Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Lattice of Coincidence


"Lots of people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidents and things. They don't realize that there's this lattice of coincidence on top of everything. I'll give you an example to show you what I mean: Suppose you're thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly, somebody says: plate, or shrimp, or plate of shrimp. No point in looking for an explanation. It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness."

That's not me talking. I don't spend enough time in the metaphysics section to start rambling like that. That's Tracey Walter's character 'Miller' from the film Repo Man, which I suggest you make haste to go out of your way to see if you haven't already. It's a classic.

More importantly though is that 'lattice of coincidence' concept that he's talking about. I like that, or at least I like that term, and to tell the truth it does seem like time and time again while in the midst of some esoteric thought that proverbial plate of shrimp does come somewhere within earshot. I'm not sure how Green Apple ties in to this lattice exactly, but it's often here at work that my thoughts surprisingly manifest themselves physically before me. I suppose that's what comes with forty-two years of accumulation of used goods will get ya'. The detritus of the cosmic unconscious.

The other day I was reminiscing over the days when I was mildly obsessed with the Providence, Rhode Island art scene. For the uninitiated, in the late 90s and early 00s Providence was host to the Fort Thunder warehouse as well as the Paper Rad art collective, both of which produced a mountain of pretty seminal underground art, both audio and visual (re: this video for the band Lightning Bolt). As I was saying though, mid-reminiscence (totally a real word according to Merriam-Webster) what do I see come across the buy counter but Brian Chippendale's out of print and fairly rare first graphic novel, Ninja. Shortly after that I come across a copy of the Wizardzz LP (another Fort Thunder project) in the 'misc w' section in our annex, and later still a copy if Paper Rad's BJ and Da Dogs out in our bins.

All this in just one shift? Lattice of coincidence? Big plate of shrimp? The unexpected finds that turn up in an archeological dig can be exciting indeed. Now if that Paper Rad DVD from 2006 would just turn up...


No comments: