I imagine that I am still living in NYC but have no place to stay, so I will sleep in hotel rooms as long as I can afford it. I know of a hotel in Queens that's relatively cheap, but my intention to head in that direction is deflected by someone (a total stranger?) who tells me that as long as I'm getting involved with hotels there's one in Midtown Manhattan I simply must visit. This person tells me that there are events that occur on the first floor or the basement levels that are very dramatic and are of astonishing phsyical beauty. However, if I walk into the hotel, it is better that I not seek to view the events directly; rather I should enter one of the rooms on the floors above--each room has a shaft with an open top attached to one of its walls, rising only to the height of an average human, and you can peer down the shaft to the hotel's bottom, though obviously you could also throw down small objects.

I manage to sneak into the hotel and enter an un-occupied room. Despite the fact that the hotel is so expensive for those who actually pay, the room looks comfortable but not particularly fancy. When I enter it is evening, and I want to take a nap; somehow the matter of seeing the once-in-a-lifetime spectacles below is not on my mind at this time, nor at any later time in the dream. I do nap for a short time, and then observe my suitcase on a table, with some of the clothes that were within it removed and placed neatly beside it. However, I do not remember opening the suitcase and taking out any of the clothes.

I discover that I am still tired, and decide to take another little nap. When I wake up it morning. I am quite panicked, because somehow I assume that with the sun up it will be harder to walk out of the hotel with no questions asked than it would have been in the middle of the night. I gaze wistfully out of the window of my fourth or fifth story room, pondering the possiblity that when I take the elevator down to the ground level I could bypass the front desk and find a back door that I could walk through inconspiciously. I gaze into a round mirror that stands upon another table in the room, and everything about my face is unsurprising except that what heretofore had been the whites of my eyes were now shiny silver.

I'm living in France; I'm in the first stages of an affair with an alluring but down-to-earth mademoiselle. She tells me that she has just sent a letter that spoke of me to an old high school teacher with whom she has maintained a friendship. The letter said various things that made me sound like a fun & charming person--one is that I have a twelve-year-old's enthusiasm for roller-skating. Jokingly I ask, "did you suggest that I am inclined to lend money to high school teachers?"

Charles Bernstein is sitting at one end of a subway car, preparing to do a reading to be heard by the four or five other people in the car, one of whom is myself. Bernstein speaks a few words in introduction, and perhaps launches into the beginning of the first poem he'd like to read, when he is interrupted by an altercation between myself and a tall young man sitting somewhat near to me. This man, wearing a spiffy black coat, speaks of the food debris (bread crumbs?) and shards of glass near him on the subway bench, and accuses me of being responsible for this. He says that just because I am not a "popular person", that doesn't justify my making his environment degrading and dangerous--accusing me, thus, of acting out of bitterness. Bernstein, understandably disturbed by the interruption, walks off and finds a place to sit and continue reading two cars down. But his words nevertheless are piped into the car where the four or five of us are each fixed/rooted to our initial positions.

I am walking through a mall; I see a store that sell CDs, maybe books and other stuff, too. I want to look through the CDs, to try to find the albums of an absolutely remarkable rock band. I can't even remember the name of the band; but I will walk around the CDs, hoping that as I look at different band names, the name of this absolutely exceptional ensemble will jump out at me. This motif has appeared several times in my dreams; it has always been accompanied by a feeling of extreme urgency, as if I were searching for the "lost chord".

I enter the squat building that houses the CD store, but instead of being in any sort of store, I find myself in a room in which people are sitting at computers. It seems less like a computer cafe than a dingy room in a college campus building. After I sit down at one of the computers toward the front, I experience frustration accessing the pages that I want. One thing that bothers me in particular is that at a moment when I expect certain information to appear in print on my screen, I instead hear a voice intone the information chirpily. Somehow that is unsettling.

I use the computer to access a help desk. I end up having a dialogue with a take-charge confident woman helper. (I'm not sure if the dialogue is all through email, or if there is some sort of phone-like communication with the woman). There is eventually disagreement in our communication, and the problem is not solved. After the conversation is over, a tall man, a supervisor, at the front of the room tells me I had behaved in an improper way in the exchange, but I maintain that I had been respectful and reasonable.

The woman I had been communicating with via computer enters the room to speak with me in person. We proceed to have this face-to-face dialogue, but it isn't clear what is said, whether anything is now solved, or what emotional texture this conversation has. The woman walks out of the room. I turn to a short bearded man at the back of the room who had been standing near to where the woman and I had been speaking, and I triumphantly ask whether there is anything for which I could be criticized in that exchange.

He surprises me by telling me that in fact there is in fact much for which my conversational approach could be criticized.

This man goes on to tell me about weddings in which a man has settled for a woman who is very much unlike his highest ideal. He recommends such a wedding for me, and talks about the ceremony of one such marriage, as if there were a special ritual for "settling". I think to myself that this is like the marriage at the end of the Israeli movie "Late Marriage" wherein the male lead finally settles for one of the "acceptable" women his Soviet Georgian descended family and their matchmakers are always pressing upon him. I am told by the short bearded man that one moment of the wedding ritual involves the flight of wild geese.

A few weeks after the Shakespeare dream, I had the Chaucer dream


I'm among several people standing in the aisle of an Amtrak train-car. It isn't clear why we are standing up; we don't seem to be waiting to use the bathroom, and there are plenty of empty seats. In fact, I do have a seat to return to, which I imagine is true also for the three or four other standees.

As I stand there on the train, my thoughts are about how I would love to immerse myself in the study of British Literature of the Middle Ages. I murmur the word "daughter" as I am pretty sure it would be pronounced in Middle English--with the "gh" forming a "ch" shound like Yiddish chutzpah or Scottish loch. A woman standing near me comprehends my quiet utterance perfectly--she says to me, "you like Chaucer, don't you?" I say, yes I do.

She is wearing a very cheery blouse, with a white background and large patches of bright color. We talk in the aisle for a while, then I follow her to her seat. I don't necessarily sit down next to her, probably I sit in the row of seats behind her. As we are getting seated, I notice that she is wearing a wedding ring, and I'm dissapointed, as I had so much wanted to ask this balanced, erudite, delightful woman on a date. (I noticed also that she wore another ring on the middle finger of her opposite hand).

As we speak further, I learn that she is an expert on male sexuality and the misadventures thereof. This becomes another reason I would like to have her as a friend--at some point she could provide much-needed guidance/information in regard to such matters.

note: some time after dreaming the dream I realized that "daughter" as I pronounced it on the train--dauCH-ter--suggests also "doctor". (& btw, when I consulted a Middle English glossary I noted that the M.E. word was not "daughter" but "doghter").

Hamlet dream, a few months ago
I happen to encounter some people who are cast members anticipating the first performance, in a day or two, of a production of Hamlet, and I remember, before they speak to me, that I had committed myself to playing the title character! I haven't attended any of the rehearsals, nor memorized or even studied the part, yet they need me to fulfill my committment.

Then it is evening, and I am purposefully walking around the basement level of a B&N bookstore. I find some inexpensive versions of individual Shakespeare plays, including Hamlet, amongst a collection of paperback books locked inside a glass case. I would have to call a clerk over to unlock the case so I could have the book, and either I don't want to do this because I feel too shy about it, or I have some other reason for deciding against purchasing the paperback. I go the bookshelves at the far end of the store, and I quickly find a complete edition of Shakespeare's works, totally free for the handling, though of course it is a much more expensive volume than those Shakespeare books that were within the glass case. I'm very seriously thinking of buying this book, but then I start pondering whether this is the best edition of the Complete Works. I try to remember what I know about the various editions.

Apparently I do not purchase the play in any form whatever.

The next day I arrive at the playhouse to take part in the performance. The audience has not arrived yet, but the actors are getting into position to start the play. Or perhaps this is because it is a last rehearsal. I walk on stage and ask the people near me where I am supposed to stand. I am led to the back of the stage, and then far to the left, near the shore of a lake. It seems like I am actually outdoors rather than amongst painted scenery, or at least that the distance I have traversed is much too large to be congruent with an indoor stage (and surely I have walked so far left that the audience will not be able to see me).