Astonishing Tales of Synchronicity

[ElasticMan]

Here's another one - I crushed my son's three middle fingers accidentally in the door, and then crushed the *exact same one's* a day later when riskily rushing across a road and being nearly hit by a bus. The additionally weird thing is I - one hour or so later - taught a lesson using a text entitled: "Danny Takes A Risk." 'Danny' (Tagalog) is my blog pseudonym.- I understood the uncannyness while in pain on the train on the way home...

http://takadanobabylon.blogspot.com/200 ... chive.html

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There have been a series of uncanny coincidences in Takadanobabylon this past two days. First, junior Tagalog had his middle and ring fingers on his right hand accidentally crushed by his father after unexpectedly hiding on top of the bathroom sink. Not seeing him upon entering the room, I failed to see his three fingers in the hinges of the door which I shut without ceremony. He screamed the house down, and though ice cubes and freezing water stemmed the screams, the pain lasted into today.

The unwitting cause of the disaster met a similar disaster this afternoon. Trying to rush across a road with lights on red, I tripped over and avoided being hit by a bus, but crushed the same fingers between a thumping combinaton of falling knees and tarmac. Fingers were the filling, and were crushed without mercy, fingers from the same hand in the same position as those my son crushed the night before. It pains to type and it pained to write on the chalkboard. I should rest, but it's better to get these things written otherwise they disappear.

Not that they are of any real worth, but it was a strange coincidence, and made the little lad laugh, in a case of schadenfreude which I can sadly understand, after the pain he endured from my lack of awareness.

A second uncanny parallel came in the title of one unit used in class today: "Danny Takes A Risk", about my (real) namesake taking a risk, but falling flat. In the text it involved 'Danny' asking a boss for a raise and failing, but for me, I riskily tried to cross a road to save time (and buy cheap figs from a Lawson too far away in truth for my schedule), but failed, and crushed the abovementioned fingers in my right handhand.

Not proof of anything supernatural or karmic of course, but it was enough to raise the eyebrows of family and students alike....

[lunarose]

the count so far:

six posters have reported synchronicities which have happened from a few days before this thread started to within the life of the thread (~8 - 12 days?). i had two 'groups' - vera's death and joe's pa and my boold clot. so that's 7 synchronicities in 8 - 12 days, thereabouts.

i know there is thinking that if you start noticing synchronicities they show up more, it seem like our experiment here is working.

[sunny]

Well lunarose you will love this one~ as I was reading your comment, my grandbaby Natalie, who as I mentioned above has a birthday tomorrow, came into the room with her new kitty and declared it's name to be 'Moonflower'.

[lunarose]

ok, 8 for 8 if we count the days of the thread!

[Joe Hillshoist]

thank you for the post. even reading what you wrote is overwhelming, without all of the coexisting details. it gives a good sense of what it can be like to live through these events.

ok, mr. hillshoit, let's see if this is believable: i went to the doc yesterday after my last post to get checked for a likely recurrence of...........clot in the lung. so give your da my best, it is extremely debilitating and also tends to generate a bad mental outlook, so as he heals he will feel much stronger.

so the ? is, after that start how did your marriage go?

Cheers very much, I'll pass on some good wishes, and I hope your health stays good too. Its all too believable once this stuff starts.

The marriage is pretty good. Its had its intense moments but ... its awesome. We'd been living together since we met, tho for nearly 10 years. We just got married as an excuse to have a party, well to celebrate how we felt about each other with our friends and family and community.

Its funny, we wouldn't have met, cept I returned to my old local pub, first time in months, in melbourne, and bumped into a good mate I hadn't seen for months. We had both moved and didn't know how to get in contact. he'd only dropped into the pub for the first time in months on a whim.

We bumped into each other, and he was excited, saying "I've been meaning to catch up with you, come up to the North Coast with me, I've got to housemind my mothers place."

It was a fluke we bumped into each other, the place was crowded, the band was average and we had both decided to leave within an hour.

When I got here, his sister had a good friend who had come around a few times. We are now married. If I hadn't bumped into him that night I probably wouldn't have met her.

I haven't actually seen him since sept 12th 2001, Which would have been the previous evening in NY.

[Joe Hillshoist]

I didn't actually make this connection yesterday, but on reflection, - I went into nimbin on a whim yesterday, I was hoping to catch up with some people I expected to see, but in the process saw 2 old friends, one who I haven't seen for years.

