The nightclub

was devised as a place to house new forms of entertainment. The owner and management felt that there were limits on what was currently available--drinking, dancing, talking, bowling, pool, darts, karaoke, and so on. Nightlife needed to be expanded.

The new form of entertainment: firecrackers and small explosives were attached to various items, including small toys, pieces of meat, bunches of dry noodles, and these were exploded behind a plexiglass window to the pleasure of the patrons.

Something unexpected

happens every once in a while. What will it be next?

Science Center

Going to the Science Center, or even Chucky Cheese, as a kid would sometime prompt exploration dreams later in the night. In these I dreams, I would find myself in some new dream-place where the overall mood was, all of this is strange and unknown, and I have got to explore it. Strange buildings with slides to climb up, instead of stairs, long cooridoors, and so on. Other people weren't really a factor, and I don't have many details to report, maybe I've never been a very vivid dreamer. The content of the dream was in large part an emotion--that of exploration. Very very rarely I'll still have one of these dreams, and its like they are all one (or two) recurring dream, it really feels that way, as if this other shadowy world were there waiting to be explored.

I really like going on long walks, especially in new places, and its not that the dreams explain this, as much as both might involve, to some degree, the same feeling.

Possum

We were walking along in lower Allston at night, and a sound came from the left. We looked over and up, and suddenly we had jumped into the street. We'd been walking alongside a chainlink fence, and perched atop it, a bit above our heads, was a possum. The sound must have been its tail jangling against the fence. The possum is a terrifying and ugly animal. We stared at it and it looked back still calmly and ominously sitting atop the fence.

In a few moments we walked along, continuing our walk. A guy crossed paths with us. We realized that in a minute or so he would pass by the possum. We waited, looking after him, and suddenly saw him jump to the street and start running, not even looking back I think.

The sub-basement

Is the basment beneath the basement, the level beneath the lowest you know. Its one of those coveted places, the value of which is that you haven't found it yet.

The boat voyage

The boat voyage will have to happen at some point. I've had minor contact with the sea or boats. Some canoes, rowboats, rafts, and a kayak. Also roundtrip by ferry between England and Holland, another overnight ferry from Maine to Nova Scotia or some other Maritime province.

But one day it will have to be a longer trip and I think the boat will need to go through at least some cold air. It would be a definitive trip, the real thing, if the length of the trip was indeterminate -- we may be gone a month, or maybe two, or maybe longer. That sort of trip requires a purpose for the boat, where the achievement cannot be guaranteed within a certain amount of time.

I don't think this boat trip will be anytime soon.

A quote

from a obituary for architect Philip Johnson, that was in the NY Times:

"To a restless mind, a long life is going to mean a number of incarnations".

Coronet at Dawn

In my memory the title of the movie is "Coronet at Dawn", though the internet assures me that it was really called "Cornet at Night" and based on a short story of the same name by one Sinclair Ross (who can now be joined with Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis, in my always confused 'Sinclair file'). For some reason I really want to see this short movie again, even though I remember little about it, and haven't seen it since I was in elementary school. It, along with a few other movies like "Paddle to the Sea" and "The Red Balloon" were repeatedly shown to us during my Canadian Elementary school years.

Memory says that the movie is about a young boy who is supposed to hire a farm hand to help out on his family's farm. The boy is intimidated by the sight of the real farmhands and so he hires this soft looking guy instead. This would-be farmhand is unable to hande the farm work but endearingly plays his trumpet every night. I do not remember if there is some scene in which he proves his worthiness as a farmhand, but I guess I expect there was.

Viewing of this movie may explain why even today I have a lazy desire to hear a solo trumpet song, though I don't know of any such music.