Tennis and Cosplay

I've been having some vivid dreams lately. A few nights ago, I dreamt I was playing doubles tennis. It was me and a girl versus another girl and a guy. But after the girl on my team had to retrieve the ball from some shrubs, she switched sides, saying to me, "'Overwrought' is actually spelt 'o-v-e-r-o-r'." I tried to insist it actually wasn't but she went to the other side anyway and it was three against one.

Last night, I dreamt I was watching a comedy horror movie produced by and starring Jerry Seinfeld. Actually it was kind of an ensemble, sort of reminding me of Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train in which the film cuts between multiple stories about different people in the same town. In the movie in my dream, there was a plot about Seinfeld trying to get to some kind of Stonehenge structure in the woods with beautiful autumnal leaves, there was a plot about kids doing some mischief in a parking lot, and there was a plot about a group of hardcore Fallout fans who'd turned an old warehouse into a Vault. They had their own homemade Vault suits and I think one of them was played by Jemaine Clement. They'd only been living in the "Vault" for a few weeks but there was a lot of funny business with them acting like they were out of touch with the modern world. Due to a mix-up, the warehouse regularly received deliveries from supermarket freight trucks. Despite all the comedy, the film actually had some scary moments and there was some real foreboding in Seinfeld's trip into the woods.

Dreams of State

Last night I dreamt I was at a mall in San Diego with some Ghostbusters. No famous ones, though it seemed like we were waiting for Dan Aykroyd to show up. We were sitting at a table talking about the election. We all agreed Trump seemed the likely winner, though none of us said we'd vote for him.

I don't pay close attention to politics these days and, since I live in Japan, I don't have a ground level idea of how the day to day has changed in the U.S. under Biden. I have an impression of Biden's presidency as being sort of shapeless and colourless. Trump had personality, so did Obama, Bush, Clinton, and really everyone before. All anyone seems to say about Biden is that he's old. Maybe that's the reason he seems like a Walmart greeter while everyone else around him is managing things.

I remember when people were criticised for voting for George W. Bush because he seemed like someone you could have a beer with. Then there are the people who say they'd vote for Trump because some of Trump's mistakes and misdeeds seem like the kind of thing the average person might do. The counterargument in both cases being that you should want a president who's above average. People have always liked relatable heroes though perhaps there's a greater lack of humility now. That's why no-one seems to be able to make a good Superman movie anymore.

Also, there must be a lot of fear as the world becomes more complicated and its incomprehensibility and brutality becomes more apparent. Falstaff's little world at the inn looks a lot cosier than Henry IV's complicated map of players.

Swords and Eclairs

When I chat with the Japanese junior high school students I work with, I often like to ask about their dreams. Most of the time, they can't remember any dreams but yesterday a girl told me she dreamed of eating great quantities of eclairs. This particular student is always fun to talk to because comes off as genuine as an old comic strip character. I asked if she had a favourite pastry shop in town (there are many in Japan) but she said she can't shop at them because she's allergic to eggs. No wonder she was dreaming of eclairs.

Here are some of my recent doodles from the art club. As you can see, I've been in the mood to draw Nesuko lately. It's kind of nice living in a country where the comic industry isn't dead.

X Sonnet #1816

A line of hams await the casting brunch.
A glaze of ink adorns the creamy script.
Together, crews assemble fast a lunch.
The foam of lonesome black was full and tipped.
A nightly glow distorts the damaged main.
Armadas drift abeam of scuttled hulks.
Gelat'nous moons would melt to quickly wane.
The slinker cracks a jar then slyly skulks.
The blinking bat forgets to sleep in June.
As timing's right for flight, the sirens wake.
Aloft on leather wings, the creature loomed.
Presented late, the feature pushed a take.
As dusty sets amass a bloody dream,
The crew devoured steamy pastry cream.

Dreams After Bikes

Last night brought another strange dream. This time, I was in a neighbourhood near my old neighbourhood from when I was in elementary and junior high school. It was night and pitch black. Above, I could dimly see orange enemy zeppelins slowly patrolling. I knew they were occasionally dropping demons totally concealed in black clothing. Their mission was to savagely murder everyone they met so I built a lookout platform on top of one house. I sat in there with some people and we got to talking about how phony the Oscars are and we all took turns mocking acceptance speeches.

