Return of the Nightmares

Another post-Butterfly day has passed. It's taking a while to return to normal after what seems according to most people to have been a major triumph. Last night, my breathing problems seem to have come back in a big way, and I woke up three times, each time with a different nightmare lingering in the memory. Two of these dreams involved science fiction personalities with whom I haven't spoken in a decade: in one of them, I was frantically editing a novella by Beth Meacham (who was actually my editor back in the 80s) while in another, Harlan Ellison was trying to force-feed me a Caesar salad that was covered in huge mounds of extremely dry garlic.

Although it is true that I am turning back to SF, having just rejoined the SFWA and having originally planned to go to the worldcon in Tokyo (it didn't work out because Butterfly simply wore me out) ... I don't know why these two science fictional eminences would suddenly appear in my dreams ...

The other nightmare is perhaps more comprehensible. I enter a wooden room. It's a house on stilts, a big rectangular room with a side entry to some kind of covered veranda or music room (this is I think, the exact same house as in my dream of 25 years ago about the woman in red and the ape, but more of that later). As in that previous dream, I have escaped from something and I'm hiding in the house. Carefully I seal off the veranda room and lock the front doors. The back is a sliding glass door, or a French door, that overlooks some kind of jungle or dense foliage sort of landscape. Ascertaining that I am perfectly safe, I sit back on the sofa. Suddenly, a huge, feather-headband-sporting native American bursts through the glass door -- which has never been closed at all -- brandishing a weapon which is a huge staff made of green sugar cane (or bamboo!) So, this creature chases me to the bed, wildly waving the sugar cane.

I fall back and I look up. This seems to be the bottom bunk of a double-bunker, one of those big wooden ones with a loft bed on top (or maybe the bottom is the sofa) ... but the thing is there is a big, shaggy brown teddy bear attached (maybe nailed) to the planks of the upper bunk, so it's hanging above me, and the teddy bear turns around and it's only got one eye (or one button where an eye should be...)

Is this scary or what?

Now this week, I have to turn my thoughts to my own physical survival, having let myself get torn apart a bit over the opera. But the odd thing is, I didn't really feel sick during the opera, even with occasionally conducting for nine hours. Maybe I don't really need to be attached to breathing machines ... I just need to be working on real creative stuff ... who knows?

However, there won't be much opera this month. For one thing, I've a soundtrack and a trilogy to write and for another, I am giving my first ever piano recital in my life since being thoroughly beaten by Jeremy Menuhin in a piano competition when I was 13. (His fingers moved so fast, they literally blurred.) What am I playing in the recital? The entire recital will consist of music by John Cage. Yes, I'm even playing the 4'33" of silence ... and I'm gonng play that piece from the music, so everyone will know I'm not cheating. I bought the score. It cost me $9.95 and consists entirely of the instructions....

More on this, and other matters, after I figure out why I can't get to sleep anymore....

Ganesh

Speaking to the Gods is a peculiar thing, but when they speak to you, it can get even weirder. This is especially true if, on some level, one feels oneself to be, on some level, a doubter. Whether they are manifestations of the collective unconscious, or even merely aspects of oneself who have somehow become personified, one can never entirely explain it away; one is always left with a bit of magic in the air, a glint of fairy dust.

Most of my friends know I've been in something of a depression since last December. It's perhaps partly natural after such a huge production as "Ayodhya" ... the fallout from the little censorship debate never seems to cease ... and then there was all the hate mail. But mostly I suppose what depressed me was the fact that I've dedicated almost seven years of my life to the cultural awakening of this community, only to be attacked as a venal monster by some of the very people whose careers were made possible by my efforts.

At first I thought that the only solution to all this was going to be to become completely evil ... go over to the Dark Side... as did Anakin Skywalker. But a solution did present itself and it came from the still small voice of Ganesh, patron of poets.

Well, I have a very special Ganesha statue in my house. Years ago, I saw this beautiful 14th century statue in an antiquities auction catalogue and I was drawn to it. I knew I could never afford such a rare piece but half jokingly I put the minimum bid on it and sent iit in. I did not get the statue of course; it went for much more.

Months later, however, I received a call from the auction house in New York. The winning bidder's check had bounced. Something else was wrong with the next bidder. And so on down to me. It was clear that this statue wanted to reside in my home. (The lady on the phone from the auction house began going on and on about one of my books, too, oddly enough. She had actually read one.)

When the Ganesh arrived, a Bengali friend of ours immediately went into a strange sort of trance, claiming that she could feel that her ancestors had stood before this very statue. She swayed and babbled in a way I'd never seen before. And things began to change around the house. It was around that time that music returned to my house. Around 1979 I had left Bangkok in a funk, completely burned out as a composer. Of course I had then gone on to have an entire career as a novelist, but something was missing. In the old days, there was music playing in my house 24 hours a day ... LPs stacked up on the record changer, a classical radio station ... but there hadn't been music in my house for a decade. I had stopped listening. But when the statue arrived, music came back as well. I composed the ballet "Kaki", and eventually went back to opera; miraculously, I found that I still remembered every note of every opera I had memorized 20 years before and not thought about in all that time.

