The Last Wave

 Spoiler Alert 

I saw this movie with my Grandmother around 1977/78 when I was about 12 years old, and the only thing that I really remember about it was the closing scene where Richard Chamberlain's character comes out on to a beach around Sydney somewhere, and sees a massive wave heading for the city.

I thought about my trip to the cinema after I was reading the April-May 2011 edition of Nexus magazine, where I read a letter titled Prophetic Dreams, which mentions the dream a man and his wife had about New Zealand getting hit with a massive earthquake, and sinking completely under the water, after about a week from the date of  when the earthquake hit.

The editor of the magazine then comments that "In Australia, the common "thread" I've observed in such dreams and predictions is one of a huge tsunami hitting the east coast of Australia."

I want to try and watch this film again, even though it may not be a great film, by today's standards.

It's the plot that intrigues me the most, and since I haven't seen it since I was twelve, I'd like to watch it through adult eyes.

Basically (to quote the plot from Wikipedia);

"The film opens with a montage of scenes of daily life in Australia in the 1970s: a rural school in the desert, the main street of an outback town, a traffic jam in the city, all being affected by unusually adverse weather conditions that suddenly appear. 
Only the local Aboriginals seem to recognize the cosmological significance of these weather phenomena.

During one of these "freak rainstorms" in Sydney, an altercation occurs among a group of Aboriginals in a pub, which results in the mysterious death of one of them. 
At the coroner's inquest, the unexplained death is ruled a homicide and four men are accused of murder. 
Through the Australian Legal Aid system, a lawyer is procured for their defense. 
The circumstances by which he was contacted and retained are unusual, in that his law practice is corporate taxation and not criminal. 
He nonetheless takes on the case, and immediately his professional and personal life begin to unwind.

Plagued by recurring bizarre dreams, the lawyer begins to sense an "otherworldly" connection to one of the accused. 
He also feels connected to the increasingly strange weather phenomena besetting the city. 
His dreams intensify along with his obsession with the murder case (which he comes to believe is an Aboriginal tribal killing by curse, in which the victim believed). 
Learning more about Aboriginal practices and the concept of Dream-time as a parallel world of existence, the lawyer comes to believe the strange weather bodes of a coming apocalypse.

The film climaxes in a confrontation between the lawyer and the tribe's shaman in a subterranean sacred site beneath the city. 
Overcoming the shaman, the lawyer escapes to the surface to warn about the Last Wave. 
Seeing a huge wave looming high above Sydney, he collapses in despair in the last shot."

THE LAST WAVE Movie Trailer 1977

I'm Just Not a Facebook Person ;-)

This is not me either, by the way.

I have no desire for a Facebook account.

I notice a lot of people getting caught read (red) faced when someone from their place of employment, or a member of their family, or close friend, reads something they don't like the world knowing about them on Facebook.

I'll just stick to Blogger for now, thanks.
I have no desire of being catalogued in the Facebook crowd ;- )

UPDATE: 30/05/2013 
I finally gave in and opened an account to talk to the people I couldn't reach otherwise.
I'm still not wrapped in it though :-(
 

UPDATE:

The Addiction Right in Front of Your Face?

Seeing Sun Kachinas

I've been seeing Sun Kachinas everywhere, since I wrote this post on my blog a while back  
Synchronicity Happens: Part 1

Even on  the cover of one of the current books that I'm juggling in front of my eyes, The Man Who Drove With His Eyes Closed, there is one.

When I looked up what they are meant to symbolize, I found the following,

"Tawa or sun kachina seen here is a symbol of life, growth, strength of spirit, and abundance. The likeness of this spirit is donned during the solstice ceremony to beckon the sun's return, and begin the growing season."

What I particularly like about the image, is how the left and right hemispheres of the brain are two separate colours, and the image right at the top of this post is almost a yin/yang type symbol, combining left/right hemispheres of the brain, to make a creative whole in the head, so to speak;-)

This image of the Sun Katchina seems to be playing a very central role in my subconscious at the moment, for some reason.

The Insidious Sallie House

I saw Insidious the other night at the cinema, after hearing all the talk about how scary it was, and how people were leaving the cinema in tears ... they were that scared. 
My boys loved it, and while there are a few good scares along the way, I felt the story line was almost comical.
The story starts off as your standard haunted house type movie, but as we get into the movie, we find out that it's not the house that is haunted at all, because the family moves house, only for the haunting to continue.
That's when we find out that it's the boy on the movie poster for this film (above) that is being haunted.
It's because he is in the habit of astral projecting and flying around, and just thinks that he is dreaming instead.
But he wanders too far from his body and gets caught out.
Then he appears to be in an unexplained coma, as far as his family and doctors think.
That's when other disembodied entities start battling to take control of the boy's body, and psychics are called in to help fight the nasty spirits .

