lip gloss on the bathroom mirror came the previous year, or the time that he realized he no longer had a uniform because his mother liked the colors and stitched it onto the couch.
motional hang-ups at a bohemian salon in New York City. "Shortbus" expands to 10 more cities this weekend.
But Musladin insisted he fired in self-defense Mrs Faraway was a terribly unhappy
on May 13, 1994. Musladin arrived at AOF asking the court to reconsider the case, Los Angeles theaters.
An argument broke out and from there the accounts the magic
garden motional hang-ups at a bohemian salon in New York City. "Shortbus" expands to 10 more cities this weekend. first weekend. The movie had
had have made that same phone call now. well who could tell what would happen.
A Dream / Art Journal
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Other Dream on Recorder
The forest was definitely enchanted. Little fluorescent mushrooms spread across the mossy earth. I did not hear the typical din of crickets and frogs, but just naturally assumed they were there.
Then the manta ray shot - nay, burst - out of his hole and advanced. I immediately noticed that he was wielding a mini power sander. This fish was out for blood.
I was instructed to drive myself back to the party, avoiding the main roads. HE thought the cigarette carton was a juicebox, and his lips were searching for the straw for quite a while. In green haven, I was on the boxing team where I worked out and without ever considering how his actions affected others the man became invincible. He knew he had to write something, in case he ever came back ten years later and wanted to demonstrate that it just didn’t matter what the common man detested... definitely enchanted.
Little fluorescent din of crickets and frogs, but I just naturally assumed the manta ray shot - nay, burst - out of his hole... drive myself back to the party, IT wouldn’t have made a difference if shots were fired, his friend was running drunk into the ocean and surely would have drowned himself had he not been brought detained in the jungle gym on the sinking beach. He thought the cigarette carton was avoiding the main roads. the boxing team where I worked out without ever considering how the man became invincible. He knew he had to write something, wielding a mini power sander. his lips were out for blood.
Then the manta ray shot - nay, burst - out of his hole and advanced. I immediately noticed that he was wielding a mini power sander. This fish was out for blood.
I was instructed to drive myself back to the party, avoiding the main roads. HE thought the cigarette carton was a juicebox, and his lips were searching for the straw for quite a while. In green haven, I was on the boxing team where I worked out and without ever considering how his actions affected others the man became invincible. He knew he had to write something, in case he ever came back ten years later and wanted to demonstrate that it just didn’t matter what the common man detested... definitely enchanted.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Poem
And I fell into
deep sleep, where the night wandered
cool into the beige velvet sunrise,
thick with oatmeal and cinnamon
deep sleep, where the night wandered
cool into the beige velvet sunrise,
thick with oatmeal and cinnamon
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Poem: The Prolonged Melancholy of My Mother
Mother, I sit next to an ugly man returning
guilt weary on the train from our slowly-
sinking dog-house. In the half-humbled
din of the passengers I hear the
invocations of twenty-seven years, tears,
spending yourself, looking into the future
for iron deeds and not necessarily gold,
tending the repeat wounds you believe were
salted. I would like you to see me as a son,
as I see you my child, delicate, red,
lonely in your own mind. This train speeds to
your desire, to stay hostile affection, and now
to my cyclic...sigh. Please do not cry on your
birthday, nor two nights before, because I
called you insane. Wait, as you say, this will pass.
You say that you pray, that I pray, that
I pray for you. Would you dance with me
in this car, tearing your wedding gown,
if I played you a song? Choose to hear me,
today wade cold above your theories, and
reply, vacant, 'alright.' The woman whose
calloused feet were washed by priests; who
swelled alive with slender limbs balanced,
ascending divine among V, wingéd V, to follow
the geese; who eventually wore a crown to issue
orders to an empty room, receive my signal:
The nightmares which you suffer from
grow in the words
nobody says nobody says,
and they're random like the lottery.
A general and a martyr, generous mother,
faultless and fierce, you've been a holy
angel on the highwire, but scared to death.
Please remember the ground is stable, your
children able, and that the lights are on, once
bruised but on. Know that this animal cage
around you will soften and expand, and
only for the brief remainder of the night must
you climb through the fog overhead
until now, when you wake again.
Rise from your bed, I command you, rise! From
now until we return to dust, golden ash, I lead your
grace, your soul, my mother, through the thousand
faces of paradise, an eternal vacation from your poverty
in sorrows. Today, I take you to Paris, morning
under the tower, where I tie up your slippers to watch
you bend over and around the sun from my egg in
the grass. At dawn we cruise North, Nova Scotia bound,
whalewatching, continental breakfast on the upper deck
where you are the most beautiful woman the captain says
he's ever seen. Beholden we early feed dolphins from
your brother's boat in the Everglades, and sunblocking
your shoulders I announce that I'm moving back home.
The air is hot here in Africa, where your body has ceased
to trouble you, and the bachelors persist, and they
are all reverent, doting, rich; Nevermind and
walk, I will let no one dishonor you today.
We bristle as the shops open in London...
Monday, September 9, 2013
Dream 22: Branded
I was browsing the Ralph Lauren store, searching for some dress shirts and sweaters to wear to my new job in the upcoming Fall and Winter months. I entered the "New Arrivals" section of the Men's department, and featured front and center on the shirt rack---to be the first item beheld by any visitor---was this pink atrocity that I felt compelled to investigate further, up close, if only to convince myself that it actually was for sale.
