mr. mxylplyx

The Closing of the Blogs

2007-05-25T07:55:54Z

]]> altered-realitiness of the things our own minds spit forth when we are sleeping, that is what I think made these blogs, for me at least, so fun to write. It was challenging, but it was also addicting! And I loved that we had our own little community, following each other's dream journals from one week to the next and responding/joking/seriously engaging with each others thoughts. I really did love this excercise, and I'm gonna miss it now that it's gone. I think I'm with the feeling a few other people have been expressing: just cuz it's over, it doesn't mean it has to be over. If this site is going to remain up for a while, I think I'm gonna post some new ones up here and there, at least if I keep having interesting dreams. I'll look for some of you out there too, and from time to time we can still comment on each other's stuff. I don't know, I got too addicted to this. I'm gonna need a few months of blogging methodone to rear myself off of it. Anyway, that's all I have to say, so this is mXyLpLyX signing off for now. See you guyz at the party in the park, where we gunna get cruuuuuuuuunk!!!! Yeeeeeeeahhhh!!!

Apocalypto

2007-05-19T16:18:47Z

(Note: For any confused fans, this excerpt was begun Saturday, after the Yankees slim 3-2 loss to the Mets on Friday night, not after yesterday's Yankees 6-1 trouncing of the Mets with a rookie pitcher. Go Yankees!) Second Note: I've been really slacking on putting up this entry, so now it's like a week later, and the Yanks have beat the Red Sox 2 outta 3 in the series, so I'm feeling much better. OK, 'nuff talkin'. Here's the entry). With the all of the strange things that have been happening lately in the world, specifically, the Yankees being in this terrible slump, the Mets actually in first place, and now them beating them at Shea yesterday, it's been looking more and more like sure signs of the apocalypse. I was at the game yesterday, and no doubt the terrible sign I saw there influenced my dream. But I think I was able to avert disaster, not once, but twice, by using some of the lucid dreaming techniques we studied. I still woke up a little unnerved, though it is hard to actually place my finger on what it was that made me so uneasy in this dream. But the point is I did wake up by using the techniques, and the dream didn't take me where it wanted to because something in my consciousness was able to influence it. ]]> know. She wants me to come with her. Come down with her somewhere, onto the platform, onto the spit. The right side of her face is almost charming in her smile, but I see the distension of her left side, and there is something that is screaming inside of me that there is something wrong, something terribly wrong, with her. She is EVIL! I get myself up and go away from her, not overly quickly, but decidedly, trying not to let on what I know, not to show my perturbation. In a second I get back under the canopy, and I'm on my way out. Under the stadium, I get the underground train and I am getting out of here, I am getting out of here. I close my eyes and I realize that they have been closed, that this is a reflection of the dream I had/was having/AM HAVING. I have been reliving what just happened, rethinking it, and I am seeing it now from a different frame of consciousness, outside of it, analyzing it. I was realizing that I had been dreaming, and I interfered with it! I changed its course! And, Oh my God!, if I'm doing that, I think "can't I become lucid?" I can start seeing things now! Possibilities! Space! It is all black here, but I can make colors! And I can see colors! Millions of colors! Couldn't I be God here? Couldn't I make everything? But that is not right. I only wanted to reinterpret the dream, to see how I was able to avoid from going into it from the feelings of....to....of..... Shit! All of a sudden, I wake up on the train, and realize it has all been a dream. I was just on the point of realizing something, but I lost it. It's so depressing. Every time I'm on the verge like that with my dreams, almost becoming lucid, I lose it. There was something about that woman's face, something in the look of it, and I realize that I didn't know what was around that corner of the stadium, didn't know that the dream was going to turn ugly, that there was going to be a sacrifice. I was going to walk right into it, a victim. But I started to feel like something was off, something, I don't know, and so I got caught in the sun, in the traffic, and I thought about it. And the people gave me signs. The little boy, then that shifty looking guy, and finally, the girl. I recognized what she was going to do. Or I didn't. But I recognized what she was. But damn I've lost it now. Lost the rest. And shit, Who is