Categories
Dream Journal

Alt Wolverine Steals my Papasan

Mom didn’t listen (My mom? A mom). Mom left my papasan chair on a street in my neighborhood. The street might be different than where I live now, more north/south than east/west. But it’s certainly my neighborhood. Even though I almost immediately notice the chair was mistakenly put out, a guy still insists on trying to take it. Says he claimed it first or something, while ignoring that I just ran out of the same house. Round-faced large guy with glasses, young and entitled but fit. Bothersome in a deeper way than mere inconvenience. I drag the chair back through a maze-like thicket of brambles surrounding a friend’s home with him still clinging to it. The brambles seem designed for such purpose. I make it all the way to the communal home at the center. The spirit seems to have ebbed from whatever consensus-based group project once powered it, in the heights of 1970s communalism perhaps. Folks in the rooms there seem sleepy — the rooms that are even occupied. To my great chagrin, the round-faced thief runs for community mayor of the home. Despite my efforts I can’t stop him from being elected. The community is too apathetic. I know it’s still just about the chair.

Later, I discover that this man is an aberrant clone from an alternate universe. He should be Wolverine in that universe, but instead he took the role of Jean Grey. It’s quite clear when I see the color palettes swapped. Here, he’s a thief of X-Men genetic material. This dream much seems like a justification for my feelings in the one before, a dream created just to make peace with my own attitude toward him.

Discussing with my wife when I should really leave Gathering. Doing the math that every extra day I stay, it’s equivalent to an extra $100+. This feels tied in to other parts of the night’s dreams, but mostly the later ones.

I observe rolling hills in a long line, evaluating their land usage. These hills are outside Phoenix, Arizona supposedly. Most have a particularly, perfectly smooth pasture land that gives the impression tight clothing. Delineated thickly are occasional nature preserves with hiking trails, the natural state of the land. It’s bizarre that they chose to convert most of it to plain boringness, when it seems so obviously more valuable in it’s diversified and self-managing state. But that’s a lot more complicated, especially for the simple-minded.

In a warehouse thrift store. In the front section there’s a record store. I mention to the guy running it that he has several records my friend and I both have. I exaggerate a little, mentioning a record that I claim only had a hundred copies made but which we both have. I inquire about a certain record my friend showed me last time I was over. I’m only half interested in buying it, I suppose I want to test his knowledge. The guy answers that he has it and hands me a the record sleeve. He seems to expect I’m buying it. As politely as I can, I let him know that this is just the paper sleeve and there’s no record inside it.

Categories
Dream Journal

Dinosaur Footprints and Thrift Store Gift

Viewed from above, I can see that my childhood friend Robbie T.’s house on Desert Inn road is only a few hundred feet, by air, from a dinosaur excavation exhibit/museum. The several blocks in between are separated by a main thoroughfare but it’s still surprising that we never realized when we were kids.

My wife and I take the subway there (a short trip) and while exiting the station on a short connecting dirt path, with scrubby but pretty green nature on the side, I momentarily think we’ve angered a guy walking behind us. He’s muttering something loudly and it takes an anxious second to realize he’s talking to his directions via headset.

The museum is outdoors, the ground muddy under a sky of brisk blue. There’s preserved dinosaur footprints and maybe puddles. I prod downward with a stick as to measure depth. A detectable but unidentifiable smell is then on the stick, a nearby elder volunteers the information that they smell like The Devil (like the tarot card, not anything recognizably satanic or evil).

A sizable chunk of my back molar comes out and I sigh, looking at it in my hand. It’s been going on awhile without being addressed, falling away in pieces so it’s down to nub. No one around me seems to care or notice.

We set our pet rats to free roam loose in our home, halfway hoping they can find some wild ones. (Yesterday I saw a whole group of rats in the New York subway.)

In a thrift store I run, I prevent an old friend from buying my warm comfy German army jacket for $4. I actually chase her off, hoping she isn’t too upset despite appearances. The friend is either Meg from college (who played Columbia in Rocky Horror) or Amy Pollard from middle school (whose birthday was on Christmas). Soon I reveal a surprise gift for her — the jacket, which had a hole in the lining around the armpit, I completely repaired. Now I can give a perfectly functional jacket to her for free! Which might even make up for how I treated her in the store before. (The large atrium room reminds me of the Temple of Dendur in The Met, which I didn’t visit until today. And hadn’t even planned on seeing today.)

Categories
Dream Journal

Big Old American Car

Huge classic American car with rows of comfy seats. The driver’s chair is, conveniently, behind a late night TV talk show hosting desk. But front window is (inconveniently) a small rectangle through another room from that seat. There’s hardly a safe way to drive this behemoth — despite being rated as relatively easy for the time.

I’m driving the beast around, having to pass to the right of stopped car at an intersection. This is only made possible by piloting the massive car via remote cameras.

