Focus blurs, Gibson used to say. Focus blinds. You must take in all of a thing by seeing the totality of it, not by focusing on minutiae. This is as important for a ruler as it is for a painter. A lump settled in my throat as I stood with my brother watching the approaching shuttle. It appeared at first as a tiny shape, birdlike, a blur at the edge of my vision, falling from the sky like a lance. The bird shape grew, became a dragon, and brought with it a scream of metal fury grinding at the sky—first a low rumble like thunder, then the sound of several hundred swords being sharpened on the
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