The Amazing Dr. Funkenstein and the Mind-altering burrito

Welcome back to another exciting semester of blogging. (Isn't the winter break way too short?) Let's play some tunes, alright?

Download file





Welcome back now, y'all.

I thought I'd share a short anecdote about a friend of mine and her sleep-time story. She tells me she dreamt her roommate came into her room while she was sleeping and started talking to her. And she (the cute girl who's telling me this story) keeps talking about figs. Which she finds strange, because she knows nothing about figs.

So she tells her roommate in the morning
- I had this strange dream you were in my room and I was talking about figs.
- That actually happened, her roommate replied.

I thought that was funny. But it makes me wonder, why do we talk about the things we talk about when we're talking in our sleep? This girl doesn't know the first thing about figs but she was gabbing away about them. Are we dreaming about these things at the time? Or do we suddenly start free-associating when prompted by conversation?

I'm running a little dry on dreams so I thought I'd share another dream that was told to me by a friend of mine.

She walks into a small theatre for an audition (a college production, I believe this was supposed to be Rathouse M-11). There are three people sitting at a table. She hands them her resume and gets on stage.
The main guy looks at her resume. Then looks at her. The back at the resume. (Then goes cross-eyed and looks at both- just kidding.)
- I'm sorry but you can't audition. You're just a freshman.

The girl gets irate. She starts babbling like an ape and waving her arms around in the air. Suddenly there's a fruit stand next to her. She starts throwing fruit at this man. But not ordinary fruit like apples and oranges, unusual stuff like cantalopes, pinapples.
They don't seem to notice as they get covered with pulp and bruised with fruit.

She climbs a palm tree that's grown in the middle of the stage. She gets to the top and starts throwing mangos. It still doesn't phase them.

I hope we weren't supposed to talk about one of the poems from class (because I am not talking about that ee cummings poem). Instead I'm going to go off on a tangent and talk about one of my favorites "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
I think everybody loves that poem. Don't you remember reading it for the first time in high school and being all like, man, this guy totally gets me. (Hell, I set up candles and worshipped the thing like a relic.) But there's a lot more to it than just the depressed guy interpretation. That's why I'm bringing it up here and now, with the honors test looming over us like a nun with a really heavy ruler, because I hope we get something as deep as that to work with. Because, let's face it, if we get four poems like that cummings form-mimicks-content junk we're not gonna have a lot to say.
That's really all I could think of to say, so I'll fill space by reciting the first stanza from memory

Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

(Okay, so I cheated a little. Okay a lot. But it's on the page now, right?)

My brain told me this story about two weeks ago, I thought I'd share it with you now.

Tony Shalhoub is a private detective brought in on a missing person case. He looks weary and speaks in a raspy voice.

We're on some sort of huge open building, like a lean-to, that's been built on the boardwalk. It's a very Disney-fied place. There's yellow and purple lights hung from the ceiling on a black scaffolding. There's people hocking merchandise everywhere.

There's a wall missing on the place (as I said before) that leads out to the boardwalk and the beach. In between that exit and the beach, however, there's a staircase leading up into a huge statue (smaller than the statue of liberty). The whole thing is built of brown alabaster. The statue is of a woman looking out wishfully into the ocean, a "waiting woman." This is the woman Tony Shalhoub is looking for.

So Shalhoub is standing in front of the staircase. He's waiting for someone. In comes Zachary Ty Bryan. They talk. Apparently he was the last one to see the girl before she vanished. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went but I got the information that she was on the beach, waiting for someone- someone she cared for deeply. And the next morning, the statue of her was there. (Apparently it attracted quite a crowd, I think Disney bought the rights to it.)

While they're finishing talking Shalhoub sees a grizzled, curmudgeonly man pushing a hotdog cart along the boardwalk. He looks at this man and feels absolute hatred.
- Who's this guy?
- Oh, just some weirdo who hangs around the boardwalk a lot.
- Strange character.
- I'll say. Just pushes that cart around night and day. I don't think he's ever sold a hotdog to anyone.
- Creepy.
- Yea. I wouldn't leave my girlfriend alone on the beach with that guy around.
- Thanks for your help.

Zachary Ty Bryan leaves with an attractive woman he had left off to the side to talk to Monk.

Shalhoub leers at the old man with the hotdog cart and walks up the stairs into the statue. He takes out a file and examines the facts of the case. (This is where my brain gets a little more hazy on the actual events of the dream.) He discovers during his investigation that he loves this woman. (Like that movie Laura.) Her devotion. Her beauty.

He stays there, looking out at the water, thinking, until nightfall.

Suddenly he comes to an overwhelming conclusion. He runs down the stairs and starts chasing the strange old man. The old man wheels his cart until it gets stuck in the sand, and he trips and falls. Tony Shalhoub catches up with him on the beach. He grabs the old man's body by the lapels and shouts at him
- What did you do to her? Huh? You sick bastard! What did you do to her? Sick fuck! What do you know?

He looks into the curmudgeon's furrowed eyes and becomes him.

Suddenly it is day light. The hotdog cart is a few yards from the statue, and open. The old man is holding the body of the dead girl, trying to bury the body in the sand.

- There he is! someone shouts.
A large, menacing mob from the boardwalk gathers around Shalhoub. In the front row is Zachary Ty Bryan with his girlfriend (I remember she's blonde and wearing purple for some reason).

Shalhoub is very confused. He stumbles around in a haze. He is surrounded by people and the ocean. He staggers up to Zachary Ty.
- You gotta help me! I didn't do it!
- Get away from us, freak! he says as he pushes his girlfriend behind him.
- I didn't do it, he says, as he staggers into the center of the circle. I'm innocent! I didn't do it! I... couldn't help it.

He kneels in front of the body of the dead girl. He rearranges the hair around her face. A single tear rolls down his face. He leaves her exquisite corpse there on the ground. She belongs to the world now.

- I couldn't help it.

He makes a break for it down the beach. He only makes it to the edge of the water before the mob catches up with him. They pile on top of him and pound him with their limbs.