There is a screen where they show your secrets

[sovay]

I dreamed I was responsible for staging three plays in the same weekend and no one had yet shown me the scripts. One of them was a musical. There was some kind of festival going on. That may rank among the more inexplicable anxiety dreams I have ever been visited by. I wonder who was actually supposed to get it.

Tonight I am going to hear Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling at the Middle East. Ambiguous, minimalist two-person post-punk with an ongoing song cycle inspired by The Prisoner (1967); they go very well with the John le Carré I've been reading recently. I haven't seen them live since last April, but they have a new EP coming out. They remain the only band I have ever discovered because of the Boston Globe.

Tomorrow at the ICA, Jay Scheib's Bellona, Destroyer of Cities, a multimedia theater piece after Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren (1975). It premiered last year in New York, where I remember reading about it; I'm glad it's come somewhere I can see it. I'm very curious to find out how it works at all.

Sunday, I'll have an excuse for weird dreams.

Oh, yeah. Weeks after everyone else got over it, I finally got around to taking that accent quiz.

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northeastern.
You're probably from somewhere near New York City, possibly north Jersey, or Connecticut or Rhode Island. If you are from New York City you may be one of the types who people never believe when you say you're from New York.

If you are not from here, you are probably one of the following:
(a) A Philadelphian who can't stand the way other Philadelphians say "on";
(b) A Yat from New Orleans; or
(c) Someone from England, Australia, or New Zealand, in which case why are you doing this quiz in the first place?

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

We're going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different... Different Same

Considering the number of times I've been asked what country I'm really from, I'm wondering if I flagged (c). I am from nowhere near New York City, unless you count by genetics.

Comments

Hard-Hi'in New Bri'an, Chillin like a Villain.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Neutral. Not Northern, Southern, or Western, just American. Your national American identity is more important to you than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity to begin with.

Which sort of makes sense since I'm an ESL teacher, though I do have a Connecticut accent in the fact that I swallow all my internal "t" sounds like a titan swallows his children.

[sovay]

though I do have a Connecticut accent in the fact that I swallow all my internal "t" sounds like a titan swallows his children.

Someone's told you by now that you're awesome, right?

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Okay, that one was kind of playing to the audience, but still, Goya's been on my mind recently.

[sovay]

but still, Goya's been on my mind recently.

You should write about him.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

The quiz told me I have a southern accent. The only support for that is that I'm from Southern Ontario. I think it may be broken.

[sovay]

The only support for that is that I'm from Southern Ontario. I think it may be broken.

Yeah. I'm really beginning to wonder if it's even designed for non-obviously regional American accents.

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow at the ICA, Jay Scheib's Bellona, Destroyer of Cities ...

Lucky you! Please post a detailed review for the less fortunate.

[sovay]

Please post a detailed review for the less fortunate.

I shall try!

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Those would be very high anxiety dreams for me! I love the notion of wondering who was supposed to get the dreams and am now imagining the dream world alive outside ourselves, seeking a sleeping soul to manifest in.

Enjoy all your festivities!

[sovay]

I love the notion of wondering who was supposed to get the dreams and am now imagining the dream world alive outside ourselves, seeking a sleeping soul to manifest in.

It's a concept I've had for years; I wrote a poem about it at Brandeis, which I reproduce here because why not?

She had gotten somebody else's dream
by mistake. At night, her memories
were not her own; her face in mirrors
shone alien within the silvered glass.
Another's embarrassment made her blush
nude in a swingset or chasing crows,
black feathers between her unfamiliar fingers;
lost in a forest of thorn and ivy,
someone else's nightmare splintered her sleep.
By day she scanned strangers' faces,
looking for some indefinite trace of her everyday
grained into foreign eyes: her fears reflected
in a passing mouth, her hopes measured
in the nervous tap of an unknown foot.
She did not know what she would say.
"You've been having my dreams."
"Can I have my subconscious back?"
But it would be worth a thousand nightmares,
the churn and terror of idiosyncrasies
that were never hers, to recognize, and speak,
and meet the gaze of the stranger whose skull she shared:
to hear the contents of her dark-and-light dreamings
come transformed and refracted from another's mouth.

(Star*Line 25.5, December 2002.)

Enjoy all your festivities!

Thank you! So far, so good!

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely piece.

I've once in a while had dreams which I suspected belonged to somebody else, or at least to a self on an alternate timeline.

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

The poem even takes it further, imagining finding the person who has your dreams too. Fascinating and unnerving. Thanks for posting it! (Love the images of mirrors, silvered glass, splintering, refracted all coming together.)

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I will be super interested to read your review of Bellona. I'd dearly love to see this play! Didn't know till this morning that it was playing in Boston, and then Chip called me from the train to Boston at noonish and we talked for an hour, which was great fun. But no luck getting away to see it, and I wonder if it will ever play again. Knowing you're attending the performance even as I type almost makes up for missing it myself.

[sovay]

I will be super interested to read your review of Bellona.

I shall try to be intelligent, although my current level of sleep deprivation argues against . . .

I'd dearly love to see this play!

It was really good! That probably doesn't help.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Now I am stuck on the twangy version of "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling."

[sovay]

Now I am stuck on the twangy version of "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling."

I'm very sorry. Have the band's title song instead.