REFLECTION ON REFLECTIONS (SUNDAY DIGRESSION)

"Reflections in water belong to this kind of poetic strangeness. It is a great joy for me to observe them, especially on hot days, when the the light is perfect and the strangest symmetries are generated: two swans swim toward each other, with two other reflected swans, perhaps a heraldic insignia. Tropical islands, doubled ships, trains passing upside down over a bridge, the moon. Everything with perfect colors. If you look only at the reflection, and not at the reflecting part, you see a gratuitous reality that exists for you alone… In New York you may happen to see a sunset on the East Side, the sky there acting as a mirror to the sunset. The real sunset, coming from New Jersey, is uglier, as though the fact of coming from New Jersey made it in bad taste."—Saul Steinberg, Reflections and Shadows.
(Above: Lago Ritom, Piora, Switzerland. 10.5.08)