Motorcycle-Taxi

Last night I had a dream that somehow I was a student again at age 51, and I was back in North Carolina, this time not in Durham but in Chapel Hill. And I was going to catch a taxi out to some shopping mall, and I hailed a fellow driving a motorcycle-taxi.

And in this motorcycle-taxi, the idea was that I, as the passenger, would sit on a seat right on top of the front wheel, up in front of the driver. I can't imagine how he could see where he was going, with me perched up there in front of him. And I was fastened into the seat with a body harness to keep me from falling out. And we went roaring off down the street through heavy traffic.

And it was hard for me to describe to this guy where I was going, after more than 15 years I had forgotten the names of many of the streets. But I said yeah, going to the mall, and when we got there we went roaring right inside the mall and tearing down amongst pedestrian shoppers with a loud roar on the motorcycle-taxi. And it was a split-level mall, more like one I remembered from over in Raleigh.

And I was looking for a place that served Greek food, which was on the upper level, though we were on the lower level. But we got there at last, the motorcycle roaring right in amongst people sitting at tables and eating Greek food. And the taxi driver told me my fare came to $2.60, so I gave him a five and said, "Keep the change."

And then the owner of the Greek joint came out from behind the counter, and I told him I wanted a gyros plate, pointing at some picture on glass lit from behind up on the wall. And he was asking me what I wanted to drink, pointing to another picture on glass up on the wall, and explaining to me the difference between two kinds of Greek drink and which went best with a gyros sandwich.

And then I woke up.

Trainroad

Last night I had a dream that I was down in the ditch alongside the railroad tracks, down there in the ditch out in the country alongside the trainroad. And now a train was coming by, with smoke billowing out of its smokestack, and I saw this fellow run up out of the brush and jump on the train. So I thought I would do so too. And I ran up out of the ditch, and I jumped up in through the open door of a boxcar.

Only when I got to my feet and stood up, I found that this other fellow and I were really standing in an area at the back of the locomotive, and all the train people, engineer and brakeman and conductor and all, were sitting ahead of us inside the locomotive, facing away from us. And after a minute of uneasy silence, one of the "train people" up front began speaking to us without turning his head back to us, "We can see you, and we often get people jumping on this train, and now you have three choices," and basically the choices were (1) go to jail, or (2) pay a fine of several hundred dollars, or (3) be let off the train out here halfway to Dubuque, even though that would mean leaving us stranded in the countryside with no way to get home.

So I chose to be let off the train, and they stopped the train (still without any of them turning their heads back to look at us) and I got off the train in the brush out here in the middle of the countryside. And wondering how I was going to get home, from halfway to Dubuque. Only I walked a bit, and I came to a village, only this village seemed to be not in Iowa but somehow "amidst the mountains" up in Alaska.

(And it also came to me that the fellow who jumped on the train was a confederate of the railroad, used over and over again to jump on the train and lure other people like me to follow his example.)

And then I was in the sheriff's office, and it was evil Sheriff Buck off of American Gothic, and he was sitting there in his oak office chair at his oak desk. And I was standing there, and then this guy came sauntering in, looking like a gambler ne'er-do-well from old New Orleans, wearing a raincoat overcoat slicker, and it was made clear to me as if in a word of knowledge that this gambler man was coming to the village in evil, and to get back at me for jumping on the train. And I said hi to him as he walked by, and he said hi to me.

Then next time it was a scene in the village where I was being asked to leave, on pain of great disasters breaking forth. And somewhere down the valley amidst the mountains suddenly a house exploded roaring up in flames. And then after a little while another house exploded. And it was well but darkly understood that I'd better snap to it, or else. Only I wouldn't, because that would be giving in to evil, and to the evil New Orleans gambler dude.

And now the next scene, and I'm standing next to the dirt runway of the local airstrip, and suddenly in a flash without warning a small single-engine plane comes streaking in for a landing, kablammm!!!, and the plane goes tearing at high speed down the runway in flames balanced on its nose. And as it goes by, several houses in a row alongside the runway are all exploding in flames at high speed, kablamm, kablammm, kablammmm, KABLAMMMMM!!! And then a kid comes flying through the air screaming, right up against the side of a house, and suddenly a UPS truck flying through the air and its rear end smashes right into the kid and the side of the house.

And I realize, in horror, that this is an escalation of the efforts to get me out of this village and to surrender to the New Orleans gambler who is in with evil Sheriff Buck.

