Foursight

Seven is one of my favorite movies ever. (What's in the box?!!?) Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, the seven deadly sins, and one of the best villain entrances in cinematic history (“Detectiiiiiiive!”)

Nine, the musical, is based on (according to many people) one of the greatest films ever made—Fellini’s 8 ½. Nine, the animated film thanks Tim B. and Timur B., is about sack puppets saving the world. Nine, the film attempt at the musical, well…I’ll just stop there before the develops into a battle of theatre and film.

Eleven is the smallest two-digit palindrome, polysyllabic numeral, and often confused with the roman numeral for the number two.

Two of these three numbers are prime, one is a perfect square, and the sum of all three numbers is equal to the root of the aforementioned square, cubed.

These three numbers also comprise today’s date.

Numbers are interesting things, if you cared enough to pay attention or look into it. Some people are into numerology, some people have favorite numbers, some have an affinity for palindromes, patterns, and/or sequences.

When Angel, one of my recruiters, (ironic?) was driving me to MEPS before I shipped out, he told me that the secret to everything was the number 4. Interested in his explanation, I was all ears.

Hooray! Audience participation!

Think of anything (in English, I haven’t attempted this in any other language): a person, a place, a thing, a verb, anything. Proper nouns are acceptable, this “thing” that you think of doesn’t even have to be limited to one word.

Count the number of letters in your selection.

Whatever number you end up with, count the number of letters in that.

Repeat as necessary.

You’ll end with 4.

Here’s one of the examples I tried to stump Angel’s theory with:

“George Washington’s wooden teeth”

• “George”: 6
• “Washington’s”: 11
• “Wooden”: 6
• “Teeth”: 5

Total: 28

“Twenty-eight”

• “twenty”: 6
• “eight”: 5

Total: 11

“eleven”: 6

“six”: 3

“three”: 5

“five”: 4

“four”: 4

Done.

Try it. Anything. You always end up with 4.

Think about it. What comes in 4s?

• The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• The Four Corners: Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico
• The tennis Grand Slam: US Open, Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon
• The baseball grand slam.
• The four seasons
• The Four Tops
• The four presidents of Mount Rushmore: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln
• The Beatles
• The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• The Four Horsemen (the shot: Johnnie, Jim, Jose, and Jack)

Other (not so obvious/famously known as) quartets

• The Three Stooges (and Shemp).
• The Holy Trinity (and the Devil)
• The Three Musketeers (Porthos, Aramis, Athos) and the apprentice (d’Artagnan)
• Boyz II Men

I didn’t make this up. It’s there. I’m just sharing the knowledge the was bestowed upon me twelve years ago (almost to the day…that entry will come later this month…)

‘fore I go, I’ll leave with this…

Fore!

May the Fourth be with you.

“Fourscore and seven years ago…”

Merry Fourthmas to all, and to all a good night.

(I could probably go on, but if I extended the list past four, it would almost seem blasphemous.)