Saturday, November 2, 2002
Post-Halloween Ghost Story...Haunted Music
Recently I purchased Pink Floyd's double album "Ummagumma." I think Stan played the live disc for me 20 years ago...my early foreshadowing introduction that would be put aside for two decades. It's weird how these memories come back to you...I now remember being startled by the scream in the middle of "Be Careful with that Axe, Eugene," just as I was startled by the line "I will drug you and fuck you on the permafrost" from Magazine's song "Permafrost," another album Stan played for me back then as I wondered what he *really* had in store for me.
Over a week ago or so, we listened to the studio disc from "Ummagumma" as we were going to sleep--I like the sensation of music when I'm sleepy/sleeping/dozing. This album is unlike anything else...very strange. After the CD ended and our CD player was turned off, I swore I still heard music playing, especially as if the last track, a percussion-based piece, kept continuing. I told Stan about it the next day and he said since it was very strange music, it probably had some sort of lasting effect on my mind as I slept. I chalked it up to dreaming or hallucination. Last night, we played that CD again, and the same exact thing happened. This time, I was awake as was Stan, and he heard the same exact thing. It was like a rumbling, but it wasn't a car or a plane outside. I don't know what the heck it was, it was unlike any "outside" noise I've heard before. And it was as if it was coming from the CD player. I puzzled over how a CD player or CD or a piece of music could be haunted. Stan suggested that those things weren't themselves haunted, but that our house is, and playing that particular CD triggers the haunting entity in the house.
Posted by Ann on 11/02/02@09:00 AM CST ..::Link::..
DREAMing without Sleep
I dreamt my parents were being annoying. I can't remember specifics, but Stan and I were at their house and we had lost some sort of clothes in the wash, like dog clothes or something. I told them it wasn't important that we find it, but my dad was insistent to the point of annoyingness.
I dreamt that one of our animals (can't remember whether it was a dog or cat) was chewing on one of my Coleus plants, more like holding on to the base of the stem with its teeth and wouldn't let go.
Posted by Ann on 11/02/02@07:57 AM CST ..::Link::..
Friday, November 1, 2002
What, no Halloween?
Not this year. Life happens. First of all, when Stan signed up for vacation time back in January, one of the only slots he could get consumed Halloween. So we decided to visit his sister Adria and her family in the U.P. at that time. We decided we wouldn't even have a Halloween this year, and if we did, it would be spent on the road in a motel or something (gee, just like my 10th Halloween....bad memories from my childhood). Of course, we weren't exactly sure whether we'd actually get to take that vacation or not, as it was dependent on too many variables. So we had in the back of our mind the option that Stan was going to go as Ozzy, just in case we got to spend Halloween at home. We almost bought the blue round glasses. I still couldn't figure out what to be for myself; I don't look a bit like Sharon. As the time drew nearer, we were fairly certain that we would be able to travel, so Ozzy was becoming a "maybe next year" plan. So I cut Stan's hair...not short, it's still ponytailable--he still has dude hair, but short enough so that it's not Ozzyable anymore. However, a few days before we left, Stan's job sprung the surprise on him that October 31st was the day that he and other people would be able to sign up for vacation schedules for next year. Well, if Stan wouldn't be available at work that day, he'd be last on the list and get slim pickings--essentially, no blocks of time, just days here and there, which, when you can't afford airfare, leaves one just kicking around at home and unable to roadtrip (which is the only way we can afford to travel). So Stan worked on Halloween--the latest shift. By the time he got home around 7 o'clock, all four of our trick-or-treaters had come and gone (Four kids total...yes, you read right...Stan blames it on the 22 steps--like the 22 Major Arcana in a Tarot deck--one has to climb to get to our front door.). It was really too late to do anything as far as going out...we had no costumes and we were still exhausted from our abbreviated U.P. trip.
So we stayed home and watched Alice Cooper host VH1 Classic. Yeah, lame. I'm old. And tired. And I couldn't think of a costume anyway...my last year's was trite as it was. And Plato got sick at the kennel, so we spent all night waking up every two hours to take him out to poop.
No, not one of the better Halloweens costume-wise.
Posted by Ann on 11/01/02@09:39 AM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM - Descent
I can't remember where I was exactly, but I was in a strange building and needed to get to the bottom of some shaft or some steep, small room. In this room there was a very tall dresser, or more like several dressers stacked on one another to the top of the room, which had no ceiling. I was crawling on the top dresser, opening the drawers to use as steps as I tried to make my way down, but it was very precarious and I was afraid to descend to the bottom of the shaft.
