iWalk.2020.02.27 Mere details

Our visual environment is very rich, but we frequently allow the mere details go over our heads as we attend to the really important elements such as advertising billboards. I often pass the wheel and skull and only look at them occasionally: a glance does not count as looking.

I attended a seminar a long time ago in which the presenter asked those wearing analog wristwatches to cover the dial with their other hand. Then he asked us to tell him whether the face had Arabic numerals, Roman numerals, bar markings, or a mixture of numerals and bar markings. The failure rate was embarrassingly high.

I researched online to find a manufacturer of wagon wheels. They are available with 8, 10, 12, 14, or 16 spokes, depending on diameter and usage. The wheel in the featured photo has eleven extant spokes and seems to be missing two. I was surprised by that number. Even closer investigation is needed. The regimental insignia of the United States Army Quartermaster Corps features a wheel styled after a six-mule-wagon wheel, so such thirteen-spoke designs were presumably in common use.

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