Dreams

I very rarely have dreams that I remember now.  Maybe it's that I'm not sleeping that well or that I'm just getting older.  The ones I do remember tend to be those long drawn out anxiety type dreams where I'm trying to get someplace or organize something or they're just dreams where nothing really happens.  Last night though, I had two rather involved dreams.  The first was where haddayr and the boys and I were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the house of a former high school classmate.  The two of us never liked each other (in fact, I suspect that LIz hated me quite a lot.  As for me, I was never her biggest fan) but for some reason we went and we all had a great time.  When it came time to leave, Liz said goodbye to everyone with a smile and a hug but was very cold with me, giving me a stern frown and putting out her hand to shake, clearly unhappy that I had enjoyed myself as that was not the intended consequence she had had in mind when she'd invited us.

Afterwards, apart from the family, I had to get back to some rendezvous point.  To get there, I sat down on this plywood platform with a bucket seat that had a lever to raise the vehicle up from the ground and a wheel with which to steer it.  In order to get the vehicle to fly, though, you had to believe that it could -- there was no propulsion system other than your belief and wishes.  I thought about the plywood lifting up off the ground and it did a little, after which, I pulled back the lever to get it to rise further into the air, then I thought about it flying forward and it did.  I cruised along above a road that I had driven earlier, watching the cars, careering past treeless mountains and over treeless plains, a  landscape very similar to the Scottish highlands.  It was exhilarating, my windless journey, the earth racing past as I flew through the sky propelled only by my thoughts and imagination.   As I flew, I saw many biplanes.  There was some sort of show going on and pilots from all over had brought their biplanes to fly and show off.  Seeing them, I thought how Arie and Éiden would love to see them and thought about telling them later when I met up with them.  At one point, I was worried that I had lost my way, but I hadn't and eventually landed at my destination.  Once there, the whole family was going to fly in these contraptions but we never got to as I woke up from the dream.

Dr. Banner, belted by gamma rays,

Turns into the Hulk!

I showed this to the boys yesterday and can't get it out of my head now.  They've also been asking me to sing it repeatedly, a request I've happily obliged.  When I was a kid I loved these Marvel Heroes cartoons (there was also Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor) not just because they were super hero cartoons but because most (if not all) of the episodes came directly from the comic book pages (along with the Kirby art).

 

I think I just died and went to heaven

I have been a huge Dr. Strange fan since I was about six and I picked up a Giant Size collection of Dr. Strange stories from a newsstand in Milford, CT when my family was visiting friends.  The only reason I'd gotten it was because my mother had told me I could buy a comic book and this was one of the few places that carried the Giant Size comics.  That day there were only two -- a Captain America I already had and a Dr. Strange.  Reluctantly, I got the comic and let it sit for about a year.  Every now and then I'd look into it but the pictures were usually too frightening (especially Nightmare) or the stories to weird to follow.  Eventually, though, I overcame my fear and figured out what was going on and Dr. Strange became my absolute favorite comic book hero.

In 1978, I saw in the TV guide that there was going to be a movie on Friday night (CBS, maybe?) called Dr. Strange.  I would hunt the weekly TV guide regularly to find anything that resembled a super hero movie.  Often, I'd be burned (I still remember seeing Letterman and being brutally disappointed that it was a talk show -- this was when Dave was on in the morning) but sometimes, I'd hit the jackpot.  There was no description with Dr. Strange and for all I knew it was a hospital drama but I asked my mother if I could stay up to watch it (it was late) on the off chance that this was the Dr. Strange.  She said no and I badgered here for the next few days.  Friday came and still the answer was no.  I remember sitting in front of the TV as the beginning started and then being sent off to bed.

"It'll be on again," my mother said.

The next day at baseball practice, I asked my comics friend, John Lucas, if he'd seen it.  He said yes and then he told me it was actually the comic book Dr. Strange and it was cool and awesome and spectacular and he'd loved it a lot.  I scoured the TV guide looking for a rerun of that movie for years but it was never on again.  And I've scoured the internet looking for anything about it but came up with nothing but a short scene posted on YouTube until today.

Today I found out that someone has recently posted the entire movie to YouTube.  I am in disbelief.  Finally, after all these years, I have found my Dr. Strange Holy Grail!  But that's not all, because I also found that a Dr. Strange feature film has been announced for 2010 directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by Neil Gaiman.  I feel like I've hit the jackpot!