The Impossible Dream

Get ready for a long one, folks.

There are some books, plays, and movies that, I might say, "redefine" my view of the world. When I first see / read them they don't seem to apply much to my life. They often are interesting or entertaining, but I just don't see much of myself in any of the characters. However, in the days afterwards, I begin to see things in a new light that I had never before considered.

I just added a play to this category today. Over Thanksgiving break I saw "The Man of La Mancha" at Hale Center Theater in West Valley City with my family. I enjoyed it, and especially liked the Spanish guitar that intermittently accompanied the actors. I didn't, however, really see how the ideals presented had application to my life. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Don Quixote is the deranged but optimistic alter ego of Spanish gentleman Alonso Quijana, who has gone mad. Championing virtues of chivalry, courage, bravery, and honor, Quixote gallantly attacks giants, seeks proper knighting, and courts the high lady Dulcinea. (In reality, he charges against a windmill, is knighted by the local tavern keeper, and "courts" the local wench Audanza.) Near the end of the play, Quijana comes to his senses and forsakes the idealistic views of Don Quixote. We then see, however, that Quixote's idealistic views, (which have nothing to do with reality,) have actually inspired hope and happiness in the lives of those formerly hopeless.

The main anthem from the play is "The Impossible Dream." Many have heard the song, but few actually understand the phrase. Many use it to describe perfectly possible things, such as better technology or an underdog sports team hoping to take the championship. Dale Wasserman, the writer of the play, said the following:

When I see these references – and I see them every day – my impulse is to holler, “Pay attention, ...the operative word is not ‘dream,’ the operative word is ‘impossible!’”

Of course no one listens. But “impossible” is exactly what I meant: the dream, to be valid, must be impossible. Not just difficult. Impossible. Which implies an ideal never attainable but nevertheless stubbornly to be pursued. A striving for what cannot be achieved but still is worth the effort. As, for instance, peace on earth. Or a gentleness for all who breathe, and breathing, suffer. Or a hope that we may mitigate the horrors paraded for us on the news every hour of every day of every week. That we may reduce the tidal surge of wars, crimes, cruelties to humans and to animals, and the orgies of atrocities that sicken the earth.

These are impossible dreams. Still, quixotically, they must be dreamed.

The impossible dream. The things we hope and strive and fight for, no matter how impossible they are. As I was watching the play, I couldn't identify any truly impossible dreams in my life. I have my pursuits, but they're usually quite achievable. So the play, I thought, was good but just didn't really speak to me.

Then I started seeing with new eyes. A (quite pleasant) conversation with a certain girl heretofore known as M finally put an end to my above-average interest in her. Though I was a bit disappointed, closure on the issue is nice. I've been holding out hope for a while, but I think it's time to move on, and now that I know how she feels, it's easier to do so.

There's only one problem, though. I find myself not wanting to let go. I know she's not interested. I know I need to concentrate elsewhere and not be stuck in the past. But I don't want to. It's like my own impossible dream. In fact, as I look back on my life, I realize that somewhere inside of me is a need to have an impossible dream. I like having something I can't reach, but hope for nonetheless. This quixotic optimism has defined a lot of my life. In 8th grade, back when I sat at the very bottom of the social totem pole, I had a major crush on one of the cutest girls in the school, Jenny. In high school, I had impossible dreams named Kati, Michelle, Jenna, and others. There were girls that liked me back then, and some I even liked in return. One I dated for a time. But overall, I couldn't stop myself from striving after the unachievable. And now I'm doing it again. I need to find a few dreams that are a bit more "possible."

Yes, my impossible dreams are all female. Do you have a problem with that?

A can of alphabet soup

The semester before my mission, I began to realize that I'm a bit of a human dictionary. I can't always define a word, but if I've ever heard a word chances are pretty good that I can spell it. It's not really a conscious thing, though. If I try to think about how a word is spelled, I'll have trouble with it. However, if I just turn off my brain and rattle off a series of letters, chances are very good that it will be correct.

A few weeks ago, I began seeing posters around campus for a BYU Spelling Bee. Having fond memories of elementary school spelling bees, I decided to sign up. In fact, I got really excited about it. All my co-workers and friends knew where I would be that night.

As the night of the Spelling Bee arrived, myself and ten other contestants showed up. After a few rounds spelling words such as "dog" and "kaleidescope", the contestants were narrowed down to two. I and one girl remained. We were very equally matched, sparring back and forth for a number of rounds.

The rules declared that in order be declared champion, the winner had to both win the final round and correctly spell one last championship word. Both of us had reached the championship word a few times, only to misspell by one letter. I was especially disappointed to misspell "ursprache", since I had run across it in my perusals of spelling bee lists just earlier that day. ("Ersprache" is not correct, in case you were wondering.)

Finally, the judges declared the elimination of the championship word in order to finish the spelling bee at a reasonable hour. My opponent, (whose name I would give if I could remember it,) managed to best me the next round, and was thus declared the winner.

This was actually okay, though. The first prize was a factory-sealed game of Scrabble. Second place received a can of alphabet soup. I already have Scrabble. I did not, however, have a single can of alphabet soup. So in the end, things all worked out for the best. Congratulations to whatever-her-name-is that won. You did great.

It must be time to find some new writers.

P.S. To the girl whose name I can't remember: Congratulations. You did great, and it was a lot of fun. I look forward to a rematch next year.

Christmas in November

Santa Claus came to town last week. I hope none of you missed him.

I was over at Optimistic.'s apartment a couple weeks ago and started playing on his roommate's very nice electric piano. As a life-long pianist and near-miss Piano Performance major, I like to play the piano just about any chance I get. After playing some great William Joseph music that Optimistic.'s roommate had for a while, I was thoroughly in love with pianos again.