Posted by Ann on 11/01/02@09:05 AM CST ..::Link::..
Thursday, October 31, 2002
If I were in Pink Floyd, I would be Glinda the Good Witch
Last night, tired after our whirlwind trip to the U.P., we decided to rent "The Wizard of Oz" and sync it to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." Yes, I know it's silly, but we wanted to try it just to see how it works. Let me first preface it by saying that I LOVE these sorts of weird syncronicity/unexplained weirdness/"turn me on deadman" sorts of things, so naturally, when I read about DSotM and TWoO syncing, I just had to see for myself.
We played the CD two and a half times to run out the movie.
I have concluded the following:
• I'm assuming a mind-altering substance of sorts was used by the first person to discover the synchronicity, hence, we drank wine, which I'm sure made the experience more enjoyable. (Hey, it was all we had, OK?)
• Yes, there are syncs as outlined in some of the links above, however, not *every* action in the movie has an equivalent sound or beat on the album, therefore to think that Pink Floyd did this intentionally is preposterous because if they *had*, the synchronicity would've worked a LOT better. Not every scene change was a song change and visa-versa. Sorry to rain on anyone's parade.
• That being said, we were amused/amazed by many of the syncs, i.e.:
- the predominance of green costume during "Money"
- the lyrics "black, black..." show the witch while "blue, blue..." shows Dorothy
- "who knows which is which and who is who" (witch is witch) shows Wicked Witch looking at her dead sister.
- "Brain Damage" is on when the scarecrow is singing "If I only had a brain" and they're on the yellow brick road during the lyric "got to keep the loonies on the path". If you play the album twice, the second time that lyric appears is when the Witch's Guard is marching on the "path" in front of her castle.
- I'm sure there were more funny syncy things (check the links above) but we were getting a little wined-out and I can't remember them *all."
• Think outside the box. What makes anyone think that Pink Floyd did this on purpose? That is such an oldschool linear timeline assumption. Maybe the creators of TWoO created a movie based on DSotM, hmmm? OK, maybe I'd drunk too much wine at that point. My wine consumption became particularly evident when I started seeing the members of PF as the main characters in TWoO. Don't even ask.
• There are lots of movies that I think a certain album or song would go with (personally, Stan and I would like to see "Brain Damage" synced with Twin Peaks where Windom Earle is in the Black Lodge...maybe DSotM could go with the entire last TP episode?). Perhaps there is a album for every movie ever made? This question was answered when:
• After TWoO was over, we let DSotM play out its third cycle and watched a movie that was halfway over playing on the cable channel the TV was turned to, the old silent film, "Nosferatu." And guess what? Yup, DSotM had syncs to that too! Therefore, I have concluded that DSotM syncs with EVERY MOVIE EVER MADE. Pink Floyd were geniuses! Man, how could they do THAT?
Simply amazing. ;-)
Posted by Ann on 10/31/02@12:09 PM CST ..::Link::..
I just remembered more DREAMage from last night
I was in a room with a bunch of people. It was like a family reunion, but as you know I have no family, so it must have been Stan's family or something. There was a guy who was photographing us, and I was hanging onto a doorjam and posing for the camera, but he didn't take a picture because we all weren't ready yet. He had us get into a room and be seated around tables and desks (like school) until everyone was ready, namely Stan. It appeared that Stan was talking to someone in another room, like an office, as if he had to take care of business or something that couldn't wait. So as we were all waiting on Stan to finish up, I looked around the room and saw a friend that I had in high school/college who IRL committed suicide about 17 years ago. I say his name and look at him, but he wouldn't respond to me. It was like he was avoiding/ignoring me. I felt very slighted, especially after all I had done for him (I was practically his only friend at the time he went boi-oi-oing and had given him emotional support), but then the Lou Reed song from Berlin, "Sad Song" popped into my head to console me:
"I'm going to stop wasting my time, somebody else would've broken both of her arms."
Posted by Ann on 10/31/02@11:02 AM CST ..::Link::..
I don't know.
You know what? I'm tired of people thinking I have the answers to things that do not relate to me, namely in terms of websites.
"Why did that site remove the page I wanna see? Why did that webdesigner remove his site?"
