(Hum Beethoven's Fifth Symphony While You Read This)

Who else has seen The Longest Day? Possibly my favorite movie set in the Second World War, it tells the improbable tale of the Allied landings on the Normandy beaches, beginning the liberation of Nazi-occupied Europe.

One of the plot elements of the movie, and which was a real operation by the Allies through the BBC, was the broadcasting of secret messages to French Resistance groups behind the lines. The messages were nonsense in and of themselves, but to the Resistance fighters, they were the go signal for prearranged operations against the German occupiers.

Even today, it is suspected that the so-called 'numbers stations' heard around the world on odd frequencies and seemingly broadcasting nonsense or otherwise incomprehensible content are actually a way for governments to broadcast instructions to spies and other operatives around the world.

Last week's City Paper (you know, the one they can't give away) featured a cover story on Dock Ellis, the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who, reputedly and infamously, threw a no-hitter against San Diego while under the influence of LSD. But it also contained a regular horoscope feature, and this is a selection from the Leo entry (my sign, of course, he said in a leonine fashion... and nobody was amused).

"...I surmise that you are now in a position to launch a project that could follow a similar arc. It would be more modest, of course. I don't foresee you ultimately becoming an international corporation worth billions of dollars. But the success would be bigger than I think you can imagine."

First off, no (stereotypical) Leo would have much of an ear for being told that the chance to be kinda-sorta neato, in a small way is not to be passed up - the sign is named for the traditional king of beasts, after all. But also, who, me? Maybe it's just me not paying attention, but nothing's coming to me as far as project ideas. And even though the past few weeks has seen readership on the blog mysteriously explode, this would be a project already started. I don't understand what this is telling me. Surely there's someone else who could capitalize on this surely timely advice.

Maybe, though, that's the key. Maybe the arcane advice of a daily horoscope is somehow akin to the signals broadcast to alert the patriots of France that their liberation was about to begin; there are messages being sent to everyone, but only the right people will react to them - in the right time, and in the right way.

It makes sense to me.