the pomegranate tiger

Last night, Lydia dreamed she was a robot. Not a mechanical, metallic, C3PO robot, but a sentient, humanoid robot that thought she was human. She, along with others of her kind had been rejected by society and their human families. They were being switched off. The robot Lydia made a tearful and eloquent plea about love and yearning to the blank stares of human faces . . . Lydia hadn't written anything in over two months. Correction. Other than grocery lists, calendar appointments and a point-form chronology of her vacation, she hadn't written anything in over two months. In a funk, not in the mood, too busy, preoccupied with real life; all of the above, none of the above. What did it matter? No thoughts had gotten onto paper. Yet lately, her dreams had been getting more vivid, more surreal. Just at the point of waking, she would control them, manipulate them. Lucid dreaming. That's the term. She wondered if the not writing had anything to do with the dreams....

** I posted a slightly different version of this video yesterday. For those of you who follow American Idol, you'll already know that Jason Castro, one of the contestants sang this version of Over the Rainbow on Tuesday night. It's a version originally done by a beautiful and wonderful Hawaiian singer named Israel Kamakawiwoʻole . He died in 1997 at the age of 38. For those who have never heard the original version sung by Iz, please watch and listen: . . . to remember him and because it's so beautiful.

I was reading Here In The Hills ' blog celebrating her 400th post and listening to the embedded YouTube clips of Audra McDonald. (For those of you who don't know, Audra McDonald is a wonderful actress/singer and multiple Tony Award winner. If I had to name anyone that I felt was born for Broadway musical theatre, she'd be near - if not at - the top of the list.) Anyways, watching Ms McDonald and listening to the Gershwin and Stephen Sondheim songs reminded me how much I love musical theatre. It combines all things theatrical that I love -- dancing, singing, and acting – and when done right, wraps them into a larger than life spectacle that lingers long after the final curtain. My love of musicals started way back in childhood when, as an unsupervised eight year old, I'd watch late-night Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies. I dreamed of being a dancer. Later, in high school, I lived with relatives who bought cast albums of all the Broadway hit musicals of the time...