Etc Etc Amen

[Dayna]

When I was growing up, I had lots of interesting coincedences, as I've said. The one thing I've always found some comfort in, in all the chaos in my life, was my drawing & listening to music while growing up.

After my parents marrage broke up, when I graduated highschool, I met a really nice lady. The one who owned the Arabian horses I've talked about before. I pratically lived at her house, & sometimes if she wasn't home, I spent a lot of time just alone with the horses, hiding in the barn, drawing, or just thinking.

Then eventually, things changed & I never saw her again for a very long time. I kept wanting to see her, but just wasn't able to. Many years went by. I had been struggling with various jobs in my life, & then one day, I just walking down my road where I used to live, in the city, there this freind was again, outside of a house I never expected her to be in.

She told me was just renting that house & then she & her husband were moving to Tennesee. Just out of the blue, she told me "You will never ever feel peace unless you use the talent you have, in some way." Then just like that, I never saw her again. I thought, how could she have known what I've been trying to do all these years?
Is that a strange coincedence?

[Dayna]

The other day I was sitting on the floor looking through a bunch of music books & one of the books fell off of an upper shelf & nearly hit me in the head.

needs to fall open on the very tune you've been looking for or humming, or hit you on the head causing a realignment of your synapses so that when you next pick up the guitar: hey presto you are a virtuoso and can play all the tunes in the book 'just like that'
---> for the full KUU nudge

Maybe I'll go back to the book store today & a good guitar book will fall on my head & I'll be enlightened like that. ;)
It would be nice if that could happen.

[Jonathan E.]

As well as coincidences, may I suggest thinking about synchronicities, which are roughly defined as meaningful coincidences, and thus may be closer to what Howard is looking for.

[Jonathan E.]

'American English' is an acknowledged variant of the English language. It's not only spellings, but also pronunciation, some grammatical differences, different words existing in each and the same words having different meanings in each.

Quite! Have you got a fag? Like football? Into dogging?

Who was it said that we're two nations divided by a common language?

Credited to Winston Churchill and George Bernard Shaw — and Oscar Wilde. There doesn't seem to be great agreement. But there is much discussion, some of it interesting.

[Dominic]

I used to think that in American English the word "fall" replaced "autumn", but that Murakami book reminded me of (for example) the song Autumn In New York. So, are "autumn" and "fall" interchangable?

Also, "sidewalk" and "pavement". Is the word pavement used in the US, or did the indie band Pavement choose it to reflect their Anglophone sensibilities (of course they were heavily influenced by The Fall!)?

[Jonathan E.]

"Pavement" is actually used to describe the material that covers the roadway.

People in the US know the word "autumn" but just don't use it, in much the same way as they always say "kids" instead of "children." It's so much quicker, more efficient.

But then there's the lovely song, "Autumn Leaves." Although originally a French song, the English lyrics were written by Johnny Mercer, an American. Thanks to Wikipedia for that info — for some reason I can't put in a link.

[Chris P]

The other day I was sitting on the floor looking through a bunch of music books & one of the books fell off of an upper shelf & nearly hit me in the head.

needs to fall open on the very tune you've been looking for or humming, or hit you on the head causing a realignment of your synapses so that when you next pick up the guitar: hey presto you are a virtuoso and can play all the tunes in the book 'just like that'
---> for the full KUU nudge

In retrospect that 2nd example would be very unKUU-like, that's more your out-n-out miracle, KUU stuff is more of an uncanny 'nudge' - sort of everyday (for someone somewhere) minor miraculous, but still conceivably coincidence.

How are your fingertip callousses building up Dayna ?

[Chris P]

Here's a second hand Kuu-incidence which was related to me by someone about a friend of his. I believe it's true in its mixture of mundanity and tragi-comedy. I may change some small details to protect the person's identity.