I'd gone in to catch up with my football club, and as many members as I could. One of the two blokes I met is a retired player, and awesome in his day, he had a mate with him, who I'd heard of and been trying to recruit to the side for years. Now we may have a gun recruit for the year.

The other guy introduced me to another potential recruit too, and he is completely uninterested in footy.

I have never seen one of those blokes in the pub there before, and I go there a fair bit, and the ther guy, I've seen in there once in 10 years beforehand.

Its not really synchronicity, but was a productive day, and very useful in its own way. I was focussing on footy, but hadn't expected that sort of good luck to come out of it. I wasn't really trying to recruit people either.

I had a funny little RAW synchronicity once too.

I'd read once of his book where he was talking about sychronicity, DNA and seeing DNA on a license plate. Sure enough next time i went for a drivethere was one with DNA one the numberplate with a couple of minutes of getting in the car.

[bringcosby]

i know there is thinking that if you start noticing synchronicities they show up more, it seem like our experiment here is working.

My wife and I have been watching Alias through Netflix, and last week we saw an episode titled "Mockingbird". That night I was telling her about Operation Mockingbird and Carl Bernstein's article in Rolling Stone.

The next morning I noticed IanEye had posted a full copy of that particular Rolling Stone!

[norton ash]

1992 in Paris, checking out a beautiful young mother in the Jardin Luxembourg with a small boy who was a dead ringer for a close boyhood friend... who left our small town when we were 9 (around 1971)... someone whom I hadn't really thought of in decades.

Later, that same evening in a Latin Quarter brasserie we chanced to meet some fellow Canadians, and he was there... I knew it was him before he told me his name, and he knew it was me... even though 21 years had passed. Much marveling.

[lunarose]

Mr. Hillshoist - thank you for the good wishes, and glad tohear the marriage is awesome!


with bringcosby, now we're up to ten.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Cheers lunarose.

Now you mention its up to 10 I should say the number of times I have had weird synchronicities regarding the RI board is high enough that it no longer surprises me. Synchronicity happens all the time, but cos synchronicity is meaningful coincidence, it becomes frought, cos how much effort you are willing to put in to find meaning means you could end up finding everything synchonous.

Although some magical systems suggest this is a good thing to practice its also a dangerous thing to practise.

But the number of remarkable synchronicities that I don't have to work to read meaning into, that have happened via RI over the last couple of years, since before I joined, is pretty high, to the point where I almost don't notice it - it becomes part of the background so to speak..

I hardly think its unusual anymore, and kind of expect it.

[John E. Nemo]

.
For those unfamiliar, Destroy All Monsters was a legendary Detroit punk band that had Ron Asheton from the Stooges and Mike Davis from the MC5. They sounded like The Stooges and/or MC5 with a girl named Niagara singing about conspiracies.

....and Theresa Duncan's old boss at Detroit's Book Beat, Carey Loren.

I have a copy of DESTROY ALL MONSTERS:GEISHA THIS in a pile of boxes somewhere.

Nice to see someone on here with good taste in music.

In the late 70s, and even today, there are very few punk bands that sing about conspiracies.

I don't wish to derail the OP, but I beg to differ, sir.

The Avengers, MDC and Crass come to mind instantly. By nightfall we could come up with hundreds.

@nnie @ronburg

That's funny, because I know members of each of those bands and they did NOT sing about conspiracies.

The Avengers song "Open Your Eyes" comes closest, but doesn't mention any specific conspiracies, in the way that DAM's song "November 22nd" does.
Penelope does terrible folk music now, and is a suburbanite soccer mom, with her "rebellious" past long over.

MDC, or the Stains, as they were known when they were here in Austin, sang about John Wayne being a Nazi, but, again, did not mention any specific conspiracies.

A vague dissatisfaction with the status quo does NOT count as "conspiracy theory".

Crass came the closest, of those bands mentioned, when they made the Thatchergate Tapes.
For those unfamiliar, Crass faked a recorded conversation between Thatcher and Reagan where they manufactured a war.

