Dreamways

KURT VONNEGUT (1922 – 11 Apr 2007). A quintessential novelist of the 1960’s has died. A voice of an era will speak no new words. Kurt Vonnegut no longer resides in his fleshly body. A striking aspect of the phenomenon known as the 1960’s was the embracing of Dreams. It was a time of psychedelia, chemically assisted attempts to transcend the bounds of Ordinary Thinking. It was a time of Noble Aspirations. It was a time when Beauty, rather than just Money, was a goal. It was a time when many were struggling to live more dreamful lives.

 read more »

In her essay “Ghost in the Dream” which appears in The New York Times Magazine (18 Feb 07, pg. 62) Dinah Lenney shares with readers disturbing aspects of the world of dreams. “The night after I learned my father was missing, my 4-year-old son, Jake had a nightmare. I didn’t know yet that my father had been robbed and stabbed, left to die on the banks of the Hudson by a couple of teenagers. It would be almost three days before his body was found in the rain, curled onto its side, covered in dirt and blood.”

 read more »

This is the first in the 11-part graphic novel series called collectively The Sandman. The title character is the slender, dark-haired, punk-rockish Morpheus. He is The Sandman, the lord of dreams, who is responsible for the flow and integrity of the great realm of dreaming. He has been held captive for seven decades by evilly-intentioned humans, thereby disrupting the flow of dreaming in the human world. Morpheus finally escapes from his captivity, but his powers are greatly reduced.

 read more »

With a sizeable crew of stars, including Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Garrison Keillor, this is a fun movie about the radio show, about its fictitious last airing. Altman’s wandering, curious camera captures moments and vignettes of people being people, mostly sharing diadic interactions. I also enjoyed watching a radio show happen.

 read more »

We watched the Dutch movie Simon last night. A gay fellow becomes an intimate member of brash and big Simon’s life. Bi-racial kids, coffee houses that purvey pot, female boxing, gay marriage, state-assisted euthanasia: these realities exist all together only in real Holland. Realities that the Muslim minority, for instance, would erase if they could.

 

San Francisco. What an intense day was yesterday! Ay, caramba! For the first time in decades, all 9 of Eula’s children gathered together, along with every one of her grandchildren. All of the stories and histories swirling together in the columbarium designed by Julia Morgan, The Chapel of the Chimes!  read more »

Eula died early this morning, in her sleep. For one checkup round she was found to be fine; half an hour later, she was lifeless. Peace be with you, Eula! Lai tev viegli jo vieglas smiltis!

 read more »

San Francisco. Tuesday afternoon. We have just arrived and settled into our 11th floor, corner room at the Hotel Adagio on Geary. This, after lunching at Café Flore, a place that elicits a powerful feeling of Home in me. We left Tahoe around eight or nine. The motel’s breakfast was rather dismal, so we went for real coffee at a combination coffee house and sushi bar up the road.

In San Pablo, we visited Eula. She is bedridden.

 read more »

Sleep Dream.  I’m out on the street in an old, working class neighborhood, like Elati, but more like, say, Highlands, One story, red brick houses, huddled close together, store fronts. It‘s alive with people I’m there, doing I know not what. Perhaps sitting at a sidewalk café. I notice a small procession moving down the middle of the street, half a block long. I get up to see what it is. There is a fellow on a gold contraption of a conveyance at the front, like a unicylce made into the knob of a sceptre. He is attired in fancy clothes, tie and tails and top hat, smiling.  read more »

Sleep Dream.  It is an ordinary sort of reality. Not one that I know, but nothing unusual. I realize that very soon, I will die. Not a doctor’s diagnosis, just a crystal clear knowing that my death is imminent. "Finally the time has arrived,“ I think, "soon this life will be done.“ I feel calm and curious. I then proceed to take care of various bits of unfinished business. Nothing great or momentous; more the sense of small chores, misc. loose ends to tie up. It all feels calm, relaxed. An odd sense of being aware that each day could be my last.

 read more »