Dream 11: My Bed

8/23/10

            Imagine a Desert Island. What do you see? Palm trees lining the perimeter? Crystal Blue Skies? Dark, ponderous ocean on all sides? The water trembled in the bright afternoon sun, hot and red. Quaking and rumbling, an almost imperceptible rumble enveloping the island.

            It was a small landmass, such that from the clearing in the center, you can easily see the entire shore all around you. It might have been as large as one football field.

            I was in that open space, lined by a circle of palm trees, filled with only sand, and occupying my space was a tower, grotesquely haphazard, built from large blocks of stone in no perceptible order. It looked as if some god had dropped granite dominoes from the sky, letting them fall as they may on top of one another, until it was tall and baffling enough to his liking. And at the top - the summit - of the structure was a savage woman and a fully furnished bed.

            I was not alone at the bottom, some burly man joined me. Samson-like, but at times we were one person, he was I and I he, especially when we began to climb up the stony crag. The wild woman guarded the top, taunting us gratingly, hissing, but posed no physical threat to me. I continued my slow climb, hoisting myself up multiple walls, like an infant pulling itself up a set of stairs, one by one, steady. The amazonian woman shrieked and flailed, but once I ascended the final rock and was standing at her level, she became docile and stood aside, even in a manner of humble servility, and gestured in silence towards the bed that stood at the edge of the cliff. I stood staring at the bed, which was my own bed, white sheets rippling lightly, almost imperceptible, in an invisible breeze. And as the sheets rippled above the island, blue skies and tan sand, the bed did not move.

***

            At the Stumpf house, I was having a sleepover with Alex, and he was teaching me how to shift gravity while sitting upright in bed. What he did was, sit with his back up against the wall, then  f o c u s. If you will it, gravity will begin to pull you towards the wall rather than towards the floor, and you can hover near the ceiling for as long as you want! I tried in vain a few times, then began to get the hang of it. Soon, I was floating out of bed, rotating slowly as my body levitated, like I were out in infinite space. Alex and I just chilled up there on the ceiling, in his room, for a while.

Dream 10: The Trap

7/31/10

Walking past Finlay Hall, I notice a student (somebody who in the waking world just looks like a wise-ass, although I do not know him personally) brandishing some long tire-iron / wrench tool, revealing to his friend in confidence that he will be removing the front door off Finlay this evening, as a prank. Not really troubled by this stunt, I made no move to thwart his plans; I was just curious as to how the campus -- staff as well as students -- would react to seeing the vandalism. In retrospect, if something like this had really happened, everyone would just be really confused, because it would just look like a door had been removed with a purpose, but nobody would be accountable for it. Anyway, the kid was compromising the security of the building, and that should have alarmed me, because no one ought to have to live in fear of foreign threats, especially in a gated community. But I learned this lesson through karma.

When I later returned to campus, I was about to enter my dorm room…in Finlay…when my door was no longer there. OKAY, NOW I CARE. Shit. So, being the target of a crime is the only thing that could make me feel morally aware? Well... I had to get on with securing my stuff, because now an invisible clock was ticking, counting down to whenever that kid planned to invade my room and disturb the peace. First thing I did was find a screwing tool, affix hinges to my thick, salmon-colored sleeping bag, and fasten the sleeping bag into a makeshift door. It shouldn’t work, but it did; the bag was flush with the frame of the door, assuming a solid rectangular shape despite gravity and other natural laws…whatever.

I then called my friend Kendall, briefed him about my missing door, and told him to keep watch for the evening; I must have had plans or obligations to be elsewhere. Nevertheless, I wanted to catch the criminal in action, or at least have him caught by someone. The trap was set.

=====================================================================

In a later dream, I promise myself to some girl, and later break her heart and make her cry because Yelena enters my dream and I choose to pursue her instead. Yelena, in this world at least, was the “one who got away,” whom no one could replace or be substitute for, and whom deserved to be pursued to the end of the world.

We are in her kitchen in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, preparing dinner together in the warm company of her family. I just enjoy washing dishes, quietly, by her side.

Dream 9: Recurring Spies

7/21/10

It was a hot day at the pool. People were crowded everywhere, the diving boards were popping and rattling with excitement, and the water cool. The black family that I had arrived there with, with whom I had just traveled back in time to prevent some catastrophe, pulled up in their white Cadillac and let me out, leaving me to conduct whatever surveillance I had to, or rendezvous with a contact etc., but  they waited at the gates as I joined the pool-goers on deck, monitoring me with binoculars. They were a man, his wife, and teenage daughter.

This area looked familiar to me, and though I had to stay focused on the task at hand I felt this buoyant certainty in my core that I had been there before, more importantly, that someone I dearly wanted to see would be there as well. So I walked around, scanning the pool and its patrons: dads, kids, suits, floaties…until I saw a chubby, black haired little boy, struggling to doggy paddle. His eyes were squinted to keep the water out, nose wriggling back and forth. Making more splash than speed, and hardly afloat, this boy was a young me.

My reaction was instant: touched with sympathy, grief, the feeling that I had to atone for something, a desire to make an impact on myself, to possibly rescue myself from future disaster. Even if it might jeopardize the mission, for just one moment I had to make contact with young Joseph in the public pool... I think I needed him more than he needed me.

So, apparently my bathing suit had been on this whole time. I slid into the deep end, and slowly drifted towards the child by the shallower water. There was no hesitation, anxiety, or doubts. As he resolutely slapped the water, I appeared before him, wordlessly taking his hands in mine. He didn’t question me, resist, or scream…just looked solemnly into my eyes and began to kick with confidence, keeping his head above surface with much less effort. I was probably smiling. We remained like this in the water for a minute, with I leading he in a slow and steady waltz through the shallow end, turning in slow motion, and the tenderness I felt for him could only be fully realized through the years which I spent searching and waiting for this moment.

