New York and Two Nights of Dreams

So, I've recently returned from New York City, which I visited with my dad, Heather, and Hope for the first time (my dad was the only one who had ever been before). We left late on Wednesday night and arrived at JFK Airport around midnight. A friendly cab driver named Carlos drove us to our Sugar Hill/Harlem Bed and Breakfast in a fancy car that begins with an "M" that I cannot remember the name of right now. Our first view of the city was of the buildings all lit up at night and an empty black sky above, as though all of the life throbbing in the city below had devoured the starlight. It was cold in New York City, but not much colder than it was in Winston-Salem - if anything, the wind was a bit sharper (I wore a scarf the entire time we were there, which is strange for me because I don't like to feel fabric around my neck). Carlos dropped us off in front of our brick residence, which could be accessed by climbing a set of about five stairs bordered by an iron rail. Beneath these stairs, not easily seen from the sidewalk, was an iron door, through which one could access the key to the rooms inside if you had the combination given by the owner of the Bed and Breakfast in an email, which thankfully, Heather had. Grabbing the keys and some suitcases, we opened the heavy wooden door and entered the tiny antechamber of the building. We passed the living room and hurried upstairs to our room, which I think was called "Nina's Room." Each of the rooms was dedicated to famous jazz performers - for example, one room was "Ella's Room." I'm not sure who Nina is - Alexis probably knows. Our door was the first at the top of the stairs, and within it, there were two beds, a King and a twin, with a bed beneath the twin which could be pulled out and set up. The twin bed rested against the wall and the window, and directly opposite this bed was a blue, intense painting of Miles Davis where his eyes were very wide. My dad immediately noticed this, being a fan of Miles Davis, and remarked that he would be staring at me as I slept (I would be taking the twin bed). Apart from the bedroom, there was also a bathroom. Downstairs was a "common" area, which consisted of a living room/computer room, and a den. On the basement level, there was a kitchen area, and the remainder of the floors contained bedrooms. So, after exploring the premises with Hope, we put on our pajamas and went to bed, expecting to be woken around 8:00 in the morning for breakfast in the main house of the Bed and Breakfast, which was about five blocks away from where we were staying. So, in the morning, we all showered and headed over so that we could meet the owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Jeremy Archer, in person. He was a pleasant, middle-aged, thin, bald man with a British accent and low voice. The main room that we saw in the main house was the dining room/den, in which there was a table/chairs and couches, respectively. Up on the mantle were variously colored and shaped vases, and interesting paintings hung about. A variety of music was always playing in the background, and on the table was a glass container of philosophy - there were little sheets of paper with quotes on them. The one that I remember read, "I'm not afraid of death; I'm afraid of eternal life." I do not know the speaker of the quote. Jeremy made really delicious scones; they were sort of cheesy and had a bit of spice to them. He also had a gray cat, named Smokey, about whose gender Hope and I quarreled that first day. I kept referring to the cat as a "him," while she constantly corrected me, saying, "It could be a girl," at which point I asserted myself, saying, "Nah, I think that there's something decidedly masculine about this cat." When Jeremy returned from the kitchen after the fifth time that this happened, I asked him the gender of the cat and he replied nonchalantly that Smokey was a female. The decidedly-male cat had tricked me! That same morning, we were joined at the breakfast table by an elderly but sprightly couple whom we initially guessed were also from England. They told us that they were, but that they had moved to Toronto, and that this was their first time visiting the city as well. Their names were Diana and Derrick, and Derrick reminded me of the butler from "The Dark Knight," while Diana was super-nice and friendly. I desperately wanted to ask them, upon their mention of Toronto, if they had gone to the museum and seen the chair there and all that, but I restrained my inner dork, intending to bring it up the next time that we talked to them. Unfortunately, the next time that we saw them was the last time, as we were going out the door of the main building on our last day there.