I also watched Pee-Wee's Big Adventure last night. That's one of those movies I used to watch constantly when I was a kid. So much so that, even though I don't think I'd watched it in thirty years, it felt overly familiar. Maybe my last impression of it was that I needed to give it a rest, I don't know. It's still a remarkable film. Roger Ebert put it very well when he said the film created a complete fantasy world "like Alice in Wonderland or Lord of the Rings." There's a fundamental logic in the film that doesn't exist in reality or in any other film and the character of Pee-Wee is at the center of this strange universe. When he tells Dottie he's a "loner, a rebel", in any realistic context you'd say, yeah, that's true. He's a complete eccentric and his home, with his complicated decorations and gadgets, only leaves room for one. But then he giggles to himself after he leaves Dottie. It was all a joke, he had no insight into his own character. Or maybe he just doesn't think it's true. He is remarkably good at making friends, after all.

Twitter Sonnet #1794

Corrective pads can square a shoulder shot.
Beyond the frame, an actor tries to cut.
A million mice can take a single cot.
The hare was trim from ankle down to butt.
Along the road to loafers, wheels were shod.
Returning palettes crack beneath a load.
No items now can sell before the pod.
The moisture glutton soon became a toad.
A mountain den provides the shelter place.
With good in cans, the goods were waiting late.
A finished deck expelled the wasted ace.
In secret fish the praise was saved for bait.
As ev'ry pretty thing'll start as sad.
The planet's noisy moon'll start as bad.

Languages of Dream

Last night I dreamt I was at Grossmont College in San Diego, the community college I went to before SDSU. I was in a little garden and I found a shaggy grey cat under a shrub, in a drain pipe. There was also a kitten but the kitten was exactly like the adult cat. That is, a scale miniature, with the head in the same proportion to its body as the adult cat. But the fur couldn't scale so it looked like solid, moulded plastic. It was kind of a pale plum colour instead of grey.

I've been remembering my dreams a lot lately after a very long period when I was forgetting them. The night before last, I dreamt the new Doctor Who episode was written by someone who wanted to skewer the Church of England but knew absolutely nothing about it. So in the story, Rose had a part time job as a bishop down at the local church. She had to wear black robes every day and her coworkers called her lazy even when she was working hard.

Here's a pretty music video one of my students recommended:

One of the most striking things to me about K-Pop is often the lyrics include English. It's a reflection of how much stronger South Korea is in English than Japan. Japan just recently ranked shockingly low again in English education. Usually when I ask teachers for their opinions as to why, they say Japan focuses too much on testing--that is, memorising grammar and vocabulary instead of practicing conversations and role playing. I would say that's part of it. English is kind of studied like a dead language and the rules are much stricter to be more conducive to memorisation. Yesterday, I was talking to a teacher who was stressing the importance of differentiating "shrine" and "temple". In Japan, Shinto structures are called shrines and Buddhist structures are called temples. It's useless for me to point out that actual English is far less strict and the words "shrine" and "temple" are applied to all sorts of things, well beyond the spheres of Shinto and Buddhism.

Mostly, there's just a pure lack of interest in truly learning English in Japan. You'll hear the occasional one or two lines of English in a J-Pop song--and quite often bad English. Meanwhile, in South Korea, pop artists are writing whole songs in perfectly intelligible English. There's a market for it and therefore an interest. I just don't see it in Japan.

Dreams and Music

Last night I dreamt I saved Ewan McGregor from a car accident. I think I was riding in the old red Aerostar my family had when I was a kid. We were on the freeway and it was flooding with muddy water flowing from behind us. Suddenly, a white sportscar raced through it, trying to get past us but it skidded sideways into a wall and stopped. Inside, I could see Ewan McGregor unconscious. I waded across the water and somehow managed to get his door open and lift his head above the rising water. He woke and wasn't grateful at all. He managed to get the car started and sped away. Movie stars!