Then, too soon, I had to leave. I don’t remember saying goodbye, nor the actual departure. Next thing I know, I was back in the Cadillac, I suppose somehow I accomplished whatever the mission was…maybe this was my mission.

In a later dream sequence, I am throwing snowballs at some girl as she is walking away from me. She wears a big furry ski coat, with the hood over her head, and though I don’t know who she is, but I think we are romantically involved. We are playing in an airplane military base in Siberia, where all you can see around you is blizzard. After a few tosses, I run up to her from behind, tackle her to the ground, and we wrestle and spoon in the snowdrifts, just yards from some austere-looking barracks, wherein an older aristocratic woman is spying us from afar through a large window, soundly, in the firelit warmth of her shelter.

Dream 8: The Dreamed Dreaming

7/19/10

In a deep, maternal redwood forest, upstate somewhere in mountainous New York, the Fordham grads and I were visiting John Shanley for an afternoon of celebration and brotherly sentiment. One of the first things I saw at his house was a mammoth rock wall in his backyard, menacing because of its supreme height and ornery problems, but also enticing. I left my friends in a sprint and leapt up that wall, scaling it with macho ease, swinging, shifting my weight appropriately, going for that hold just out of my reach…shooting my legs out in front of me…rolling my shoulder to its elastic limits…stretching my fingers out, and grabbing on. I was thankful for all that I had learned, about myself and my body’s athletic potential, at the Rock Club in New Rochelle. And I was pretty sure that I was impressing everyone stories below me.

Randeep decides to follow after me and, being a jackass, wants to throw me off the wall. He pulls at my shirt, shaking and jostling me, and I start to lose my grip, when all of the sudden I feel very solid and grounded, like the rock, and freeing one hand from the hold, I grab Randeep by the arm, and yank him of that wall and fling him down to the ground. This was a shock to everyone, as Randeep is way taller than me and occasionally has unnatural strength on his side. Unfortunately, he landed on his face, and wasn’t moving much. FUCK! I thought, I really hurt him badly! So I rushed down to see him, oh man he hasn’t moved yet, his face was just smushed into the earth and his eyes were squinted, and I asked if he was alright. “Yeah,” he responded, “I’m fine.” Ah, forgiveness. We’re friends, after all.

At that moment, I realized that if he hadn’t been the one to fall, I would have, and I would have smashed my face into the concrete or whatever it was, and so I figured that my self-defense was justified. I was simply playing fair. I mean, I could have just resisted pushing him off the rock face, and been peaceful, but since Randeep was antagonizing me then he should have been prepared for retaliation. Not really the best moral to a story, but a just one.

Afterwards, I was in a German-style beer-garden lodge, literally a log cabin, with an anonymous friend of mine (I drew no sort of association between this character and anyone I really know, but if I had to choose one person, it would be my cousin Erick). We were in the basement of the lodge, and I was aware that someone, a large German man, was tailing me, or spying on me. I went upstairs to get some food and a beer, but as a precaution I texted Erick the ominous message, “Someone is following me upstairs…I might die.” I figured that was warning enough.

Upstairs, I was waiting at the bar for my order to be taken, and the shady figure sidled up next to me and said something…a pleasantry maybe, while slowly unzipping a large…white…broad… confidently sinister smile from his hard face. I don’t think I responded, I just ordered a bratwurst with sauerkraut and relish (although I really meant caramelized onions, in retrospect).

Walking over to the dining area, away from the gentleman whom I wasn’t sure was still surveilling me, I took a moment to admire the beautiful Aryan girls all around me: one in particular caught my attention, a tall, dimpled mädchen with short, curly blond hair, parted behind her ear in a little, ivory clip. She was dressed in 1950’s garb, like a child of WWII, and closely resembled a celebrity. Like a cross between Scarlett Johansson and Nicole Kidman, she was gorgeous. And the way she pursed her lips when she smiled, leaving no wrinkle but only smooth, plush cheeks and two little red curls...beautiful.

For whatever reason, I last found myself in a dark warehouse full of hipsters. At first I mingled a bit, scanning the building for anything interesting, peeking into musky rooms with carpets, rooms without carpets, rooms with lights and those without, rooms with kids on dirty mattresses, and decided that my time would be better spent if I found a quiet spot to be along and transcribe a dream that I had the other night.* So I grabbed a plastic folding chair, walked down some old stairs to an empty garage/kitchen, sat next to the sink, and finally got around to writing the following dream…

…In which my dream self, in the kitchen where I now leave him, transcribes Dream 7, also known as “Many Upsets!”

Comment: I actually dreamt Dream 7 a few days before Dream 8, but I had been lazy about transcribing it. It was only until Dream 8 occurred, wherein my dream self took the initiative to perform what I had neglected, that I realized I no longer had an excuse to put off the task. I am pleased with my subconscious for being so responsible, for keeping my waking self motivated and focused.

In a way, then, Dream 7 actually follows Dream 8, both chronologically and thematically! Read both as if my dream self actually dreamt Dream 7 some time before visiting the hipster dump.

