Synchromysticism

" Synchromysticism:
The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

- Jake Kotze

December 31, 2014

Darren Hanlon and "A Descant for Gossips"

The Art of Song Writing

For those who like a good spooky story and weird coincidences, read on. 
I attended a talk this year at the Byron Bay Writers Festival featuring Darren Hanlon and Missy Higgins called  The Art of Songwriting.
Click on the link under the first picture to hear, or see that talk, it's well worth viewing, or listening to, and Darren gives his spooky version of how he came to write the song he performs in that talk, The Ostracism of Vinny Lalor.
Now, in that talk Darren mentions a novel which was written by a lady named Thea Astley called A Descant For Gossips, which I have just finished reading.
It's a tragic (and apparently kind of true) story about a relationship between two teachers and a student in a small Queensland town named Gungee in the book, but was really meant to be Pomona, and the hall where the school dance takes place is the hall where Darren recorded his album Fingertips and Mountaintops, over a two-week period, not long after Thea Astley passed away, which the song The Ostracism of Vinny Lalor is on.
Majestic Theatre Pomona, Queensland
Thea Astley died at the John Flynn Hospital on the Gold Coast in 2004 and Darren Halon's album Fingertips and Mountaintops was released in 2006
The album above was the first Darren Hanlon album I ever bought, because I liked the song Happiness Is A Chemical (which I just noticed has 7,237 listeners to it on the album's webpage) and Hold On.
I became a fan of his work after that and started buying his back catalogue of albums.
And I finally got to see Darren play live last year at the Woodford Folkfest, which I wrote a post about at this link -
Lightning Strikes That Change Lives 
the song I mention in the post -
Prelude to the Woodford Folkfest
Couch Surfing is also off the album Fingertips and Mountaintops.
Daz is often a nickname for people
 named
Darren in Australia
Missy Higgin's album The Ol'Razzle Dazzle
 that her song was off.
Now, I have to say that I wasn't a big fan of Missy Higgins before this talk but have since become one.
The main reason I went to the Byron Bay Writers Festival talk that day was to see and hear Darren Hanlon, but I thought it was a bonus to see and hear Missy as well, as she is the bigger star out of the two singers on a national and international stage.
I thought it was funny that the song Missy performed in the talk about song writing was called, Cooling of the Embersa song she says in the talk was about the period when her grandmother lay in hospital bed half in this world and half in the next.

Cooling of the Embers is off Missy's album The Ol'Razzle Dazzle.
The irony is that Daz is often a nickname given to someone with the name Darren in Australia.
I know this firsthand because that is my first name, too, and I often go under that nickname, as well, hence the name Brizdaz on my blog.
But I noticed how often the word dazzle is written in Thea Astley's novel, A Descant For Gossips and that on page 254 the term Razzle Dazzle is used.
SPOILER ALERT! 
Don't read any other words on that page if you plan on reading the novel in the future, as there are some major revelations there which are sure to wreck the story for you.
The funny thing about Missy Higgins choosing the song about her dying grandmother was that the tent the talk was held in was sponsored by an aged care facility named Feros Care, who were beaming the talk back to their homes via TV cable.
Missy told us this in her talk that I attended on the day after at the BBWF.
Luckily though the people in the home all loved the performance with reports that there wasn't a dry eye in the home.
Oddly enough, I had someone from Feros Care staying in the same motel as I was in and not too far away from my room either, by the looks.
Darren Halon (right) in the
Pomona theatre/Dance Hall
Getting back to Darren's song The Ostracism of Vinny Lalor.
In the Writers Festival talk he tells of writing that song in the same dance hall the school dance was held in from the Thea Astley novel,
He clams the song pretty much wrote itself, as he felt the words came into his head as if by an outside source.
I guess some people would call that channeling, or something much like that?
In the writers festival talk Darren is asked what he thinks is the most perfect song written and he names a Paul Kelly song as one of the best songs he ever heard.
Kaarin Fairfax as Vinny Lalor
in the
ABC TV mini-series
The ironic thing here, and I don't know whether Darren realized this, was that the ABC made a TV mini-series out of Thea Astley's book in 1983 starring Paul Kelly's ex-wife Kaarin Fairfax, who played the part of Vinny Lalor.
Kaarin also starred in the 2001 TV movie One Night the Moon with her then husband Paul Kelly and their daughter.
It was based on the true story of a young girl who went missing in the Australian outback in 1932.
Interesting also was that Tim Burstall the director of Thea Astley's TV show adaption of her book died the same year as Thea, 2004.
Mt. Cooroora
I've only ever been to the town of Pomona twice in my life.
The first time was to climb Mt.Cooroora with some work mates.
And the second time was to visit the Majestic Theatre and take in a silent movie with my two boys, while the organist played the music for the Buster Keaton movie Go West, that we saw that day.
And here is another weird story.
After I took my boys to see Go West, I took them east to visit Noosa Beach on the way home.
I parked my car in what I thought was a free public car park in Noosa and went to go for a walk on the beach, but a storm was brewing and it was starting to rain, so we went for a pizza.
I was thinking what a great day we had when we were returning to the car and then I saw a piece of paper under my windshield wiper.
It was a parking fine for $90.
I was so pissed getting a fine in an area that didn't have any signs telling us you couldn't park there, but I knew to fight it I would have to take days off work and come back up to Noosa to try and get any justice, but I would lose money even if I won.
So, I figured I should just pay the fine and forget about it.
As I was driving home still pissed at getting a fine for just trying to give my boys a good day out, a thought came into my head that I shouldn't worry myself about the fine, as the fine would be cancelled out in some way.
I thought, yeah right.
But the next day I won just over $90 with a Powerball ticket I bought the day before.
That prize cancelled the fine out and I have never won a prize that high since by playing Powerball, not that I  play it that much anyway.
All I have to say about this talk at the Byron Bay Writers Festival is that if I had not have attended it I would not have gone to Missy Higgins talk the next day where she was announcing the release of her OZ album in September,
Missy Higgins Has a New Oz Album on the Way ... And That's Not All
and I probably would not have gone to her Brisbane concert later that year.
Which will be the subject of an upcoming post of mine.
Missy Higgins at the
Brisbane Convention Centre
Someone uploaded Missy singing Paul Kelly's song, Everybody Wants to Touch Me from her Oz tour.
 