I used to write about dreams all the time but haven't been remembering them lately. This week, I've been snacking before bed on some dark rye bread I made on Sunday and I've been remembering dreams every night. I also had a dream about going back to San Diego and somehow completely forgetting to bring the vests I usually wear these days.

Before bed last night, I found myself on another nostalgia trip, watching music videos from the '90s. Boy, music sure was good back then.

I was also in the mood for classic rock and found The Rolling Stones now have a pretty amazing official video for "Sympathy for the Devil".

X Sonnet #1789

The evening worms were blue to walk the dog.
She knew the meaning etched in fortune's check.
The scribbled night would pay the burning log.
What lovers hear across the evening deck.
Residing back before the denim wait.
Corrections crack the shield before the doll.
In triumph turtles take the bat for bait.
A billion clowns could fill the lurid mall.
Revolving tricks are nothing new again.
If boredom blanks the mind, the mirror soothes.
Entire buildings use her single pen.
The crickets' noises never stopped her moves.
The river rose for roads and rusty cars.
A plan was made to summon dreams to Mars.

Bowling Balls and Coffee Cups

Last night I dreamt I played this song for a class in Egypt at the base of a pyramid. I said, "And that's Kenny Rogers!" but none of them knew who that was. Then we investigated the pyramid, looking for a tomb.

I drank wine and watched The Big Lebowski last night. It was an end to a rambling day. It's summer break right now but I went to one of my schools looking for the groundskeeper I befriended so I could return some blu-rays and DVDs he lent me. But the school was closed. There was a baseball game going on there so I sat and watched them a while, letting the sunburns get worse on my arms. I left at around 11:30 and walked to a nearby McDonalds for lunch and had a big mac, large fries, and an orange juice. I don't really like fast food but I had a dream about McDonalds last week. It's much nicer in Japan, too. Cleaner and they bring the food to your table.

To complete my American nostalgia day, I walked to the Starbucks and drank coffee and read for two hours in the beautiful air conditioning. I had two cups of coffee, the second one at a discount because I kept my receipt. The cashier, when she saw me come back, told me to look for my receipt so she could give me the discount. That illustrates a key difference between Japan and the U.S. In the U.S., she wouldn't have mentioned the receipt, she'd have just given me the discount because obviously she'd seen me there the whole time and she'd rung up my first coffee. But nothing's real in Japan if there's no paperwork.

At Starbucks, I was reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt, a book that's getting talked about a lot lately and I realised I should try to live in the modern era sometimes, even if this particular book is thirty years old. It's time is now, though, and I'm developing theories as to why that is. I'll say more when I've finished (I'm about two thirds through). So far I feel it's a bit overrated. It's kind of like an episode of Columbo without Columbo. Parts of it benefit greatly if read with alcohol; such parts are kind of cosy.

All Roads Lead to Television

I haven't written about my dreams in a while. Last night I dreamt I was back in San Diego, walking east on Fletcher Parkway in La Mesa. I was on the south side of the street though I knew I needed to be on the north side. I was carrying a glass mug I'd stolen from the trolley station (where one does not usually find mugs). I found my path, and the path of every car in the street, was impeded by a new concrete parking garage. Cars had to turn around and go back the other way. I went inside and found an entrance to JC Penney and a little waiting room for the department store's optometrist or photo studio. There was an old CRT television, old enough to have a wooden exterior. It was showing new movies.

Last night I watched a bunch of old music videos. Wouldn't it be nice to have someone feel this way about you? Or about anything?

Twitter Sonnet #1700

Ahead of silver cars, a horse advanced.
Bereft of gas, the final car desists.
Across the road, a nervous critter danced.
Delicious dots in space for some exist.
For kings, the birds could bow and scrape the seeds.
Effacing spirits move the dial down.
Replacement fluff has choked rewarded deeds.
Upholstery broke from rotten feather down.
Mistaken arms mislead the leaden leg.
Extinguished tombs contain the beat of death.
Expensive glue repaired the ugly egg.
On iron hills there sounds a banshee breath.
Beneath the teeth of auto parts they fall.
Returns are cut behind a diesel wall.