Anyways, after breakfast that morning, we purchased metro cards and traveled on the D train to the middle of town with the intent of visiting the biggest toy store in the world, FAO Schwartz. Hope was particularly excited about this trip, and had been talking about it for weeks - she had $100 to spend, and I knew that it was burning a hole in her pocket. Halfway there, we passed a gorgeous cathedral that was open to the public, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and so we stopped inside to take a look. All around the perimeter of the cathedral were exhibits dedicated to various saints. After that, we finally made it to FAO Schwartz, which was packed with parents and children. Hope and Heather went scouting in the doll section, while my dad and I wandered around the first floor for a while, looking for potential toys for Kalyn. I eyed some of my favorites, decided to keep them in mind for later, and headed upstairs in search of the Big Piano which is featured in the movie "Big." Sure enough, after meandering through action figures and bath toys and Barbies, I caught a glimpse of a sign at the end of the hallway which read, "Big Piano," and I could see kids hopping across the floor. I led my dad over there and was immensely excited to get onto the piano and perhaps try to play some Beethoven. I was finally let in with about eight little kids (I was the only one there over the age of ten, I'll bet), and as I tried to pick out a tune, I found myself unable to hear the black notes very well over the racket of eight people jumping on the piano simultaneously (the black keys didn't light up like the others, and so you couldn't even pretend to hear them). After a couple minutes of feeling silly, I grabbed my shoes and left the piano. My dad and I were about to leave to meet up with Hope and Heather when the two supervisors, a tall blond man named Robert and a rosy-faced girl named Melissa, cleared the piano floor and announced that they were going to do a mini-concert. They performed the two songs that were played in "Big," as well as a couple of other songs which were pretty amazing to watch. Their grand finale, which they made us shout "Encore!" for, ended up being an arrangement of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," which was absolutely amazing, particularly how they accomplished it with their feet. After this, we found the others; Hope had purchased a $56 doll named Tess, who was equipped with two ballerina outfits. We moved back downstairs and I decided to get Kalyn a microplush elephant hand puppet, who was quickly named Murray Perahia after Murray Perahia the pianist, who was born in the Bronx and who had the same eyes and facial expression as the elephant. We went across the street to a restaurant called "Pop Burger," and then met up with my dad's friend Dave outside of the toy store. The last time I had seen Dave was when I was eight years old - I had no memory of his appearance, though he seemed to become familiar as I watched his mannerisms. I remarked later in the trip that he reminded me of Disney's depiction of Dickens' ghost of Christmas present, for the sole reason that he was always laughing about something or other, seemed always to be filled with mirth. He led us around for a while, sight-seeing, and Hope hung on him the entire time and seemed to be completely enamored of him. That night, I believe, we went to Grand Central Station, which was filled with booths where people sold things to tourists. That day began my quest for a reasonably-priced flapper hat, because I had encountered just such a hat earlier that day that I had haggled down to $25, but I felt like I could do better than that. However, as I found that night at Grand Central, $25 is quite a reasonable price in New York City. I found what I was looking for on the last day, at a booth in Brian Park - $25. A violinist played partitas, Christmas music, and such outside of the booths, and I gave him $2. Once you ventured into the big central space of the station, where you could branch out to different hallways depending on your purpose for being there, it was as though the sky opened - because on the ceiling, there was painted a depiction of the night sky above, with the constellations and everything, and a couple of pictures of angels dotted among the stars. The first thing that I thought of upon seeing this ceiling was the ceiling of the Great Hall in the Harry Potter series. It was a beautiful thing to behold. For dinner that night, we ate at a sushi place and the affair of dining lasted for about 2 hours. Hope passed out next to her mother in the booth, and my dad and Dave reminisced (not so fondly) about their college days at Wake Forest. My dad played the psychologist and talked about Dave's anger issues that he dealt with back in college and their connections with drinking and such. Heather mainly listened and occasionally said, "And this, Robyn, is how not to be in college." After dinner, Hope was roused by the mentioning of Pop Tart World, which was near to our location in Times Square. We walked over there and made delicious custom Pop Tarts with our choice of icing and decorations on them (I had a strawberry milkshake pop tart with vanilla icing and chocolate chips). After this, we returned to our room and slept. The next morning, though we were tired, we had slept in, and therefore did not have time to dine with Jeremy and the other tenants (I was disappointed about this because of the conversation that I wanted to have with Derrick and Diana). Instead, we had our breakfast at the Dunkin' Donuts that was near our subway entrance. I had my first bagel in New York that day and it was scrumptious. After that, we took the subway to Macy's, where we traveled to the eighth floor with the intention of visiting Santa Claus. We were initially going to abandon this exploit because of the sheer length of the line, which curved multiple times about a strange train which ended up being a hallway to the