October 31, 2014

October 31, 2014

“Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced.” At this very moment, I’m recovering from a dream that woke me up very early this morning.  I just got back from a trip to Japan, and I feel like I have one foot still in the Shibuya crossing and the other is in my bed at home.  The dream was very peculiar.  It seemed like I had a job position in Book Soup, I wasn’t buying but perhaps I was an assistant to put together events for the store.  It seemed like the store hired a European, who also had his own performance group as well.  He was handling events, and I think I 'm working under him.   There was something sinister about him.   He sort of looked like Jimmy Savile, and all his programming deals with events for children of all sorts, but mostly those who were under nourished or from troubled families.

I helped arranged a picnic in a park, and once I got here I realized that the whole surrounding was covered with rats.  My job was to get rid of the rats before the children arrive.   The European (since I don’t have a name for him, I’ll call him that) had his group of performers help me with the clean-up.  It felt like we had to kill numerous rats, by stabbing them with knives.  I did kill one, but I found it too gross, yet, the traveling troop appeared to be really into the massacre.  The children showed up, and I remember feeling hesitant or concerned that they may find a dead rat by their picnic table.

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.” That was the catch phrase for the picnic event.   There was live music being played, yet, it seemed horrifying to me.  When I came back to the store, there were numerous events taking place.  One in the back counter, because there was already an event happening at the front of the store. It seemed that the “European” managed to over-book events, so we had to use every available space in the store to hold such event.  For instance when I went up to the office upstairs, it was full of people there for a lecture. I stayed for a while, because I couldn’t reach my office table. In fact, it seemed that the lecture was taking place on top of my desk.  I needed to get a form of some sort, so I weaved in and out of the audience to get to the desk.  A gentleman who was giving the lecture was on the table, standing and speaking to the crowd.  He was dressed like someone from the 18th century.  What I remember was that the lecture was inspired by the writings of John Keats.

The next thing I know is that I was on a cargo plane, and there was another lecture being held.  It seemed that the European booked so many events for that day, that we had to rent a cargo plane to hold another lecture or book signing.  There was someone talking, but the noise from the plane's engines was drowning out the speaker's voice.   For whatever reasons, I had to arrange to bring a huge player piano onto the plane.  It was made to play the music by Conlon Nancarrow.   As we were flying over Los Angeles, a fellow employee came up to me and said he has to push the piano off the plane in mid-air.   I told him that I didn’t think that was a good idea.  He said he had to do it, because the “European” ordered him to do so.  So, he pushed the player piano out of the plane, and I told him that I was concerned that the piano may hit someone down below.  He seemed not to care or even aware that this could be an issue.

Then all of a sudden David Bryne came up to me.   At first I thought the cargo plane event was for him, but it became clear that he came not to participate but to be a part of the audience.  He was asking me questions about the book signing that is occurring at that moment.  My feeling was that he was very nice, but I couldn’t figure out why his hair was dark.  All the photographs I have seen him lately, it’s white.  And the hair color didn’t look fake, and he looked naturally quite young.  I thought that was odd.  We both heard music down below and we looked out on the open door (where the piano was pushed) and saw a band down below.  It was an older man playing a full kit of drums, and a small child playing a keyboard instrument.  What he was playing was fairly minimal, and it sounded pretty great.

“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.” I woke up with a feeling of depression coming upon me.   I have this meditation where I just focus on these words: “I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.” But how does one know if they’re great or not.  Fraud rules the landscape, and I’m very much part of that world, where even if I have a mirror, I’m not sure of what I am seeing is the truth or not.  “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter.” And therefore I must hunt down what I don’t know, for there can be an answer to my question that gives me so much anxiety.