So then I decide to fight back. And I run everything in reverse like a movie film going backwards, the UPS truck flies away from the house, the kid is being carried off on a stretcher ("Only one little chip out of a bone in my toe"), the houses are de-exploding and returning to normal, the plane is streaking backwards down the runway and backwards up into the sky. And now I'm running a trace on this evil power, tracing it back to find where it's coming from.

And sure enough, it's that evil New Orleans gambler man in his rain slicker, and suddenly I'm right there, teleported to about ten yards away from him, and his back is turned to me, and between us is his evil hot-coal brazier tripod with smoke billowing up out of it, which he uses to cause disasters, and so I levitate the brazier tripod up in the air ("Use the Force, Luke!") and I overturn it and bring it right down on his shoulders and the back of his head, and he's screaming in agony and evil at the burning hot coals being brought down right on top of him, and I know this is only the beginning of our epic battle to the death, each of us wielding great powers beyond comprehension.

Only then I woke up.

"These Five New States, So Bonny and Fair"

Last night I had a dream that there were five new states in the Northeast, and it was announced on the news. And the states were named North London, New Turnicoat, New Oilcloth, Sou'wester, and New Lobsterpot. And these states had been formed to grant the Democrats even more representation in Congress, since their Congressmen and Senators would be awarded to the Democrats in every election; though it was considered poor form to state this openly, and anyone who did so would be razzed and ridiculed for daring to state the obvious.

And some ingrates objected that these states could not be found or located on any map— when it was necessary to depict them, these five new states were shown under the symbol of five black and white keys on a piano keyboard. And it was objected that nobody you knew had ever known anyone from any of these five states, and no highways ran to or through them. And the stock reply to any of these objections, bleated in an accusatory and condescending tone, was, "Oh! Who would wish to deprive the Union of these five new states, so bonny and fair?"

And the New York Times ran editorials in favor of these five new states. And Ted Kennedy was very much in favor of these states, saying, "I look forward to greeting, on the same side of the aisle, my new colleague the junior senator from the state of New Turnicoat."

And part of the dream had to do with the design of a new American flag with five more stars. And it was said, "Oh! Who would wish to deprive the flag of these five new stars, so bonny and fair?"

And it was said that from now on, any time the Democrats needed more votes in Congress, they could mint new states as needed, nongeographical states symbolized by piano keys. Only it was considered poor form to state this openly, and anyone who did so would be met with a reply, bleated in an accusatory and condescending tone, of "Oh! They would never do any such thing!"

Then in the next breath it was said, "Oh! Who would wish to deprive the Union of these five new states, so bonny and fair?"

Fire Engines in the Night

Last night I had a dream that I still had the very first car I ever owned, a light green 1968 Ford Galaxie 500. And it was sitting out on the lawn beside the house I grew up in, over in Wisconsin.

And it was three or four in the morning, and for some reason my brother and I wandered outside in the darkness, and we were sitting there in my car on the lawn in the darkness, listening to the car radio and talking. And the streetlights were on, and some lights down by Happy's Standard station, but apart from that it was pitch dark out.

And then I became aware of some distant sound, almost drowned out by the car radio, and I said, "Listen! Isn't that the fire siren?" And sure enough, we saw some fire engines coming down Seward Street, and then the fire engines were turning into the alley that ran along back behind our house. And then one of the fire engines turned off the alley onto the grass, and it came up the lawn until it stopped right alongside my car. And I was thinking to myself, isn't it a coincidence that I happen to be right out here in my car in the middle of the night just when a fire engine pulls up onto our lawn?

Only there was no fire anywhere in sight, and in fact the firemen seemed in no hurry. The other fire engines had stopped down in the alley, and they weren't going anywhere. My brother got out of the car to talk to the firemen. And then I put the car in neutral, and it started rolling slowly uphill across the yard, uphill toward Main Street. And then my car rolled down a flight of concrete steps, right out into Main Street. And there my car stopped, sideways in the middle of the street, blocking both lanes; though at that hour of the night there was no traffic.

And I started my car, and got it properly parked on the street. And then I got out, and looked across the street where the fire engine was still parked on the lawn beside our house, and my brother was talking with the firemen. And I thought to myself, he's better at that than I would be. And once again I wondered why the firemen were out in the middle of the night if there was no hurry, and no fire.

And then I woke up.

My Name Is Labor Cottony

The other night I had a dream, and in it I was returning to the university library, to the extensive stacks within the library where I now lived and spent most of my time. And I was returning to the stacks up on fifth floor, to where all my vast personal collection of books now took up endless shelf space at one end, several large semi-enclosed cubicles with shelves ceiling to floor all around, cubicles covering one entire end of the fifth floor.