I held in my hands what I reasoned was a bathing suit: first of all, this article of clothing was so flashy, so colorful, that its dimensions and overall shape were obscured, confused; if it even was a bathing suit, I was not sure which part of the trunk I was holding...the leg, or the waist? Secondly, it was too ugly to have been any other type of clothing one wears out in public. I thought, only bathing suits get away with patterns this busy and obnoxious.
I soon found that the article could be unfolded, and doing so I discovered that in my hands was a standard pink long-sleeve button down-men's shirt, which had been covered all over by the embroidery of a handful of circular consumer logos that typically signify either social status or capitalism. Here is a fairly-true-to-memory mockup of the shirt that I was now appreciating, with wonder, in full view:
I held in my hands what I reasoned was a bathing suit: first of all, this article of clothing was so flashy, so colorful, that its dimensions and overall shape were obscured, confused; if it even was a bathing suit, I was not sure which part of the trunk I was holding...the leg, or the waist? Secondly, it was too ugly to have been any other type of clothing one wears out in public. I thought, only bathing suits get away with patterns this busy and obnoxious.
I soon found that the article could be unfolded, and doing so I discovered that in my hands was a standard pink long-sleeve button down-men's shirt, which had been covered all over by the embroidery of a handful of circular consumer logos that typically signify either social status or capitalism. Here is a fairly-true-to-memory mockup of the shirt that I was now appreciating, with wonder, in full view:
The first thought that came to mind was, "This is fucking atrocious...who would buy this? Who would sell this? Oh, of course, Ralph Lauren would." Then, almost instantly after, I started to admire and desire the shirt: "Actually, I could see myself wearing this...yeah, it's cool! I like it! I want it! I must have it."
Monday, August 5, 2013
A Dream Interpreted (Dream 21: Brother)
I was living with my mother and my older brother in Queens.
Note: I do not have an older brother in real life
I believe that many of the walls were either glass or mirrors, like an exaggeration of a gaudy/tacky Italian mobster's house. The decor was also distinctly mod---I was sitting in a very low, black leather couch in my living when I decided that I was angry at my older brother, and that to retaliate against him I would destroy all of his possessions.
In this dream, my older brother is played by my Uncle Ray, in fact my mother's youngest brother
A flash of me walking by my brother in the living room as he relaxes on the black leather couch, playing his guitar. There is a large crystal chandelier in this room.
When no one is home, I pillage the house for every picture frame that holds a photo of my brother. All of the frames I find throughout the house---on mantles, on dressers, on walls---are thick crystal: noticeably heavy, cut into complex geometric patterns, and very ornate. As I scour my house, each frame I find with a photo of my brother I hurl violently at the floor or walls, watching it shatter into a sparkling burst of shards. I would hold the frame in my hand to both feel its weight and briefly study its jagged texture, then throw it down with vindictive indulgence. I recall pickup up one particular photo that showed my brother and I in a brotherly embrace and smiling, somewhere outdoors. I broke that one as well.
Once every photo of my brother has been destroyed---and there are a considerable number of them, everywhere, so I really spend time in each room---I enter his bedroom, intent on smashing everything he owns. Some objects I notice are a skateboard and an electric keyboard. His walls are all glass, except the far wall, which is a mirror from floor to ceiling. The ceiling is also a mirror.
I hear my brother enter the house downstairs, and immediately my fear of him and his reaction consumes my emotions, displacing my mission. I seek a place to hide, an escape from his wrath upon the discovery of my raid. I know he is going to want to kick my ass, and that he is soon to find me.
Luckily, my friend Becky shows up and drives me (us) somewhere...Manhattan. We explore the city at night in the security of the theater of the front cabin of her Jeep, and the skyline is incredible...the atmosphere is so clear, that I all I want to do is admire how every building and street light is lit up. We cruise around all night, and the air is cool. Sometime later, she is sitting in my lap, and we are sharing a very intense gaze into one another, and I want us to kiss but make no advances. She either leaves, or something beckons her away. I am content with this ending.
Justine, Becky's sister heard an abbreviated (censored) version of this dream and offered me this psychoanalysis, based on her studies:
Note: I do not have an older brother in real life
I believe that many of the walls were either glass or mirrors, like an exaggeration of a gaudy/tacky Italian mobster's house. The decor was also distinctly mod---I was sitting in a very low, black leather couch in my living when I decided that I was angry at my older brother, and that to retaliate against him I would destroy all of his possessions.
In this dream, my older brother is played by my Uncle Ray, in fact my mother's youngest brother
A flash of me walking by my brother in the living room as he relaxes on the black leather couch, playing his guitar. There is a large crystal chandelier in this room.
When no one is home, I pillage the house for every picture frame that holds a photo of my brother. All of the frames I find throughout the house---on mantles, on dressers, on walls---are thick crystal: noticeably heavy, cut into complex geometric patterns, and very ornate. As I scour my house, each frame I find with a photo of my brother I hurl violently at the floor or walls, watching it shatter into a sparkling burst of shards. I would hold the frame in my hand to both feel its weight and briefly study its jagged texture, then throw it down with vindictive indulgence. I recall pickup up one particular photo that showed my brother and I in a brotherly embrace and smiling, somewhere outdoors. I broke that one as well.
Once every photo of my brother has been destroyed---and there are a considerable number of them, everywhere, so I really spend time in each room---I enter his bedroom, intent on smashing everything he owns. Some objects I notice are a skateboard and an electric keyboard. His walls are all glass, except the far wall, which is a mirror from floor to ceiling. The ceiling is also a mirror.
