Bodyworlds at SMV Enters Final Days.

Gunther von Hagens' BodyWorlds exhibit is beginning its final week at the Science Museum of Virginia in downtown Richmond.  I had the opportunity to see it yesterday and came away awestruck.

A one-of-a-kind exploration of the human body and brain, BodyWorlds features 12 fully-preserved human bodies.  The skin has been removed from the bodies to display the muscular, skeletal and nervous systems and major organs of our bodies.  By placing them in positions such as swinging a baseball bat, supporting themselves on gymnastics rings, and performing ice skating and ballet postures, von Hagens' exhibit demands an appreciation of the complex mechanics of those systems.

The bodies are preserved in a process called plastination, in which they are posthumously treated with silicon and various gases to prevent decay and maintain other inner structures. The bodies in the exhibit are therefore called plastinates.  In many major cities, von Hagens has included plastinates posed to simulate playing a saxophone, riding a horse (also a plastinate), playing chess, teaching at a blackboard and so on.  The exhibit has garnered some controversy and many accolades and media attention.  In the recent James Bond film Casino Royale, Bond stalks a villain through an early BodyWorlds exhibit.

Most people I approached about BodyWorlds reacted with considerable apprehension.  "I don't think I could handle it," one said.  "I've had the chance to go see it six or seven times, but I just can't bring myself to do it," another said.  "I have no desire to see that."  I personally looked forward to seeing the exhibit.  Having spent half my life with moderate pain in my back muscles and lower lumbar areas, I was excited to get a direct look at those parts of the body especially.

The most dramatic plastinate on display at the Science Museum of Virginia was a pair of figure skaters in a death spiral, in which the male bends down a bit and leans back, holding the female's hand as she circles him almost flat to the ground.  He serves as a counterweight to her extreme pose, and their held hands support the other from falling.  Another, at the end of the swing of a baseball bat from his left to right, his face up to follow an imaginary baseball, is a unique vision of both sides of the back muscles - especially the paired latissimus dorsi.  The right side was relaxed, as it had been on the receiving side of the swing, but the left side was stretched to its utmost, as the left arm was stretched across the body.

Each plastinate had been carefully positioned to display specific parts of the body.  A ballet dancer was a singular complement to the figure skaters; her delicate balance and raised right leg forced patrons to consider the mind and body training we undergo in our youths to perform such acts.  Another, supporting himself on gymnastics rings, had some muscles splayed with forceps and surgical spreaders to show bones and prosthetic body parts.

Full plastinates are far from the only attraction in BodyWorlds.  There are dozens of individual body parts encased in glass with basic anatomical information - a healthy heart sits next to an enlarged heart, a healthy lung is shown next to a smoker's lung, etc.  The brain of an Alzheimer's patient is displayed at the midpoint of the exhibit, its recesses deeper and wider than that of a healthy brain.

Nancy Tait, the Science Museum of Virginia's Manager of Communications and Stories, met with me and gave me my Press Kit for BodyWorlds.  She was actually kind enough to stop by the museum on her day off to speak with me about the exhibit.  "It really is beautiful," Tait said.  "A friend of mine went through and said 'I know this sounds horrible, but the first word that comes to mind is exquisite,' and I said 'I don't think that's horrible at all.'"

Tait said that the Science Museum of Virginia is extending its hours for BodyWorlds' final week, including showtimes through midnight on Friday and Saturday.  A gift shop boasts several published books about the exhibit, a DVD, postcards and more.  Ticket and showtime information is available at SMV.org.  Information about BodyWorlds is available at the BodyWorlds website.

Eurynomos.

It was probably 1996 the first time I looked out my bedroom window and down the street with the specific purpose of keeping watch for zombies. I would have been 13, and had just seen the 1968 George Romero classic Night of the Living Dead on a late-night horror movie marathon. It wasn’t my first horror movie – I’d snuck in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and a couple censored-for-television Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees movies by then – but it stuck with me. I knew it was pure fiction, but I kept expecting to see zombies shambling up the street to the house any minute.