Only my books weren't there right now, because I had boxed them up and wheeled them out to some other location for two or three weeks, as if "on vacation." And I knew at the end of the two or three weeks, I would wheel all my books back here, and put them back on these shelves at one end of the fifth floor, up in the library stacks in the university library.

And in the meanwhile I wandered through those three or four large shelf-lined cubicles, thinking of how actually anyone using this library might wander into these cubicles, and not realize that my books didn't belong to the libary, they belonged to me. And so they might take my books off the shelf, and even try to borrow them or check them out. Though I also had the benefit of being able to wander beyond my cubicles through the rest of the library, and read any books in the library that caught my interest.

And within one of my large cubicles, which was the size of a large room, sat my armchair, where I often sat reading a book.

And then just outside the cubicles, on another bookshelf, I noticed a leatherbound 19th century book on the game of euchre, and I wondered if that was one of my books which had somehow been misplaced. Because I had many, many books on card games and board games.

Then I went down in the elevator, and I was walking across the huge sunlit foyer of the university library, with panes of clear glass overhead and potted plants all around.

And I went off to another building, which I think was a monastery, where the real Paul Burgess now lived. Because it came to me that I was really just a doppelgänger, though I had made off with all of his books, and many of his other possessions, so that the real Paul Burgess (who was now 70 years old) was living in a small room with hardly any of his possessions left.

And I found the door to his room, and there was a large wooden dresser in front of the door, so I moved it to one side and opened the door and went in. And it was a very small room, and I noticed there were hardly any items or possessions there in the room. And Paul Burgess was in bed, covered with blankets, and I ripped the blankets off of him, and I announced in a triumphal voice, "My name is Labor Cottony!"

And Paul Burgess was lying there in bed, struggling to wake up. And I was thinking to myself how I now owned most of his things, and soon I would also be bringing all his books back up to my cubicles in the stacks on the fifth floor of the university library. And then I woke up.

The Laughing Geysers of Ronicaldo

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

I am watching a program on Public TV about "The Laughing Geysers of Ronicaldo"...

Narrator: "The mud geysers in this remote region of the Amazon erupt with a sound virtually indistinguishable from that of human laughter. The scientist has no explanation for this phenomenon.

"But to the natives of Ronicaldo, the laughing geysers are no mystery.

"The native has long observed how the white man is able to detach his presence and make it appear, in motion, on a sheet of white cloth.

"The native has long observed how the white man is able to detach his voice and put it inside a small wooden box.

"So it seemed natural to the native to assume that the white man detached his individuality and his laughter, and sent them wandering off through the rain forest, until at long last they took up residence in these geysers.

"In recent years, scientists have begun to take these suggestions more and more seriously..."

Airwaves (Not a Dream)

An entry from back around 1996 or 1997, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

New Year's Eve some very odd discoveries combusted on this terrestrial plane— as if out of an old recurring dream of twenty years ago and more— both having to do with one of my special lifelong interests, the airwaves.

Believe it or not, this one was not a dream.

First of all, fiddling around with the radio, I discovered, for the first time, a station broadcasting in the new 1610-1700 kHz range. Some far distant station on 1660. Mostly music. I recorded the station identification at the top of the hour, but it was too weak to decipher. As it was the only station broadcasting on that frequency, it could have been from anywhere in the country.

Then Steven discovered something even stranger. A new TV station in Madison. Or rather (since it is listed in the Yellow Pages under "Television Stations") a TV station whose very existence we have somehow managed for months to miss.

And a very bizarre TV station, at that. "Channel 8, WO8CK, Madison, Wisc." Programs simply airing without further announcement or interruption, except for fancy station identifications which run for three or four minutes every half hour. Extremely amateurish production values. All the programs are like something right out of the bargain basement of videotapes, all of them ten and fifteen years old, and more than slightly funky.

Some strange holistic health program, with commercials (among the few that aired) for the "Life Force Newsletter," and news about reincarnation. The Christophers, and a priest interviewing a paraplegic police officer. A half hour of third-rate rock videos, all from the same "Sparrow Communications Corp."

And to top it off, presentations of some mystic "spiritual master," Gilligan with a Hawaiian lei around his neck. Chanting, chanting, chanting while various scenes play across the screen. A man surfing the waves. A road between rows of trees. A woman working an old-fashioned hand pump. Gilligan chanting on the beach. Children watching doves in the park. A shot of Jesus in Gethsemane, which fades to a blue-skinned Hindu goddess with a fawn at her breast. Gilligan chanting atop a rock. Quotes from the Bhagavad-Gita and the Psalms. And all the while, the chanted background refrain of "Gopala Govinda Rama, Madana Mohana..."