So I did what any self-respecting kid would do. I called up Santa Claus (aka Dad) in a nearby Utah town and asked if I could have the now-unused piano at their place moved down here for the year. I even offered to help pay for the moving. It was an offer that Santa simply couldn't refuse.

So now I have a piano in my apartment. A real, live*, Steinway and Sons upright piano. And I love it. Honestly, I've been bouncing around like a little kid on December 25th at about 6:58 AM. It's great. The first day I had it, Uffish Thought and Novel Concept came over to enjoy. I pulled out my Billy Joel piano book and started playing. Before long, we were all singing along, and Novel Concept was draped along the top of the piano like you'd expect to see in a Jazz bar.

Jingle Bells... Jingle Bells...

*Well, not really live...

GoogleFest

Last night Brooklyn, Dimmi, and I went up to Park City to watch The Trials of Darryl Hunt, part of the Sundance Documentary series. Dimmi already wrote a great summary of the experience, so I won't bother reviewing that. Suffice it to say that we had a great time and that it was a very eye-opening experience to racism, unfairness, and prejudice in the US today, both in North Carolina (the locale of the film) and in our own lives. But that's not the point of this post.

On the way up, we were trying to contact someone that could give us exact directions to the Park City Library when Dimmi mentioned that you can send a text to GOOGL (46645) and get driving directions to any destination, along with lots of other information. We ended up getting hold of one of Brooklyn's friends, so we didn't have to use Google, but we were still impressed that it was possible.

After the show, Brooklyn saw a couple of her friends, so we met up with them. We eventually made our way outside and talked for a bit. Brooklyn remembered what Dimmi had showed us about Google and started telling her friends about it. We all ended up talking about the amazing things that Google does for about ten minutes. The producer of the movie walked past us on her way out and probably felt like she'd been a total failure; ten minutes after the show we're not even thinking about it.

Then it hit us. There we were, a group of five college students standing in the cold Park City air at 10:00 PM raving about Google for minutes on end.

What more could they ask for?

Intuation

Dear Readers,

As recompense for your patience in waiting for an update, I have a marvelous story for you all. Seriously. It's wonderful. It might even make up for the delay.

A couple days before Halloween, I received a phone call from a couple girls in my FHE group last year. Instead of starting off with the usual "Hello, how are you," she sang the following á la Chicago:

You're the meaning in my life
You're my intuation...

I immediately broke out in laughter. There's a whole story behind that inside joke.

Last year, I had a friend from Salt Lake down at my apartment. We were just about to begin a game of Rummikub when my cell phone rang. Looking at my phone, I saw an (801) number that I didn't recognize. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hello?
Girl with fake, breathy accent: Is Brant there?
Me: Brant? Do you mean [insert Yellow's proper first name here, which is vaguely similar to Brant, but not terribly so.]
Girl with fake accent: No. Is Brant there?
Me: Umm... If you don't mean [insert Yellow's name], then I don't know who you're looking for. Are you sure you have the right number?
Girl with fake accent: [Insistently] Is Brant there?
Me: Umm... No.
Girl with fake accent: Can you take a message?
Me: [Figuring that something weird is going on] ...Sure.
Girl with fake accent: Good. Do you have a pen?
Me: Sure.
Girl with fake accent: All right. It's a singing message.
Me: A singing message?
Girl with fake accent: Yes. Here it is. [Hands phone to friend.]
Singing Girl: [Singing to the tune of Chicago's "You're my Inspiration"]

You're the meaning in my life,
You're the inspiration.
You bring feeling to my life,
You're the inspiration.

Me: Okay...
Girl with fake accent: Did you get it?
Me: I think so, yes.
Girl with fake accent: Sing it back to me.
Me: What???
Girl with fake accent: Sing it back to me!

(I should mention at this point that my friend was looking on very curiously, being able to hear bits of the conversation due to the phone's volume.)

Me: I don't think I can. I don't think I can get the accent right.
Girl with fake accent: Would you like to hear it again?
Me: Umm... sure.
Girl with fake accent: Okay. [Hands phone to Singing Girl, who repeats her performance]
Girl with fake accent: Did you get it?
Me: I think so.
Girl with fake accent: Well, then read it back to me.
Me: ...Okay. [Reads the lyrics back]
Girl with fake accent: No, no, no. Listen carefully. [Passes the phone to Singing Girl again]
Singing Girl:

You're the meaning in my life,
You're my intuation...

Me: Intuation???
Girl with fake accent: Yes. It's a Slavic word. I am from Slovakia.
Me: [Seriously doubting that Girl is from Slovakia] Oh. I see.
Girl with fake accent: Did you get the rest of it?
Me: [Giving up on trying to make any sense of this phone call] Nope. I guess you'd better sing it again.
Singing Girl:

You're the meaning in my life,
You're my intuation.
You're the meaning in my life,
You're my dispensation.

Me: You're my dispensation???
Girl with fake accent: Yes. Are you LDS?
Me: [What in the world???] Yes.......
Girl with fake accent: I am LDS too. Thanks for asking.

After the call was over, I pulled out my laptop to do a reverse phone lookup on the phone number. Unfortunately, I was only able to discover that it was a Provo-based cell phone provided by Sprint. I looked through our ward directory and was likewise frustrated. I have no idea who called me.

The following Monday, I told my FHE group the story. They all laughed about it, and a couple of the girls even volunteered to call the number and try to figure out who it was. They tried, but we were never able to figure it out. It remains a mystery to this day. A hilarious mystery.

Dear Girl with Fake Accent,

If you're reading this, thank you. You have no idea how many scores of people have laughed because of your phone call that night.

-Yellow