I walked away from my computer for just a couple minutes and Oliver (son of Mamacita) managed to (1) step on the exact right keys to open a spooky illustration and then (2) lay down on the keyboard in a very photogenic way that highlighted himself and the skull he summoned. Full credit to Joan for snapping the photo when she spotted him.
Oliver knows how to get into the Halloween spirit! The illustration on the screen is "All Is Vanity," a minorly famous piece of artwork done by
Charles Allan Gilbert in 1892. Here's the full illustration:
As Wikipedia notes: "The drawing employs a double image (or visual pun) in which the scene of a woman admiring herself in a mirror of her vanity table, when viewed from a distance, appears to be a human skull. The title is also a pun, as this type of dressing-table is also known as a vanity."
Michael Betancourt wrote
a fascinating, in-depth analysis of the shot for Bright Lights Film Journal in 2013, delving into how the shot in the film is a reversal of the illustration and how that applies to the movie's racial subtext. The movie itself is not great, but Betancourt's piece is absolutely worth
a read.
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