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Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Number of the Beast = -50
Got this from Althouse and it tickles me to death: apparently, the number of the Beast in Revelations is 616 and not 666. I'd long known that the Book of Revelations was a coded political message and not the prediction of a real-life apocalypse (one benefit of a Catholic education), but this is just too funny to ignore. I also didn't know it was likely a reference to Nero, as the identity of the Beast never interested me.
As a fanboy, I need to re-assess if DC had a pact with the devil when its offices were located on 666 Fifth Avenue. But it goes beyond that,of course. All those heavy metal bands and occult thrillers are now outdated, all those self-proclaimed Biblical exegetes who claim they've unlocked Revelations' blueprint to the rapture will have to create new layers of delusions and denials, and somebody will have to go back and do CGI edits to those Omen movies... Right?
Ahh, of course not. As one of the Biblical scholars in the article states, 666 has long ago captured and defined the public imagination and it's not likely to change just because the facts have changed. 616, which is the Grand Rapids, Michigan area code, simply does not compare to the repetition of three sixes. That said, a whole new industry can be started by places with 616 claiming what's rightfully theirs. Imagine this: "Visit Grand Rapids - The REAL Number of the Beast!"
And on a complete tangent, I'm glad I live in the 808 state. The area code has a beauty all its own: an unending circle in the middle, bracketed by two symbols for infinity.
616. Heh. Somewhere, the members of W.A.S.P. are smacking their foreheads.
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As a fanboy, I need to re-assess if DC had a pact with the devil when its offices were located on 666 Fifth Avenue. But it goes beyond that,of course. All those heavy metal bands and occult thrillers are now outdated, all those self-proclaimed Biblical exegetes who claim they've unlocked Revelations' blueprint to the rapture will have to create new layers of delusions and denials, and somebody will have to go back and do CGI edits to those Omen movies... Right?
Ahh, of course not. As one of the Biblical scholars in the article states, 666 has long ago captured and defined the public imagination and it's not likely to change just because the facts have changed. 616, which is the Grand Rapids, Michigan area code, simply does not compare to the repetition of three sixes. That said, a whole new industry can be started by places with 616 claiming what's rightfully theirs. Imagine this: "Visit Grand Rapids - The REAL Number of the Beast!"
And on a complete tangent, I'm glad I live in the 808 state. The area code has a beauty all its own: an unending circle in the middle, bracketed by two symbols for infinity.
616. Heh. Somewhere, the members of W.A.S.P. are smacking their foreheads.
Post a Comment
I find it amusing that both you and I work for Adecco, although I'm under the great Edison brand name, probably never to escape again.
You worked for ComicsOne? I only know the name because they published the Onegai Teacher manga in English, but I'm curious what it was like working in the anime/manga industry before the boom.
That's funny, I never thought about working for ComicsOne as before the manga boom but rather working for a dotcom right before the bubble burst. I still have the notebooks I kept during my time at the company - which was only from April to October of 2000 (and I was among the last of the original staff to leave!) - and tell myself I'll write about it someday.
All the bitterness is long gone but there are some very interesting incidents worth recounting, including a particularly instructive one-on-one conversation with the founder of the company which made clear to me why they'd never become as big as their business plan claimed they would become.
But the short answer: working at ComicsOne was fun on a personal level but very difficult (that's a polite euphemism) on a professional level. The best thing about my time there was being introduced to my wife through a co-worker.