After about fifteen minutes, the entire sequence began all over again. It re-ran with only minor variations: a fastbuck leaping in rhythm with the chanting, which fades to Gilligan and his crowd, all leaping in rhythm with the chanting. A different set of Bhagavad-Gita quotes.

And then a third fifteen-minute re-run. This time, more variations in the sequence were introduced, as the whole presentation took on the air of a Laplace transform of itself. A new sequence inserted about Socrates. A sun over water scene with quotes from some philosopher about "living in the machine age." Variations in the order of old shots.

And then a fourth fifteen minutes, this time everything old and new, well shuffled and transmogrified. Holy spinachia!

Then an hour (part of which I skipped) of Gilligan discoursing on the New Year, and "people who have tasted the bitter nectar of this world." This wrapped up at midnight with a reprise of selected shots of Gilligan, the fastbuck leaping, crowd chanting, and then several minutes of station identification, "WO8CK Madison, Wisc.", after which, without further ado, the station went off the air.

Talk about bizarre... And like I say, this one was not a dream...

Eerie overtones of a recurring dream I used to have back round and about my teenage years— of coming down early in the morning, turning on the TV, tuning around, and discovering a mysterious "Channel 29," with surreal dream-logic shows featuring a robot named Candlestick Parker, and the Secret Spy with the Soda-Straw Camera which "took" not photographs but cartoons. I remember how that dream came to symbolize for me the sense almost of awe, which I came in those years to connect with the practice of tuning around on the airwaves. A sense of awe which led me to realize, even at that age, that not all synthetic a priori's are listed in Kant: to space, time, number, logic, causality, qualities, we must add at the very least the radio dial. Cassirer, who guarded so fiercely the mutual independence of his various symbolic forms, would have understood.

The Frostite-Z

Last night I had a dream that I was walking along the highway out on the edge of some town. And there were two fast food joints out there along the highway, the A&W and the Dairy Queen.

And then I noticed that actually there was a third fast food joint on the highway, and it was called the Frostite-Z.

And I almost would've missed the Frostite-Z, because it was standing off the highway a bit, right alongside a machine shop, and in fact it was back behind a high chainlink fence. And I looked to see if there was some way to get back behind this fence, but on first inspection I couldn't see any. And I wondered how much business this place could be getting, if you had to go back through a machine shop to get to it.

And the Frostite-Z was a small wood-frame building, scarcely 12 feet by 12, with a sign up on its sloping shingled roof: FROSTITE-Z. And there was an old wooden screen door in front, the kind that opens with the creeeeeeeek of a rusty door spring. And there were wood-framed wire window screens around the front and side, like you'd see on the windows of an old, old house.

And I looked inside the Frostite-Z, through the window screens, and it looked to me like you could only fit about three or four customers in there in front of the counter before the place would be full. And there were signs hung up inside, 7-Up, and a menu with little plastic letters pressed into a signboard back up behind the counter. And the building was lit up within by yellow light from the ceiling, like those yellow light bulbs that aren't supposed to attract insects, only you knew just to look that the Frostite-Z would have flies buzzing around inside, and a general atmosphere of dinginess, and grease on the walls.

And I was still trying to figure how to get through the chainlink fence, how to get to the Frostite-Z without going through the machine shop. And I wondered how such a greasy spoon fast-food joint could possibly stay open or make any money in such an inaccessible spot, back behind a chainlink fence where you could walk right by and almost miss that it was even there.

And then I woke up.

Little Robot Horses

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

Last night, I had a dream. And in the first part of it, I was in Hong Kong, in a museum of Chinese culture. And I could see in beyond, and there was room after room filled with museum artifacts. And I was by the Chinese water fountain outside, wondering if drinking from it meant they wanted a donation; and in the gift area, I was looking for Chinese playing cards, or a chess set for Chinese chess, or maybe a mah jongg set. Only all I could find were items having to do with Western playing cards. And the young lady at the desk said, no, they didn't have any.

Now next time we were up at a moon base, on the moon. And digging around outside, in hard vacuum, wearing our space suits, we kept coming across the remains of little robot horses, about knee-high, covered in the lunar dust.

And now there was word from the Mars colony that robot horses were being sighted, running across the dead, empty sea bottoms of Mars. And there were getting to be so many of them, that the robot horses were overrunning the entire planet.

