Just got off the phone with Lenny Fibonacci. He, Jones and Gann were over at Dow's house, but Charley was down at the seashore looking at waves. The three of them had broken into Dow's liquor cabinet so Lenny had a few minutes to take my call.
He explained that the whole "fib thing" was just a big joke. There wasn't much to do in the old country after the sun went down, so people used to sit around watching rabbits copulate. He said the "sequence" was something he had learned in kindergarten, but that by using fingers and toes and, well, one other appendage, could only count to 21.
He said guys used to get together to extend the sequence out into the one-hundreds. When I explained that the number series actually went into infinity, was related by a ratio and was being used to trade billions of dollars, he lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. "They do what?" I could hear him yelling in the background - "hey, W.D., you're not gonna believe what this guy is saying - it's hilarious!"
I asked him if he knew that the Golden Ratio was found in ancient monuments all over the world, and the Golden Spiral was found in nature, but he said he "didn't know anything about that." He said they used a spiral motion to put sauce on pizza back in Pisa, but that was a much as knew about it.
Then he whispered that Gann's love of the Great Pyramid was just a scheme to make a few bucks. (He was whispering so as not to hurt Gann's feelings because it would send him off sulking to the library.) He said Gann had been looking for a place to start a casino and thought that maybe he could stick a spotlight on top of the old ruin to suck in the tourists, but the Egyptians wouldn't allow it. Also, the banks wouldn't lend W.D. any money because they thought the idea of a casino in the desert was stupid. Apparently though, a janitor he'd met in the library (a Mr. Siegel) was now running with the idea.
He went on to say that Gann was a dweeb, but the guys used to let him hang out because he could always get good moonshine. He said W.D. was always running around trying to predict things - like, he'd go up to strange women on Time Square and say - "hey lady, want me to guess your weight?" He was also into the planets and Zodiac in a big way. He'd walk up to little vamps in a bar and say "uhh, hi there, so what's YOUR sign?" The girls use to run when they saw him coming.
I tried to turn the conversation back to the Great Pyramid and asked him if he knew that Prechter claimed that "slope heights of the Great Pyramid were equal to 1.618 times half its base, so that the vertical height of the pyramid is at the same time the square root of 1.618 times half its base."
There was a dead silence. "What is it you're trying to sell again?" he asked.
I was about to explain that I wasn't a salesman, but just then the Dows came home and Mrs Dow started screaming - I could hear her in the background:
"Look at my broken cabinet - what is THAT in the corner? Is that what I think it is? I'll get the mop. Gann put down that Spyrograph. Charles, get these drunken bums out of my house, NOW!"
Lenny said he had to go and hung up without saying goodbye.
