I dreamed that Conan O'Brien died. Everyone was supposed to gather in a public square for a special announcement.

The Tribe

Dream of August 11
As I approach the door of the house with Art (the Gude Ave. house), I see that the lock has been removed. We enter the house and the TV and stereo are missing. In the bedroom there’s also a TV missing. I am anxious because I think the burglar may still be here or come back, and I say that I don’t want to stay in the house tonight. Suddenly a short young guy appears right in front of me, trying to run for the door. He’s small and slight; it’s easy to catch him. He begs me not to call the police, but his reasons are ridiculous, and I’m going to. But then anther guy dashes across the room and I’m distracted and the first guy gets away. The second guy runs downstairs. At the head of the stairs I can see that the basement is dark and I’m nervous, but as I descend I see that there are young people who are like squatters down there; they seem like anarchist hippie types that I actually would think are pretty cool. Some are gathered around a fire and I see that they are “tribal”—that is, they think of themselves as a tribe—and they’re not at all concerned that I’m there, as if they were my hosts and not squatters. I look at the back door, at the laundry room and bathroom, and at a grid in the ceiling that leads outdoors, and each time I look back there are more of these people, and it occurs to me that it’s like the gathering of the crows in The Birds. Then I find that they are discussing Hitchcock and how great his movies are.

Polanski Dream

Watched the Roman Polanski doc on HBO last night. This morning I dreamed that I was visiting Polanski in Paris--actually, I was with a kind of seminar group and Polanski pulled me aside to show me some stuff--he was thinking of putting together an exhibition of art that had been created as death-threats against him. There was a series of watercolors (these were very clearly stylistically like the drawings from the courtroom that were used a lot in the documentary) in which people were pulling guns on him, and there was a black and white film (like Knife in the Water) in which he was attacked by a shark. It was a very sun-filled room, everything had been archived neatly on beautiful racks, and he was asking me in a very friendly way, completely at his ease, if I thought the exhibition was a good idea.

I'm Marrying Lana Turner

I'm marrying Lana Turner as some kind of publicity stunt, as part of her planned comeback. The wedding is going to also be a press conference, but it's on the stage of a high-school auditorium, which makes it sems chintzy. It seems the reason they want me to marry Lana Turner is that I'm big and strong and this will somehow make her look good. (Lana Turner is wearing a modish white dress and a white turban.) It goes without saying that I see this marriage as a practical arrangement; it'll be nice to be rich, but mostly I'm doing it to help her out, because they asked me to. The thing is, I'm already married, to some other Hollywood star, and I can't remember the details so it'll be difficult to find the papers etc and find out if I'm still married to her; it sems like it was a long time ago, like as long as as from now back to the '40s, when my first wife's films appeared. At this point, it seems, as it didn't before, very much like an old movie. Still in color, though.

I dream about . . .

Sitting in a Metro car--which doesn't seem to be moving. Someone, I don't know who, is sitting to my right; the two people in front are turned around to talk to us. They're a young, college-ageish couple; the girl is like the ingenue in a European movie, although she speaks unnacented English, the boy is blond with fair skin. She's telling us that she's noticed that since he's Jewish, his skin is sticky, she always has to wash her hands after touching him. This is clearly intended to embarrass him. He looks perplexed. I'm surprised he's Jewish, and also surprised that she apparently doesn't know that I am. I say, "You know, we're not so much sticky as greasy."

* * * * * *

An open-air tent in which some kind of catered lunch is being served. Each tent holds about eight people. The caterers come to each tent and describe the choices, but only half the people in the tent can hear. It's like ordering in a restaurant in which there's no printed menu, the waiter has to tell you everything verbally, and only half the table can hear at a time. Then the caterers have to go back and get the sandwiches etc. for the first four people before serving the rest. It takes forever and we feel we can't talk until they're done or we'll miss the part where they tell us what's available. When they come back, I'm extremely irritated but try to just hang on and listen carefully to what's offered, but before they can start, one of the people from the first half asks if he can get a beer, and the caterer regards him with suspicion and asks him to stand up. He won't. I can see from my angle that he has a beer behind him (some bad American beer in a can); he's trying to get an extra beer. I am supposed to understand that the caterers think that's why there's this complicated, difficult, frustrating system: because the customers break the rules, hoard stuff, like sneaking stuff off from the buffet to take home.

I dream about . . .

A bust of Dvorak that talks and has really exaggerated facial expressions. It's in the same place as the statue of Dvorak in Prague, in front of the Rudolfinium, right by the river bank. Dvorak's head, or bust, is talking to me but also a crowd of onlookers, like he's partly a crazy person, partly a guy who does a spiel as street entertainment. He gets a queasy look on his face--his skin is like gray-green metal--and he says, "I don't feel so good."

This is a bit like the talking busts and portraits in the Disneyland Haunted Mansion. I was very disappointed to hear last week that the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean Rides were updated to shill for the movies.

