synchronicity

I recently had some major synchronicity happen to me. First of all, what does it mean?

Websters describes it as:

"the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality -- used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung"

Wikipedia is more fun. It gives the following example:

"A well-known example of synchronicity involves plum pudding. It is the true story of the French writer Émile Deschamps who in 1805 is treated to some plum pudding by the stranger Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, he encounters plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant, and wants to order some, but the waiter tells him the last dish has already been served to another customer, who turns out to be M. de Fontgibu. Many years later in 1832 Émile Deschamps is at a diner, and is once again offered plum pudding. He recalls the earlier incident and tells his friends that only M. de Fontgibu is missing to make the setting complete, and in the same instant the now senile M. de Fontgibu enters the room by mistake."

My synchronicity concerns a play I will be acting in next week. It is a student written play called "Dancing With The Cockroach." It's a play about Jews, vermin and tap dancing. I have a nice little part where I play an anti-Semite whose son is beaten up by Jews. The curtain goes up next week, and I still don't know my lines. I figured that I could record it on my computer and burn it on a disc. That way I can listen to my lines in the car and learn the part on my way to and from work or wherever it is that I drive to. My problem is that the computer will not make discs; it only wants to make coasters. And it makes a lot of them. But that has nothing to do with synchronicity.

So I'm sitting in my parked car reading the play into a headset plugged into my computer. I need to do all the voices so I remember when my cues are. In order to differentiate between parts, I changed my voice for the different characters. I tried to mimic the way the other actors speak. It turned out to be more funny, and thus more memorable than the parts that went well. So I started mouthing the funny parts instead of my own. I realized that the best way for me to remember my lines would be to record someone else mimicking me, or record myself doing my part in a funny voice.

I thought about some clips my roommates and I recorded in high school for some kind of class project. We remembered all the funny parts: the bloopers and the mistakes. For example, my roommate was supposed to read the line:

"I was in the hospital"

But while he was reading it, his voice cracked, and it came out sounding like:

"I was in the haaaaa-aaaa-spital"

We all cracked up over it. In fact, it's a joke that we remembered years after. In fact, I didn't immediately remember what the recording was about, but instead remembered other funny stuff from other recordings. So sitting in my car recording my voice into my computer made these memories from high school bubble up to the surface.

As I got back to my office at Purchase later in the day, I checked my email and it seemed my old high school rommmate tracked me down. I'm not sure how he did it, maybe he googled me. You never know, I have a pretty huge web presence. Then again, you get the interesting stuff by googling "mennu" rather than "Adam Oded."

So getting back to my exroommate who happened to track me down for the first time in, like, 20 years. I responded with a short email using a word or two of our high school banter. I also ask him what he's been up to. His response:

"I was in the haaaaa-aaaa-spital"