Magnolia: The Number 82

In my last post on P.T. Anderson's film, Magnolia (1999), I discussed the references to Freemasonry in the film, and how those references became somewhat of theme that seems to have no real meaning, i.e. something that happens. There is another prevailing element in Magnolia that is scattered throughout the film as a sort of Easter egg: the number 82, or simply the number 8 and 2 together. I am fairly certain that 82 occurs in more instances than I am presenting them, but the following examples are the ones I was able to catch in the last two viewings of the film; in fact, it is something I never noticed before watching the film again for the purpose of writing the Freemasonry post. Unlike the Masonic references, the number 82 has a more definite place in the film that is relevant to the plot and the general theme of "something that happens" — one might even say that the number 82 has "meaning" in Magnolia.

Magnolia begins with three stories of strange coincidences, all of which are based in reality, though with many dramatic changes for the film.

Prisoner No. 82 (presumably Daniel Hill)

The first story is "The Account of Hanging Three Men": Joseph Green, Stanley Berry, and Daniel Hill, who murdered Sir Edmund William Godfrey in the town of Greenberry Hill on the 26^th of November 1911. (There was in reality a man named Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey who was mysteriously murdered on Primrose Hill, near Regent's Park, London on the 12^th of October 1678). In the film the strange coincidence is that the last names of the three murderers (i.e. Green, Berry, and Hill) create the name of the town, Greenberry Hill.

The three men were hanged, and the last of whom — presumably Daniel Hill — is inmate No. 82.

Craig Hansen's airtanker, No. 82.

The next story is that of a scuba diver, Delmer Darion, whose body was found up in a tree after a forest fire. Darion was scuba diving in a lake when an airtanker picked him up out of the lake and dropped him along with the lake water onto a nearby forest fire. (This is an urban legend that has circulated since the 1980s, and though there is one instance of a scuba diver being injured by an airtanker collecting water, never has a diver been taken up into the payload, as it is nearly impossible for a human to fit through the small aperture). The pilot of the airtanker, Craig Hansen, had been playing blackjack in a casino the previous day, whose blackjack dealer was Delmer Darion.

The number on Hansen's airtanker is 82.

"All I need is a two."

"That is an eight."

Furthermore concerning Delmer Darion and Craig Hansen is that Hansen attacked Darion because Hansen lost the hand. All he needed was two, but Darion laid an eight: 8 and 2.

 1961 AAFS awards dinner starts at 8:20 P.M.

The third and final opening story is that of a fail suicide that turned into a successful homicide of Sydney Barringer. The account is told by Dr. Donald Harper at the 1961 awards dinner for the American Association of Forensic Science. (In reality the story is a fictitious one about a boy named Ronald Opus, and was given by Donald Harper Mills, president of the American Academy of Forensic Science in 1987). The banquet began at 8:20 P.M.

Sydney Barringer about to jump with the number 82 on the parapet wall to his left.

Barringer apartment, No. 682

The account given is that of a boy, Sydney Barringer, decides to commit suicide because of his parents constant fighting, which always devolves into threats of violence with a gun. Sydney jumps, but would have survived because of a safety net below, but was killed by a shotgun blast from his father's gun that struck him as he passed the window to his family's apartment. The gun is usually unloaded, but Sydney had loaded it six days prior in hopes that one of his parents would finally kill the other, but instead it killed him. Thus Sydney became an accomplice to his own murder.

On the parapet wall that Sydney jumps from is the number 82 laid out in rope. The Barringer's apartment number is 682 — the 82^nd apartment on the sixth floor.

The middle two digits of the phone number for Seduce and Destroy is 82.

The film proper starts off with a television ad of Frank T.J. Mackey selling Seduce and Destroy, a self-help program for men who want to get laid (essentially a how-to guide to getting out of what is now called "the friend zone", and finally laying the girl who only sees the man as a friend): the phone number for ordering a copy of Seduce and Destroy has the number 82 as the middle two digits (on a touch-tone phone these numbers would translate into the letters T and A — tits and ass? — as the phone number spells out "TAME-HER"). This may be stretching and twisting the case, but it is not without merit.

