Robert Krulwich: Oh wait, you're listening--

Voice-over Girl: OK.

Jad Abumrad: All right.

Voice-over Girl: OK.

J.A.: All right.

Voice-over Girl: You are listening to Radiolab, Radiolab. From WNYC C C and NPR.

[MUSIC]

J.A.: Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

R.K.: I'm Robert Krulwich.

J.A.: This is Radiolab and today we are desperately seeking symmetry.

R.K.: And thus far we are failing--

J.A.: desperately.

R.K.: Because maybe, maybe, you know, if we took-- if we rejiggered our whole approach, because symmetry, you know, is always really about--

J.A.: Love?

R.K.: No, it's-- it's--

J.A.: What?

R.K.: No, we're changing the subject now.

J.A.: Nah.

R.K.: It's about the way things look when they're flipped around or turned or rotated. And this is where it gets really interesting.

J.A.: Remember when I asked you that personal question?

R.K.: Oh, yeah. Do we want to do that?

J.A.: Oh yes, we do. Psychologically, let me ask, psychologically do you, do you enjoy looking in the mirror?

R.K.: Is that a question you want to ask me in front of uh-- that's a-- that's a private question, I feel.

J.A.: Surely you know though, that you are uh-- the difference between your true self and your mirror self is not trivial.

R.K.: My true-- what did you mean by my true self? I don't under--

J.A.: Well I'm going to tell you the story now-- OK. --about a guy named John Walter.

R.K.: Oh, the-- with the little moustache, from Baltimore, from the movies.

J.A.: No, that's John Waters. Walter. He's a computer programmer in New Rochelle, paid him a visit recently. 'Cause back when he was in college he sorta, kinda, switched places with the guy in the mirror.

John Walter.: It was many years ago.

J.A.: How old were you?

J.W.: I was 19.

J.A.: 19.

J.W.: So it was a long time ago.

J.A.: We're talking late '70s here.

J.W.: But I was-- had already had some issues with the mirror.

J.A.: So let me set this up for you. The thing to know about John is that, as a kid, he had a tough time. Like so many of us. He would get bullied, beaten up on the playground. It was no better when he got into his teens. And as a 19 year old, his social life consisted of a series of stinging humiliations like the following.

J.W.: I remember, at the time there was a lot of kids hanging out. You know, there was a crew of people, like, you know 20, 30, 40 kids would gather together at the aqueduct, beautiful woods of the aqueduct, and go drink beers and smoke cigarettes, you know. I've walked into the group, OK, what's up and it's like, yeah, whatever. Roundly rejected.

J.A.: And that, according to John, was--

J.W.: Normal, that's that's--

J.A.: That was normal for you.

J.W.: Normal, very normal. Like people would say, what's that guy doing here, ehh.

R.K.: Maybe he was like wearing the wrong plaid pants or had like, you know, mismatched socks. There might be some--

J.A.: Whatever, don't you emphasize-- pathize with this guy?

R.K.: Nobody wants to be 19 and be the yucky person. Of course I would empathize.

J.A.: However, the story that will follow centers on a revelation that John had that uh, began just as he was about to start his summer job.

J.W.: For Con Ed, I was working for them--

J.A.: As a painter.

J.W.: --and I had some pictures taken for Con Ed--

J.A.: These are ID photos that you'd gotten?

J.W.: Yeah, it was an ID camera that had four lenses. So when they took the negative, there was four of me, boom, boom, boom, boom.

J.A.: Like little squares?

J.W.: Little squares. And I remember looking over and, and going, why do I look so weird? Why do I look so weird?

J.A.: Why do I look so weird?

J.W.: Why do I look so weird?

J.A.: Because here's the thing, I mean, the John in the pictures was not the John that he knew himself to be. That John was kind of timid--

J.W.: Nerdy.

J.A.: --not cool.

J.W.: Why do I look so weird in pictures? I look fine.

J.A.: What do you mean you look fine? How do you know you look fine?

J.W.: Well, I thought I looked fine in the mirror. You know when I looked at myself--

J.A.: Of course, in the mirror things on the left go to the right, things on the right go to the left. Wait a second, that's when it hit him.

R.K.: What-- what hit him?

J.A.: It's the hair part.

R.K.: It-- it-- it's the what?

J.A.: It's the hair part.

R.K.: It's the what?

J.A.: It's the hair part. I could do this all night. It's the hair part.

R.K.: What does that mean, it's the hair-- I hear ya, I here ya. What is that-- it's the hair part?

