1. William H. Macy in 'Edmond'. I just watched the DVD a couple of days ago. I'd completely missed hearing of the film's release in 2005. It's surely not what could be called a cheerful film, but Macy's performance is a joy to watch.
Just another amazing performance from Macy.
He's in most every shot of this movie, and he's back once again working with a David Mamet story. I think it was either in Mamet's 'Homicide' or certainly 'The Water Engine' where I first remember taking notice of the often non-descript Macy.
No, I'm not going to tell you a thing about 'Edmond'. If you've liked William H. Macy or Mamet, check it out. A friend recommended it to me, saying that it's best to go in knowing NOTHING about the story. She was right, and I'll give the same advice to you.
2. 'What can be done with the VW Beetle'; a 2-part photo set on display over at Dark Roasted Blend. A joyous and inspirational celebration of creative diversity.
3. Dreaming is your best entertainment value for your dollar.
I personally have never been much for dream interpretation. Occasionally meaning refuses to stay hidden, but I'm content to let my subconscious just enjoy it's unsupervised play-time while I'm sleeping. I don't feel the need to ask it to explain itself.
I say even an unsettling nightmare is great entertainment, and I'm proud to know I came up with it. "The only bad dreams are boring dreams."
I can almost remember the one that I had last night. It was hairy and convoluted, and it threw me awake at 4:12 AM, images from it still throwing off sparks in my field of vision for a few moments after I awakened.
It was *something* about a large gathering of people lighting a huge bonfire in a pit, meant to symbolize something pertaining to freedom, learning from the past, and hope for the future. Sorta like a mix of Burning Man, the Olympic torch, and another thing.
After failed attempts at igniting, the fire was finally started by holding a bit of kindling up to a *video display image* of a torch burning. "That'll never work" I said, but it did. Most of the initial fuel for the bonfire were bits of detritus somehow meant to represent an ending of old ways and patterns. Talismans of things to be left behind. A bit of struggle at first keeping the fire going, then many celebrants reveling in the blaze.
A sudden cut, and then my return to the same scene decades(?) later, a huge, raging inferno still seething in the pit, any meaning to it long eroded away to nothing, the 'celebrants' now a dangerous mob at the edges of a hellish caldera, either blindly worshipping the fire as some sort of pagan god, or just there because it's expected of them.
My suggestion that this is wrong-headed and missing the intended point is met with anger. The dream turns into a fairly standard (if intense) scenario of being chased, running for my life. Then I woke up, and had to get the heck out of bed for a little while.
See, that's why I'd rather avoid analyzing dreams. In writing this out, I can see where certain meanings would tend to infer themselves. But for me, trying to pin it down seems to remove some of its pageantry. I'd rather just think '...gosh, that was interesting' and let it continue to float about untethered.
Dreams are fun though, either way. No doubt in my mind.
4. Okay, so while I was up in the wee hours this morning, my process of rebooting led to some half-awake web surfing.
I was enthralled by a couple of sites I found, and fortunately they still look to merit mention in the light of day:
'Soviet Roadside Bus-stops', a photo gallery that to me looks for all the world like snapshots from a dreamscape. Other galleries at the Polar Inertia website look just as fascinating...
...However, the Stupid Comics pages - - though also fascinating - - are the type of thing I only seem to dream about when I'm awake.
I'm pretty darn sure that I found those sites last night via the blog;
'David Thompson - Culture, Ideas and Comic Books'.
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