Man in the (Convex) Mirror

John Ashbery was born on my father’s birthday (same day, same year) I learned when I looked up “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror” today.
Densely intellectual, amazing lines like:
“The soul has to stay where it is,
Even though restless, hearing raindrops at the pane,
The sighing of autumn leaves thrashed by the wind,
Longing to be free, outside, but it must stay
Posing in this place. It must move
As little as possible. This is what the portrait says.”
It is such a landmark (and long and ultra-dense) masterpiece of poetry springing from Parmigianino’s work (and winning him the Pulitzer) but really, I started out thinking about Michael Jackson’s “Man in The Mirror” post Bashar.
I was listening to Bashar on manifesting — and I don’t know if he’s the first “person” who expressed this truth this way but he’s the first time I heard this specific analogy — that you cannot expect the mirror to change first.  You have to smile if you want to see a smile in the mirror.  You simply cannot expect physical reality to change first and then have a positive reaction.  (sigh…).
And then when I was thinking about “Man in the Mirror” I was remembering how awesome that unorthodox modulation is midway through.
Glenn Ballard wrote the song (and Quincy Jones arranged it) and what’s amazing is first of all that the modulation is ONLY a half-step higher.  It’s actually sort of jarring potentially.
But what makes it work is that there’s a PAUSE right before the modulation, the smallest heartbeat, breath-beat before the modulation kicks things up a notch.
And it might be ridiculously on-the-nose but instead it is GENIUS and TRIUMPHANT that it happens exactly on the word “CHANGE.”  It’s impossible not to feel exactly what he wants us to feel.
Change.
Pause.
Portrait.
Mirror.
* * * * * * *
Change.
Pause.
Modulation.
Triumph!