"...if you are this person, please leave me a message at box number 8-2."

In the same opening title sequence as the Seduce and Destroy ad is a clip of Officer Jim Kurring going about his morning routine. At one point he his watching a dating service on television, which is airing his own advertisement for a significant other. His advertisement ends with "...if you are this person, please leave me a message at box number 8-2."

Analog clock at just past eight o'clock; presumably 8:02 A.M.

At the end of the opening title sequence is a scene of Officer Jim Kurring in the morning meeting at the police precinct. The analog clock on the back wall is a little past eight, and is presumably at 8:02 A.M. This is probably stretching it a bit, but, again, it is worth mentioning.

82% chance of rain.

Following the opening title sequence the day's weather forecast is given: "Partly Cloudy, 82% Chance of Rain." It is an absurdly precise probability of precipitation.

All of these occur within the first fifteen minutes of the film, and they are really the last of the 82s in the film until it reappears again later as a Biblical reference.

A man in the audience holds up a sign with "EXODUS 8:2" written on it (left).

A sign on a bus stop has "EXODUS 8:2" printed on it (left).

Billboard with "EXODUS 8:2" printed on it (left).

There are three instance of 82's reappearance later in the film: first, when the television show, What Do Kids Know?, begins and a man in the audience holds up a sign with "EXODUS 8:2" written on, to which a security personnel confiscates it; then later — after the rain clears but before it begins to rain frogs — the same Biblical chapter and verse are seen in an advertisement space on the side of bus stop, and a few minutes later as it begins to rain frogs the same thing is seen printed on a billboard.

Exodus 8:2 reads:

"And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs."(KJV)

This concerns the portion in Exodus when Moses is pleading with the Pharaoh to let the Jews go free or God will send seven plagues (to which God deliberately "hardens" the Pharaoh's heart so that he will refuse, thus inevitably unleashing the plagues). And so it happens in Magnolia that it rains frogs — one of those strange, naturally occurring phenomena. So who is the "them" that needs to be freed in Magnolia? Given that the first time we see "Exodus 8:2" written is on the kids' show, so the "them" is probably the kids, or at least Stanley, who is poorly treated by his father and presumably forced to play on the show so his father can take the money his son wins. Stan — who is not allowed to use the bathroom and ends up soiling his pants — at one point refuses to play the game and says:

"This isn't funny. This isn't cute. See the way we're looked at? Because I'm not a toy. I'm not a doll. The way we're looked at because you think we're cute? Because, what? I'm made to feel like a freak if I answer questions? Or I'm smart? Or I have to go to the bathroom? What is that, Jimmy? What is that?"

The situation of the father taking his son's money from the game show, What Do Kids Know?, that is currently befalling Stanley Spector is the same fate that befell "Quiz Kid" Donnie Smith, who was later struck by lightning and suffered brain damage. While Donnie is vomiting in the bathroom at the bar he can be heard reciting Exodus 20:5: "...the sins of the father laid upon the children..."

In fact, one general theme of Magnolia is that of sinful — or simply terrible — fathers: Frank Mackey's father, Earl Partridge, left him and his mother while his mother was dying; Claudia's father, Jimmy Gator, sexually abused her as a child; Craig Hansen (the water bomber pilot that picked up the scuba diver) is an "estranged father of four"; Sydney Barringer's parents constantly fought, and their fighting inevitably killed him; et cetera.

Thus it may be surmised that it is the children who need to be freed from the wickedness of their fathers or "the good Lord bring the rain in"... which so happened to be a deluge of frogs. Of course, given the complexity of the film, these elements can be parsed several different ways and yield a variety of interpretations.

But this not to say that the number 82 is related to the "sins of the father", albeit in way it is; rather 82 is related to those strange things — those mysterious matters of chance — that simply happen, and they happen all the time.

Magnolia: Four References to Freemasonry

P.T. Anderson's Magnolia (1999) is not a simple movie — not by a long shot. It is filled with symbolism, allegory, and a complex web of inter-connecting lives and happenings. The film alludes to several Biblical passages and events, e.g. Exodus 8:2 and Exodus 20:5. But one of the more peculiar and stranger references made in the film are those that allude to Freemasonry: there are three distinct instances and one slightly more debatable instance.