this Muslim woman on the train now bothering me. She keeps asking me something in Arabic, but I don't know what she is saying. I think she wants to know where the next stop is, but why can't she leave me alone to my thoughts? I was almost lucid. The train stops and she points and gets off and one of those conductor fellows in a cap and uniform gets on and tells me that it is the last stop and we have to change trains. I get off of the subway car and onto the Long Island Railroad platform, which is painted all in a bright but dark London telephone-booth kind of red. It is incredibly narrow and close to the wall, with barely enough space for my body and two feet between me and the tracks. The train leaves down the dark tunnel way, and the next one pulls up and I see that there are two tunnels down the way, the same color of deep red as this platform, and they feel like the entrance to the mine-cart ride in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or the beginning of the long tunnel down the mine shaft in Space Mountain or something, except they are going straight, which did not strike me as strange, even though the train platform I am on had a view to the rainy forested outside of Long Island and this tunnel was way down deep underground. I get on board and we get going and I notice that on this train, there are no walls, only poles to hold onto, like on the subway, but you can see everything around you--the red hue of the caverns, the dinginess, and the darkness--everything. This doesn't phase any of the other passengers, they just keep hanging on with their heads down, or looking around blankly just as if they were in the subway. I am by no means astonished, but I look around at the walls and the goings on of the mine curiously. The platform train does not follow a straight route, but makes many right angles and full u-turns as we pass through the mine, though not at an inordinate speed (very smoothly in fact, so I don't even really notice), and I look around at everything. There are people down here slaving, pushing mine-carts, though they are empty, and it all seems like this is normal enough for them down here, because they don't even take notice of the train that is passing right through their work space. There are pipes and dingy metallic things sticking out of the low ceiling, which is just above my head, and some of the rock walls, and here and there I see piles of filthy rags and dirty, scum-filled washbasins full of them. As the cart goes from weird, dirty subterranean place to filthy place, it slows down or stops quickly, as these places are I guess supposed to be stops. I start noticing that my vision is first person, like through one of those fish-eye lenses that they use to round the corners of the picture in videophotography, and I start noticing more workers going back and forth, particularly one or two women walking here and there with filthy rags to put in or take out of the filthy basins. The cart pulls right up to the one nearest, with her hair tied up in a do-rag, and she turns around. "Hiii," she says, You made it down here." Something immediately feels off to me about her, and I get this nervous feeling, like I have seen her before. Though she is strangely familiar, she looks younger than this other girl I vaguely remember, and her jaw isn't as.... distended, yes. But she still looks strange, and there is something about her familiarity with me. I say to her quickly, "Who are you. Tell me where do I know you from." She smiles and says, "You wouldn't remember. I knew you before you were born. I'm from your real family, that died when you were just a baby. You've been raised by other people that kept you from me." But immediately when she says that, something clicks in me, and I say "Nope, that's wrong!" cuz I recognize her as the evil witch that tried to get me at the Mets game, and now she's down here, trying it again. Ha, Ha! I recognize you!!!! And in the next instant, I'm awake for real, dazed, slightly disturbed (though it is still hard to say why she disturbed me so), and all I know is, part of my conscious mind came into my dream tonight to stop me from having some sort of twisted nightmare, where that witch was going to do something to me. I asked her the question, that's what saved me. I remembered her from the dream, and I became partly lucid. For one of the rare occasions in my life, I was able to avoid going into a world that would have been a topsy-turvy hell, because I recognized the warning signs that were there, that always preceed it. Then, when the dream switched up on me and tried to trick me into it again, I was able to remember, and dodge the bullet again. I think I'm getting better at this stuff after all. Damn the Mets and their witches! The Yankees are comin' back!