I think the staying power of Romero’s Living Dead series is that there are few – if any – precedents or qualifications for undead Hell to rain down on its characters. The Nightmare on Elm Street series always depended on a child molester escaping conviction and having his victims’ parents visit lethal revenge on him before he could return from the dead in dreams, so I always figured unless I read about that in the newspapers, I was probably safe from that. Friday the 13^th is the result of a young boy who drowned in a lake at a summer camp after his counselors neglected him in favor of drug use and premarital sex. Again, until those qualifications were met, I wasn’t worried about the man in the hockey mask.

On the other hand, Night of the Living Dead only briefly touches on an isolated theory that the dead are returning to life as the result of a spreading virus carried back to Earth via returning satellite. Even that notion is presented as a reporter’s question on a news special in the middle of the film and is quickly dismissed by the scientist or government official being interviewed. If that source is to be believed, the zombie apocalypse is upon us for no reason – it could happen anytime, anywhere, without warning. However, even if the reporter’s hunch is correct, I can still buy “new virus” over “molester escapes conviction and is burned to death by angry citizens” any day. To a kid in one health class and one science class being told that all viruses are constantly mutating and adapting, and that new diseases are being discovered as old ones are cured, that’s good enough reason to believe.

Unfortunately, as a 7^th grader, there’s alarmingly little one can do to prepare for the oncoming rise of the undead other than doing extra sit-ups and push-ups in gym class and memorizing directions to the nearest solid concrete building. At that point, my Armageddon plans were put on hold for a few years.

In college it started to resurface. The popular horror video game Resident Evil 4 was released, which simulates a zombie-like outbreak in Spain. One night in Tallahassee at a concert, some friends and I spent much of the evening chain-smoking and deliberating on our zombie survival plans. We debated army bunkers vs. off-shore oil rigs, highway vs. state road travel, multiple exits vs. one exit from any given hideout, and so on. It was good to know I wasn’t alone, and that my plan was decently thought out. I convinced my roommate to help me move us to a first-floor room so we wouldn’t be trapped with no exit, and I quit smoking so I could run faster and farther.

By the time I took over as store manager at a previous job in retail, I realized how it would happen. Every few years, the average IQ in the nation slips by a half-point or so. It seems inconsequential for now, but hypothetically speaking in the next several centuries the United States could become a nation of men and women whose mental cognizance fails to meet that of chimpanzees, barring some kind of second Renaissance or Age of Enlightenment. And chimpanzees eat Rhesus monkeys. With people, I imagine the zombie outbreak will begin, as you’d expect, in retail.

The humans who can still operate cash registers will be trying to help a customer, whose limp, crooked finger precedes a drooling, groaning mouth.

“Can I help you with that?”

“Unnnngh…”

“Would you like to see that in a blue?”

“Blue…”

The cashier will find the item and return to the customer.

“Here you are.”

Then it will happen. There will be a pause, and as the cashier grows uncomfortable, something will suddenly change in the customer’s eyes. Food, he or she will think. Then the first lazy swipe at the cashier’s chest will come.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

After that, management will receive enough complaints from employees about violent customers that they’ll have to call the district managers, whose lives are spent on the road. “Hey, don’t tell me; I have to dodge these jerks in my Prius when they shuffle out into the street. Just…I’ll mention it to the regional manager on our conference call on Monday and see if we can get you some Purell.”

The following season, that company’s new uniform will be made of chainmail or resemble a dog bite suit. Employees will start ditching work because they’re sick of pulling a shift and being clawed at or bitten by customers, which the managers will have to defend. “Come on, ya gotta work somewhere, right? You think those assholes next door give their employees this quality material in their uniforms to protect them? They’re still just telling them to wear wool sweaters. Wool. Sweaters.”

As our bodies evolve to meet our biological needs (as is evidenced by anthropomorphic DNA and the photosensitive patches of skin on earthworms that resemble early eyes), the fingernails that scratch and the saliva that breaks down food will likely take on toxic qualities, like snake venom or the paralysis exhibited from spider bites. This will likely deal the final blow to the civil liberties activists fighting for equal rights for cannibals. If not, the rapidly-growing problem of their numbers and how to keep them at least quarantined if not law-abiding surely will.

