Nonsense

Last night I was at a poetry reading and a fellow was reading a poem in Spanish. Now I only remember minute snippets of high school Spanish so in a sense it was a blur of words - yet there was a precision in his delivery. Despite lack of comprehension on my part there was a sharpness of content being communicated and expressed before my very eyes and indeed I was “looking” at words much as one would a sign post or even a strange plant or tree. I’ve been tossing around the idea lately of learning a foreign language, some thing that it is far removed from English in structure, some thing more ancient or based in different alpha characters or symbols, perhaps Sanskrit, Hebrew, or Arabic. I’m often intrigued by how a language that is structured differently affects the thought process of those who speak it. So, by learning a new language and working towards fluency in that, I’m curious how stepping out of the gestalt of my English tongue, and processing ideas through a different linguistic construct, will affect my expression of ideas through writing. I’m feeling more and more serious about this idea. I have a lot on my plate now but perhaps I ought to start clearing some room to embrace this long term experiment. I believe it was Samuel Beckett who wrote all of his plays in French. It not being his native tongue, it forced him to truly think about each line, each word, each thought. In the end I find it quite miraculous, that as animals, we can even deduce ideas and emotions from words. But listening to a cat’s meow, dolphin’s chuckle, bird caw, perhaps there are subtleties of timbre that are conveying a different construction of language. My cat must be telling me something when he purrs. I have chalked the cat’s purr to being their physical equivalent a sort of laughter, a giggle. My good friend Ian Randall once stated on a drunken evening, King Cobra peeking from the paper bag, “Language is just agreed upon nonsense.”

Evacuation

Last night I dreamed that the north side of Chicago needed to be evacuated due to spraying some chemical to burn a potential virus. We were given vouchers by the city to stay in a hotel downtown, downtown had been evacuated and there was a strange musical "residents"going on. The logic was confusing as to how this would prevent disease, it would just be spreading the disease to more places I thought. But they had some scientific answer planned on developing immunity by slight exposure and evacuation for spraying a residual chemical that would serve as anti bodies when we digested or breathed it in. Anyway, my girlfriend and I headed down town and packed our bags for a week. I realized I forgot my swim suit (the hotel had a pool and jacuzzi - and quite a view) but could not get back into my apartment for it was sealed for the time being. Unfortunately none of the stores downtown had any swim suits, apparently. I ended up having an issues with the valet when I returned from my swim suit hunt and it took awhile for a space to clear up, so I waited. When this had been taken care of, I entered the hotel, and my mom and brother were suddenly there and had got us access to a private movie theater in the building and were set to play a series of movies. I feel like it was Star Wars. Although I was kind of upset because they had dinner without me while I dealt with the valet dilemna and so I wanted nothing to do with the movie until I had some dinner. In my dream I also started to re-read The Hobbit.

Dream Log 11.23.09

Terrible T i v o

My girlfriend's mom gave us her old Tivo as a gift. We were excited about it, it was nice and thoughtful of her - we would now be able to ensure we get to see our favorite ghost hunter / ghost lab shows and random history channel specials. It has since proved to a drain on our time and money. In order to get it to work:
-Tivo yearly service - $129.00
-Because it is an older model, it was designed to connect with the Tivo service line through a land line. Getting it set up with a wireless adapter ($31.00) was not successful. In order to set it up the Tivo unit needed to complete guided set up, and the last step was to connect to their database.
-Linksys, we needed to configure the wirless router to open up some ports so the Tivo could work with the wireless adapter and finish the last step. This involved calling Linksys support - apparently our warranty was up, so would cost us $29.99 for a one time service or $39.99 for a six month service plan. We went with the six month plan. He opened up the ports, we rebooted the Tivo - it did not connect successfully.

So far we were $199.00 the hole with out a working Tivo. He mentioned he could pass this on to their sister company, where a team of engineers could solve our problem for a one time fee. We opted no, asked for a refund, and we were successful at that! We cancelled our Tivo service plan. We are over this costly and time consuming process to get an electriconic box to record more television shows for us, when we still have to finish our Twin Peaks, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia marathons. And when it comes down to it, we have an old fashioned VCR.

Tivo will be up on e-bay at some point soon if you want to give it a whirl.

We did a little short movie for a Second City video sketch contest. Feel free to check it out and vote for it if you enjoy it! http://chicago.metromix.com/home/article/vote-so-you-think/1614353/content. We're number #31 - (Bee)tnick Poet by Wood Sugars Comedy.

