Alvin and the Golden Echo Harmonica

 I mentioned earlier that as a kid I remember only watching two Chipmunk productions.  The first one was the Chipmunk Adventure, which my siblings and I watched many times.  The second was a Chipmunks’ Christmas, which we would only watch around Christmas time.  My dad had a fairly large collection of VHS tapes on which he had recorded a lot of these movies and shows.    He had tapes that were solely dedicated to Christmas specials, movies, etc., and this Chipmunks special was on one of them.  It was never a show we actively sought out to watch, but it came after some other Christmas shows, and so sometimes we would watch it just because it followed whatever show we had watched previously (I can't remember what it was).

I thought about this show a little bit after my earlier post on the Chipmunk Adventure.  Specifically, I focused on Alvin's harmonica, called the Golden Echo Harmonica.

The movie begins with a boy named Tommy, who is suffering from an unknown illness and receives a bleak prognosis that the chances of him getting better before Christmas are not good.  The doctor has tried everything to help Tommy recover, but nothing seems to be working.  They don't know what is wrong with him.

The scene shifts to Alvin, Simon, and Theodore at a music rehearsal with Dave.  This is where we first hear of Alvin's Golden Echo Harmonica, a prized instrument.  It turns out that there are only two in the world - the one Alvin has (which was given to him by Dave a long time ago) and another sitting in a store.

The chipmunks do some holiday shopping at the store where this second harmonica is.  Alvin has brought his own harmonica along with him, and goes to where the other harmonica is being sold.  Interestingly (for my story) at this point he refers to the two harmonicas as Twin brothers.  While there with the Harmonica in the stone, Tommy's sister and mother appear.  Tommy's sister exclaims:  "There it is!  It's the Golden Echo Harmonica!  It's the one Tommy wants more than anything in the world.  Can't we buy it for him, Mommy?  It would make him feel so much better."

The family is poor, however, and the mother says they can't afford it.  The sister then says something really interesting for the analogy I am building here:  "But Tommy will just die if he doesn't get his harmonica".

In this scene, the Golden Echo Harmonica has been specifically tied to both Tommy's illness and his recovery.  He doesn't have it, and is thus very sick - but if he were to have it, he would recover.  The stakes are high, in that if he does not ultimately get the Harmonica, he will die.  I am repainting the scene here in more literal terms for where I am going with things, which I will make a bit clearer after walking through the movie.

Alvin has been hiding behind the stand that has the Harmonica, and overhears everything.  He follows them home to see where they live, and then returns to music rehearsal.  He can't get Tommy out of his mind though, and is unable to practice or sing well.  He ultimately decides to go back to Tommy's house and give him his own Harmonica, pretending that it was the one from the store and that Tommy won it in a sweepstakes.

Tommy instantly starts feeling better, and Alvin returns to rehearsal.  The next problem emerges when Alvin is invited to play his Golden Echo Harmonica at Carnegie Hall.  Dave accepts on his behalf, and the remainder of the movie has the chipmunks do various things to try and raise enough money to buy the Golden Echo Harmonica that still sits in the store.

They are unable to raise enough money, and we find Alvin back at the store hours before the concert without any harmonica or the means to buy one.  The Christmas miracle occurs with Mrs. Claus, in disguise, buying the Harmonica for Alvin.  

They make it back to Carnegie Hall and there a fully recovered Tommy joins the Chipmunks on the stage.  He and Alvin play their "Twin" harmonicas together as part of the concert.

OK, so in the process of remembering and thinking through the general story (some of the details I had to rewatch the video online to remember), I realized that this has the story of the Anor and Sawtooth Stones buried within it.  We have already, in that prior Chipmunk post, identified Alvin with Faramir-Eonwe, at least for our rough analogies.  In addition, the Anor Stone has also been associated with him. This is Alvin's Golden Echo Harmonica.

Tommy represents Joseph, obviously.  The name once again provides evidence that this is so.  Tommy means "Twin" and this ties into the character of Joseph on two two levels.  First, remember that Joseph is a Twin in my version, being Eowyn-Ilmare's brother.  Second, the Seer of Joseph's vision (as recounted by Lehi in the Book of Mormon) was said to be 'like' him, in some ways being like a double or one who could stand in for or represent Joseph if needed.

And of course Tommy-Joseph is sick - really, really sick, and in need of healing, just as in my story, where Joseph seems to have come to our world in search of the Sawtooth Stone and, being unable to find it, became trapped and sick.  Faramir-Eonwe's Anor Stone (the Harmonica) was ultimately given to Joseph, becoming his ticket home and to recovery.

This left Alvin-Faramir without a Stone, however.  But of course that is where the second (Rose) Golden Echo Harmonica comes into play - that will become the Stone given to Faramir in the absence of his other one, likely through just as a miraculous series of events as Mrs. Claus giving that harmonica to Alvin.

The general story elements seemed to fit and make sense to me.  

Lastly, the very conspicuous use of "Echo" in the name of this harmonica really stood out to me.  In my 2019 and 2020 words, the Elvish word Lama or Lam shows up twice, both times, I believe, in reference to a Stone, or at least the stories and names derived from them.  The meaning of Lama is "ringing sound, echo, sound".

Lamanesse is actually the word that is used, which I take to be Lama Nesse, which could mean something like "Echo of the Beginning" or the "Young Echo".  It is part of these November 21 words I haven't shared yet because I don't know completely what they mean, but the last part that includes the Lamanesse reference seems like it could be pretty clear.  Here that part is:

Garilyo entu lamanesse estuli nee hah

And my translation:

Possessing again the echo of the beginning it to come [nee hah]

I have bracketed Nee Hah because I am working on a few different things on these words across multiple instances.  For instance, I recently noticed that these two words are also the last two words in that name Jah ni hah (the ni is phonetically spelled nee hah), which we've seen come up several times before, but here we see it in only partial form.  Context clues indicate we might not be amiss in seeing Jah ni hah (Faramir-Eonwe) as being referenced here.  Meaning, once again in possession of the "Echo of the Beginning" he will come to "it" - likely the mountain that is referenced earlier in the phrase, which I think is likely Tirion or somewhere close by.

In any case, I thought the "Echo" tied in nicely with the appearance in these other words, and the song or music that I believe is contained on the Anor, Sawtooth, Ithil, and other Stones.