Dream 7: Many Upsets

7/15/10

It was the end of the school year, and I was saying goodbye to all of my friends, as well as anyone I ever associated with. I walked through locker rooms, classrooms, quads, giving hugs and wishing well to everyone. One of my guy friends was on his laptop, and I approached him with a favor to ask: I wanted him to look up this Biggie Smalls song, one whose title was eluding my memory, but which I recall being very “soulful” and despondent, like Cam’Ron’s “Harlem Streets” or Jay-Z’s “Never Change.” I even could vaguely remember how the melody went, but despite all my efforts I could not put my finger on the title! So I was extremely frustrated, because I felt it was an appropriate theme to our final parting. Peter White came over and tried to extract some more details about the song from me, but it was no use. I was disappointed, but got over it. As I left, I especially made a point to say goodbye to all the girls I ever spoke to, giving them hugs and of course a big smile.

Ms. Rosenbluth, one of my teachers at the time, was preparing for a yacht cruise, but before leaving campus she appointed me with the responsibility of delivering her a particular apple from a specific location. Then she left, purse swinging over her shoulder. I found whatever apple she had left for me, took it, and headed to the boat where she would be waiting.

While crossing over the aluminum bridge from the dock to the deck, I took a bite from the apple. Upon inspecting the gap I created, I discovered that the apple had been stuffed with prescription pills and other illicit drugs! The whole pulpy inside of the apple was like a landfill of chemicals, and I must have been the drug mule! Looking up from the apple in my hand, I see Ms. Rosenbluth sitting among a group of adults, poised and somewhat aloof, expectant…then she notices me. I’m speechless, mouth open, chunks of apple and capsules falling from my jaw, eyes empty with fear, staring at her dumbly. She looks ready to jump overboard and slice my head off, but she can’t because she is in public and among company. I only speak the words, loud enough to transmit, “I’m getting you fired for this.”

Ms. Rosenbluth’s glare responds in opposition to this threat, but as she’s getting up, possibly to seize the evidence from my hands, I rush out, then run like mad in no particular direction, apple cupped in both hands now, legs knocking into each other more than actually striding, because I am a scared lunatic. I have to find campus security and report that my teacher was either a drug abuser or dealer, but that nevertheless she had to be stopped!

At this moment, my dream self is struck with the unshakable feeling that it had once, at some former time, either itself dreamt this very sequence, or awakenly prognosticated the incident. Even more bizarre, my dream self recalls the motives it prophesied for his actions. Whether the prophecy was self-fulfilling or predestined, is indeterminate.

I feel a sense of accomplishment and gratification in busting my teacher for drugs – a criminal. Approaching campus, I think it best to show the security guard the apple. Instead, the black woman in the booth happens to be a moron and / or poorly trained, because the first thing she does is pick out each pill from the fruit and put them all in a metal tin, then walks me over to the headquarters to deliver the drugs to her superior. I was beyond appalled…the stupid bitch had just totally DESTROYED my case, because it could no longer be easily proven that the drugs had come from the apple! Instead, the contents of the tin were just a juicy mess of medication that could have come from anywhere.I was dumbfounded, stammering to the head honcho as convincingly as I could about what I had witnessed, with this bitch humming next to me, holding all that my life was worth in a box. Nevertheless, I try to explain what had happened. He nods when I’m done, then grabs the container from the woman and walks into an office, where other old, white, authoritative-looking men are sitting.

Everything was jeopardized, and to freak me out even more, at that moment Ms. Rosenbluth slides urgently into the office, doesn’t notice me thank God, and enters the chief’s quarters, probably to turn the story around to incriminate me! I creep around the office, laying low, feeling like a convict myself, wondering what will happen next, when I catch the security boss sweeping the halls, looking for me. Taking a risk, I make myself present, and he looks relieved; they believed my story and arrested my teacher!

Then, I became horrified: I actually took a bite out of that laced apple…who knows how many drugs I ingested simultaneously, and what sort of awful things are happening to me??? Am I going to drop dead any moment, or get so high and screwed up that my brain liquefies? Shit, Shit! I run to the nurse’s office, goddammit they won’t even let me in, I have to wait for the receptionist to buzz me in, then when I finally get to her desk, no one is there and I’m told to wait?! WHAT! And then, a bunch of Asians drunk off their asses blunder in, one of them slurring that they just got wasted on a booze cruise, and their friend needed immediate attention. For some reason, I grant them this; I forsake my health to let total strangers receive medical attention before me…why?

Well, when I saw the sick kid in question, I almost felt like throwing up, and my sympathy for his plight was more extreme than my own. This kid’s mouth was protruding grotesquely, his jaw might have even been unhinged, because there was a blockage of vomit in his throat. For some reason, his puke had dammed up in his mouth, and he was choking. I could see that he was getting no oxygen, and took control of the situation. Prying open his mouth with my bear hands, I inspect the mass of chum that is blocked up all the way from the back of his throat, as if his stomach were reversing itself out his mouth. I had his friends hold his jaws open, grabbed a broomstick, and jammed the handle (which looked like a toothpick, relative to the unnaturally widened, stretched-open mouth) deep down in there, shoveling out what I could to free a passage to the lungs. After loosening up the upset - bile and pink undigested food – by scooping globs of it out from his taut lips, the kid could freely vomit the rest up on his own, and did so, everywhere. He puked up his own bodyweight I’m pretty sure, as his friends looked on in stupefaction. I just ran out of there…I finally had to take care of myself.

Wandering the ship, I find a lonely perch of railing looking over the dark violent blue waters and force everything in me overboard.

Switch scene: From the fourth floor of Walsh Library, during finals week, I must run down to the first for some reason. Passing through a section of desks, I see Brandon Smith, completely wasted, annihilated, sick. His friend, a female, is comforting and coaching him as he vomits into a wastebasket next to his desk. His vomit contains an unnatural amount of dental floss. I don’t think I say much to either of them. I continue on until I get to the first floor, pass the help desk, then exit the place, intent on something.