Pegging

Two dreams of darting instigation: Back to my old days of competitive nordic skiing in high school, we were on another trip into Canada, sleeping in a rented farm house. Five or six of us were sprawled on the floor in sleeping bags. One young man started in hysterics - something had poked him, but none of us were near him. Something poked him again and he leaped away from the corner. The rest of us, in investigative spirit, tossed pennies to the corner. The naught spirit slapped the pennies away, bouncing back from seemingly empty air like a rambunctious kitten knocking things off shelves.

I was sleeping in a motel, hiding away from an enemy of sorts, I knew he was trying to snipe me. The goal was to lie low, with the blinds closed - only in this shoddy motel slabs of the blinds were missing, leaving open shafts of transparency. This did not please me, and in notifying the front desk, they apologized and offered no other room as they had a bit of a "mini blind" problem. As predicted, my enemy began to snipe at me. I clung to the floor, gripping the rug as though my claw of a hand were engaged in a desperate bear hug. The sniper entered the room, but to my lucky advantage, the television set had been jury rigged by a kindred spirit from a similar predicament to act as a flame thrower. I utilized this in a rush of resourcefulness and blazed my foe to a black crisp of skeletal residue.

Dream Log 10.21.09

Abode Becomes Ice Boat

I have always been intrigued by how components of dreams can shift shape and setting and how we roll with the series of alterations with nonchalance. I was hosting a large party at my house. Streams of guests and old colleagues arrived on the long plank of side walk through the courtyard and entered my abode. It was heavily attended by former coworkers and had the appearance of being a company party! A good friend, Adam, and I took descent into the basement below my apartment for a quick talk while the guests above got settled in and mixed their drinks. When we ascended, the stairs connecting my back door with the lower level was now on the edge of a wooden ship. Beyond us was a black sea, calm, icy, and snow fell as think sheet.

I am also amazed that I did not have a dream with this-man. I learned about this yesterday, finding it almost creepy. I'll admit it made me slightly apprehensive for sleep, as though I'd be entering a realm where I am most vulnerable to the weird presence of an ambiguous fellow. And so I thought about Nightmare on Elm Street. Find out more about "this man" at Thisman.org and see if you have dreamed him prior. I thought for sure just thinking about the possibilities of him being in dreams would bring him out it my dreams last night. However for now I have avoided him.

Dream Log 10.16.09

Sea Nots and Flapping!

Teetering indebted, stringing into the system of borrowing invisible monies, that will not only chase you - haunt you and convince you subtly to choke yourself. You try to build a bigger boat upon it, with it, but we all know salt does not skim over the seas but slips deep into it. I'm throwing away "nots" in the guise of salts, letting the sea grip it and keep it. And I'm doing this because I'm giving into my own delusions of grandeur, un stopping the flow and embracin naivety in my own veins, puffing wind into my pipe dream. Because I firmly believe that it can take sail and skim along smoothly, charging against the waves. The delusions can benefit man by inducing cloudy enough thoughts to make him cough on talking about it and finally take that risk, to actually breath it. I wish to make my business in stories. Stories to hook you into the stimulation of tale that welcomes you deeper into your own forgotten imagination. The drug dealer and I have much in common: dealing a form of escape. I will strive to fill American bedstands with copies of my books, dog eared and battered, evidence they served as bedtime stories and may dance in your mind as new mythologies. If you tell me that there are many who do not make a livelihood dealing stories, I will retort that many have and do. Look at your fellow on the train, engrossed in a book, missing his stop! And then tell me that America is not ready to be intoxicated with a new and wicked tale. If you wish to continue to fight on the side of nots, you can join those nots as they are gripped by the sea! And I will turn my attention to the little vessel, rocking gently and flapping my sails so the next given puff can let it boast its shape and cut apart the nots that still yelp as white caps on waves that still wish to work against me. But the vessel of mine is gaining momentum and will sail where it pleases, to any port I can find: where I can unload to the hungry imagination. And I will enjoy every second in the process of flapping the empty, yet open and crisp sails. In the end all I can control is the flap, and my enjoyment of the flap. I cannot control the wind. But I rest assured and capitalize on the fact that as long as the Earth maintains an atmosphere, the wind will come around. The vast ocean I am enbarking on causes me to tremble, but it does not hinder the exhilaration when even a small gust incites the glide of my ship and the collection of these small victories steady and quench the tremble.