Albert Mackey's The History of Freemasonry (top right)

The first notable instance is when Stanley Spector, the boy genius, is studying in the school library; he has an array of books before him, many of which are meteorological, and one is Wild Talents by Charles Fort (yes, the Charles Fort, researcher of strange phenomena and author of The Book of the Damned), but the book that is of interest here is Albert Mackey's The History of Freemasonry (another point that deserved a mention that may or may not have merit is that this book is written by Albert Mackey, who shares his last name with Tom Cruise's character, Frank T.J. Mackey). It is most probable that Stan brought this book from home (in one of those four bags of books he brings to school every day), as this seems to be an unlikely text to find in a middle school library.

Masonic Square and Compasses on Burt's ring.
"We met upon the level, and we're parting on the square."

The next instance has two Masonic references together: television kids show host, Jimmy Gator, is dying of cancer, and before he goes out to host his first show since he found out he has cancer, his friend and the show's executive, Burt Ramsey, places his left hand upon Jimmy's shoulder and says, "We met upon the level, and we're parting on the square." To which Jimmy says, "In my fucking sleep, Burt." On Burt's little finger is a gold ring with the Masonic Square and Compasses on it.

The phrase "we met upon the level, and we're parting on the square" comes from Freemasonry. At the closing of every Blue Lodge — the First, Second, and Third Degrees — the following is said:

Worshipful Master: Brother Senior Warden, how should Masons meet?
Senior Warden: Upon the level.
Worshipful Master: How act, Brother Junior Warden?
Junior Warden: By the plumb.
Worshipful Master: And part upon the square. So, my brethren, may we ever meet, act, and part, in the name of the Lord.

Clearly this is Burt's farewell to Jimmy.

The level, square, and plumb are the three tools of a Fellow Craft (Second Degree). They have their functional purposes for operative stonemasons, but to speculative Masons they have symbolic meanings. These meanings are given to the newly made Fellow Craft as such:

"...the Plumb admonishes us to walk uprightly in our several stations, before God and men, squaring our actions by the Square of virtue, and remembering that we are traveling upon the Level of time to that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns."

(Yes, that last part is from Hamlet, Act III, which I will not get into in this post). In general, Masons are taught that the plumb symbolizes how Masons should act: upright; the level symbolizes equality, so that two Masons meet on equal terms, and that no Mason is better than another Mason; and the square symbolizes that Masons should "square their actions", or right their actions (i.e. right- or ortho- angle) and act virtuously.

Compasses over a laurel branches (right)

The fourth instance is is more subtle, as well as questionable in my mind, but its worth presenting it anyway: among the icons on the square panels behind the contestants on the show that Jimmy Gator hosts, What Do Kids Know?, is a set of compasses placed over two olive or laurel branches. Other emblems on the panels are (from right to left, top to bottom): the tragedy and comedy masks, the Greek letter π (pi), compass and laurel branches, balancing scales, a globe, a paint brush and pallet, Bohr's atomic structure, the Caduceus, a weather vein with the cardinal directions, a hand holding a quill, a harp, and a book with an oil lamp. Context in this case is of little help (aside from all these Masonic references centering around the television show), as the other emblems do not lend much to the Masonic theme, save maybe the seven liberal arts, which are emphasized in the Fellow Craft Degree; but then again, emblems of the seven liberal arts are appropriate to a trivia television show (i.e. the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, and logic; the first three part of the seven liberal arts). Compasses over a laurel branch is not a Masonic emblem, though it can very easily be interpreted as one: the curve of the two branches resembles in some regards the emblem of a Past Master, which has an arc under the compasses; the laurel or olive branch (both of which are borrowed from the iconography from the ancient Greeks and Roman Empire) denote peace and unity — hence the use of the olive branches on NATO's logo, the olive branch held by the eagle on the back of the one-dollar bill, et cetera — peace and harmony and unity all being virtues exalted by Freemasons.

