Not a post about Batman

There was an episode of the animated Batman series in which Batman was being held in a matrix-like dream state, and figured it out when he tried to read a newspaper and discovered that he couldn't. The reasoning is that dreaming is a right-brain activity and reading is left-brain. Or something like that. I didn't actually see the episode but my brother told me about it. We discussed the idea at some length, both being readers and vivid dreamers. It seems like there's a lot of right-brain involved in reading, too, if you create the images in your head as you read. I do read in my dreams sometimes, but I've noticed times when I try to really pay attention to the words and they start shifting around and don't make sense. The other night I had a dream where I was not just reading but typing. Googling, actually. Apparently I was looking up Oklahoma! lyrics for some reason, because the phrase I was googling was "With isenglass curtains you can roll right down, in case there's a change in the weather." But then the words started shifting around before I could hit return to find out if I spelled "isenglass" correctly. (Looking now, it seems I didn't.)

This topic was the subject of this thread on the Straight Dope forums, where people reported various experiences with reading in dreams. (The thread is pretty funny, but gets a language warning.) Makes me wonder if professional calligraphers dream about doing precise, correctly-spelled calligraphy.

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Mimi (in the comments on this post) asked me five questions for another blog meme, so here they are:

1) Are the rest of your siblings also named after family members?

I'll have to check with my mom, actually. I think most of them were. Barb is the only girl in the family with a middle name--Nell--which I know is a family name. I think Betsey was named for the biblical Elizabeth.

2) What novel do you find yourself rereading often, and why?

I've been on a prolonged Vorkosigan kick (Lois McMaster Bujold's series), some of which I've read 4-5 times. She's definitely got a way with words, but it's really all about the characters. She does the "flawed hero" thing so well. There's also a YA novel called Lifter, by Crawford Kilian, about a guy who figures out how to fly, that I read every couple of years or so. The ending is a bit of a let-down but it's just a good fun read. I love the "voice" it's written in.

3) Do you hope to take Kate to Korea at some point?

I would love to take Kate to Korea! Koreans love kids. I think it would be a great way to connect with people. When Doug and I were there we did often get complete strangers approaching us (I told Doug it was all his years of working as a reference librarian--he has an invisible sign over his head that says "Ask me anything!") but I imagine it would happen even more if we had our cute little girl with us. It would be a hoot to kick back with the Korean moms and watch the kids play.

And, my two stocks -

4) Who is your favorite Beatle, and why?

My initial reaction was "Uh... whichever one's not dead." I can honestly say that I don't have a favorite Beatle.

5) What is your favorite song by an artist/band you usually dislike?

I've been mulling this over and I can't think of anything. There are songs that I like where I don't know any other songs by that artist, and there are artists I know who sings songs I like and songs I don't like, but I can't think of anybody who sings just one song that I like.

And, a bonus 6th question - did you go see Great Big Sea at the Zoo recently? I thought of you every time I heard the advert.

We didn't! We thought about it. We did go see them in Seattle about a year and a half ago. That was fun. Very loud, but fun.

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I finally finished up everything for the "Hey Nonny Nonny" kit--I got to do all the packing up and the previews, too, which was a ton of work. Glad that's done. Whew! My sister Betsey is here now, visiting for two weeks. We went to the zoo yesterday and then went to I Love Bento for dinner. We love I Love Bento.