Now that Bob Denver has made it off the island, as we say in spiritland -- where no man is an island, indeed, no island is an island -- we can now begin to unravel the many mysteries presented by the television classic.
For example:
Consider this list:
· Gilligan
· The skipper
· The millionaire
· His wife
· The movie star
· The professor
· Mary Ann
This is the order of names mentioned in the final version of the song. But what is wrong with this picture?
Only the Alpha and Omega have actual names attached to them. Gilligan and Mary Ann.
Is this because they are in fact the Alpha and the Omega?
We know that Alpha is a hurricane, and Omega is a vitamin supplement made of fish oil.
Hurricanes travel OVER water, and fish swim IN the water. But is this important?
Is the Pope important? We like to think so.
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They all have names. Thurston Howell, of course. But Lovey Wentworth (Mrs. Howell), Jonas Grumby (The Skipper), and Roy Hinkley (The Professor)? Sound familiar? Granted, Ginger Grant sounds a little familiar, but that might be because we had a president and a Lou named Grant. We also have a Lee named Grant and a Lou named Reed, which is what you are doing, well sort of, at least you should be. You might find it interesting. In the Strunkian sense.
But what else is it about Gilligan and Mary Ann? Is it that they were meant to be together from the very start, and that they are the only characters worth their salt? Salt too, remember, is IN the ocean, like fish, but Salt II is something else entirely.
Or is it???
Were Gilligan and Mary Ann, in fact, desposyni? Did they have olive eyes? Are they the true vitalismen and women? Will only their hairdresser know for sure? I'll not tell a telltale tale. Or a skunk's telltale tail...in the skunkian scents.
Now some will argue that the professor and Mary Ann are the only important characters...since they were first distinguished as being the original "and the rest". Clearly an important title of distinction...but important to this dissertation? Remember, Mary was the name of Jesus' wife and mother, and Ann was the name of Mary's mother, although she spelled it with an "e" -- although wedged in that most creative spot in the second space, producing "Aenn"...although she preferred the more friendly "Annie", at least according to dental records.
But such thinking is flawed, since there were no professors in biblical times, and the ones that did profess were considered wiseacres and numbnuts, and were typically forced to eat their falafel without ketchup, so to speak, and were thus rendered toothless, socially. Clearly the professor was not a major player in the Gilligan Code.
"And the rest"
The professor and Mary Ann were, at one time, the proverbial "rest". Requiem is the latin word for rest. Therefore, the professor and Mary Ann were the requiem. But so what? Who isn't, these days?
So this leads us back to Gilligan and Mary Ann; the Alpha and Omega.
Were they meant to be an item? Is that what it is all about?
Is this just some fantasy on the part of the writers, anticipating Survivor and Lost?
Gilligan's Isthmus
And speaking of Lost, could it be, as some have said, that the crew was in fact not on an island, but an isthmus? This would make a lot of sense, since Isthmus rhymes with Christmas, and sense rhymes with since...but somehow this seems like a dead-end, since it was all filmed on a soundstage, which only rhymes with roundstage, which was popular during the Albionic Renaissance, as proved by Herr Shakesjoyce, writing between the lines.
But isthmus is such an awkward word, like autochthonous or simony. Surely God (or Gawd, as she was known in the 13th century) would not draw from such a garish scrotus of lexicana. Not with beautiful words like Zhoodah or Baraka or Lovey at her painted fingertips.
Some claim that the skipper, the professor and Thurston were originally called Melchior, Balthazar and Skeet, and that they were actually the "Wise Guys" of Chrismegisticata, who brought Franken sense and demur to the table of the wise and holy Gilliganus Magnus, or Gilligan, and peepee, for short.
Peepee is a euphemism for ze tallywhack of lore, suspect by its doublitude - a common construct of euphs - and one that has somehow crept into our discussion of Jesus and Mary's children, and how they relate to Gilligan. As a Jungian, do I consider the coincidence...synchonicity, and seek, or assign, meaning, where, in fact, no meaning may exist ab initio?
I am stumped. The result of a chainsaw accident in Texas. But when it comes to peepees, I am merely perplexed. Did Gilliganus have one? If so, why is it that we never see evidence to that fact? I mean, the skipper and the professor - Hell, even Mr. Howell had a woody sometime during the show's rich history. Usually while in a scene with Mary Ann, ironically enough, although Ginger and Lovey were enleadening too, and each in their own seductive way.
The skipper was almost always...bone in, as they say. And some of the more imaginative among us has, of course, speculated that he and Magnus were sweet on each other. Did Magnus tuck? And what about the Priory of Sion?
Mary Maudlin, or Madeleine, or Magdalene, made her way to the Priory of Sion, in the megalopolis of Rennes le Chateau (rent this house), and set up shop, making a smoke screen large enough to dull the eyes of the world, save those who could but see. And there were a sea of buts. And more than a handful of yets, moreovers, neverthelesses and notwithstandings, here in the home of the all-powerful conjunction.
I can almost imagine Mary, thinking about descendents to come. Meroveus, namesake of Merovingians, grandfather of the great and groovy Clovis, whose quatrayle was a fisher king, and his quatrayle, on back and back until the sang royale was in her womb, and God cried out to be multiplied. And it was so.
Mary begat Josephus who begat Josue who begat Aminidab, who could not help but begat Catheloys, thus Manael, Titurel and Boaz. Then lo came Frotmund, introducing the worldly mund to the lexicon of names. Pharamond came next, and his creative movement of vowels. Clodion clopped along next, who begat Meroveus; said namesake of the Merovingian kings of Freedom - the true meaning of France.
Mary, Manael, Meroveus, Merovingian. What do these all have in common? Yes, the letter `M', like Maynard, Gilligan's immediate preincarnation. And like Magnus. (No, not the rubber! But you probably don't know about that brand...)
In the Last Supper, Jesus and Mary M. form a V, and thus the heart of an M, It is also the letter that is accentuated by the blogger, anonyMoses. [Twilight Zone theme]
And what is `M' upside-down? Yes, `W'...the man whom Pope Michael called "the Antichrist".
Coincidence? Or synchronicity??
And what does it mean when someone spells their name "Wm"? The W is accentuated, but the m is diminished. But maybe W stands for Women and m stands for men. What then, O Nostradoofus? Does not that obliterate your surreal notions?
The answer to that is "I don't know". With the second part being "I'll get back to you on that". Leaving the third and final act to mop up with "Sorry, I forgot."
If you are confused, I apologize. If you are good-looking, leave your number at the front desk.
In either case, I'll join you.
True or Real?
anonyMoses: It's a dog feed dog world