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Tuesday , December 14, 2010
Dream Girls: Andy Samberg Stirs the Soup With His Hands
In our quest for the ultimate in awesome randomness, a new column in which the nogoodforme troika analyze one another's dreams. Which is something we do during our teleconferences, anyway. That's why we work together so well. If all offices shared dreams and talked astrology, the world of work wouldn't be such a drag.
Liz's Dream:
One night last week I watched "Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals" shortly before going to sleep, and then I dreamed the most epic dream anyone's ever had about Andy Samberg. It started off in a pub/pho restaurant located smack in the middle of the very residential neighborhood I lived in from ages seven to 11: I was on the East Coast because I'd fleetingly decided to move to Brooklyn and become a teacher's aid at an elementary school, which was already starting to feel like a really bad choice even though my job hadn't actually started yet. (This, by the way, is one of two recurring dream-scenarios I've ever had in my life: I fleetingly decide to move away from L.A., get to the new city, and immediately drown in bitter regret. The other recurring dream is that it's Christmas Eve and I've forgotten to buy presents for everyone, so I end up having to do all my gift-shopping at the grocery store.)
Anyway, so I'm in this bar on the eve of my first day of my new job, and it's getting pretty late and my friend keeps telling me we should leave so I can head down to Brooklyn and get some sleep. But then just as we're leaving Andy Samberg starts chatting me up from his seat at the bar, and we totally hit it off and he draws me lots of funny stick-figure scenes on his placemat then asks if I want to go hang out at his apartment. My friend nags me to leave again, and Andy Samberg excuses himself and says he'll leave us alone to figure out the plan. My friend gives me some lecture about how it's not super-responsible of me to spend all night hanging out with Andy Samberg when I've got my first day at work tomorrow, but I basically shrug her off.
Then Andy Samberg comes back from the bathroom, but he's gigantically tall, practically doubled in height. We all giggle because supposedly making himself gigantically tall is some clever demonstration of his comedic talents. After that I'm totally sold on going home with him, so we walk out of the pub and into the pho restaurant part of the establishment, and this very serene woman is cooking up a huge pot of pho to be served the next day. Andy Samberg, always ready to give up the comedy gold, steps up to the stove and starts stirring the soup with his hands while making a bug-eyed mad-scientist-type face. I'm thoroughly amused, but the cook looks all frazzled and explains how the soup is sacred and can only be touched by monks or people who've been blessed by monks. So then she goes and finds a monk in the kitchen, the monk blesses Andy Samberg, and all is well again.
Next we're somehow magically transported to Andy Samberg's apartment in New York. Turns out he lives with this somewhat dowdy but kindly middle-aged woman who vaguely resembles Megan Mulally, and I can't figure out if it's his mom or his wife. At this point it's a little past dawn, and I realize I've got to get to work pretty soon but I'm still wearing my clothes from the night before. Andy Samberg's mom/wife lets me borrow a pair of very fancy/foofy/ruffly yellow pants, and I head to Brooklyn and find my classroom. Then I woke up and I was kind of in love with Andy Samberg a little, but luckily that only lasted about two days.
Laura's Psychoanalysis:
Everybody knows that Andy Samberg is a culturally complex famous person. Andy Samberg is an enigma. Is Andy Samberg cool? Is he lame? If I were to meet him in real life, would I like him? Hate him? Want to date him? Is he hot? Is he annoying? Is he even a talented comedian? Why did he agree to be in Hot Rod? Who is Andy Samberg's favorite Beatle? What's his spirit animal? Really: who is Andy Samberg?
Elizabeth's dream explores all of these burning questions. Liz feels immensely confused (but also intrigued) by her own diverging feelings towards Andy Samberg. For instance, Liz's inability to figure out whether the Megan Mullally-alike is Samberg's mother or wife is actually representative of Liz's own inner conflict about whether she wants to be Samberg's mother or wife. This also may relate to aging. Perhaps Liz is wondering if Andy Samberg is too young for her.