Emblem of a Past Master

There is perhaps one other reference to Freemasonry in the opening stories, particularly the first story of "The Hanging of Three Men": a gentleman and businessman is murdered by three men who were trying to rob him. This can be argued to be a reference to the Masonic legend of Hiram Abif, Grand Master and architect of King Solomon's Temple (while this legend borrows a little from the Bible, it is strictly a Masonic invention), who is murdered by three Fellow Crafts (known as the Three Ruffians) who wish to extort the secrets of a Master Mason from him. Perhaps this "reference" is coincidental, or perhaps it is actually derived from Hiramic Legend (neither would surprise me).

Exactly why these references to Freemasonry are found in Magnolia is somewhat perplexing, and has no simple answer. Nothing else in the film is even remotely Masonic, save for these four instances. So, then, why are they there in the first place? And what do they mean in the context of the movie?

Oh it probably means something, but from our uninformed point of view it means nothing; it is a coincidence... one of those things that happens. As Stan says while it is raining frogs: "This is something that happens" (something he would have learned from one of his meteorology books and his book of "Unusual Natural Phenomena"). Why does it rain frogs? Because it is something that happens. From an Existential point of view this is something that just happens, and has no a priori meaning. From an Absurdist point of view this is something strange that happens, has no meaning — at least none that is comprehensible or discoverable to humans — but we have the choice to create our own meaning. (I hesitate to bring up Jung's concept of synchronicity, but, there, I have brought it up, so ponder it if you will).

I am certain others have written on the references to Freemasonry in Magnolia, and they probably have some wild speculations as to why those references are in the film, but I refuse to read them. To be honest, the Masonic references placed in Magnolia without rhyme or reason is — in my opinion — something appropriate to the film: it is something that happens (for Freemasons do exist), and the reasons for these happenings is a conundrum from our uninformed vantage point.

To quote the narrator (voiced by Ricky Jay, who also plays Burt Ramsey) at the beginning of the film:

"...And I would like to think this was only a matter of chance. ... And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that this is not just something that happened. This cannot be one of those things. This, please, cannot be that. And for what I would like to say, I can't. This was not just a matter of chance. Oh, these strange things happen all the time."

Plato's Honey Head: Darden's Title Image to Condemned Building

Title Image of Condemned Building by Douglas Darden

In my previous post on Douglas Darden's frontispiece to Condemned Building I briefly discussed the title image of the same book. While I discussed the title image's theme of decapitation as a theme in tandem with the frontispiece's theme of overturning, it is, in my opinion, a cursory and all too brief of an analysis of the title image itself. In particular I wish to focus on the passage from Moby-Dick that Darden inscribes on the side of the guillotine:

"How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head and sweetly perished there?"
—Moby-Dick, Chapter LXXVIII

Before I began digging heavily into Darden and his work I had never read Moby-Dick, which I now regret as I continue to read such a delightful, humorous, insightful, and ponderous tome as is Melville's magnum opus. Rather than actually read Moby-Dick, I instead did cursory search through Plato until I found some references to bees and honey, which of course is not without just reasoning; but the simple fact is that what this passage means can be found in Moby-Dick itself.

Beginning with the latter half of Moby-Dick a sperm whale is captured and killed (Chapter LXI), then it is skinned of most of its blubber (Chapter LXVIII) — or as much blubber as could be gathered after the sharks had their feast — then they behead it (Chapter LXX), let the carcase drift into the sea for the sharks to eat, while they keep the head hooked to the ship for some time. Contrary to established whaling practices, Captain Ahab announces that if a right whale should be spotted, that it should be hunted, cut, beheaded, and attached to the other side of the ship; which is then done (Chapter LXXIII).