It was a hot seventies summer and 'X' was a young man still a teenager, finished school but with no job. In the daytime at his local open air swimming pool desperate to impress the girls, posing in his new swimming trunks at the edge of the pool while they laughed at his antics. With a big build up he finally dived into the pool -splash - only to hit his head with a sickening crunch on the bottom. Feeling morbidly sick and seeing stars he was ignomineously pulled out of the water by his pals and rushed to casualty.
Discharged with a bandage round his head he was back home in time to be sitting down in front of the telly for early evening news programmes. In those days an oddish man - Richard Stillgoe - used to make up attempts at witty songs to end the local news on a light note. 'X' 's jaw hung open out of his bandaged head as Stillgoe's 'witty' song recounted the story of some young man full-of-himself & showing off at a swimming pool then diving in and cracking his head open, possibly with a 'humorous' moral quip at the end. 'X''s incident had not been remotely newsworthy, so there was no way this could be explained, he became convinced the TV was communicating to him directly, and presumably coupled with the days heat, his hormones, and mild concussion; this was enough to send him off to the looney bin. His friend said that he was many years later still occasionally bouncing in and out of said establishments.
As I say, the tragi-comic mundanity leads me to believe this one, although the only way to be sure would be to track down every one of Stillgoe's 'witty' songs, and that would be a soul-destroying task. Probably even Youtube won't have plumbed those depths, ahem, I mean delights (not !) .

[Chris P]

Probably even Youtube won't have plumbed those depths

I found this, but I wish I hadn't. 'You've made a happy man very old' as Spike used to say. This is pure musical horror (and I advise the curious NOT to click on this link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc80G6Yzu04

are the audience pissed, simple-minded and inane, or being paid to laugh ?

Surely this sort of stuff was the prime reason Punk had to happen, I feel contaminated just having heard this: nurse - it's urgent - bring me some amphetamine and an inoculation of the Sex Pistols (or to wrench this thread back on topic - 'Tea, Rex ?' by Zachary B.) , MAX volume til my ears bleed, and spittle flecks the air in glutinous yet irridescent arcs

[Dayna]

In answer to the question about Autumn & Fall. Around here, I've heard the two used interchangably. I've had a book for quite a while about the different words used there in Britain, & it's very interesting. I've sort of picked up the British way of spelling somethings now, like colour, & humour.

About my fingers. I'm sorry to say, I got sort of stuck & it's because of all these books. They seem to be very confusing for me. I need a person to teach me right from the beginning. There is a big music store I know of that isn't far from here, where I used to go with some guy I used to know a long time ago.

I think they'd be very good for me, but I haven't been so good with money, so I'll have to wait a little bit on that. Then I will try it & see how I do. If I turn out not to be good at that, they offer piano lessons too. I don't have a piano here, but it's what my Mother taught me when I was younger.

[howard male]

Thanks for all these, guys. Keep em coming! I particulary liked the your stopped clock, June - I though kind of thing only happened in bad movies? And the swimming pool story gets full marks too.

Here's Zac's guide to the types of KKU-incidence its possible to encounter. This part of the KUU Hypthesis got cut out of 'Etc Etc Amen' when I removed about 50% of the philosophical stuff as I was adviced it was getting in the way of the narrative elements.


TYPES OF COSMIC NUDGE

1. The Introductory Nudge

We've all got to start somewhere. Everyone has a story to tell of a remarkable coincidence they have experienced. This may well have been your introductory nudge, it's just that you dismissed it as remarkable yet quickly moved on. You either just forget about it or hone it down into a 'well I never!' pub or dinner party anecdote. Yet the cosmic nudge could arguably be called a mini-miracle if you began to analyse what the odds were of this meeting occurring; how easy it would have been, for example, for the two of you to have missed each other if either had been at the same spot a mere five minutes earlier.

2. The Topical Nudge

A subject or topic comes up more than once in a short space of time. The more obscure the subject and the less time that has past between appearances, the more likely it is that you have been nudged.

3. The Defying-the-odds Nudge

This has to be more than just throwing three sixes one after the other. There has to be an additional dimension to the event - perhaps you were thinking about the KUU at the time, or you particularly needed to put someone else in their place in the game you were having.

4. The Visual - Aural Nudge
When images on your turned-down TV seem to perfectly connect with the music you have chose to play at the same time. Such synchronised entertainment can last anything from a minute to half an hour or even more. Apparently if you start my old mates, the Floyd's album 'Dark Side Of The Moon' at the same time as starting the film 'The Wizard Of Oz' images and sound interact in an interesting way. Needless to say, no connection was planned by the Floyd. The day after I found out about this, I saw two characters on an American cop show discussing the exact same Floyd - Oz connection. Or perhaps a word is heard at exactly the same time you are reading it - on the radio of TV, or even overheard on the bus. Once again the word should be unusual and give you a frisson of excitement to be considered a nudge.

