Sleeeeeeep........

After heading home for some much needed rest and relaxation.....(let's face it, sleep-deprivation must catch up with us SOMETIME..), I took the time to check in on facebook. My sister-in-law posted this link to a blog I think the class would enjoy. We talk a lot about dreams and the act of dreams. We also talk about language and how we have used it in a way that imposes order on its chaotic nature. After reading this blog, I could not stop laughing (I'd like to think this has nothing to do with the aforementioned sleep-deprivation). What had me, and my sister, in stitches was a blog written by the wife of a man who talks in his sleep. Every day she posts another gem from the mind of this madman. They are brilliantly amusing and something of a low-brow cousin of the language in Finnegan's Wake. I've posted the link here for you to enjoy.

The second link I'm posting is to an audio podcast of a sleepwalking comedian, Mike Birbiglia. On this website you can access a free download from The Moth original podcast. Mike tells the story of several events that occurred while he was actually sleeping. This is yet another low-brow version of the blurring of the lines between dream reality and physical reality, as well as the nature of dreams themselves. His story is absolutely HILARIOUS, and I would greatly recommend it to anyone who needs a good laugh. =)

And the Page is.....Drum Roll Please....

Just a quick note. I have decided that the page from Finnegan's Wake that I will be working with is page 457. I opened the book up to this passage one day, and, though I had intended on choosing another passage, this particular passage has its hooks in me and I have no choice but to follow it.

I will be memorizing from the line that starts "--Meesh, meesh, yes, pet. We were too happy." until it seems natural to break off.

Waking

Parting from consciousness is always difficult for me. I hate the thought of actually going to sleep, even when I am so sleep deprived that hallucinations seem imminent. But once I am asleep, there are the dreams. Like Rashid's connection to the Ocean of Stories, at times, my Ocean of Dreams dries up, or rather my memory of that ocean abandons me. But for weeks, I will dream incessantly. Premonitions, adventures, psychological mazes....The worlds are truly fantastic. I feel submerged. Rejoining "reality" then is just as hard. I do not spring out of bed like a jack-in-the-box. This is a difficult maneuver....Perhaps even a P2C2E, but I will attempt the impossible regardless.

As the last threads of my latest dream unwind, letting me slip through the web like water through a sieve, I become vividly aware of the incessant replaying of a song on my cell phone. "Bad Day". As a side note, it may seem weird for me to choose a song with such an ominous title to greet the day with, but believe me, I have reasons. I find that everyone grows to hate whatever it is that is waking them up, even on a subconscious level. The sound then triggers a reflex that is less than comforting, and brings to mind all those mornings where one awakens terrified because he thinks he's late already. Secondly, I have some kind of superstitious attachment to the song, thinking that it will almost ward off that which it is. After all, it is OPPOSITES that attract. Thirdly, I found waking up to James Brown screaming "I feel good" was simply altogether too disturbing. Anyway, I digress.

After hitting the snooze button on my cell phone innumerable times, I slowly open my eyes. My hands are wound around my sheets....a sunrise yellow with intricate designs that I sometimes trace, semi-consciously with one finger in an attempt to delay the day. Eventually, I take a look around, making a sort of unconscious, ritualistic inventory of the room. Painting of abstract bluebird on a golden expanse that was completed senior year of high school. Imaginary city in graphite--freshman year of college. The open closet from which neglected clothing spills out of like a tiny stream. Mirror with a smile. Mounds of artwork stacked semi-neatly in the corner. More drawings on the walls, fragments of faces illumined by a phantom light. They greet me. I am surrounded by stacks of books and cds, potential stories, and I wake to a gallery of artwork, most of which I will admit is my own. (Time and money are required to be an avid collector)

Finally, I am just awake enough to think about getting up. Just awake enough to think about the day. And, swinging my feet out of bed to touch the floor, I rejoin "reality". The key to my being conscious rather than comatose, I find, is the greeting of these familiars....something like turning tumblers in a lock. Finally they fall into place. The door opens. But then again.... Transcending worlds is never easy.

"Thank you and Have a Nice Day..."

Dr. Sexson asked us to blog about our own experiences with the 20 minute lifetime. I thought about a moment stretching out into eternity for a single person while simultaneously others experience that same time period as a matter of mere minutes or even seconds. I thought of this in relation to dreams. We often experience entire lifetimes in dreams that science dictates to last only a few minutes. The worst example of this occurence for me is when I, inexplicably, dream an entire workday, only to have to wake up and go to work anyway. I will literally, or so I think, have breakfast, drive my car to work, then check people out. I will have entire conversations with coworkers and friends. I will interact with rude customers, all of whom are fictitious and exist entirely in my subconscious. Suddenly, a single sound will invade this "reality". Things shift, become distorted. Finally, it dawns on me, this sickening realization: "That god-awful noise is my alarm.....and this is a dream". Even in my dreams I cannot escape the 20 minute lifetime, and in horrifying similarity to the movie Groundhog Day, in my waking reality, I repeat the same day, with the same people, again.