Dreams: Naming

At some point in the future, for the sake of diversification, classification, identification...
I plan to start naming my dreams in conjunction with arbitrarily indexing them! I'll even apply this to those I've already blogged.

Also, once I exhaust my hard disk's catalog of dreams, I might start digging into old journals for dream entries, so you'll start seeing dates from, like, my high school era. I also must start being diligent about chronicling current dreams, rather than letting them slip away. Lately, I haven't been writing them down because I felt comfortable knowing that I still have a bunch stowed away. But in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I feel generous today :}.

Dream 6: Skeletal Michael

6 / 24 / 10

            Aside from universal neglect and abuse, I believe Michael was afflicted with immortality. His age, race, was indeterminate. But he was  over six foot and weighed less than 70 pounds. However much your skeleton weighs, was Michael.

            Michael was essentially a human corpse, matter that seemed to want to implode on itself at any moment, the taut skin - where there was skin - peeling itself over every corner and line of his grotesque face, actually so tight that he could not sufficiently open his mouth to talk. Or maybe he had lost that ability, or never had it to begin with. I saw Michael on just another day of his life, he and I wishing he would die already.

            Being near him, I was horrified. Even more horrifying was what I saw happen to him. He had been flayed alive, or skinned, or just starved so badly that his skin tore in places where it was too weak to contain his bones, that when I saw him flopping on the ground, I thought he had turned inside out. Oh My God he was just writhing there, growling and shrieking in the street! His limbs were trembling, and though he was stuck in the fetal position, he trembled violently from his narrow core, tossing his fragile head against the ground, because it was all he could do. If he could think, he might have hoped to finally lose consciousness (from head trauma), but his mind was never so alive. Like an animal wounded in the road, I wish I could have just shot him in the head to end his misery. Profoundly I pitied him, and couldn’t accept that the world had let him become so afflicted.

            Cops and officers rushed in, carrying blankets made of some mucus-y material, like whale blubber, a gigantic skin graft of sorts, or life-size band-aid, for the man with no skin and only hunger. They were trying to scoop him off the ground with their net of flesh, yelling at him like a beast who barely spoke their own language, “Michael! Get in the blankets!” And he just writhed and moaned guttural horror from his chest, becoming more wretched every second. At last they got him in their membrane-sac, a body-bag, sealed him up except for the head, and carried him away. The tiny drum-hole where his mouth once might have been still cried, whistled really, and his eyes were strangely full, the only organs with any moisture left at all. I recall feeling the tiniest bit of relief, knowing that at least he’d finally get some sort of medical care after centuries of withering, but it might have been better for them to just put him under by then.

*An anecdote related to me a few days prior to this dream: An old man had a heart problem, and was told that he would live for only a few more years. The diagnosis was that he would suffer for a while, then die. His doctor, in an act of grace, recommended a pacemaker. In fact, the doctor would not see the old man again until he consented to order a pacemaker. A few months after using the device, the old man developed severe dementia. He would live much longer now, since his heart was being regulated, but his aging and decrepit wife would now have to suffer as she cared for her vegetable husband until her last days. The old man lived longer, but no longer lived in his mind, as a result of the greed of modern pharmaceutical agencies. See, the doctor who recommended the pacemaker was paid tens of thousands of dollars by the manufacturing company for each unit he sold. His interest was not in the welfare of his patient, but rather his personal salary. The old man lived another ten years, retarded as a baby and, after his wife died, alone.

**In retrospect, I am ashamed to have been so nihilistic in my dream towards the ‘Michael’ figure. I did feel “the tiniest bit of relief” at seeing him finally rescued, but I reasoned that, given his unfathomable condition, his suffering had been and would continue to be too much for a person to bear. I preferred the act of killing him quickly to end his suffering. Such is the decision of many in the real world, no doubt; to pull the plug on a loved one, or not. I apologize to anyone reading this if I seemed insensitive and cruel, but this question is heavily moral and certainly real. Out of remorse, I’ll also note that, were there a ‘Michael’ among us, which there must be somewhere, I’d only want to see him alive and nourished, restored back to health if possible.

Dream 5: Opportunistic

5/12/10

* A party occurs on campus, among other trivial things *

In the final scene, I land somewhat in a hurry on Central Park West, bags and all. I am just trying to get home with all the stuff I had accumulated. I approach the ATM on the sidewalk, and as it senses me coming towards it, it dispenses a single dollar. “Oh, no….” I think, “this is some sort of test, and I don’t need any more trouble. I won’t take it.” Trying to ignore the menacing dollar, I punch in my numbers and whatever, get my money, and head downstairs to the subway.

Abject despair in the underground. Before I even got to swipe, a wretched beast of a black man was curled over the turnstile, homeless and rotten. I couldn’t even see his face. He was moaning indecipherably, but it was obvious he just wanted some change, or a swipe. I thought I could almost hear him crying, and thought he might have been crying all day. It was at that moment that I realize I almost had a dollar for this man, if only I had cooperatively taken the one at the ATM. Certainly, I could not surrender to him one of my own dollars. Nevertheless, I had to keep going, to catch my train.

Making my way further into the station, when I get downstairs, a phantom of a costume of Michael Jackson is leering at me. It is as if he is wearing a mask, for he makes no discernible facial movements… only an exaggerated smile, empty eyes, pointy chin, following me with a swiveling neck that leers lubriciously in my direction. Though I am not too nervous, I retreat a bit when I ask him bluntly and timidly, “What... do you want?”

