WELCOME  TO  MY  AUTHOR  PORTFOLIO

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This month was supposed to be an exploration of the connection or connections between Elvis Presley and Napoleon Bonaparte. Unfortunately, at press time, there was too much work still to be done. Stay tuned.

 

So, our attention this January turns to chaos. And this has nothing whatsoever to do with what the top of my desk looks like or the geopolitical landscape of 2025. Chaos is frequently mentioned in relation to its polar opposite—control or order. The word is borrowed from the Greek word for abyss—the emptiness that existed before things came into being. Later, the word was used to refer to a specific abyss: the abyss of Tartarus, the underworld.

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In the Get Smart TV show, agents 86 and 99 worked for Control, the arch enemy of KAOS—the international Organization of Evil. But the term is not always negative, such as in sweet chaos drizzled popcorn, a “delightfully disruptive” snack for when the times when life gets chaotic.

 

In contradistinction to KAOS, K-os is the alter ego of Kevin Brereton “perhaps the most significant Canadian rapper of the 21st century this side of Drake."

 

Henri Poincare, a French mathematician, formulated the idea of Chaos Theory, that suggests minute differences in initial values or conditions might lead to out-sized consequences, a theme explored in the movie Chaos Theory where the life of an efficiency expert is completely thrown off by his wife’s setting his clock up ten minutes. If that sounds intriguing, it’s not. It’s just another Ryan Reynolds movie panned by the critics. “Ryan Reynolds and Emily Mortimer do what they can, but ultimately Chaos Theory is an overly conventional dramedy.” (rotten tomatoes)

 

The butterfly effect is an extreme example of chaos theory. A butterfly flapping its wings in Australia could theoretically lead to a sandstorm in Africa or instability in the bond market. Hollywood also dipped its toe into that one with so-so results ("The premise is intriguing, but it's placed in the service of an overwrought and tasteless thriller").

 

According to mathematical experts, there are three kinds of chaos—the bad kind, the really bad kind, and the really really bad kind. No, actually, the three types of chaos are Lorenzian chaos, horseshoe chaos, and sandwich chaos. Of the three, the sandwich type sounds the best to me. Which brings up the question: If Napoleon had favored peanut butter and banana sandwiches, would he have still met his Waterloo?

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