Three's A Charm

McMahon, Fawcett, Jackson - the most recent example of celebrity deaths coming in three. Why threes? Why not fours, fives, or some other number? What supernatural mystique does the first, odd prime number have?

Three is symbolic in the Bible and in many Asian cultures. Euclidean geometry bases calculations on three points of a plane. Freud theorized on the Id, Ego & Super Ego. The Catholics have the Trinity. The Greeks had three fates: Clotho, Atropos & Lachesis. Plato's Utopia was inhabited by three classes of people: laborers, warriors & philosophers. The rallying cry for the French Revolution was Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. Isaac Asimov wrote of the three laws of Robotics.

My favorite tertiary superstition involves three on a match. During World War I, three dough-boys lighting their cigarettes on one match gave an opposing rifleman enough time to draw a bead on them. In the trenches, that was more common sense than superstition. But it's still considered unlucky nearly 100 years later.

Something deep in our psyche feels an affinity to clusters of three. I don't claim to know the answer why. As Ken Kesey stated, the answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery - as ever BB

"The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses." - Sir Francis Bacon

Elixir of Life

From time immemorial, man has searched for the wellspring of eternal youth. Alchemists fixated on uncovering the philosopher's stone. This chimera transmuted base metal into gold and was elemental in creating a potion of immortality, the water of life...in Latin aqua vitae; in Gaelic uisge beatha, origin of the word whiskey.

Legends abound. Ponce de Leon searched Florida for the fountain of youth. No evidence of this exists. The tale did not surface until after his death, but facts should never interfere with a good story. Faust consorted with Mephistopheles to forestall death.

In the early 17th century, a lord in service to the king of France presented Carthusian monks with a centuries-old alchemical manuscript detailing an elixir of life. He could not unravel the formula's mystery and hoped the clerics could. Taken to the Grand Chartreuse monastery, the monks labored over it. While never brewing a drink of immortality, they did produce a tonic, Elixir Vegetal de le Grand Chartreuse.

A mixture of 130 herbs and flowers in an alcohol base, this 140-proof concoction claimed to promote good health and defend against vile humors. Its popularity grew and by the 18th century devotees were asking for a more palatable potable. The Carthusians responded with a 110-proof version, Green Chartreuse. In the 19th century, an 80-proof derivative with added sugar and saffron, Yellow Chartreuse, was created. All three still exist.

Barring a pact with the devil, immortality eludes us. However, you can enjoy a draught of this delicious aqua vitae today - as ever BB

"With a pint of Green Chartreuse ain't nothing seems right. You buy the Sunday paper on a Saturday night." - Tom Waits