“THAT is the Question!” he shrieks in response! And satisfied, possibly with the existensialism of my curiosity, he climbs onto a slow-moving bicycle and squeaks away, morphing into a shadow of a phantom of a costume of the artist formerly known as Prince in the process. But this was not the last I would see of him.

As soon as I made it through the turnstile, the subway platform was no longer... instead now a circular rotating disk, like some haunted carousel ride, and I in the center. All scenery melted into dark shapes, purple and yellow fog, swirling around the spinning floor, suspending me in this tortured limbo. “I want to leave!” I desperately cry, and exit, spiraling outwards, towards the outer edge of the ring, where I see Michael again, pedaling from far away. I call to him… maybe he has an answer! But joker as he is, he turns himself into a grotesque caricature of Spongebob Squarepants, bloated and decrepit, and itself assuming a multitude of faces simultaneously. He was of no help.

Dream 4: Temporarily Blind at Camp

4/19/2010

At camp, Adrienne H. had just woken up, and I was amused by her general physical / hygienic disarray. As far as girls without their make-up go, she really was unrecognizable for a few moments, as every surface on her face seemed to bulge or recede in the wrong places. She said a few things to me while looking over her shoulder and walking away, as if I were more of an afterthought than the words she spoke, and flitted away across the wooden floorboards in her nightgown. I watched her disappear through a door, and approached the door to follow. As I reached for the doorknob, a glint of light caught my eye, and my sight followed that glint as it sort of floated near my left shoulder. Upon closer inspection, the tiny shimmer looked to be either one of those cotton tufts that blow around in the Spring, or, even stranger, a small, silver, spinning coin.

Disinterested, I swatted the spinning coin with my hand, away from me, and proceeded to open the door to follow Adrienne. But then something struck my neck! It felt as if someone had come up behind me and jabbed the right side of my neck, or launched a blunt projectile at it. Seeing nothing around me, I realized that what I had previously swatted was an actual fairy, like Tinkerbell, and in retaliation she had attacked me! Although I suffered no physical injury beyond the immediate discomfort, matters soon became worse, as I lost my sight completely.

I was blind! The fairy had evidently put a curse on me, as a punishment for my aggression.

Now that everything was pitch black, I got real scared. I didn’t want to be blind!

But I didn’t believe I was truly, irreversibly blind either…I didn’t want to believe it! So I pushed and tumbled towards where I thought the door to the outside porch would be, because I was panicking and, like most people, I needed to get to an open space where I wouldn’t feel confined and threatened.

Stepping lightly, I felt my way around bed posts - round, brass bed posts, cold to the touch. The wooden floors were also cold, it was so early that morning. Nervous, I found the porch door, a wooden frame loose with age and decay. I considered that only the room had become dark, and once I opened the door, light would naturally pour in, my salvation. Pulling the door open, inwards…nothing. I still saw black, forever in front of me.

Until, the black grew into deep blue, through the glass pane of the secondary screen door. Then a brighter shade of blue! Then white streaks! It was morning rising, and I could see! I could see the woods beneath the house - the trees of Savannah, Georgia - and the dog, the yellow lab that was jumping up to lick my face!

Standing there in my shorts, I could see again. The dog greeted me…my opening the door let him in, and let me out.

Idea: Immersion Series: Prayer Position: 2nd Edition

See: Immersion Series: Prayer Position

Here is an adaptation of the original "Prayer Position" series, I guess you can call it an exhibition.

Background: Influences include: the stigma against capitalism in indie culture; the fact that I am currently reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

Execution: The gallery should be one room, with very small dimensions. Like, comfortably fitting 5 standing adults. The walls should be dark, if not black, and little light should be entering the room from the outside (perhaps by means of curtains). The only light in the room will come from little, hot spotlights, one for each wall (on which will hang a portrait). Though I place an emphasis on the minuteness (possibly concealed) of the spotlights, stark lighting is ideal.

On each of the four walls, in the tiny room, will hang a LARGE, that is, Larger than Life-Size, photograph of a "model" businessman: slick two-piece suit; side part (or some other sophisticated style); expensive, dark jacket; expensive accessories (Rolex, nonprescription designer lenses, cuff links); perfect complexion; perfect teeth; etc. Like the original Prayer Position series, each of the four men are joining hands, although each man is in a separate frame. All aspects of the photo should be very flattering. The men are radiant, jubilant, proud, ecstatic about something, their heads seeming to toss back in rapture as they pray. Actually, their posture should really evoke the action of two people holding hands and spinning themselves dizzy, as done by kids on a playground. As if they are dancing like lunatics around...a pile of gold bricks? I'm extrapolating. But these are exactly the expressions I need in their faces: pure joy.

Although one might think the men are making themselves dizzy, the background should be still. Floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over a vast city, behind all four portrait subjects. The viewer must know that these man stand in the highest room of the tallest building in the city. It is a beautiful, clear blue day. On the walls behind the men hang plaques, diplomas, clocks, whatever might be in the office of a big-shot CEO. The decor should scream wealth, although I stress that for the most part there is window.

Other Specs: These "portraits" are photographs, and in order to intensify the larger-than-life aspect of these businessmen and really intimidate / awe the audience, the photos should be taken from approximately chest-level of the subjects, so that they are (just a little bit) looming over the viewer.

I request the walls of the gallery room to be dark and "starkly lit," so that an occult energy complements the expressions and motions of the praying businessmen. It makes these men, so self-important and invaluable to their company, the supreme point of focus, satiating their vanity.

Immersion Effect: Again, the audience has the option to feel like either (a) part of the circle or (b) the idol in the center. Or (c) The audience could also imagine that they are being mocked or derided by the subjects, the victims and objects of superciliousness / hubris.

