Phenomena can be so familiar that wereally do not see them at all, a matter that has been much discussed by literarytheorists and philosophers. For example, Viktor Shklovskij in the early 1920sdeveloped the idea that the function of poetic art is that of “making strange”the object depicted. “People living at the seashore grow so accustomed to themurmur of the waves that they never hear it. By the same token, we scarcelyever hear the words which we utter . . . We look at each other, but we do not seeeach other any more. Our perception of the world has withered away; what hasremained is mere recognition.”