Sloth, Maybe?

In my dream, I was walking through Central Park when I came across a traveling band of actors.   They asked their audience, “We need someone to play Cyrano DeBergerac!   Anyone willing to take up the challenge?”   I stepped forward and said, “I’ll do it!   I’ll play Cyrano!”   One of the actors laughed.   “Your nose is too beautiful.”   I replied, “All I need is some papier-mâché, glue, and tan paint!”   In a few minutes, I had my own Cyrano nose.   The director asked me, “Can you duel?”   I said I practiced ken-jutsu.   They handed a stage sword to me and we went through some forms… slowly.   The actors said I was quite good at blocking, parrying, striking and thrusting.   I was also expected to sing.   For the life of me, I could actually sing in the dream! The play started, and I was allowed to read directly from the text while I handled the sword with my left hand.   I performed the “ Then, as I end the refra...

Yes, autumn of 1990. I was 22, dropping out of my English major at Ohio State while trying to drop in with some ragtag group of artists and experimental musicians in the Short North of Columbus. I had just moved out of the Rat Hole apartment in the half-slum that was South Campus and back into the parental estate out west in Lincoln Village, where one of my sisters was also still living and watching the weeknight sitcoms and police and courtroom dramas...one of which was this rather oddball experiment called “Cop Rock”, a police drama like “Hill Street Blues”, but with songs and sometimes dancing. I can remember watching only one episode, and thanks to our 21st Century tech, I can track down when the specific episode aired, through the IMDb: Wednesday, November 21st, 1990. The day before Thanksgiving. All I remembered was a tragic scene where a small African American boy was lying dead on the ground, an innocent victim of a crossfire between street gangs. His mother and a group of wome...