Now change of scene, and I'm watching it as an anonymous observer, but it's all in the third person. A star ship has been dispatched, faster than light, to travel to another star system, and investigate what is supposed to be a new habitable planet for colonization.

And two astronauts, one a young fellow with a dark crewcut, whom I sort of identify with; and one, a beautiful, sexy young blonde Swedish babe. And even faster than light, it's a couple of months to the star system. And I think you can guess what happens with these two together, in those months in the empty deeps of space, between the stars. The phrase that occurred to me in the dream was pol na polú, which is Russian for "sex on the floor." Only in space there is no floor, no ceiling, only a slow-motion mid-air ballet in zero-gee.

And after a couple of months, these two astronauts, the man and the woman, arrive at the distant star system. And they settle down to the surface in a shuttle. And they open the airlock, letting down a heavy gangplank from the metal underbelly of the shuttle, and they venture out onto the perpetual dark of the planet, with its howling winds. And all about them, scampering with the sagebrush, knee-high, are little robot horses. And frequent lightning shows the robot horses running in snapshot profile.

And the woman takes a flamethrower, and incinerates some of the nearby robot horses, Sigourney Weaver style. But that was a mistake. Because now thousands of little robot horses are drawn from miles around to the charred remains. And they actually seem to be multiplying.

The man warns the woman back into the airlock, and they manage to get the shuttle off, and it lifts, a giant hulk of metal slowly levitating into the air. And beneath it, lit up by its landing lights in the heavy dark, are thousands of little running robot horses.

Now it's a couple of months back to Earth, hyperlight, and the man and the woman are going at it again in the interstellar deep.

And when they get back, they are kept in quarantine, in a space station in Earth orbit. Because word has come back, from other missions like theirs, and it seems that the little robot horses are everywhere, on every habitable planet that has been investigated, except for Earth. And there's a fear, because it's not known how the robot horses are spread, or how they multiply. It might even be possible for a person to be carrying the template for them, in microscopic form, like a virus. So the man and his Swedish babe are trapped up there in the space station. And they can't come back down to Earth.

And then I woke up.

Dream

So last night I had this dream that I was at the enemy's house, remote and isolated on a rise far out into the country. Big old square wood frame house. And the enemy was nowhere to be found, but he had stolen my Jeep, so I was marooned there and couldn't leave.

And I was wandering around inside the house, and it was quiet and still. There was an ancient computer sitting there on a desk, glowing green monitor, all sorts of similar but cryptic commands typed in at the command line, with error messages. Supposedly I had typed in these commands, though I didn't remember doing it.

Still no sign of my Jeep. Then the enemy appeared, an evil man with grey hair, and he slid to one side a bookcase which had been partially obscuring a door. And beyond the door was a hidden room, like a garage, and there on the far side was my Jeep. And the enemy was coming at me, and I pulled out a small penlight light saber, orange blade, a souvenir of this house; only it didn't really work, it was a toy casting a beam of orange light.

Then I ran to my Jeep, and lying on the passenger seat within was my real light saber. The enemy was running right at me. I swung my light saber at him, vvvhhhhhhhhmmmmmm! He didn't realize my light saber was for real until I cut off his left arm. Again I swung, vvvhhhhmmmmm, and I cut off his head. (He did look something like Count Dukoo, by the way.)

And then I stood there with my light saber with its red blade. I repeat, its red blade.

Longwave Radio Dreams

I've always been strangely drawn to the radio, listening on a dark night to those distant voices coming in across the buzzing static as I tune up and down the glowing radio dial. Tuning in AM stations from across the country. Tuning in shortwave stations from around the world. It always sends a tingle up my spine, like being in touch with some mysterious level of alternate reality.

And I've always regretted that we don't have broadcast stations on longwave here in the United States. You know, longwave radio, way down below the bottom of your AM (mediumwave) dial. Imagine an extra band on your radio dial, the longwave band, starting way down at 150, and running up to around 280, 300, 350, or above.

In some parts of the world— I believe it's Europe, north Africa, the former Soviet Union, and Mongolia— there are broadcast stations on longwave, 153 to 279 kilohertz. BBC Radio 4 from Droitwich, UK on 198 kHz. Allouis, France on 162 kHz. Kalundborg, Denmark on 243 kHz. And many more.

Over the years, I've had several strange dreams about longwave broadcast stations in the United States. Herewith I append my longwave radio dreams...

Longwave Dream #1

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

I had an intriguing dream last night, that stations had started broadcasting in longwave in North America, and that I tuned my radio to the longwave band and was pulling in longwave stations through the deep ether-buzz static of the longwave band, 151-281 kHz.