Nightmare Exercises

I've been remembering some of my dreams again lately. A few nights ago, I dreamt I was in a mall back in San Diego and I was being chased by a short, bald man wearing a bright red polo. I think it's because I hate polos so much.

I suspect I'm getting more troubled dreams because I've been playing video games before bed, something I realised long ago I shouldn't do for this very reason. But somehow I've gotten sucked into Skyrim again, twelve years after the game's initial release. It's a good game on its own but it still seems to have a very active modding community so the Skyrim I'm playing now is vastly different from the one I first played over a decade ago. It has improved graphics and a better interface. I'm able to have more than one follower and I'm able to give them specialised combat roles.

Oh, yeah, and they're all dressed as Playboy bunnies. What do you expect? I'm a big old pervert. My character is the vampire in yellow with the knives, Junko. One of the mods I'm using creates a more complex perk tree which makes duel wielding daggers much more useful and interesting. Those bunny clothes don't count as armour, I've been levelling my character without building any armour skill. In Skyrim, it's actually beneficial to avoid levelling some skills because the enemies level up with you. This is an assassin character so she's good at sneaking and backstabbing. When I sneak up on someone and get them from behind with a dagger, I do 24 times the normal damage. The only trouble is this character is shit when fighting against dragons, particularly since I installed a "Deadly Dragons" mod because I always thought the vanilla dragons were too easy. This mod also makes the dragons use cool special abilities and spells. I especially like the "Storm Dragon" which summons a rain storm when it appears. It's nice atmosphere and it's easier for me to sneak in a storm. Not that I've managed to successfully backstab a dragon yet.

You can raise the difficulty level in vanilla Skyrim but that just seems to give everyone more hitpoints, which results in tedious sessions of me hacking repeatedly at someone. These mods are much more interesting.

Twitter Sonnet #1645

Obtaining plushy dreams promotes the group.
Dividing chores, the festive rodents run.
Observing rock, musicians slowly roll.
Successful dough imbues the butter bun.
Absurd as rolling bellies burn a sweet.
Revolving games align for lover dreams.
However, bats asleep alone were beat.
Forgotten cars concealing naught, it seems.
With proper balance, bowls can hold a soup.
Embarrassed bats could never dance again.
Without a wrap, the lady pawned a dupe.
Embargoes stopped the flow of cash to bin.
Dissolving snakes desired food to stay.
Devoured night deposits sunken day.

World's Biggest Rabbit

Last night I dreamt I was trying to google "The largest rabbit ever recorded." Trying to find the right words to get what I wanted, my first attempt for some reason yielded a video from an old Unsolved Mysteries style news magazine show. It was a segment about a woman discussing a paranormal experience she'd had. As usual, they had footage of the real woman being interviewed and a "dramatic reconstruction", an actress portraying the events described. The real woman was saying something about how she'd walked into a particular corner of a room and had this strange sensation of connecting with multiple potential versions of herself. Whoever made the dramatic reconstruction didn't, I felt, interpret her accurately and showed the actress in a queue of copies of herself with different facial expressions.

At that moment, I very distinctly heard a voice behind me say, "I see everything you do." And I woke up.

Here's what came up when I googled "The largest rabbit ever recorded" to-day:

And I think this also calls for a viewing of David Lynch's "RABBITS".

The Dizzy Reality of the Screen

Last night I went to see the greatest movie of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, in a movie theatre. Well, it's the most current number one in Sight and Sound's poll of critics worldwide. It's certainly my favourite movie though I've always felt weirdly uncertain that it deserves that top spot more than Citizen Kane, partly because I know very few people who like Vertigo that much. Generally the reaction I see is people think it's okay but don't quite understand what the fuss about.

I was hoping to get some impression of the audience's reaction last night though, as it turned out, it was a blessedly quiet crowd of about twenty five people, nearly all women, ranging in age from mid twenties to mid forties, from what I could tell. Whether or not they liked the movie, they were good movie-goers who kept quiet for the most part and I was able to thoroughly enjoy the experience of the film. I wish it'd been louder, I was hoping for Bernard Herrmann's score to really blast in the opening credits but otherwise I have no complaints about how it was shown.