The Emptiness of Dreaming

Last night I got an email asking if I could propose another 20-minute presentation for the IASD conference in Sonoma because someone had dropped out, and I realized pretty quickly I wanted to do this:

The Emptiness of Dreaming: Transcendental Fantasy in Three Films

The use of the dream plot or dream sequence in cinema in the manner of a Zen koan, to subvert the prevailing assumptions of realism, arouses intense anxiety even as it induces an experience that transcends rational understanding, as exemplified in three films: Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Richard Linklater’s Waking Life (2001), and the British anthology film Dead of Night (1945).

Images from Discreet Charm, Dead of Night, and Waking Life. Below them is the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, who said he awoke from a dream in which he was a butterfly and asked, "Am I Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being Zhuangzi?"

I Dream About My Hair

I am in some kitchen when I realize my hair feels long and straight. I go look in a bathroom mirror and it has the same texture as now, coarse and thick, but it's long and black now, and cut in front with bangs. My face gets thinner, too, and looks drawn and thin. I think this makes me look like Frankenstein's monster or someone from the French revolution.

Little Bears and William James

Walking through the fields outside a really lovely country house. I see bears here and there but they’re small, like cubs, and seem playful, not threatening. They begin to approach, like kittens, looking to play, and we are aware we shouldn’t fool with them too much; it’s not good for the bears to get too accustomed to humans. As we approach the house, the bears want to come in with us, and we have to make sure the doors and windows are secure and they can’t get in. A couple do, though, and we have to catch them and out them outside. As I look at the doorway, I se a few extremely tiny bears—I think I am supposed to call them “pups”—trying to wiggle under the sill; they’re only an inch or two long. I wonder if I’m supposed to step on them and pick them up and fling them away.
It is the house of the philosopher William James—though he’s a very contemporary middle-aged man—and I’m there with Donald and some other people; I don’t know who. I am trying to be a very good guest, but I feel I’m irritating William James and he is just politely tolerating me, which I find very disappointing.

Bernard the Blue-Nosed Reindeer

I'm at St. Mary's--although it doesn't look like St. Mary's. I'm going to meet up with some people at a swimming hole; a young woman is giving me a ride. They seem to be the people I went to school with at Hopkins. In the water, I'm aware I'm wearing contacts and shouldn't get water in my eyes. I can see my own body from above, through the water; I'm impressed I can see the definition of my abs and pecs and think I'm really not far from having a good body. I'm naked; so are some of the other swimmers but not all. There are two young women wearing Mennonite or Amish caps wading in shallow water in full skirts. The water seems to be draining away, and now I'm not in a swimming hole but an artificial pool. The water is lower on one side than the other, as if it's tilted. When I stand on my head in the water, there's hardly enough water to cover my eyes and nose; I can still breathe through my mouth.
There's a black preacher handing out pamphlets. I shake my head and think that's the end of it, but he starts a religious service. The swimming pool is now a large room, like a gym. He's going to start reading from the New Testament; we all have copies in front of us. My copy is open to the Book of Jonah in parallel Hebrew and English. I say aloud, "I can read Hebrew," in a joking manner. One of the man's two young sons steps forward and reads aloud in Hebrew--not well, haltingly, but he reads it. Then he pipes up, "I can read Hebrew," just as I did.
The boy and his father produce some candies wrapped in colored foil. The boy places a blue one in my hand, then splays out the end of a red one and puts it on my nose. He looks at me, then removes the red candy from my nose and replaces it with a blue one and sings,
"Rudolph, with your nose so blue,
Who'd have thought you were a practicing Jew?"

March 18 2006

My Mother is Dying Again

My mother is dying again. She is in her bedroom in the old house--the one that burned down in the '70s. She keeps falling out of bed and I have to lift her up and get her back into bed. I talk to Art about this: "She already died, didn't she? I mean, we buried her." He says, "Yeah, I didn't want to bring that up. I thought we did, but now I'm not sure."
At the same time, I've lost the car. But it also seems like it isn't me that lost it; it was borrowed by an older relative who lost it, Junior from The Sopranos or Sophia from Golden Girls, someone who's supposed to have senile dementia. So I have two things to discuss with Art, my dying mother and the lost car.
Back at the house, I ask my mother how it's possible for her to be here when she's already died. She becomes much younger suddenly. She has in her hand a black stone figurine that's supposed to be from ancient Mesopotamia and says she is never going away. She appears very happy about this but I am troubled; there's something supernatural about this that bothers me very much. A naked man appears in the doorway to the bedroom, looking very embarrasssed; a naked woman peeks over his shoulder behind him. "You wouldn't have any condoms, would you?" he asks. I say no; I'm irritated with him for interrupting. When I come out of my mother's room, he's sitting fully clothed in another bedroom, with another man seated in a chair near him. His name is Derrick but I call him Rick. I ask if he knows anything about possession. He says no, but the other guy starts to mumble, "I had a dream once . . ."

