Definitive Jest

Entry: parallax (n.)


In context: "As she remembers things Jim was, besides a great filmic mind and her true heart's friend, the world's best hailer of Boston cabs, known to have less hailed than conjured cabs in spots where Boston cabs by all that's right just aren't, a hailer of Boston cabs in places like Veedersburg, Indiana and Powell, Wyoming, something in the authority of the lifted arm's height, the oncoming taxi undergoing a sort of parallax as it bore down over tumbleweed streets, appearing under Incandenza's upraised palm as if awaiting benediction."

Definition:  a. Difference or change in the apparent position or direction of an object as seen from two different points.

Also, interestingly,  b. fig. and in figurative contexts. Distortion; the fact of seeing wrongly or in a distorted way.

Other:  I was sort of thinking of unusual and only very context-specific skills I have.  Here it is, without modesty: I am world-class bare-hand catcher of horseflies.  Really only useful when camping in remote areas, but then it is, if I may say, very useful. 


On a trip one of our tents was left over and became a squatter's house of Tabanus sulcifrons.  Encouraged on by friends I was able to catch an absurd number within a minute.  So absurd that one person accused me, much like above, of some sort of backwoods black magic.

SNOOT score: 2


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Source: Oxford English Dictionary