The unreadable Chip, Leo, Ebber, and the Rainbow Connection

This morning, I read William Wright's latest post, "France, Iowa, Des Moines, and Chip-monks.... Who would have thought?" Chip-monks came from my post "Round leaves and chip monks," in which I connected William's posts about Alvin and the Chipmunks with my dream about a circular engraved metal plate which was called a "chip" in the dream. In my post "The Gospel of Luke on lobsterback," I had connected this "chip" with a shrink-wrapped "round book" in a 2020 dream of mine. William's latest post connects the Chip with a prophecy in the Book of Mormon about a "sealed" book, and I left a comment saying this fits with the round book in my dream. In the "Gospel of Luke" post, I even wrote:

And "I wanted to look through it but couldn't because it was shrink-wrapped" -- what is that but another way of saying, "I cannot read a sealed book"?

So the Chip is something to read, but it can't be read, because it's sealed.

This evening, I was tutoring a student, helping him with a listening exercise. He listened to a recording that said this:

Tina is asking her friend for help. What did Tina see on her computer screen?

Hi, Jonathan. I'm wondering if you can come over and give me a hand. I was trying to open a file, but I kept receiving an error message. The file is a short film I made for my biology project. I saved it to my computer yesterday, but now I can't open it. Can you help please?

Then he had to choose which of three possible error messages Tina saw:

He correctly chose answer A, which says:

Error

Cannot read from the source file.

Item type: Video Clip

Size: 10MB

Wanting to make sure he had really understood and wasn't just guessing, I asked him why he had chosen that answer.

"Because it says 'video chip.'"

"Actually, it says 'video clip.' That means a short video taken from something longer."

Why did he make that particular error? Subconscious telepathic contamination from his teacher? Wouldn't be the first time. Read as he read it, the error message says that it "cannot read from" a "Chip" -- perhaps because it's sealed?

The error itself is a sync. In "Chips, clips, and the eclipse," where I report my Chip dream, I also report seeing the word clips, misreading it as chips (a natural error, since it was on a container of French fries), and connecting that with the Chip in my dream.

Ever since Chip Monks came up, I've been thinking about Eggmonks, a type of fantastic creature invented by my brother Joseph when he was very young. Eggs have been connected with hidden golden treasures, and thus with Plates, so I thought the Eggmonks might have something to do with the Chip Monks. The thing is, I have reams of family juvenilia, preserved in a massive tome called the Scarlet Notebook, and I couldn't remember which of his stories had Eggmonks in it. After checking a lot of them, I finally found the elusive Eggmonks in a 40-page story called At Last, Something Besides These Boring Plains! (The title sort of rhymes with that of this blog, which alludes to this couplet from Phantastes: "From the narrow desert, O man of pride / Come into the house, so high and wide.")

So the story has Eggmonks -- "Eggmonks are a race of egg shaped creatures with wings, legs, a face, and toes, the number of which increase with age" -- but nothing about them jumped out at me as notable. What did jump out at me was this passage, the first time the two characters Leopold and Ebber appear together (typos in the original):

As they walked towards that boat Jats had an idea, "Why doesn't Goober and Gus sing us their song while we walk? We can make it the theme song for our expedition!"

"A great idea!" said Fillip, "sing away!"

Gus and Goober gladly obliged.

"Wow! That is a great song!" said Fillip when they were done. "Lets sing it again, all together now, a one and a two and three four five!"

Everyone but Leopold and Ebber burst into song. Ebber didn't like singing, but he liked to song good enough. Leopold, on the other hand, didn't mind singing, but he couldn't stand the song.

By the time they finished the second rendition they where at the boat.

There's been a little sync theme lately about the name Leo(n) Egbert. William has interpreted it as having to do with Peter or Pharazon, but it very obviously must also have something to do with our mutual acquaintance Leo, whose last name is Ebbert (separating the names for reduced searchability, Leo). The juxtaposition of the names Leopold (for which Leo can be a nickname) and Ebber fits right in with this pattern and seems to emphasize that it's not just about eggs and Humpty Dumpty but also somehow about Leo.

The context in which Leopold and Ebber appear together is that the group is singing a song as they prepare to board a ship, and it's going to be the theme song for their expedition.

Leo's most recent comment on my blogs, as of this writing, was on my post "Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory," where one of the things he wrote was this:

You'll notice these tales and rumors of the straight road occurred exactly where Nephi builds his ship: "along the shores of the sea". What I envision in 1st Nephi is Lehi's crew are among those "permitted to find" the Straight Road and it is upon that Road that they set sail. Think of the Rainbow Connection Kermit the Frog sings about (although I think Sarah McLachlan does it better). You know, the one that "calls the young sailors" like in Tolkien's description.

Okay, it's about ships and a song, but that's kind of a weak-sauce sync, right? O ye of little faith!

As soon as Leopold, Ebber, and the others have boarded the ship (of which Ebber is the captain), we are introduced to the first mate, Bofred, whose defining character trait is -- get this -- that he's constantly singing "The Rainbow Connection" to himself. Here's his entry scene:

Just then an average sort of human came walking up singing. "Some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers... the dreamers... and Meeeee! 'allo cap'in."

"Hello Bofred. Lets get going," said Ebber Scrubs.

"So, so cap'in." said Bofred, then he sand. "So We've been told, and some choose, to believe it. I'll prove them wrong, wait and see..."

Here he is again four pages later:

They heard him singing as he came up, "Some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection, the lovers, the dreamers and me. Hullo cap'."

"Bofred, there is a storm coming up, get two men at each sail, I want to ride this storm as long as possible."

"Sure cap." said Bofred, "Will you be doing the rudder?"

"I don't know. I can't decided if this storm is going to be big enough that I will want to take the main flipo sail."

"Hmm..." said Bofred looking out at the storm cloud, then he started singing under his breath, "Some day we'll find it the rainbow connection... I think that it will be a big one cap' it feels like it."

Another four pages later, this time with a bit of "St. Judy's Comet" thrown in:

Just then the hatch opened and in came Bofred singing, "Some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection... hmm hmm so we've been told, and some choose, to believe it, I'll prove them wrong wait and see... little boy, little boy, wont you lay your body down."

Later on the same page:

"Now what do we do?" asked Fillip as he sat on the rolling floor.

"Some day we'll find it, the rainbow connection..." sang Bofred very loudly.

"I said, What do we do now?" said Fillip louder.

"So we've been told, and some choose to-- What did you say?" sang Bofred."

"What do we do now?" said Fillip again.

I trust I've quoted enough to establish my point. Whatever the "theme song for the expedition" was supposed to be (the one Leo and Ebbert refused to sing), Bofred sees to it that the actual theme song is "The Rainbow Connection."

Sorry about this, Leo. You may not be interested in sync, but sync is interested in you.

Note added: Even the passing reference to "St. Judy's Comet" turns out to be relevant, as William has connected the Chip with the Sleepy Ones.