Phantasmagoria of Pop Culture

In honor of my psych class, which is now studying dreams, I present the most bizarre dream I have yet to remember. There’s a theory in psychology that dreams are simply the result of random chemical and electrical firings of your brain. I find this a depressing explanation, but scientific, empirical me leans toward it. (You would too if the alternative was Freud’s psychosexual theory of dream interpretation where every possible object takes on sexual meaning. Methinks Freud was a dirty old man.)

My dreams have always been fragments of stories, stitched together by fade-out transitions and loose connections. This one is no different, and if it gets too weird, just chalk it up to random nerve firings.

I’m reading the newspaper in a brightly lit salon—the kind with open glass walls and an overabundance of sunlight. As I flip through my newspaper, a photo of two preppy young men catches my eye. The headline above the photo reads in big, bold, newsprint letters: “Prince of Monaco to Marry.” My immediate befuddlement at seeing a picture of two men accompanied by a wedding announcement was solved as I glance up to the TV, which is playing the exact same story. The black and white news reel explain that the Prince of Monaco and his fiancé both belong to an ancient Jewish sect, which allows the matrimonial union of two men. Another grainy black and white photo flashes on screen, depicting the Prince and his fiancé exchanging vows with white skullcaps on their heads.

At this moment, I catch a glimpse of the fiancé’s face and realize that he is Asian. In fact, the TV explains, he is actually a Taiwanese émigré who works at Dunkin Donuts. The screen begins to show a color video of the Taiwanese man filling cups of Coffee Coolata on a conveyer belt.
My brow furrows in disbelief that the Prince of Monaco would deign to marry a Dunkin Donuts worker, but the TV continues profiling the strange fiancé. It turns out that the man is actually a nuclear genius forced to drop out of MIT due to lack of funds. Aside from working at Dunkin Donuts, he had also managed to build a superior nuclear defense system—a miraculous accomplishment if consider that this man was living off of his Dunkin Donuts’ income the entire time. On TV, he is showing off his nuclear defense system aboard a speedboat, from which he launches a small rocket while shouting, “George Bush should come talk to me!” The rocket, in truth, was about one foot long and hardly seemed capable of defending against a snowball attack, let alone a nuclear one. The rocket’s amateurish designs and the man’s arrogant attitude convinced me the Prince’s fiancé was a hack playing for the money.

Just as the news program on the Prince’s impending wedding ends, Kate Beckinsdale saunters into the salon. Perhaps mistaking me as an acquaintance, she walks up to me and starts complaining about how this salon had messed up her hair. Despite thinking her hair is fine, I smile politely and wonder why she is in this salon again if they were that bad. Brrrrring brrring. Alarm clock beckons.

Mediocrity or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Slackers

According to my psychology textbook (not a trusted authority but better than the Internet at least). Math scores of American immigrants out of 50:

1st-gen Asians: 50
3rd-gen Asian: 44

1st-gen Latinos: 46
3rd-gen Latinos: 43

1st-gen Blacks: 44
3rd-gen Blacks: 42

So why are we such overachievers again? If you ever feel dumb, just think that you at least will do better in school than your yet unborn grandchildren.

Dr. Strangelove, by the way, is da BOMB.

GASP! FAINT! ORGASM!

This SUMMER 2006, Sony Pictures Classics will present 8 classic Pedro Almodovar films. The film series, VIVA PEDRO, will include presentations of LAW OF DESIRE, MATADOR, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, FLOWER OF MY SECRET, LIVE FLESH, ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER, TALK TO HER and BAD EDUCATION.

There's going to be an Almodovar retrospective? Sarah's favorite living director? With new prints on the big screen? OMG! The only thing that could make me happier would be winning the lottery so I can afford it.

And the giddest thing, guess which film is coming out October 6. Oh the sweet irony: sneaking into a NC-17 movie on my 17th birthday.

A Goal Reached, A Blog Born

Ah ha! I've officially passed the halfway mark in Peter the Great. What does this mean? This means I have learned 400 times more information on Peter the Great than I actually care to learn. There's probably something wrong when you root for Peter's nemesis, Charles XII, in hopes that he will bring about Peter's premature death, thus massively reducing the amount of material I have to read. Alas, it is Charles who dies the premature death. Oh well, all those monarchs are cocky little brats anyways.

ETA: Another milestone. Had my first car accident today. Aren't you proud of me? It was minor scuffle in the parking lot at about 5 mph. I'm happy to report neither party was injured save for a tiny scrape on the front/rear bumpers, negligible because both cars were well beyond their normal life span

So in other news, despite the (stolen) bit of witticism in my blog description, life and the movies are not meshing. (Maybe this is a good thing.) From now on, all movie reviews--coherency not required--will be posted elsewhere. So if you ever feel like reading the pretentious ramblings of a bored and obsessive teenager, this is the perfect place to look.

Rage Rage Against the Dying of the Light

Saturday schedule: Lunch with family friends, Brattle, Dinner with Lindi’s family. Given that schedule, you wouldn’t think that Saturday was a day abounding in morbidity.

It all started out with this whole lunch business. My dad’s college classmate’s son was on his college visiting tour and surprise, Harvard was a mandatory stop. So from Harvard Square, we departed to a restaurant, where my dad proceeded to order the exact same dishes we ate the last time we were there. Anyways, the conversation turned into that college classmate gossip, and we started talking about people dying of cancer—more specifically his college classmates who died of cancer.

Speaking of dying of cancer, that’s also the exact topic of the film showing at the Brattle: Look Both Ways—a slyly observed Australian film heavy on accents and light on plot. At least the guy didn’t die in the end, or I don’t think so but I probably blinked and missed half the flash montage. There’s also something about train accidents, unwanted pregnancies, and the whole shebang. I actually like it, though I tend to tolerate movies better in theatres than at home.

Meh, and more dying of cancer. So Lindi’s family came and visited with their old neighbors, who now live in Acton. I vaguely remember my parents telling me about the husband dying after they opened a Chinese store in Acton. At the time, it didn’t jog any memories because I was probably in one of those self-absorbed hazes. But yesterday, the family came to my house (minus the dead husband), and I remembered. I remembered the wife and the two daughters, one of whose name is Sarah. I remembered the guy’s name. Shit, that guy came to our house before. I’ve even talked to him.

It’s a strange feeling to realize that someone you once knew is dead, even if it’s someone I only acknowledged peripherally. I’ve been lucky enough to not know that many dead people—the only other one I can think of now is my fourth-grade teacher who died of, again, cancer.

The fundamental tenets of egocentrism would explain why I always think of myself when I hear cancer. Funny enough, I once went through this episode when I convinced myself that I had cancer and had only a few months left to live. I vowed to keep my “cancer” a secret until the day I died, and they would open my body to find it ravaged by disease. I also made up elaborate plans of self-surgery that usually ended up as inadvertent suicide. And then there was that slight more merited episode when I was convinced I had skin cancer. The frightening odds are that I probably will die of cancer one day. Back to more summer-appropriate dalliances.