The Water Genie Speaks

After writing my "paragraph written in the style of the Water Genie from Haroun and The Sea of Stories," I realized that though it sounded, in parts, like the Genie, it also sounds a lot like me (no surprise there). I realized that the point of this exercise may be just that--to emphasize that the act of storytelling is a balancing, transforming act. We respond to the influence of stories, even as we frame them in our own words. The oral story telling tradition may still be very much alive. Perhaps it is simply hiding within the written word...

Anyway, here it is: =)

It was late at night....past the time when most...sane or rational, even-keeled, and conventional citizens have tucked themselves into the covers, ready for sleep. But we refuse to part with consciousness. This was the time when silence hits the streets, and all the places with no magic during the day become transformed by the encroaching darkness, these murky waters of the unknown. Sleds in hand, we took to the hill. Hidden in the heart of residential pleasantries, deep within the suburban stronghold, there stood a hill, really a mound of dirt, but something as yet untouched by the civilization around it. It was here, beneath a darkened sky, that we flung ourselves into that inky void. We flew, we whooshed, we zoomed, and none but the stars were witness to our madness. After hours of needless, heedless, adventuring, we returned to our hideouts, our homes away from home, our humble abodes, our castles, our fortresses, our kingdoms, somewhat reluctantly abandoned in exchange for a night's worth of...sublime...experience. Retreating to those safer places, we could not shake the taste of air that freezes on contact nor the feel of ice crystals hidden in collars and melting slowly...agonizingly. The feeling is addictive. You see, darkness has a magic too...

Resources for Haroun

While google searching some names, etc. from Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I found some interesting websites to references within the story. This first link I found to be extremely helpful as far as providing an accurate summary as well as providing a jumping-off point to begin identifying references to other works. For example, the two fishes that accompany Haroun on his adventure, Goopy and Bagha, refers to Satyajit Ray's film, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne.

Goopy and Bagha are two exiles, one for singing badly and the other for playing music badly, who meet each other in the forest. Their playing eventually attracts a number of ghosts who, delighted with their talents, grant them 3 wishes. Here is a clip from the film depicting the two characters.

The link above also mentioned that the "Walrus" refers to a Beatles song, "I am the Walrus". Readers will remember that the Walrus' full title is I.M.D Walrus Esq.

The lyrics go as follows:

I am he as you are he as you are me
and we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
see how they fly
I'm crying
Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you've been a naughty boy
you let your face grow long

I am the eggman
they are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Mr. city policeman sitting
pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I'm crying
I'm crying, I'm crying
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
you let your knickers down

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Sitting in an English garden
waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan
from standing in the English rain

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Expert, texpert choking smokers
don't you think the joker laughs at you
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide
I'm crying
Semolina pilchard
climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking
Edgar Allan Poe

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' goo
goo goo g' joob goo
juba juba juba
juba juba juba
juba juba juba juba
juba juba

Video of the Beatles playing this song can be found here. I also found a website where the lyrics are explained and in which John Lennon describes his inspirations for the piece.

Anyway, I just thought I would mention here these delightfully absurd (or disturbed) offshoots of the novel we are exploring.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

In an email I received a while ago, Dr. Sexson encouraged us to begin reading our first novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Well, I had some extra time between work shifts and decided to take the time to get started. Now, it is entirely unlike me to start doing the reading for a class before it has even begun! (Though I do admit to peeking ahead in the many novels by Nabokov that we read last semester....I simply couldn't resist) However, start reading I did. A day later, much to my own surprise and chagrin, I had found that I had finished the book altogether.

And I loved it!

The novel reads like a bedtime story, like a fairy tale, and somewhere along the lines of a Scheherazade tale. Yet I was pleased to find, there was an entire subtext to the novel. The imagery is at times very psychological or metaphorical. The lands created stand almost as entire allegories. And the overall themes on language itself have as much depth and color as the Sea of Stories itself.

I jotted down some notes (in my cell phone of all places) as soon as I had finished the novel. I hope we get to talk more on these subjects in class. First of all, there is the overwhelming importance of oral tradition and this....magic...inherent in storytelling. Often times, the real and unreal become fluid and changing in that the real perhaps is not as vivid or as enjoyable as the unreal. Yet the unreal rests on a foundation of reality....some form of reality.....or gains credence from it. In the end, one remains unsure as to what the "real" really is or if that reality truly exists. This fluidity is the nature of stories themselves, especially in the oral traditions, where stories often change based on the teller of the tale. When confronted with the constant changing nature of the story itself, we start to question what existence truly "is" in the face of multiple realities of greater scope. The story, then, has a transformative power over a limited existence. Therein lies a great deal of its magic! So then it is this incredible power of language that effects "actual" events, a power that transforms "reality". What then is language? What does it mean to communicate, to put forth something in written word? Language becomes, then, not merely a form of strict communication based on widely accepted definitions, but rather it becomes a natural force in and of itself, as real as fire or water or earth.

These are some initial thoughts. I'm sure there will me much more to talk about in the future. I can't wait to see what this class has to offer on this and all the works we will be reading this semester. See you on the blogs!