So I'm moving to New York 'cause I've got problems with my sleep

[sovay]

After two increasingly, appallingly bad days, I finally passed out last night while it was still dark and slept for nearly nine hours. In that time, I dreamed first that I was sharing the role of Clara/Marie in a kind of ballet-with-speech of The Nutcracker being staged somewhere in Boston; it was semi-modern dress and minimal sets, but still much closer to Hoffmann's original even than Balanchine's choreography. All the dialogue was in German. I remember hanging out between scenes with the boy who played the seven-headed Mouse King, a tumbler and puppeteer with a flamelike vertical script I didn't recognize tattooed up and down his thin, wiry forearms. It follows as reasonably as anything else that later on in the dream I was visiting partly nonexistent friends in D.C. and ran into Claude Rains in a coffeeshop so post-historically ironic, the chai-type drink I was buying to go with my grape-and-azuki-bean cake (does anyone actually eat these?) was named after one of the Etruscan Dodecapoli. He wasn't a ghost; he was small, courtly, silvery, outrageously flirtatious, with more lines in his face than I'd seen in any of his movies. We got him a ticket to the show we were seeing that night, the touring production of the musical Sondheim didn't write between Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd; I don't remember any of it except a catchily disjointed, full-company number that anticipated "God, That's Good!" Hanging around the theater afterward, I think somebody suggested that we should rent My Favorite Year (1982), but we never got around to it that I recall. Also I wrote some erotica, but not to Claude Rains. It was more feline than anything else.

Honestly, this sort of thing does make me feel better about my mental state. I'm sure actually sleeping more than two or three hours a night doesn't hurt, either.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I want to move into your dreams!

So very very glad you slept. Dream on!

Nine

[sovay]

I want to move into your dreams!

I just want to be able to bring things out of them.

Dream on!

I'm going to try . . .

[lycomingst.livejournal.com]

I envy you your date with Claude Rains.

[sovay]

I envy you your date with Claude Rains.

Heh. Thank you. I expect to dream of things like Etruscan chai and fictitious stage productions; he was a very pleasant surprise.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

...Wait, you only wrote erotica in your dream? Go back and fix that.

*hugs* So glad you did sleep. Nine hours! Holy crap!

We went to the playground to end all playgrounds and hung out with some other two-mom families (and a three-dad family). I was exposed to Nature for three hours.

[sovay]

Go back and fix that.

I'll see what I can do! I'm still stuck in the poem that needs research!

Nine hours! Holy crap!

I doubt I'll be able to repeat it for months, but it was extraordinarily pleasant while it lasted.

I was exposed to Nature for three hours.

That which doesn't kill you gives you sunburn . . .

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

the boy who played the seven-headed Mouse King, a tumbler and puppeteer with a flamelike vertical script I didn't recognize tattooed up and down his thin, wiry forearms.

Never mind Claude Rains--I like this guy!

[sovay]

Never mind Claude Rains--I like this guy!

You want to draw him, I won't stop you . . .

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You know, for weeks now I've had the sketch of Arlecchino and Il Dottore, waiting for me to ink it.

[sovay]

for weeks now I've had the sketch of Arlecchino and Il Dottore, waiting for me to ink it.

Prrrt.

(Can I see it?)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

When it's inked (I really will do it. I promise)

Warning: it is... nowhere near the level of awesome that it ought to be -_-

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

One of the things sleep-deprivation does is deprive you of REM state. Which is a Bad Thing, and I'm so glad that your catching-up was so entertaining. Claude Rains! Be still, my beating heart.

[sovay]

One of the things sleep-deprivation does is deprive you of REM state.

Yes. I worry when I stop dreaming, or being able to remember my dreams. There are patches in my life where it's like that for months.

Claude Rains! Be still, my beating heart.

Of all the dream states in all the world . . .

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

Mmmn!!! I want to meet CLAUDE RAINS! Silvery and wrinkly or otherwise! Yum. I've loved him ever since I was a kid and HE was the Phantom of the Opera.

[sovay]

Silvery and wrinkly or otherwise! Yum.

I keep meaning to make an icon out of this photograph. I think it must have been taken when he was still a stage actor; he really didn't hit cinematic stardom until his mid-forties. And then his persona was so ironic and urbane, I'm not used to him looking rakish, but it's that comma-fall of hair. He looks like he's auditioning thirty years too early for James Bond.

I've loved him ever since I was a kid and HE was the Phantom of the Opera.

One of my father's best friends as a kid on the Upper West Side was the younger son of Susanna Foster, the soprano who played Christine to Rains' Phantom.

I discovered him—like many people, I think—with Casablanca's Captain Renault, one of my earliest identifiable favorite characters in a film. He did not disappoint after that.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

[sovay]

Thank you!

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

THAT is a fabulous picture of Mr. Rains. It was always, I thought, his sweet face and sexy voice AT ODDS with the characters he played that made him so effective. And even at the age of five, I never understood why Christine Daae WOULDN'T want to stay with him, scary serial killer or not.

Oh, that's cool about your dad! I never did see Susanna Foster in anything else. I should IMDB her.

The first thing I saw him in was Phantom (about a hundred times). And then, many years later, as that vile little man in "Notorious." And only a handful of years ago, when I finally saw "Casablanca" did I associate him with that one. I should really see Casablanca again. All of them! I should have a Claude-a-thon!

[sovay]

THAT is a fabulous picture of Mr. Rains.

Well, asakiyume just turned it into an icon: feel free to steal!

And then, many years later, as that vile little man in "Notorious."

I think he's marvelous as Alex, actually; the charming, cosmopolitan villain is a Hitchcock staple, but not necessarily the villain who is shyer and more vulnerable than the hero. (Again, Notorious feels like the logical, less simplistic progression from Foreign Correspondent.) He's not a strong character—the best thing about him is his love for Alicia, which is not more powerful than his fear of being found out—but there are ways in which he's the truest, and it kills him, and I love that sort of reversal.

I should have a Claude-a-thon!

You totally should. And then you should write about it.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

Yay sleep!

[sovay]

Yay sleep!

I really miss it!

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

Oh your dreams, your dreams ... they always amaze me.

And sleep is magnificent, isn't it?

[sovay]

your dreams ... they always amaze me.

I never feel I have anything to do with them! They're the stuff my brain hacks up when it's got the time!

And sleep is magnificent, isn't it?

Oh, yes.

[hylomorphist.livejournal.com]

Are you really sure you're not a character in a Neil Gaiman novel? What a great dream. And really, nine cheers to nine hours of sleep!

[sovay]

Are you really sure you're not a character in a Neil Gaiman novel?

At this point, I think odds are against, but I'm flattered.

And really, nine cheers to nine hours of sleep!

I slept another eight hours tonight! I'm starting to think maybe the end of the world happened after all . . .

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

Love the dream, and happy you slept. "puppeteer with a flamelike vertical script I didn't recognize tattooed up and down his thin, wiry forearms" - this looks like something out of my worlds :) and I would totally eat a grape-and-adzuki-bean cake.

[sovay]

Love the dream, and happy you slept.

Thank you! So am I.

"puppeteer with a flamelike vertical script I didn't recognize tattooed up and down his thin, wiry forearms" - this looks like something out of my worlds

I can't draw beyond cartoons—you and asakiyume may have him with my blessing.

and I would totally eat a grape-and-adzuki-bean cake.

I'll have to see if they sell them in this world . . .

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

I can't draw beyond cartoons—you and asakiyume may have him with my blessing

I also only draw cartoons! But this image will stay with me :)

I don't know about adzuki bean, but fava bean flour exists and I even made cakes with it!