Fathom Events is screening Vertigo in cinemas for its sixtieth anniversary. It also happens to be the ten year anniversary of the week I spent obsessively watching it over and over before I wrote this analysis in 2008. I stand by all my opinions in that analysis and I think it's one of the best things I've written. But one of the great things about Vertigo is my perspective is different every time. Like the protagonist in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, who watches Vertigo in one scene and explains the movie is different now because he, the viewer, is different now, I find myself responding to different things.

I'm more interested in religious symbolism now than I was ten years ago and I found myself thinking about how Hellish Elster's office looks. That desk looks like it was carved from the bloody flesh of tortured souls. A lot of people talk about how green is used in the film but there's a lot to be said about its use of red, too. There's the black cherry wood in the McKittrick hotel and the intense, almost magenta wallpaper at Ernie's, the restaurant where Scottie first sees Madeleine.

When I wrote my analysis in 2008 I spent a lot of time reading what other people had written about the film and tried not to repeat anything but I'm not doing that to-day. So maybe it's already been pointed out but it occurred to me last night that Judy's fate at the end being caused by the sudden appearance of a nun may be seen as an act of God. Scottie's finally broken free of all the illusions and the manipulations to reach the moment of clarity that cures his vertigo. One could say that a benevolent God watching this said, okay, he's done enough, now I'll take Judy off the table so he won't be tempted to go back into that cycle. But there doesn't seem to be anything good in Judy's death--a repeat of her apparent death earlier in the film, it seems mainly to be confirmation that Scottie's trapped in a cycle instead of breaking free of one.

It's a deliberately frustrating and uncertain ending, not unlike the ending of the new season of Twin Peaks. In both cases, we have a detective character traversing hazards of dream and illusion in an effort to save a woman who may or may not be real, a journey that questions the criteria for what we regard as reality. Having recently watched Mississippi Mermaid, I was compelled to think of how important Vertigo was to the French New Wave filmmakers. Like Godard continually thwarting audience expectations by abrupt changes to the score in Pierrot le Fou, Hitchcock continually plays with what audiences expect from a movie and uses those expectations to make the audience a part of the story. He sets up Scottie as a hero and thus makes us complicit in his deviance, he sets up a spirit possession plot and then dashes it aside because, after all, that's a bit fantastical, right? What were we thinking?

But is Carlotta's ghost really a hoax or is its reality simply in a different and deeper form than we're conditioned to expect? The effect of Carlotta's haunting is there, the paradigm of freedom defined by the control of others is set up by her story, and the pattern of dominated people trying to dominate others has an echo in the idea of Carlotta, victim to the whims of a man in life, controlling the fates of men and women after her death. The lack of any explicit proof of her haunting, aside from possibly Scottie's attention being drawn to the necklace in his dream, is in a weird way integral to the power she asserts. Just as "Madeleine" holds so much influence for not truly existing.

Last night I was struck by this pair of shots as Judy and Scottie discuss her dream that leads them to San Juan Bautista:

Hitchcock keeps cutting back and forth between the two. Judy and Scottie are in two different places but their faces are placed in almost exactly the same relationship with the lamp. Like Scottie's dream where he falls into Carlotta's grave or when he falls onto the roof the shot seems to suggest he and Madeleine are the same person. One could say that Madeleine is the joint creation of Elster, Elster's unseen wife, Judy, and Scottie but primarily Judy and Scottie. It's like a masque written by Elster about his wife in which Judy is the actress and Scottie is the audience/participant. Or maybe more accurately, it's like a Dungeons and Dragons campaign written by Elster, Judy is the Dungeon Master, and Scottie is a player. Scottie isn't a passive audience and Judy isn't simply a performer of written lines, they're both creating the story. The lamp is a little clearer next to Judy's face but it's closer and blurrier next to Scottie's--she gives him the dream, raw material, he interprets the dream and comes up with a plan of action based on it.

Yes, I guess this movie will always be fresh for me. It was an incredible pleasure seeing it on a big screen. The incredible visuals, apart from any interpretations of them, are wonderful to experience in themselves. I love these two consecutive shots as we watch Judy and Scottie leave the forest and then we see Judy at the beach by that twisted tree: