Pandemic dreamin' on such a summer's day

Dream #1

Short version: I invited some people to stay at my place during lockdown, and they brought along a heretofore unknown chimpanzee.

Hilarity did not ensue.

In fact, I found myself saying stuff like,

"Of course I adore your monkey and I want him to be comfortable here but I just don't feel this is the best environment for him"

and ...

"No, I am not being uptight about this; it's just that I need to get some work done, and that's difficult to do with Bonzo swinging around the apartment all the time"

and ...

"I'm sorry, I assumed his name was Bonzo. No offense intended."

Dream #2

More Toronto freeway dreams. There has been more than one, but I can't recall the others at the moment. This time I was trying to dodge road crews, potholes, and bicycles (!) on the Gardiner Expressway.

In this dream, I had to periodically pull to the side of the roadway at some sort of weigh station or sentry booth. Then I had tell someone (the freeway gods?) a joke or funny story. Each time I tried to do so, however, someone just before me had told the same joke or had told a better joke, so I had to keep moving on. Author's note: I blame hashtag games of Twitter.

The big existential crisis of the dream was when I decided to stay on the Gardiner to get to my destination, somewhere northwest of the city, instead of taking a crosstown route to the 401 MacDonald-Cartier Freeway.

Author's note: Sadly, there is no crosstown route like this in Toronto. Quiet Flows the Don Valley Parkway does not count.

I don't know why, other than it being "the road not taken," but this decision caused me a great deal of anxiety. So much so that the anxiety woke me up.

Oh, and somewhere in the midst of this, I had to drive in reverse for several miles so that I could look through the contents of hundreds of Amazon boxes that had been spilled in the roadway.

At this point in the pandemic, my dreams are little more than thinly veiled yearnings for purpose, attention, guidance, road trips, and shopping.

Dream #3

Author's note: The US-Canada border has been closed to non-essential travel since late March; this is expected to continue until at least late August. Oddly, you can still fly to the US from Toronto's Pearson International Airport. (The commuter airport, Billy Bishop/Toronto Islands, appears to be completely shut down, save for the occasional traffic or weather helicopter.) But upon return from your travels, you are supposed to self-quarantine for 14 days until you're sure you're not sick with the 'rona.

I'm in the waiting area of a small commuter airport flying to a work-related conference in the USA. I'm really looking forward to the trip.

I'm carrying with me a small suitcase and my Mac desktop computer (27" monitor) under one arm (as one does, surely). No case for the Mac, just tucked under my arm and dragging it along to use while I'm at the conference. I suddenly realize I've brought it to the airport but forgotten the power cord, the speakers, the keyboard, the mouse, etc. However, I figure I'll sort it out and buy those when I get to my destination.

Suddenly my Mom and sister join me. They're going with me to the conference where we're going to meet my brother and his wife. We go to board at Gate 2, but the numbers are not sequential, 5, 7, 3, 1, 4, 6, 2, so it takes us a while to find the gate.

Instead of using a "jet bridge" to access the plane, we have to take a tram, which will carry us to the plane at midfield. Suddenly, one of my work colleagues shows up for the flight as well.

"I didn't know you were coming to this conference!"

"Yes, I am, but I don't have a place to stay."

Suddenly, I realize that my Mom and sister don't have hotel rooms either. "We'll figure it out when we get there," I say.

Finally, we are on the tram, and I open my suitcase, which is more like a briefcase or satchel. I look at my Mom in a panic. "I've forgotten my passport! I don't have my permanent residence card! I can't get on this flight. I can't get into the US without my passport and can't get back into Canada without my permanent residence card."

I stopped short of standing up, the shot panning out, and yelling, "I'm a man without a country!" but, give that the border is closed and there's no end in sight to all this meshugas, that is the subtext in my thinking these days.

I realized I would not "figure this out later," but I woke up before I had to take any action, such as bolting from the tram or, upon arrival in the US, proclaiming my ignorance when I got to Customs and Immigration. Surely I, an American citizen, does not need a passport to enter my own country when a Canadian driver's license should suffice as ID, I would say in my best Karen/Kyle imitation.

I'm an anxious traveler at the best of times--fine once on the plane, fine when I get to my destination, but getting ready to leave for the airport or leave the airport for the hotel, or home-train-hotel, or home-bus-hotel, or home-car-hotel, or everything in reverse, presents me with a host of unknowns that, frankly, puts me on the edge of a psychic abyss.

So forget two weeks of quarantine: The first trip anywhere after this pandemic is going to require my immediate hospitalization upon arrival for nervous exhaustion.

Evenings in Moscow

Nostalgia time: This is the version of "Moscow Nights" or "Evenings in Moscow" (in Russian: "Подмосковные Вечера") by Soviet-era jazz great, George (aka Georgiy) Garanian and the Melodiya Ensemble. As noted in the description for the YouTube video, this version of "Moscow Nights" was played as a sort of interval signal or signature tune--a signal or piece of music that identifies a radio station and helps the listener fine tune the radio, especially a shortwave radio, to the broadcast--for the old Radio Moscow. According to the comments section for the video--for once, not as vile, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and sexist as most of the comments sections on the 'Tube--this was a specially commissioned version of the Russian standard by the broadcaster.

The question for me is whether this version was ever available on vinyl, CD, or as a high-quality mp3. So far, no luck on this one. I can find other versions by Garanian and the Melodiya Ensemble, but I would love to find a copy of this one--the sleek, jazzy, summer-in-the-city version.

This version makes me nostalgic for a number of reasons. In the 1970s and even into the early 1980s, I used to listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave. I don't think it was for the programming, other than Moscow's take on the news, somewhat skewed reports on life in America, and the occasional cultural moment, like Soviet jazz recordings. But listen I did, just as I did to Radio RSA: The Voice of (Apartheid-Era) South Africa, the BBC, the Voice of America, Paris Calling Africa, Radio Australia, Deutsche Welle, Radio Prague, Berlin Radio International, and hundreds of other stations--sometimes for the news, the music, and the cultural programming, sometimes just for the exoticism of the broadcast location. Iceland! Cameroon! Radio Sutatenza in Colombia! ORTF in Papeete, Tahiti! And, yes, even the exoticism of Soviet-style communism intoned--politely, firmly, humorlessly--by quasi-American-sounding voices.

There is nostalgia, too, for my trip to the Soviet Union, one of the highlights of my life (so far). Washington, Helsinki, Leningrad, Tallinn, Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, New York, Washington, May into June 1985--a journey that still makes my heart hum, moan, and ache, with the sights, sounds, voices, aromas, and thoughts almost tangible 30 years later.

It was my first time overseas and led to some other overseas trips, such as Australia in 1987, because of friends I made in my travels. I got to use my very limited Russian (often badly). I made a fool out of myself on more than one occasion (I was all of 23 at the time; in theory, I'm allowed to be immature, even though I won't allow myself that excuse in my memories). I was tired by the end of it, sick of dealing with American jerks (and the occasional Russian one), a little homesick, a little hungover, and needing some downtime and solitude, being the introvert that I am. As a result, Helsinki and Stockholm are somewhat of a blur.

Yet I was homesick for Russia, for Europe, after I got home to Washington. I felt I should be elsewhere, anywhere but here, a feeling I still experience regularly, though less painfully nowadays. I don't think it's so much that I thought I should be European; it's more the case that I just was ready to travel, learn, experience the universe, and meet people who had a larger worldview and more knowledge about life, culture, history, and the now than I--a little hayseed/hipster wannabe from rural North Carolina--had at the time (or even today). But I only had so much money to do so, and no real guidance from family and friends on how to go about it.

Afternoons in Leningrad, circa May 1985

So in some ways that first trip abroad was wonderful, revelatory, sublime. But in other ways, it was painful, harsh, and frustrating--it just made me want more.

I still feel that way today, often frustrated by my limited vantage from Pittsburgh and the insularity around me. I'm impatient for change and hopeful that the next change, the next move, the next job, the next trip, will salve my restlessness just a bit.

But maybe that wouldn't be such a good thing. Perhaps it's better for me to stay restless and hungry for something more, something better. Frustrating, yes, but it is ultimately oddly enjoyable.

Well, maybe not enjoyable, nor satisfying. It's just who I am. And it's past time to accept that, be a little proud of it, and celebrate it now and into an uncertain, opportunity-filled future.

I miss you, Edinburgh (part 4)

Saying goodbye to Edinburgh. At Waverley Station, 7 July 2012.

I miss you, Edinburgh (Part 3): On the Royal Mile

Old Town, the Castle, the the churches, the tourists, and, on cue, the bagpipes along the Royal Mile. It doesn't get much more Edinburgh than this.

I miss you, Edinburgh (Part 2): Ode to a Belisha Beacon

My British friends laugh at the fact that I'm kind of fascinated with this historical feature of the street in the UK and some Commonwealth countries--the Belisha Beacon. I don't know I am, but I am a tad obsessed. It seems somewhat exotic and elaborate--although entirely functional--to have this tall, stripey light at "zebra crossings" (i.e., crosswalks).

Plus you've got to admit that Belisha Beacon would make a great name for a British "female illusionist." That and Sunny Spells.

Je suis arrivé, j'ai vu, j'ai vaincu

Well, maybe not quite conquered, but you get the gist . . .

Here's part of the reason for the long silence: Paris. I'm hoping to make up for lost time in the coming weeks.

Enjoy!

Today's '80s Flashback: Out of Mind, Out of Sight

For some strange reason, I woke up with this earwig, "Out of Mind, Out of Sight" by Models, an Australian group from the '80s, stuck in my head quite insistently.

It's a song that pops to the surface of my memory every now and again. Funnily enough, I never owned the single or the album (neither of which are available in the U.S. version of iTunes at the moment) but always liked them. Very INXS in some ways, I guess. And real brass! When's the last time you heard that in a pop song? Other than a sample of real brass, I mean.

I don't know much about the group, but the song makes me nostalgic for, yes, the '80s, specifically '80s music. At least as far as pop radio is concerned, it was so much better then--and, yes, I'm sure I could quantify that statement with very little effort. You had to be there, and I was, but it all went by so quickly. In fact, I'd say in 1985, when this song was released, the golden era was severely tarnished by then.

The song also makes me nostalgic for another, older life--being in my mid-20s, living on my own in Washington, D.C., and trying to learn as much about life as I could in as short a time as possible. Traveling to Leningrad (yes, when it was still known as Leningrad, not Petersburg, Petrograd, or whatever it's being called this month), Moscow, Tallinn, Helsinki, Stockholm, New York (for the first time), and Melbourne, Sydney, Alice Springs, and Uluru (Ayers Rock), Australia, all within the space of . . . two years.

Really, two years?! Is that even possible? That's amazing. Spring/summer 1985 to the USSR and Northern Europe. Fall 1987 to Australia. Come to think of it, I did indeed do so much in such a little amount of time, without even realizing it. Now I'm lucky if I get to Chicago or Canada every couple of years.

Here's some proof of two of my destinations--

Montag at the Hermitage, Leningrad, 1985

Montag at Uluru (Ayers Rock), 1987

So file Models' Out of Mind, Out of Sight under "One of those albums (yes, albums) I meant to buy but never got around to."

And file this time in my life under "Better than I remembered" and perhaps also "If only."

* * *

Whenever I'm feeling melancholic about the road(s) less traveled, there is always (thank heaven) my Mom to cheer me up. Today's memorable quote from Vivien Leigh:  "Whenever you're feeling bad about your life, just watch an episode of Hillbilly Handfishin' on Animal Planet, and I'll guarantee you'll feel better about how things turned out."

If you're unfamiliar with this latest example of non-elitist American excellence, I refer you to this Wikipedia article. However, apparently it fails to relate some of the nuances of the presentation--such as, the winner of said contest being referred to as the "Big Dog," donning a coonskin cap, and howling his or her success before a roaring campfire.

Now that you mention it, I do feel better.