July 29, 2009

"OK, I understand the psychologists' point. I do think they should consider seeing a psychiatrist about their explosive anger."

Funny line from an excellent post about how the NYT is overreacting to some stuff in Wikipedia revealing things about the Rorschach test.

***

And, hey, this one's a lobster or you're crazy...



... and I see an invisible woman in a blue bra and green stockings with yellow pincer-hands...

63 comments:

Meade said...

I don't see it.

All I see is a colorful vagina.

With teeth.

Kirby Olson said...

I see an Eiffel Tower with a Mardi Gras around it, after the French have won another World Cup.

Freeman Hunt said...

What are yellow hairdryers doing between the lobsters? I don't think anyone should be submerging hairdryers in the sea.

Meade said...

Wait. Now I'm seeing Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln riding a lobster.

Riding a lobster with vagina claws.

Vagina claws with teeth.

KLDAVIS said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
traditionalguy said...

This could be the elusive 41st way to connect to men who are hitting on you. Or it is an infrared satellite image of Madison, Wisconsin and The hotspots are from the Althouse vortex rising.

KLDAVIS said...

A shoe horn, the kind with teeth.

sonicfrog said...

Miss Bird, my Black Capped Lorikeet, was sitting on my shoulder when I looked at this post. As soon as I brought it up, she said: "Do you see birdies?????"

Meade said...

Wait. Now that you mention it, I do see the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower with the Tour d' France peloton riding in waving blow dryers while wearing dentated vagina-clawed lobsters on top of their helmets.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

My first impression was lungs for the red thingies and kidneys for the orange blobs

Now that I see lobsters, because you put the image in my brain, it seems that the blue crabs are either fanning the lobsters to keep them cool or beating them over the head with the green thingies to keep them from climbing up the Eifel Tower.

Fred4Pres said...

I was tempted to go on Wikipedia, change the responses to the plates to posters at Althouse, do a screen save before the Wikinazis jumped in, and then post it here.

But I will leave it to someone else to do that.

But getting back to explosive anger, are the psychologists Irish? Even Sully said that could explain a lot.

Chennaul said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
blake said...

I see inkblots.

And, when I look up, I see clouds.

Maybe it's a defect, or just contrariness. I'm not usually very literal.

Lucy Van Pelt: Aren't the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud's formations. What do you think you see, Linus?

Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean. [points up] That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there... [points] ...gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.

Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That's very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?

Charlie Brown: Well... I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

Jason (the commenter) said...

"It's a claw, like in one of those machines where you put money in and try to pick up a toy, but it's covered in blood because it's not picking up toys, it's picking up fragile creates from an undersea wonderland. Innocent, beautiful, pure creatures; but the forces that be wont leave them alone, they have to capture them and dissect them. They only know something after they've split it open on an examination table and looked at its guts."

Then you put the card down and stare directly into the eyes of the psychologist.

pdug said...

Dog with its head split open.

I have seen the city's true face.

DADvocate said...

When I took the Rorschach test, the psychologist stated I was obsessed with sex because I saw something sexual in every picture. I told him he was obsessed because he had all the dirty pictures.

I've been waiting for years to tell that one.

Cedarford said...

Lobster mouth parts. Maine marketing. Grab lobster, ink it's mouth, kiss it to paper. Sell product to tourists. Boil lobster to remove ink. Sell carcass to tourists.

(One of the best parts of the classic Sci-Fi movie Alien, then Predator..was realization that complex "business-end" mouth parts were more horrifying than the convention of BIG fangs or teeth.)

traditionalguy said...

When Skip Gates saw this one, he immediately saw a white man planning to insult him. No one knows why.

Chase said...

I see Picaso.

chickelit said...

I always see an image having bilateral symmetry, much like the human body and many of its organs.

The test is designed to remind.

Unknown said...

I see a hippie with a fu manchu (are we still allowed to say that?). No lobster though.

Ralph L said...

I saw two monks peeing in the gardens around the Eiffel Tower.

Cedarford, it was all the corn syrup dripping that was terrifying.