That all may sound pretty plausible to someone who hasn't had an out of body experience, but to someone who has, it seems pretty laughable.
That would be like fearing that entities were going to take over your body because you just happened to sleep too soundly.

The Sallie House

Anyway, aside from the fact I think it's a very unlikely scenario that you couldn't get back into your body without actually dying, something else was bugging me, while viewing this movie.

I had finished reading Christopher O’Brien's book  
 Stalking the Tricksters  a few weeks ago, and in it is a chapter about the Sallie House, billed as America's most notorious haunted house.
I had never heard of it before reading Christopher's book. 
So, I tried looking for the video series Chris had worked on, as a cameraman, and found this "documentary" about The Sallie House.

It became apparent to me that the writers/director of  Insidious  got more than a few ideas from The Sallie House doco.
I won't spoil the fun by telling you which ideas were taken from  
The Sallie House  film, and mixed into the Insidious movie.
But if you watch them both closely, it won't be that hard to see what I'm writing about here.

BTW, I found Stalking the Tricksters to be quite entertaining (apart from the  hundreds of typos throughout the book ... it has to be just about one of the best examples of all time, of why it is so important to have a good editor, writing a book) and would recommend it as a thought provoking, although a slightly tricky read;-)

Oh ... and if you sit through all of the credits at the end of  
Insidious, there will be a surprise waiting for you.

P.S. 
If you thought Tiny Tim singing Tiptoe Through the Tulips wasn't scary enough, Insidious takes it to a new creepier level.

It does for Tiptoe Through the Tulips what A Clockwork Orange did for Singing In The Rain. 

You'll never tiptoe through the tulips the same again;-)

Clockwork Orange Mc Happy Meal Anyone???

Loved is the Answer. Did you like Reading it is the Question ;-)

I've just finished reading Eric Rankin's  The Aquarians and gave it a 5 star review at Amazon, which I've reproduced here;

"Being taunted by the 11:11 - Time Prompt Phenomenon, for the last 20 years, or so of my life, I found reading this book spine tingling.
If you like dolphins, Mayan calendars, the 11:11 - Time Prompt Phenomenon, a bit of romance, travel and the ocean.
Then this book is for you.
At the same time, I don't want to put it on too high a pedestal.
Because I know myself, that when people tell you how great something is, you set your expectations too high, and end up finding faults with it.
Just read it, and enjoy it, without expecting some literary classic.
I loved it and I highly recommend it."

You can even go to Eric's website, where he has a gallery of photos to look at, in relation to the scenes where the story takes place;

http://www.theaquarianage.com/gallery.htm

Plus, there are a few pod-casts and YouTubes to look at as well here;

http://www.theaquarianage.com/media.htm

One of the most enjoyable (semi-)fictitious novels that I have read for quite a while.

Another Sink ... I Mean Sync ;-)

With all the talk about bathrooms in the post below this one,
LOVE The Aquarians
comes another sink (sync) from David Lloyd, an artist who's blog I found after reading about him in the book  
Creating a Life Worth Living (a book that I am currently reading) and then Google-ing his name, and finding his art gallery,

ETSY shop, and blog.

I highly recommended reading this book

 I purchased some of David's art a couple of weeks ago, and wrote about it in this post;
David Lloyd, an Artist I Came Across on the Synchronistic Path

And the funny thing was that they arrived in the post, just after reading about all of the bathroom synchronicities (syncs) that were discussed  in the previous post below.
Not only that, but David posted the painting (sink) up on his blog the same day, as well.

My purchases, that arrived in the mail yesterday

David has some great art for sale in his ETSY shop, and at very reasonable prices, too.

Why not go take a look?

http://lloydart.blogspot.com/

LOVE The Aquarians

That's not me, by the way. If you're wondering

Another sync I had while reading The Aquarians, was I had just finished reading Rob and Trish's post called  Graduation Signs  at their blog  Synchrosecrets.

Basically Rob talks about how he was helping his daughter move some stuff from her dorm, and one item just happened to be a board with the word LOVE  painted on one side. 
He met another girl on the way out who was wearing a t-shirt with the word love printed across her shirt.
Which made me think about a guy (see photo above) who used to sell these LOVE  stop signs, for a guy's shop, that  I use to design t-shirts for, and sell.

One of my old T-shirt designs

That's a lady buying one of my designs for her young child, from the shop in Sydney.
And below is another design that sold pretty well, especially around New Years.

