Sacrifice of a Song

Finally, a dream I remember! ...Wow, it's been a while, and geez, why is it bugs again?

This is a dream that was interrupted by the next door neighbor's kid screaming at the top of his lungs and waking me up. I hate thin walls.

Right off the bat, I'm going to say that I hate Wide Sargasso Sea because I think it ruins the character of Rochester. I read Jane Eyre in 8th grade and it's one of my favorite novels, even if Jane is pretentious. And Rochester, while he's definitely not perfect, was an enjoyable character to read about, probably because he's tsundere. But Wide Sargasso Sea portrays him horribly, even as it puts Antoinette/Bertha into a position to be pitied and sympathized with.

In Wide Sargasso Sea, Rochester is seen as "stone-masked" and psychically drawn into madness by Antoinette because she holds a deeper understanding of life and its meaning than he can, that she is wilder and full of life than he with his "Anglo-Saxon stoicism," according to Wilson Harris' "Carnival of Psyche: Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea." I don't think that's true, and especially that Rochester is full of "hard-hearted sanity" because, hey, he does go a little cuckoo. But I do agree that he ends up in debt to Antoinette because of what he's done to her, caging her in a way that one should never lock up a wild animal. That's partially why I hate Rhys's Rochester so much. While I enjoyed seeing new facets to Bertha since she was hardly developed by Bronte, I feel that Rochester was only in the novel as a tool. He was never all that important, except for what he wrought, but another Englishman could have done the same. It's like Rochester was around just to provide an excuse to justify the dislike of the white imperialists. So he's like stone, immovable when it comes to his ideas and thoughts... And that's just not the Rochester I grew to like in Jane Eyre. He's more stone-faced in Jane Eyre than in Wide Sargasso, and yet Bronte's portrayal is far more kinder to Rochester than Rhys. I just don't feel that Rhys did justice to Rochester, especially to his inner thoughts and psyche, but of course, I'm biased.

I was back in high school band and it was an extra late night practice for a concert or something. For some reason, everyone was standing up as they were playing, one person to each stand. We weren't separated by instrument or chair seat, so I was next to one of the sax players near the back of the whole orchestra. Each time the sax player moved, I just couldn't seem to play. I couldn't purse my lips right and the sounds just came out wrong. The instructor was really annoyed and everyone kept saying bad things about me because I was ruining the rehearsal. It didn't work out in the end, and finally the instructor dismissed class.

There was something more to this but I just don't remember it. I was never in band in HS though, only JHS. And I only played the flute on the side, for fun. My actual band instrument was the clarinet. Kinda weird.

I enjoyed the movie, though it made me feel sleepy talking about all those dreams. And at that point, I'd only had about 4 hours of sleep to last me two days... Anyway, watching the movie made me wonder whether Willy had always had lucid dreams. In the beginning, as a child, he almost floated into the sky but managed to catch hold of the car handle. At the end of the movie, he floated away because he couldn't grab on. Was he able to better control his dreams when he was younger? Or were they not lucid dreams? If they weren't, what caused him to have lucid dreams where he couldn't even wake up?

The movie seemed very rebellious, with all the people talking to Willy sort of like activists. And especially that woman he almost runs into at the station who is talking about not being an ant. It's interesting that the most "rebellious" seeming conversation, about non-conformity, is where the main character begins to realize it's really a dream and he can't wake up.

Also, I think I'll flip a light switch now and again in my dreams and see what happens. Hah.

I'm on a ship with the wind blowing full sail. The ship is in the middle of a storm, but I'm calmly climbing up the mast. There is a lot of swaying and bouncing because of choppy waves and though I know I should climb back down, I only cling to the ropes harder. I look down, which isn't that far of a distance, and I can see men yelling at me. None of their words reach me though. I scream back, "What?" but even though I can make out their mouths moving through the rain, I hear nothing. I continue climbing, and that's when I realize there's something at the top of the mast that I'm trying to get but just then, there is a clap of thunder. I jerk in surprise and my grip slips, and I'm falling... And of course, before I hit the deck, I wake up.

I was expecting to have a funky dream because of Waking Life but nope, actually, it was normal. I guess. Though I have to wonder what I would have dreamed if I hadn't listened to a story about ships and pirates before I went to sleep. Maybe I wouldn't have remembered it though, so I guess it all works out anyway.

This is Fred Tomaselli's "Us And Them" which was done in 2003. It's a collage of photo cutouts, leaves, gouache, acrylic, and resin on wood.

The painting makes me think of Adam and Eve from his "Untitled (Expulsion)" piece because of the skinless figures, and I see that tree as, well, the Tree. But the title made me think that we are seeing them as outsiders, i.e. "us" and "them" and I suppose we are. Through religion, we're trying so hard to separate ourselves from the idea of sin. Denying that we descended from sin at the same time knowing deep inside that we cannot escape that truth.

Looking at the figures of the man and the woman... there are so many things integrated into who they are through the collage of photos, and I felt that was sort of a dream aspect. Our dreams integrate a lot of our waking lives and half the time it seems like a jumble we can't understand. But we know that they're important. Hobson says dreams are a healthy way of absorbing what we go through in life, and they really are a part of us, even if we can't remember them. Then again, he does say we don't need to. Can't say this for anyone else, but there are definitely dreams I wish I could remember because there are times I wake up with tears on my pillow and on my cheeks, but I don't know what I saw that made me cry and I really want to.

I'm sitting in front of a piano, my hands in my lap. I try very hard not to look at the crowd, and focus on the stage. The curtains are the ones from my elementary school stage but I feel like the hall is huge. I know the people are waiting but no matter how I try, I can't seem to get my hands to touch the piano. My hands are like icy rocks. Yet somehow, I start playing Erik Satie's Je Te Veux. Someone starts to sing but the lyrics are totally different from what I know. I try to stop, try to correct the singer but I can't get up. I can't even stop my fingers as they continue to play, moving from that song to another to another. Each time, the lyrics of the song are off but I can't stop. I'm like a mindless puppet playing the piano.