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Clark Gable dream

Ellen and I were sitting in the living room, talking, when our friend who lived down the road dropped by to visit. The fact that he was Clark Gable didn’t surprise me in the slightest -- I'd known him for years, obviously. He let himself into the flat, as was his custom, and sat chatting to us while we all drank tea. Even though he was an old friend and the atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable, I couldn’t help occasionally thinking, “My God! Clarke Gable is actually sitting in my front room!”

Notes for Freudian Interpretation
Yesterday, I spent a long time going through old newspapers on the internet, looking for references to a Hollywood character actor who I’d seen in a small role in the Big Sleep. When I’d looked him up on the IMDB, I’d been intrigued to see that, in the 200 or so films he’d made, he’d pretty much only ever played waiters. The newspaper search was pretty useful (if you stretch the definition of useful to include finding out inconsequential trivia about quite understandably forgotten bit-part actors) and revealed, among other things, that he’d been a good friend of Clark Gable’s. How nice that a couple of guys at the two extreme ends of the Hollywood food chain could get along, I thought. And how unlikely, but there we are.

It should be noted that, by casting myself as the friend of Clark Gable, I am clearly identifying myself with the bit-part actor. That’ll be that Scottish cringe that everyone’s always on about. Obviously, natives of healthy, confident countries constantly dream that they are Clark Gable.

Last night, while we were sitting in the living room (just as we were sitting in the dream), Ellen told me about a television show about cinema that she might get a job on and said that it was lucky that, without knowing that the programme was about to be made, she’d met the producer on the train and had had a big discussion about films.

Printing dream

I was printing a large edition of etchings. As it was a big job, I had some helpers. Some people were mixing ink, some were inking up the etching plate and some were stacking the prints. I was wiping ink from the plate and positioning it on the press, then placing the paper and the blankets on top and turning the wheel to send the press bed through the rollers. To my great surprise, I noticed that the person who had been given the job of lifting the paper from the plate once it had been printed on was Murray Tosh, who wasn't letting the fact that he is a Tory MSP and a deputy presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament get in the way of helping a young chap in the pursuit of his artistic endeavours. Good on 'im.

 

Notes for Freudian Interpretation

The day I had this dream, I'd been in a Subordinate Legislation Committee meeting with Murray Tosh. The only noteworthy thing he'd done was fumble a joke by saying "no worries" in his own accent rather than attempting to say it an Australian accent, which would have worked better. As it was, his fellow committee members were rather unsure whether he was joking or was genuinely expressing a lack of worry. There was a short, but devastatingly awkward, pause in the meeting while people tried to decide whether to help him out or just pretend he hadn't said anything.

 

Recently, I've not had time to get as much art stuff done as I'd like. Screenprinting is working out very well, but it needs a lot of planning and thought. Also, I need to print and frame some more etchings in case the ones that I have in the printmakers gallery sell and I have to replace them while the exhibition is still on. And I've promised to do a couple of illustrations for people I know -- one for a play and one for a short story. Oy! (As Freud probably never stopped saying.) Earlier in the week, I said to someone at work that I could really do with not having to come in for the rest of the month.

 

It's obvious why, in that case, I'd have a simple wish-fulfilment dream in which I am printing industriously and successfully. What's Murray Tosh doing there, though? I suppose (if you'll allow me to indulge in a little analysis for a change) that the inclusion of a politician of whom I am not especially fond but who had endeared himself to me during the day as a result of his hapless minor calamity might be a way of reassuring myself that Parliament didn't take it personally when I said that I didn't want to come to work for a bit. He's an understanding type, that Murray Tosh.

Woody Allen dream

In the mid-1960s, in a nightclub in New York, a young Woody Allen was doing a stand-up routine. About halfway through, as was his custom at the time, he let various members of the audience get up on stage and tell a few jokes. Usually, this worked pretty well -- the audience appreciated the gesture and Woody could have a break backstage. Tonight, however, it was going terribly, as a fashionable young couple had had control of the microphone for far too long and, worse yet, they weren’t even telling any jokes! Instead, they were boring on about a wonderful investment opportunity that they’d been lucky enough to take advantage of and telling everyone how they, too, could change their lives through the stock market.

Backstage, Woody Allen was pleading with his manager to do something about these jerks who were ruining the evening and bumming everyone out. The manager said, “Woody, what can I do? You invited them up there.”

Notes for Freudian Analysis

Not long before I went to bed, I glanced at the cover of a CD of Woody Allen's 1960s stand-up routines while I was looking for something else. I think that that was the only time Woody Allen had occurred to me that day. No, that's not quite true: I also moved a pile of books on my desk, one of which is a biography of Woody Allen that I got in a charity shop. Also, now I think about it, I found an old e-mail that I'd written to myself to remind me to watch a strange YouTube clip of Woody Allen interviewing Billy Graham in 1969. (It’s in two parts, the first of which is here.) So that's three times.

The financial scheme that the couple had done so well out of is clearly inspired by the idiotic spam that I’ve started to get every day alerting me to some secret stock market knowledge. “HOT STOCK ALERT! THIS ONE IS STILL CLIMBING THE STOCK CHARTS!” The great thing about these e-mails is the names of the fictitious people who are supposed to have sent them to me. Today, for example, Werner Cyr wrote to tip me off to the same thing that Rod O Early was awfully excited about in a similar e-mail. My favourite so far, however, is Refugio Carver, who said, “What's the first rule of investing? Buy LOW sell HIGH!” and wanted me to get in on the ground floor of a deal involving Ever-Glory International. It’s probably worth recording all the names somewhere for use in a novel set in the world of high-risk day trading. In any case, I got an e-mail from Refugio the day I had this dream.

I’m not sure, but I think that the stock-market couple were based on the couple in “Annie Hall” who Woody Allen stops and asks how they manage to be in a relationship yet look so happy. The woman replies, “I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say,” and the man says, “And I'm exactly the same way.” I haven’t seen Annie Hall in years, though.

Wallace monument dream

I was in a field below the Wallace monument outside Stirling, watching as a helicopter pulled a colossal concrete post, roughly the height of the Wallace monument itself, out of the ground.

Then, I was standing at the top of the Wallace monument, looking down on the helicopter, which was bringing the huge post up to the tower. A man who appeared to be a project manager of some sort was explaining to me that the monument was in danger of collapsing and that the post was going to be used to prop it up. I doubted his theory, as anyone could tell that the post was so heavy that it would simply push the tower over.

Notes for Freudian Analysis

Not just one but two transparently obvious phallic symbols! I hope that satisfies those prurient readers who are constantly disappointed by the fact that this blog doesn’t have enough dirt in it. However, as Freud once said, sometimes a gigantic concrete post is just a gigantic concrete post.

I seldom talk about Stirling, but I mentioned it last night, when I was having dinner in Glasgow with Ellen and Amanda. There had been trouble with the train on my way from Edinburgh and I said that I’d been worried that it might end up being diverted via Stirling, which would take hours. As I said it, I briefly wondered whether such a route would even be possible. I know hardly anything about trains.

Yesterday afternoon, when I was working without joy on a particularly dreary passage of corporate babble that a minister had decided to waste everyone’s time with, I reflected on William Wallace and the wars of independence and all the historic struggles for self determination across the world and then I reflected on the dismal nonsense that I was listening to and then I thought a number of rather gloomy thoughts. But just for a moment.