In the bookLook At All The Happy Creatures which I wrote a post about here; Look At All The Happy Creatures - The Novel is a character called the Blue Bunny and a character called the White Rabbit. There is also a character called Tangerine. I thought it was quite amusing when I was reading this book to find a felt blue bunny with a white heart and a tangerine bow tie on the refrigerator in our kitchen.
The felt Blue Bunny on our fridge.
When I asked my wife where she had gotten it from, she told me that my son's girlfriend made it for her as an Easter present this year. The funny thing is though, that neither my wife, son, or son's girlfriend have ever heard of the book, or the characters in it.
I bought this CD at the Byron Bay Bluesfestthis year after stumbling into the tent that Bobby and his band were playing in. I think it was all the drumming from the song Octopus & the Rat that caught my attention as I was walking past the tent.
Whatever song it was, I went in and watched the rest of the performance and was quite impressed. I've been playing this CD in my car, to and from work...and the thing I find most ironic is that usually when I'm driving up to the boom-gate at my work to spend another glorious day there, the song playing 9 times out of 10 is Gates of Paradise :- ( / :- )
I love Bobby's music, I just picture myself sipping a nice cool drink down by the seaside when I have this CD on. To give you an idea of what I walked into, watch this You Tube below -
Six Degrees of Separation? I finished reading Shoeless Joeand went to give it a review on Amazon and saw a great review by Harold Polsky,so I thought I would re-post it here; Some People Just Don't Get It "After reading all the reviews of Shoeless Joe, I think the title I chose for this review is perfect. First,
let me state the obvious: most of the people who panned this book
outright had to read it for school, and write a report on it. I can
honestly say that, in my opinion, this book is not for your average high
school student. The ideas and themes in this novel, not to mention the
ideals and dreams, are very difficult to comprehend if you're still in
high school. Some of the life experiences, that are are required to
understand what Mr. Kinsella is saying, are still years away. It's a
shame that these students are forced to read something that, in my
opinion, they are not yet ready for. If they waited until they were
older, they would understand. And they would love the book. This
is not Field of Dreams. That movie is the result of Hollywood taking
this story, clipping here and editing there, and coming up with a
screenplay that, while outstanding in its own way, is severely lacking
in the substance of what this book is about. It's about life. It's about dreams and realities. It's about injustice and redemption. But most of all, it's about love and family. Ray Kinsella is an
anomaly in today's society. He is a 1960s dreamer in a world full of
pragmatic realists. He sees things that most people overlook. He
remembers things that most people consider insignificant. But, most of
all, he hears things that others cannot hear. "If you build it,
he will come." A raspy, baseball announcer's voice in the middle of an
Iowa cornfield says those seven words, and Ray Kinsella knows exactly
what they mean. Build a baseball stadium, and Shoeless Joe Jackson, the
falsely accused and disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox star, will return
to play again. If that sounds hokey, or corny, it's because, to most
people, it is. But not to Ray. Shoeless Joe Jackson was the favorite
player of his father, John Kinsella. Ray grew up hearing stories of the
1919 White Sox, and Shoeless Joe. As the story progresses, the pure
love Ray feels for his father becomes more and more evident. While the
movie makes it something different, in the book it is all about love and
memory. The love between Ray and Annie is as close to a perfect
love as humanity can get. And if some find that unreal, it's because it
is so rare that it seems unreal. This is the love we all dream about. This is the love we feel we all have. But in reality, this love is the
ideal love. And though in many ways it is hard to believe such a love
could ever exist, in some very rare and special circumstances, it can,
and it does. Why does Ray follow the voice he hears? Why does he
plow under his cornfield, risking his farm, his home, and possibly even
his family? Because Ray knows that sometimes you have to follow the
voices you hear. He knows Annie will understand. Or if not understand,
realize that he has to do what he has to do. From the first time
Shoeless Joe appears in his field, Ray starts to dream. He dreams of
seeing his father again. Seeing him in a way he never knew him: young