The gallery room must be VERY small, I stress, so that one wall only fits one 8' x 6' (High x Wide) portrait. This way, there is a cap on the number of businessmen included in the circle, suggesting the exclusivity and cliquishness of these high-profile corporate positions.

Dream 3: Cruisin'

4/14/2009


This dream I actually had on a couch in a passageway in my school library, actually in the midst of writing a Lit paper. 

It was a very late, awfully late, night in the library, where time usually disappears from me and weary restlessness sets in. I didn’t want to be there, writing a six page paper for my Lit class the next day, but I had to be. And I knew it would not be long before I desired to sleep.

The library, believe it or not, is the worst place to work at night. Well, it’s the best place for people who actually want to work, because you feel so uncomfortable at those high tables, in those stiff chairs, in that stiff white light, that sleep does not come easy, and work is the next best option. But for people like me, who prefer comfort, the library is the worst place to work at night. And I was tired, but most of all Bored with what I was doing. It wasn’t easy.

After some time, I had given up on trying to convince myself that what I was doing was worth doing, at least at that hour, so I thought I’d treat myself to a nap on the couch in the Library’s lounge. It was uncomfortable, loud with the noises of people traffic, and not at all as dark as a room should be for sleeping. Crashing on the couch was symbolic of my giving up, of admitting weakness and poor focus.

But eventually I was woken up by the unlikeliest of people, and the night was saved…

"The Rescue"

Dan, my best friend, came and picked me up, he picked me up and out of the library, and we left the library. He put me into the passenger seat of his gold Cadillac and said we should go for a ride...so we did. He turned his headlights off and sped down the dark, midnight strip of shopping malls and restaurants, bowling alleys and gas stations, flying past auto dealerships in the streetlights like distant galaxies.

But the most stunning thing was that it was completely silent, and cool. I got excited for ourselves, and the fact that we had escaped. Leaning forward in my seat, Dan at the wheel, I stared out into the deep brown sky ahead, while it was still dark and round with mystery. Dan said little as he drove, looking ahead into the dark and rushing highway, and his peace affirmed my peace. We followed the low stream of lights embroidering the two-lane road, riding the middle.

It was take-off. Easing back, my tense body released itself into the seat, and

I could laugh!

Idea: Immersion Series: Prayer Positions

"We resemble martyrs

or trees, crooked and proud,

joined by our branches,

a strong forest of soul...

...And our faces our peaceful and

often thoughtful. Our eyes are

closed, but not shut."

Background: I had this idea at a leadership training orientation in the Bronx, as we, the congregants, stood holding hands in a circle and in unison recited the closing prayer for the day. I decided to study just one single person at a time out of the group; one of those moments when everyone's eyes are closed except yours, when you're peeking. And I was amazed at how serene this person's face had become. Hands linked  both left and right, palms outward, he quietly prayed. His posture, chest sticking out and arms hanging, head forward, made him look somewhat vulnerable, as if he were surrendering himself before a firing wall.
Then I realized that each person has his or her unique way of standing while praying, but that their body language always emulates the self-sacrificial pose of Christ on the cross.

Execution: This is the first installment of what I deem an "Immersion Series." The intention is, that a multitude of portraits with the same theme, arranged in a gallery or room with specific dimensions or topography, will produce the effect that the viewer feels as if he is part of the scene in the portrait, or a component of the subject's environment. You shall soon realize what I mean.

The idea is simple: A rather large, maybe 2' x 3' vertically-oriented photo of a lower-middle class, preferably minority individual, any age, standing in a prayer circle, reverent and focused in prayer. Really, it could be a candid photo. Just catch them praying, as they naturally would. But allow your subjects to be in particularly awkward or unnatural bodily poses, like with their chest sticking out, or their arms at certain angles from their sides, their heads cocked back or forward too much. These are subjective characteristics, but in every subject raw reverence should radiate through their clothing, like they were literally being grounded to the floor by the holy spirit.

Other Specs: The subject's full body must be within the frame, from head to toe. On both right and left extremes, you can see the ambiguous hands our subject is holding, but nothing past the wrist. The background can be any number of things, but some obvious ones are: A church basement (because no one really stands in prayer CIRCLES in a traditional cathedral...they sit in rows), a Park, a parking lot. Here's where you can get creative. Obviously if the background emphasized a humble, non-glitzy, working-class environment, that would go along with the theme. But I imagine you can throw a lot of interesting things in the background to make some sort of alternate statement, generate irony... Throw some crosses and religious icons on the walls, behind the subject!

The "Immersion" Effect: Arrange lots (20+?) of these portraits around the perimeter of a room (gallery), making sure to not "break the circle" by including any other type of work in the room. You want to give the illusion that these subjects are actually standing around the room holding hands and praying. I suppose, ideally, the backgrounds of all the photos should be consistent, to preserve the effect. Again, I'd be interested to see how one creative mind can modify or break this criteria to say something new!

Now here's the creative sweetener! As the audience / viewers / onlookers perceive these paintings in succession, or even as a whole unit, they will imagine one of two scenarios:

(1) that they are part of the circle themselves, engaged in worship with the fellow congregants. But what are they praying for? Who are they praying to?

(2) That the viewer is actually in the CENTER of the prayer circle, being prayed to! Like some sort of sacrifice, or object of sympathy, compassion, love. Maybe the audience is sick, and these praying folk are asking for the power of God to restore health. Maybe the audience is actually a religious idol, like golden statue, for some strange cult. I personally like this idea better, for the weirder implications it can draw. The artist can certainly embellish somehow to strengthen this innuendo in the picture.

