It seems like it's about an uncomfortable relationship with greatness and genius, and feeling inadequate in relationship to it. You're being examined by a great authority, which makes you feel weak in the dream, but you're specifically being asked to imagine yourself in a position of authority over another great, which is itself uncomfortable. And while they have musical instruments to express themselves, you have craft sticks. I wonder if it has to do with being a philosophy professor, and feeling like you're immersed in this canon of greats, and worrying you're not up to some part of your job task.
It seems like it's about an uncomfortable relationship with greatness and genius, and feeling inadequate in relationship to it. You're being examined by a great authority, which makes you feel weak in the dream, but you're specifically being asked to imagine yourself in a position of authority over another great, which is itself uncomfortable. And while they have musical instruments to express themselves, you have craft sticks. I wonder if it has to do with being a philosophy professor, and feeling like you're immersed in this canon of greats, and worrying you're not up to some part of your job task.
Well, yes, sponges do recall SpongeBob Squarepants, and craft sticks are made of wood. But I have a sinister plan to promote Labs's repression of his true identity. I said that dream of him riding on a geyser that spurted from the Washington Monument was work-related too.
I'm not sure about Tia's interpretation. It might be backwards. Seems like the really disturbing part is that they take away his facility with language, and make him speak in the idiom of children. So he has to sit in judgement of the greats, but do it without the tools he most needs. Short version: Labs hates his students.
Well, alright then. Humility to the wind. I forgot to mention that this dream contains the hallmark of male anxiety dreams, the dead "pianist." Repeating the dream three times fast reveals the hidden meaning.
Hey Chopper, there's this new thing called subtext (nothing to do with the commenter, either), it's pretty cool.
Really? Am I that much dumber than I thought? Is the Oppenheimer's most famous quote reference -> nano-Oppenheimer -> tiny, tiny little Death transition such that my inserting the French euphemism for orgasm is blindingly obvious and should have gone unwritten, as everyone else here saw it, grokked it, and considered unworthy of mentioning it?
I was only referring to tiny death (in english) -> orgasm/petit mort. And I was trying to be cutting and funny, not assholish, which I seem to have been. My bad.
Hm. OK, my take is that it's OK to apologize for seeming assholish while trying to be cutting and funny, but that apologizing for lack of taste and proportion is completely beyond the pale. Unless you're explaining why you're serving Hot Rancid Ass.
Geez, Labs. Too much spicy food last night?
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 7:50 AM
And what exactly was it about this dream that you found disturbing?
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 7:57 AM
The craft sticks.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 7:58 AM
I think the symbolism of this dream couldn't be clearer.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:07 AM
If you've got to have an anxiety dream, this is the one to have.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:17 AM
It could have been worse. It could have been:
In lieu of defending your thesis, please explain to the committee what we were thinking when we admitted you.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:21 AM
It seems like it's about an uncomfortable relationship with greatness and genius, and feeling inadequate in relationship to it. You're being examined by a great authority, which makes you feel weak in the dream, but you're specifically being asked to imagine yourself in a position of authority over another great, which is itself uncomfortable. And while they have musical instruments to express themselves, you have craft sticks. I wonder if it has to do with being a philosophy professor, and feeling like you're immersed in this canon of greats, and worrying you're not up to some part of your job task.
80 bucks please.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:26 AM
Did Rostropovich tell you to find your soulmate?
Posted by JP | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:34 AM
It seems like it's about an uncomfortable relationship with greatness and genius, and feeling inadequate in relationship to it. You're being examined by a great authority, which makes you feel weak in the dream, but you're specifically being asked to imagine yourself in a position of authority over another great, which is itself uncomfortable. And while they have musical instruments to express themselves, you have craft sticks. I wonder if it has to do with being a philosophy professor, and feeling like you're immersed in this canon of greats, and worrying you're not up to some part of your job task.
That, or he's gay.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:40 AM
Well, yes, sponges do recall SpongeBob Squarepants, and craft sticks are made of wood. But I have a sinister plan to promote Labs's repression of his true identity. I said that dream of him riding on a geyser that spurted from the Washington Monument was work-related too.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:49 AM
In lieu of defending your thesis, please explain to the committee what we were thinking when we admitted you.
Ah, memories.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:50 AM
Also, I find Mstislav incredibly fun to say. Its euphony with Rostropovich is only the logical fugue to a sprightly prelude.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:52 AM
Like Ondenekst Mauripovich.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:54 AM
SB, each day I fall a little more in love with you.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:55 AM
You'd fall right back out when I told you what I wanted to name the kids.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 8:59 AM
(Thanks, Joe.)
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 9:01 AM
I'm also lousy in bed, though, so there's that.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 9:09 AM
I'm not sure about Tia's interpretation. It might be backwards. Seems like the really disturbing part is that they take away his facility with language, and make him speak in the idiom of children. So he has to sit in judgement of the greats, but do it without the tools he most needs. Short version: Labs hates his students.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 9:12 AM
Good point, Ogged. They're the ones who make him use the craft sticks. Of course, only FL can truly answer these questions.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 9:20 AM
only FL can truly answer these questions
Nonsense, have at it.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 9:21 AM
Well, alright then. Humility to the wind. I forgot to mention that this dream contains the hallmark of male anxiety dreams, the dead "pianist." Repeating the dream three times fast reveals the hidden meaning.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 9:49 AM
I'm also lousy in bed, though, so there's that.