Sleeping Universe

2007-05-14T16:58:12Z

I was having some other dreams before this one, I know, about some beautiful young girl that used to work in the mall that would help me try on my clothes. She was the most gorgeous thing I ever saw at the time I think, and I dream that she was with me in bed, on an island. After making love to her repeatedly, I fall asleep spooning her in the most comfortable position ever. I am so comfortable, that a warm feeling overtakes my whole body and I am back in my own bed, but feel as if I am surrounded by an atmosphere of warm water. I am so completely relaxed, so warm and comfortable, that I feel like a baby in the crib again, and begin to stretch and writhe my limbs just as a small baby does when it's on its back. The atmosphere all around me has a reddish hue, to match the warm feeling that has overtaken my entire body, and I feel like I am newly born. From some other space in my consciousness, superimposed on to the dream, a higher consciousness in me than the one in the water sees Professor Tougaw and another English professor of mine from York College up in the heavens somewhere observing the scene and telling each other that he never remembers to write these things down. Tougaw says to other one "Yeah, we'll see if he remembers this time." There is a disturbance in the water, and as my floating mind registers the disturbance from this bliss, a brief interlude plays out within it. It dreams that I am back at my old barbacking job at the Slaughtered Lamb Pub, and that I am standing behind the bar, but off duty, as somehow I know that I do not work there anymore. The keg goes out for one of the richer beers, and the barback there is too incompetent to find which one it is and fix it. He is radioing Will the bartender up from the basement that he has changed the other kegs, but cannot find this one, which I know is the Stella Artois, because of its rich golden hue and light frothiness. I sigh and head out the door of the bar, across the street. and go for some reason through Down the Hatch, the bar next door, to get to the basement of our bar to change the keg. As I enter round the tables in the basement and pass the drinking customers on the way to the pantry door, I realize that I should have just gone down the stairs from our own bar to get here. As I open the door and begin to walk down the corridor that leads to the keg room, I realize that whenever I am trying to figure my way out of something when I am dreaming I dream that I am here in the Slaughtered Lamb Pub, and trying to make my way through the maze of customers to the kegroom. Before I reach the kegroom then, the dream breaks up and I am back in my own bed. The red lights around me turn off, the watery, comfortably infantlike feeling and atmosphere are gone, and I realize that that dream was a response to the disturbance that made me find my way back to normal consciousness. I realize now that Professor Tougaw is waiting by the foot of the stairs for a dream report, and that my father is in the laundry room attached to the living room area that is next to my bed. I begin to grunt and prop myself up in bed, still groggy from waking up. My father comes over and brings me my pants I was wearing from the night before, still with my belt attached to them and all my things in the pockets, so that I will not get out of bed in my boxers and t-shirt. I put them on, and walk over to the couch and sit down to put on my socks as Mr. Tougaw comes down the stairs. For a minute, because it is dark and because of the gait of his walk, I think he is my uncle Tito, who was always the first person I would see in the morning back when I was a teenager and he used to live with us, coming to tell me to wake up and get ready for school because I was running late. I see however, when he gets down the steps, even though it is still dark and there are shadows across his face, that it is Mr. Tougaw. But I am running late, and have to be at Mr. Tougaw's class soon, and no doubt that is why he has come, to make sure I am going to bring him the blogs that I owe him. He sits down on the couch across from me, and I begin to tell him as I am putting on my socks that I just had an interesting dream in which I felt as if I was floating in amniotic fluid, and I have just now woken up from it. He responds in a deeper than normal, somewhat robotic sounding voice that I must be sure to write down the dream this time, because he knows that I have lost several good dreams to not writing them down, and that class is in 20 minutes and they are coming due now. I say that I will, I assure him, and that I will be to class on-time, and that he didn't have to come down here. As I am speaking, the dream begins to break up, and I find myself in my bed, for real this time, and shake off the weird, not-really-fully-in-this-world-yet feeling and plop myself down in front of my computer to write this down.