------

So, there's my first idea. Comments?

Art for the World

I will be posting my first "idea" later tomorrow, but to preface this I'd like to elaborate on my intent for this blog.

There are many ways to interpret a situation, and likewise there are many ways to present a situation...or an idea. I'd like to see any one of my ideas/concepts/themes visited (not by me, but by real, artists who have the time and talent)...visited by a variety (multitude) of different artists, each of whom will approach the project from a different angle, and produce a unique, organic work. Undoubtedly, no two executions of the same concept will be alike, and thus the artistic world will be doubly, or triply, quadruply, etc. enriched if a single idea spawns itself into a family.

I do not even require that anyone rigidly follow the structure I establish in my creative musings. They can do whatever they want, obviously. But I hope that at least one person reading this will attempt to espouse my vision in its completeness, following the criteria I apply. That person, I acknowledge, will have to fully agree with and be invested in this vision, lest the final product lack luster.

Because I am not an artist, I cannot speak from experience. But I imagine that at times, one lacks inspiration or creativity. Use this blog as a resource, even a hurdle. Anyone can use these ideas n times over, and by doing so we will be contributing to the great, universal body of art that is of infinite dimension and always expanding.

If someone does use an idea I post here on this blog, please feel free to connect with me via email, or this blog itself, with information about where one can view this art. Send me pictures, links to websites, gallery exhibition information, and I'll post it, thus promoting you!

Dream 2: No Skates

4/02/09

My cousins, or possibly Alex Dadras and Erik Stumpf, were visiting, and we were prepared to go out and enjoy ourselves for the day, as it was generally sunny and nice out, but first my mom insisted on buying me roller skates. So we wound up in front of a skate shop, on a steep and narrow commercial hill that reminded me of San Francisco, and my friends and I waited outside as my mom went in to purchase the skates. We had been standing out there a long time, and it grew dark out. I remember peeking my head in the store to see what the hell was taking so long, and just saw my mom bullshitting with the clerk, holding a box in her hand, so I assumed the transaction was almost done.

Music started to pump all around me, and soon enough my surrounding environment more resembled a dance hall than a sidewalk and street. There were teenage kids all around us, just dancing and mingling like some social event or college party! So, acclimating to the radically new scene, I started to dance as well. At that point, I had forgotten that I had been waiting for hours to get the goddamn skates so that my friends and I could be on our merry way. On a parenthetical note, now I understand why shops play music – to keep their patrons entertained, but more importantly, patient. Because waiting sucks.

But I was enjoying myself, dancing as I usually do to Gwen Stefani’s “Cool,” when the music turned off abruptly. Everyone around us got real silent and awkward again…it really was  like a college party! I popped back into the skate shop, where my mother was now at the cashier desk, and I screamed like a drunkard, “Hey! Can you put Gwen Stefani back on?!” So he did, and I started dancing again, until I realized that it was getting light out again, and we must have been hanging out like assholes in front of that skate shop all night, and I decided it was time to ditch.

Coincidentally, it was at that moment that my mother walked out of the shop with my brand-new pair of roller skates that I never wanted. However, she no longer resembled my mother, but rather a balding, middle-aged man, with glasses who dressed like a computer programmer. He insisted that we three – Alex, Erik, and I – sit down so that he may explain to us the significance of the roller skates before we use them. I stood up and started to walk out in disgust – through the tunnel in the side of the nearest building. He-Mom called me back in haste, still in a woman’s voice, pleading with me to stay “just one minute!” Realizing she meant well, and that she was, after all, doing this out of her own selfless sense of generosity, I cooled off and sat back down, still itching to leave.

Then he began to explain how to use the skates properly, going into excruciating detail and expounding on the useless features and mechanisms of the skates, how lucky I was, how appreciative I should be, what to do and what not to do in my skates… and I finally exploded in the most aggressive vitriol I ever thought I could harvest.

Shooting out of my seat, arms tensed and fists swollen with rage, head cocked forward, I ranted,

“FUCK your STUPID skates, if I ever had to go ANYWHERE I’d FUCKING RUN ON MY FUCKING TWO LEGS, I NEVER wanted those FUCKING STUPID SKATES, you wasted my FUCKING TIME buying those FUCKING things, if I needed to GO somewhere I’d FUCKING RUN OR FUCKING RIDE A SCOOTER THERE, If YOU think I’m putting THOSE FUCKING THINGS ON MY FUCKING FEET, YOU’RE FUCKING MISTAKEN, this is the STUPIDEST GIFT you’ve EVER BOUGHT!!”

Purpose

At the moment, I have two goals for this blog.

One is to regularly post narrative transcriptions of the dreams I have. I dream almost every night, and vividly remember most scenes and their emotional gravity as I was involved in them, in my dreams. Most often, I am the protagonist of my dreams.

For years I have been writing down my dreams in journals, but paper and virtual, but lately I've been nervous, that, should I god forbid lose a journal or my computer crashes, there would be no record of the innumerable chronicles of love, strangeness, savagery, magic, that graced me in my sleep. 

Also, more significantly, I hope that these dreams are of interest to someone, even if only one person. I imagine that, for example, a psych grad student needs some material for a case study on the subconscious, and wants to explore into my detail-rich and often cyclic and bizarre subconscious landscapes for something to analyze or dissect. I one day plan to release / publish a book of hundreds of my dreams (I don't have even one hundred cataloged yet) to the world, as a psychic atlas of poetry and short stories, avant-garde and very raw.