Diana said...

No way is that a lobster. It's a Chinese emperor with a green mustache and pink hair. And frizzy blue epaulettes. And a hat made of bones.

sonicfrog said...

"I See Dead People!!!"

Chennaul said...

OK Damn it I knew I would be the only one that sees an abstract illustration of The Cold War.

KCFleming said...

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."


Following a Rorschach, may I suggest a lobster bisque, corn jus poached lobster and lobster fritters on top of pea carpaccio and lemongrass aioli, graced with a nice Helfrich Vin d'Alsace Riesling.

KCFleming said...

Unless, like, liver's your must-have.

jayne_cobb said...

nyarlathotep

bearbee said...

Little Mermaid Does Paris:

Two seahorses holding beetles crawling up the Eiffel tower with 2 dancing crabs sporting green claws surrounded by colorful amoeba and 2 dancing green beans.

Chris said...

Two people with blue hands and pointy hats bonking their heads into each other.

Hazy Dave said...

Man, I don't see nothing.

Here, however, I see boobs. Lots of 'em. And, maybe a couple of those toothy shoehorns.

Will said...

Pete Conrad famously got bounced from the testing to be in the Mercury Seven because he didn't take the tests seriously. During the Rorschach Test, he complained that the cards were upside down.

Chip Ahoy said...

I went to school, you know. I was in grammar school. Once we were taking a test. I was copying this other kid's paper, and I guess the teacher heard my Xerox machine. And she said, "Emo, am I stupid or were you cheating?" I said, "Ah, yes and no."

She sends me to the principal, and I get to his office and I sit down and he looks at me and says, "Emo, Emo, Emo." I said, "I'm the one in the middle, you drunken slob." He said, "How would you like to repeat the fifth grade?" I said, "Well, I don't know if I could do it exactly, uh, but I'll try." He said, "I could expel you!" I said, "You'll have to catch and eat me first, ya wierdo!" He said, "Emo, you have to go over to the school psychologist." I said, "Why do I have to go to the school psychologist?" So he shows me the petition.

And I go over to the psychologist, and he says, "Emo, what does this inkblot look like to you?" I said, "Oh, it's kind of embarrassing." He said, "Emo, everyone sees something, so don't be embarrassed. Tell me what the inkblot looks like to you." I said, "Well, to me it looks like standard pattern #3 in the Rorschach series to test obsessive compulsiveness." And he gets kind of depressed. I said, "Okay, it's a butterfly." And he cheers up. He said, "What does this inkblot look like?" I said, "It looks like a horrible ugly blob of pure evil that sucks the souls of man into a vortex of sin and degradation." He said, "No, um, the inkblot's over there. That's a photo of my wife you're looking at." "Oh," I said, "was I far off?" He said, "No. That's the sad part."

And he gives me a chocolate Easter bunny. And this shows how tricky those guys are. I eat the chocolate and I think, wait a second... this isn't around Easter. "Was this a test?" He said, "Yes." "And what does it mean?" He said, "Well, had you eaten the ears first you would have been normal; had you eaten the feet first you would have had an inferiority complex; had you eaten the tail first you would have had latent homosexual tendencies; and had you eaten the breasts first you would have had a latent oedipal complex." I said, "Well, go on. What does it mean when you bite out the eyes and scream, 'Stop staring at me!'?'" He says, "It shows you've a tendency towards self-destruction." I said, "What do you recommend?" He says, "Go for it!"

Emo Phillips

KCFleming said...

True story.

My Dad was interviewing for a job at Sara Lee in the late 60s, middle management stuff, third interview, final set of candidates.

They put him in a room by himself, an obvious one-way mirror to his side. On the table in the room, a piece of pie. He is told to eat the pie, alone in the room.

A test, certainly. But of what?

He turned the slice of pie on its side and ate the filling first, then the crust, then threw away the rest.

He got the job. He asked about the test. It was meant to show creativity or something. He didn't take the position, thinking they're a bunch of morons to believe shit like that, so who would want to work there?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I must be crazy then because that looks like Predator (1987) to me.

