Millhauser, Bryson, and Sagan

Take a peek thru the looking glass; whether it’s a magnifying glass, microscope or kaleidoscope. Step onto a new playing field of the same old game and see thru the eyes of enlightening and thought provoking writers, such as, Steven Millhauser, Bill Bryson and Carl Sagan. “The Fascination of the Miniature”, “From the Introduction to A Short History of Nearly Everything” and “Reflections on a Mote of Dust, May 11 1996” play part as refracting glassware envisioning the norm with abnormal perspective. “But what I have said is true of all forms of discrepancy, and not only the particular discrepancy that is the miniature.”(121, Seeing & Writing 3, Steven Millhauser) “Of the billions and billions of species of living things that have existed since the dawn of time, most – 99.99 percent – are no longer around. Life on Earth, you see, is not only brief but dismayingly tenuous. It is a curious feature of our existence that we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it.” (122, Seeing & Writing 3, Bill Bryson) “In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” (124, Seeing & Writing 3, Carl Sagan) Each writer demonstrates the power of newfound perspective as an
"author-itative" beholder, hoping to illustrate, convey and possibly persuade, even if only for a slivered moment of opportunity. Millhauser, Bryson, and Sagan share at minimum, this in common; they have dared to be different, stand out on the edge for a moment (possibly on their heads) and searched for something special in an object or way of life taken for granted by the masses. Discuss the phenomenal coincidences of atomic recipes actually forming living constructs or the humbling effects of astronomy, but challenge yourself to take vantage point to a personal interest and find new respect and admiration for something your fellows pass by everyday.