Saturday, September 21, 2002
DREAM On
I could get through my hair with a fine tooth comb.
Posted by Ann on 09/21/02@10:19 AM CST ..::Link::..
Memory Jog
Last night Stan was trying to visually describe a Roxy Music album that we don't have and never had but he remembered seeing in the Roxy bins back in the 80s. He described it as a woman with 80s style hair, pulling her cheek out, done in a very graphic style. I was completely baffled. I searched through Amazon, I searched through AllMusic.com. Nothing. Then we decided to search all Roxy-related sites on the web. Then Stan found this. I remember now! I remember seeing that image before! Considering the time it was released, (1983) this must have been *the* version of "Like a Hurricaine" I heard that made me amazed that someone could actually take a Neil Young song and make it sound incredible and listenable for me. See a long, long, long time ago, back in high school, I really loved Neil Young's music, but then I changed and couldn't stand him anymore, especially when I was at my most punk/anglophile-ish (not that I never was an anglophile at any point in time). Now I just don't care one way or the other about Young, but I love Roxy's cover, and we do have a different live version of it on one of our Roxy CDs. So I searched on this at Amazon, but it still only exists in vinyl form by the way of used or Amazon's eBay-ish service. It's strange that they didn't re-release it on CD. Their "Jealous Guy" Lennon cover is amazing too.
So I'm doing more musical research and am looking through the Pink Floyd section at Amazon and then it hits me. One of those nights, 20 years ago, Stan and I were staring at Meddle trying to figure out just what the hell that image is. I do think we had taken mushrooms at that time...pretty sure of it. Was it an embryo? a turtle? some astronomical configuration? fungus? a penis? eraserhead baby? what? Then Stan said it reminded him of an Eno album cover graphic. I asked him if he said that 20 years ago too. He said he didn't listen to Eno 20 years ago, so he couldn't have said that. But it seems so familiar. Why? I think the space/time continuum has gotten a bit messy. I'm remembering things from the past that were said in the future.
Posted by Ann on 09/21/02@10:16 AM CST ..::Link::..
Art Gone
Yesterday we had to make a sudden trip to Kenosha. Candace called me on Thursday--the piece I had at the Anderson Art Show 10th Anniversary show sold, and the buyer wanted to take it with him right away as it was a birthday gift for his wife. Candace asked me to substitute another one of mine if I'd like. These pieces are brand new, and I didn't even have time to take pictures of them...not just slides, but not even pictures. This is typical...seems like if I don't slide a piece it will sell, whereas pieces I have a gazillion slides of haven't sold. Which is ironic, because usually what makes me decide to hold on to a piece and slide it before I exhibit it is because I want a permanent record of it, whereas the ones I'm lackadaisical about documenting are ones that I don't think are as strong. Which means the public likes the ones I don't feel are strong pieces, but doesn't appreciate the ones I really love. Typical. Kinda like my taste in music, too. Heh. As we arrived at the place, an old guy was pulling out of the parking spot we wanted. I had no idea who it was. When we got there, Candace told me that we had just missed the buyer...he had put my piece in his trunk and left. My piece is gone...I have no record of it and I'll never see it again.
Posted by Ann on 09/21/02@09:25 AM CST ..::Link::..
Friday, September 20, 2002
Catamite Story
In my dream I did two things that I would never really need to do.
One was to spend time in a public space without a good reason for being there. As far as I see the only people who hang out in public spaces just to pass time are drug dealers and de-institutionalized mentally ill people. If I'm out in public I'm never alone unless I have some shopping to do or an appointment to keep. I think in America innocent people end up in jail every day for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I believe it's always important to be with friends in public. If I'm out alone it's for a purpose like going to work, to the grocery store etc., and never to just pass the time. The United States of America has never been a safe place as much as most people would like to say that it is. Now with the new Fascism Style Republican Government engaged in the so called 'New War' being in public is far less safe than it has ever been before.
Second I was waiting for inspiration so I could begin to write something like a story. This just doesn't happen to me, because I have a lot more ideas than I have time. In my creative life ideas have to stand in line if they even want a chance at being written down. Most of my ideas simply die of starvation while their waiting in line, and sometimes they get sent to the back of the line several times before I have time to put them into text. If it ever did happen to me that I had to sit and wait for inspiration I would assume that I'm already dead and simply haven't noticed that I had died.
On one level of this dream I was watching a smoke bomb under a stop sign while fire trucks were driving by on the street. Then I walked over to a public sculpture and sat on it for reasons I'll explain in the next part. An elderly woman approached me and said there was a gun and a brief case on the grass next to me, but I couldn't see anything but lawn. Then another smoke bomb went off next to a nearby stop sign and the elderly woman and I were watching it. The police came and began to question both of us about the smoke bomb. I didn't like the questions they were asking me because I didn't set off the bomb and they seemed to think I did. Then I woke up.