Another one of my designs

Rob was also talking about the movie Signs  and how he was thinking about watching it again, and couldn't believe it when a subtitle came up with the Gibson character saying:  
“There are no coincidences”.
So, I sent him an e-mail about how I won a Signs watch in a competition, with a national magazine (Australia) and sent a photo of it with the e-mail (see below).

My prize Signs watch

Then I went back to reading The Aquarians, only to read this passage next,"It's knowing that life constantly offers you the opportunity to commit an act of love, and that no matter what, love is always the right act to commit. 
Love is always the right answer."

Then a bit further down she talks about one of the disciples asking Jesus,"Teacher, how many times should I forgive someone who has wronged me? 
Seven? 
And Jesus said something like,"seven? Are you kidding? Try seventy times seven!"

Which brings me back to the photo in the post below, of the 77 above the elevator door.

77 or ( 70x7 )?

In the same post, Graduation Signs , Rob also talked about how he was surprised to find a spa tub in his hotel room, and how he saw a newspaper heading that read,

"Where Are The Bathtubs? Most Hotels Go Shower Only".

I thought that was a bit of a sink ... oops, I meant sync ... because I was trying to find information about Lilly, and his flotation tank (which is mentioned in The Aquarians, also) and stumbled upon this article about Disney Home Vacations, and the spa bath that comes in one of those homes

http://www.disney-homes-vacations.com/bathroom-accessories/whirlpool/how-to-start-buying-whirlpool.html

I hope it has Disney channel, as well;-)

I also found this YouTube called Sinkin'in the Bathtub which features the tune Tiptoe Through The Tulips.

Which after seeing the movie Insidious with my son the night before, could lead into another separate post as long as this one.

Seventy-Seven Sync

Top floor Q1 Building, Gold Coast, Oz

 In my post

Neuromancer, Pirates, Pearls and Lightbulbs???

I talk about my day trip to the Q1 building, on

Queensland's Gold Coast and most of the synchros I had on that day.

But there is one that has just come to light for me today, while reading The Aquarians, by Eric Rankin.

Author Eric Rankin Talks About Authenticity & 2012
First, just let me backtrack a little.

I took that picture (above) on the the 77th floor, showing the elevator floor indicator, not only because it showed how many floors were in the building, but because it reminded me of a digital clock face, with the red numbers.
Only I've never been too interested in 7's that much, showing up on clocks.
The only numbers that give me that otherworldly feeling is 11:11.
Yet I had this nagging feeling to take that photo because of the 11:11 sequence that I way too often see on clocks.
I've since found out that 7 is my life path number, and oddly enough I bought this key-ring (below) with the seven, eight, diamond, dice, horseshoe and clover on it, at the 

same store that I found the lorikeet figurine, which sits next to my wife's photo of her father.
My car's random series number-plate just happens to have 878 
(adds up to 23, my birth-date) as the number sequence on it 
(plus the diamond shape), which I hadn't taken much notice of until after I had bought the key-ring.

7 between (8) infinity and (8) infinity???

But getting back to The Aquarians, I was up to the part in the book where Ixchel's father was giving her a birthday present, 
which was a digital clock with the numbers preset to 11:11, because it hadn't been used before.
When he gives her the clock and she sees 11:11 on it, she says, 
"Where was it made?", and he says,"The united States".

Then she replies,"And in the United States, they keep time with Mayan numerals?"

He laughs,and says,"No, my child, they do not use Mayan numerals there. Only at 1:11 and 11:11 would this clock ever look Mayan. But now that you mention it, it is quite a coincidence that it would come to us displaying those numbers, isn't it?"

When I looked up and saw that the paragraph was written on page 77 of this book, I remembered the photo I took at the Q1 building, and how I could not stop thinking about 11:11 while I was taking it.
Some synchronicities only become apparent days, weeks, months, and sometimes years after.

The Tree (Trailer for Movie)

 Here's the trailer for the movie that I've been blogging about.

It's a movie I highly recommend viewing..

Be Here Now ... Again?

Be Here Now by Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert on April 6, 1931) is one book that I have never been able to clear from my bookcase.

I've read it a number of times over the years, gotten rid of it ... and then repurchased it again, and again (3 times now).
It's one of those books that I love and hate, at the same time.
Some of it is really good, some of it is mediocre, and some of it is just bad (a lot like real life, I guess;-)

I don't know what it is that really appeals to me about this book.
Whether it's just the cover ... the cover features a Mandala incorporating the title, a chair, radial lines, and the word "remember" ... or whether it's just his whole adventure and philosophy, that he covers in his book (not that I'm into Gurus, most of them are just con-men in my opinion, although there probably are a few genuine ones around) ...or maybe it's something more subconscious in me that connects with it ... or all of the above.