From that point it would resemble most popular zombie movies: the population explosion of cannibalistic infected, coupled with a lack of preparedness and the probability that declaring martial law would be less expensive than mobilizing a mass evacuation effort, would lead to a more typical Walking Dead / 28 Days Later scenario. The few remaining survivors would go into hiding, their numbers dwindling by the day as the search for supplies brought upstanding citizens to looting and pillaging Wal-Marts en masse, and gun stores and liquor stores would be the first to be emptied. The streets would be filled with those inexplicably numerous pages of newspaper that are always seen in horror flicks, shambling ranks of humans and random small fires.

Sometime thereafter, district managers from all major retail corporations would send out an email allowing the branch managers of their stores to count down the drawers early and go home for the day.

“Oh, bullshit,” most people say when I introduce that possibility to me. When they do, I’ve got more.

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a newly-discovered fungus group with four distinct species, all of which are flourishing in the ant population of Brazil. Nicknamed “the zombie fungus” by researchers, Ophiocordyceps travels airborne as a spore until it is inhaled by an ant. The fungus then grows in the ant’s body while the ant continues to live among its population. After several days, during which the fungus has spread throughout the ant’s body and taken hold of its brain and muscles, Ophiocordyceps waits for the ant to go outside and crawl onto a tree. It then causes the ant to convulse violently until the ant falls off the tree onto the fallen leaves on the forest floor, less than a foot off the ground. It’s dark and moist on the ground, and when the fungus senses this comfortable climate, it makes the ant lock its jaw onto a leaf until the ant dies. The fungus then leaves the ant’s body and travels airborne as a larger number of spores until it reaches its next victim. There are four species of Ophiocordyceps and each attacks a different kind of ant better than the others.

This mind-controlling behavior isn’t unique to the ant fungus. A species of flies lays its eggs in the head of a fire ant, and when the fly larva begins to hatch it eats the ant’s brain and causes it to behave erratically before leaving the ant’s body entirely. Wasp venom has caused some cockroaches to behave like the Haitian “zombies” studied in the last 50 years – in which case Haitian natives were administered a specific type of poison, which causes a degree of submissive behavior and brainwashing, and was popularized in the book The Serpent and the Rainbow.

If wasps can do the same to cockroaches, flies to fire ants and Ophiocordyceps to other ants, who’s to say there isn’t a similar toxin in mankind’s future that makes the Haitian poison pale in comparison? Or that Ophiocordyceps couldn’t carry over from one group of host species to another, the way AIDS introduced itself to mankind? The “zombie virus” of horror lore isn’t a matter of having some unknown element introduced into the ecosystem so much as it is of evolution or mutation, both of which happen every day. It’s not an outcome that’s inevitable, but it is reasonable, which has kept me up nights.

A nearly equal fear to mindless cannibals overtaking our species, in my eyes, is the truly awe-inspiring effect that chaos has on the human psyche. This phenomenon was first televised on an episode of The Twilight Zone called “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.” In “Monsters,” a peaceful suburban cul-de-sac suddenly has a power and phone outage. What begins as simple annoyance for a small community of neighbors turns into a witch-hunt following one child’s insistence that the aliens have landed and are removing our ability to warn others or seek help. The adults are quick to dismiss the boy until a coincidence or two from one of his comic books catalyzes their fear and they turn on one another. The final moments of the episode are the real scare – as so frequently happened on Twilight Zone – as the neighborly massacre is left and the audience is shown a flying saucer on a rural hillside overlooking the titular Maple Street and its slaughter. Two aliens watch and one says to the other “See? Simply remove the familiar elements of the humans’ day and they’ll tear themselves apart; we’ll never even have to fire a weapon.”

This same theme took center stage in The Lord of the Flies and Stephen King’s short story “The Mist” and, to a lesser extent, the 1999 Japanese novel Battle Royale. In each story, otherwise normal people are dropped into a tightly-quartered space and of their own accord they quickly divide into ranks and try to reduce one another’s numbers through primitive violence. Gallons of blood later, only some survivors ever regain their humanity, despite that the latter two stories even address this mass hysteria in characters’ dialogue, but the message is clear – abandon the rules, structure and social norms set into place since the dawn of man and fear can easily conquer hope and patience, turning brother against brother, even in the most passive of people.

In applying this viewpoint to the end of mankind at the hands of zombies, George Romero and Dario Argento addressed a return to primitive clan-based society in the original Dawn of the Dead. Four survivors – two policemen and two news reporters – escape the city as it deteriorates and arrive at a shopping mall. Over several weeks, their fear is replaced by boredom and eventually a territorial ownership of the building. Near the end of the film, these same four people, who had clung together and have valued life so highly, fight off a gang of bikers, each side attempting to blow the other to bits with rifles and shotguns, to keep hold over the mall. It’s implied in the film that the battle is fought not over the safety of the building but over the possessions inside. People have also proven historically that times of chaos, like riots and political overthrowing, may be signs of civil unrest but, to a select few, are an excuse to loot and steal. By combining these situations we can learn what to expect, in terms of vandalism and burglary, following a zombie outbreak.

It is because of this that I’m worried about the Mayan calendar predicting that the world will end on December 21, 2012. I have no reason to believe anything will happen to Earth or mankind themselves, but I do believe in the fallout from mass hysteria and I’ve told my wife we need to make sure we take the baby somewhere safe that day. I have no doubt that, much like the Y2K scare, it will just be another 24-hour period of fear fading to sheepish embarrassment, but in the height of the fervor, people’s fear of Armageddon will likely lead to a sense of care-free self-indulgence, including vandalism, burglary and, in some cases, violence.

So if and when the zombies attack, I can already see myself lighting a candle or a flashlight, since power will likely go out without human maintenance, and locking up all my electronics anyway, shaking my head at them and considering potential thieves with a sigh. “Morons.”

In the meantime, I don’t consider zombie movies or survival horror games to be “just entertainment.” They’re research, the same as TV series like Doomsday Preppers, which documents the paranoid as they get ready for the end of the world by buying abandoned missile silos and industrial-grade quarantine and water filtration equipment – even as my own preparation is still limited to the occasional glance out the window and mental map to the nearest solid concrete bunker.

Spiral of Divinity.

Note: This piece is the first in a series of academic/scholarly essays about "low-brow" or seldom respected art forms. As such, it's a bit more technical than most of my work. If you'd like to read something a little closer to what I usually write, please enjoy some of the older posts on this blog first, then get back to this one.

Introduction

The irrational number Phi is represented in integers by ~1.618 and is the only working integer of dividing a straight line into two segments, in which the ratio of the line to its larger segment is equal to the ratio of the larger segment to the smaller, and can thus be infinitely squared to smaller segments.

Phi’s relevance is in its persistent appearance throughout seemingly unrelated dynamic systems, be they in nature, animal biology, art, human physiology or otherwise. Phi, its reciprocal phi and their geometric equivalents have been found throughout popular works like The Last Supper and Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man as well as patterns in sunflower seeds and cephalopod shells. This paper will specifically focus on understanding Phi and its use within the song “Lateralus” by the Los Angeles-based heavy metal musical act Tool.

Understanding Phi and phi in Integer Sequencing and Geometry

To find Phi in Euclidean geometry, a straight line (a) must be divided into two segments: one larger (b) and one smaller (c). The ratio of the length of the entire straight line (a) to the larger segment of the line (b) is the same ratio as the length of the larger segment (b) to the smaller (c) (see Fig. A). Mathematically, a:b::b:c. This is only possible when the first number in the ratio is ~1.618 times larger than the second.

Conversely, Phi’s reciprocal integer, phi, is Phi minus one. To find the length of b in the above example, one must multiply a by ~0.618. Then c is equal to b times 0.618, etc., squared down into the infinitesimal. This brings us to the much simpler analytical tool of 61.8% to examine phi.

Keeping in mind the Phi ratio 1.618:1, which is referred to as The Golden Ratio or The Divine Ratio, is essential to its applications throughout the known universe. It was first discovered by Leonardo da Pisa, alias Fibonacci, b. 1175 A.D.. Fibonacci was presented with a problem at a popular math competition – “Beginning with a pair of rabbits, if each productive pair bears a new pair, which becomes productive when they are one month old, how many rabbits will there be after n months?” (Knott, Quinney) Fibonacci’s resulting equation was that each number in the sequence (F_n), which would have to be a whole number, would be equal to the addition of the previous two numbers in the sequence (represented as F_n-1 + F_n-2), starting with 0 and 1. It follows that 0 + 1 = 1, giving the first three numbers 0, 1 and 1; of course 1 + 1 = 2. The next step is that 1 + 2 = 3. To explain the equation F_n = F_n-1 + F_n-2, we would simply plug in the numbers 3 = 2 + 1. The integer sequence developed through this equation’s whole integer application is known as the Fibonacci Sequence. It proceeds as follows.

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89…

As the Sequence progresses, the ratio of the newest number (F_n) to the previous number (F_n-1) rapidly approaches The Golden Ratio and only continues to do so. By the time any mathematician adds 34 and 55 to equal 89, the relationship between Fibonacci and Phi is clear: 89:55::~1.618:1.

The final two pieces of the puzzle lie in geometry. The Golden Rectangle is drawn using either the Golden Ratio or the Fibonacci Sequence. Utilizing our first explanation of the Ratio with line segments, the wide rectangle’s x-axis, or long horizontal lines, is our full line (a). It is divided into two segments: a longer (b) and a shorter (c). The wide rectangle’s y-axis, or vertical lines, are equal in length to b, so that the rectangle’s full length to height are a:b. This results in the Golden Rectangle. If we draw a vertical line through The Golden Rectangle where b meets c on the x-axis a, the resulting larger portion of the rectangle is a perfect square, in equal length and height of b, and c is a perfectly proportioned new Golden Rectangle, whose length and height can then be calculated and segmented the same way, as can its smaller rectangle and so on.

To understand The Golden Rectangle with The Fibonacci Sequence, imagine a rectangle as wide in number as a Fibonacci number and as tall as the previous number in the sequence. For this example, let’s use 21 wide by 13 tall. The width of the rectangle, 21, is arrived by adding 8 to 13, so imagine it’s now cut into two pieces: on the left, a square 13 x 13; on the right, a vertical rectangle 13 tall by 8 wide (see Fig. B).

This new rightmost rectangle contains essentially the same ratio or proportions in height to width (8 x 13) that was just used for the initial rectangle’s width to height (21 x 13), but turned 90 degrees. So we can start over and cut it into a square at its bottom and a rectangle at its top, which can then be cut, etc.

When we draw an arc from one corner of the Golden Rectangle to the opposite corner (where we “cut” the rectangle) and repeat for each new Golden Rectangle, we’re drawing the Golden Spiral (see Fig. C).

Presence in Everyday Life

Phi and phi are not only useful tools in algebra and geometry, but maintain a frequent presence in art and popular culture – usually by accident. In the hit British horror film 28 Days Later, the plot takes a sharp turn from a small group of survivors’ attempts at escape from a zombie-infested England to a mysterious martial law drama reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. If we equate the film’s total length in minutes and seconds as the first line a in the earlier examples of the Golden Ratio and Phi, and divide it into the same proportions of two segments (b and c), the change of focus in plot from zombies to lawlessness occurs within seconds of where b meets c, with b constituting about 62% of the film’s length and c the final 38%. The aforementioned 62% of the film’s duration is nearly exactly phi, 61.8%.

In the 1975 film Jaws, the titular shark is not seen on-screen until ~61.8% of the film’s duration has passed, as well. The John Wayne Western Stagecoach features Wayne’s decision to return to a group of wagon-traveling pioneers at this moment as well – again, nearly down to the second – performing the denouement leading to the film’s final conflict. Similar examples follow suit, with climaxes or major movements changing, in Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth symphonies, The Last Supper, Vertigo and countless others.

In human physiology, the Golden Ratio is regularly present. Dividing the finger’s length over the length from the second knuckle to the fingertip is generally equal to The Golden Ratio, as is dividing the length of the arm, from shoulder to the fingertip, over the length of the forearm, from the elbow to the fingertip. Dozens of others are found throughout the human body.

