An Usher roller skating around a Black Hole

 Well, bummer.  The 49ers lost in the Super Bowl to the Chiefs.

My kids were cheering for the Chiefs, though, so always good to see them happy.  And they got to stay up late because the game went into overtime.  

Anyone catch the halftime show with Usher?  I never thought I'd see roller skating dancing with R&B / hip hop during a Super Bowl Halftime Show, but after Xanadu I probably should have seen it coming.

Here are some screenshots of just a few of the scenes that caught my eye relative to recent things I've mentioned here on the blog, particularly in the minutes leading up to the roller skating.

Here we have Usher standing in the middle of the stage that is now in the image of a clock.  

Clocks and time have come up here, and on William Tychonievich's blog.  I've used a clock, and the time they represent, recently in my discussions around Black Holes, for example (see this post "Suspended in Time: Loosening girdles and deepening weights, and the Grey Lady of the New York Times"

This clock will next transform into a sun, and this sun will start a flame that circles around it.  The sun, however, will completely burn out and extinguish.  This is how black holes are made, from what I have read and understand.  The burned out star will collapse in on itself (if it is massive enough).

And this is what will happen to Usher's stage and sun, as well, eventually.  

After a stint that includes Usher taking off his shirt (we had a good time yelling at the TV for Usher to please at least leave his pants on during that segment), Usher comes out with a new outfit and footwear... roller skates!

Notice how they are skating at first on a grid - something that one could potentially look at as longitudinal and latitude lines as on a map (kind of reminded me of a Tron grid, actually).

From not having seen any roller skate dancing on screen up until a week or two ago when I first saw Xanadu, it definitely stood out to me to see Usher and his dancers putting on the skates.  It was also interesting to see the stage complete its transition from burned out star to a black hole (or at least some black funnel or portal in the floor).  This happens after the grid lines disappear (perhaps because the skaters have arrived at their destination/ coordinates?).  The skaters cruise around this hole, while the hole itself also alternated letters of OMG (Oh My God).

I didn't expect that sequence, capped off with roller skaters cruising around and over a visual hole in the floor.

Also, I don't think I have listened to Usher since college (I had to ask my wife if Usher has had any new music in the last decade.. she says he has), so I am obviously not too familiar with him.  I did not know that his full name is Usher Raymond, for example.

I shouldn't be surprised at these things anymore, particularly with names, but this one surprised me.  Both of those words/ names were mentioned in my words that I quoted in my post "Wagon's East!"... or was that supposed to be West?, in which I bring up words that discuss the notion of Faramir's space travels (and which I gave my hypothesis that these words were coming from Saruman).

I quoted two, and only two, days of words in that post, among quite a few potential days, skipping several days of words in between so I could keep things as concise and relevant as I could.  In the March 22 words, you will find the word/ name/ title of "Usher", and in my March 28 words, it starts of with "Raymon" (which is a form of the name Raymond).  Here those words are again (with Usher and Raymon also now bolded so you can see where they are):

March 22, 2020

Jewel zimel link

Back and east to come it profit your house

Them dual iskwendi to know

Suggest usher toward home a story to tell

A visceral glow

A stone binding two ways center-heart

tell me where the good men go

             

March 28, 2020

Raymon to see woman much nus narthrun amun sun dawn toward

In that post, I stated my thought was that "Raymon" was a name or title for someone - likely Faramir, since that is who I think is being addressed here.  

I also noted the use of the word 'usher', and specifically also tied that title to Faramir as well.  Here is what I wrote:

Interestingly, whoever is speaking, seems to also make an offer as part of this that they would act as an 'usher' in bringing this person home.  Whenever these types of English words pop up in these mixed Elvish phrases, I always take note and look up in Etymonline just to see if there is anything interesting about the word.    That source gives us, in terms of the verb, "conduct, escort, admit ceremoniously".  Makes sense.  However, the noun of usher has everything to do with doors and entrances, which given recent posts, I found interesting:  "servant who has charge of doors... door keeper".

As a quick aside, and perhaps to just put that definition in the back of your memory, I have Faramir as potentially being synonymous with the ancient gods/ myths relating to Hermes-Mercury (I very briefly mentioned it in my post "Needing new shoes to roller skate in Xanadu" and said I would cover it more in-depth in another, yet-to-be-written post).  One of the responsibilities of that Being is said in mythology to be doorways, passages, transitions between realms, etc..  

So, tying this all together, we have a person named Usher Raymond (a combination name in which both parts I already stated were potentially synonymous with Faramir and his role) engaged in various activities and symbols on stage that have a basis in or connection with story elements I have been exploring here.

Further, the story connections actually expand to another "Doorkeeper" besides Faramir that I will cover in a post tomorrow.  This one is interesting because a reference to this other doorkeeper has come up in the past week on two different blogs that are not my own, are independent of each other, and both refer to this individual in completely different, but very complementary ways.  

It is also a refreshing thought to sort of expand the story a bit and think through the roles of additional individuals, since I think this story will involve many people all working together.  

So, stay tuned.