and playing baseball, the game he loved. Shoeless Joe tells him to
finish the field, to make it possible for all of the disgraced White Sox
to come and play again. Then, and only then, he promises, will they
consider having his father on the team. So Ray begins his long,
slow journey, finishing the field, learning the tricks of the trade from
the experts, creating a perfect ball park. And still he waits. And
then the voice comes back. And Ray is off on a journey to take one of
the most famous reclusive authors of our time to a baseball game. He
plans his trip carefully, preparing himself so he will be ready to share
his dreams, to open his heart and soul to a man who he is convinced
needs him to come take him to a baseball game. Along the way, we
also meet Eddie "Kid" Scissons, the oldest living Chicago Cub (or is
he), and learn the short, but poignant tale of Dr. Archibald "Moonlight"
Graham. The playing out of these stories, and the love of baseball,
and all things pure and simple, tug at our hearts, and make us want to
believe in the dreams. And we do. And when Ray finally comes
back to the farm, accompanied by a ghost from the past, and a mystery
from the present, he discovers his long-lost twin brother has shown up,
confusing Annie and their daughter. The differences between the
identical twin brothers are enormous, but slowly, they begin to
disappear as the dream, Ray's catcher, his father, finally makes his
appearance. The threats of losing everything to Annie's scheming
brother, and his business partner, the reality of "Kid" Scissons, and
the tragic heroics of Moonlight Graham bring the book ever closer to
its climax, as we realize that some dreams, no matter how precious, are
sometimes less important when the glare of reality blinds us, forcing us
to make choices we thought we would never have to make. This is a
story of love, dreams and life that is worthy of any book collection. Read it. You will come away better for having done so."
Bit of a sync, my oldest son (namedKevin) was born on June 20th (see You Tube above).
I was reading about this film in a Byron Bay lifestyle magazine and tracked down this very poetic and thought provoking short "Director's cut" of the original 52 min film. Now I want to see the original.
"Break free with Johnny Abegg as he takes‘Two Weeks’ off from his
monotonous world of wavering ideals and a growing unhappiness, to
experience the remote wilderness of Tasmania on his own.
The decision takes Johnny on an inward journey, to a place of
reflection, accountability and deep self inquiry; facing a hidden ‘dark
side’ alone, within the unforgiving landscape. Through the internal
battle of opposites, amplified by the humbling surrounds; Abegg is
stripped back to the basic creature that he is, to find a moment of
clarity amidst the endless questions…
So is there an answer? A right way to live? Find out for yourself. Just surrender."
This (below) is the 23min Directors Cut of Johnny Abegg's film Two Weeks.
I just saw the movie Iron Sky tonight at the cinema and wasn't expecting any real syncs to come out of seeing this movie, even though I knew some of it was filmed in Queensland. But there is a part in the movie where the Nazi woman, right in the center of the above poster, takes the black/white (you'll just have to see the movie to see why I wrote black/white instead of black)American astronaut to the cinema to see Charlie Chaplain's The Great Dictator.
That cinema in the movie is a cinema I wrote about in this post called - Animal Dreaming
The Tribal cinema, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Real life is a lot stranger than fiction....my life is, anyway.
This movie is worth checking out, by the way. It doesn't quite work, but there is enough funny bits to get you through it. It will definitely become a cult movie.
King Uke's poster of our idea of a zombie version of the Oz story :- )
It's funny where small syncs can lead you to when you follow them.
On May 7th this year I did a search on Brizdaz on some obscure search engine that someone had used to arrive at my blog and found a Blogger going under the name King Uke had taken one of my Amazon reviews on a comic/novel calledTokyo Zombie and re-posted it on a post on his blog, Tokyo Zombie (2008)
The funny thing is it is mainly a blog about ukuleles. And as I wrote in my first comment to him;
"I didn't ever think I would feature on a blog about ukuleles, I'm not
a musician, even though I'm a big music fan and the funny thing is I
almost bought a ukulele at the Woodford Folkfest, but then talked myself
out of it, saying,"what would I do with a ukulele apart from collect dust
with it?" And then at the Byron Bay Bluesfest this year I was really tempted to buy one of these Cigar Box Guitars;
but then I would have to learn how to play it, so I soon put that idea to bed."
