And Last Night, I Had Another Batgirl Dream...

Oh, boy...

***

I was in Paris. Lily called and asked me to meet her at a certain cafe. She said she needed to talk to me...

When we met at the cafe, Batman was there, but I couldn't see his face....

Lily was very pleasant. She had brought Cathy & Christina with her. We all had a coffee...

Lily would pause in-between sips to make bat-shaped shadow puppets with her hands, which reflected onto the surface of the coffee cup's saucer. She concluded her puppetry by doing the Batusi while remaining seated...

And then she said the ancient phrase:

"We are like the dreamer, who dreams and lives inside the dream."

We are like the dreamer, who dreams and lives inside the dream...I told her I understood. And then she said:

"But...who is the dreamer?"

But who is the dreamer? A very powerful, uneasy feeling came over me. Lily looked past me and indicated to me to look back at something that was happening there...

I turned and looked...

I saw myself...I saw myself, from long ago, at a defunct comic book store in Manhattan's East Village...listening to Ben, telling me about a dream he had:

"Joseph, it's 10:10 a.m. on February 16th...I was worried about today because of the dream I told you about...the one where I get everything I ever wished for, but it's f*$ked up. I don't like them apples, Joe. I don't like the look of them apples at all...what am I gonna' do? It's like someone's sayin': 'Applesauce, bitch! Take it or leave it'."

And that was the day Matt appeared...

"Joseph?!"

And didn't appear...

"Matt? Is that you?"

"Ben..meet the long-lost Matt Reeves..you may've heard of him."

And while Matt was apparently there, he raised his arm and pointed at Ben, and asked me:

"Who do ya' think that is there?...Naw, naw..we ain't gonna' talk Bats and Babs, now..we ain't gonna talk 'bout Babs or Bats at all..."

I turned around...Lily had put on a purple Batgirl mask and was snapping her fingers before saying one word:

"Meanwhile..."

***

Damn!..

I hadn't remembered that!..

Now this is something really interesting to think about!...

"Neat trick!" "Saw it in a Batman movie."

I was disappointed to learn that the expanded version of Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice will only be available to own/view on Blu-Ray and Digital HD, whereas Standard DVDs will only feature the theatrical version. It makes sense that the PG-13 version is out there so that parents have an option..but it's still not highly regarded. Why not have both versions available on all formats? Or am I the only one who still doesn't own a Blu-Ray player? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? I'll move on, then..

Not owning the film means I can't get a closer look at a scene played in the trailer for the video: Clark Kent queries an old man about Batman...and this old guy punctuates his final word with a funny trick: he draws the Bat-emblem on a scratch-off ticket by scratching the surface with his thumbnail. My reaction was, "Hey! That's kind-of cool! I'll see if I can do that."

I used 3 tickets. Only one offered a prize. What was the prize? A free ticket. But that's not the fun part. The fun part was trying to scratch the Bat-emblem. On the 1st try, I realized I might've done it backwards. The 2nd try gave me the desired result. The 3rd try came about as an afterthought, because I recalled the image of the Bat-emblem was formed from a black surface, but that's where the ticket used in the film was essentially a cleverly designed prop. The surface of these tickets is usually a lighter color contrasting with the symbols printed in black. So I used a magic marker and drew a bat on the last ticket.

And I didn't use my thumbnail to scratch those tickets. That's actually pretty gross - those filings are worse than eraser marks: they stain the palms of your hands as you move your hand across the ticket surface. And when you use a coin to scratch, your fingers wind up smelling like the coin you've been holding (because the sweat & oils from our fingers collect the dirt & grime from the metal coin). I don't know if  "Lotto Scratch-off Ticket Art" is a pre-existing thing, but it exists now. Starting here? I do recall an artist drawing mini-paintings on those electronic subway fare "Metrocards" and trying to generate a trend a few years back..and Etch-a-Sketch "etchings".