Easter Eggs in December

Go to www.google.com. Go ahead--do it.

Now type in "Let it snow." Wait and see what happens.

Cool, right??

If you want to see something a little different, try typing in "do a barrel roll" or "tilt." Sweet!

Now, these delightful little surprises are called Easter eggs--which, according to Wikipedia, the fountain of much knowledge, are defined as "intentional hidden message[s] or in-joke[s] in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game,movie, book or crossword."

A month or so ago I came across an album by Pixar on Facebok of Easter eggs they've done over the years. There are some creative souls out there, people, and they are scattering their little nuggets of joy all over if one is astute enough to notice them. I love things like this--it makes me feel like I'm in on an inside joke. It's like when I put little puns or allusions in my writing and chuckle to myself every time I go back and read what I've written. Let's face it--no one makes me laugh like I do.

From a Film blog post, "Easter Eggs in Pixar's Up":

They [Pixar] often like to include characters from their upcoming films in the backgrounds of the frame. For example, Boo’s fish toy in Monsters Inc ended up being the title character ofFinding Nemo. A kid in the doctor’s office in Finding Nemo was reading a comic book of The Incredibles. WALL-E appeared in 2D on the Ratatouille DVD short film Your Friend the Rat. And Up‘s Dug the dog appeared in silhouette in Brad Bird’s Ratatouille chasing Remy through the walls of a building.

But on a more serious note, I wish there were more things in the world like this. Little surprises hidden away that make people smile when they happen upon them. Not like the Modernist poets like T.S. Eliot who have an elitist mindset and you have to have an extensive knowledge of Dante's Inferno, classical mythology, and obscure folk knowledge in order to have any idea what poems like The Waste Land are talking about. If you aren't educated/cultured enough to know what they're saying, you don't deserve to understand. Irritating. I admit to having slight issues with the Modernists. On the other hand, though, if you truly understand everything Eliot is referring to, it makes you feel pretty legit. The question is whether or not you truly desire to understand what they're saying at all.

All right, all right--setting all personal prejudices aside, if a poem is as highly anthologized and analyzed as The Waste Land is, it probably says something worth looking at. I admit that I have not spent as much time studying Modernism as I should, but from what I understand, the Modernists had their reasons for viewing the world as they did (hint: like a waste land). Perhaps I shall have to take up my argument with the Modernists in some other post and look into this more deeply.

If I haven't lost you by now, check out the Easter egg archive put together by viewers like you: http://www.eeggs.com/