I noticed that there is a garage sale, a thrift shop on side of road. this makes me think the town is like Virginia City. Memorably, there was an outdoor thrift stop in Virginia City which got snowed on while I was there.

Categories
Au-dee-o

Hugo Winterhalter Goes Digital

I think I have good taste. In epic thrift store excavations, I’ve gone through hundreds of used records—probably thousands. More than I wanna think about it. There are a lot of bad ones. Mostly, one hopes that one may find something funny to share with one’s friends. Old stuff is weird (admit it). But oh, there are some gems, and usually they don’t fall out of the cracked wooden bin and yell “I’m worth buying off Ebay for $50! Here I am for ¢50!” It takes a trained eye to efficiently sift through the absolute junk at most places.

Or a trained ear. Finding an incredible record has a lot to do with knowing what you like in the first place—although for those wanting to take up the hobby, it’s perfectly reasonable to make it up as you go along. A good place to start? By all means, judge by their covers. Me, I happen to know that I like gypsy music. I pick up many records simply because they contain in their titles one of these: Gypsy, Roma, klezmer, or Bulgaria. In general I also recommend looking out for: home recording, demonstration, spectacular, incredible, “_____ and the [word intensifier]s,” Moog, olde tyme, fart, and dinosaur. It’s a wide net, a rough algorithm, but it get’s results.

Which is what brings me back to “gem.” I got one. I wasn’t able to actually play it until I found a new record player on the street (thank you, city of cannibals). Even after I discovered its magnificence I didn’t pick up the phone on the ol’ Share-The-Love hotline until a roommate suggested it. And then I had to fiddle with knobs and buttons and wires and other esoteric equipment, only to discover that no matter what I did, the digital transfers just didn’t measure up to my high standards. I’m a wizard with audio software… but there’s no way to get pristine audio from salvaged parts. Get what you pay for, I guess.

But wait, what was this musical masterpiece, I hear you say? Let’s listen to the first track:

Even through my peasant’s needle, you can hear the tambourine sparkle… the horns shimmer… the tubas thump… the piano tinkle… the flutes shriek. It’s exciting! It’s powerful! We’ve heard this song before, but not like this. Easy listening and exotica both seem to apply, but can’t measure the appeal of the real nifty fifties, big bang band, swank-ocracy. Mostly the album is made up of low-key low-tempo stuff, soothing music that might be played without irony on KWXY, which might very well bore you. The poppy ones sure do pop though. On all of them, the arrangement is top-notch and the production values are beyond reproach.

This makes sense considering that the arranger was none other than Hugo Winterhalter, musical director at RCA for more than a decade. This album is dated 1960. For the time, I’m sure, it was somewhat standard. It’s a formula: take a bunch of songs people know, ones that you can tie together with a theme, write them for ensemble, make it modern and “now!”; you have yourself an easy sell. It’s a formula, and it worked. Still does.

Some say stuff like this is more craftsmanship that artistry. It’s the carpenter’s work, not the sculptor’s. I had a music teacher who made the same comparison between Bach and Mozart. He said that while Mozart was a genius, transcended forms and gave the world beautiful music heard neither before nor since (etc., etc.), Bach was simply working within established convention—and when you wanted a fugue, he made the best. They were differently brilliant. Both men became immortal through their music. If you’re like me, though, you have to respect Bach a little bit more. It’s a clever mind that can conjure immortality working with someone else’s rules. I’m thinking that Mr. Winterhalter was a Bach fan.

Now I’m getting a little antsy thinking about how poor my equipment is, and how enjoyable some of the actual songs are, and how there’s hardly any CDs of Winterhalter available, and how it might be up to me to handle this guy’s continued existence. Then I remember the long tail, realize I’ve been praising the guy for seven paragraphs, and things are probably gonna be ok. I’m hesitant about uploading the good stuff (hand-restored LAME V2 mp3s) because I understand perfection, and I understand pragmatism, and I understand that they aren’t the best of friends. Let it be known across the land that I sadly consider these songs as “orphan works,” and hereby claim stewardship of them until someone better steps up. For goodness’ sake, even if you have a better record player step up. Here are the songs from “Hugo Winterhalter Goes… Gypsy!” that will thank you if you do:

  1. Hungarian Dance No. 5 (2:53)
  2. The Back of Her Head (3:08)
  3. Hora Staccato (3:12)
  4. Golden Earrings (3:46)
  5. When a Gypsy Makes his Violin Cry (3:08)
  6. Francesca (3:17)
  7. Csárdás (4:32)
  8. Zigeuner (3:16)
  9. Gypsy Don’t You Cry (3:53)
  10. Gypsy Love Song (2:58)

Total playing time – 34:05

Without further ado, I give you the imperfect recording of my favorite thrift store record in the past year:

Front Cover, Hugo Winterhalter Goes GypsyHugo Winterhalter Goes Gypsy (full album, direct download)

2 image files (front & back cover), 10 mp3 audio files,
LAME 3.97 codec at V2 quality, 50.1 MB