Thoughts on Upcoming Conference

2007-05-13T03:06:52Z

The Role of Jungian Archetype As a basis of his theory, Carl Jung lays out dreams as the very fabric of the analytical process in human psychology, and grounds his expositions of dreams in the research and analysis of hundreds of individual dream accounts. Jung posited that because of the fact that the deep roots of our psychic makeup lie hidden within the recesses of our consciousness, in what both he and Freud dubbed the “unconscious,” only through an examination of the effects of this unconscious, exhibited commonly in such states as dreaming and religious transcendental expressions, could we come to a fuller understanding of the nature of our inner and fuller selves. Both Sigmund Freud and Jung have maintained that unconscious contents of the human psyche continually project themselves out onto the real world. Freud tended to see all of the myriad forms of human art and religion, as well as dreaming, as sublimated forms of infantile sexual projections, but Jung saw that art, religion, and dreaming were in actuality archetypical representations of how the human soul, or psyche, experienced the world. Jung's explanation of symbolism in dreams--that symbols in dreams have an intrinsic value, and not, as Freud believes, one that derives from a uniformity of meaning--is important. Jung showed that because of the fact that dreams convey meaning to us in the figurative language of an older phylogenetic mode of thought, they express and interpret the world in a symbolic way. Thus, the things important for the maintenance of our conscious health, the mind in sleep can be seen as dealing with rather than concealing, by symbolically representing scenarios pertinent to our real life in dreams. Overlooked, underappreciated, and even disturbing stimuli, and also the consequent subconscious thoughts they engender, get processed in this manner, and so this final standpoint of interpretation of dreams needs necessarily to be adopted in conjunction with the causal (the method of interpretation that Freud so heavily, and egregiously, overrelies on to make the case for his theory of universal infantile wish-fulfillment as the overarching purpose of dreams: that repressed wishes cause dreams). Jung’s conception of archetypical significance is rooted in the hard-wiring of the human brain itself. It is an understanding of the way in which the universally shared perceptual and developmental experience of creatures manifests itself in the nature of their understanding of the forces in the world around them. Though there are specific cultural contexts at play when considering individual psyches,underlying those is the nature of how a being is hard-wired to perceive—the capabilities inherent in one's biological makeup which delimit our range of choices. All creatures formulate archetypes based on a combination of their hardwiring, perceptive abilities, and the universal forces and figures present in their world. The archetypes are what exist in what Jung calls the collective unconscious of the species, embodying the experience of these universal forces. These archetypes are interpolations of those forces. The Jungian archetypes have profound importance with regard to how we interpret the world. As we all know, the human being is a rational creature, capable of self-awareness, but that awareness is built over time, in developmental stages which progress from infancy through adolescence and later adulthood. The passing of each of these stages is necessarily the crossing of a threshold into a new existence, a cycle of death and rebirth which, as the consciousness of the individual grows, calls for ever more intricate forms of ritualistic initiation to transition that individual between the new stages of awareness. Culture and religion provide these ritual transition vehicles. However, as numerous literary theorists, including mythologist Joseph Campbell, have shown, it is the “collective unconscious that is largely responsible for the existence in this world of art [and by implication culture], for its relationship to art is that art is the spontaneous emergence from the depths of one’s soul of the universal archetypes” (Campbell, The Power of Myth). The mysteries of life and death, our relationship to the plant and animal world, the elemental world, and our own developmental transformations are the first things to find expression in human art, because these were the first things that came out of the nature of human beings, before the introduction of a deliberate aesthetic or a supernatural conceit that was separate from nature and the body. The first art that thus came into mythological existence for human beings was one that was an almost pure expression of the joy, fear, and wonder of the natural forces of the human environment. As we see, dreams are a similar expression, for dreams according to Jung are the subconscious representations of these same things.

Reflection on the Web Project

2007-05-13T02:34:05Z

Whew! Finally after all of the revisions, rethinking, retooling, etc., we have these things up and out there. I was worried about it at first, especially during the extensive revision process, but the feedback I got from my group and the several helpful e-mails I got from Professor Tougaw concerning changes and upgrades really benefited the site I think, and now I just feel relieved to have it finished and polished. I've been looking at all of the sites, and I think everybody really did a marvelous job. The pictures look great, and the content from one site to the next is so rich and varied, but the connections between the projects also really stand out as well, especially where they are linked thematically in the category pages. There's a lot of cool stuff here. I think it's too bad more people aren't getting to present their stuff at the Honors Conference, but I'm glad at least we were able to make this thing happen on the web, because it is a really nice showcase for all of our work. Now one last hurdle, and then.....celebration time!

