Did I Break the projector?

So I have had this just-about-to-expire Loews movie pass in my wallet for the past month. I have been trying to use it (after all it is worth $10-plus in Manhattan) but a busy schedule, proximity, and movies-I-want-to-see just haven't been in sync. Today was the final valid day, and I decided to squeeze "Brokeback Mountain" in, even though I didn't really have time to spend nearly 3 hours at the movies. In fact, I was feeling very distressed and crunched for time when I ambled up to the ticket lady at Lowes 34th Street and asked...

"This pass expires today, is there any way to extend it?"

"Sorry, use it or lose it," she said, with a touch of snooty flair.

"Then one for 'Brokeback', 12:50," I replied.

I sit down while the final previews play out. I check the time. Then again. Ugh, am I really gonna have the time to watch this, get back to Brooklyn, workout, lug some video supplies home, buy groceries, and then get home with enough time to get in about six hours of needed work - all on less than five hours of sleep? The answer is no. I really want to see this movie, but not today, I am only here because I am saving $10. But is this worth the mental toil? I wish I could re-plan the day.

"Brokeback Mountain" starts. Opening credits roll. It's 1963. Heath Ledger steps out of a truck. Jake Gyllenhaal pulls up in a jalopy. The two exchange glances. Then BAM! (Read on kids, it's not what you think.) BAM! The film has stopped! Projector bulb goes out! We are sitting in the dark for a few minutes. Then an usher walks in to tell us both the projector and film have had a massive failure. Three minutes in, the movie has stopped!

The usher hands us each a pass good for another four months, everyone is pretty pissed. But I couldn't be happier.

Cross Country Connection 2.0

If you read yesterday's post, I have something more to add that is almost equally astounding. Another connection involving the four people in the photo above.

While Elizabeth was visiting, she found out that her ex-boyfriend Andy from Portland was in town. Well, not only in town but is also seeing someone, yes, of course from Brooklyn(!) - and as fate has it actually lives just ten blocks away from me in my neighborhood!

Just think of it this way: say right now you are dating someone pretty seriously for a little over a year. What if a little bird landed on your shoulder and said the two of you would be breaking up in a year and then added that you'd both be flying coast-to-coast involved in good long term relationships with two people who live blocks from each other?

You'd probably tell that bird it was looney tunes.

Anyway, it was an interesting dinner the four of us had. Fun, nice, interesting, and - to me - filled with the energy of the world that I am sitting back and enjoying being mesmerized by.

Luquer Street

That has been my address in Brooklyn since 1991. In that time, people have come and gone in my building. But the fourth floor family of Buzz, Patti and their young daughter Anne have always been a fixture. And this is where the coincidence of all conicidences got me started writing this blog.

My girlfriend Elizabeth was visiting from Berkeley for a few weeks over Winter break. We were out shooting some silly video and came home and ran into Anne (I have only seen Anne maybe once or twice in the last five years since she moved to go to school.)

We exchanged pleasantries on the steps. To keep the story simple - we find out that Anne is now a massage therapist and while in college at Colorado she went to the same school as Elizabeth's best friend Amber. E asks A, if she knows her. "Amber is one of my best friends," she replies.

Small world. Here we have two people standing between me on the same block in Brooklyn who both have the same very close pal and I am the connector.

But wait, the story gets even better. We get upstairs. Elizabeth recalls four years ago when she got a massage while visiting Colorado. Who gave her the massage? Anne. But Anne had dreadlocks at that time so Elizabeth didn't recognize her downstairs with short hair.

The odds are just too incredible to really fathom this. So instead of holding in all of these coincidences, I've decided to chronicle them, for your pleasure, for my sanity, for the good of Humankind. And to finally have a trail to see where it all leads.

Fate, Chance, Six Degrees (or less...)

I believe there is a real metaphysical current to our existence. That there is a force out there that envelopes all of us and produces particles of energy. I like to think of it as a jet stream constantly ebbing and flowing that we can all tap into.

There might be many names for it. You can call it conicidence, irony, fate, chance, deja vu, luck, being psychic, or encountering "Six Degrees" of separation, but to me it is all in the same realm of something I'd like to coin simply as "symmetry".

This symmetry has captivated me my whole life. Sometimes scared or shocked me, other times made me chuckle or shake my head in amusement. It is this symmetry that I denied for most of my younger years, then grudgingly acknowledged in my twenties, and now at 38, I fully accept and intend to nurture thru this blog.

We have all had some measure of these type of expeirences: being in the right place at the right time or knowing someone who knows someone who knows Kevin Bacon, but for me I encounter oddites like these on an almost daily basis. Some of my items may not be quite that far-fetched or odd to you, but as a collection I offer this as proof there is an irrefutable energy to the universe.

A few days ago, I had another major coincidence (see my next post), even more outlandish than my usual ones, and so I told it to many friends. One of my neighbor's jaw dropped, then quipped I was a "connector", a term I have been labeled many times by people in sundry circles. This was the "final straw", and so I finally decided since blogging has become such a force, I would start chronicling some of these tales.

And so I begin...