Smoke & Mirrors

The Lighthouse: can’t be found unless you’re looking for it. Just that easy. While I’m sure the place is perfectly capable of guiding ships through dangerous waters, the current purpose of the tower appears to be that of monitoring the 360 candidates Jacob has scrawled on the oceanside cave walls over the years.

Why 360? 360 degrees of compass direction, sure, but why?. Does this mean there have only ever been 360 “candidates” in total?

Let’s talk about music and mirrors. Specifically regarding David and music, he plays Chopin’s “Fantaisie Impromptu” at his audition, regarding which I found this interesting nugget on Wikipedia:

The piece then changes to presto (although some versions of the score incorporate a coda, meaning that the original tempo of allegro agitato is repeated) where it continues in C-sharp minor as before. It ends off in an ambiguous fantasy-like ending, in a quiet and mysterious way, where the left hand replays the first few notes of the moderato section theme, while the right hand continues playing sixteenth notes (semiquavers). The piece resolves and gently ends on a C-sharp major rolled chord.” [Wikipedia]

All that left hand/right hand talk seems analogous to our 1.0 and 2.0 timelines, does it not? Heading toward a gentle resolution as the two begin to merge?

Another entry for the book club: The Annotated Alice.

The Annotated Alice is a work by Martin Gardner incorporating the text of Lewis Carroll’s major tales: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass as well as the original illustrations by John Tenniel. It has extensive annotations explaining the contemporary references (including the Victorian poems that Carroll parodies), mathematical concepts, wordplay, and Victorian traditions (such as the snap-dragons) featured in the two books.
In 1990, a sequel, More Annotated Alice, was published. This sequel doesn’t contain the original side notes and Tenniel’s illustration were replaced by those of Peter Newell. It also contains the “suppressed” chapter “The Wasp in a Wig”, which Carroll omitted from the text of Through the Looking-Glass on Tenniel’s recommendation.

In 1999 The Definitive Edition was published. It combines the notes from both works and features Tenniel’s illustration in improved quality.[Wikipedia]

Regarding the sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass:

Although it makes no reference to the events in the earlier book, the themes and settings of Through the Looking-Glass make it a kind of mirror image of Wonderland: the first book begins outdoors, in the warm month of May, (May 4), uses frequent changes in size as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of playing cards; the second opens indoors on a snowy, wintry night exactly six months later, on November 4 (the day before Guy Fawkes Night), uses frequent changes in time and spatial directions as a plot device, and draws on the imagery of chess. In it, there are many mirror themes, including opposites, time running backwards, and so on.

Alice is playing with her kittens — a black kitten and a white kitten, the offspring of Dinah, Alice’s cat in the first book — when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror’s reflection. Climbing up on the fireplace mantel, she pokes at the wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers, to her surprise, that she is able to step through to it to an alternate world. In this reflected version of her own house, she finds a book with looking-glass poetry, “Jabberwocky”, whose reversed printing she can read only by holding it up to a mirror. She also observes that the chess-pieces have come to life, though they remain small enough for her to pick up.[Wikipedia]

Food for thought, eh?

Here’s another item to think about: how do we know Jack is the Shephard written on the compass dial?

Does David have a destiny greater than training at the Williams Conservatory? Perhaps he is the candidate associated to #23 and will need to come through the proverbial looking-glass to join the 1.0 and 2.0 realities together in the end.

Perhaps Jack’s actions in the lighthouse are analogous to what he must do to join the 1.0 and 2.0 storylines: smash through that looking-glass.

I like the sound of that; let’s go with it for now. On to the Quick Hits.

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