We’re going to start off with the startling revelation I had about Mandy Patinkin.
Mandy is best known for his role in the classic movie, The Princess Bride. Inigo Montoya, a man fueled by revenge for the murder of his father. A man with complexity and nuance, as since the writing is top notch he was written that way. That includes the original novel as well as the excellent film adaptation.
From looking at the Squares ciphers, there is something obviously odd going on.
The exceptionally rare 4 common digits within two related ciphers. Indicative of the dual nature of Inigo himself. Although it plays out that he is a good man and becomes a staunch ally of Westley, Inigo begins trying to kill him. A simple financial necessity. There’s no money in revenge, it does not pay the bills. Essentially, as South Park would tell us today he’s just trying to make his nut. At least until his conscience gets a grip of him.
Mandy was also a star in the old movie turned into TV series, Alien Nation. It is widely believed this was distinctly wordplay considering the themes involved in the show. A play on alienation as the alien race of Newcomers is trying to integrate as a stand in for immigrants. The racism and nature of the immigrants trying to navigate an at times openly hostile society. We can see that Mandy himself displays the dual nature of his Montoya character. Mandy Patinkin = 203 in capitals mixed and Alienation = 302 in primes. The transposition of digits is not a weakness of the decode, but a strength in this case, reinforcing the duality of Mandy’s career.
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If I wanted to create a side hustle of gematria decoding for profit ten years ago, I would have been awesome at it. That was somewhat rushed and unpolished as a result, but with a little more time and care I could have fleshed that out with more easily reproduced and totally meaningless small numbers. Insisting that gematria is also fun was a common theme. That, and the inevitable occasional fundraiser.
The one main gematria guru persona is the gangsta personality. Look, I have real estate, Vegas hates me because I’m so great a sports betting with my magical knowledge. Your chance to strike back, rolling in the dough and eating a roll of $20 bills for breakfast every morning. Screw that stupid idea of having a golden toilet. My toilet is made of gigantic, natural polished diamonds. Integrating the rock star gangsta with a hint of how the elites hate you for exposing their dark secret.
The other persona, the “woe is me” persona, leans heavily into anecdotal personal tragedy. Hey, if you’ve enjoyed my decodes and blog posts maybe you should slip me a couple of bucks so I can get through the tragedy that has struck. The elites are striking back at my exposing them. I don’t want a new car, just to help out my poor sick aunt who loves Mandy Patinkin and may not live long enough for his next movie. Isn’t that gematria I did fun enough?
The downside of the woe is me persona is the repetitiveness. Not only are the stories repetitive, the requests are repetitive. And unimaginative. There’s no such thing as a large group of people sticking around for 10 years that find other people’s decodes fun. Any actual entertainment value is the hands on experience and magic of doing it yourself. Which in theory you can do with a pen and pad of paper instead of brightly colored text and fancy fonts on a cheap calculator. Or, you could even, just offhand and randomly thinking, read a book for free you got from the library.
Mandy was a purposeful choice, not just for the convenient and timely themes of immigration, alienation and South Park tie in. Mostly, he hasn’t been overused. Fresh and new. If gematria was hot I could play up Mandy Patinkin for years. As a tiny little side gig.
And that’s the point. You can’t make a career out of these low level obviously bonkers things anymore. The base, the bottom of the pyramid scheme, is tapped out. Like real jobs, your skill set is obsolete after just a few years. Now to compete in the grifter economy you need a better computer and some kind of message about AI to be relevant now. And a couple of years from now that will be obsolete as well. You’re left with just the basics, which you don’t need gematria for. You might have money, I like money. Please give me your money. Oh dear, the gematria boy cried wolf again. Let me skip finding a shitty third job to make ends meet and help him out.
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