I’m a fan of Harlan Coben’s books and their Netflix adaptations, even when they’re in a foreign language with English subtitles. This new TV show demonstrates the adage that’s quoted in the title of this post.
“Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction”
Human’s are so nasty with each other. Murder is most foul. And beneath the motivation is mostly money and the acquisition of it. And sometimes, it’s just a crime of passion, to cover up for infidelities and future wish fulfilment. But, most times, it’s just because someone has had a disagreement with another. But love of money is the root of all evil.
It’s informative of the true police procedurals and how, sometimes, it takes years to solve the crime.
This book came out in 1954. It was meant to be a retrospective of a WWII idea: kids surviving an airplane crash on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere. Now the BBC has adapted it into a four episode series showing on CBC (and Netflix). The first episode was on last night.
Up until then, I had avoided reading or seeing anything about it. In reality, this is not a pretty sight.
William Golding perhaps set out to show us what happens when we are left to our own devices. Post war Britain was a very nasty dog-eat-dog situation. His novel becomes a microcosm of that time period. As always there are two factions in operation whenever people want to organize themselves. Political systems tend to do the same. Literally, there are hunters and there are gatherers: a bit of Cain and Abel.
Since this is only the first part of a four-part series, I haven’t seen the worst that these boys can do to each other, but it was implied right from the beginning.
Jennifer Lawrence (August 15, 1990) and Lucille Ball (1911 – 1989)
There is a certain irony in the fact that the funniest comedienne of the past would take just over a year to return as a more serious actress. But, anyone who has followed Jennifer Lawrence’s career, so far, knows that a very funny lady resides in that beautiful woman.
Jennifer’s birth time is consider excellent. There is one Yod, pointing at Saturn, formed by inconjuncts to the Sun and the Moon. Interesting.
But when you combine Jennifer’s birth chart with Lucy’s birth and death charts, you can see how ‘special’ this relationship is.
In fact, due to the short passage of time between Lucy’s death and Jennifer’s birth, the outer planets have not moved on very far, making their connections very strong. But is that proof? I’m not sure.
Call it Kismet, call it an accident, just don’t call me late for dinner. After posting, yesterday, about Katy Perry and Justin Trudeau, I watched a PBS special about Annie Oakley. Something kept nagging at my brain: could Katy be Annie reincarnated? The look is similar, and the context of their lives is not dissimilar. Let’s take a look, first at Annie’s birth chart and then at the usual combined ones.
That Pluto on her (presumed) Descendant is interesting, to say the least. Her sharpshooter energy is the Mars inconjunct to the Sun/Midheaven conjunction in Leo. Saturn is close nearby. Hmm.
This is where it gets fascinating. Even though Katy has a bucket-load of planets with the North Node as the handle, there are enough connections with Annie’s ‘fatal’ planets to make this feasible. Even the (accidental) lineup of their natal Ascendants with her ‘fatal’ Sun gives me a slight shiver of recognition.
What this did was ask the question of Karma (as stated by Katy): was Justin part of her life then, but in a way that they couldn’t really connect, emotionally? Here’s my leap of faith:
Is that too much of a stretch of the imagination? I wonder.
Oh, Lordy, here’s another bucket-load of planets with the North Node as the handle. Can that be real? Here’s the charts with Justin Trudeau’s birth chart:
Again, the death chart planets are more in line with Justin’s birth planets. I’m not as convinced with this reincarnation. So, let’s rate it “U” for Unreliable. However, the two buckets made me wonder one step further. Could Buffalo Bill and Katy be connected, directly?
If I were a betting man, I’d say that Katy Perry was actually the reincarnation of Buffalo Bill Cody. Does this mean that Justin Trudeau is the reincarnation of Annie Oakley?
I’m not as convinced as I should be. What do you think?
It’s been a question on my mind for a couple of years. The up-and-down strokes are too similar. And I doubt if Melania would imitate his writing style, on purpose.
Normally, I would have written these two off as yet another publicity gimmick. After all, Pierre Trudeau dated Barbra Streisand in the late 1960‘s. But this present pairing has a different vibe. Let’s see why.
