Wake Up, Wake Up, You Drowsy Sleeper

This Moment: Late afternoon, mulling over fragments of last night's dream and listening to scratchy tunes from the early 20th century.

I remember a famous director (Anthony Mann, I think, but don't quote me) saying that all you need for a good movie is two or three shots that the audience finds compelling. If they remember those shots, he thought, you were successful. At the time I thought that was setting the bar pretty low, but I understand what he is saying (I think). All of the shots and images are important, but some crystalize your experience of the film.

Do we hold the same standard for our dreams? Of course the narrative and themes of dreams tend to skip around more than your average film, but how many scenes from a dream do you have to remember for it to be a noteworthy one? Two? Three?

(Note: Scroll down slightly for related video clip)

Dunbar's Number

This Moment: Organizing my vinyl after many years of neglect, I spent some time listening to songs that I have had some intensly personal connection with over the years. Not surprisingly, some still had that spark when I put them on the turntable, others did not. While working through a pile of records I had pulled out, I started to think about the nature of this process. Well past my teenage years, I still swoon and get carried away by tunes that speak to and with me. Transcendance is possible at any age, and certain songs retain or develop that power to define the moment you are experiencing. And I experience a slight feeling of loss when I recognize a song I used to have a relationship with no longer retains any special appeal.

At some point I started thinking about Dunbar's Number, which is the theoretical size (about 150 I think) of a group in which each person knows everybody that anybody else knows. It is a kind of built-in limit required by a self-contained community.

So this is the music question - Is there a natural limit to the number of songs that you can be in an active relationship with? At some point do certain older song-relationships get pushed out because you simply don't have the room, energy, or time needed to maintain those relationships while tending to newer song-relationships?

My current examples of such song-relationships -

Song I'm still madly in love with after all these years - Yes I Do (by the Psychedelic Furs)

Special new song in my life: Saints (by Army/Navy)

Old song that has lost that loving feeling: Androgynous (by the Replacements)

Will something else get pushed out when I get a new song crush? Does that happen to you?