Missy Higgins at the
Brisbane Convention Centre
Oh, and one last thing I almost forgot.
On the day after seeing Darren and Missy do their talk I was driving around Bangalow after having breakfast in the main street that morning and then heading back to Byron for another day at the BBWF and stumbled across this street sign in Bangalow.
(Darren) Hanlon Court?

December 27, 2014

Spookiest Nicole Kidman Sync Story of the Year and Everyone Missed It?

One Day I'll Fly Away

I wrote a post about Nicole Kidman's dad passing away on the same day as Joe Sample, who wrote the song "One Day I'll Fly Away"which Nicole Kidman sung in the movie "Moulin Rouge" and released as a single as well -
One Day I'll Fly Away?
Joe Sample and Antony Kidman were both aged 75.
Nicole Kidman and her father
Antony Kidman in 2005
Joe Sample passed (flew?) away
on
12th September, 2014
And Baz Luhrmann's (the director of Moulin Rouge!) father passed away while he was shooting the movie Nicole sung "One Day I'll Fly Away" in.
 
"One Day I'll Fly Away" is Crawford's highest charting single, and has been covered by many artists, most notably by Nicole Kidman portraying the character of Satine in the 2001 motion picture Moulin Rouge!.
So, there you go.
I've basically rehashed and rearranged the same post, but maybe leading the post off with
Joe Sample just wasn't going to get the same attention from bloggers as leading the post off with Nicole Kidman's name?
Then again, maybe I'm just playing to a tough crowd.
Anyway, I think it's one of the spookiest synch stories of the year and nobody seemed to notice it at the time.

Jake Kotze's New Synchromystic Film "Syncmas"

Syncmas

If you are a big film buff like me and would like to see some mind-boggling connections between actors and their movies and personal lives, then you are going to love Jake's latest film -
SYNCMAS
 It mainly revolves around Humphrey Bogart (who was born on Christmas Day) and other films that appear to link up to his movies, but that's not all. 
It's a film that will keep Whitley Strieber under his bed until New Year's Day, if he ever gets to watch it;-)
I don't know how to upload Vimeos, so just click on the red 
SYNCMAS links and they will take you to Jake's Vimeo page.
Merry Syncmas everybody.
And since next year is the Year of the GoatI should probably end this post by quoting a Bogart line.
"Here's lookin' at you, kid.";-)

December 26, 2014

Happy New 'ears

Well Christmas is over (but not war) for another year, so I guess it's time to get ready for New 'ears.

December 23, 2014

Here is the News ... or is It?

Click on map to make bigger
I thought it was quite synchy that the Theatre Royal would have a play on called Rupert: Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Good Story during the same month the Lindnt chocolate shop siege occurred.
The Theatre Royal is on King Street, which boomerangs and turns into Phillip Street, which crosses Martin Place.
There is also a "Rabbit Hole Bar" on the block the Lindt chocolate shop is on.
Russell Crowe's latest film The Water Diviner is produced by Channel 7 and "Fear of God" films.
Russell Crowe's Rabbitohs
2014 NRL champions
 
James Cromwell who plays Rupert in the play also played Prince Phillip in the movie, The Queen.
Elizabeth Street also runs up the opposite side of the block to Philip Street with the Lindt chocolate shop on Martin Street sandwiched in-between Elizabeth and Phillip Streets.
Philip as any Philip K Dick fan knows means Horse loveror friend of horses.
 