Thought I Woke Up

2007-05-13T01:25:21Z

I fell asleep on the recliner in the living room watching a movie (the movie is Harry Potter--I was watching it for my myth and archetype class, not because I love Harry Potter. It was alright for a kid's movie though). Anyway, my cousin walks in the room, like he always does, and seeing me laying there says "I oughta kick yer ass!," or some shit like that, because that's what he always says when he comes in from workin' and sees me chillin' comfortable. I'm asleep, but I think I hear him, and because of this, I think that I wake up, though I don't. The recliner starts spinning around slowly, like it does when I swivel myself in it, except all the way around and around, and I am not propelling it. My eyes are still closed, but I think that I am awake, and just ignoring my cousin' because he's a pain in the ass. I hear the music going from Harry Potter and everything. And I hear Mike grumbling more and more about how he knows that I am not really asleep, and he should kick my ass and whatever bullshit, and I just smile, keeping my eyes closed, and the chair spins around more and more. After a while, I percieve that he has given up, and is gone, and I am just spinning around slowly in the chair with my eyes closed. And then I realize that I can see the movie, even though my eyes are still in fact closed, and I feel a weird presence in the room, as if, I don't know, as if the room were echoing with some subconcious entity. I fell asleep at the point when Harry and friends were descending into the dungeon past the three headed-dog and searching for the key to the inner room, and that is what I am watching, and I feel weird that the room around me feels so alive, and that I am watching with my eyes closed, and slowly spinning without volition, and still able to see the screen. I realize then that I am not in fact awake, as I thought I was from the moment my cousin walked in the room, and then I awake for real, and notice that the movie is on pause and that I am alone in the room, and I can hear my cousin upstairs.

War Paint

2007-05-09T16:32:10Z

This whole dream is centered around my face from my collar up. I am a white dude, balding, in a shirt, suit, and business tie. A group of hands, of black clad ninja warriors grab me by the collar, strip off the tie, and smear my face with black war paint. I smile sinisterly.

Craziness Pt. !

