had the feeder up there for many years and have never seen a leaf end up in that spot before. And to think that it appeared right after the leaf on Jason’s porch!

Miracle or not, I think the bigger issue, as with the case of the Miracle Fish and so many other things, is that it’s always worthwhile to take a minute to notice and marvel at the little wonders that the world periodically sends our way, whether in the form of a fish, a leaf, or anything else.

Recursive Images, Continued

(Photo by eBay seller mounted951fyg)

Tuesday’s post about self-referential package designs and other recursive images prompted several good reader submissions, including one from Liz Clayton, who says the old McDonaldland Cookies box design shown above “really messed me up as a kid in the back seat of the car…staring….” Here’s a close-up of the part that Liz was presumably fixating on:

(Photo by eBay seller mounted951fyg)

Similarly, Eric Stangel says a Raggedy Ann toy box like this one “freaked me out” and “made my head spin” when he saw it at his pediatrician’s office during his childhood:

(Photo by Etsy seller VntgByMonica)

In addition, reader David Zwiep sent in this photo of the label from an old bottle of Old Vienna beer:

(Photo by David Zwiep)

Sure enough, the label design appears on the label design — twice!

Moving away from the realm of package design, reader Mike Wilson pointed me toward this 1993 Upper Deck baseball card that shows St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Mike Perez signing his own card (!):

(Photo by eBay seller MesplayEnterprises4)

It wasn’t clear to me how they did that, so I poked around a bit and found a Facebook post where a commenter said, “They had him hold a blank card if I remember right.” And then, presumably, they either Photoshopped or airbrushed the recursive image into the black space. I discovered during my research that the same gag was featured on a 1998 Sammy Sosa card (look closely at the card that’s being held out for him to sign):

(Photo by Reddit user Fourtwoitous)

Finally, reader Mike Engle sent in this old post from his Instagram feed:

(Screen shot from Instagram)

If you have any additional examples of recursive imagery, you know what to do.

Inconspicuous News Roundup

• I had to laugh when The New Yorker recently ran this cartoon that includes a depiction of my favorite inconspicuous sartorial detail, the back collar button. As you may recall, I did a deep dive on this topic about a year ago. I want to talk to the cartoonist, William Haefeli, about his choice to include this detail, but I haven’t yet been able to find his contact info. Stay tuned.

• Here’s a faaaascinating article on the small group of highly skilled municipal workers who repair New York City’s last remaining cobblestone streets.

• Last night the Society for Commercial Archeology sponsored a Zoom presentation about the Beverly Sign Co., a now-defunct Chicago operation whose style become enormously influential for hand-painted signage nationwide. The presentation featured lots of great photos of old Chicago signs, but it focused more on old sign drawings that were preserved by a former Beverly employee. These amazing mock-ups were prepared by Beverly’s designers, approved by clients, and then used by the company’s “wall dogs” (i.e., painters) to guide their on-site work. Here are some screen shots I made during the presentation (you can click on the thumbnails to see full-sized versions):

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.