"When Are You?"

The operative question indeed. For those of you who are not among the "lost", it will be difficult to explain the myriad of plot twists that resulted in our gang replacing the opening "W". Yet, it's oddly, hauntingly profound. At least Daniel would think so.

You don't have to be a relativitist to notice that the very idea of our own identities are inextricably linked to the time coordinates that produced them. "Who" you are is less what you eat and more of a function of "when" you ate it, so to speak.

These days, you can a live whenever you like. Take the Society for Creative Anachronism, who were certainly the first pioneers in this realm. You can experience the Great Los Angeles Air Raid, attend a Civil War ball, or celebrate the Crash of '29 - all without letting go of your Blackberry.

Ask Edith Wharton, who, if she had been set free from the 19th century, might very well never inhabited the house of mirth.

11:11

A series of digits. Symmetry. An elegant graphic. A random numeric occurence that happens twice a day in Digital World. You may never have noticed this arrangement before. Or, you may be one of an increasing number of people who for no particular reason, look up from their desks to the clock on the wall, or on the dashboard of their car, or the LCD screen on their cel phone, or to the face of their nocturnal friend, the Cable Box, and stop in uneasy recognition. It's not the first time it's happened. In fact, these people will tell you that it's been happening for months, even years. Eleven Eleven. Again. And again. When you least expect it. Where you least expect it. The reason, you may ask? Well, isn't that the 64,000 dollar question. An electronic/visual homing device? An external re-calibration system? A subtle way for the cognoscenti to find their way in this spiralling century? Who knows?

Eleven Eleven,
Two halves of one whole
Four lines all alone.
Eleven Eleven,
Eleven (not 7)
They look down to greet me
To peek at me, meet me
Make me inquire
as to why,
as to who
Placed them before me
whenever I spy.
A box or a cube or a cryptic key,
Digits aligned.
Harmony.
Four I's whose eyes look into me
But what if they're not...
and the I's are we?

c. 2009

Lord Pentland

Head of the Gurdjieff Society in New York from the 1950's - 1970's. A mystery man if ever there was one. Check out the official tribute. Then do your own research...if you can.