5. The Unasked for Gift Nudge

This nudge can also be found in other religions. It's 'manna from heaven' for the Christians, 'Allah provides' for the Muslims, and 'God's gift' to the Hindus. It's fairly self explanatory.

6. The Unlikely Meeting Nudge

This is when the KUU reunites you with an old friend or acquaintance that you haven't seen for years. The KUU will often up the anti even more by having the chance meeting take place in some other part of the world, thereby increasing its unlikeliness and our surprise. The KUU calling on us when we are out and about in the world rather than our own ighbourhood is more exciting. If we bump into someone in our home town - pleasant surprise. In another city in the UK- bigger surprise. If the whole world is our oyster then the odds against meeting someone you know are much much greater, so obviously we are going to be more astonished by the encounter.

Mexico City, 1966. The largest population of any city in the world. I met a cabaret artist and a fellow Englishman called Jon Flynn while trying to get a coach to go to the pyramids in the ancient city of Teotihuacan. He was dandyish and articulate and so I sensed we might get on. We ended up on the flat top of one of the pyramids with giant butterflies circling, discussing the B-sides of Kinks singles. Anyway, for some reason addresses etc were not exchanged. A week later, on the other side of the city, in a tiny, obscure local marketplace, I hear his familiar, theatrical tones behind me, and a relationship is cemented which still exists today, some ten years later. He hadn't even been in the city during that intervening week, thereby making the chance of us meeting again in this teeming metropolis even more unlikely.

7. The Precognition Nudge.

This is where something seen or spoken of then becomes a reality. Children seem to be particularly receptive to this one. I know of a four year old called Jessica who has a habit of predicting what she'll find at jumble sales her mother takes her to. One weekend her mother asked her what she was going to look for. 'A whale,' she replied without hesitation. Her mother chuckled - she'd be lucky. A grimy old Barbie doll, maybe, or scratch-up copy of a favourite single with someone's name in biro on the cover, quite likely - but a whale, no way. But the first stall they hit, there it was, a delightful furry blue whale which, as is usual with Jessica at jumble sales, she got for free.

8. The Dream-mail Nudge

This is where any useful or precognitive information is conveyed to you in your sleep. I have received many of thoughts and ideas in these notebooks by dream-mail, so I'm always frantically scribbling stuff down in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning.


And here's one of my favourite multiple KUU-incidences more of less chosen at random from my collection.

I was at monthly warehouse book sale. I turn up early expecting to find at least half a dozen bargains at a pound each, but then I noticed it's was academic book sale - and very dry academic books at that. I was about to leave when I spot a spine which to my trained eye looks suspiciously like a novel's spine. I pick it up. It's called 'Second Hand' and it's by an author I've never heard of, Michael Zadoorian. It appears to be a novel in praise of junk. It's only a pound so I buy it.

When I get home I study the cover and only then notice the View Master slide amongst the still life of kitsch detritus. I collect view master slides. I start to read the book find that the main character has the following in common with myself;

1. He has a sister's called Linda

2. He wears antique tweed suits

3. His father has an oxygen tank in the house as his reward for a life time of heavy smoking.
4. His father loves Ian Fleming novels. (my father reads nothing else apart from the Daily Telegraph)

5. The main character makes a new girlfriend after a gap of five years (my gap was an even more unhealthy 8 years!)

6. She turns out to be into Mexican Day of the Dead stuff. Marcia has been also been into these candy and chocolate skulls since our trip to Mexico.

7. Another day, another chapter of 'Second Hand.' Last night I was listening to a tape of a Charlie Gillett radio show. Charlie's guest chose to play a track called 'The Signifying Monkey' by Oscar Brown jr. I'd never heard the song before. On page 162 my literary doppleganger puts on a tape to cheer up his new girlfriend;

'.....but then I turn it off. Somehow "The Signifying Monkey" doesn't seem appropriate, considering our mission.'

Obviously if the song Id heard on the tape they day before had been 'My Way' it wouldn't be so much of a KUU-incidence but this song is pretty obscure, at least in the sense of finding it mentioned in a novel the day after hearing it for the first time.

And finally, another Spooky Jessica story;

Her dad sees a dead duck on his way home but has told no one about it. The next day Jessica says "isn't it a shame ducks have to die."