With the two different whale heads — a sperm and a right whale — attached to opposite sides of the ships, Melville presents a rather brilliant image of a noble and an 'ignoble' leviathan counterbalanced, which is an image that is loaded with symbolism and allegory, but far too afield for the purpose of this post. The two whale heads are presented as contraries (not necessarily opposites, but only different — as the two chapters describing the two heads are subtitled "Contrasted View"), and Ishmael describes the differences in the anatomy of the two heads. The latter of the two chapters describing the anatomy of the two heads ends with this:

"I think his [the sperm whale's] brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. ... Does not this whole head [of the right whale] seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in facing death? This right whale I take to have been a Stoic; the sperm whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years."
—Chapter LXXV

Next the head of the sperm whale is described as being both like a great wine vat, namely alluding to the Heidelburgh Tun (which holds over fifty-thousand gallons of wine), and a beehive: "The lower subdivided part [of the forehead], called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibers throughout its whole extent" (Chapter LXXVII). This is the portion of the head in which spermaceti is found: that oil in which whaling became well practiced in the 18th and 19th Centuries, and is extracted in order to produce candles, perfume, lamp fuel, skin creams, and other oil-based substances.

Now we have a great deal of references to work with in understanding that passage Darden admired so greatly. The two leviathans are decapitated, and Ishmael regards the sperm whale as Platonic and the right whale as Stoic — justly we can call these two whales Plato and Zeno respectively. Plato's head is likened to that of a beehive containing that precious substance spermaceti, rather than honey. But like honey, spermaceti is described as being fluid, but will crystallize: "Though in life it remains perfectly fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots..." (Chapter LXXVII). And again the leviathan's head is likened to that of a beehive in an earlier chapter: "...the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent blood which began to flow from the carcase — the rabid creatures swarmed round it like bees in a beehive" (Chapter LXXII).

Thus, arriving now at Chapter LXXVIII, Cisterns and Buckets, we may comprehend Melville's meaning. The crew have now begun the process of extracting the spermaceti from Plato's head. One of the harpooners, Tashtego, climbs upon the head and cuts a hole into the forehead, and begins to scoop out the oil in buckets. While doing this he slips and falls into the hole and down into the great cavity of the Plato's head. At this very moment some of the hooks that held fast the head to the ship tore out, and the head began to sink into the sea. Suddenly Queequeg jumps into the ocean with a sword, cuts a hole on the underside of the head, and pulls Tashtego out by his head.

The whole scene is allegorical of life and death, birthing and dying. Tashtego falling into the head is like that of a boy who has fallen into a well; he is buried alive, and his grave (the head) sinks into the ocean. Queequeg is likened to that of a midwife and assisting in the birth of Tashtego, who is pulled out of the tomb-womb by the head via caesarean section. In fact, when Queequeg first reaches into the head he grabs a leg, but shoves that back in and grabs Tashtego's head: "...he came forth in the good old way — head foremost." Melville even makes light of the situation by writing: "Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing"; and as the head was sinking into the ocean when Tashtego was birthed, the birth was called a "running delivery." (Furthermore on the note of humor: Tashtego writhing about in Plato's head is depicted as if the head suddenly had a thought: "...they saw the before lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if that moment seized with some momentous idea...").

Ishmael then begins to ponder what Tashtego's death would have been like if Queequeg had not save him. He believes it would have been a sweet and precious death:

"Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled — the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed."

Here are ideas and symbols swarming like bees about a hive: death, birth, Plato, sperm, temples, honeycombs, catacombs, tombs, King Solomon's Temple, the Holiest of Holies, midwifery, decapitation, contemplation, et cetera. No wonder Darden called Moby-Dick "the greatest novel in American history."

Thus we now have a much more informed idea of Darden's particular usage of this passage from Melville, as it presents an image of a decapitated whale's head and it is written on the side of a guillotine. The object mounted on top of the guillotine, which I suspect is a beehive or some contrivance derived therefrom, is further likened to the scene where Queequeg births Tashtego from Plato's honey head through an incision — the incision being depicted as a labia. In the spirit of the theme of overturning: the head was a tomb for Tashtego, but Queequeg overturns that into a womb from which Tashtego is birthed (mind you that the incision Queequeg cuts is on the underside/underbelly of the head). Et cetera and so forth. I am beginning to conjecture too much. In short, Melville's passage inscribed on the side of Darden's guillotine fits in perfectly with Darden's theme of decapitation for the title image, which is but another expression of overturning architecture to study its "underbelly."

Further reading:
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick: or, The Whale. 1851.
Darden, Douglas. Condemned Building. Princeton Architectural Press. 1993.