Swing Street Synchronicity
By Ben Robinson

Ben's Web Site is at www.illusiongenius.com 

I guess every writer who decided to put their thoughts down on paper was inspired by, or maybe just conscious of their location at the time of the writing. How many writers were possessed by a full moon glow over a beach? A song bird's bright and merry chirp on a cold winter morning, or the sights and sounds of a crackling fire while camping?

When writers consider their immediate environment, the environment affects the writing. It influences the tone and the slant. One could even say thatthe environment "creates" the writing.  Writing is hard work.  The writer is alone with his or her thoughts, never quite sure if what is being written would have any message, feeling or importance for anyone else.

I am lucky in this regard. I have always endeavored to acknowledge where I was when I was inspired to write. I wanted my inspiration captured, and perhaps it was only this type of environmental inspiration that could catch the fancy of the reader.
 
Now suppose, just for a second, you were reading this and you thought to yourself, "I wonder what kind of guy that Ben Robinson is?" And then you turned around and I was standing behind you. Might this be just a little spooky? A lesson from the spooky school of the unexplained?

Well, I write tonight from New York City, where I have had an address for 20 years.  I pride myself in being a New Yorker. I don't like the bad rap New York City has had. Once when I was in Utah I referred to myself as being from "the big bad apple." Coincidentally, a New Yorker from the upper west side replied from the other end of the table, "You might want to watch that...we might not let you back in."

At a New Year's Day party recently I sat among 4 octogenarians. I knew most of them. When I, somewhat rhetorically, asked,  if I could be considered, a New Yorker after 20 years of living in New York; my eighty-year old pals chimed up in unison that "perhaps in another 20 years" I could be considered, but now I was a lowly "associate" at best.

So, tonight I come to you with a tale of New York, told by a New Yorker, written in New York.

 
I live on 52nd Street between First and Second Avenues. Because 52nd Street used to have many jazz clubs, it is affectionately labeled on signposts, "Swing Street." I love my neighborhood and the shop folk who welcome me to their establishments. I love to walk to the UN and back. I even have a favorite bar or ten.

On December 30th my girlfriend and I were at my pad on Swing Street. We hadn't both been there in over 6 months. (We both travel a lot.)  We had a big reuniting New York date. First some champagne at the Marriot Marquis rotating bar, and then down to the 3rd floor theatre to see the new B'way show, The Capeman by my hero, Paul Simon.

We walked home, had a bite to eat at a Japanese restaurant, and then sauntered home to my smooth little bachelor pad.
 
Well, it's a nice story, but not much more of a story than any other guy might have...except for one very strange good night note.

At 1:30am we were still talking about the show and the dinner, so we decided to stay up and watch TV...something we rarely do. We were doing something we never do in a place we both haven't  been to for a while. We decided to watch a program called Strange Universe.  It's about alien beings and paranormal stuff. I sort of dig this, so I don't mind. The host says the first story is about John Lennon seeing a UFO. I remember reading something about this once, so I listen in.
 
The story continues about how Lennon and his girlfriend and former assistant, May Pang, had a close encounter of the third kind while they lived in a penthouse on East 52nd Street...not more than 100 feet from where I was watching the TV on December 30, actually the morning of December 31st. May Pang was videotaped walking in front of my apartment building and as I realized where she was, what I was watching, and the unusual quality of what was happening, everything seemed to stop.  I could only concretely understand:

 1. I was experiencing synchronicity at a UFO sighting location  that had been widely publicized by a famous man at the time of his close encounter.

 2. I was clearly having this experience, because I was not alone. Another was experiencing this too.

 3. Exactly one year earlier, my girlfriend and I had been in the same location, and also sensed an unusual quality of seemingly effortless peace to our extremely complex movements on New Year's eve.

I'm a Beatles fan. John was always my favorite.  I've been to the building in New York where he lived. I've even met May Pang.

Now neither Lennon or I qualified for full New Yorker status...probably because we did not attend school here (apparently that is what the elders take into account). But, what strikes me is that I have been having a crisis of faith recently.  A book I have been working on for nearly 10 years is again having corporate shut down problems. The book concerns amazing coincidences, or, synchronicity.
 
After seeing The Capeman  I was thinking how Paul Simon had accomplished telling a New York story artfully, and how I no longer believed in any form of paranormal phenomenon. Then this Swing Street synchronicity happened.  It was as if I was being told something (what, I am not sure),  in many layers, all at the same time.  All the classic characteristics were there:

The Clustering Effect: many random things sharing the same time and space.

The Kicker: The time appeared to be December 30th, yet it was actually the 31st...the same date as a previous synchronistic encounter at the same location and time.

Nothing happened to me really. I mean, this did happen, but I was not shot with rays from an alien ship.

I did not grow a tail.

What I did, was record this incident as truthfully as I can, some four days after the incident, from my home office, right here in New York City.
 

For another story by Ben, click here.