March 17 2006

I Am a Dirty Rotten Scoundrel

The last matinee of the Broadway musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has just ended and I am going on as the understudy for the co-star, Norman Leo Butz for the last evening performance, the last show. Apparently, he's never missed a performance and there's some rule that the understudy has to go on once and now I have to do it. I haven't taken this very seriously so I don't know my lines or the musical numbers. Suddenly it strikes me that what he has to do is really complicated and I can't just fake my way through it by doing what everyone else is doing. I have had dental work that day and it sounds serious but really hasn't hurt very much; still, I decide I am going to get out of it by saying the dental work makes it impossible for me to sing or speak on stage. (At the same time, I am frantically riffling through the script.) But I put off calling, and although the people I'm with don't have a real problem with my faking my way out of this, they are starting to get upset that it's 6:30 and I haven't called in yet, since the curtain's at 8:00. I get the impression it will basically be OK because although the understudy has no understudy, in a situation like this, they can list the actor as the understudy to the understudy. Norman Leo Butz will go on after all, as he wanted to all along.

(BTW: The use of "Butz" kind of screams out at you, doesn't it, but in the dream there's also this obscure sense that Norman Leo Butz may also be called Norman Bates.)

Dream: I Have to Tell My Parents They're Dead

I'm living with my parents and brother in an apartment that has about ten rooms and seems to spread out in all directions. It seems to be in Montreal. My mother is sitting at the dining table paring vegetables or something; my father is sitting in a ratty overstuffed armchair reading the paper. They're in their forties or fifties and my brother and I are in late teens. My brother and I are discussing what will happen when we have to tell them they're actually dead. Will they take it as bad news, like you would if you found out you were going to die, will they refuse to believe it, or will they just disappear like a puff of smoke? My brother says that my father will probably just disappear, because he didn't really want to be alive anyway, but my mother's going to take it very hard. We dread telling her.

Me and My Shadow Figure

Yes, it's getting to be the tiredest image in my repertoire, but it works for me. Donnie Darko (with his ax) takes me to the Other Side, and I have my best dreams there. Last night:

There's a small gathering, something between a social-obligation dinner party and a bunch of people trapped in a wing of a building they can't find their way out of. Like No Exit but even more like The Exterminating Angel. It's mostly Corcoran faculty. There's one person widely and pretty openly disliked and disapproved of; he represents a bureaucratic, bullshitty attitude toward both art and education that focuses on marketing and positioning yourself, adopting fashionable positions and ingratiating yourself with administrators, and not, as we would think of it, asking any really interesting questions about either art or education. But I want to draw him into a conversation and perhaps find common ground, so I ask him a question about teaching. He answers, in a condescending tone that's very true to his real manner, "I don't think the contemporary instructor should be thinking about teaching. What I do in my classes is facade performatively." I am gobsmacked. After a moment I recover and say, "Who gave you the right to use facade as a verb?"
After a little further discussion he seems to reconsider and retreat from his position. (This is also extremely familiar from his behavior in waking life.) He begins casually taking his clothes off and strutting around naked, apparently to show that he's just one of the guys. He climbs in my lap and drags his genitals and ass across my face. He's really surprised that this does not seem to please me, and he's starting to look panicky. He takes off the wool cap he's wearing and I see that he's bald on top and his hair on the sides is sticking out in all directions and is cut very unevenly. He looks very weak and sick. He lies in my lap naked and reaches his arms up to wrap around my shoulders. "I love you," he says. "Don't you love me?"

Dreams
I was working with a whole writing staff on the script for a new Scooby-Doo feature film, only it was going to be done in claymation, like Wallace and Grommit. I was excited about this and thought of it as a genuine aesthetic advance; somehow this was going to help make the script urbane, multi-layered, relevant. I was unsure about whether to reveal that I've never seen a Scooby-Doo cartoon but it turned out that wasn't really expected. What I was supposed to contribute was based on my background in classic film and theater conventions, especially Shakespeare. It was going to be hilarious and brilliant.

Dreams
Terrible dreams last night. I woke up at 4 am from a dream in which I was abducted by this Satanist cult led by Christopher Lee. We were in an upper room of a church or cathedral and he was torturing people, slashing them with knives. I had to look on without doing anything or it'd happen to me.
Whenever I have a dream like this, I assume immediately that it has something to do with work and authority conflicts.
After I fell asleep again, I dreamed I was in class and no one was doing the work; this flipped around, and I was a student in a class who hadn't done the work. This in itself is pretty interesting. I always assume it's a universal that hasn't been given much emphasis but maybe it's just a prominent feature in my own dreams: the ability of dreams to vary your point of view and erase the subject-object distinction seems an absolutely central feature. It's the reason I've made such a big deal about Whitman's The Sleepers; it seems like he's on to something about dreaming that doesn't really enter into the big twentieth-century psychological theories, at least until recently. Perhaps the fundamental characteristic in imagination of being able to construct different viewpoints from which to observe the world--as in, for example, even being able to imagine outer space enough to conjecture or develop theories about it--is always active and simply most noticeable during sleep or trance states because of the relaxation of the ego's hold over processing of perceptions. This is undoubtedly a very well-known idea I just don't happen to be familiar so I imagine it's obscure.