Longwave Dream #2

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

I had a dream the other night that actually there are longwave broadcast stations in the US, only somehow all these years I had never realized it. There was even an old radio in the storeroom upstairs which had a longwave band on it, right above the desk where I used to sit when I was a kid listening to AM stations on that old Stewart-Warner tube radio, only somehow I had overlooked this other radio, or at least I had never realized that it could receive longwave.

In this dream, the idea was that FDR started the longwave broadcast stations as a public works project in the Thirties, during the Depression. Then after WWII the longwave stations were retained as a sort of Conelrad network. Of course, as a government program, these stations had been continued as a legacy up to the present day, long after use and interest declined. Most people nowadays, I dreamed, were no longer even aware of the continued existence of these longwave stations, and many had never even heard of them.

Indeed, since the late Forties it was almost impossible to find a radio any more with a longwave band, Some radios from the Fifties or Sixties might have a "Conelrad" button, preset by the dealer to pull in a local longwave station.

In this dream I saw, as if on a map of the US, that the flagships of this longwave network were five stations which, between them, blanketed the entire continental United States, outside of a small patch of Montana and North Dakota. Five stations, in Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, Amarillo, and San Francisco. Beyond these five stations, there were a more numerous group of "regional" longwave stations around the country.

In the dream, I took this old radio of ours, and I turned it on. After a minute, the tubes in it warmed up, and it hummed to life. I turned it to the longwave band, and started tuning around. And there, in the middle of the afternoon, I heard a voice, with station identification: "This is Longwave 207... WJZ, Chicago."

I got a station from Texas just above 250— in broad daylight— then I woke up.

Longwave Dream #3

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

Odd dream last night— listening to longwave, and discovering a station, "This is WSDB, longwave 400 from Chicago"— mixed format, sports, talk, rock.

Longwave Dream #4

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that I was living out in the open, as if amidst partitions of corrugated sheet metal. It was a refugee camp, somewhere out on the Great Plains of Kansas or Nebraska or Oklahoma, in a time after things had fallen to pieces. I was like some character out of a Kerouac novel, dirt poor, beat, grapes of wrath, trampled down into the dust by the press of vast events, and I was living there in this fellaheen refugee camp with this woman, and a young daughter of hers. And I had this radio I had gotten somewhere, a big gigantic oversized silver boom box type radio, with all sorts of arcane controls and buttons and knobs and dials on it.

And then I couldn't find the radio, only this woman showed me where she had hung it up on a hook up high, on the corrugated sheet metal, out of sight of the random pilgrims roaming around in this sheet metal settlement. And I was filled with warmth that this woman, my woman, had understood me so completely and cared so much as to put my radio up out of harm's way like this. And I got it down as she busied herself with the cooking and the wash, her wavy black hair and her snapping black eyes, spaghetti boiling in a large open four-gallon metal pot above an open fire, wash strung out with clothespins on clotheslines strung amidst the walls of corrugated sheet metal.

And then this woman went off somewhere on some task or errand, walking barefoot, her sweet dusty feet, and I sat listening to the radio, with the young girl listening with me. And somehow this scene brought a misting of tears to my eyes, at the warmth of this impoverished refugee life we lived amidst sheet metal steel.

And then the radio had a longwave band on it, and I was pulling in one voice broadcast station you could receive even by day, on 315 kilohertz from Olathe, Kansas. By night this longwave station would come in loud and clear, and you could also get broadcasts on more distant longwave stations from all over North America. And it was some Bible-thumping religious broadcast, warning us to flee from the wrath to come, warning us to flee from the wrath which was already upon us, "and pray that it come not in winter." And I understood that this station had simply gone on the air, without a license, and without fear of reprisal in these latter days.

And then I woke up.

"In the Water, Everything Cuts You..."

The other night I had a dream that I was swimming in the lake, near the lakeshore by the student union. And as I was swimming, I came upon this submerged circular opening, like an underwater manhole or something.

And I put out my hand and took hold of the edge of the manhole; only it was extremely sharp and I realized that I had cut my fingers on it, sliced into them quite deeply in fact. And blood was welling out of my fingers underwater like a crimson cloud. Though strangely I felt no pain.

Then I noticed a sign posted underwater next to the manhole, and it said:

WARNING!
In the Water
Everything Cuts You
And You Cut Everything

And I wondered what this was about, though it was certainly true that the sharp edge of the underwater manhole had cut my fingers.