Maybe, Katy’s statement about karma is correct. Her North Node is conjunct Justin’s Saturn/Midheaven conjunction: that says a lot. Justin’s Saturn also anchors an interactive Yod featuring inconjuncts with Katy’s Sun/Pluto conjunction in Scorpio and her Neptune in Sagittarius. Justin’s Moon is inconjunct with Katy’s Moon/Saturn conjunction in Scorpio. This definitely is proof that the relationship works for her.
No wonder they presented themselves to my dream last night. They wanted validation of their instincts.
Their First date (July 28, 2025)
They went out for dinner in Montreal, after a walk in the park with [someone’s] dog. That’s interesting because a dog figured in their dream. (He had done something ‘wrong’ but Katy covered over the issue.)
Chris Bledsoe says that the Lady in White showed him Israel and Iran launching nuclear missiles at each other. But then ‘orbs’ destroyed the weapons. Symbolically, this has been purported before. Remember this?
It also begs the question about Trump joining the Iran War: does Iran actually have the capabilities to fire ballistic missiles at Israel? Or was that just the excuse that Israel gave Trump to get him involved?
As usual, I was contemplating what I was going to write today and this song came on my iPod. Timing, eh? It is THE seminal song of America’s disintegration, for sure. Many people have tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to interpret Don McLean’s allusions. Here’s an extended entry from Wikipedia:
Some commentators have identified the song as outlining the darkening of cultural mood, as over time the cultural vanguard passed from Pete Seeger and Joan Baez (the “King and Queen” of folk music), then from Elvis Presley (known as “the King” of Rock and Roll), to Bob Dylan (“the Jester”) who wore a jacket similar to that worn by cultural icon James Dean (“in a coat he borrowed from James Dean”), was known as “the voice of his generation” (“a voice that came from you and me”), and whose motorcycle accident (“in a cast”) left him in reclusion for many years, recording in studios rather than touring (“on the sidelines”)), to the Beatles (John Lennon, punned with Vladimir Lenin; though it is to be noted that McLean has stated “the Quartet” is not a reference to the Beatles) to the Byrds (who wrote one of the first psychedelic rock songs, “Eight Miles High”, and then “fell fast” – the song was banned, and shortly after, the group declined as it lost members, changed genres, and alienated fans), to the Rolling Stones (who released Their Satanic Majesties Request and the singles “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Sympathy for the Devil” (“Jack Flash”, “Satan”, “The Devil”), and used the Hells Angels – “Angels born in Hell” – as Altamont event security, with fatal consequences), and to Janis Joplin (the “girl who sang the blues” but just “turned away” – she died of a heroin overdose the following year).
It has also been speculated that the song contains numerous references to post-World War II American political events, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy (known casually as “Jack”), First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (“his widowed bride”) and subsequent killing of his assassin (whose courtroom trial obviously ended as a result [“adjourned”]), the Cuban Missile Crisis (“Jack be nimble, Jack be quick”), the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and elements of culture such as sock hops (“kicking off shoes” to dance, preventing damage to the varnished floor), cruising with a pickup truck, the rise of the political protest song (“a voice that came from you and me”), drugs and the counterculture, the Manson Family and the Tate–LaBianca murders in the “summer swelter” of 1969 (the Beatles’ song “Helter Skelter”) and much more.
Apparent allusions to notable 50s songs include Don Cornell’s The Bible Tells Me So (“If the Bible tells you so?”), Marty Robbins’s A White Sport Coat, the lonely teenager (“With a pink carnation”) mirroring Robbins’s narrator who is rejected in favor of another man for the prom, and The Monotones’ The Book of Love (“Did you write the book of love”).
Some of those connections were obvious, others, not so much. Here’s McLean’s version of events:
Needless to say, America has gotten quite worse since then.
I read this book when I was just a lad. It went along with watching cowboys and Indians TV shows in my childhood. At the time, I had no idea that I may have been living during those times, first as Étienne Brûlé and then as Pierre-Esprit Radisson. This scene from the film hit me with a ton of bricks.
Why? Because I heard the word, here translated as ‘English’, and realized it sounds like Yankees. I believe the Huron word for English was Yangees, as spoken in the film clip. Wow, just wow.
