Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.
Last night I read a scene in Last Call where the main character, Scott Crane, is scuba diving in Lake Mead, looking for a severed head. When he finds the head, which turns out to be that of the murdered mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, he sees that some of the skull has changed to coral and that one of the eyes is now a pearl. Coral and pearls aren’t found in lakes, so this is clearly a deliberate allusion to Shakespeare. The phrase “sea change” is even used; I guess “lake change” didn’t have the same ring. (Bill recently asserted, in an unrelated context -- a comment on "The modified Book of the Lamb" -- that lake could refer to the sea.)
When Crane touches the pearl eye, he enters a mostly-hallucinatory vision in which, while his physical body is still scuba diving, he finds himself in Siegel’s casino and meets Siegel himself as he was when he was alive. Siegel shows him a gambling trick: You put two sugar cubes on a table and, before releasing a fly, place bets on which of the two it will land on first. You rig the game by treating one surface of each sugar cube with DDT. By turning one cube poison side up and the other poison side down, you can control the behavior of the fly, which will not land on the poisoned surface. But, as Siegel proceeds to demonstrate with a monstrous fly “the size of a plum,” as the fly eats the seemingly unpoisoned sugar, it eventually reaches the DDT and dies anyway. Like Vizzini, it is doomed because it does not realize that both options are poisoned.
15 comments:
Aussie news has reported on the search for a murdered man's head over the last few days.
abc.net.au/news/2025-06-30/search-continues-for-julian-story-missing-remains/105476506
There is another connection to the Fly spanning a few of your posts and tying back to another character I've guessed as symbolic of you.
In your original Riff Raff post, you called the dream a "fly-on-the-wall" dream. You repeated that phrase a couple posts later in your "Observant flies" post, which also linked to this Last Call book.
So, we have this mention of a Fly on a Wall. You have been linked to another character who was famously "on a Wall": Humpty Dumpty (and Colonel Jessup/ Jack Nicholson).
The phrase seems to tie the fly, who you linked to Vizzini here, to Humpty Dumpty as well.
Yes, and in "Humpty Dumpty revisited," the reason Humpty got up on the wall was so that he could observe things.
https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2024/05/humpty-dumpty-revisited.html
WG, I see that this Julian Story's decapitated body was discovered on June 19, and police believe the murder occurred on June 17. That's close enough, by Debbie's "rule of three" standard, to the anniversary of Bugsy Siegel's murder on June 20, 1947.
When I looked up Ariel's song to be sure I'd got the wording right, I got the Wikipedia article, which notes that "Through its use of rhyme, rhythm, assonance, and alliteration, the poem sounds like a spell."
Shortly after I published this post, Bruce posted on "word spells."
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2025/07/word-spells-in-christian-theology-we.html
In connection with Bill's older idea that Pharazon is Ingwe, King of the Vanyar (singular Vanya), it's perhaps worth noting that Wallace Shawn, who plays Vizzini, also plays the title character in "Vanya on 42nd Street."
The use of Bugsy Siegel in the fly poisoning analogy is interesting to me as well. If the fly is Vizzini, then the one demonstrating the trick could be analogous to the Man in Black / Cary Elwes. I think Bugsy's name would indicate this is so.
We have the first name as Benjamin, meaning Son of the Right Hand, and we have used Ben specifically with this character or Being before. "Bugsy" was a slang term for someone who was thought to be "crazy, eccentric, unstable", as Seigel was.
And lastly, Siegel itself was an occupational name worn by someone who either made Seals or was responsible for their management and distribution. This would seem to be a nod to the 144 and the need spoken of in Revelation to "Seal" them, and have a Name written on their foreheads. Or at least that all comes together nicely in the name of Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, despite his real life association with the mob and criminal activity. But we are dealing with inverted symbols, sometimes, and corrupted storylines. One thing I've mentioned is that even the Holy Ghost would/ will come to be viewed as an Outlaw or criminal by some. It all depends from whose perspective and whose set of laws. Certainly in Ungoliant's kingdom.
To top off the Bugsy Siegel analogy, in helping build Las Vegas, he was most closely associated with the Flamingo Hotel, since he opened it. Flamingo literally means "Flame Colored" or "Red Feathered", like our Phoenix analogy, as well as the Red Colored one I just mentioned in a comment on your other post who was surrounded by the 24 Elders.
So, I think that comes together pretty well.
