The Kaleidoscope TV Photo Test [GALLERY]

If you thought watching television through a kaleidoscope would give you a headache, you’d probably be right. However, it just might put this parade of mind-numbing entertainment in perspective.

On my recent trip to Minneapolis, I was surprised that in addition to the squat tubes of soaps and lotions, a ubiquitous white robe and an overpriced minibar, there was a small kaleidoscope in the room, perhaps there to help adventurous visitors pass the time while they wait for their pot brownies to wear off. Because having looked through it at the gray and cold landscape of the frost-bitten city, there’s no way it was meant for enhancing the drab skyline.

But watching television through it? It was early, and I was passing time before having to head out to full day of corporate meetings, so I turned on CNN and watched a fluff-filled newscast spin and flash in dissecting, blooming, bleeding and flashing patterns of light crystals.

Suddenly, it all made sense, the repetition, the hypnotic glare, the cells flowing into one another.

It may sound like an overstatement, but I found the mask slipped away when I watched TV through a kaleidoscope. My mask, their masks, all of it. It’s not real, the box, it’s a snowflake melting on your eye, keeping it wet so you don’t have to blink.

I put the kaleidoscope up to my camera, and took a few pics so you can see what I’m talking about. The patterns are beautiful, eerie, gruesome, hypnotic and delicate, like the experience.