When my Ganesh was shipped back to Thailand, we would sometimes bring out the statue on Wednesday mornings, present offerings and so on. On one occasion, Trisdee was playing a Haydn sonata. The housekeeper went into a wild trance, murmuring and singing in what appeared to be Sanskrit, and dancing around the statue, weeping incontrollably, and finally vomiting in the kitchen sink. Our guests, sober members of the Dutch opera studio, had of course never seen anyone be possessed before, so they immediately whipped out their mobile phones and started to videotape the proceedings. When it was all over, I asked the maid (who is a muslim, so getting possessed by a Hindu god is quite a trick!) what it was all about. She said, "You forgot the sugarcane." It's true. The offerings had not included the customary sticks of sugarcane. She then added, "Play some Indian music. He doesn't want to listen to that. I put on a CD of Shobha Gurtu, drowning out the Haydn. The housekeeper then calmed down.

Being a vessel for the gods may have its advantages, but this particular maid didn't last too long at my house; she left shortly thereafter.

Humor aside, it is a Ganesha statue of immense power. Because since settling into my home, it has been a magnet for high creativity. I've managed to compose more music than in the last twenty years put together and it almost seems like taking dictation sometimes. And then all these great artists seem to feel nurtured and comfortable in the statue's vicinity and so we've had dozens of them come through our doors.

Ours is a Ganesh of creativity, not of financial gain. We've had years of incredible artistic achievements and have ended up in quite a financial crisis. I decided to ask the God to give me some pointers about balancing creativity with survival. And so it was that I a dream. (One of those "waking dreams" -- I've only had them a few times in my life, most frequently during my time as a Buddhist monk." ) It seemed to me that Ganesh spoke to me in a voice somewhat like that of a small boy. The playful Ganesha is always the one who resonates with me the most.

This is what he said. "You will never get money by going after money directly. It is not your nature to attract money. But money will come by sharing the creative spark that I have awakened in you." He said, "In your world, too many people think only to profit from creativity and inasmuch as they do so, creativity begins to die." Ganesha then instructed me to use a few particles of the dust from the powerful ancient sculpture, say a mantra of blessing and blend those particles into the material to make a number of amulets. He said that the amulets would be like windows through which creative energy can flow into people's lives. He said that the money raised by these amulets must go only into creative enterprises: singing, dancing, poetry, and music. He said that those who hold the amulets, if they make their hearts pure and their minds open, will also open themselves to his creative power.

This dream, replete with playfulness and irony, has to me all the hallmarks of "truth" (insofar as we humans can perceive truth.). The shortest path to what we desire in life is often not the obvious road, but another. Therefore, though I am in many ways a skeptic, I know that power resides in words and in images.

As skeptics go, I seem to have more supernatural experiences than most believers....

Appeal to Wagnerites

This is the letter that Bill Condie, secretary of the Bangkok Wagner Society, asked me to send to all the world's Wagner Societies. I'm posting it here. Who knows? Perhaps a Wagnerite will pass through....

232/14-16 Ruam Chit Village, Sukhumvit Soi 22, Bangkok 10110
(02) 663-3236, fax (02) 663-3237

General and Artistic Director Somtow Sucharitkul

To Wagner Societies around the World
By Mail

May 7, 2007

Dear friends and Wagner lovers,

The secretary-general of the Richard Wagner Circle Bangkok, Mr. William Condie, has asked me to write a brief note to members of Wagner Societies around the world.
As many of you may have read, the Bangkok Opera, which is only six years old, mounted a five year plan to produce a complete Ring by the year 2010. The idea was to do a Ring that was a truly Asian interpretation, showing the universality of Wagnerís vision of karma and redemption. Our Rheingold, premiered last year, received a lot of international coverage and I am attaching some of the articles that have appeared around the world. We felt that, despite our distance from the Wagnerian centres of the world, that we actually had something new to say, and I think that the world of Wagner critics also saw this.
Since Rheingold last February, I have mounted a number of large projects, but the Bangkok Opera itself, in spite of enormous critical attention, has found itself under attack; odd attempts at government censorship, a huge amount of “attack spams” directed against us by local claques, even anonymous faxes sent to members of the Thai royal family trying to say that we are somehow destroying the fabric of Thai culture. Indeed, the kind of “battle” we are fighting is not dissimilar to what Wagner himself must have experienced in the 19th Century.
Despite more interest in the continuation of our Ring Cycle from music lovers in Thailand and around the world, therefore, this trailblazing Asian Ring is having a lot of difficulty. The secretary of our local Wagner Society has suggested that we write to sister societies around the world for help.
The reality is that the amounts we try to raise are laughably low by European or American standards. Our entire annual budget, with which we put on five full scale productions each year, would only pay for the first act of Walküre for one night at the Met. Singers around the world have slashed their fees because of the artistic interest of appearing in this Ring. if we can’t find help, our vision of a Southeast Asian Ring Cycle may die.
Mr. Condie calculated that if every member of the world’s Wagner Societies donated only 10 Euros to the Bangkok Opera’s Ring project, Die Walküre could be mounted without a single further sponsor or a single cent of government support. Of course, I do not expect that the world’s Wagner Societies would be the only financial supporter for this production. But I would like to urge all of you to consider making a donation, joining one of the tour groups that is coming to Bangkok for this production in July, and telling all your friends that there is still new territory left for Wagner to conquer.
We want to make it as easy as possible for people to contribute, so attached to this letter you’ll find that Mr. Condie has drawn up all the information you will need. We will list everyone who donates 100 Euros or more in the programme book, and we will list every Wagner Society who helps us as a co-sponsor of the Bangkok Ring.

Thank you so much for your attention and your support.

With best wishes



Somtow Sucharitkul
Artistic Director

The info on how to help is located at www.somtow.net/donate.html and I think also at www.bangkokopera.com

And here is a little teaser from the 2006 production of "Das Rheingold"