{"id":299,"date":"2006-05-25T18:56:31","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T18:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/?p=299"},"modified":"2006-05-25T18:56:31","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T18:56:31","slug":"voltaires_footm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/?p=299","title":{"rendered":"Voltaire’s footman"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year ago, I wrote about a strange coincidence<\/a> that happened to me. It was connected with the Raleigh Little Theatre<\/a> play that I was rehearsing for, which was a week away from its premiere.
\nThe same thing seems to be happening again. I am in the cast of Candide<\/em>, which opens next week. A few days ago, I was reading James Lileks’s daily Web column The Bleat<\/a>, in which he wrote about watching a Charlie Chaplin film with his preschool-age daughter. Describing her response to a particular scene, Lileks wrote<\/a>: “She had the exact same reaction I had \u2013 gasps and laughter in equal amount. You could show this movie to Voltaire or his footman and they\u2019d have the same reaction.”
\nAs it happens, in Candide<\/em> I am<\/strong> Voltaire’s footman. What are the odds that Lileks would pick that<\/em> particular example of a random historical spear-carrier during the brief moment in my life when I happen to be playing him on stage?
\nThis isn’t the only odd coincidence I’ve experienced recently in connection with my theatrical avocation. A couple of days ago, I decided on a whim to see what Wikipedia<\/a> had to say about NECCO Wafers. (It’s an obscure candy that I vaguely remember from my childhood, but haven’t seen for a long time, and it occurred to me that I didn’t know who made them, what they were made of, or even if they still existed.) Wikipedia does, in fact, have an article about the Wafers<\/a>, and another article about NECCO<\/a>, the company that makes them. I learned that NECCO has three factories, one of which is in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
\nAs I wrote here<\/a> a few months ago, I was born<\/em> in Thibodaux.
\nOut of curiosity, I followed the link to Wikipedia’s article<\/a> about Thibodaux and skimmed through it. At the bottom were links to the Web sites for Thibodaux’s city government and its Chamber of Commerce. Reading the Discover Thibodaux<\/a> page on the city’s site, I learned that my birthplace has a community theatre called the Thibodaux Playhouse, which seemed remarkable for a town of less than 15,000 people. I figured the Playhouse probably had a Web site of its own, and one Google search later, I was looking at it<\/a>.
\nActually, I was staring at it in astonishment. The Thibodaux Playhouse is now rehearsing a play called The Spitfire Grill<\/em> (a stage adaptation of the 1996 movie). Auditions were held a few weeks ago, and the show will open at the end of July. I am quite familiar with The Spitfire Grill<\/em>, because we produced it at Raleigh Little Theatre earlier this season, and I worked on it as assistant stage manager.
\nAgain, I have to ask: what are the odds of this kind of thing happening?
\nUPDATE (5 June 2006): There’s definitely some kind of cosmic conspiracy going on. I was just reading the five-minute parody version<\/a> of “Logopolis”<\/a>, the classic Doctor Who<\/em> episode that this blog was named after<\/a>, and it contains a NECCO Wafers reference!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year ago, I wrote about a strange coincidence that happened to me. The same thing seems to be happening again.
\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theatre","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patberry.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}