Either way, Be Here Now is a book that will always remain on my bookshelf, because even when I give it away, I just end up buying another one.
It's a book that just seems to have to be with me now;-)

Richard Alpert AKA Ram Dass

Me taking a photo of me,
in the center of a reflective ripple

Neuromancer, Pirates, Pearls and Lightbulbs???

Book Lust, my cell phone cover and Neuromancer

Months ago, while reading through the Christoper Knowles Blog, The Secret Sun, I came across a series of posts about

William Gibson;

http://secretsun.blogspot.com/search?q=william+gibson

which intrigued me so much, that I decided that I should read his book Neuromancer, which I had heard from other sources, was worth a read.

I hadn't read, or heard anything from Gibson, apart from what I read, and saw about him on The Secret Sun.

On February 27th, this year, while coming back from a visit to the Q1's (the tallest building in Queensland, at the time) 77th floor another strange "coincidence" occurred, one month before these other strange "coincidences", that would take place on March 27th (one month after), at another bookshop.
“The Twelfth Insight”?

Top floor of the Q1

Looking towards Byron Bay

The Black Cat Calendar and Wabi Sabi

My brother and I decided to get some lunch at 
Harbour Town Shopping centre and found a discount bookshop offering all books at $5 each.

Scouting around the tables, I found the Stephen King novel Cell. 
So, I rang my youngest son on my cell phone, to see if he had it, or wanted it.
He didn't have it, but wanted to read it, and so I decided to scout through nearly every table in the shop, to see if there was any more King novels.
There wasn't, but on one table I came across the novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson, for an incredible $5.

Looking up the lift-shaft to the Q1's 77th floor

 I thought that the Universe was telling me then,"you must read this book!".
So, I bought it and put it on my "To Read" pile, on my bookcase ... and didn't think that much more about it, until last night ... when a thought came into my head to check just what book titles happen to be on the Nancy Pearl Doll's book-trolley,

Wouldn't Read About It ... Would You?
and if they were real book titles ... which they were.

And one of those books is Neuromancer!?!

Neuromancer is the dark blue book
(click to enlarge photo)

 So, I decided that I would have to do a post about all these weird synchros surrounding Neuromancer, and take some photo's of Nancy Pearl's books from her trolley.

Now, before I had examined what books Nancy had in her trolley, I was putting in an order to Amazon, of books that I wanted (felt compelled to buy, really ... even though I've got more than enough books to keep me going for years) from my wish-list, which included a book by the Japanese author Musahi, and the book Walden, which also happen to be on the doll trolley.
Not only that, but there is a book called Wabi-Sabi on the trolley as well!??

The Black Cat Calendar and Wabi Sabi
And after asking myself ,"Why do I buy so many books ,that I am flat-out reading?", why should I be surprised to see that there is also a book called Why We Buy on her trolley?  
(I'll have to put that on my Amazon wish-list;-)

Also, see the top photo, with my skull and crossbones cell phone cover?

When I was taking that shot, the song Pirate Jenny, performed by Nina Simone, from The Watchmen soundtrack,  just started playing.

That's when I decided to take the photo with my cellphone cover thrown into the shot, as well.
I was listening to that CD because I wanted to hear Desolation Row, by My Chemical Romance, and The Times are A-Changin', which are both Bob Dylan songs.

Desolation Row was the only one of those two that Bob sung at the Byron Bluesfest

”But Dylan’s Not Dead” ”Oh ... Isn’t He?” 
and which I don't have a version of him singing, so I was trying to listen to the My Chemical Romance version for the lyrics ... and I let the soundtrack play on, while I was taking the photo of my books, Book Lust by Nancy Pearl and Neuromancer by William Gibson.

The lift dropped to the 75th floor,
before I could get a shot of the 77

About an hour after I took that shot, the light-bulb which was above those books blew, and I had to replace it.

It was a 75 watt pearl light-bulb (see photo above), but I didn't have any pearl ones left.
So I had to use a 75 watt clear light bulb, as it's replacement.

You might say that "I can see clearly now" ... but that's a story for another long post.

P.S.  
Looking at that last cover of Neuromancer  also reminds me of the singer, who was right on before Dylan, on the Tuesday night, at the Byron Bay Bluesfest I was at.
His name is Gurrumul, and I write about him, and a few synchs in the post about Dylan.

Gurrumul

P.P.S. 
I also noticed when I was re-editing this post, that I originally posted this post at 2:27 pm, which also works out to be the date 27/2/2011 that I bought my copy of Neuromancer and a lorikeet figurine (for my wife), standing next to my late Father-in-law's photo,  from the Harbour Town shopping centre, on the way back from the Q1 building.

What do all these syncs add up to???

Life is one big puzzle.

It's lucky that I like puzzles then, I suppose?-)