J.W.: Well, in the picture I saw a guy with a right hair part. In the mirror, I seen a guy with a left hair part.

J.A.: Essentially, John had--

R.K.: Wait, wait-- which-- which part-- which side is my hair parted on? Is this--

J.A.: Your left. You're left.

R.K.: My left, OK.

J.A.: And John thought he was a lefty too. He would stand in front of the mirror and the mirror would tell him he was putting it to the left. But in fact, he was parting it to the right in real life. Now the lefty guy in the mirror, he liked that guy.

J.W.: I was fine with that guy, he was cool. He was-- there was nothing wrong with him.

J.A.: But he realized, he was the only person seeing that guy. So he thought--

J.W.: Oh, let me put my hair on the other side.

J.A.: Let me essentially swap real me for mirror me.

J.W.: It was one of these things where yeah, that looks really weird in the mirror, but I bet you it looks good in real life. Let me go find out.

J.A.: So what did you do?

J.W.: Well, that night--

J.A.: He goes back to the aqueduct. Same posse's there as before.

J.W.: I mean, that same group, interesting enough, had beat the crap out of me like three years earlier, when I was in like ninth grade.

J.A.: But there he was now with his hair parted on the left.

R.K.: Oh no.

J.A.: He says, this time--

J.W.: Things were different.

J.A.: --somebody offered him a beer. It was like, wow. But the thing that I knew made it better was when I left, I got goodbyes. C'mon, c'mon-- God, for the first time I'm not--

R.K.: This is ridiculous that you would tell me a story about a man who is having social failures universally, shifts his hair over and is remade. This is like--

J.A.: Look, it's his experience, this is very--

R.K.: Vidal Sassoon would uh--

J.A.: --this is very easy to dismiss.

R.K.: Yes, very easy.

J.A.: But I'm going to win you over. Are you ready? I'm going to win you over.

R.K.: You're not--

J.A.: Ready for this? I don't think you're ready. Are you ready?

R.K.: Are you asking me to be broad minded?

J.A.: 'Cause I'm gonna-- I'm gonna show you a picture right now. All right. OK, have a look at--

R.K.: OK. At--

J.A.: Who is that?

R.K.: It's Abraham Lincoln.

J.A.: Our 16th president? Yes, our 16th president. Now just stare at him Robert, take him in, take him deep into your consciousness.

R.K.: All right.

J.A.: His eyes, his note, his mouth. Pay attention particularly to the hair part. OK? Now, look what happens when you flip Abraham [LAUGHTER]

R.K.: Oh, that--

J.A.: You see what happens there.

R.K.: --no, no, no, no, no, no, no, is this the same picture?

J.A.: It's the same picture.

R.K.: Go back to the other picture. Go.

J.A.: All right. There's Able.

R.K.: Now do the other one. Uhh!

J.A.: Do you see?

R.K.: That so weird.

J.A.: Now, here's the thing. This is what Abraham Lincoln would have seen when he looked in the mirror. He would have seen this guy, not the other guy, the one we all see.

R.K.: Huh.

J.A.: So there's something going on here. Would you not at least acknowledge me that.

R.K.: I find this vaguely plausible, yes.

J.A.: There's something going on here. OK. With your permission, Mr. Cynic, I will now rejoin John--

R.K.: Who's about to what? Get married and have three babies 'cause his hair is--

J.A.: He says after, after he switched his part--

J.W.: It just kept getting better and better and better all summer long.

J.A.: --he was suddenly invited to all these parties by the very same people who used to beat him up. And for the first time he says--

J.W.: I was clearly one of them.

J.A.: Now whether or not you buy that this is in fact because of his hair, that's on you. OK. But let's fast forward just a little bit.

J.W.: The next summer--

J.A.: this would have been 1979?

J.W.: --yeah, 1979.

J.A.: John's sitting in front of the TV and on comes-- Good evening. This is a special night for me. --the president--

J.W.: Jimmy Carter

J.A.: --making a speech about how our nation is in a deep funk. Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem? The malaise speech. You know, that, that infamous the country's in malaise. It's clear that the true problems of our nation are much deeper, deeper than gasoline lines or energy shortages. Deeper even than inflation or recession. Now, as you know, I'm sure you remember, a lot of people would criticize Jimmy Carter for making the speech because he's up there admitting flaws and they were like, come on Mr. President, don't be weak, man up. John, meanwhile, is sitting in front of the TV and he's thinking--

J.W.: Dude, you gotta change your hair part. [LAUGHTER] And so I wrote him. I wrote--

J.A.: You wrote to him?