North-Pole designed room that wound around to the room with Santa Claus in it, however I am glad that we did not because the wait was certainly worth it (and the line moved relatively fast owing to the fact that there were clones of Santa on duty as well, or so I would guess). After finally reaching the room with Santa Claus, I joined Hope on his lap as was promised after she gave him a huge hug. When he asked her what she wanted, she said a whole list of things, "A baby doll, a telescope, a Ken doll, a scooter. . ." He nodded and said, "I'll see what I can do." And then he turned to me and asked me what I wanted. I said, "May I please have the Glenn Gould recording of Beethoven's 12th and 13th Sonatas?" and he said, "I'll definitely have to see about that one!" Then, some of the elves took pictures, and we were free to exit and collect our photos. We then met Dave near Wall Street, which he guided us through, telling us interesting things about each of the buildings (he knew a lot about the area because his residence is located there). We took a picture of my father near the statue of the bull which is supposed to represent a strong market, and we walked over to a small water-side park from which we could gaze at the Statue of Liberty. While we were there, Hope invested in a Matroyshka doll, and either shortly before or after that, we dined at a little Italian place where I tasted New York pizza for the first time. It was tasty. That day, Dave said something that has made me think a little bit. I said something about how I prefer jogging to team sports and he said, "You know, Robyn, I was reading an astrology book - and it classified all of the weeks of the year by a title, and I found the the title for our week of the year was very accurrate. Our week is called 'The Week of the Loner.'" I was initially unsure of whether this was a good thing or not, but then I decided that it was rather accurrate, considering that I am often content to do things alone. In fact, things are less awkward that way. That night, we dined at a very fancy Italian place, seated at Katie Couric's table, no less, and went to the NYCB's production of the "Nutcracker" immediately afterward over at the Lincoln Center. It was absolutely amazing - I thought that the choreography, especially at the beginning during the family scenes, was brilliant, and I remarked several times throughout the show that George Ballanchine is the bomb.com. Unfortunately, the poor candy-cane man with the hula hoop didn't make it through the hoop the last time and we felt very sad for him. The next day, we dined with Jeremy again, though we didn't see Derrick and Diana until we were going out of the door. We went ice skating at Brian Park (and I found my brown flapper hat), where they played excellent music (Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Buble). I wondered why they didn't play this music at the Annex when they have ice skating there. After ice skating, we dined at a place called Sarabeth's, where I had a pleasant conversation with a man and his daughter Genevieve while we were waiting to be seated. This restaurant was right across the street from Central Park, and so after lunch, we went riding through the park on a horse-drawn carriage while our Irish horse-driver told us things about the park that I couldn't understand because of his accent and his distance from me. Our horse was named Oscar and he was gray and dappled. After the ride, we walked a good distance to the Museum of Natural History, which we walked through for about an hour. My dad and Heather had quarreled, and so he was unable to focus through the whole museum; we spent the most time in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which I found to be the most interesting part by far. We spent the rest of that night in the room at the Bed and Breakfast, where Hope and I played with Murray and Tess, read some Junie B. Jones, and watched Elf. Downstairs, a wild bridal party was being thrown by the co-owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Bernadette. This distressed my dad and Heather, because we were to wake up at 3 in the morning so that we could board our return flight at 6:00. This wild party did not end until 10:45, at which point we had been trying to sleep for about an hour. We were very grumpy people the following morning, though, luckily, we were able to find a cab to drive us to the airport as opposed to taking a series of subway trains. There were two flights to get home, but we finally did, and it was a sweet experience to return, even though it was still very cold outside.
Whew. My fingers are twitching now.
To the dreams! The first one I had was from two nights ago, our last night in the Bed and Breakfast. I dreamt that I was giving these large gaudy roses to my teachers for presents. I dropped one in Mr. James' office and happened to run into Dr. Moss outside of the Arts Building, where I presented him with his rose. Then, I was in Ms. Freitag's room, and I had decided to give her a glass mosaic-y sort of bowl instead of a rose. She scolded and made fun of me halfway through class for having it on my person - and told the class that it was distracting me from math, and this was why I was having issues in her class. At the end of the class, I informed her that it was her present and stormed from the classroom without waiting to see her response.
The next interesting dream that I had was from last night, and it contained two parts. The first part seemed to consist of a disturbing, detailed accound of a lynching, which we had to write a report about for school. In the next part of the dream, my friend Aaron invited me over to his house for dinner, and his mother had prepared this lasagna with pears in it. I could tell, in the dream, that a large part of her impression of me depended on my response to her cuisine, and I dreaded eating the lasagna because I already knew that I wouldn't like it. That was the end of my dreams from that night.