Unknown said...

Some mornings it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps.

Sean E said...

Two people trying to make out while wearing red flannel long johns and Spartan helmets, while being mocked by alien squid monsters and Nazi canaries.

KCFleming said...

Sean, I was hoping to put that incident behind me.

fivewheels said...

It's pretty clearly a Leatherman tool.

Peter Friedman said...

I don't think the psychologists are overreacting. What Wikipedia is doing is destroying the value of a diagnostic tool they consider valuable.

Others may question the value of the test (I do), and what Wikipedia is doing may be entirely legal (it is), but that doesn't mean Wikipedia can't respect some professionals and do that robs them of something they want to use.

d-day said...

Why is the stag beetle playing with the dismembered unicorn parts?

I'm pretty sure this one is supposed to be about politics.

Synova said...

"When I took the Rorschach test, the psychologist stated I was obsessed with sex because I saw something sexual in every picture. I told him he was obsessed because he had all the dirty pictures.

I've been waiting for years to tell that one.
"

LOL.

I'm with Meade. First thing I saw was a vagina and then I wondered if all symmetrical patterns like that look like a vagina.

But would I have *answered* vagina? Probably not.

So I followed the links to look at the others. I've had a psychologist show me ink blots before... but not those.

I think that the ones on the wiki page all look like medical imagery cross-sections of the human body.

KCFleming said...

Rorschach tests look like preliminary sketches by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Chennaul said...

Nazi canaries....

That should be the punch line around here.

Ralph L said...

He turned the slice of pie on its side and ate the filling first, then the crust, then threw away the rest.
After the filling and the crust, was anything left but the plate?

KCFleming said...

I meant he done et the edge-crust only, leavin' the rest.

Ralph L said...

I figgered that out, jus pulling your chain.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

You know now that I look at it again .. I think I see a black man breaking down a door ;)

Ann Althouse said...

@Chip That Emo thing is incredibly funny.

@Peter Aren't careers blocked by psychologists wielding judgments we are now able to judge (as bullshit)?

Unknown said...

It looks like Zant from Zelda, The Twilight Princess game for the Wii.

rhhardin said...

It looks like the sort of teeth that deal with plankton though.

Penny said...

I think some careers were helped along by those very same psychological tests.

The difference as I see it is this. Junk science, or not, psychologists ARE able to determine who doesn't trust either them or their process.

That might prove to be a BIG "no no".

Dody Jane said...

Skeletal remains, including hip bones

Ralph L said...

It might identify real wackjobs, like those who see vaginas in every blot vertical and symmetrical.

Sane people know that labia are like testes, one's always a bit higher and/or larger than the other.

Made you look!

Penny said...

Ralph, I was expecting you to say, "I see a vagina, no matter if I am standing up or lying down."

And all the possibly variations of that theme.

Methadras said...

I see blue leaf bugs holding leaves and the rest of it looks like a pelvis.

Laura(southernxyl) said...

The symmetry bothers me. It looks contrived. I have to look at just one side at a time or I'm compelled to compare the two sides and make sure they're really symmetrical.

I do, in fact, see the birdies. And a wolf (or possibly a pig), and a spider, and a worm, and some unpleasant crustacean-looking things I hope never to see in real life.

Anonymous said...

It's a coat of arms.

Blue lobsters with green claws rampant in a field of dandelions and red seahorses...with a somber, grey, narrow minded alien presiding over all.

MC said...

If you've seen the Rorschach test blots then psychologists can't use the Rorschach test on you. Since the Rorschach test is highly dubious unreliable psuedoscience, everyone should go and have a look at the blots and proper responses so they can avoid being falsely labelled by the shitty thing.

Anonymous said...

I see the Predator in drag and slapping leather on Popeye whose two cans of spinach the Predator is holding hostage with his extra two hands. Lobsters? What lobsters?

amba said...

Pair of dolphins working a pair of scissors, watched by some blue crabs.

amba said...

Make that fanned by some blue crabs, with green fans.

amba said...

Watched by canaries, mice, string beans, and a pair of Australias.