Zapruder Trial.
So…interesting dream I had last night, one of the first truly interesting ones that I have been able to remember in recent months.
I’m at a birthday party for one John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Yes. That John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I do not know what era I am in, except that it probably doesn’t matter. We’re at a very large complex, which I can only assume is the Kennedy compound, although I’d hope it wasn’t as drab and foreboding as my dream would have me believe. There are a lot of people there, dressed up very fancy and swanky, and somewhere in the middle of the event, JFK suddenly goes on a homicidal rampage while driving a large machine that looks like a modified crop thresher. Screams and blood and body parts. I somehow end up on an outside balcony with several three or four-star generals, who are smoking large (Cuban?) cigars. I try to explain what’s currently transpiring inside the compound, when Jack walks out onto the balcony, clean as a whistle, smiling that Kennedy smile that kept warm many single spinsters throughout the late 1950s…and he’s acting as though nothing had happened. His generals, for their part, are a bit miffed at the Golden Boy, but they’re babbling something about how Kennedy’s bloodbath is not–as one might expect–a travesty simply in terms of random corpse count, but a travesty because it threatens national security.
And then I wake up. And later, I cleverly state it was like being part of the movie “Friday the Thirteen Days.” So…no more eating that much French Onion Dip before bed.
Since my last entry, the Project situation has been resolved, and if not in an ideal way, at least in a way that allows people to move forward. A group member has been rather unceremoniously ejected, along with her boyfriend; I’m not happy about this, but when I look at it, it’s not my group [1]. I am still able to maintain a friendly and professional relationship with the ejectees, but I am staying with the group. All in all, I’m glad I didn’t have to choose.
Yesterday I fell into an interesting, and ambitious project that I can’t wait to work on. “24/7: The Around the Clock Play Festival” goes up on May 11th. My original assumption was that it was a festival of 24 plays–or more–being done over a single 24-hour period. I have heard of such productions in this city, so I thought–hey, cool to be involved in that. I had signed up as a playwright, hoping to send a few one-acts for consideration.
I discovered differently this morning. It is not a 24-hour block of plays, it is, instead, an attempt to mount a production of several small 12-15 plays within the span of 24 hours, completely from scratch. The plays are written the night before. The directors direct that morning. The production goes up that night. Like I said, ambitious. I look forward to it.
Saw two movies this weekend: “Ghost World” and “How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog.” The former was better than the latter, but the latter was quite good. It’s clearly a movie written as a series of vignettes and humorous actor-pieces, but there’s enough of a plot to keep it together, and the vignettes are usually so good that it doesn’t matter if you can tell how consciously unconventional the film is.
Last Thursday was the five-year anniversary since the accidental death of my uncle Rashid. Yesterday, I went to his widow’s home and performed a ritual that I was able to do without making a big deal in my head about the lapse of my parents’ faith. I counted dried beans and said a blessing over each one, as if each bean was a token for the soul of my uncle in the afterlife. Sometimes, I suppose, it’s for the best to practice a religion for others, even if you cannot practice for yourself.
[1] This was my own misconception…once upon a time, I thought it was “our” group. It has become clear to me that it is “her” group. I can still work with this, but it changes the way I do so.
Current music: Aimee Mann, “Bachelor No. 2 or, the last remains of the dodo”
Creative Control 