This was later stolen, like so many other things, by Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys and re-recorded as "Kinky Sex Makes The World Go 'Round"

Am I the only one who thinks this song is pro-MK Ultra?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdLg2WlKZJc

[annie aronburg]

Since you actually know people in all those bands I guess you would know better than me.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY5L3V_Iqjk

It's the Amerikan in me
that makes me watch the blood
Flowin out of the bullet hole in his head
It's the Amerikan in me
that never wonders why
Kennedy was murdered by the FBI
Ask not what what you can do for your country.
What's your country been doing to you?

--Avengers

Penelope does terrible folk music now, and is a suburbanite soccer mom, with her "rebellious" past long over.

Not very seemly to rag on a dame for having kids and wanting to provide them stability either. That kind of punk rock classism gets pretty tiring. She did a lot of heavy lifting back in the day, give a sister a break.

annie

[John E. Nemo]

I just had a minor sychronicity at lunch.

I had been talking to a co-worker about how I rarely see 1976 Bicentennial quarters in my change.
I mentioned that the reason might be because of people like an old friend of mine's dad, who had a huge water cooler jug full of them.

(which his son slowly spent in a bout of "Pacman fever" many moons ago.)

I joked that the Patriot crowd/militia folk might be stockpiling them and/or using these quarters as a way to signal each other, much like Sicilian gangsters used to with Sicilian coins.

Then I got this in my change at lunch.

[John E. Nemo]

Since you actually know people in all those bands I guess you would know better than me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY5L3V_Iqjk

It's the Amerikan in me
that makes me watch the blood
Flowin out of the bullet hole in his head
It's the Amerikan in me
that never wonders why
Kennedy was murdered by the FBI
Ask not what what you can do for your country.
What's your country been doing to you?

--Avengers

My bad, but I plead ignorance.

I always thought, from the recording I had, that she was singing " Kennedy was murdered by the (unintelligible) set.

You forgot the word said, which changed the way it sounded to my teenage ears.
I speculated that it was something high (vee?) set, like the jet set or TV set or "left vee lie's set" or whatever.

She doesn't scream that line on the album, like she does in that video, and it didn't come with a lyrics sheet, when I picked it up 25 years ago (green vinyl, baby, oh yeah).

Also, if you listen to her voice on the "Avengers Died For Your Sins", you can hear her slurring her words, because she like the drinky-drinky.

You can even see how wasted drunk she is in some of the pics of her from a big punk party in Search and Destroy mag.

Thank God for the interwebs to clear up the mysteries.

I stand by my assessment of Crass and MDC, though.
Circle Jerks "Paid Vacation" I would have accepted.

Penelope does terrible folk music now, and is a suburbanite soccer mom, with her "rebellious" past long over.

Not very seemly to rag on a dame for having kids and wanting to provide them stability either. That kind of punk rock classism gets pretty tiring. She did a lot of heavy lifting back in the day, give a sister a break.

annie

Uh...if you listen to the live "Avengers Died For Your Sins" CD, which is live from 1978, Penelope comes out on stage after a guy played folk music and tells the crowd that they should have dragged him off the stage and beat him up for playing folk music.
Then she went and played folk music.

I might also add that someone very close to her in the business, possibly very high up in her label, has oft complained that her music is "phoned in."

No one put a gun to her head and forced her to breed thereby helping deplete limited resources unnecessarily, BTW.

No one put a gun to her head and forced her to drive an SUV and support repressive govts that murder women for being raped, BTW.

No one put a gun to her head and forced her to buy coffee from Starbucks and support child farm slavery, BTW.

No one put a gun to her head and forced her to get a home in the suburbs and support rich banker scum, BTW.

No one put a gun to her head and forced her to shop at Walmart and support child sweatshop slavery, BTW.

No one put a gun to her head and forced her to turn into everything she decries in the song Open Your Eyes, BTW

Open Your Eyes

At first I thought you were dead
But not I see you're one of the rest
They've drugged you with music and TV sedation
You're one of the blank generation.

Open your eyes. Open your eyes.
You don't see what's going on.
Open your eyes. Open your eyes.
You watch TV to find out
what's right and wrong.

Open your eyes to what you respected.
Open your eyes and you can reject it.

I wanna upset you, wanna make you think
But you eat all this shit that makes your breath stink.
Ganna get a job & join the fuckin union.
That way you know nothing's gonna happen.

Like lemmings, you run toward destruction.
You can't stop the sea of corruption.
Oh, I see you've been blind.
You better make up your mind now.

Open your eyes.
Open your eyes.