2007-04-24T05:42:09Z

I keep having dejavu. I keep having deja vu. I keep having deja vu.......... Why am I in this conference room again? This building, this room, it is familiar. Of course I know the man sitting next to me, and many of the others lining the conference table. Christ i live here! A full life. My life. This table is my job or something. This guy is my colleague, my boss? An abassador? A bureaucrat? Is he my friend? My rival? Do I loath him? (I have known all of these people in this room. It's familiarity stifles me). I am rubbing shoulders with this asshole again. His familiarity with me is the most natural thing in the world. (this whole place is the most familiar place. I'm always here. It is suffocating me). He smiles and chortles funnily at me, this piece of shit, who might be my best friend (I am starting to feel like Ah-nohld's character in Total Recall. Where the fuck am I again?) He sees that something is disturbing me. But no, no, no. It's perfectly alright. Let's go on with the meeting. Nothing is funny. This is what we came here to do. What we always come here to do. Business as usual. (I have never been here before. Why do i know that I have lived my whole life here? I am starting to feel like I've been somewhere else? Is this my universe?).......... . . . . ................Something is off, but I know I'm supposed to be here. I live here. This is me. I don't know where I've been, but something has messed with my mind. Is this my world, or the Total Recall World? I am starting to feel weighed down by it, as the endless chattering keeps pushing on, and in between motioning, and bickering, quibbling, eating, deciding, and chuckling, I am feeling another dimension grafting itself on to me. Am I from here or there? Am I here or there right now? My colleague takes continual note of my fluctuations of depression, exasperation, alienation, worry, and complete and utter normalcy and fluid functioning. Why does he keep smiling that way everytime he notices my exasperation, as if I'm crazy? Well, why shouldn't he be? He's Harry, or Bill, or, or...I don't know. I know him and everybody else like I've known them all for years, but I keep feeling like there's this alien presence in him, in everything, and I cannot trust anything around me. I loath him, and I loath them all. They think that I am their colleague, one of their leaders and facillitators in fact, and i am, yet I know that I am not. No that's not true, I am. I am while i am here, and i have another job, elsewhere. I don't know how i get out of this room, but I am there, in that elsewhere, in another dimension, and ugh, how my friends repulse me at this moment...... . .. . . .......Everybody is talking, but what are we here to discuss? There is a really strange animalistic feeling to this place, as if it were a den that I was in, of some beast, in a cave, with fur-lined walls, and cave drawings, in the shadows surrounding the meeting table in what looks like a pentagon staffroom. Are we underground, like under a Coca-cola shop in the desert, like in Spy's Like Us? Or are we in a cave? Or in the Pentagon at a meeting to prevent thermonuclear disaster? Terrorists? 9-11? A Deep Impact Extinction Level Event? Are we scientists discussing time travel? Alternate Universes? Utopia? Star Trek? Are we plotting the next global genocide? Cleansing the race? New World Order? Or are we a bunch of useless asshole bureaucrats, arguing about nothing, red tape. traffic ticket revenues, when to order pizza? I don't know. (Maybe we are the UN, about to be threatened by Dr. Evil for a ransom of One- MIIILLION Dollars!!)................ . . . . . . What the fuck am I doing here again? Why at the same time am I not at all incredulous? Completely comfortable. Like this is where I am everyday. Where else would I be? Why is this idiot, who could very well be the one i get along with and like the most, the one who backs up all of my evil, mundane, non-important, non-sensical bureaucratic decisions, and chuckles with me at the insanity of it all, at the boredom of it, at the ease and fun, at the silliness of the others, and ourselves, and the pleasure it is to have such a wonderful job, that really is like the ninth level of somebody's hell. And why am I always here? I think i hate this guy, my best friend, in his cheap, nice, blue-gray twill suit jacket, the shoulder of which keeps rubbing up against me as he reaches over to stuff his mouth with bagels and cream cheese. Well of course he's eating! There's nothing wrong or odd about that. This life at the bureaucratic table, we do nothing! We pass important laws, figure out ways to save the planet, destroy it, cheat the people, usher in a new age of scientific harmony, or the planet's complete and total annihilation. Whatever. We eat bagles, and order pizza, and fight about traffic ticket revenues, and laugh! It's very boring, and very chaotic, and insane, and all perfectly normal, and what else would we all be doing? I belong here of course, as he does, my friend, and they do, and we all do. Where else would we be? Life revolves around this room, you know, and any life outside of it is poppycock! We have a grand old time in here anyway, you know, though devoid of our souls, and making the world devoid of its soul too. This hell is home, and great in its way, though awful. Besides, we do great things here, and sometimes i feel like there could not be anything more rewarding if we were looking for the cure for children's cancer. After all, we are involved, indirectly, with finding out all of the secrets to life and the universe! But that's really only part of it, and not at all the greatest part. I see it's time to discuss traffic tickets, and that's way more important! How can we get the meter maids to milk the public for every red cent? After all, we've got to put the money in a big black hole, that goes to ending hunger, saving the species, testing weapons, killing the species, and ordering burecratic lunches! This is what it is all about my friend, and as long as we are in this room, we keep the wheels turning. But of course, what else would we be doing? There is nothing else you know, and I've never even thought about anything else before. (Why did I say that? Have I been thinking about something else? Am I here? Why does all of this room feel as if it is someone else's life, that i know as my own? Why do I now suddenly feel that I have seen my life from outside, that I am in it now, but like a stranger in it from elsewhere. Why does this guy next to me seem so familiar, and so out of place? My God waitaminute! I don't come from here at all! I come from another dimension, another planet! My name isn't, whatever my name is. It's Ahhh---, MxYLpLyX, something! And you, you looking at me out of the side of your face, wondering why I'm looking at you so strangely, you blathering burecrat! You're not my best friend! You bastard! You're not my colleague! And after i was so chummy with you! This isn't even my world! Holy shit! Is it? Ohh, something is terribly, terribly off here. I...I don't know what I'm doing here! Again! Damn it. Stop grinning at me you bastard!)........................................................................... . . . .