I hear my brother enter the house downstairs, and immediately my fear of him and his reaction consumes my emotions, displacing my mission. I seek a place to hide, an escape from his wrath upon the discovery of my raid. I know he is going to want to kick my ass, and that he is soon to find me.
Luckily, my friend Becky shows up and drives me (us) somewhere...Manhattan. We explore the city at night in the security of the theater of the front cabin of her Jeep, and the skyline is incredible...the atmosphere is so clear, that I all I want to do is admire how every building and street light is lit up. We cruise around all night, and the air is cool. Sometime later, she is sitting in my lap, and we are sharing a very intense gaze into one another, and I want us to kiss but make no advances. She either leaves, or something beckons her away. I am content with this ending.
Justine, Becky's sister heard an abbreviated (censored) version of this dream and offered me this psychoanalysis, based on her studies:
"You wish there was an older sibling, a boy, to whom you could relinquish the responsibility of maintaining familial structure and peace. You are angry and out of touch with those emotions in everyday life, so you resolve them in dreams. You smash his photo because you are distraught that someone else doesn't exist to carry the burdens that you don't actually deserve and shouldn't be responsible for. You want to be free of the family drama and your role as the oldest responsible man. Your father is not an option in your mind, so you want an older brother, the only other male figure who could potentially take this burden from you. You smash his photo because you are beyond enraged that he doesn't [actually] exist... that you've been dealt this hand, but in real life you're peaceful, so these feelings are resolved in dreams.
Your getaway [through] Becky represents the happiness you find in true friendship..."Not having known my family situation at all, Justine happens to be right on the money. I'm actually surprised with how accurately she had divined a deep-deep-inner desire of mine (an older brother) from one of my dreams. Kudos, Justine. I guess textbook psychology has its merits.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Poem
The following is a poem I heard, recited over an internet radio station one evening while I was drawing in colored pencil in my living room:
The Paris sky is burning bright
I want to fly with all my might
Her legs are long, her feet are high
Her jeans are strong, but so am I
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Dream 20: Acid
7/14/13
My age is uncertain: I am at least 16, past the major developments of puberty, but I most certainly am still a minor. Therefore I am left with a generous two-year window to exist in tonight, and in which to experience all those feelings of anxiety, amorphous anticipation, and confusion associated with a sexual plot not even explicitly disclosed or defined between the two participating parties.
I have been driven here by my mother, to this vacation-style cabin, to visit some family friend, or perhaps just a friend of my parents. Her age is also unknown, but certainly different enough from mine. She's also about a foot taller than me---Amazonian wouldn't be an exaggeration---but she was dressed in fashionable outdoorsy clothing, relaxed, and her strong features, wide smile and eyes, and brown skin caused her to strongly resemble Carly Simon.
When the dream begins, the two of us have already telepathically committed ourselves to each other for the evening...the question of "how" was not consciously known to me, but the enabling circumstance worked itself out perfectly. It was late in the evening, a fire might have been roaring, and the seated conversations could be heard simmering down to a collective sigh. I was lying in a bean bag chair on the floor, eyes gently closed and focusing my attention on listening to the room. I was actually rather tired---enough so that the volume from my mother and this woman, and the other people with us, was wavering---but more than anything I was waiting for our chance. I didn't even know what exactly to expect, except I knew "it" would manifest into something that would consume the both of us together. And I was thinking about how beautiful she was.
My mother interjected something like "Oh, it's getting late, and we have a busy day tomorrow, so let's wake Joseph up and get everyone home." But this woman countered, so expertly, "But look at how he's sleeping soundly! Let him sleep over here tonight, he'll take the spare bed, and I'll give him back to you tomorrow, when we meet for lunch before going to...." and whatever we were to do as vacationers tomorrow was lost on me. Victory was secured. My mother caved too easily, moved by my peaceful composure on the floor, and she left with the other family members she was toting around.
As the cabin acquired a refreshing new tranquility after the last visitor had left the room, a warm glow began to permeate around the house, and low trace lights faded on to illuminate the doorways and molding around the fireplace. I opened my eyes to see the feet of this woman disappear into her bedroom at the end of a short, unlit hallway branching off from the main room. I kind of stared off into that space, satisfied that we had made it this far already...so far and yet still nowhere, but headed somewhere, is all I knew.
I get up and head for the bathroom, also in that hallway, and when I return she is setting up a makeshift bed in the middle of the floor, in front of the fireplace. Quilts are stacked to approximate a mattress, and even more quilts she is pulling back and already slipping under. Finally, I am standing over her as she casually reclines under the most welcoming and assorted array of blankets I have ever seen, and she acknowledges me for the first time with a few pats of her hand to the empty place beside her, coaxing me under. Ceremoniously I kneel down and enter the flap of quilts peeled back for me, and she says something, and I say something, and we proceed to awkwardly, clumsily grope at one another for a few minutes, still fully clothed and mostly silent. I'm feeling her---or individual parts of her in broken and miscalculated strokes---and she reciprocates by knocking into me with matched ambivalence. And although we cannot fully embrace even once, let alone find enough of one another in the dark, I am giving this all I have, because I could not have imagined wanting anything else from this moment, from her. I was inexperienced.