And then it came to me, as if in a word of knowledge, that this underwater manhole had been placed there by some progressive social-reformer do-gooders, with the aim of convincing you that everything underwater was a sharp and dangerous place that would cut you, and that you were also dangerous because you would cut anything you touched underwater, and that the only solution was to "get underwater" by entering in through the manhole.

Only then it also came to me that some people had been objecting that actually many things underwater don't cut you, and that most of the time you don't cut things yourself underwater simply by touching them. Also it struck me as strange that one should have to enter the manhole to "get underwater" when in fact anyone who was anywhere in the vicinity of the manhole was already underwater; and the chief danger of getting cut came from unwittingly grasping the edge of the manhole. But I guess the do-gooders thought they would see who they could sucker into their program of underwater social uplift.

And then I woke up.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, We Interrupt This Program to Bring You... Richelieu!"

It seems my brand of insanity runs in the family. My brother Steven relates a dream he had back in January 2001:

Had a very strange dream the other night. It concerned a long-established tradition on network TV that went back to the early days of television. Some character called Richelieu somehow got a toehold in broadcasting doing a type of vaudeville magician/pantomime act to the accompaniment of a tune that I remember from Captain Kangaroo. He never really did any tricks or spoke, just sort of a "nothing up my sleeve" posing and dance routine. He always dressed in a cheap tux, standing grinning (or, more accurately, leering) in the spotlight on a darkened stage. He looked like an especially seedy version of Salvador Dali, wore white gloves and carried a dandy's cane. Richelieu removed his silk tophat before every performance, setting it on a small round table draped with velvet.

The thing is, he became such a great hit in the early 50's, when even test patterns were considered entertainment, that, eventually, he was able to spontaneously go live on the air at his whim, even if it meant interrupting regular programming. He was something of a Svengali personality, so had managed to get an almost cult following. What Richelieu wanted, Richelieu got. As TV progressed, he remained sort of an archaic holdover from the "good old days," garnering appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show, The Red Skelton Show, The Tonight Show, and, later on, the David Letterman Show (albeit unaware that he was only booked for comedic effect). His breaks into live programming became less and less in the late eighties, and there was a time during the nineties when most people that even remembered him thought that he had died (he somehow never seemed to appear much older, though, than he had in the fifties). No network had ever refused him live air time, though. Anyone making so much as a disparaging remark disappeared without a trace from the broadcast world. Such was the power of Richelieu.

Then, just recently [January 2001], during the Presidential inauguration preliminaries, the old familiar backboard appeared on the screen. Still the same one used fifty years ago. A fuzzy gray-toned air brushed affair that showed a velvet covered table, with top hat, gloves and cane illuminated by a soft light, with the word "Richelieu" superimposed in the same script font as the old Desilu "I Love Lucy." Grainy audio of the announcer that used to introduce the Andy Griffith Show: "Ladies and Gentlemen... Richelieu!!!" And there he was, as greasy and unsavory as always, leering to the cameras as he pulled at his sleeves, did a bit of softshoe, brandished his cane, and did a few feints of almost performing a trick or two. Richelieu was in command again. His "performances," if you could call them that, went on anywhere from almost half an hour to an hour. And the same inane music kept playing in the background. Always soft lighting, and looking as if the whole affair was shot through muslin, giving a nondescript appearance to the scene.

At the end of his performance--Richelieu simply performed until he decided to end it with a bow--a modern interrupt screen and announcer came on saying, "We now return you to our regular programming." This happened to be CBS in the dream, so the next shot was of a disgruntled Dan Rather shaking his head as he quipped to a White House reporter, "Scott Pelley, I thought we had seen the last of Richelieu during Eisenhower's administration!" Switch to camera shot of Scott Pelley standing in front of the White House frozen in horror, not uttering a word. When the studio shot returned, the camera pulled back to reveal, impossibly, an enraged Richelieu, inexplicably drenched, looking as if he had just climbed out of a swimming pool, standing at Dan Rather's side. His face was contorted with a greasy, maniacal snarl. For once, Rather seemed at a total loss for words, and began stammering. Richelieu slowly turned his head to the camera, almost willing it to zoom to a close-up of himself. The camera obeyed. He slowly brought one hand up in front of his face, dramatically tugged at the sleeve with his other gloved hand, and gave a dirty little laugh. Sound of a stunned Dan Rather as the camera showed him now drenched. Rather just sat there sobbing, then staggered to his feet, visibly shaken, and stumbled off camera -- he was never seen nor mentioned again at CBS.

(Interesting "alternate history" end to the career of Dan Rather. The "1950s Richelieu TV screen" picture is a joint effort of my brother and myself.)