The most relevant segment of this dream, in my opinion, is the "scene" wherein Andy Samberg stirs the pot of Pho with his hands. Obviously, this action functions as a metaphor for Andy Samberg's feelings of entitlement. A significant part of Samberg's aforementioned cultural complexity is that it can be tough to tell if he's a smarmy famous asshole who sleeps around and does coke all the time, or if he's just a chill cute dude who you could play video games with. Whether she knows it or not, Liz is positing that Andy Samberg is more likely the former. Yet, she is not entirely devoid of hope. The monks in the dream are representative of the role Liz wishes she could play in Andy Samberg's life. Liz wants to save Andy Samberg. "What does my wanting to save Andy Samberg mean about me?" Liz is essentially asking herself.
Dr. LJ's prognosis is that Elizabeth should probably write an open letter to Andy Samberg and post it to nogoodforme.com. Liz needs to address her Samberg-related anxiety as soon as possible, or the emotional tumult she is presently experiencing may very well destroy her.
Kat's Psychoanalysis:
This dream is about the anxieties of adulthood responsibility, and your desires to evade the attendant weight of such responsibilities -- or at least integrate them into your desire to retain the joy and carefree feelings of being young. Returning back to your old childhood neighborhood is clearly significant, as is the circumstance of starting a new job. (You're such a Capricorn, Liz!) It is also important that you are on the eve of beginning the new job itself, which indicates you're somehow psychologically negotiating beginning a new phase in your work life, or at least contemplating the new plan of attack in regards to your career. You're probably feeling some ambivalence about this, as this puts you further into the world of adulthood and leaving behind the limitless possibilities of adolescence.
Andy Samberg is significant because in our culture (as in this dream) he represents the charm, fecklessness and energy of adolescence. He is fun, goofy, a trickster of sorts, but very good-hearted. Even his ability to become gigantic is experienced not as threatening, but as funny and charming. Despite your friend's admonishments to be responsible and be essentially a grown-up, you still pick Andy. Then you go into a kitchen next door, a space that often represents things you are either nourishing into fruition or plans you are "cooking up." It can also be the space that symbolizes creativity as well. Andy does his soup-hands things, which indicates not the careful evaluation and planning involved in such enterprises, but the direct, goofy, silly, messy interpolation of youth; it is more similar to how children would play. This makes you laugh, but makes the cook a bit anxious. The cook is a significant figure. If all figures in a dream represent aspects of your self, then the cook is like the wizard behind the curtain -- she is "cooking up" the ultimate shape of your life and nourishing that larger part of you. She's initially serene, which seems to me as if she's a bit of a spiritual ideal in your life, perhaps a dream manifestation of a guardian angel or spirit. Ultimately, though, she obtains a spiritual blessing for Andy's sense of fun and anarchy in what you're "cooking up" for yourself.
Ultimately, Liz, this dream is saying that, in your quest to be the ultimate primo Don Corleone of Capricorns, it's okay to have fun and be a little immature. The spirit of the ruffly yellow underpants (fun, color, a bit of craziness) is something that you can take with you into the realm of work, and indeed staying connected to this spirit may be significant in the larger creative projects you may choose for yourself. Anyway, this is what I think. Plus, you think Andy Samberg is cute, at least as a friend.
Tags: adulthood responsibility vs. adolescent anarchy, Andy Samberg, Andy Samberg's cultural complexity, dreams, psychoanalysis, spirituality
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Posted by Liz in Dream Girls |
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3 Comments!!
I just stumbled across this site, and I felt compelled to write. I love the depths of the human psyche that you delve into while analyzing each other's dreams. I love that you care enough about each other's well being to do this sort of analysis. And I love that you are interested enough in dreams to ponder them at length.
I've had similar Andy dreams. Well, maybe not so similar. But I have had Andy dreams. And, like your analysis, I believe they are also a longing for lost youth, and a celebration of the immature.
carry on!
Lisa
By Lisa on November 3, 2008 7:26 PM
Last night I dreamt that Alec Baldwin asked me to view his new (self-described) "structural film" and give him some feedback. His film was a woven carpet in a basement (not a film of a woven carpet in a basement, just the carpet in a basement). I think I liked it.
Brilliant new feature!
By Trevor on November 3, 2008 9:19 PM
I love that skit. Was Wahlberg really mad that time at him?
By focus supplement on February 11, 2009 9:42 AM