J.W.: I wrote to him.

J.A.: Wait, wait, so you said-- wait, what-- what-- why?

J.W.: I, I, I think I just said I think you should change your hair. Part it on the left. I did myself, and then found it to be much more powerful, much-- much more successful. And um--

J.A.: Do you have that letter?

J.W.: --I so wish I did.

J.A.: Oh man.

J.W.: I don't have it. Umm, and then about six weeks later, boom, he's switched.

J.A.: He switched.

R.K.: No he did not.

J.A.: John wrote him a letter and President Carter switched.

R.K.: No.

J.A.: It-- it might not have been John's letter that did it.

R.K.: You have no evidence--

J.A.: Think about how much I-- I-- what-- what's involved in a President switching his hair. There are focus groups, there are prayer meetings, there's so much thought that goes into this.

R.K.: Did anyone actually record this, uh--

J.A.: Yes.

R.K.: They did?

J.A.: I will, I will now read you a journalistic account from no-- no-- a-- a periodical-- there you go-- Washington Post. Right there. You see? Bam, right there.

R.K.: Oh man.

J.A.: Newsweek, May 7, 1979. "At first photographers thought they had their negatives reversed. But no, Jimmy Carter has changed the part in his hair from the right side to the left. The Washington press corps demanded an explanation."

R.K.: But-- remember--

J.A.: Music.

R.K.: --that, you know, as opposed to John who changes his hair and then all the girls give him beers, this guy, he was running against a luxuriantly haired man,--

J.A.: True.

R.K.: --the Reagan. And it didn't matter--

J.A.: OK, right fine, fine.

R.K.: So he just-- you know he got crushed.

J.A.: Alright. You know what, forget--

R.K.: Part shmart, you know.

J.A.: --forget the executive branch.

R.K.: Yes.

J.A.: Stay with me now. I was with John and he was showing me, uh, pictures of congressmen and of celebrities. And uh, I noticed something peeking out at the bottom of the pile. I see peeking out underneath the stack of photos was a Superman.

J.W.: Yeah.

J.A.: He showed me a picture of Superman, looking mighty in his Superman suit. Notice how he parts his hair.

R.K.: Yeah, it's a little bit on there, on that side, yeah.

J.A.: Now--

J.W.: This is Clark Kent with it on the right.

R.K.: Ohhhh.

J.A.: And as we know from the movies, Clark Kent is--

J.W.: Fumbling, he's sort of a dork.

[AUDIO PLAYBACK -- SCENE FROM SUPERMAN]

-I-- I mean I was, uh, at first really nervous about tonight.

[END ]

J.A.: So somebody--

[AUDIO PLAYBACK -- SCENE FROM SUPERMAN]

-uh, but then I--

[END ]

J.A.: --who made that movie maybe explicitly, intuitively, understood something about the difference that maybe right-- you know, the right part said one thing about Clark Kent. The left part said something about Superman. In fact, there is a scene in the movie where Clark Kent's running down an alley. He's about to turn into Superman. He pulls his shirt open to reveal the S and literally mid-stride, his hair goes [WHEEET] and turns from the right to the left. So--

R.K.: You're saying that sophisticated, popular, cultural, motion picture manufacturers and at least two presidents have been persuaded to this position?

J.A.: At this very moment--

R.K.: Ohhhh.

J.A.: --on a Saturday night, that is what I am saying.

R.K.: All right. Well for argument's sake then, what would you say-- I hate to get into this any deeper-- uh, explains the difference between putting the power of your hair on the left hand or the right hand?

J.A.: Well, if you ask John, what he'll say is that the left hair part emphasizes strength and logic because it draws your attention to the logical, more masculine side of your face, your brain, 'cause it's a left brain kind of thing. But I-- I-- I don't really know. So I decided I would actually take this seriously and figure out how to feel about it. So I called up this guy--

Mike Nicholls.: G'day Jad, it's uh, Mike.

J.A.: His name is Mike Nicholls. He's a--

R.K.: Oh, from The Graduate. There's a Mike Nicholls, very good.

J.A.: No, a psychology professor in Australia.

R.K.: Phhh--

J.A.: An expert in symmetry--

R.K.: --that Mike Nichols. OK.

J.A.: Yes, that guy. I ran him through John's theory. Have you ever seen the Superman movies?

M.N: Some of the early ones I think.

