Twenty-seven is such a beautiful, elegant, attractive number; an odd number that is anything but odd. It seems to insinuate itself into my life for some strange, mysterious reason. As a matter of fact this "number" is staring at me as I type. It looks good on a cake. It is the number that rules all. . . . that, or I'm just plain deluded. What do you think? Read below. . .
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One summer, to my heart's utter delight and joy, I read 27 novels: every day, every afternoon, every night, every waking moment of my existence that summer was spent on reading the classics new and old: Sons and Lovers; Jude The Obscure; A Ship Made Of Paper; Portrait Of A Lady—among the greatest masterpieces of the language. The next summer, on a fishing trip, I helped catch 27 big ones, after what felt like 27 hours of waiting and waiting on that boat, floating around Lake Michigan's choppy waters à la Tallulah Bankhead in Hitchcock's Lifeboat. There are 27 books in the New Testament. Arithmetically speaking, in a prime reciprocal magic square of the multiples of 1/7, the magic constant is 27. (According to Wikipedia.) Scientifically, the Chemical Element Cobalt has an atomic number of 27. The planet Uranus has 27 moons. In the year 27 AD, apricots were brought to Rome from Asia. The same year, the Chinese philosopher Wang Chong was born. (According to my oldest friend; himself born on the 27th of September, the 270th day of the year.) Materially, I own 27 pairs of jeans in every possible shade. Artistically, Kandinsky's 1912 masterpiece, The Garden of Love, which hangs at the Metropolitan Museum, is also known as Improvisation No. 27. Musically, I own 27 renditions of Violetta's first act showstopper, "Sempre libera," that I downloaded the autumn I discovered the profound, deeply penetrating beauty of La Traviata. Mozart—the greatest composer in history, bar none—completed a grand total of—count 'em—27 concerti for piano and orchestra; himself born on the 27th of the first month of 1756. Verdi, the greatest Italian operatic composer of all time, wrote 27 hair-raising operas; my all-time favorite Traviata is one of them. I've seen Angela's La Scala Traviata DVD a whopping 27 times in the last three months. On a personal note, my mother was at the most ideal age of 27 when she gave birth to me, after what seemed (according to her) like 27 straight days of intense, earth-shattering labor. . . . twenty-seven years ago; or, to be more precise, 27 May thirty-firsts ago this very day. Odd, for I essentially feel I've lived only half of those 27 years, which reduces me down to 13.5 years old. Nah, who wants to be a teenager again! 27 is much better: a beautiful, elegant, attractive number.