CD-318 in a Discussion of the Platonic Ideal, Book Endings, and a Dream,

Last night, I went with Shannon, Aaron, Rhaynely, and Chloe to watch "Inception" for the second time (it was their first time, except for Chloe; the two of us were able to laugh at the 0-gravity scenes this time, since we had a pretty good grasp of the plot). I didn't fully appreciate the film until the second time around, partially because I fell asleep the first time I saw it, and consequently missed about five minutes of crucial plot. One thing that I was able to appreciate a lot more this time was the involvement of the "creative" man on the team, Eves (or however his name was spelled). I did not even realize, the first time around, that he took on so many disguises, first as Fischer's godfather, then as the pretty girl that he talks to in the hotel. It was also mainly his job to decide what events will occur in the dream to make inception possible, like the finding of the little pinwheel found inside the vault in the father's hospital room. The end of the movie is eerie, because while there seems to be resolution in the fact that Leonardo Dicaprio has returned to his kids, the screen flicks to the credits before the totem topples to the table. It is still spinning, which may suggest that Leonardo Dicaprio has not yet returned to reality. It was a very interesting ending, because it could have gone either way, like the end of the book The Giver, in which it is impossible to tell if the main character makes it to safety or dies. In any case, "Inception" is a good movie (I'd even go so far as to say that it is great, after seeing it the second time), and if you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it.
Just the other day, my mother and I were discussing the various ways that authors end books. It seems that there are a couple of different general styles that are utilized when ending books; I meditated on these all day at school, and finally hashed them out with my mother when I returned home that day. There is the "fireworks" method, there is the "life-goes-on" method, there is a combination of the two, and then there is Steinbeck. I'm sure that there are probably others, but I suppose that I am not well-read enough to list them in their entirety.
I call the first method the "fireworks" method because books which utilize this style tend to end with a bang, no pun intended, or like a fireworks show. Throughout the show, there are lulls in the excitement and climaxes, but there is nothing quite like the clustered lights of the finale, which is what makes the whole show worth it. Much in the same way, authors who utilize this method will throw in a last page or paragraph of what is supposed to be a profound conclusion - and this conclusion is meant to unite all of the previous events of the book while also driving home a strong point to the reader. Sometimes this point is a theme that has subtly existed throughout the entire book, but which is now made blatantly clear - or sometimes this point (when reading a narrative in the first-person restricted perspective) is meant to convey what the main character has been trying to say the whole time. I can think of a couple of books which use this strategy: Looking For Alaska, Notes From Underground, and even the Harry Potter series in a way, because Rowling spends the last paragraph instilling a deep sense of peace and catharsis in the reader. However, the example that I shall present is from Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground: (It will not let me put the quote, so here is the link. It starts at "But hadn't I better end my 'Notes' here?")http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DosNote.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=21&division=div2
The first thing about this monologue is that it is very quotable. There are so many things to think about within this quote. . .like, what would human beings really do without stories, without books? That is, indeed, where we learn most of our morals, is it not? Dostoyevsky challenges us in this statement. I tell you, this book is not an easy read, for the sole reason that the main character is difficult to like - not only is he cynical, but he does a very cold and cruel thing toward the end of the book, just when you feel like he might be redeemed. But then, he turns his cruelty around, telling us that he merely carried his actions to one extreme, and if we base our morality in fiction, who are we to dictate how cruel or not cruel he is? (He still isn't a very likeable character and is still an anti-hero, but he makes a good point). I was ready to come away from this book with a general feeling of disappointment, but this final monologue, this finale to the fireworks show, if you will, was successful in that it redeemed the entire story for me and made it worth it.
Now, the life-goes-on method consists of an open ending in which the characters go about their daily lives and the reader is supposed to infer that things are continuing according to the norm established near the end of the book. The two best examples of this that I can think of at the moment are in The House of Sand and Fog and A Spot of Bother. I believe that in the former, on of the main characters, who has been recently incarcerated, sits down at a table with some other inmates, and lights a cigarette. That is it. And then, in the latter, the middle-aged man who has spent the entire book battling insanity in the face of potential (but imagined) cancer sits down at the kitchen table and drinks a cup of coffee. It is a simpler but powerful approach, because it leaves the reader with a general sense of hope that things may not be perfect, but they are continuing. Life goes on.
While these two ending styles seem very distinct, some authors decide to combine the two. This must be a Southern thing, I've decided, because the two books which immediately come to my mind are of the Southern Gothic genre: To Kill a Mockingbird and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. In both books, one of the characters has a revelation which gives new meaning to all events which happen earlier in the book, but then that character (or all the characters involved) does a simple action which indicates that life goes on. In Mockingbird, of course, we have Scout's inner monologue when she's standing on the Radley porch - when I first read the book, I thought that it would end right there. However, she returns home to where Atticus is sitting with the unconscious Jem. "Atticus would be there all night," and would be there "when Jem waked up in the morning." The end. It is a simple action, but it implies that life continues. It is a similar type of thing in The Heart, but it is late and I am running out of time.
