I dreamt I was speeding. I have no idea what it means. I looked at my speedometer and saw it was at 170 mph. I had to work to get it down to 80, and when I looked it was up to 100. It was hard to slow down.
It’s weird seeing numbers in dreams at all. I’m sure this is deeply significant, but it eludes me.
Every night I wash my face: I rinse with warm water, then I lather up, rubbing my face with the foamy stuff, then I splash with water until I’ve rinsed off all the lather. Then one night, a few weeks ago, it occurred to me to do it differently: I lathered and rubbed, then splashed and rubbed some more, and did that a few times before completely rinsing off.
My face was much cleaner.
This completely blew my mind. I’ve been washing my face, which is, I think we can agree, kind of a basic function of living, the wrong way?
Now, I know you’re all going to launch into a grooming discussion in comments, but what fascinates me is how we learn imperfectly. We think we know how to do something that we were never taught per se, or taught perfunctorily, or only taught once. I’m trying to remember why I changed it a few weeks ago, and I think I had a visual memory of someone washing their face with the additional rubbing on TV. Until I accidentally accessed that memory, I had simply not learned. I thought I had learned, but I had not.
As someone responsible for one-on-one training of Pagans, this strikes a deep chord in me. It is my responsibility to train my students in my tradition of Wicca. And I do find, years later, that they’re doing some odd thing they shouldn’t be doing, some odd thing they failed to learn or I failed to teach.
But I feel like I’ve stumbled upon something about being human. We all learn imperfectly, all the time. We think we know how to do things, or that our jury-rigged version of how to do things is simply the way it’s done. I’m staggered by the imperfection of what we know and what we think we know.
You needed a hint this week, but ultimately got them all.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) 9/10
The movie: Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry) is a transvestite pansexual from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania in the classic rock-and-roll cult movie.
The live show: Fans go to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show (RHPS) live and experience a “shadowcast” (a group of performers mimicking the on-screen action), lines shouted at the screen, props thrown during the film (rice during the wedding, for example), and other direct interactions with the film.
Look, a lot of people think RHPS is a bad movie, enjoy it in a so-bad-it’s-good way, and assume that the whole point is the cult experience. I have always contended that it’s a good movie. It suffers from a low budget in some places, and thrives on the same low budget in others. The music is outstanding, the performers are dynamic and thrilling. Sure, the ending’s a downer and there’s a middle section that drags after you’ve seen it a dozen times, but so what? Setting aside the cult experience, RHPS works as a musical, it works as a celebration of hedonism, and it works as a campy love letter to a life obsessed with the movies.
On Saturday night I went to the Legends of Rocky Horror Reunion, because yes, I was there way back when. From the perspective of returning to the musical after many years, it was both wonderful and disappointing.
Disappointing only because some of the changes are for the worst. RHPS can be a rowdy and even unpleasant experience. In many theaters, the shouting at the screen drowns out the film. At the Eighth Street Playhouse, we prided ourselves on being the original and best, and our lines were carefully timed, in unison, and allowed for you to pay attention at the movie—in an enhanced way. If there’s too much shouting, you can’t hear the movie, and we avoided that. Nowadays, New York is just one more theater, and sometimes your ability to watch the movie is totally drowned out.
On the other hand, the good, enhancing kind of audience participation is superb. It’s amazing that it’s still happening more than thirty years later, and that a lot of it is fresh and new. Sure, people still say “Where’s your fucking neck?” like they did in 1977, but they also do and say things that are completely 21st century. That are fun.
One thing that Rocky Horror did in the ’70s is allow a group of weirdos to find each other. Now people mostly find each other on the Internet, don’t they? How much need is there for face-to-face affiliation with like minded oddballs? At RHPS this week, I discovered that the joys of hanging out and being strange are undiminished.
I love New Jersey.
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Not usually a music blog, but I just heard Complicated Shadows on the radio, and my mind is well and truly blown.
So.
Good.
Last night I was at a volunteer meeting and I ran into a woman, a former student, whom I had not seen in seventeen years. We didn’t recognize each other at first. Seventeen years!
A few weeks ago, an ex-boyfriend from nine years ago ran into me on the Internet and used the opportunity to write a lovely apology to me for the way he had treated me. Which was badly, by the way.
Everything is a circle. Nothing in my life gives evidence of a linear universe; everything turns around and comes back again, sooner or later. And that is a great comfort to me. Weird, but a great comfort.
Well done.
As many of you know, I do the Internet dating thing. And often, I’ll see an ad that says “no drama.”
Here’s what I think it means: Don’t have a life, don’t have friends or family, certainly don’t have friends or family with problems that might require your attention or cause you stress or pain. Don’t have stress or pain and if you do, don’t need to talk about it. Don’t change, and if you change, don’t let it be difficult or complicated. Don’t have complications.
Instead, have fun, laugh, have sex, and simulate a relationship on the epidermal layer.
I haven’t posted in days. I keep thinking of great posts, things I want to mull over, and then when I get to the computer, I’ve forgotten about them, or I have work to do and no time to mull.
Mulling: A dying art. At least in my house.