[Kirin]

I know I'm coming to this late (and I can't think of any coincidences to share) but congratulations, howard male, on writing something long and grand and coherent enough to be sent to a publisher -- and then actually having the guts to send it -- even if they didn't pick it up -- and so on, and so forth -- in short, for getting past the point of saying, "I'm going to write a book" (which lots of people do) and actually writing the thing (which lots of people don't).

[Tom McPhillips]

OK, here's one or even a double...

I get a magazine called "Kyoto Journal", mostly about the Far East, it comes out six times a year or so, sometimes it's brilliant, sometimes it's so-so... so that's a given - nothing special there.

Couple of months ago, because the magazine originates in Kyoto, the latest issue happens to be an anniversary issue and is devoted entirely to the city of Kyoto itself.



Next, I'm visiting a friend and his new wife in their new house in Oxnard, near LA and as I walk into the house, their laptop is open on the kitchen table. The background image my friend's wife has chosen is a picture of the Golden Pavillion Temple



The temple is a famous one in Kyoto, I've been there so I recognized it immediately. I asked why she'd chosen the shot and she said it was just because she though it was a cool picture.

The following day I travelled to Japan, to stay in Tokyo for a week or more (I just got back yesterday). When I got to my hotel, as he was checking me in, the receptionist mentioned something about the fact that I wouldn't be staying at the hotel the following night, but that was OK they were going to hold my room while I was away. Very mysterious! Later that evening one of the production assistants on the project called me to tell me that the following morning we had to get the Bullet Train from Shinagawa to visit, you guessed it, Kyoto.



The manager of the artist I'm working for wanted to meet us there because he wanted to show me some objects in Kyoto that he thought he would like me to incorporate into my stageset design. So I had no plans whatsoever to go anywhere near Kyoto this trip, just stay in Tokyo, and there I was.

The second KUU? Well, one of things the manager wanted to show me was the interior of the hotel we were staying at that night...



Now, about three months ago, totally on impulse I bought a book about a Japanese interior designer, who has a firm called "Super Potato" who I'd never heard of before.


Fantastic work - I didn't remember seeing this in the book but the design of the lobby suggested that it might be his work. Her manager didn't know, but asking one of the hotel staff, he confirmed that it was.

And the third KUU? I'm two thirds of the way through Howard's book - so I notice these things...

[howard male]

Funnily thing is, Kirin, there never really was a defining point when I said 'I'm gonna write a book,' the thing just crept up on me. Firstly I was asked if I'd like to write a long (18,000 word) short story for serialisation in a Japanese newspaper. I only said yes because I needed the money - I had no idea if I'd be able to do it or not.

After that was finished, I realised how much I'd enjoyed doing it. And my characters seemed to be banging on the walls of their short-story prison, demanding to be let out into a novel.. And so, two years later, I found myself in possession of something which was 150,000 words long, and vaguely resembled a novel. Some of my characters were much happier in their new setting. Other's probably wished they had never asked - poor souls.

But it's only now that I can't imagine not having written it, it feels so essential to my spiritual and intellectual well-being to have let all this stuff out onto the page.

As for having the guts to send it, I don't think it's got anything to do with guts. I just use old jiffy bags I've had CDs sent to me in, shove the book in, stick on a stamp, and go to the post-box. What I'm trying to say is that the process is so impersonal (right down to the impersonal rejection letter one gets back) that nothing could be easier. Obviously it's more nerve-racking when you're sending it to someone whose opinion you respect - then it feels like you're ten years old again, seeking approval from a favourite teacher - but mostly it's just a tedious part of the daily grind.

Another factor that I think adds to the lack of nervousness I've felt is that it's not unusual for it to be six months before a form letter arrives saying 'no thank you.' Would you feel nervous if after throwing a hand grenade, you knew it was going to be six months before you heard the explosion (or the dull click of a dud)?

[howard male]

Nice one (or three) Tom! And I think we might have a mini-KUU here too, as three minutes after you posted your story, I was posting the story of how I came to write 'Etc Etc Amen' in the first place; because I got asked to write a short story for a Japanese, English-language newspaper. I only wish I could say it was the Kyoto Journal (it was in fact The Asahi Weekly) but at least there is a Japanese connection.

My sneaky get-out clause with KUU-incidences is that they can never be too astonishing, as the KUU doesn't want KUUists to believe, it just wants them to entertain the possibility (because 'belief is more trouble than it's worth'). So if my story had been printed in the Kyoto Journal, that would probably have pushed you over the edge into belief! :-)