-
From my fumbling under the sheets, Sophia walks over and literally plucks me up like a ball of socks from a drawer. I am out of the cabin now, walking with Sophia along the Little Neck Bay around midnight, and the abundance of street lights from the nearby parkway give the illusion that the stars have descended to hover close above the bay. The night sky is dark and light at the same time, very golden while being very black. The rippling water is striped like a bumblebee from the lights' reflection. I am very happy to be with Sophia...it's such an uncomplicated and tangible emotion. We find my car parked near the dock, with a view completely unobstructed to the bay and the glowing parkway. From the front seat, the lights seem brighter than ever. The water and the sky are twinkling on a macro level from the density of bulbs lining the shore. Sophia and I have sex in the driver's seat of my car, and as I rock her in my lap we look out onto the water, and I am euphoric over the sight.
-
A bunch of guys and girls from Fordham have come over my Aunt Dolly's house---the regular Nick, Paul & Co. crowd. We decide to take acid, which Nick is amply stocked in. He starts distributing tiny paper wads to everybody, and as I receive mine I notice it is actually a series of individual wads cleverly folded over one another...Nick was stealthily trying to quadruple my dose. I said "Nick! What the fuck, why'd you give me so much?!" holding the unfolded strip of acid tabs out like an accordion paper craft in front of his face. His lips curl back in a wily smile, acknowledging that the trick is spoiled...he has been caught. I tear off one wad for myself and give him back the unused tabs, and take the acid.
A few minutes later, I get up from the plastic-tarp-coated dining room table and begin to pace the living room, anxious for activity and stimulation as I begin to peak. The entire group is vegetating on the couches or floor--- completely inert. I try to rouse them to action: "Guys, let's do something! Make something!" Anil responds for the group that he'd rather watch some television while tripping on acid, and I am indignant towards their lethargy and lack of inspiration. "Why would you guys want to watch TV right now? It's fucking pathetic that you all are just sitting there, when you could be creating something awesome." I give up on the group and enter the kitchen, where I dump a big barrel of Lego's on the table and begin to meticulously assemble this red-and-blue hovercraft-looking object. I am hunched over, holding the Lego model very close to my face and inspecting each individual brick before I place it.
My age is uncertain: I am at least 16, past the major developments of puberty, but I most certainly am still a minor. Therefore I am left with a generous two-year window to exist in tonight, and in which to experience all those feelings of anxiety, amorphous anticipation, and confusion associated with a sexual plot not even explicitly disclosed or defined between the two participating parties.
I have been driven here by my mother, to this vacation-style cabin, to visit some family friend, or perhaps just a friend of my parents. Her age is also unknown, but certainly different enough from mine. She's also about a foot taller than me---Amazonian wouldn't be an exaggeration---but she was dressed in fashionable outdoorsy clothing, relaxed, and her strong features, wide smile and eyes, and brown skin caused her to strongly resemble Carly Simon.
When the dream begins, the two of us have already telepathically committed ourselves to each other for the evening...the question of "how" was not consciously known to me, but the enabling circumstance worked itself out perfectly. It was late in the evening, a fire might have been roaring, and the seated conversations could be heard simmering down to a collective sigh. I was lying in a bean bag chair on the floor, eyes gently closed and focusing my attention on listening to the room. I was actually rather tired---enough so that the volume from my mother and this woman, and the other people with us, was wavering---but more than anything I was waiting for our chance. I didn't even know what exactly to expect, except I knew "it" would manifest into something that would consume the both of us together. And I was thinking about how beautiful she was.
My mother interjected something like "Oh, it's getting late, and we have a busy day tomorrow, so let's wake Joseph up and get everyone home." But this woman countered, so expertly, "But look at how he's sleeping soundly! Let him sleep over here tonight, he'll take the spare bed, and I'll give him back to you tomorrow, when we meet for lunch before going to...." and whatever we were to do as vacationers tomorrow was lost on me. Victory was secured. My mother caved too easily, moved by my peaceful composure on the floor, and she left with the other family members she was toting around.
As the cabin acquired a refreshing new tranquility after the last visitor had left the room, a warm glow began to permeate around the house, and low trace lights faded on to illuminate the doorways and molding around the fireplace. I opened my eyes to see the feet of this woman disappear into her bedroom at the end of a short, unlit hallway branching off from the main room. I kind of stared off into that space, satisfied that we had made it this far already...so far and yet still nowhere, but headed somewhere, is all I knew.
I get up and head for the bathroom, also in that hallway, and when I return she is setting up a makeshift bed in the middle of the floor, in front of the fireplace. Quilts are stacked to approximate a mattress, and even more quilts she is pulling back and already slipping under. Finally, I am standing over her as she casually reclines under the most welcoming and assorted array of blankets I have ever seen, and she acknowledges me for the first time with a few pats of her hand to the empty place beside her, coaxing me under. Ceremoniously I kneel down and enter the flap of quilts peeled back for me, and she says something, and I say something, and we proceed to awkwardly, clumsily grope at one another for a few minutes, still fully clothed and mostly silent. I'm feeling her---or individual parts of her in broken and miscalculated strokes---and she reciprocates by knocking into me with matched ambivalence. And although we cannot fully embrace even once, let alone find enough of one another in the dark, I am giving this all I have, because I could not have imagined wanting anything else from this moment, from her. I was inexperienced.
-
From my fumbling under the sheets, Sophia walks over and literally plucks me up like a ball of socks from a drawer. I am out of the cabin now, walking with Sophia along the Little Neck Bay around midnight, and the abundance of street lights from the nearby parkway give the illusion that the stars have descended to hover close above the bay. The night sky is dark and light at the same time, very golden while being very black. The rippling water is striped like a bumblebee from the lights' reflection. I am very happy to be with Sophia...it's such an uncomplicated and tangible emotion. We find my car parked near the dock, with a view completely unobstructed to the bay and the glowing parkway. From the front seat, the lights seem brighter than ever. The water and the sky are twinkling on a macro level from the density of bulbs lining the shore. Sophia and I have sex in the driver's seat of my car, and as I rock her in my lap we look out onto the water, and I am euphoric over the sight.