One other interesting thing of note - in the Last Call passage you allude to, you Siegel's "pearl eye", and the fact that when Crane touches they eye, he essentially becomes a Seer. A Seer is one who, using a "Stone" can see past, present, and future as they actually are and will be. This concept of Seership is heavily associated with the Being who I just linked Siegel to above.
Also, and along these lines, you say Siegel's head was also partially now Coral. Besides being a Shakespeare reference, this would seem to also be an allusion to the Stone, made even more spot on by the fact that Stones have been associating with the head. In fact, if you remember, I unknowingly doodled that one image of a woman with a stone bolted to her head.
Coral is etymologically directly linked to the Stone, as its meaning, per Etymonline, possibly comes from the Hebrew word "Goral", which means "Small Stone".
This is further tied to the Red Stone per a pretty fascinating follow-up explanation by Etymonline after they link Coral to a Small Stone:
-- Originally especially the red variety found in the Mediterranean, used ornamentally, hence "red, the (red) color of coral" (mid-15c.). As an adjective, "made of coral," mid-15c. The coral-snake (1760) is so called for the red zones in its markings. Coral-reef is attested from 1745 (see reef (n.1)).---
The fly-poisoning demonstration in fact takes place in the (hallucinated) Flamingo Hotel.
Uncle Vanya also has a major character called Sonya (cf. the comments on “Weirdos could be here”).
“Bugs,” as a plural noun used as an adjective to mean “crazy,” is akin to “nuts” and “bananas.”
One of my old blogs, taking its name from a line of Spenser referring to horrible sea monsters, was called “Bugs to fearen babes withall.”
Come to think of it, that canto of Spenser has some rather Numenorean imagery:
Suddeine they see from midst of all the Maine,
The surging waters like a mountaine rise,
And the great sea puft vp with proud disdaine,
To swell aboue the measure of his guise,
As threatning to deuoure all, that his powre despise.
The reference of Benjamin Bugsy Siegel also has a strong link back to that silly Descendants song/ reference I made yesterday.
In the song, Uma is threatening a King named Ben. There is another female voice in the song that is opposed to Uma and trying to rescue Ben. Her name is Mal. Usually short for Mallory, which means Unlucky or Unfortunate in our world, but in Elvish can mean both "a paved way, road" as well as "gold" (and a number of other things - it is common root, I guess, but cherry-picking those ones...). A Mal, in that Elvish translation and double meaning, would be a road paved in gold... something like a Yellow Brick Road?
Tying to this, the name of the actress playing Mal is Dove Cameron. Dove is a symbol for the Holy Ghost, tying to the mention above in relation to Roads and Paths. And Cameron, funnily enough, means Crooked or Bent Nose. This specific symbol or reference has come up in relation to Eowyn in past symbols (e.g., Princess Vespa and her hooked nose) as "the Jew", since that nose shape is specifically tied to Jewish ethnic stereotype.
One of the storylines of these movies, it seems, is that the characters don't have to be bound by the traditions or actions of their parents. For instance, it looks like Uma was a bad guy for Descendents 2, but ultimately broke with her mother's inheritance and became good in subsequent stories.
I guess in the last installment, Rise of Red, she acts as the narrator or speaker, which was interesting to see.
It also looks like she is one of the main characters in a book called "Rise of the Island of the Lost", which for someone like me already thinking of Numenor and its restoration, has very Numenorean undertones.
William,
You wrote : "That's close enough, by Debbie's "rule of three" standard.."
~~~~~~~~
My response,
While I don't necessarily believe the law of three is a " standard "
per se', I do believe that the law of three is what is used in
metaphysics as a completed circle.
The number 7 in numerology means completion, as
does the symbolism of the circle. In your example
the target date the murder occurred was June 17 so three before
17 : being 14 , 15 and 16 and three after 17, 18, 19, 20
all have the same 'energy' of the target 17 in this case.
3+3+ 1( 1 being the target) equals 7.
Not my standard, but I do believe it , especially
where it concerns coordinates.
Copy and paste;
"This hidden force, deeply intertwined with
the confidential wisdom of Rosicrucian
and Hermetic principles, has the potential
to alter your reality.
Mastering The Law of Three
- The Hidden Principle of The Universe
unveils an astonishingly potent universal truth
no one talks about — the Triad within the
**** dual nature of the Universe***.
It reveals the invisible influence,
an often-overlooked force that profoundly
shapes your reality."
~~~~~~
3 Essential Universal Forces No One Talks About | Law of Three
- The Hidden Universal Principle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOhVmK6yLEk
The thought that you could be Vizzini? Inconceivable!
Life is inconceivable, princess. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
Post a Comment