Then there is Steinbeck. He's a different ball game entirely, or whatever people say. From what I've read of Steinbeck, I get the feeling that he took joy in messing with people's heads. I imagine him sitting down, writing his novels and cackling to himself, "Let's see, now, they want realistic fiction? Well, they'll have it, all right - " (snicker) "Yep, let's develop our characters, make 'em nice and round. It's coming up on the end now, so I'll throw in A GIANT RABBIT! What do you think of that?" I do not think that any of us who have read Of Mice and Men expected that one of the main characters would, at any point, have a conversation with a giant rabbit, even if that rabbit was a hallucination. And then, I will remember this until the day I die: my mom and I were eating pizza one day at the Mario's over by Target, and we were discussing the Grapes of Wrath, because I had a desire to read it. My mom, reminiscing about it, revealed the ending to me. I was horrified. Then she said, "Wait, maybe that's not the way it ends. It's been a while since I've read it." To which I replied, "If you made that up, then you are sick in the head." She did not make it up - I will not reveal the ending on here, because I believe that most of my followers have not read it yet and I don't want to ruin it - It somehow has the same effect as the life-goes-on ending, because it gives the reader a feeling of hope, even though the situation is desperate and strange. It is a strange catharsis, this ending. I think that I'm going to re-read this book; I've been thinking about it lately.
In any case, I babble. The CD-318, I discovered today, is apparently the Platonic Ideal for a Baroque piano. It is a Steinway model, and it is the favorite of Glenn Gould, who apparently spent years searching for the perfect piano. I didn't know this until today, but it ties into my dream from last night, because it involved Glenn Gould and his Steinway piano.
I slept in the guest bedroom last night because Heather is in the process of moving back in, and so there was a television in the middle of my bed. I took my purse, my gloves, and a Bible into the guest bedroom with me, and they sat on the bedside table (I had the Bible because I'm trying to find a Psalm to set to choral music). In the beginning of the dream, my dad and I were in what seemed to be half of an amphitheater. It was a semi-circle of ascending seats, and down at the bottom there was a wide stage. My dad and I had decent seats in the center. Glenn Gould was performing on the stage. Just after he finished, he said something to the audience that I could not catch because everyone was applauding. Just after he finished speaking, flocks of people made an eager beeline for the stage. I was excited. Turning to my dad, I asked, "Is he taking requests for songs?" I realized, even in the dream, that this was a silly question - it was not as though classical performers responded to yells of "Fur Elise!" like a cover band might respond to a cry for "Freebird!" My dad, shaking his head, replied, "No, he's letting people come down to play his Steinway. You should go," he added, gesturing down at the stage. I scrambled from my seat down to the stage, eager to see if the action on the keys was heavy or light, and eager to meet the pianist himself. The crowd disappeared as I made my way down to the stage, and then the stage itself became an enclosed, brightly-lit room with a desk, a mirror, and the piano against the wall. The famous chair was there as well, and I remember feeling the temptation to sit on it or touch it through the entire scene in the room, but I restrained myself for fear of being kicked out of the room. "So, there is the piano," said Glenn. "What are you going to play on it?" I sat down on another chair and thought for a moment. "Probably the second movement of Beethoven's 'Tempest,'" I said. He nodded and stood in the center of the floor, listening as I played it. After I played the piece, he rambled for a few minutes about how he wished that all concerts were performed on an individual basis because individuals interpreted music so differently throughout a crowd. Because of this, he claimed, it was harder to play for an audience who would perceive everything a different way. The speech was something to this effect. After he had finished, I began to play the hymn "All Creatures of Our God and King" because I was reluctant to leave. I sang along as well, and my voice sounded full and nice in the dream. I was surprised when Glenn also began to sing along just before the chorus of "O praise Him! Alleluia!" After a moment, I stood up and the music continued even though no one played the piano. Spontaneously, we began to waltz to it, even though it is in 3/2, so I don't even remember how that worked. In any case, we were waltzing and singing, because we both miraculously remembered the words. It was very strange. Then the next part of the dream was stressful, because I was home alone, and there was a creepy guy who lived next to us. All that I remember of this part of the dream is that I left the house to do something, and found myself being pursued by this creepy guy, who had the intention of killing me or gravely injuring me in some way. In the last part of the dream, I was back at the amphitheater without my dad, and I was wandering through the hallway which encircled the seating area. I walked out into one row and found it to be full of little kids wearing Halloween costumes. I remember in particular that there was a little girl with her face painted green and she wore a pointed hat. She was supposed to be a witch. The children were sitting down in the rows and were being chaperoned by two college age people wearing red, like the employees at the YMCA. Down on the stage was Conor Oberst. He had grown a mountain-man beard. I found this strange and oddly embarrassing, and so I left the room, and subsequently awoke.