Dan Brown symbolizes wealth and success.
Largely as a result of his writing about symbols.
The Da Vinci Code.
The Lost Symbol.
He's found his pot of gold by putting a high gloss on a pretty basic premise.
People love puzzles.
And symbols.
And by offering up puzzles about symbols?
$$$.
Dan's books aren't the only place in town to get our symbol puzzle fix, either.
The "National Treasure" movies with Nicolas Cage are big.
M. Night Shyamalan's move "Signs" was a big success.
And let us not leave out the granddaddy of all symbol puzzles.
Stonehenge.
All of this symbol buzz has gotten me to thinking in recent times about the power of symbols.
Logos, for example.
If I say the word "Nazi", for example, I bet you a box of Pavlov doggie biscuits that a swastika flashed across your synaptic gaps.
Geico.
Just try not to think of the lizard.
See?
The list of powerful symbols in our lives and the impact they have on us is practically endless.
From the pride of seeing the American flag flying high to the perceptible twinge of sorrow at the first sighting of a flag flying at half mast.
From the comfort of a single cross to the revulsion of a cross burning.
Symbols need not be complex or dramatic to have enormous power, though.
Consider the letter A.
Now, there's a symbol with some game.
Childhoods and, accordingly, lives can be altered at the sight, or lack, of that symbol on a report card.
Livlihoods can be enhanced or destroyed by the awarding, or denying, of that symbol on the ratings Health Depts use for restaurants, cafes, et al.
The operaion of machinery, the assembly of products, the system of successfully acommplishing almost anything can be fatally flawed and/or wounded if the user inadvertantly skips over that symbol and starts with Step B.
And romance?
Affairs of the heart and their blossoming or dying depend entirely, at a critical moment, on that symbol.
The letter A.
No?
What budding romance has not been brought to full flower by the utterance or writing of the simple phrase....
Love you.
And what hopes have been dashed by the excruciatingly simple substitution of a single letter.
The very powerful letter A.
Love ya.
Dan Brown makes a pretty good living taking three years to write complex novels about symbols.
I could do a thousand pages, before breakfast, about how a single letter begins the process of "just want to be friends.."
Chances are, if you're a romantic, you could, too.
Fuckin' A.
Largely as a result of his writing about symbols.
The Da Vinci Code.
The Lost Symbol.
He's found his pot of gold by putting a high gloss on a pretty basic premise.
People love puzzles.
And symbols.
And by offering up puzzles about symbols?
$$$.
Dan's books aren't the only place in town to get our symbol puzzle fix, either.
The "National Treasure" movies with Nicolas Cage are big.
M. Night Shyamalan's move "Signs" was a big success.
And let us not leave out the granddaddy of all symbol puzzles.
Stonehenge.
All of this symbol buzz has gotten me to thinking in recent times about the power of symbols.
Logos, for example.
If I say the word "Nazi", for example, I bet you a box of Pavlov doggie biscuits that a swastika flashed across your synaptic gaps.
Geico.
Just try not to think of the lizard.
See?
The list of powerful symbols in our lives and the impact they have on us is practically endless.
From the pride of seeing the American flag flying high to the perceptible twinge of sorrow at the first sighting of a flag flying at half mast.
From the comfort of a single cross to the revulsion of a cross burning.
Symbols need not be complex or dramatic to have enormous power, though.
Consider the letter A.
Now, there's a symbol with some game.
Childhoods and, accordingly, lives can be altered at the sight, or lack, of that symbol on a report card.
Livlihoods can be enhanced or destroyed by the awarding, or denying, of that symbol on the ratings Health Depts use for restaurants, cafes, et al.
The operaion of machinery, the assembly of products, the system of successfully acommplishing almost anything can be fatally flawed and/or wounded if the user inadvertantly skips over that symbol and starts with Step B.
And romance?
Affairs of the heart and their blossoming or dying depend entirely, at a critical moment, on that symbol.
The letter A.
No?
What budding romance has not been brought to full flower by the utterance or writing of the simple phrase....
Love you.
And what hopes have been dashed by the excruciatingly simple substitution of a single letter.
The very powerful letter A.
Love ya.
Dan Brown makes a pretty good living taking three years to write complex novels about symbols.
I could do a thousand pages, before breakfast, about how a single letter begins the process of "just want to be friends.."
Chances are, if you're a romantic, you could, too.
Fuckin' A.
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