tonight’s dream
My wife and I work with an international espionage network of some sort. Agents of this network pass messages to each other coded within appraisals of Elvis Costello songs. Today it is incumbent upon me to write an analysis of “Veronica” whilst encoding whatever secret message I’m supposed to hide in said analysis.
(An aside: I have been thinking about writing an espionage thriller recently, but not about coding, although it certainly seems like my “message encoded in a song appraisal” sounds like a job for Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor.)
As the dream begins I am finishing up my task when a detail about the song’s lyrics catches my attention, and I find myself writing a good deal more than I need to for purely “code” purposes, just because of the beauty and import of the song.
(For those of you unfamiliar with “Veronica,” it is a propulsive, energetic pop song [and one of Costello’s only true hits] about a silent, still, senile elderly woman in England who has a rich, full inner life of memories. She is in a nursing home surrounded by people who do not have a clue as to the colorful life she’s led — to them, she is opaque and lifeless.)
I call my wife into the room and play the song for her, pointing out the lyrical passage that has caught my attention. Listening to it again I am moved to tears. (Don’t go dashing for your copies of Spike to find the lyrics — upon awakening, I realize that the passage that I found so moving is one completely invented by me in dreamtime.)
It is time to deliver the message to our contact. We go to meet him at a large, crowded fruit market. While we are waiting for him, my wife remembers that we need grapes. I select some from a pile: they look accepable on top, but when I turn them over I find that the ones below are rotten.
Readers will note a number of differences between this dream and the others. Here, I have, indeed, contracted to a performance, but this is a private performance for my espionage network, not for a public audience. Also, there is no bizarre, surreal travel nightmare in this dream and the location is, in all respects, a normal fruit market.
Centrally placed in the code-storyline is “Veronica”, an ultimately less-than-satisfying result of colab between Macca and Costello. You wrote about it in your earlier posting, to excerpt:
“McCartney saw that Costello was a musical encyclopedia who could push him in any number of directions. Costello and McCartney wrote nine songs together, and Costello insists that anything in their work that sounds like Costello is McCartney and anything that sounds like McCartney is Costello.”
Each took over the other’s authorial signature to the point it was impossible to decode who is who.
In a storyline that has your wife on the job working alongside with you from the get-go. But not saying anything, doing anything, nor when asked to give a listen to the all-important moving passage. And this where a central feature is the song “veronica”, about said quiet woman with rich life.
“My wife and I work with an international espionage network of some sort. Agents of this network pass messages to each other coded within appraisals of Elvis Costello songs.”
— Some might say Liberal Hollywood is the network you speak of, I prefer to go with Blogging community, where you lead in appraisals of EC songs.–
“As the dream begins”
–Is it in principle allowed to write the stuff before these words? Is there a backstory to dreams, in dreams?–
“I am finishing up my task when a detail about the song’s lyrics catches my attention”
— that song about a rich,inner full life of memories unable to be communicated to anyone–
“and I find myself writing a good deal more than I need to”
–also characteristics of Blogging and Hollywood experience —
“I call my wife into the room and play the song for her, pointing out the lyrical passage that has caught my attention.”
— but not the material you wrote off of that? So why don’t you give us her opinion. You’ve bothered to call her in to witness it. We know you are moved, but not the effect of what you wrote on your partner whom you’ve called in specifically for that.–
“I realize that the passage that I found so moving is one completely invented by me in dreamtime.”
— So you belong within the citation at the top, about not telling the difference between Macca, Elvis – and now you – on “Veronica”, on one of Elvis’s best songs (..according to you) about a quiet woman in a “home”. Good news, you’re up with the greats. Bad news, your signature voice dissappeared.–
“meet our contact / him / waiting for him”
— Who exactly? You?–
“Your wife remembers”
–She said nothing when asked about the central key passage earlier. And nothing here either. You carefully state “she remembers”, so she didn’t say anything still. You read her mind? Sure she is there? Or are we talking you and you? Or is it some partnership in general is out of synch. Because let’s face it, in the end what “your wife” remembers translates into what can better be termed as: “much more than just sour grapes”–
A dream about your blog and by extension the modern media age. The espionage network is the internet. Decoding the secret messages in works of popular culture is essentially what you do on this Livejournal. In blogging about films you come to appreciate them in new ways, represented in the dream by your newfound emotional reaction to a sequence in the Costello song. The song, “Veronica”, was a hit from the album Spike. This betrays your desire for more blog-hits, resulting in a spike in readership.
The grapes represent the mainstream media. Your wife, symbolizing America (“mom, baseball and apple pie”) believes she “needs” this tempting, reassuring and attractively displayed produce. But you observe the rot beneath the surface.
I should probably add that I know the source of the grapes image: earlier in the week, my actual wife (as opposed to my dream wife) actually asked me to get actual grapes at the supermarket. I actually picked up an actual bunch of grapes and saw that the bottom half of the grapes had gone bad.
This event occurred at a Ralphs, before you ask.
I stand by my interpretation.
Sour Grapes.
We all live as secret agents to our true lives. Sometimes it is the trapping of a career that disallows the life to fully express itself.
Early on, we float out messages in a bottle, hoping they find the only audience that is worth finding.
Meanwhile, we begin to feel less stranded, and our island is not as isolated as we imagined. We raise a family, grow old, and eventually find a suitable nursing home for our life. Of course this nursing home of strangers is not really a home, just the repose from the struggle from which we have gradually retired. In time we have forgotten we were ever stranded. We have forgotten that we have ever had a life and home elsewhere. Sometimes the memory haunts our dreams, but fades quickly in our waking.
We teach our children to how to build and run the business of the Lemonade Stand. Because they, too, one day will find themselves on their own island sending messages home to their forgotten dreams.
Definately a busy sub-conscious there Todd 🙂
Cant add much to my learn-ed friends above, but are you aware of the zombie computer game Resident Evil. One sequel was called Codename:Veronica.
Is this a secret desire to kill zombies? Just a thought.
Man oh man — Elvis Costello has more pop-culture artifacts made from titles of his songs than Irving Berlin. Blood and Chocolate, Napoleon Dynamite and now this.
merely the succesful accuracy that comes with repeatedly firing off shotguns
I think that’s Dick Cheney you’re talking about, not Elvis Costello. They both wear glasses, so I can see your confusion.
“succesful” and “accuracy” connect to Cheney? in your dreams.