-
A bunch of guys and girls from Fordham have come over my Aunt Dolly's house---the regular Nick, Paul & Co. crowd. We decide to take acid, which Nick is amply stocked in. He starts distributing tiny paper wads to everybody, and as I receive mine I notice it is actually a series of individual wads cleverly folded over one another...Nick was stealthily trying to quadruple my dose. I said "Nick! What the fuck, why'd you give me so much?!" holding the unfolded strip of acid tabs out like an accordion paper craft in front of his face. His lips curl back in a wily smile, acknowledging that the trick is spoiled...he has been caught. I tear off one wad for myself and give him back the unused tabs, and take the acid.
A few minutes later, I get up from the plastic-tarp-coated dining room table and begin to pace the living room, anxious for activity and stimulation as I begin to peak. The entire group is vegetating on the couches or floor--- completely inert. I try to rouse them to action: "Guys, let's do something! Make something!" Anil responds for the group that he'd rather watch some television while tripping on acid, and I am indignant towards their lethargy and lack of inspiration. "Why would you guys want to watch TV right now? It's fucking pathetic that you all are just sitting there, when you could be creating something awesome." I give up on the group and enter the kitchen, where I dump a big barrel of Lego's on the table and begin to meticulously assemble this red-and-blue hovercraft-looking object. I am hunched over, holding the Lego model very close to my face and inspecting each individual brick before I place it.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Dream 19: Keys
7/7/13
We are waiting in the cockpit of a tractor-trailer, cruising down a highway late at night, somewhere between the coasts. We consist of I, Sam, and two others---at least one more female is present, perhaps KC. Who is driving right now, is unknown.
We pull over along the shoulder of the road and pick up a stranger, a man. Quickly he is in the trailer with us, and we have pinned him up up against a stack of logs, actually tree trunks, with hands and legs spread and face down, as if we were going to frisk him. I walk up behind him resolutely, and in one fluid motion I insert my house keys through the finger-gaps in my closed fist and punch the man in the back, hard. I grit my teeth as I see the keys disappear into his back and feel his spine jerk. He probably screams---I don't hear anything---but his shoulders flare up in recoil to the blow, and it looks like he's instantly grown a foot taller.
As the others (my friends? team? accomplices?) look on, I pummel this guy a few more times from behind, into his back, and I become conscious that my keys are really tearing into him---blood is soaking his shirt through a dozen small, scattered holes. I pull myself away, at which point the others join in beating this man, and I become consumed by the sight of my hand, smeared in his blood. Bright red streaks flash across my knuckles and wet the soft flesh in the crook of my thumb, and I am horrified, transfixed at this evidence of murder. As I stare at my hands in bewilderment, an acute sense of regret overtakes me. In my periphery I see my crew continue to kick this man with such speed that he remains standing through it all.
Later on, we are sitting in the cabin of the truck, again cruising through the night, staring out into the blackness before us. No one is speaking. For a few moments I watch the slice of road illuminated by the headlights spin beneath us. I receive a keen premonition that this crew will abduct and murder three more people, hitchhikers, throughout the course of the night. I retire to the back of trailer, to figure things out by myself.
This area of the trailer, the back right corner of the storage unit, has been partitioned off and converted into a liquid waste facility. A metal-grate walkway encircles a pool of greenish water, and I am standing along the back, slumped over the railing, ruminating, staring blankly at the floating waster barrels as they bob along the surface to the shifting inertia of the truck. Sam finds me back here and eagerly informs me that they picked up their next hitchhiker; somehow I know he is a tall, bald man.
I tell Sam that I have to leave, that I can't kill another person with them. She is hurt but not discouraged, and tries to lift my spirits and persuade me to follow her to the other area, where they are holding this man. At this point, KC also walks in and tries to console me, putting her hand around my shoulder in a maternal gesture. Whatever she says doesn't reach me, however, and I calmly step back and walk out of the water area, open a side door to the trailer, and jump out onto the road, where it is so cold that I can see a trace of my own breath.
We are waiting in the cockpit of a tractor-trailer, cruising down a highway late at night, somewhere between the coasts. We consist of I, Sam, and two others---at least one more female is present, perhaps KC. Who is driving right now, is unknown.
We pull over along the shoulder of the road and pick up a stranger, a man. Quickly he is in the trailer with us, and we have pinned him up up against a stack of logs, actually tree trunks, with hands and legs spread and face down, as if we were going to frisk him. I walk up behind him resolutely, and in one fluid motion I insert my house keys through the finger-gaps in my closed fist and punch the man in the back, hard. I grit my teeth as I see the keys disappear into his back and feel his spine jerk. He probably screams---I don't hear anything---but his shoulders flare up in recoil to the blow, and it looks like he's instantly grown a foot taller.
As the others (my friends? team? accomplices?) look on, I pummel this guy a few more times from behind, into his back, and I become conscious that my keys are really tearing into him---blood is soaking his shirt through a dozen small, scattered holes. I pull myself away, at which point the others join in beating this man, and I become consumed by the sight of my hand, smeared in his blood. Bright red streaks flash across my knuckles and wet the soft flesh in the crook of my thumb, and I am horrified, transfixed at this evidence of murder. As I stare at my hands in bewilderment, an acute sense of regret overtakes me. In my periphery I see my crew continue to kick this man with such speed that he remains standing through it all.