That's not what you were saying before.
A friend in college had an insane Rostropovich box set, but I never got around to copying it.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 10:52 AM
Ben, never listen to what people say about their sexual prowess before.
As soon as I saw 6 I walked into the next professor's office to tell it to him. We're totally using it.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 11:03 AM
But TT doesn't have doctoral candidates. Must master's students go through a defense as well?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 11:16 AM
I don't know, I'm new here.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 11:32 AM
So this is how Oppenheimer felt.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 12:15 PM
"worlds"≠"doctoral candidates"
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 12:23 PM
I guess I can check "make sucky analogy" off my to-do list.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 12:37 PM
I was trying to offer consolation. You could be a nano-Oppenheimer, if that helps.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 12:42 PM
Oh—thanks, slol. And I didn't mean my response in a snitty way. I thought you had rightly flagged my comment for its lack of taste and proportion.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:12 PM
Standpipe is banned!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:14 PM
By the law of transitivity, does that make you a tiny, tiny little Death?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:15 PM
La petite mort, even.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:16 PM
Hey Chopper, there's this new thing called subtext (nothing to do with the commenter, either), it's pretty cool.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:23 PM
Are you implying that Chopper doesn't understand subtext?
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:24 PM
I don't know what you're talking about.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:25 PM
Actually, I just wanted to use the "does not equal" sign.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:26 PM
Hey Chopper, there's this new thing called subtext (nothing to do with the commenter, either), it's pretty cool.
Really? Am I that much dumber than I thought? Is the Oppenheimer's most famous quote reference -> nano-Oppenheimer -> tiny, tiny little Death transition such that my inserting the French euphemism for orgasm is blindingly obvious and should have gone unwritten, as everyone else here saw it, grokked it, and considered unworthy of mentioning it?
Huh. This is a brainy crowd.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:34 PM
Also, I like the idea of there being a subtext and a domtext. Subtext must be punished, and domtext is just the fellow to do it!
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:35 PM
I didn't get it. I did pick up on 27 without slol's explanation, though.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:36 PM
I was only referring to tiny death (in english) -> orgasm/petit mort. And I was trying to be cutting and funny, not assholish, which I seem to have been. My bad.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:39 PM
No worries. You caught one of my sore spots is all--the folks here are so brainy that I'm often afeared that I'm the one that's not getting the joke.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:43 PM
Who's Oppenheimer?
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:49 PM
Hm. OK, my take is that it's OK to apologize for seeming assholish while trying to be cutting and funny, but that apologizing for lack of taste and proportion is completely beyond the pale. Unless you're explaining why you're serving Hot Rancid Ass.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:49 PM
Also, I like the idea of there being a subtext and a domtext. Subtext must be punished, and domtext is just the fellow to do it!
I always imagined domtext to be a she.
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 1:51 PM
I actually thought about making the petit mort joke myself, and decided against it, so from my point of view it was up for grabs.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:00 PM
33 should have been: Standpipe is an orgasm!
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:13 PM
I am the very model of a modern nano-Oppenheimer
Little death so brief it can't be measured with a kitchen timer
I'm the sort who's liable to disappoint your valentine or
Make you see your lover as an aging Gallic pantomimer
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:19 PM
valentine or
Tsk, tsk, tsk...it was almost perfection.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:21 PM
I guess I could have made the line you mention just a bit sublimer.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:25 PM
Nice.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:28 PM
Chopper,
the folks here are so brainy that I'm often afeared that I'm the one that's not getting the joke.
Never fear, I've got a solution. Whenever they stray too far afield I skip their posts and think to myself:
What.ever!
I'm sure you can provide the proper intonation.
Plus I mostly just read my own posts.
It works for me.
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:31 PM
Don't listen to 'em Standpipe, you're a picture perfect rhymer
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:37 PM
No no, I'll gladly take criticism from the author of this.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:42 PM
Mostly didn't scan, either, but that might have been intentional.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:46 PM
I took liberties.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:48 PM
I meant SB's contributions in this thread.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:49 PM
It does scan, if you put the final "er" of each line at the beginning of the next line. But that's an awkward way to write it out.
Also, it's important that one reads "liable" as a 3-syllable word, rather than haering it spoken with a Dixie-inflected twang to rhyme with "Bible".
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:52 PM
Ah, so it does. Bravo, Standpipe. Bravo.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:55 PM
*bow/curtsy*
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 2:57 PM
cow? Bursty?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:01 PM
But if someone wanders by with evidence that Marcel Marceau is even now a fantastic lay, I'm going to scream.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:02 PM
I am the very model of an Unfogged comment animal
I've information actual, apocryphal and trivial
I know the Guardian columnists and quote the spats political
From Powerline to TPM in order ideological;
And I can let the subtext go and wield a handy metaphor,
And I know where the waist goes on a brand-new girly pinafore.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:03 PM
"Bursty" is something else.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:07 PM
Joe,
I agree, but I might quibble enough to say the final word should then be "pantomime."
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:10 PM
Tough crowd, Tripp.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:11 PM
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:12 PM
And can't you see my faded Standpipe/Bursty apart...
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:16 PM
Joe,
Yeah, who am I to call somebody's baby ugly . . . congrats SB!
Posted by Tripp | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 3:18 PM
10 Q
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 09-22-05 4:13 PM