Above: And balanced on the biggest wave
You race towards an early grave.
Wow. I've always loved secrets, conspiracies, rumors light on evidence but nonetheless fascinating. I've blogged previously about the Numbers stations sending out secret cover transmissions-
they really exist(ed). I had a book called
Rumor! (
New York: Penguin Books, 1984. ISBN 0-14-007036-2) back in the day, in which I pondered over the possible satanic imagery on Proctor & Gamble products
(false), whether or not Walt Disney had been cryogenically frozen (
no), or if porn star Marily Chambers had appeared on the Ivory Snow box (
she had). Nowadays a quick trip to
snopes.com can settle any urban legend debate, but even quick access to information these days doesn't stop the collective unconscious from birthing strange rumors.
Usually a compelling urban myth combines the normal world with the fantastic in an uncanny way, showing the interconnectedness of the dualities we are so familiar with. So, although the Marilyn Chambers story may sound scandalous at first (what kind of soap company would hire a famous porn star to advertise baby soap?) it's true, and even if the photo was taken before Chambers entered the red-light world, the fable neatly suggests both that Ms. Chambers is not so dirty, and Ivory soap not so pure as they first seem. While the Proctor & Gamble story seems more like industrial slander than real insight, some myths really do hit a chord, and stay with us in various permutations. What starts as rumor becomes urban legend, and will eventually become part of our communal mythology.
One of the oldest myth-types is that of the key to secret knowledge, a code that unlocks extraordinary understanding, and perhaps even a glimpse into the very workings of the universe. This is an important part of the ancient
mystery cults, the alchemist's search for the
philosopher's stone, all types of numerology, astrology, cryptography, the heroic quest itself.
These pursuits have been and can be tools of sincere metaphysical travel, or the simple tricks of a huckster.
Back in the sixties, the Rock LP became a powerful common cultural experience, and thus it is not surprising to find such esoteric puzzles lurking in them. The most famous one is the elaborate
"Paul is Dead" myth, which I think is safe to say, debunked. This myth takes the form of the secret death of a young prince, which three other princes work to conceal from their loving audience. The code was erratic, compelling at times, just fanciful at others. Paul is the only Beatle walking across the
Abbey Road cover barefoot-why? Oh well, you see, Paul is the deceased, and the other Beatles are part of a funeral party. Err--riiiight. Anyway, to my young mind this added an interesting sinister undercurrent to an altogether normal band.
What's interesting about these myths is not whether they are true or not. Most of them are patently false if you are talking about objective facts--but all of them hold some kind of emotional or psychic truth. And it is interesting to see how clever people can be in justifying their tales, turning a simple shape into a satanic message or interpreting lyrics either literally, or in a very free way. These myths can deal with rather unimportant matters, like whose picture is on a soapbox, or large historical events, like who killed JFK?, which has spawned many myths.
Finally, what brought me to this is the fascinating
"Dark Side of the Rainbow" myth which I recently encountered. Basically, this states that if you play Pink Floyd's
Dark Side of the Moon album starting at a certain point in
The Wizard of Oz, there are many strange coincidences, audio-visual echoes, and lyrical references. I watched it last night, and this myth isn't breathtaking-you have to stretch your mind a bit. However, it was strangely beautiful to watch the candy-colored fairy tale from the 30s with a 70s band in the orchestra pit. This is a more gentle type of mash-up, where you're not grafting two short, if different, songs together, but instead letting an album and an entire movie drift in and out of sync, in a lovely, nonsensical way. The emergence of this myth makes sense as these two works are among many people's collections and favorites. The point is not whether the album was made to go with The Wizard of Oz-it wasn't. However, they are a beautiful combination. This myth has spawned a search for other movie/album
"synchs" like
"Contact" with Echoes (another Floyd track)
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