Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I once heard a comedian say recently that if you are not Dr. Martin Luther King, people are not going to be interested in your dreams. My friend the LA record executive and poet Brian Felsen, however, has expressed fascination with my practice of lucid dreaming, a phenomenon where the dreamer is aware that he is dreaming, and where he may even be able to exert control over the substance of his dream. I find myself able to lucid dream usually if three conditions have been met: I am well rested when I go to sleep (rather than utterly exhausted), I have an occasion to sleep seven or more hours (rare for me), and in the dream I find myself in some sort of perilous situation. Viewers of the film Inception know well the sort of peril that can face the experienced lucid dreamer.
This past Saturday I took both a morning and an afternoon nap (ahh, July), and then went to bed relatively early, perhaps wishing to sleep away the distress I felt about the Trayvon Martin verdict that had been announced a few hours before. While dreaming, I discovered that Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White sought to do me in, and that he had ordered many of his most famous mixed martial artists to pursue me, many of them on skis. My heart beginning to race, I woke up just enough to realize that I was dreaming, and then “went back in” to inform Mr. White that he and his goons would not be able to approach me, for I had grown wings and was armed with a laser spoon. As these deterrents were only minimally effective, I then warned Mr. White that I had affixed a great number of grand pianos high in the sky, and that if he or his hoodlums approached me, I would have to cut the ropes and let them drop. I fired a warning piano to indicate the seriousness of my threat. Sadly, the first piano went unheeded, and eventually additional Steinways had to be launched by the man with wings and a rope-cutting spoon. The conflicts in the dream began to resemble those of a Tarantino film, but I remained unharmed (if revulsed by the off-camera carnage). Before long I woke to realize, with some relief, that there was no spoon.
Dream interpreters might have made much of my antagonist being called “Mr. White” at a time when, as a nation, we are debating what happens when some people with easy access to weapons are further emboldened by white privilege. Others might have fixated on the piano, noting that in my dream, music calmed, or at least immobilized, the “savage beasts” that were chasing me. Do we know for sure what dreams mean, or even if we should be looking to dreams to have meaning? Perhaps we should look to dreams to do what poems do, to communicate to us a succession of emotions, and to give us downtime opportunities to sort through our concerns, such as our renewed national concerns about fairness and justice.
As despicable as it seems for a man with a concealed weapon to follow (some would say “stalk”) a 17-year old local boy armed only with Skittles and iced tea, the Florida “stand your ground” law required the six jurors to focus exclusively on the conflict that Zimmerman had initiated, and to determine whether if, when Trayvon Martin responded to the challenge, the older man with the firearm felt threatened or fearful. Zimmerman’s lawyers convinced the jury that, in short, he was afraid. Many who followed the case closely felt that, given the court’s instructions to the jurors, the not guilty verdict was likely.
Yet we still feel stung by the loss of the young man, and begin to ask questions about what in the Pledge of Allegiance we have called “liberty and justice for all.” I’m sure many young people are re-examining their understanding of justice in America, perhaps asking Tolstoy’s question: “What is to be done?” When John was asked that in Luke 3:10, he responded, “Whoever has two coats should share with somebody who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”
Many believe that “stand your ground” laws promote vigilantism. Indeed, in a society where we are encouraged to see people outside our immediate social group, and young African-American men in particular, as “suspicious” or even “ dangerous,” we can be sure that many more such young men will be stalked and confronted. African-American pundit Cord Jefferson wrote Saturday night that “For people of color, [the killing of Trayvon Martin is] a vivid reminder that we must always be deferential to white people, or face the very real chance of getting killed.” We should remember that we all benefit when we seek to understand, to appreciate, and to communicate our concerns peacefully rather than to exert the sort of unreasoning power and authority that we do in our lucid dreams.
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions about the promises we keep, franchises, Sean Connery roles opposite Audrey Hepburn, online photographs, outrageous plots, Ireland, the Rastafari, Phoenix and other places in Arizona, scientific TLAs, jazz musicians with second jobs, large antagonists, devoted spouses, ogres, UC Davis students, MJ, evaluating haystacks, film directors, superheroes, Angelina Jolie, famous cats, Winters, Academy Awards, Tennessee, diapers, Scientology, coenzymes, thrillers, California employment, films that take place in fast-food restaurants, dictionaries of color.
Congratulations to frequent past Pub Quiz participant Cami Beaumont for her directorial debut in She Creatures, a play that opens this weekend at the Barnyard Theatre. Are you seeing enough plays this summer?
I expect a full house this evening, so come early to claim a table.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
1. Internet Culture. What has Apple made the default search engine for Siri in iOS 7?
2. Newspaper Headlines. The tabloids still call the mother of the child who will be the first ever Prince or Princess of Cambridge by her nickname and maiden name. What is that name?
3. Banners. “The Star Spangled Banner” was made the US national anthem by a congressional resolution on March 3, 1931, and was signed by which President of the United States?
4. Dance! What is the name of the dance fitness program (some call it a “craze”) created by Colombian dancer and choreographer Alberto “Beto” Perez during the 1990s?
5. Pop Culture – Music. For the 2011 Guinness World Records, who was named the “Most Charted Teenager” following her 29th US Billboard Hot 100 chart entry on November 7, 2009 with “Party in the USA”? Who is she?