[John E. Nemo]

Though nothing freaky to the extent of John E.'s original post, after looking at the Death Metal/Punk debate I was feeling in a very Clash mood, and fired up some on the work station today (which is rare, because I RARELY play music off the computer 0when I'm working - like maybe once a month).

I had also just emailed a bunch of friends to see who was up for grabbing a pint and/or catching a movie on Saturday, if there was anything good playing. Another rarity because I've almost always have multiple options for Saturdays a week or two in advance, but this week nothing at all.

I thought to myself that I should really try and rent that Joe Strummer called "Let's Rock Again", when the boss walks by with yesterdays Globe And Mail to toss in the recycling bin (even more rare than me listening to music as the papers are usually left around for the cleaners).

The review section falls out on the floor right beside me, and there's a review of the new "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten" doc.

---

Like I said, nothing heavy, but I read the review, but here I am, a grown man with tears welling up in my eyes as I listen to "Lost in a Supermarket" and remembering all the reasons why I love what The Clash, and Joe Strummer, stood for.

Nice one, Al.

I like the Clash alot, in spite of them being manufactured by Bernie Rhodes.

I still find it interesting how Malcom McCalren dressed up the New York Dolls as commies in Red Patent Leather, then dressed the Pistols up as Nazis.
Meanwhile, his good buddy Bernie Rhodes puts together a band called London SS, that flirts with Nazi imagery, then out of the ashes of that, he creates The Clash, and dresses them up in commie gear and writes commie lyrics for their songs.

In an interesting bit of synchronicity, I was just complaining to someone yesterday about how I have a love/hate relationship with the Clash.

I believe what I said was....
"Most people tell me that their favorite Clash song is "Lost In The Supermarket".
Mine is "Know Your Rights", followed by "Deny" or "1977".
I hate slow, whiny Clash songs; like the Stranglers said "What's the use of making pretty little noises? You might as well use a vibrator. "

Plus, I hate Mick singing about "having a hedge back home in the suburbs", and much prefer when Joe sang
"I don't wanna know about what the rich are knowing,
they think they're so clever,
they think they're so right,
but the truth is only known by guttersnipes."

I felt that the Pistols were more real, as Joe Strummer was a diplomat's kid who met Mick Jones at art school.
Poor kids, like Steve Jones and Paul Cook (and me), didn't have rich mommys and daddys who pay for us to go to art school.

I loved it when the Pistols sang
"Suburban kid and you got no name
You're too dumb baby and you got no brain
I bet you're all so happy in suburbian dream
But I'm only laughing cuz you ain't in my scheme"

This kind of brutal honesty/iconoclastic reparte tends to piss off many people, including our own elfismiles when he and I were chatting via PMs.
Suffice it to say, I doubt he would call me his "BFF".

I'll try and post some "punk synchronicities" on Monday, but here's a few to start off with.

I walk into a T shirt store and start talking to the store's owner.
He's a nu-skool dude in Vans sneakers, baggy shorts and a plain Tshirt, looking basically like your average frat boy.
(I point this out, because there was nothing in his appearance to clue me in to his taste in music.)

I ask him if he has any TSOL tshirts and mention that he looks kinda like a young Jack Grisham, the lead singer of TSOL.

His eyes light up and he says"I love TSOL. They are my favorite band. I was playing a TSOL CD 10 minutes before you walked in here. I've met Jack, hung out with him and talk to him from time to time."
He then hands me a hand-written letter from Jack Grisham, to prove what he says is true.

He says "I have all the TSOL albums except for "Beneath The Shadows".
I tell him that I have it and it's his, if he gets Jack to autograph my copy of Dance With Me." ( I didn't like Beneath The Shadows, as it's when they added synths, and got all "gothy" and slowed the music down.)

That goes down and, one day, a couple of weeks later, I walk into the T-shirt store and while we're chatting, Jack calls him on the phone, literally out of the blue, and I spoke with one of my heroes briefly.

He and I hung out about 6 times outside of the store and went record shopping together.
All 6 times, we found TSOL albums or 45s in record stores. (their vinyl is pretty rare.)

One time, we walked into a record store together and heard the last strains of some hardcore band, playing on the CD player, trailing off.
It was MIA from the American Youth report compilation.

Wanna guess what the next song was?
The song "Sounds of Laughter" by TSOL, which evoked "sounds of laughter" from us.

You just can't make this shit up.