Linking The Golden Ratio’s presence in the human body to that in art and media has led many to believe in the Ratio beyond coincidence, that artwork depicting it is more naturally appealing to humans. This in turn has generated several artists to utilize the Golden Ratio or the Fibonacci Sequence either as a means to an end of fame or fortune, or simply to express the artist’s interest in the subject.

Evidence in Tool’s “Lateralus”

One thorough example of Phi in recent musical history is the song “Lateralus” by Tool.

Tool is a progressive metal quartet from Los Angeles. Progressive metal, a sub-genre of heavy metal, is partly a successor to progressive rock, which included bands like Led Zeppelin, Yes and King Crimson. Progressive rock’s main characteristic of time signatures changing regularly within the same song distinguished it from other rock music at the time. Following the advent of heavy metal music, progressive rock translated with metal’s increased usage of loud guitars with overdrive and distortion, steadier bass guitar rhythms, faster drums and more abrasive vocals and became progressive metal.

Tool, at the forefront of the progressive metal scene, released their fourth album, Lateralus, in 2001. Lateralus, and specifically its title track, are in perfect keeping with Tool’s signature sound. Tool’s songs are written regularly in 5/4 time, usually eschewing pop music’s near constant 4/4 time signature. The song “Lateralus” itself does contain several sections in 5/4 and others in 4/4, but its primary refrain is a repeat of three separate signatures – 9/8, 8/8 and 7/8. These constitute a total of 24 even beats before starting again – 9, 8, and 7.

24 is not a “Fibonacci number,” but 987 is. The band’s drummer Danny Carey stated in an interview that this was a coincidence, but singer Maynard James Keenan’s vocal patterns are anything but that. In either of the song’s verses, the singer’s stanzas of lyrics are organized in groups or lines whose syllables strictly adhere to The Fibonacci Sequence, usually increasing or decreasing along the sequence itself. For example, his first lines are “Black / Then / White are / All I see / In my infancy / Red and yellow then came to be / Reaching out to me / Lets me see,” and are sung with deliberate pauses between lines (Keenan). This means the syllables sung proceed as 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 before descending to 5 and 3 again; the first seven digits of the Fibonacci Sequence are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8.

The following line begins at 13 syllables and works its way back down the sequence to three: “As below so above and beyond I imagine (13) / Drawn beyond the lines of reason (8) / Push the envelope (5) / Watch it bend (3).”

In addition, the second verse of the song plays out along similar lines as the beginning of the first, except that when Keenan arrives at the eight-syllable line “Red and yellow then came to be,” he descends the Fibonacci Sequence one step at a time back to one syllable per line before climbing back up to 13 and down again. “Red and yellow then came to be (8) / Reaching out to me (5) / Lets me see (3) / There is (2) / So (1) / Much (1) / More and (2) / Beckons me (3) / To look through to these (5) / Infinite possibilities (8) / As below so above and beyond I imagine (13) / Drawn outside the lines of reason (8) / Push the envelope (5) / Watch it bend (3).”

Of course it’s possible to look into any facet of the song and find what the seeker is looking for, if one tries hard enough. The second chorus of the song has the lyric “Feed my will to feel this moment, urging me to cross the line.” The first part of that line is eight syllables, and the second part is seven syllables. Though the first is a Fibonacci number, the seven syllables of the second part are sung “Urging – me to – cross the line,” which one could argue is 2+2+3, which are all Fibonacci numbers. However, this level of scrutiny feels unnatural at best, if not far-reaching and a bit obsessive.

Other examinations of “Lateralus” in search of Fibonacci prove futile as well. If we examine the song’s movements in terms of duration, as we did successfully for Jaws, 28 Days Later, Stagecoach and others, we find that 61.8% of the way through the song is about 5 minutes and 48.5 seconds, which is just shy of the halfway mark in the bridge, and not within several seconds of any changes in composition whatsoever. Also, although the song’s climax is mostly contained in eight exact lines of eight syllables each, it is paired with a couplet of 16 syllables (minus one), totaling in 95 syllables – also not a number in the sequence.

