Dreams

A curious dream. I was delivering newspapers. I went inside a family’s house to leave the paper, in an upstairs bedroom, putting it on top of their bed. I was in the middle of leaving a note when the family came home. The husband and wife are good-looking white people, quite young, no older than their low-thirties. They are naturally disturbed to see me in their house, though they also readily accept that I am not a danger, perhaps thinking that I am somewhat retarded. After all, I am an adult delivering papers for a living. Then, when I am back on the streets and resuming my route, I realize that I have lost my list of customers. It is in this deep frustration that I leave the dream.

While I am on this topic of dreams, I will mention a little dream I had on the night before. It involved Bo, though I never see him. In this dreamscape, he is alive. I don’t know why, but I have this clear impression that he is small, like a puppy. I wonder whether this is due to the influence of the cats, though he is even smaller than these cats. As I said, he is somehow puppyish. Moreover, he lives with someone else. I have the impression that it is because, in addition to being puppyish, I also have this very clear impression that he only has three legs, as though we did not want to have to put up with a crippled dog. I imagine this comes from his crippled condition at the end of his life. I am walking on a sidewalk, and I catch up with a young white woman who knows where Bo is. I ask, “Can I see him?” She says that they have moved farther away, but I say that I still want to see him. I awake before I get an answer.

I had hoped that I would often meet Bo in my dreams, but that really has not happened, and I have just about given up hope on it.

Christopher Hitchens on North Korea

In this essay, Hitch is discussing North Korea, working off Brian R. Myers's "he Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters".

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Here are the two most shattering facts about North Korea. First, when viewed by satellite photography at night, it is an area of unrelieved darkness. Barely a scintilla of light is visible even in the capital city. Second, a North Korean is on average six inches shorter than a South Korean. You may care to imagine how much surplus value has been wrung out of such a slave, and for how long, in order to feed and sustain the militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people.

But this is what proves Myers right. Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.

-- Christopher Hitchens, "North Korea: A Nation of Racist Dwarves" in Slate, February 2010

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I am a little stunned by Hitch's close here. Is he saying that we are all bound to become nations like North Korea in due time? With the ascendancy of corporate oligarchy, I am bleak about the future, but I would not think that North Korea is the end game. I expect our leaders to keep us fattened up and giddily distracted in the world of pop culture, more like what we see in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".

Kay-Pop

Pop asks what I want for my weekend dessert. I am tired of cake and cinnamon rolls. “Molletes,” I say. He says, “One package or two?” I continue the sequence, “It depends. Are you going to have any?”

He says he will. He also says that Kay is coming. I let the pain wash through me. I’m afraid that he is never going to go over there for a weekend anymore. But there’s nothing I can do about it. It is just more suffering that I have to carry, making me come more and more to hate my life.

I say, “Then you better get two.”

Celebrities and Stuff

"Official Batman: Arkham Knight Announce Trailer - "Father to Son"" (Watch on YouTube)

ONTD

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"Inside Llewyn Davis"

Browsing through some films on Amazon, I came across a touching review for "Inside Llewyn David", the story of an apparently failed folk singer. I had never heard of the film before, but I am now intrigued, though I suspect it moves rather slowly.

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I've read a lot of commentary about Inside Llewyn Davis failing to deliver a pay-off. Oddly, this was one of the aspects of the film I enjoyed the most. It is devoid of the glamour and artifice of an uplifting underdog story; Llewyn's story begins and ends in the same alley, no redemption found, his only prize the blood on his lips. Throughout the film, there were many moments I found myself wishing Llewyn would just say, or just do, this instead of that, find a way to overcome his weaknesses and flaws. But he always says, or does, exactly as Llewyn would do.

This is what I find so refreshing about the film, the screenplay driving it and the performances delivering it. The characters on-screen act with the same perplexing unpredictability as we all do. They never know just what to say to each other. They talk at each other rather than to each other. They are weak, and often unlikeable, and often uncomfortably vulnerable. Our expectations as an audience, sculpted by decades of formulaic Joseph Campbell-driven story arcs, are of no consequence here.

I think our desire for packages with bows on them stems from our yearning for life to follow suit. But it doesn't, does it? We are all little islands of feeling trying desperately and confusedly to express some sort of identity and to find a voice that will connect us to others.

-- Jennifer Graf

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Friday Night

I showered tonight. I’m going to give my sore foot a rest tomorrow and skip the morning walk. Plus, I want to knock out my next installment of entries for the Three Journal.