by MrClean1982

In some unseen gorge a stream gurgled; a velvety green butterfly with black and yellow markings danced over white flowers; deep among the blue shadows of the trees a branch broke and leaves dropped heavily into leaves.

—Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

by Scooter_72 (computer trouble)

Pairs of great woodpeckers larger than crows, with flashing white bills and crimson crests afire in the sun, crossed the river in deep bounding flight, and hurtling flocks of small long- tailed parrots, bright green as new leaves in the morning light. The wild things were shining with spring colors and new sap and finally I was, too. I would sink my teeth into this morning land like a fresh peach.

—Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country, 2008.

This is very comforting! Imagine being vain enough to think YSV was about you, but finding out it wasn't. The very world might cease to revolve around one.

Technical question: Does Everett's theory still hold for values of "a" (a = age of vain individual) that are < Y (Y = years elapsed since song was written)? In other words, was Simon farsighted enough to build infinite references to unborn vain people into her song? 

Similarly, I note the problematics around individuals who were alive when the song was written but not yet vain, their vanity only to develop later on. In their case, I hypothesize a "critical vanity threshold," or CVT--the discrete moment at which someone's vanity has matured to the point where Simon's song begins to refer to him or her.