Analysis and Interpretation

However, in spite of – or perhaps because of – this obsessive and fruitless search, we find the meaning of the song and its relationship to Phi culture. “Lateralus” is a word invented by the band, although the Latin word “lateralis” means “of the side” (Dictionary.com Unabridged). Nearly all uses of the word “lateral” denote a movement to the side or a spreading out horizontally, including a lateral pass in football. Tool has often written songs and expressed their belief in expanding the human consciousness and gaining new perspectives, by any means necessary – whether thinking about a situation in life from the other person’s point of view, taking perception-altering drugs or, in this case, studying mathematics. Hence, it seems that moving laterally is being used as a metaphor for broadening our minds.

This idea is reinforced by the verses, when Keenan states “Black and white are all I see in my infancy / Red and yellow then came to be / Reaching out to me / Lets me see.” In the first verse, he then says “As below, so above and beyond I imagine / Drawn beyond the lines of reason / Push the envelope, watch it bend.” The metaphor being used here is that newborn babies can only see in black and white at birth, and shades of gray; one week after birth, babies can see in red, yellow, orange and green (Heiting). By this time, all these new possibilities about their world should fascinate babies. Likewise, at first, the singer – or the narrator, if we’re to believe he’s singing in character – had a limited view of the world, which he refers to as “my infancy.” As more colors became visible to him, which could easily mean as he gained new insight into the world, his imagination ran wild and he becomes excited at what could lay outside the frame of his logical mind. As he considers greater and more alien possibilities in the world, which are drawn “beyond the lines of reason,” he realizes just how much he’s “thinking outside the box,” to use a common phrase.

In the second verse, Keenan adds that seeing the colors “Lets me see / There is so much more / And [it] beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities” before returning to the “As below…” lyric. This further emphasizes his point that his fascination with gaining knowledge and getting a more objective view of the world is like an addiction, that it “beckons me” to “look through to” – or consider – the “infinite possibilities” that are out there.

With regards to the tool he’s using to widen his gaze, it’s clear that Keenan is using Phi and all its aforementioned components at least partially as subject matter. The formulation of lyrics in both verses, using the Fibonacci Sequence, as well as the song’s six individual mentions of spirals, tell us that much. The interest in the Golden Spiral is compounded in the bridge, when Keenan sings “I embrace my desire to […] Swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.” It is very likely that Keenan is referring to the Golden Spiral at least somewhat with the phrase “spiral of our divinity,” as the Golden Ratio is often called The Divine Ratio and the verses’ lyrics are structured with Fibonacci numbers.

The entire bridge’s lyrics are as follows:

“I embrace my desire to

Feel the rhythm, to feel connected

Enough to step aside and weep like a widow

To feel inspired, to fathom the power

To witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,

To swing on the spiral of our divinity

And still be a human.”

Since Phi and the Golden Ratio are found in so many unrelated places and systems throughout the known universe, it’s only natural that once one can see that it exists virtually everywhere, one would “feel connected enough to step aside” and simply weep, be it from the epiphany, the beauty of oneness in the universe or even from fear of what implications such unity could have. The inclusion of “like a widow” implies a possible sorrow of the death of something, unless Keenan is simply using consonance to follow the “w” in “weep.” If there is the implication of loss, perhaps the weeping is over his previous perception of the world dying.

Keenan continues to meditate on this new world view, which – as we learned from the verses – is a great way to expand our horizons and a goal he seems to condone. The extended sentence finds him proclaiming that he is embracing his desire to feel the inspiration, awe and beauty that would come with this scientific enlightenment, which is summarized in the line “To swing on the spiral of our divinity,” or to use mathematic and scientific tools like Phi and the Golden Spiral as tools or toys to come to the same enjoyment of life and the universe that others may find in religion, philosophy or LSD. This section ends with the caveat that he wishes to do all these things “and still be a human.” Interpretations on this final line vary, but it seems as though a level of humility and imperfection – “being human” – would need to stay in mind for Keenan so as not to become self-righteous. A not entirely dissimilar idea is expressed several songs later on the same album. “Reflection” contains the lyric “I must crucify the ego before it’s far too late,” and a variation of it.