And naturally, if I answer honestly, "I don't know," that is not good enough for them. (Trust me, I've tried, and they've stayed on the phone forever just waiting for me to finally admit what I "really" know about the disappearance--which is why now my phone number is unlisted).
What makes them think I have answers in the first place? The sites in question do not belong to me. I did not design them. I'm not close intmate friends with the designers. I'm not the cousin of the designer. I don't even live in the same city.
And what is really insulting is when they go on about how much they loved said missing site, not paying any compliment to your own. And even if I had the anwser (which I don't), why would they necessarily be owed an explanation by me? If the author of the site wanted to let people know why they pulled it, it's their duty to inform the public themselves by leaving behind an explanation, not letting a third party spread rumors about it. And if they didn't leave behind an explanation, then no one is owed anything.
So here's my answer for all the queries into why so-and-so has vanished off the face of the earth or why the such-and-such site removed the links to the three-headed alien autopsy photo:
The government had to silence them.
OK, satisfied now?
It's not necessarily true (and most likely not), but it's sure better than "I don't know," isn't it? And although it brings up a bunch of new questions ("why did the government have to silence them?") at least it narrows it down better than the honest "I don't know."
But in actuality, the web is really only run by a dozen or so people, me being one of them. All those websites out there? They're all pseudonyms, all made-up characters and made-up businesses and organizations. We all know eachother's intimate moves. Sometimes when a site gets popular we decide to do away with it, like a popular soap opera character, just to watch the fan base go bonkers. It amuses us. We are easily amused, after all we don't have much to do with ourselves all day other than maintaining and updating about a million websites each. So ask away, I know exactly what is going on with *all* websites out there, but sometimes I just like playing with people by saying "I don't know."
Yeah. Right.
But a lie does give some nice closure, doesn't it?
Posted by Ann on 10/31/02@10:36 AM CST ..::Link::..
Backlog
I've been gone again, so here's a backlog of dreams:
DREAM 10/28/02
The dream started out with me travelling down a road with small, creepy houses in a row, like someplace that would be in Northeast Fort Collins. There was one house which was a basement-only house. My dream went inside the house where there was this even creepier man who was a child molester. He had a young boy, toddler-age, sitting on his lap and I wanted to save this child, so it was very strange what happened, but in the dream I became the toddler and Stan became the man and it turned from a disturbing dream into a nice and naughty dream with me attacking Stan instead. Back on the road, my dream went into this one neighborhood in Baraboo, which is a little town about 40 miles north of Madison. IRL, there's this old house on a hill, which looks like it used to be a boarding house but now it looks like it's just apartments. In the dream the house was all boarded up, but I could hear loud rock and roll (nothing I like) coming from it. There was writing on the windows, and it looked gutted inside. The writing had something to do with money, like the amount of money needed to invest in the new business that would occupy the house. Then before my eyes the house came alive and the business started to open up. First it looked like a cafeteria, with a cafeteria line, lots of aluminum. Then it slowly started to mutate into an espresso bar.
The odd thing about that dream, is that the house in Baraboo was similar to houses/buildings that I'd see on my trip up to the U.P. the very next day.
DREAM 10/29/02
I was trying to thread a needle with yarn or thread that wouldn't fit through it.
I was in the presence of someone I knew in grad school that I don't want to know anymore. In the dream she'd turned very rancorous.
DREAM 10/30/02
I forgot.
DREAM 10/31/02
Stan and I were going to adopt three teenage boys (oh please, deliver me from My Three Sons) so we had to figure out where to put them in the house. We were devising some sort of structure, like a treehouse, but it was in the basement. In the dream, our basement was huge and vast with high ceilings, most unlike our real basement, a dark, cramped, damp thing.
Posted by Ann on 10/31/02@09:23 AM CST ..::Link::..
Sunday, October 27, 2002
DREAMS - Snippets only
I was beginning to write a novel, each story being a separate chapter with beginning and end, sort of like the way children's books are, however it was NOT a children's book. I however, do not remember the plot, and stranger yet, it seemed very unrelated to myself, about a subject, people, etc. uninteresting to me.
I was looking at some sort of eye test that would test to see if I had astigmatism (DUH!). I remember seeing horizontal and vertical lines.
I was picking up some of my art from Kingsfoot that they still had.
I was at home and the doorbell rang, someone else other than myself or Stan answered it. I think it was my mom. Persephone got outside when she answered it.