Dreamways

"'Why shouldn’t we be proud of our past, when each new day is worse than the previous one?' asks Aleksandar Cotric, a dissident-turned-politician, whose dark one-liners were once scrawled on banners during the demonstrations that helped overthrow the Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.“  The tremendously important role of humor in Serbia is explored in Dan Bilefsky’s article "Dark One-Liners shine a Light on the Mood of Serbs: Aphorisms Thrive as Anxieties Grow“ (The New York Times, 02 Dec 07).

I found this in the Fall, 2007 Wilson Quarterly

RED TAPE: Rebirth Certificate

Upon the death of a "living Buddha" a Tibetan Buddhist monk believed to be a living reincarnation of a buddha from the past, the Dalai Lama or a lower-level lama confers the mantle on someone else, and the cycle of reincarnation goes on. But in July, the Chinese government issued "Reincarnation Regulations for Tibetan Living Buddhas."

"Here comes the bride, all dressed in white … two-ply, extra soft toilet paper. Lovebirds Jennifer Cannon and Doy Nichols of Lexington, Ky., plan to get hitched … in a public restoom in New York. She’ll be wearing a gown fashioned from glue, tape and Charmin Ultra Soft and Ultra Strong toilet tissue. The intricately detailed dress was designed by Hanah Kim, winner of the 2007 Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, sponsored by Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com.  read more »

"Too little milk, sunshine and exercise: It’s an anti-bone trifecta. And for some kids, shockingly, it’s leading to rickets, the soft-bone scourge of the 19th century.“ This is the first image of a waking nightmare, a dark dream of physical malady that many of us thought rested safely in the past. Rickets is a deficiency where bones become so soft that legs literally bow out.  read more »

The photo image of Martin Luther King’s face takes up most of the visual field of the black and white ad that covers the bottom half of this Martin Luther King Day (21 Jan 08) Denver Post page. His hands are held together, fingers interlocked, at the level of his chin. He is facing us, his eyes looking into the distance somewhere to his right. His gaze is relaxed, focused and pensive.  read more »

Animals often figure prominently in sleep dreams, as well as in sleep nightmares. They can play significant roles in our waking lives, too, as in this news article, featuring a certain animal playing a sadly disturbing role in a waking nightmare. The news article, "Sturdy Sea Lion Under Growing threat from Acidic Algae“ by Henry Fountain (The New York Times, 27 Nov 07) describes a true nightmare. "The California sea lion is a robust species, but in the past decade marine biologists have recognized domoic acid poisoning as a growing threat to its health.  read more »

"Women looking for a movie date and film-makers looking to increase box-office receipts both know that many men have little interest in melodramatic tearjerkers. New research, however, suggests that producers of emotional films can increase their male audience by emphasizing the films‘ disconnection from reality.“ So begins Ian Austen‘s article, "High Empathy (Mostly Women), Low Empathy (Mostly Men) and the Movies“ (The New York Times, 26 Nov 07).

"What Are You Doing Here?" reads the headline. "'I thought I was dreaming,‘ a Warsaw [Poland] man told the newspaper Super Express after he visited a brothel and saw his wife among the establishment’s employees. The paper said she had told her husband that she worked at a store in a nearby town. The couple, married 14 years, are divorcing. (The New York Times, 10 Jan 08)

This slight snippet of waking life news is as dense with various types of dream made manifest as – well, as a dream!