(I was actually outside the tent when Mc Trustry was doing one of these jams on Easter Monday at Bluesfest...I wondered what was being filmed in there and went on over to see...and hear).
In the following comments we talked about Tokyo Zombieand it's merits and KU asked me for some zombie tips. My reply was;
"As for zombie tips, when it comes to brains - use 'em, or lose 'em would be my advice.
Actually, I just had a vision of a reverse Wizard of OZzombie story, where
Dorothy teams up with the Munchkins to do battle against Scarecrow brain
munching, Tin Man heart eating and Lion gut chomping zombies in the land
of ZO(M) as she tries to get to the Emerald city and get the Wizard a
new brain. Maybe that's one to throw at the Tokyo Zombie boys? That's if they aren't scared of getting sued by Disney. Now, I'd buy that one for sure and would probably give it an OK review on Amazon,too;- )"
Hence the above poster that KU came up with out of our discussion.
"It's funny that I read this post after watching a movie that I bought from Amazon.com calledThe Greatest Show on Earth. I'd been trying to track down this movie for months and the only place I could get it was from Amazon (US). I
had never watched this movie before and the only reason I bought this
movie was because it was Emmet Kelley's only ever movie role. I've
done a few posts on my blog about syncs in my life involving Emmet
Kelly...and here is another one; about half way through the movie Emmet
is seen and heard playing a purple ukulele and the song being sung even
mentions ukuleles."
LOVELY LUAWANA LADY Lovely Luawana lady When your hopes and dreams go fadey, Don't you ever be afraid He won't come back to you.
Lovely Luawana lady, Where those ukes and jukes are played, He dreams of all the dreams he made And longs that they'll come true.
Ever since he's back there's been no lack of gals But gee they're slow They don't pack that wicky wack you taught him There when the moon was low
Now ev'ry Susie Sal and Sadie Just becomes a mem'ry shady, Lovely Luawana lady, When he dreams of you.
The uke sync was just one of a few syncs that came out of watching this film.
I'll be writing about the other syncs that I had with other bloggers after watching this film in upcoming posts.
Stay tuned.
P.S.
King Uke, that BUMS group in the comment below sounds good, but I found a group in Byron Bay called The North Coast Ukulele Collective, and I must say that I'm impressed with their song list; Ukulele songs from A to Z and their Uke tuner; Ukulele Tuner I was just wondering if this guy in the You Tube below was in their group, too;- )
I haven't quite got to the end of Alan Abbadessa's novel Look At All The Happy Creatures, but I think this would make an excellent graphic novel...but I mean better graphics than the storyboard look of the You Tube versions on this post. Something likeThe Watchmenis more what I had in mind.
The story is a cross between1984,Animal Farm and Alice in Wonderland, (not too mention a Phillip K Dick story as well)in a way, but set in the near future. For those who like these types of novels and conspiracy theories, you should find this right up your ally.
I'd like tosee this book get so successful that Disney turns it into a movie and launches the character collectables in a "Mc Happy Creature Meal" ;- )
Alan is also the editor of The SYNC Book. A book that I really enjoyed reading. And I hear that there might be a SYNC Book-Part 2 in the works. Can't wait for that one.
but just having read Colin Wilson's The Outsider made me see how much Paul Cox has based his film career around the Outsider theme. For those who haven't seen any of Paul Cox's films, I would encourage you to, if you like studying the Outsider theme Colin relates to in his book.
I would also recommend reading Paul Cox's great book, Tales from the Cancer Ward (see my sidebar) and viewing David Bradbury's great film on Paul's battle with the big C.
and the excellent documentary Sweet Misery, which is about aspartame and MSG.
Michael J Fox was admittedly a diet cola addict, so this might go a long way to explaining what brought on his illness...just food (?) for thought...and not very good food (?) at that *- )
Crystalline Monosodium Glutamate is similar in appearance to Cocaine,
crack, or heroin. Like other dangerous substances, it is processed from
natural sources.
