The Ganzfeld #3

It's not clear whether the third issue of The Ganzfeld should be regarded as a periodical or a book--but either way, it's gloriously illustrated and esoterically insightful. Its graphically extravagant essays often consider the spectacular results when worlds collide. The cover depicts an ordinary moth given Blakean magnitude by an EverSmart Pro Scanner. Julie Lasky profiles Tony Sarg, who turned tiny cartoon characters into godlike giants by inventing Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Hitchcock explains the elaborately artificial Rube Goldberg devices needed to create "reality" in what he called "My Most Exciting Picture" (Rope). Peter Blegvad illustrates the amazing impact on his imagination of the light-bulb-in-the-milk-glass scene from Hitchcock's Suspicion—it provoked an intellectually superb and astoundingly extended poetical meditation. Lawrence Weschsler unveils his lost essay on Edward Snow, the world's strangest explicator of Bruegel and Vermeer. The Ganzfeld 3 is like that spore that invades the ant's brain in Weschsler's book on the Museum of Jurassic Technology: once it gets inside your head, your imagination will never be the same. --Tim Appelo