Monday, October 19, 2015

Sleep Walking Dead

“Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Kurt Vonnegut 

I am an artist. My husband is an engineer. We are different. We like different things.


See Jane watch “The Walking Dead.”

See Dick watch “The Andy Griffith Show.”

See Spot run from a zombie Barney Fife. 


We recently invested in the Roku version of entertainment. It’s another computery machine that allows you to watch your favorite television shows in an orgy of endless viewing. Commercial free. Interruption low. 


See Jane fall asleep to re-runs of “The Walking Dead.”

See Dick in the middle of the night flip the Roku machine over to re-runs of “The Andy Griffith Show.”

See Spot scratch.


While my husband and I are different in our viewing tastes in television, we are alike in age. We are old-ish. We are becoming acquainted with not sleeping and waking up at two in the morning for nightly wanderings. We have a lifetime of stupid and embarrassing memories that torment us as we try to sleep. 

Falling asleep to episodes of “The Walking Dead” distracts our bad memory brains. So it’s nothing to fall asleep to zombies eating everyone and then wake up to Barney Fife and his one bullet. 


See Jane toss and turn.

See Dick stumble around, change the channel, and fall asleep just in time to start snoring.

See Spot twitch in her sleep. See Spot chase zombie bunnies in her dreams.


I love “The Walking Dead.” It’s about characters that the writers are constantly throwing into a pit of writhing, zombie snakes and then daring them to find a way out. It’s Kurt Vonnegut’s writing advice on steroids. I appreciate that. 

Honestly, “The Andy Griffith’ Show” isn’t all that different. How will Andy and Barney ever tell Aunt Bee that her pickles are NEVER going to win a prize at the country fair because her pickles are absolutely terrible? Same concept. “No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them.”

Hey! It’s practically the same show. Maybe my husband and I aren’t so different after all?

Linda (Dream Weaver) Zern


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