A Dream on a Cold Winter Night

17° below zero out last night, and as I lay warm beneath two heavy wool blankets, I had a dream...

I bid the others farewell. We were standing in something like a high school cafeteria. I would see them again later. Now I turned and walked off down a long hallway, with tiled floor.

As I walked down the hall, I came to some tables set off along one side. These tables were piled with all sorts of junk, which was being given away for free, otherwise it would be thrown out. I stopped to inspect.


On one table I found some large plastic trays full of slide rules. I checked them out. There were some Chinese slide rules, marked with curious characters in Chinese. There were some circular slide rules. There were even some circular Chinese slide rules.

I was thinking of how many of these slide rules I could add to my slide rule collection at home. But I didn't want to seem greedy, so I only picked out two slide rules to take with me. I also found a deck of playing cards from China, with a back design something like Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom.


Then I walked off down the hall. But before I had gone far, I decided to go back. I went back and started picking out more slide rules, one of every different design. People were walking by down the hall, seeing me standing there by the tables, the glutton for slide rules. I didn't care. If I didn't take these slide rules, they would only be thrown out anyway.

And then I woke up.

Sunday Afternoon Dreams

So after a busy weekend, I lay down Sunday afternoon and dozed off for about three hours. Sort of faded in and out, and at one point during the afternoon, I remember a fragment of an odd dream.

It seems I was walking down a long corridor with two other men, one of them an older man and the other one his flunky. And the older man was mentioning that he was going to dispatch his flunky to perform some nameless mission. And I said, "Very well, do that if you will; but be forewarned that it will push us beyond the tipping point." I well remember that ominous phrase, beyond the tipping point. "And be aware that it will hasten the day when you and I must meet in battle."

And now, in the dream, as the three of us stood there in that long corridor, I had a sudden precognitive flash, as if of the day of battle yet to come: the older man and I, fighting in a deadly duel with light sabers, like something straight out of the Star Wars movies, vvvhhhhhmmmmmm! vvvvhhhmmmmmmmmm! kzzzzt! vvvvvhhhmmmmm! kzzzzakkktt!!

And then in the vision I saw how, in the coming day of battle, the older man (he looked something like Chancellor Palpatine) was going to slice my hand off with his light saber, my hand and my light saber going flying off through the air. Only then there would be horror on his face, as I telekinetically recalled my hand and joined it right back in place, and then by Jedi-like telekinesis I recalled my light saber and reactivated it, vvvvhhhhhhmmmmm! vvvhhhmmmm! brrrzzzzzaaakkt!! as I attacked him anew and pressed him back in deadly light saber battle.

And now in the dream we were standing there, the three of us, in the long corridor, and with my vision of a future combat yet to come, I knew that I could not be defeated; for even when destroyed I could not be put down. And a pneumatic door slid open suddenly beside us, and the older man and his flunky departed from me down that side-hallway, to put their scheme into motion. Only I could see on the older man's face, as they left, that he could tell I had just had a precognitive vision of the future battle which he and I must some day fight.

I guess this is one of the differences between men and women. Women are more likely to have a Sunday afternoon dream about... well, I'm not going to get myself into trouble by speculating, though somehow I imagine it would be something more civilized, more grown up, and perhaps also more down to earth. Whereas on a Sunday afternoon a man (much like a boy) is apt to have a dream of walking down a long corridor, a dream of dire counsel and darkly spoken words, a dream of a deadly final battle to be fought with light sabers, vvvvhhhhhhmmmm! kzzzzz'kkt! vvvhhmmmmmmmmm!

Long Pennies

Once several years ago I had this dream, as is recorded in my Book of Dreams:

Last night, I had a dream, and there were lots of parts to it. And in one scene, I discovered that back in the 1940's they used to make some pennies which were real long and stretched out, so that there was room on the back to add, in fine print, an endorsement for your representative in Congress. And I saw that this long penny was endorsing the fine, faithful civic sense of one "Irene Knizz Divell."

Looking back in waking hours, these long pennies remind me of the time when I was out on the Pacific Coast in Washington State, the "Peninsula" down in southwestern Washington, and in one of those little towns along the beach I found this restaurant with wonderful home cooking, giant juicy hamburgers with a ton of fries, and home-cooked green beans just right, and they had on display inside a glass case a curiosity, a small mummified human head joined seamlessly onto a small alligator's body, so flawless you couldn't even see how it was done, it looked just like real, and you could put coins in a machine, and then put a penny in the slot, and it would take your penny and roll it out long and return it to you, a long penny with a picture of the Alligator Man stamped on the back.