Not pocalypse, but fest / A day on which I’m blest: September 6th is the coming AMZ duodecfest, the celebration of my 84th birthday, 84 being the 7th — and therefore lucky — duodecade (a duodecade is a dozen years, the duodecimal counterpart of the decade in the decimal system). I’m posting now about my associations with 84, to get that stuff out of my head, so that 8 weeks from now I can just lie back and let the occasion wash over me.
So: first thing, my lucky duodecade. A notion that bubbled up from my mathematical past, along with things like triangular numbers, the Fibonacci sequence, repeating decimals, the infinity of primes, transfinite numbers, and all that good stuff.
Then, second thing, the 84 Lumber Company and the Pennsylvania town of Eighty Four, which leads me to the phallicity of lumber, logs, and planks; if there’s a phallus or phallic act somewhere in a topic, I’ll find it. (I continue to hope that someone has used 84 like 69, to name a sexual act — he 84ed like a crazed mink.)
Finally, Helene Hanff’s delightful 1970 book 84, Charing Cross Road, which takes me to life histories (in this case, of two people) and to rambles through books, both old friends and fresh discoveries (which is what those two people engage in, in transatlantic correspondence). Two more themes from my writing.
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