Oh, passin' the love o' women

[sovay]

I dreamed that Benjamin Britten had set both the first and second series of the Barrack-Room Ballads (1892 and 1896) for voice and piano; the recordings had just become available on CD. You should have heard Peter Pears on "Follow Me 'Ome."

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I love dreams that include tangible, describable objects that don't, in our waking world, exist.

I think I've commented to you before about looking through my parents' albums, in dreams, and discovering interesting Beatles albums that don't exist. One I've always remembered was covered with 2" x 2" photos of them, in rows across the front.

Did you get to listen to the recordings?

[sovay]

I love dreams that include tangible, describable objects that don't, in our waking world, exist.

I get a lot of unreal architecture. Often I like it better than the buildings that take up its space in waking life.

Did you get to listen to the recordings?

I bought them! I remember appreciating that they sounded nothing like Bellamy's settings and had a more knockabout sound than Britten's folksongs. You have no idea how much I resent their nonexistence.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I also get a lot of architecture, and a lot of things that are alive and shouldn't be, like a cell phone that had fine veins, a pulse and purred when you touched it.

[sovay]

and a lot of things that are alive and shouldn't be, like a cell phone that had fine veins, a pulse and purred when you touched it.

You should read P.C. Hodgell's ongoing Kencyrath series—God Stalk (1982), Dark of the Moon (1985), Seeker's Mask (1994), Blood and Ivory (2002), To Ride a Rathorn (2006)—if you have not already. Some scenes she has written were made for that cellphone.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I will need to seek these out.

[sovay]

I will need to seek these out.

The first two are some of my favorite secondary-world fantasy of all time and I will quite gladly snap up the sixth book when it manifests, supposedly late this year; P.C. Hodgell is one of the rare writers whose protagonists are fully as strange as the supporting cast and the scope of her world is genuinely alien, something which few fantasists seem to pull off. She can make deep time work. And she is perhaps the only writer since Euripides to invoke terror rather than comfort or complacency with the notion of gods who take an active interest in the mortal world. (And I will forever be proud that I pegged one of the characters mythologically from their very first, offscreen mention, but that is neither here nor there.) I wish that she had been able to write all the books in the '80's and '90's as she desired, real life being the interfering thing it is, but I am glad of their existence nonetheless.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That cell phone sounds adorable.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I actually just had a dream of listening to phantom CDs this afternoon. Interestingly, some of them were linked by the participation of a phantom composer, whose name I can almost but not quite remember. I think the name was French, but a little too historical/aristocratic in style for any reasonably recent composer. The first name was probably Louis. I was fascinated to discover that he turned up on multiple recordings I was already familiar with.

The only track I remember at all distinctly turned out to be some sort of Les Mis/G&S/Tolkien-Lewis-type-epic fusion, with some random way-back New England history thrown in - which my dream-self was not expecting but did find sort of fascinating. Then I decided to put the music aside to go eat, and woke up and found it was time for dinner.

[sovay]

Interestingly, some of them were linked by the participation of a phantom composer, whose name I can almost but not quite remember.

I have that happen a lot with books I dream.

some sort of Les Mis/G&S/Tolkien-Lewis-type-epic fusion, with some random way-back New England history thrown in

That sounds very much like the kind of music your brain would generate.

Then I decided to put the music aside to go eat, and woke up and found it was time for dinner.

Fortuitous!

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

I have that happen a lot with books I dream.

Same here.

That sounds very much like the kind of music your brain would generate.

I think it involved Major-General Stanley somehow traveling east via Iceland and falling in with the Puritans to help found the early colonies. It was a great "and you never knew!" moment, until I woke up and it made no sense whatever.

[fleurdelis28.livejournal.com]

West, rather. *sigh*

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

If only you could take notes about things like composers' names as you dreamed, and they'd survive into the waking world.

There should be crossover dreaming. Someone reading your comment should be able to hum the tune of the Les Mis/G&S/Tolkien-Lewis track, and you'd say, "Yes, that's the one."

[sovay]

If only you could take notes about things like composers' names as you dreamed, and they'd survive into the waking world.

Very rarely, I have brought things out of dreams—not images, but words or tunes. My poem "The Drowned Men's Waltz" is one of the few examples.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have eavesdropped on that dream.

[sovay]

I wish I could have eavesdropped on that dream.

You would have been welcome! Maybe you could have brought a tape recorder . . .

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Oh my. I wish I could have heard those CDs.

All I can remember of my dreams last night is a conversation about firearms. I think someone was showing off a collection of revolvers from an alternate history, but they weren't nearly as interesting as one would hope them to be.

[sovay]

I think someone was showing off a collection of revolvers from an alternate history, but they weren't nearly as interesting as one would hope them to be.

I'm sorry. Better luck on the next dream?

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. Better luck on the next dream?

Thanks!

I think it was simply a case of my subconscious getting revenge on me for too much cartridge collecting and reading of technical material during my childhood.

After making this comment, I actually remembered some slightly more interesting dream material from last night, although it was still nothing much to compare with your Britten + Kipling recordings.