The red string of fate, also referred to as the red thread of destiny, red thread of fate, and other variants, is an East Asian belief originating from Chinese legend and is also used in Japanese legend. According to this myth, the gods tie an invisible red string around the ankles of men and women who are destined to be soul mates and will one day marry each other. Often, in Japanese culture, it is thought to be tied around the little finger.
I've always liked those red Kabbalah strings on some unconscious level, but I've never thought the idea of being protected from the evil eye was a good enough reason to don one.
But I must admit to liking the idea of red string tied around the little pinky to represent the idea of the red thread of destiny, or even the red thread of synchronicity.
At least when people ask me why I wear the red string on my pinky I could explain how I believe that synchronicity guides my life to some extent and that I believe that there is a lot more to life than random chance.
And it wouldn't be an airy fairy philosophy either, because I'm not suggesting by wearing it that I will be protected, like some guardian angel will watch over my every move
(hey, that would be great, and I'm not complaining if one does)...
just guided to whatever that I'm supposed to be here to do in this life.
Take the You Tube clip below as an example.
But who's to say that there wasn't some greater reason for these two in the above clip to come together at that point in time and form a lasting partnership that may have solved many other problems for people's lives, even though they might never meet their benefactors in this life.
Maybe John Lennon and Paul McCartney met in this way?-)
Anyway, I love the idea of a "Red Thread of Destiny".
It's as good as a representation of Synchronicity as any scarab beetle could be, in my opinion.
I hadn't heard of this Chinese/Japanese myth until yesterday when I was listening to Barry Eaton's
I saw this poster at the Woodford Folkfest and thought of the only Barry I know;- )
The funny thing also was I have been reading Colin Wilson's book The Outsiderand my goal was to finish reading it this weekend...I still have about 100 pages to go, from this point in time.
In the radio interview Sandie Sedgbeer mentions Colin Wilson and one of his other books.
Even though she didn't mention The Outsider, whatare the odds of her mentioning the author of the book that I'm holding in my hand reading...sorry Barry, but I was listening as well, I was just trying to multitask, which is not a very smart thing to do for someone of my multitasking abilities.
Anyway, Sandie mentions Colin Wilson at about the 11:46 mark of the interview.
If she had of mentioned him at the 11:11 mark that would have really sent a shiver up my spine.
I decided to buy a copy of The Outsider after reading an interview with Colin in the above book/magazine The Gnostic 2.
I also bought his latest book Super Consciousness after seeing a review of it in
But since The Outsiderwas the first book that he wrote I decided to read that one first, to get an idea of where Colin Wilson was coming from, since I didn't know that much about him.
I've always considered myself an outsider anyway, so I thought it would be an interesting read.
At first I was disappointed, because it just seemed to be about perverts who liked looking up women's dresses, but then it started to hit it's straps and give me the kind of outsiders I could identify with to some degree, like Van Gogh, Blake, Hemingway and co.
One thing I really liked about my copy of The Outsiderwas the cover work.
A picture of what looks to be a drowning man's hand coming out of a dark ocean, and in the palm of that hand is a little white figure who is riding above the dark ocean in relative safety in that drowning man's hand.
Much like my Buddha statue sitting in the palm of a dark hand pictured below.
I find the image comforting, like it is expressing the feeling of an unseen hand of destiny at work, even when things seem to be at their darkest.
Not to say that everything is going to turn out the way we want, but the way it should be, and that there is an order and purpose to the chaos, even if we as humans can't see it from our perspective.
Getting back to the first episode of Touch though, I thought to myself that maybe the number sequence 318 might be of significance in my life as some synchronistic sequence of numbers leading me in the right direction, but I couldn't think of anything of significance involving those numbers in my life.
But then a thought from out of the blue came into my head to look and see who the artist was that designed the artwork for the cover of The Outsider.
It's usually printed in fine print on the cover somewhere or just inside the book.
And there it was on the back cover : Cover design : Gray 318
Oh, and the sync from the Illuminati card post below was that the Japanese girls in the show Touch were obsessed with a band called "The Morticians" and my blogging friend Jake Kotze had just done a post called
