John Updike on the the Umbrella Man
Aug 27
1 min read
Updated: Aug 28
Josiah Thompson, in his book Six Seconds in Dallas, discussed the umbrella man: (pages 227 - 228)
John Updike mentioned the umbrella man in The New Yorker:
Money Quote:
We wonder whether a genuine mystery is being concealed here or whether any similar scrutiny of a minute section of time and space would yield similar strangeness -- gaps, inconsistencies, warps and bubbles in the surface of circumstance.
The psychologist Rob Brotherton’s book Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories quotes from Updike's article:
Money Quote:
Our ability to see meaning in mayhem really is a kind of magic. From coming up with an apt analogy to inventing life-changing new technologies, creative thinking depends on spotting connections. It is the cornerstone Of science, too. Learning about reality is an exercise in finding patterns in data, and sorting the real from the random. A brain biased toward seeing meaning rather than randomness is one of our greatest assets. The price we pay is occasionally connecting dots that don't really belong together.
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