J.A.: You know how Clark Kent's hair is parted to the right--

[AUDIO PLAYBACK -- SCENE FROM SUPERMAN -- SPED UP]

J.A.: So I ran him through the whole thing. You know, Clark's on the right, maybe he's weak. Superman's to the left, maybe he's stronger, more assertive.

M.N.: Right.

J.A.: Is there anything to that? Anything at all?

M.N.: Um, yeah, I mean, possibly, you know, umm, that's um, I-- I'll have to-- [LAUGHTER]

J.A.: But-- but-- but he did say this, which is interesting. In focusing on the left, John maybe picking up on a particular bias that we human beings have to our left side. For instance, here's an experiment that uh, he and his colleagues did.

M.N.: Take a snapshot of someone's face at baseline when they're showing no emotion.

J.A.: Blank face.

M.N.: And then get them to try to look as happy or sad as I could.

J.A.: Take happy guy and overlay him onto no expression guy.

M.N.: And almost like a contour map, you could actually look at the amount of change, the amount of muscle movement, and that it occurred--

J.A.: What you will see if you measure the muscle movement in millimeters on each side of the face, you'll see that the smile curves a few extra millimeters on the left side the face. He says this is nearly always the case. Always on the left side.

M.N.: And what it's really telling you is that when somebody smiles or when my frown or whatever, they're doing it slightly more strongly on the left side of their face.

J.A.: Now if this is the case, that our left side is sort of saying more, emotionally, than our right side, then if you think about the mirror, it's kind of a discombobulating thing, you know. Because it's taking your left, which is sort of broadcasting emotion, flipping it to your right. You're seeing yourself. Your all mixed up. You don't know which part of you is where.

R.K.: You're-- so you're saying like because I tend to address you as my attention on your left side, unbeknownst to me, and your left side is actually flipped over to your right side, I don't-- I-- it's a where are we sort of question.

J.A.: It's-- exactly. But John has, uh, has developed a solution to this uh, problem.

J.W.: Let me take this one apart.

J.A.: He now makes and sells his own very special mirrors, right out of his home. And this where you make the mirrors?

J.W.: Yeah, everything that goes into the mirror is made here. You see here, this is the machine the cuts the mirror.

J.A.: He buys these giant sheets of reflective glass and he slices them into little pieces. [HISSING NOISE] [CLUNK] Clunk.

J.W.: And then I snap it. [SNAP]

J.A.: Now, for each mirror, uh, this is the key, he uses two pieces of mirror glass instead of one. What he'll do is he'll take these two pieces and he'll place them together at uh, at right angles.

J.W.: Two mirrors at right angles.

J.A.: Like exactly at right angles.

J.W.: It has to be 90.00 degrees. Let's just push this up a little bit. That's still not enough.

J.A.: When he gets-- when he finally gets it right, which can take hours, what he'll have is this v-shaped mirror. He'll stand it up, put it in a box and then, voila. What you have is a mirror that shows you a mirror image of a mirror image of you. Takes the normally flipped guy that you'd see in the mirror, re-flips him--

R.K.: Uh-huh. --so that what you are seeing is essentially-- well, for the first time in a mirror, you see yourself as other people see you.

J.W.: OK. So there you go.

J.A.: So what is this that you have in your hand here?

J.W.: This is, this is a true mirror. This is uh, to the 12 inch model. And so when you like to touch--

J.A.: Is this exactly what I look like?

J.W.: --yeah, touch your right eye. See it's actually on the right side.

J.A.: Oh my god.

J.W.: Isn't that crazy?

J.A.: That's crazy. It is surprisingly weird to see yourself this way. I feel like my nose is going the wrong way.

J.W.: Yeah.

J.A.: I never knew my nose when that way. And this little flare in my eyebrows is on the wrong side. Or the right side, as it were. John claims that many a fair number-- I probably would put you in this bunch, my cohost-- when they stand in front of this mirror they uh--

J.W.: Freak out. Many of them, because they-- it's just their perception is shaken up a little bit.

J.A.: In fact he sometimes, uh, takes his mirrors to these festivals. And he'll sort of set them up and have people look at themselves. And then fill out comment cards afterwards.

J.W.: You know, mean, if you look at some of the comments you know, it's like--

Heckler in audience: This person thinks they're a monster.

J.W.: I am [BLEEP] monster in your mirror. [LAUGHTER]

R.K.: What, what, what did he say? I am a--

J.A.: I am a [BLEEP] monster in your mirror.

[MUSIC]