And 2014 is the Chinese Year of the Horse.

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick

The Lindt cafe is located at 53 Martin Place
"Above is the Colonial State Bank Centre which can be found at 
52 Martin Place. Agent Smith holds Morpheus captive here on 91 mins after their slowly choreographed fight 27 mins earlier."
 
 
Katy Perry's song "Dark Horse" was a big hit in 2014 and Katy appeared in the Channel 7 Sydney studios earlier in the year promoting her upcoming tour for November 2014.
 
Katy also played weather girl on the morning show which oddly enough forecasted storms for most major Australian cities. 
The Channel 7 studio where Katy read the weather is right across the road from the Lindt chocolate shop as the world would find out in December 2014.

David Williamson's Rupert


The irony about the play at the Theatre Royal and the hostage siege in the Lindt Cafe was when I was listening to the radio at work every news update would tell us something different to the one that went before.
12 hostages, then 50, then 17.
One gunman, then maybe two, or three, then back to one.
It was hard to know what was really going on in the cafe, by what the news crews were telling us.
Whether it was the radio, TV stations or newspapers, they were just feeding us any old rumour, so long as you didn't turn off, or stop buying newspapers, because this was big business and top ratings for them.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story, just keep flogging the story till it's dead.
The Year of the Horse has certainly been no "friend to horses" (Phillip?), either. 
"It was the moment that stopped Australia in its tracks, and 12 months on it’s happened again.
Admire Rakti’s death after Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup has again ignited the debate around cruelty and horse racing is still galloping ahead.
Twelve months ago, as celebrations took place and champagne flowed following Fiorente’s Melbourne Cup victory last year, many Australians were left horrified after French runner  
Verema was euthanised after snapping a bone in her leg.
Nothing could be done to save the champion mare, who lay on the ground with a shattered leg, about to be put to sleep."
Phillip Joel Hughes
(30 November 1988 – 27 November 2014)
"While batting during a Sheffield Shield match between South Australia and New South Wales at the Sydney Cricket Ground on 25 November 2014, Hughes was struck in the neck by a bouncer from New South Wales bowler Sean Abbott
Hughes was wearing a helmet, but the ball struck an unprotected area just below his left ear. 
He collapsed before receiving mouth to mouth resuscitation and was subsequently taken to St Vincent's Hospital, Sydneywhere he underwent surgery and was placed into an induced coma. 
Hughes' injury was a rare but described type of sport-related blunt cerebrovascular injury called a vertebral artery dissection which led to subarachnoid haemorrhage."
St. Vincent's Hospital?
In Russell Crowe's movie The Water Diviner there is a Lt-Col Hughes in charge of the mass grave-site at  Gallipoli.
Russ asking Lt-Col Hughes for permission to
look for his missing sons among the dead
In one scene in the movie Russ's character tries to kill some Greek soldiers with a cricket bat found in the trenches of Gallipoli.
And keep an eye out for a scene where the Turkish citizens are marching with a flag that looks very similar, if not the same as the one held up in the Lindt Cafe siege.
"The adventure takes us back to 1915, when the Allies campaigned to knock the Ottoman Empire out of World War I. 
British Commonwealth troops from Australia and New Zealand sent thousands of soldiers, known as the ANZACs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps), to fight the Gallipoli Campaign and secure the Dardanelles in western Turkey. 
The ANZACs suffered 10,000 casualties. 
The Water Diviner is about a father in 1919 who has lost his sons in the ill-fated Campaign and goes to Turkey to retrieve the bodies." 
Olga Kurylenko Cast In Russell Crowe’s Directorial Debut ‘The Water Diviner
The Year of the Horse comes around in 12 year cycles and interestingly enough, the 
Year of the Earth Horse ended on January 31, 1919, which would have been followed by the  Year of Sheep/Goat/Ram, which is the year on the Chinese zodiac that follows the horse, so 2015 will mostly be the Year of Sheep/Goat/Ram.
Avoid: golden, coffee?!
Anyway, whatever the "Year of the Sheep/Goat/Ram" may bring in 2015, 2014; The Year of the Horse has certainly been a divine year for Russell Crowe.
Sometimes the truth also makes a good story.
Good luck in finding it though, as you journey down life's rabbit hole.

UPDATE: 1st January, 2015.
"Voice actress Christine Cavanaugh, who brought to life characters including Babe and Chuckie on Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats, has died aged 51.
Her sister, Deionn Masock, confirmed the actress had died on 22 December at her home in Utah.
In 1995, she gave her voice to the title character in the hit movie Babe, based on Dick King-Smith's 1983 novel The Sheep-Pig, about a talking pig who wants to be a sheepdog.
Cavanaugh also provided the voice to kid genius Dexter in Cartoon Network's Dexter's Laboratory for seven series from 1996.
Christine Cavanaugh, voice of Babe and Rugrats' Chuckie, dies at 51
James Cromwell in Babe