Dreamscape.  Northbound on CA Highway 5, near Gorman, 27 November 2008. 

A line producer I worked with, whenever you asked about his health or well-being, would unfailingly reply that he was "Living The Dream."  It is exactly the kind of gratifyingly upbeat observation, delivered with hearty gusto, you like to hear in this town, especially when you're in production and running into each other on set, or say, on location in some remote cemetery at 4. AM; it's right up there with "No Problem," "Second Meal" and "Thank you, That's a Wrap."  Every industry has its ups and downs, but in this tempermental business of show, a self-congratulatory affirmation that we are doing what mere mortals can only dream of doing, which presumably involves delirious good times hanging out with celebrities and creating film history, delivered with just the right amount of bravado, is a bracing verbal tonic on a chilly late night shoot.  

On the other hand we are not all delusional; there is plenty of irony back of those words, just as in this town there can be a world of irony behind "Have a nice day."  The truth is it's not all fun and games; the truth is you hear a lot about being trapped in L.A. -- trapped in a terrible contract your manager/agent made you sign, trapped in a bad deal with the studio, trapped in another boring meeting with those moron network execs, trapped in a stupid career move, trapped by the paparazzi out front, trapped in traffic on the 405, trapped like Lassie in that burning barn of your addiction (to fill-in-the-blank) which is spiraling out of control -- what's so living-the-dream about that?  More like living a nightmare.

I don't think I'm alone in my fear of being conscious but incapacitated; trapped inside a body that won't respond, or being buried alive.  Therefore what a relief to know that yesterday Martha "Sunny" von Bulow (memorably portrayed by Glenn Close in the film) finally slipped out of the ties that bind and moved on from this mortal coil after 28 years in a coma, during which time she was surrounded by her favorite pieces of french furniture and a full-time staff who attended to the needs of her body very much the way you might care for a very expensive life-sized doll, washing and dressing it, exercising its lifeless limbs, coiffing its hair and changing the very high thread count sheets, at Columbia Presbyterian and later at Mary Manning Walsh Nursing home, across the street from Sotheby's.

I admit, there are days when I would love nothing more than to abdicate all duty and responsibility, succumb to inertia and let someone take care of me -- yes, you heard me: let someone else do the heavy lifting, let someone else make the decisions while I pull the covers up over my head and snuggle into my safe comfortable nest.  Generally, however, some greater force -- hunger, an urgent need to expel fluids, boredom -- wins out over lethargy, and I get up.  Or I think of that memorable line uttered by Jeremy Irons as Claus von Bulow:

"No one ever shook Sunny." 

And I am reminded that there's no one around to shake me either, unless I do it myself.  But for those of you seeking even deeper signficance, there's more:  Clarendon Court  -- Sunny's Newport mansion where she collapsed on the bathroom floor December 21st 1980 -- was designed by the architect Horace Trumbauer for Edward C. Knight, and completed -- yes, I was astonished myself -- in 1904.

Yes, one more time, the conclusion that I am inextricably connected to a greater design, a pattern of meaning and significance divinely constructed around a year, a point in time, a date, a sacred number -- seems irrefutable. 

Still further research is required, however.  Was the original owner the E.R. Knight of the Pennsylvania Railroad as one historian states or (more reliably) the E.C. Knight whose company gave its name to the famous "Sugar Trust Case" of 1895 [United States v. E.C. Knight Co.] which came before the Supreme Court during the Cleveland administration in an attempt to curb a monopoly of the U.S. sugar refining industry? 

In which case the fortunes of a sugar baron would have built the house where one day an unlucky heiress with dangerously low blood sugar would collapse into insulin shock and an irreversible coma.  

Talk about irony.