1. Chapter 1 synchronicity

13 songs to learn and sing
1. Iggy and the Stooges - Search and destroy
2. DJ Shadow- Organ donor
3. Morrissey - Satan rejected my soul
4. Guitar Wolf - Fujiyama attack
5. Rocket from the Crypt - On a rope
6. Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland 1945
7. Bowery Electric - Without stopping
8. Toots and the Maytels - 54-46 that's my number
9. The Wedding Present - Brassneck
10. The Pixies - Trompe Le Monde
11. Primal Scream - Loaded
12. My Bloody Valentine - Soon
13. The Walkmen - Everyone who pretended to like me is gone

Chapter 1

The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox proceeds as follows. Quantum mechanics predicts that once two particles have been near each other, they continue to instantaneously affect each other no matter how widely they may be separated. The fact that two separated elementary particles can act in concert has no explanation. This, my friends, is also the essence of synchronicity. The world we live in is checkered with harmonies and coincidences that have no explanation. They just happen. For example, you may recall an old friend and apparently out of the blue they phone you, or turn up at your doorstep. Perhaps, you might want the solution to a question and then find it apparently by chance, in a newspaper article you happen to be reading. Which brings me to irony

The following story is gospel and utterly true. About three years ago an old friend living in Detroit phoned quite unexpectedly, at the time I was listening to the song Deathwatch by Art Bergman. He began to outline a dream his cousin Alexia recently had, a requiem prophesizing my death. She had compelled him to call me. I pissed my pants laughing and ridiculed the poor bastard to death. Secretly though, it gave me the creeps.

Four days later I received another phone call in the form of an obituary, the somber announcement that Alexia’s mother had passed away. Her brother Nick and I had always been childhood friends. However, we adopted career preferences that led us to contrary paths. Eventually we lost touch for the most part. Hundreds of friends and family members attended the succeeding funeral. Following the obsequies Nick quietly fractured the crowd and harbored beside me.

“Alexia told me about the dream she had of your death and I thought, so? What’s the connection? But somehow I knew that I was forgetting something. Then, I finally remembered. By the way, happy birthday”, he recalled and walked away.

I couldn’t believe that he had remembered my birthday. More importantly, why hadn’t I noticed this fact sooner myself-his mother had passed away on my birthday. I later discovered it was on the exact hour that I was born.

Did it mean that this uncanny conjunction bordered on mysticism, or a transcendental message from beyond? Consider the fact that there are voices and images unfailingly, flowing through and around us. They take the form of cellular communication, radio and satellite signals among others. It sounds ghostly, to someone who, for example has never seen television. The last thing I want to do is champion new age wishful thinking or speculation. The thought of it makes me sick. But, maybe there are mechanisms that exist at a level we aren’t capable of recognizing. Then again as the old adage goes, if you roll a dice long enough…..