The historic Uptown theater closed down at the beginning of the year for a complete overhaul, which included luxury seating and, more importantly, a full-service bar.
The theater made its post-renovation debut with the new film Sleepwalk with Me. Ira Glass, one of the writers of the film, was there last Friday at the 10 p.m. showing I attended with friends.
About 45 minutes into the film—which was everything I had hoped it would be—I got out of my seat only to realize I didn't know how to actually exit. I stumbled towards a man standing in the back. I leaned in to ask him where the exit was but as half the words were out of my mouth, the man suddenly looked very familiar. So how did I react? Well I pointed at him and asked, not with words but with my contorted, hey aren't you____? face, "Hey, aren't you____?"
And Ira Glass responded by making a terrified face, jumping three inches, shrugging his shoulders, pointing at himself and nervously looking over each of his shoulders at the wall. I finished my sentence and found the exit.
After the film, Glass came on stage for a Q&A session. He asked the audience about their sleepwalking experience and I raised my hand, which led to me answering his question with a stuttering spasm about how I used to wake up in a bathtub full of water. Which led to me answering his second question with, "No, I didn't have any clothes on" Which led to my incoherent response, "I was a child," to his question, "Did you ever see a doctor?" Because I was preoccupied with the idea that I had just said, to a packed theater, that I used to take my clothes off in my sleep and take baths.
Then everybody decided it was more interesting to ask dumb hypothetical questions about wrestling and car accidents for the rest of his allotted time.
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Glass requested we snap photos of this staged audience-member attack and tweet it. I'm blogging it to my millions of readers instead. |
I wanted to ask this:
"Though taking a bath is somewhat productive, and I once dressed, ate breakfast and walked to the bus stop where I awoke at 3 a.m., I mostly did inefficient things like take all the drawers from my dresser and dump them out in a pile. My other experience with sleepwalking was with my little brother, who mostly just attempted to urinate in inappropriate places. Have you, Mr. Glass, or writer-director Mike Birbiglia come across any people with sleep disorders who have done amazing or highly productive things?"
What about you, readers? Any good sleepwalking stories?
I was just listening to the Nerdist podcast yesterday where they talked to Mike Birbiglia about this movie. It sounds great. I'm psyched to see it.
ReplyDeleteYour sleepwalking stories are MUCH better than mine. I only ever did it when I was very little. I managed to clear two stairways, find my mom and pee on her once, but I was about 4 so it's not as funny as if I were, say, 25.
I love Ira Glass. And while I would always strip off my clothes in my sleep, I never did sleep walk.
ReplyDeleteI used to have Night Terrors all the time. They usually came on whenever i was sick and had a fever. My folks would find me running wildly around the house crying to myself and have to splash water in my face until i woke up. I wouldn't remember anything in the morning.
ReplyDeleteUrinating while sleep walking must be a common phenominon since my sister almost urinated on our couch, except that my mom had followed her downstairs and intervened in time. She was about 5.
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