It's hard to believe, in the factory, how the satin feels and the diamonds gleam

[sovay]

I think time in my dreams is a spatial phenomenon. The night before last, I dreamed that I was closing up a house, tidying up the garden for the last time, pruning the boxwood, cutting willow withies, chasing birds away from the yew hedges. It was either the first or the last day of summer, and at dusk I burned all the sticks and leaves in a flagged ring of stones on the front lawn. But when I left the house, I was walking through rooms, each a different season and a different century, so that I had to duck underneath sprays of nineteenth-century holly and listen to a seventeenth-century denunciation of popish saints' days and somewhere was a room with one of those little artificial fountains, with copper-green basins shaped like leaves and pebbles and water streaming down different levels, except that it spilled out through the door and disappeared, and someone had folded little birds out of paper and set them floating downstream. And last night, I dreamed that I was high up in the mountains in the modern day with a sort of mercenary knight and his lady, except that she was (and always had been) a man in very careful, fifteenth-century drag. I have no explanation.

This is perhaps appropriate, because yesterday (after making the best cinnamon rolls ever^TM for my family, who now want more) I went to see a matinée of The Dream Project at Brandeis. I had no idea what to expect from the show, only that my friend Naya Chang had invited me and I see her with the depressing infrequency of most people I know right now; but she is crazily talented, so for her sake I went. Essentially, it was two interlinked short plays drawn from the dreams of the cast. The first, The Monkey King Dream Cycle, was a series of sketches dramatized from the dreams of all ten actors, flowing into and out of one another in their stream-of-consciousness fashion and presided over by the boastful, tricksterish Monkey King of Chinese legend, whose own dream—a recollection of his life before the Journey to the West—closes the first act. The second, Sara e Salvo, narrowed the focus to the dreams of one actor the summer she was involved with her childhood friend and cousin in Italy, so that we see very little of the real-life relationship, only the ways it is bent and refracted through her dreams. The cast of characters was constantly shifting, the sets little more than different levels and lighting with props of whatever seemed to have come to hand at the moment. (A pink plastic spoon mysteriously recurred throughout both halves of the show.) There were dreams of marriages and shy men and ants crawling underneath one's skin, dreams of dating Jason Alexander, walking across one's own spine like a tightrope, becoming the evil overlord of Canada. A recently dead friend asks in a dream for his story to be told, and so the audience hears it. Another student dreams about rehearsing for The Dream Project, and everything is very metafictional for a few minutes. Naya herself was the Monkey King, in peach-gold robes and a painted mask, and she was brilliant. Now if I can only manage more than one social interaction per month . . .

And today Sirenia Digest #17 and Not One of Us #37 both arrived in my (electronic and real-life) mailbox, which means that my dreams tonight will probably concern razor-nailed fishsex and baboon-headed film noir and companions in all the strangest ways.

. . . Okay, actually, I could live with that.

Comments

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

The night before last, I dreamed that I was closing up a house, tidying up the garden for the last time, pruning the boxwood, cutting willow withies, chasing birds away from the yew hedges. It was either the first or the last day of summer, and at dusk I burned all the sticks and leaves in a flagged ring of stones on the front lawn.

Somehow I think the fact that I play video games might prevent me from having dreams like that.

But when I left the house, I was walking through rooms, each a different season and a different century, so that I had to duck underneath sprays of nineteenth-century holly and listen to a seventeenth-century denunciation of popish saints' days and somewhere was a room with one of those little artificial fountains,

Sounds sort of like Russian Ark or Testament of Orpheus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testament_of_Orpheus), which I watched last night, and turned out to be rather integral to a discussion of Cocteau's Orpheus--I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen it. Heurtebise returns.

And today Sirenia Digest #17

Your "Odd Sympathy" was great and sort of deeply sexy. I love the bit where she realises he's an imitation of himself.

[sovay]

Somehow I think the fact that I play video games might prevent me from having dreams like that.

I don't know; maybe if your video games have lots of seasonal imagery.

or Testament of Orpheus, which I watched last night, and turned out to be rather integral to a discussion of Cocteau's Orpheus--I highly recommend it, if you haven't seen it. Heurtebise returns.

I've never manged to see either Le Sang d'un Poete or Le Testament d'Orphée, although they've been on my list since college. (Along with the entire corpus of Ingmar Bergman. I really need to fix this.) I'll see who I can con into watching them with me.

Your "Odd Sympathy" was great and sort of deeply sexy. I love the bit where she realises he's an imitation of himself.

Thank you!

(I like the description "sort of deeply sexy.")

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

(Along with the entire corpus of Ingmar Bergman. I really need to fix this.)

I've only seen The Seventh Seal, myself. Let me know which one you see next, I'll watch it, and we can discuss.

I'll see who I can con into watching them with me.

Gods, I wish I lived closer to you.

[sovay]

I've only seen The Seventh Seal, myself.

I love The Seventh Seal: I saw it for a class my first semester of college and promptly made all of my family and friends within reach watch it. I would buy it on DVD, if I had any idea which translation Criterion used. (When it existed on tape, there were two versions, one of which was much, much better than the other. The names "Jof" and "Mia" should not be translated as "Joseph" and "Mary," for God's sake.) Of the rest, I've only managed to see Wild Strawberries, which I did not instinctively love, but which I did recognize as very good, and The Devil's Eye, which was decidedly weird, and therefore I remember it fondly.* I think either The Magician or Winter Light was next up on the list, but that was seven years ago. Clearly, it's mythological time to watch another.

*I don't pretend to remember all the plot details, but the overwhelming impression was of a sex farce with metaphysics. Proverbially, "the chastity of a maiden is a sty in the devil's eye," and this particular sty is a minister's daughter in modern-day Sweden who has not yet had sex with her fiancé. The devil promptly dispatches the damned soul of Don Juan to seduce her, but what bowled over the ladies in seventeenth-century Spain does not work so well in Sweden in the 1960's: and the girl is both more and less innocent than she appeared. Meanwhile, Don Juan's servant is smitten with the minister's wife, who is tired of being patient and respectable after years of marriage to the same abstracted, unworldly man, and the minister himself is having a crisis of faith, exemplified by his envy of the vicarage's former occupant who was so holy, they say, he once locked a demon in his cupboard and wouldn't let it out until it repented. It's the kind of comedy where the potential for real hurt waits around the next screwball twist, and it is on these terms that the characters all discuss love. And much of it is, in fact, quite funny.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

I would buy it on DVD, if I had any idea which translation Criterion used. (When it existed on tape, there were two versions, one of which was much, much better than the other. The names "Jof" and "Mia" should not be translated as "Joseph" and "Mary," for God's sake.)

According to Criterion's web site for the movie (http://www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=11), it has "Improved English subtitles" as well as an English dub. The fact that the characters are listed as Jof (Joseph) and Mia (Mary) leads me to believe that the subtitles use the former names and the dub uses the latter names. You know, it's really unlike Criterion to include dubs at all. It makes me wonder if there're a lot of people with sentimental attachment to this particular dubbing track.

I haven't seen The Seventh Seal in more than a decade. I rented it from a video store, and I don't remember the character names. I don't remember the whole movie very well, actually. I think I'm due to watch it again.

and The Devil's Eye,

DOMINATING FOOTNOTE: 500 points!!

It sounds like an incredible movie, from how you describe it. I definitely need to see it.

[sovay]

It makes me wonder if there're a lot of people with sentimental attachment to this particular dubbing track.

*shudder*

It sounds like an incredible movie, from how you describe it. I definitely need to see it.

I've never seen it counted as one of Bergman's masterpieces, but I seem to remember it in greater detail than Wild Strawberries, which must say something.