I've been noticing this strange phenomenon over the past few months. Well, longer than that, really. It's a pattern that's been repeating itself pretty consistantly for over a year now.

In conversation, or a lecture or in reading something, I pick up on a term or phrase that, while isn't completely obscure, isn't incorporated into our everyday communications with any regularity. Then, within about 24 hours, the same term or phrase reappears to me in a completely different context.

An example:

Yesterday, as I was viewing one of Jesse's sketches, a T-shirt design for a HAM radio organization. A primary subject of this sketch was a swine who had been loaded down with bundles of broadcasting equipment in hopes of generating a visual pun.

Conversation ensued about the choice of a pig and other various elements of the background, including the weather in the scene and the signifigance of the clock's indication of midnight.

In discussing the pig, his name was revealed to me as Snowball, and explained as a reference to Orwell's novel, Animal Farm.

Later that night, as I was viewing the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Jon's monologue at the beginning of the show contained another obscure reference to Animal Farm that eluded the audience's grasp of reality.

Unless Jesse had the ability to travel through time and the desire to screw with my mind, a little but of déjà vu had just occurred.

Then today, it happened again.

Last night, I was reading the Onion's feature on tips for tracing your genealogy. One such tip was that if you're white, claim that you're descended from the Medici line in Italy and nobody would call you on it. Then, this morning in my Orchestration class, Jason Bahr (the instructor) blames the old tradition of pairing the trumpets and tympani together in score order on the Medici family for supporting the arts so vigorously.

Sure, the Medici family was famous, but so rarely do you hear them referenced twice in the same 24-hour duration.

...and that was just this week.