Germany

Another dream. 

Mikey and I are at some kind of performance of a musical and there is a reception afterwards, and I end up chatting to a woman with long curly black hair dressed in black and white, who is a singer in the musical. In this reception I am wearing a tuxedo.

We look out onto a street and a huge, round barrel-like wooden thing is being rolled down the street by some workmen. It's like the sides of one of the stands that elephants get up on in the circus, minus the platform on top. The top is there too, being rolled separately on another trolley. 

"What on earth?" she says. 

"Oh, it's the stand for me to conduct on. They're taking it to the concert hall down the road. We are doing the Strauss Four Last Songs."

"Do you it often?"

"Yes, all over the world."

We talk a great deal about life and singing and she asks me, "Do you often work in Germany?" "Why do you ask?" I say. "Oh, I assumed, you're a conductor, you'd be working in Germany a lot." I don't want to tell her I haven't been there all year, so I just say, "Yes, I do go sometimes. In fact I am going next year." Which isn't true because as far as I know I am going to Austria and the U.S.

"And you," I said, "do YOU work in Germany?" She is distracted and doesn't answer. I realize it's the wrong question because it's a musical, not an opera. 

After a moment, I see her again, but she is with her family; a tall, fat, bearded son in a fake tuxedo and a eccentric, sightly scary other characters. The son says, "German, what do you mean, Germany?" and the family leaves.

I turn back and I see that Rit Parnichkun is sitting on the floor and leaning against a low railing and Mikey is sitting opposite him. They are rehearsing lines from a musical, all in German. They are memorizing the lines from big sheets that are spelled out phonetically in Thai and katakana.

"Why not English?" I say. "I thought it was a musical."

I am standing behind a counter and a shy woman (maybe a teenager) comes up. "I'm a total fan - you must tell me how she is - I understand you know her."

"Who?"

"Why, Beyoncé of course. You do know her! How is she?"

This woman is so earnest that I don't want to disappoint her so I just say, "Oh well, it's too much to say I actually KNOW her ... I mean, I've seen her across a room, but..."

She looks very disappointed so I start making up stuff and finally, we turn and see a table being set with giant triangular stemmed glasses (like martini glasses, only bigger) and in which one there is being placed a section from a pizza-like pastry, with cream and strawberries instead of tomato and cheese. Each glass is huge but there is only one huge slice of the strawberry/cream pizza in each. Thrilled, the Beyoncé fan grabs a piece and disappears into the crowd. It seems to be a sort of after party.

"Let's go home," Mikey says. Taking a right, we leave the party and are walking home. We are on the right side of a long boulevard which is lined with pink stucco arches, and behind each arch is a brightly lit shop. It's incredible, beautiful. 

I suddenly become aware that this is a dream and in my dream I think: "Claudio Sepulveda Schulz will kill me if I don't remember if we are walking right or left. But how can I know this when all I can see is straight ahead?"

We move faster and faster. The arches become a blur. Faster and faster, our feet hardly touching the pavement. As we leave the arches behind, I realize that we are flying. I wake up.