Asynchronicities

Turtles all the way down

2008-06-30T19:07:00.001-04:00

Two references less than 24 hours apart, freaky:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down

Overshare

2008-02-04T22:04:00.000-05:00

I haven't had any of these in a while. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood? It's possible, I haven't had a very good few months.

Weird though, when I had my most recent one after the hiatus I felt ...really good. Usually these references are so bizarrely coincidental they freak me out a little -- but not this time. I felt back to normal, whatever that's supposed to be. Anyway, on to it:

Again, here's one I can't recall hearing before: the term "overshare". It's kind of along the lines of Too Much Information -- or "TMI" for short, if you're really clever and in the company of equally clever acronymistic people.

The context is more interesting: the first was in a late first season episode of Dexter. The second (and matching) reference was in Bring it On (2000). Yeah yeah laugh it up, I like watching bad movies just as much as I like slowing down at traffic accidents. It was the car wash scene that caught my eye and kept me watching long enough to hear the line. You'd be a fool to underestimate the power of the Dushku.

The weird thing about Bring it On: it was on TV and I flipped to it just before that line. I had seen the overshare reference in Dexter less than 12 hours previous, so the complementary reference stuck out like a sore hand, waving at me with glee.

OK, there's one more weird thing I just realised: both exchanges in dialogue were between brother and sister and both times it was the sister intentionally goading the brother, who said the "overshare" line back in disgust.

I'll have to start using this word now. Goad me.

Pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment

2007-07-11T17:48:00.000-04:00

I was watching Swingers last weekend and it has the lines:
Mikey: ...and it says here "breakfast any time"
Waitress: That's right.
Mikey: I'll have the pancakes in the Age of Enlightenment please.

Last night on The Hour, PJ O'Rourke started talking about The Enlightenment and how it affected writing.

This isn't such a spectacular coincidence except for the fact that I never bothered to learn what the Age of Enlightenment was -- even though Swingers is one of my favourite movies and I've watched it a dozen times -- until this weekend shortly after watching Swingers again. As a result up until now I was ignorant of not only the time period but also the reason why Mikey's lame joke was supposed to be funny.

So here's a question: now that I know what The Enlightenment is am I more likely to notice when it is mentioned and think it's a coincidence -- or is this an actual coincidence? Couldn't that be true for anything I was formerly ignorant of?

You don't notice what you don't know?

I'll try not to hurt myself thinking about that...

Lily Allen

2007-06-18T02:31:00.000-04:00

I get to start off with a perfect example of the type of coincidence I'm talking about, that just happened last week:

I was watching Knocked Up with a friend. Near the start of the movie (in the club scene I believe) Lily Allen's song "Smile" is playing in the background. It has a very distinctive beat, so it was easy to pick out. I wanted to remember to listen to that song when I got home, so I mentioned it to my friend but at the time I couldn't remember who sang it.

Once the movie was over I guess my mind was clearer in the parking lot and I remembered that the singer was Lily Allen. That was funny already because I don't own any of her CDs and I don't listen to the kind of pop radio that plays that song. I probably knew the name from Perez Hilton, of all places.

Right after the movie we went to Chapters to get some Starbucks coffee. As we were browsing around the books we came to the magazine rack and I was flipping through some of them. I recently started getting into family history, so I picked out one of the super-expensive UK-based family history magazines -- which was on the bottom shelf at the very back -- and flipped it open...

It fell open, as magazines sometimes do, right in the center where the staple was visible. Who was on the left side of the page? Lily Allen and an article about her Allen family history.

I had told my friend about having those types of coincidences a few weeks before, so it was weird to finally have a witness to one. It was nice to have someone around to share the weird factor.

Introduction

2007-06-18T02:25:00.000-04:00

For the past few years I've experienced what I consider to be rather bizarre coincidences. I see a reference to a certain person, place, thing, etc in two places shortly after one another. This wouldn't be that bizarre, except that the coincidence usually involves things that I haven't seen references to ever in my life or in a very long time -- or I run into the two instances in under strange circumstances.

Maybe I'm just paying better attention to my surroundings these days? Maybe I'm just getting out more? I'm not sure -- this blog is just to document these things to make sure I'm not going completely crazy. If you're entertained that's just gravy!