We don't want to start a panic, Mr. Bennell.

I was just thinking about the name Bennell, in IotBS. It's a pretty uncommon surname. I have never met anyone with that name in my life, as far as I can recall. It makes me wonder if they were trying to make some kind of statement, by naming the character that.

It might be a reference to Luis Bunuel, the surrealist filmmaker...? That would make a certain amount of sense. Especially when you consider Mathew Bennell's broken car windshield in the 1978 film. He had to drive around for practically the whole movie with that fractured perspective that surrealists, and I guess cubists, strive for.

It could also have been a little homage to Stephen Vincent Benet, maybe? I was thinking, his short story By the Waters of Babylon is about the end of the world. Well, obliquely... I won't wreck it for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Or, maybe it was supposed to be a combination of Bunuel and Benet. Could beeeeeeeeeeee...... well, whatever. Had to share.