Later on, we are sitting in the cabin of the truck, again cruising through the night, staring out into the blackness before us. No one is speaking. For a few moments I watch the slice of road illuminated by the headlights spin beneath us. I receive a keen premonition that this crew will abduct and murder three more people, hitchhikers, throughout the course of the night. I retire to the back of trailer, to figure things out by myself.
This area of the trailer, the back right corner of the storage unit, has been partitioned off and converted into a liquid waste facility. A metal-grate walkway encircles a pool of greenish water, and I am standing along the back, slumped over the railing, ruminating, staring blankly at the floating waster barrels as they bob along the surface to the shifting inertia of the truck. Sam finds me back here and eagerly informs me that they picked up their next hitchhiker; somehow I know he is a tall, bald man.
I tell Sam that I have to leave, that I can't kill another person with them. She is hurt but not discouraged, and tries to lift my spirits and persuade me to follow her to the other area, where they are holding this man. At this point, KC also walks in and tries to console me, putting her hand around my shoulder in a maternal gesture. Whatever she says doesn't reach me, however, and I calmly step back and walk out of the water area, open a side door to the trailer, and jump out onto the road, where it is so cold that I can see a trace of my own breath.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Dream 18 - Vegetables in Easter Hay
4/7/13
I had recently completed my online TEFL certification and had been hired to teach English as a second language to non-English speakers. My first student was a young Chinese girl, 5 years old according to my dossier, living just around the block from me.
As I approach her house, I observe that it is a perfect box-shape, like some sort of modular home, riveted together with massive copper plates. It resembles a treasure chest or deep-sea diving helmet.
Standing at the door, the mother greets me warmly and welcomes me inside. Playing in the foyer are a small girl (maybe 3 years old, still clueless), a slightly older boy (9 and obnoxious), and an older girl, 11, who turns out is actually my student. Shit, my lesson isn't age-appropriate...I'll have to improvise.
I go to turn on the sink in the kitchen, and it violently rumbles while coughing out dust. I notice the kitchen island is covered in a plastic tarp, which itself is covered in sawdust. The floor in the kitchen hasn't been laid yet: I am standing on bare plywood. Forget about the bathroom, it's filled to eye-level with central air-conditioning units and aluminum siding, and the sink isn't even connected to anything. The central stairway in the house is only half-installed, and the grandmother is standing at the 2nd-floor landing, placidly observing us from up above. How'd she get up there?
Before I can fancy a guess, the mother shoves a steaming palate of colors in my face, and stepping back I realize it's food. Chinese food. The mother cordially insists I dine with the family before commencing my English lesson with her child. She made General Tso's Chicken, and it looks delicious.
Sitting around the dinner table, I watch the youngest child slap her dinner plate with both hands---broccoli rockets across the room like fireworks. This gives me an idea: the shelves behind me are lined with plastic models of vegetables...toys, in fact. I will teach my student the vegetables' names in English, using these "realia" (in teacher-speak) to spur the lesson and make it interesting! I excitedly shovel the plastic vegetables off the shelves into my open knapsack: Carrots, Celery, Tomatoes ('why not?'), Eggplant, Potatoes...everything goes in the bag.
Suddenly I notice that Sam is sitting next to me; I proudly tell her my plan, and she approves.
-----------------------
Dan, Alex, and I are in a theater watching a shitty disney/dreamworks/pixar movie, replete with nauseating confetti candy-coated scenery and special effects. It's the new Johnny Depp movie.
Bored to tears, Dan and Alex produce from somewhere these neon-colored paint-pens (Hot Pink and Screamin' Orange) and start tagging up their seats. Actually, they are tagging up everything, leaking globs of fluorescent paint onto any surface in the theater. In the bathroom, where we stop to take a piss before bouncing, Dan scrawls a massive splat of Hot Pink on the tiled wall next to the sink. it looks haphazard and amorphous, as if someone literally launched a handfull of paint at the wall.
We give less of a shit and head for the bathroom's exit when the matron of the theater---an old and grisly woman with her hair in a beehive, personifying "expired"---barges in and orders us to clean up our graffiti. She specifically points to the big pink mess on the wall, and actually doesn't stop pointing at it until we acknowledge its existence. The three of us just awkwardly glance at one another, not really wanting to clean it up and telepathically weighing our options, looking for an escape. Tensions are high as two bouncers of considerable heft float in to give the manager's threats some muscle.
Realizing there is only one sensible option left to us, I sigh, grab some paper towels, and begin to scrub off the paint as Dan and Alex watch me uncomfortably. However, I'm not so much cleaning as I am polishing...the paint is not coming off the wall. Rather it seems to be changing color, a metallic white with a navy blue border. Actually, the more vigorously I scrub the more the splat assumes a resemblance of...words? Gradually, where there once was a nondescript tumor of paint on the wall, there now appears to be a bona fide graffiti tag, in ornate block-style lettering, with a shadow effect, spelling out the name of the movie we just walked out of!
Suddenly everyone is aware that Dan has painted this beautiful typographical specimen with a magnificent 3D effect, and I am just stunned. I drop my handful of paper towels and back away from the wall, towards the exit, which is now unobstructed. "This is beautiful," I declare to the theater manager, who is only more infuriated. "I can't erase this." Alex and Dan cautiously sidle toward the exit with me. I take one last look around the bathroom, at the fresco of pink and orange smeared all over the stalls---works of art also waiting to be uncovered---and walk out with my friends.