Just to clarify, nothing I write in these dream entries is intentionally fabricated for entertainment value; all of it I have experienced as a dreamer. When one recounts a story to another, however, there is always some license taken with the minor details, through nobody's fault -- it's in our oral tradition to embellish, and I am not exempt from this tradition. Usually, though, when I am reflecting on the sequence of events, or the particular features of a character or location, I must make a conscious decision to choose between two conflicting details. Like, did this happen first, or this? I will then try to weave my story so that it does not ignore or corrupt its inspiration, while simultaneously going with the version that makes the "most sense" thematically. Because there are definite themes that recur, and explode, and surrender, and there are morals alongside the drama, and so I suppose that at the heart of it all I simply enjoy telling stories.

Secondly, this blog will be a repository, a wellspring, for free ideas. Ideas, free to the public. And I don't intend to sound arrogant when I say that I want my ideas public.

Everyone has ideas....most people have ideas. Who hears them? Where do they go when people die? If you have a "million dollar idea," and you fail to pursue it, no one benefits. You remain as you were, and the world is no more enriched. I myself am extremely busy right now; I am a college student pursuing a double degree, and my parents are pushing me to get a job. But I have artistic/creative inclinations, and I'd like to "see" certain things, art exhibits that don't yet exist but in my mind, hear songs that weren't written but are already pretty cool concepts (in my opinion). And I don't have the time, yet, to take a painting class; or the money to buy a moog; or the capital and business savvy to start my own business. So I'm giving my ideas away, freely, to anyone that wants them, to anyone who will find something they like, or are intrigued by, and will execute.

I am humble...I think anyone could do what I am doing, maybe many are, and that is exciting to me. Good ideas are everywhere, and I am not in the position to cling to my own, keeping them in the dark until the day it's convenient to give them life. So I'll leave my babies on a doorstep and hope the good ones grow up.

Also, I don't expect royalties or payment if one gets used; at most, it'd be nice to see just one little line offering ambiguous thanks to me, Yeti Hunting. If not, then whatever, because I still benefit from the artistic produce that newly graces the world, and what's good for the artistic world is good for me.

Is there any confusion as to my motives? 

If not, then enjoy my blog :D. More commentary and posts to follow soon.

Dream 1: Me and My Skateboard

6/26/09

Part 1.

In the brick amigo streets of central Queens, New York, I was riding a skateboard around. Latino men in white tank tops were walking about with their small flocks of children, who rode primary-colored plastic tricycles. I was fleeing urgently from Felicia A-’s mother, cannoning for me in her maroon Subaru Outback. As I raced around corners and down streets, criss-crossing and otherwise trying to lose the vehicle and its raging lesbian pilot, I recall looking over my shoulder frequently, only to see the Outback careening around a corner. Luckily I was always able to outskate the goddamn evil thing! A general feeling of terror and anxiety.

To better streamline myself and increase my speed, I sat down on the board and rode it like a toboggan. Then, the flat, drab suburbs of central Queens snapped into a commercial district that resembled a baroque hybrid of Dickensian London and Disneyland. The streets were winding, rolling, lined with cobblestone and flanked by quaint shoppes with colorful, dimensional signs. Like, the signs weren’t just flat billboards with words, but instead had depth and personality of their own: words with carnivalesque, curlicue fonts -- candy canes and rainbows, everything nice.

I continue to cruise, to luge down side streets and darker foreboding alleys, until I duck into an FAO-Schwarz toy store. One of the first things I notice in the store is a gigantic spiral slide, reaching from the top of the store to the main level. Smooth and silver and sparkling, it consumes most of the store in its immensity. Otherwise, the individual floors of the store have uncomfortably low ceilings, and as I step into an elevator to ascend to the top, I meet Tom O’Connell and his mother in the elevator. 

At some point I mount the Wonka-esque silver slide, surfing down in an affected slowness, observing that the store is far smaller than I imagined, and that there are no toys on the shelves! Just a glitzy slide to the empty bottom.

I keep riding down on my skateboard, making an elaborate and slow show with flirtatious hand gestures and looks to no one in particular. I was playing the male nymphet, possibly . Somehow I capture the attention of Rufus Wainwright, who afterwards comes on to me in a most vulgar and suggestive manner, although I cannot recall any particular thing. I confess to him that I am neither gay nor attracted to him, and apologize for teasing; it was a cruel misuse of my alluring power.

Outside, behind a 7-11, I meet my sister Kim and tell her what I've been through so far. I spit vigorously on the near wall for some reason, probably in disgust with the whole experience.

Part 2.

Will Smith - as the Fresh Prince - and Carlton are having a conversation. If you have ever seen the movie Watchmen (re: Doctor Manhattan materializing out of the atmosphere), or the uncut music video for Robbie William’s “Rock DJ,” you know what I mean when I say that Carlton starts out as a mere skeleton, and the fibers of his organs and skin gradually materialize until he is a full, flesh and blood human. Notably, I see much of his face during this construction process, the sinews of his muscles twitching as he talks until he grows some layers of skin. The composition of his face, however, skin tone and facial hair, never stops shifting in both color and consistency. The two jabber on about something, of which Carlton has a vested interest in making his case.

<to see what I am talking about, watch the music vid @ 2:53

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGelsMOIJZY>

< or this should give you an idea of what I mean:

except happening in reverse, from bones to skin>

At the end, Will Smith talks about fate, and how all events and circumstances work to come together under some grand design. I wonder if he was referring to the process by which I reunited with my sister.

The scene changes to a black screen with a white, cartoon sheep falling down a short set of stairs with a blue banister, and when he finally makes his final tumble onto the floor, he emits an excited word bubble saying "eek!" It must have been an allegory for fate, though I have not yet considered how.