As Keenan seems to be expressing the idea of using various tools – in mathematics and science, in this case – to open our minds to fantastic perceptions of the known universe, he also mentions that this process can’t be forced or faked, lest the person risks consequences of disconnecting from the entire endeavor. Nowhere is this clearer than in the first chorus of “Lateralus,” which reads as follows: “Over-thinking, over-analyzing separates the body from the mind / Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must / Feed my will to feel my moment, drawing way outside the lines.” In other words, to keep a strong intuition and stay on the same wavelength as this sort of manual evolution, things like working falsely towards the answer one wants is counterproductive – like our earlier examples of seeking to break down lyrical syllables that don’t fit the mold or assign connotation to its lack of a Jaws-like denouement at 62% of its duration.

Conclusion

Any attempt to fully analyze and interpret lyrics from Tool songs will likely be met with a degree of woe. In a 1997 interview in Alternative Press Magazine, Keenan himself had the following to say about fans’ varying takes on their music: “I’m not going to spoon-feed anybody and rob them of their personal experiences. I read the interpretations of the lyrics that people send to [the Tool web] page. They’re way off. But that’s fine” (Pettigrew). Tool have never included lyrics with their albums, only much later releasing differing drafts of the lyrics to a fan’s website.

The same may or may not be said about the song’s popularity. In a recent poll on toolshed.down.net, the internet’s leading Tool website, “Lateralus” was voted Tool’s most popular song in a grand prix-style series of “either/or” votes, beating six other songs and winning its final round by a 2:1 vote against Tool’s next fan favorite, “Third Eye” (Akhtar). It’s impossible to gauge whether the supposed “naturally pleasing” presence of Phi and the Fibonacci Sequence play a part in the popularity of “Lateralus,” or if knowledge of the band’s intentional use of those was admired and respected enough by fans to win it some votes. As is often the case with Tool, fans should probably read into it however much they like, save for a grain of salt.

Phi and its subsequent studies permeate countless facets of nature and have played a subtle role in several wildly popular and successful pieces of artwork. Some of their uses have been intentional by the user, as with “Lateralus,” and some have been unintentional, as with Phi’s permeation throughout our skeletal systems. Whether utilized naturally or artificially, implementing Phi is a universal phenomenon worth studying and can help humankind take one step closer to understanding the very fabric of nature – Tool’s song is just one tribute and a call to arms for those ready and willing to unravel the mystery.

Bibliography

28 Days Later (2002). Dir. Danny Boyle. DNA Films and British Film Council.

Akhtar, Kabir. “Tool Madness.” The Tool Page. Web. 7 July 2011. <http://toolshed.down.net/news/madness/>

Dictionary.com Unabridged. “lateral.” Random House, Inc. 28 January 2012. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lateral>

Heiting, Gary, OD. “Your Infant’s Vision Development.” All About Vision. October 2010. Web. 28 January 2012. <http://www.allaboutvision.com/parents/infants.htm>

Jaws (1975). Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal Studios.

Kator, Andrew, and Legaz, Jennifer. “Quick Tips in Art and Design: Pattern.” Web. 28 January 2012. <http://articles.katorlegaz.com/quicktipsinartanddesign/pattern/>

Keenan, Maynard James, and Tool. “Lateralus” and “Reflection.” Lateralus. CD, Volcano Entertainment, 2001.

Keenan, Maynard James, and Tool. “Lateralus.” The Tool Page. Web. 7 July 2011 and 28 January 2012. <http://toolshed.down.net/lyrics/lateraluslyrics.php#09>

Knott, Quinney. “The life and numbers of Fibonacci.” Plus Magazine. 31 August 1997. Web. 7 July 2011. <http://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue3/fibonacci/index>

Pettigrew, Jason. “Nobody’s Tool.” Alternative Press. March 1997: 52. Print.

PhiPoint Solutions, LLC. “Phi for Neophites.” Goldennumber.net Web. 7 July 2011. <http://www.goldennumber.net/neophite.htm>

Modern Warfare 3 / Battlefield 2 Review Bombers.

It's only just occurred to me that my last full entry in this blog is almost a year old. My apologies; It's been a very complicated fall/winter. I plan to dust off and finish a few things by the end of February to post, but in the meantime, please enjoy this article I wrote for IGN last November. Whether you're a gamer or not, I think it speaks volumes about online culture.

http://games.ign.com/articles/121/1212549p1.html