The woman screams, "SOMEONE has to clean this up!! Who is going to do it?!" Alex, Dan, and I break into a sprint across the theater's hallway and towards the parking lot, hysterical with glee, and I call back to our challenger, "I don't know! Why don't YOU do it!... HAHAHA!" as we slide down the handrails to freedom.
--------
(Actual) lyrics to the Frank Zappa Song, "Watermelon in Easter Hay":
"This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER. Joe has just worked himself into an imaginary frenzy during the fade-out of his imaginary song. He begins to feel depressed now. He knows the end is near. He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the mind of the imaginer. And ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?! Excuse me. Who gives a fuck anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo."
Sometime in the future, I re-enter the movie theater and take my seat near the back row, watching Frank Zappa perform live. A deep purple glow illuminates the theater. At intermission, he invites a member of the audience to assist him in the next song, and I am fortunate enough to be selected. I walk down to the the stage and take a seat at a table across from Frank Zappa---a table on which he lays an elaborate sampler pad, furnished with not only buttons but switches, dials, cables, and antenna you can flick to produce buzzing and whirring noises.
The audience settles in, and Frank triggers a low synth back drop, against which he and I begin toying around with the pad and creating a medley of fleeting beats we continually evolve. We scrap one sound for another, our four hands and all twenty fingers weaving across the sampler, him untwisting what I just twisted, me hammering out patterns, him rattling, me scraping...for a few minutes it's just noise. But then...
But then I press these three drum-pad buttons, followed by two antenna that create "swish" noises, and Frank fiddles with a dial to fix the levels...and this is the sound that ultimately suits the mood. Resembling the opening to Animal Collective's "Cobwebs," it is minimalist, a little dark, and driving. Frank Zappa and I release the sampler from our clutches and relax back into our chairs as the groove loops onward and the stage guitarist licks a nasty solo for minutes.
After the song fades, before the crowd even realizes it's over, Frank exhales for the first time since the song started and remains dazed for another moment. "Wow," he breathes, staring into space, "that was amazing." I am beside myself with delight as I give Frank Zappa a hearty high-five in celebration of our impromptu opus. I shout "Yeah!" and take a victory lap back up to the nosebleed section to sit among my friends.
Back in my seat, I am searching through my backpack, and dig up a large bundle of fireworks that I was not aware I had. Some commotion is reverberating through the audience, and as I glance towards the stage it appears that Frank Zappa has accidentally set a stage curtain on fire. Many people are confused or concerned, wondering whether the fire is part of his performance, as Frank is just standing downstage shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
I look back down into my bag and pull out the fireworks.
Back at the stage, the fire has combusted up into the scaffolding above the stage, spreading rapidly, while Frank Zappa doesn't do much besides fumble on the floor of the stage. People are rioting and looking for an escape before the flames overtake the theater, and pandemonium reigns. Scrambling out of my seat, I light the fuse of my handful of firecrackers and chuck them down the aisle towards the stage, and as I turn the corner towards the exit door I can hear their POPOPOPOPOP over the tumult of rushing, panicked crowds and an all-consuming flame.
Someone grabs my sleeve as I dash out of the theater---I recognize him as a friend of a friend, whom I consider a complete asshole---as if his intent is not to use my speed to help his escape, but rather only to slow me down. I shove the guy away and brush past a family as I clear the glass doors of the burning theater.
I had recently completed my online TEFL certification and had been hired to teach English as a second language to non-English speakers. My first student was a young Chinese girl, 5 years old according to my dossier, living just around the block from me.
As I approach her house, I observe that it is a perfect box-shape, like some sort of modular home, riveted together with massive copper plates. It resembles a treasure chest or deep-sea diving helmet.
Standing at the door, the mother greets me warmly and welcomes me inside. Playing in the foyer are a small girl (maybe 3 years old, still clueless), a slightly older boy (9 and obnoxious), and an older girl, 11, who turns out is actually my student. Shit, my lesson isn't age-appropriate...I'll have to improvise.
I go to turn on the sink in the kitchen, and it violently rumbles while coughing out dust. I notice the kitchen island is covered in a plastic tarp, which itself is covered in sawdust. The floor in the kitchen hasn't been laid yet: I am standing on bare plywood. Forget about the bathroom, it's filled to eye-level with central air-conditioning units and aluminum siding, and the sink isn't even connected to anything. The central stairway in the house is only half-installed, and the grandmother is standing at the 2nd-floor landing, placidly observing us from up above. How'd she get up there?
Before I can fancy a guess, the mother shoves a steaming palate of colors in my face, and stepping back I realize it's food. Chinese food. The mother cordially insists I dine with the family before commencing my English lesson with her child. She made General Tso's Chicken, and it looks delicious.
Sitting around the dinner table, I watch the youngest child slap her dinner plate with both hands---broccoli rockets across the room like fireworks. This gives me an idea: the shelves behind me are lined with plastic models of vegetables...toys, in fact. I will teach my student the vegetables' names in English, using these "realia" (in teacher-speak) to spur the lesson and make it interesting! I excitedly shovel the plastic vegetables off the shelves into my open knapsack: Carrots, Celery, Tomatoes ('why not?'), Eggplant, Potatoes...everything goes in the bag.
Suddenly I notice that Sam is sitting next to me; I proudly tell her my plan, and she approves.
