Blink

he is of medium build, he seems much larger: there is
something stubborn and substantial in his demeanor. He grew
up in Newark, New Jersey, the son of a pediatrician, and
entered the University of Chicago at fifteen. He speaks
deliberately. Before he laughs, he pauses slightly, as if waiting
for permission. He is the sort who makes lists and numbers his
arguments. His academic writing has an orderly logic to it; by
the end of an Ekman essay, each stray objection and problem
has been gathered up and catalogued. Since the mid-1960s, he
has been working out of a ramshackle Victorian townhouse at
the University of California at San Francisco, where he holds a
professorship. When I met Ekman, he sat in his office and began
running through the action-unit configurations he had learned so
long ago. He leaned forward slightly, placing his hands on his
knees. On the wall behind him were photographs of his two
heroes, Tomkins and Charles Darwin. “Everybody can do action
unit four,” he began. He lowered his brow, using his depressor
glabellae, depressor supercilii, and corrugator. “Almost
everyone can do A.U. nine.” He wrinkled his nose, using his
levator labii superioris alaeque nasi. “Everybody can do five.”
He contracted his levator palpebrae superioris, raising his upper
eyelid.