While I was sitting on the sculpture I was waiting for inspiration to write something (as if I don't have things to write), and an idea came to me. The idea was for a story book that explained where catamites came from (hell I suppose), like some kind of catamite genisis. So in this story when people were still living in caves catamites evolved accidentally like some sort of subspecies within the rest of the human species. The weird thing was that they came into being at the same time in human history all over the world where ever people lived. The story had no reasonable explanation for their appearance as a subspecies, it just seemed to be a spontaneous development. I found the idea very amusing as though it were some sort of Monty Python satire on the sort of thing I seriously write about.
Posted by Stan on 09/20/02@10:46 PM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM - Weird Carnival Ride
Stan and I were in an old fashioned drug store/news shop in an old part of a large city. We were looking at a bookstand. We were with Tim, but he was outside or someplace else; it was hard to remember. Then Stan and I went up in this very strange ride like at a fair or carnival. It took one straight up into the air, but we weren't buckled into our seats or anything, so one could fall out easily. As we're descending, I see that there was some sort of restraining device one could have used, but it looked like it was made out of old ratty purple pajama fabric and black straps.
Posted by Ann on 09/20/02@09:06 AM CST ..::Link::..
Thursday, September 19, 2002
Amazon's response?
Greetings from Amazon.com.
I've checked your order (#xxx-xxx-xxx), and I can confirm
that we still expect to ship it by the date listed in Your Account:
September 23, 2002.
The estimated date of shipment was calculated at the time you placed
your order and is based on the proximity of inventory to the delivery
address you provided, as well as how quickly we can obtain and
assemble items for shipment.
We will send you an e-mail at the time of shipment. Please contact
us again if you do not receive a shipment confirmation by September
24, 2002.
You can always check the status of your order, including estimated
dates of shipment and delivery, by clicking the Your Account link at
the top of most pages of our store or by following this link:
http://www.amazon.com/your-account
Please note, each item on our web site is listed with an availability
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means that we should be able to receive this item from our supplier
within that amount of time after your order is placed.
Therefore, selecting Two-Day or One-Day shipping means your
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For this reason, we list an estimated shipment date on the order form
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I don't know if this really addresses the issue. So, even if all my items say "ships within 24 hours" what seems to be missing is "ships within 24 hours after our warehouse decides to assemble it for shipping, which, could mean, hey, whenever, ya know?"
It seems like Amazon has gone through a change. When I ordered cds in the past, even ones that said "usually ships within 4-5 days" or so, I got quicker turnaround time than this.
Feh.
Posted by Ann on 09/19/02@01:02 PM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM - Not in character characters
I was in my house and Stan was sitting on the new futon, but (don't hate me Stan!) he was like a hybrid of himself and this female person I used to know. He was acting really bitchily and either telling me to go to hell or fuck off or something...VERY UN-STAN. There were also other people in our house, one of which was XxXx. He had a huge stash of marijuana and was sorting out the seeds. This person is not into drugs, however, it did look quite a bit like him in a very idealized, beautiful gorgeous gorgeous way (not that he isn't naturally attractive...I wouldn't have had this dang off and on crush on him for the past...15 years...if he was ugly, but in the dream he was just quite stunning). Anyway, I let him sort out the seeds, but then I go to sleep. When I wake up, the only thing I could find left of the marijuana was a stack of pink sugar (the color of pink was like those saccharine sweetener packets at restaurants), which was supposed to be the biproduct of the smoked weed. I asked XxXx about it, and he said he smoked it all. I was able to find some left over pot, and put it in this very strangely shaped pipe which looked like a nutcracker (one of those wooden ones with a cup and twisty handle) and I smoked it, but I wasn't getting a hit off of it or anything. Just a very strange, out of character dream. I'm not into smoking pot, but maybe I thought it would get rid of this damn headache. Heh.
Posted by Ann on 09/19/02@08:22 AM CST ..::Link::..
Wednesday, September 18, 2002
The Flowers Live
Our neighbors didn't rototill all the flowers after all! They moved them to the perimeters. I am very much relieved.
On a not so nice note, however, I've had a freaking headache for days now that doesn't seem to go away with the use of painkillers.
And riddle me this: I place an order for 4 things from Amazon Monday night, all of them say "Usually Ships Within 24 Hours." I requested they be sent by two-day shipping because I want them before we leave on vacation (travel music! 8-D) I glance at my order status yesterday. It says estimated date of arrival September 25. WTF? So, um, if you place an order on the 16th, let's say 17th because it was at night, and it ships within 24 hours, that means it ships on the 18th, which means I should have it on the 20th, not the 25th, right? Do the math. It also says "Shipping estimate: September 23". SSSSoooo....since when is the difference of almost a week 24 hours?