-----------------------
Dan, Alex, and I are in a theater watching a shitty disney/dreamworks/pixar movie, replete with nauseating confetti candy-coated scenery and special effects. It's the new Johnny Depp movie.
Bored to tears, Dan and Alex produce from somewhere these neon-colored paint-pens (Hot Pink and Screamin' Orange) and start tagging up their seats. Actually, they are tagging up everything, leaking globs of fluorescent paint onto any surface in the theater. In the bathroom, where we stop to take a piss before bouncing, Dan scrawls a massive splat of Hot Pink on the tiled wall next to the sink. it looks haphazard and amorphous, as if someone literally launched a handfull of paint at the wall.
We give less of a shit and head for the bathroom's exit when the matron of the theater---an old and grisly woman with her hair in a beehive, personifying "expired"---barges in and orders us to clean up our graffiti. She specifically points to the big pink mess on the wall, and actually doesn't stop pointing at it until we acknowledge its existence. The three of us just awkwardly glance at one another, not really wanting to clean it up and telepathically weighing our options, looking for an escape. Tensions are high as two bouncers of considerable heft float in to give the manager's threats some muscle.
Realizing there is only one sensible option left to us, I sigh, grab some paper towels, and begin to scrub off the paint as Dan and Alex watch me uncomfortably. However, I'm not so much cleaning as I am polishing...the paint is not coming off the wall. Rather it seems to be changing color, a metallic white with a navy blue border. Actually, the more vigorously I scrub the more the splat assumes a resemblance of...words? Gradually, where there once was a nondescript tumor of paint on the wall, there now appears to be a bona fide graffiti tag, in ornate block-style lettering, with a shadow effect, spelling out the name of the movie we just walked out of!
Suddenly everyone is aware that Dan has painted this beautiful typographical specimen with a magnificent 3D effect, and I am just stunned. I drop my handful of paper towels and back away from the wall, towards the exit, which is now unobstructed. "This is beautiful," I declare to the theater manager, who is only more infuriated. "I can't erase this." Alex and Dan cautiously sidle toward the exit with me. I take one last look around the bathroom, at the fresco of pink and orange smeared all over the stalls---works of art also waiting to be uncovered---and walk out with my friends.
The woman screams, "SOMEONE has to clean this up!! Who is going to do it?!" Alex, Dan, and I break into a sprint across the theater's hallway and towards the parking lot, hysterical with glee, and I call back to our challenger, "I don't know! Why don't YOU do it!... HAHAHA!" as we slide down the handrails to freedom.
--------
(Actual) lyrics to the Frank Zappa Song, "Watermelon in Easter Hay":
"This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER. Joe has just worked himself into an imaginary frenzy during the fade-out of his imaginary song. He begins to feel depressed now. He knows the end is near. He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the mind of the imaginer. And ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?! Excuse me. Who gives a fuck anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo."
Sometime in the future, I re-enter the movie theater and take my seat near the back row, watching Frank Zappa perform live. A deep purple glow illuminates the theater. At intermission, he invites a member of the audience to assist him in the next song, and I am fortunate enough to be selected. I walk down to the the stage and take a seat at a table across from Frank Zappa---a table on which he lays an elaborate sampler pad, furnished with not only buttons but switches, dials, cables, and antenna you can flick to produce buzzing and whirring noises.
The audience settles in, and Frank triggers a low synth back drop, against which he and I begin toying around with the pad and creating a medley of fleeting beats we continually evolve. We scrap one sound for another, our four hands and all twenty fingers weaving across the sampler, him untwisting what I just twisted, me hammering out patterns, him rattling, me scraping...for a few minutes it's just noise. But then...
But then I press these three drum-pad buttons, followed by two antenna that create "swish" noises, and Frank fiddles with a dial to fix the levels...and this is the sound that ultimately suits the mood. Resembling the opening to Animal Collective's "Cobwebs," it is minimalist, a little dark, and driving. Frank Zappa and I release the sampler from our clutches and relax back into our chairs as the groove loops onward and the stage guitarist licks a nasty solo for minutes.
After the song fades, before the crowd even realizes it's over, Frank exhales for the first time since the song started and remains dazed for another moment. "Wow," he breathes, staring into space, "that was amazing." I am beside myself with delight as I give Frank Zappa a hearty high-five in celebration of our impromptu opus. I shout "Yeah!" and take a victory lap back up to the nosebleed section to sit among my friends.
Back in my seat, I am searching through my backpack, and dig up a large bundle of fireworks that I was not aware I had. Some commotion is reverberating through the audience, and as I glance towards the stage it appears that Frank Zappa has accidentally set a stage curtain on fire. Many people are confused or concerned, wondering whether the fire is part of his performance, as Frank is just standing downstage shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
I look back down into my bag and pull out the fireworks.
Back at the stage, the fire has combusted up into the scaffolding above the stage, spreading rapidly, while Frank Zappa doesn't do much besides fumble on the floor of the stage. People are rioting and looking for an escape before the flames overtake the theater, and pandemonium reigns. Scrambling out of my seat, I light the fuse of my handful of firecrackers and chuck them down the aisle towards the stage, and as I turn the corner towards the exit door I can hear their POPOPOPOPOP over the tumult of rushing, panicked crowds and an all-consuming flame.
Someone grabs my sleeve as I dash out of the theater---I recognize him as a friend of a friend, whom I consider a complete asshole---as if his intent is not to use my speed to help his escape, but rather only to slow me down. I shove the guy away and brush past a family as I clear the glass doors of the burning theater.
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