Posted by Ann on 09/18/02@04:19 PM CST ..::Link::..
Two DREAMs
1.) I was at a mall, like the original Foothills Fashion Mall from the 70s. I think I was by myself, however my parents had brought me there in a car that looked like Stan's dreadful '73 Ford Galaxy beater we used to have. I wanted to leave, so I went out to the parking lot, but they weren't in the car, so I decided I'd look around in the mall to see if I could find them and tell them I was ready to leave. I walked up and down the mall and looked in every store, but didn't see them. Then I went out to the parking lot again, where I saw them get in the car and take off. I started yelling at them to not leave, to wait, that I wanted a ride, but they didn't hear me and took off. It was raining and the mall was closing down and I had no way to get "home."
2.) I was staring out over a large body of water...I think it was Lake Monona, but I wasn't sure. It was foggy, and there were three helicopters in the sky that were descending on the lake. They hovered over the surface for a while, then dropped directly down into the water. It was supposed to be some sort of strange military symbolism...supposedly the helicopters were sent on a mission to recover people/dead bodies, but they found nothing, so they had to destroy themselves, at least symbolically. I think there was a second set of three helicopters as well, but it was so foggy it was hard to see.
Posted by Ann on 09/18/02@08:47 AM CST ..::Link::..
Monday, September 16, 2002
Am I missing something...
...because I don't understand the concept of people choosing famous people as avatars for forums/message boards/etc.? Why don't they choose their own picture? Because they're ugly? They could doctor it a bit, but choosing a picture of someone that they're not? I don't get it. It's obviously *not* (insert name of famous rockstar/actress/WWF personality/infamous serial killer/notorious Betty Ford Clinic resident/celebriteeee) at the message board, then what's the point of using their image? What is it about this culture that I just don't get?
Posted by Ann on 09/16/02@01:30 PM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM - Dorian Gray Halloween
A very strange dream...it was Halloween and I was with a bunch of people including Stan, but I was also at my parent's house. My mom had a picture of me, taken when I was about three, up on a stand. It was the same picture that IRL my grandmother had up on the piano. But the photograph seemed to change, from age three to age seven to seventh grade to seventeen, but it still looked basically the same. I also had streaks of orange and red in my hair as I do now, but I knew the picture was me when I was young. There was some guy talking to me who may have been someone I remembered from a former job; he was ethnically hispanic and obviously gay. I was trying to get his attention and show him that I had the same dyed hair (orange and red streaks) when I was a kid as I do now (which I didn't), but at the same time he was like a projection on a screen and not really physically present, so it was hard for me to get his attention. Then Stan went "home" (wherever that was) and I was left alone at my parent's house on Halloween. I thought this strange, and thought that I should call Stan so that we could do something, but didn't know how to get ahold of him.
Posted by Ann on 09/16/02@08:16 AM CST ..::Link::..
Sunday, September 15, 2002
DREAM?/Pink Floyd
I've been remembering my dreams as soon as I awaken, but after I've been conscious for about an hour I've been forgetting them.
Last night Stan and I watched a "Behind the Music" on Pink Floyd. It was rather enlightening for me, as I really didn't know that much about the band (embarrassing fact #1, music fan that I am), however VH1's production sadly neglected to look at anything but their more commercially successful albums, a big omission that we both noticed. Growing up a teenager in the 70s, you didn't need to buy "Dark Side of the Moon" because it was always on FM radio. Stan, however, who grew up Somewhere West of Hell where there were no AOR or college radio stations to be found, somehow managed to discover Pink Floyd when he was in college, and used to have quite a few of their albums, preferring early Floyd, esp. Syd Barrett era. The only album of theirs that I did get was (embarrassing fact #2) "The Wall", which was IMHO their least impressive offering--the concept was rather blatant and obvious. But Stan had their earlier works, and I remember one time when we were spending a night together, he put on "Animals." He had a red light in his bedroom which he claimed was restful on the eyes. We reclined on his airmattress/sleeping bag, probably under the influence of something, and listened to music all night. It was intense. Since the Big Move over 13 years ago which forced us to get rid of all our vinyl lps, the only Floyd that we now have in our collection is a cd of "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" that Stan found used quite a few years ago.
So last night, I think I dreamt about the music of Pink Floyd, I just can't remember anything linear or coherent enough, and I had a bad headache (still do). But I think it's telling me we should consider getting some of your old collection back on cd, what do you think, Stan? Maybe I can appreciate them now because I *didn't* own "Dark Side of the Moon" and play it to death as a teenager.