Sensational Dreams

2007-04-24T05:04:41Z

I had a dream last week that I was in a place very familiar, but something was obviously off. I should have written it down then, because I'm having trouble recalling specific details, but the important thing is that I had a strange feeling in the dream, like even though the world around me was familiar, there was something very much wrong with it, as if it just could not be. Now here's the crazy part. I started to grab someone, by the collar, and draw her to me, and squeeze her tight, to see if I was going out of my mind. And I could feel the shirt I was grabbing! I could feel sensations, like someone was really there! I thought that if I was dreaming and tried something like that, that I wouldn't be able to feel and that would be a sign that I was dreaming, but I could feel, and everything felt so real, even though in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong with the world and what was going on in it. How can this be? Can we feel things when we are dreaming? Was I maybe grabbing my own collar, my own body in my sleep? I don't know? I didn't wake up that way, but I'm not sure, because I didn't wake up right away (though I did soon afterward, because the nagging feeling that something was off wouldn't go away, and I kept wrestling with it until I became conscious and the dream fell away). Has anyone else ever had the distinct impression that you were able to feel physical sensation like that before, grasping with your hands, the texture of fabric, the weight of another body or object in your arms? It was very real, and disturbing because it made me so convinced that I was not dreaming, at least for a little while. I can't explain it.

Web Project

2007-04-15T02:23:44Z

The Relationship of Myth and Poetry to Dreaming and the Unconscious This is my early version of the web-project. Much subqequent revision and reformatting needs to be done from this point, but I think I have a solid frame to work with here. Check it out: ]]> Download file Also, for more suggested reading, check out: Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1973. Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New Jersey: Anchor Books, 1991. Freud, Sigmund. Civilization and Its Discontents. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1989. Hartmann, Ernest. Dreams and Nightmares: The Origin and Meaning of Dreams. New York: Perseus Publishing, 2001. Jung, Carl G. Dreams. Trans. R.F.C. Hull. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1974. Ratey, John J. A User’s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain. New York: Random House, 2002. Shklovsky, Viktor. Theory of Prose. Benjamin Sher, trans. Illinois: Dalkey Archive Press, 1990. Discoveries: Fifty Stories of the Quest. Schecter, Harold and Jonna G. Semeiks, eds. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. All images used are the original work of Fred Tomaselli. The following is a list of their titles in order of appearance: FRED TOMASELLI HIM, 2006. Photocollage, Acrylic, Gouache and Resin on wood panel, 12 X 12 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Halo of Flies, 2006. Mixed media, acrylic and resin on wood panel, 18 X 18 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Glassy, 2006. Mixed media, acrylic and resin on wood panel, 12 X 12 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Untitled, 2000, Photocollage, acrylic, leaves, pills, insects, resin on wood panel, 84 x 120 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Toytopia, 2003, mixed media, acrylic paint, resin on wood, 30 1/8 x 24 x 2 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Breathing Head, 2002, Leaves, photocollage, acrylic, gouache, resin on wood panel 60 X 60 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Head Spreader, 2003, photocollage, gouache, acrylic, resin on wood panel, 24 X 24 inches. FRED TOMASELLI, Airborne Event, 2003, mixed media, acrylic paint, resin on wood, 84 x 60 x 1 1/2 inches.

Acid Rain

2007-03-24T17:56:36Z

Staring down at the purple-gray, silver and black and off-white bespeckled fake marble floor of his Rockaway Island, glorified project, shit-hole co-op, Roy’s body slowly began to descend under the tiles. As the speckles, burning and becoming brighter, and appearing like the soft pale glow that surrounds a lightning bug’s bulb in a mist, spread themselves out in all the directions of Roy’s mind and became tangible, physical objects which he could touch and taste, and his feet began sinking deeper into the floor and the glowing, almost crystalline specks began to permeate his being, so that they glowed not only below and around him, but also inside and through him, 3 dimensions were raising up off of the floor to show space all around him and he stared ever more intently at this magical, never before explored underfloor dimension. In an instant of time, like falling into a black hole – happening instantaneously and yet frozen in eternity – he was immersed. The floor world now changed quickly to liquid space, and began to flow at him quicker and quicker, like his mind was a diamond being shot through the center of the unnatural space in a rush of streaking lights. And as he traveled deeper and deeper through the crystal aurora, his mind went further and farther way from him, until all the crystalline space took on a twinkling purple, blue and green nebulous hue in the distance, light-years away. And at the end of it all, in silence and formless void, he came to a huge gnarled wooden door with two letters which he could no longer recognize etched – or it seemed, rather, burnt – right into it. The door had nothing on either side of it; it merely stood there, on nothing, alone in the senseless void. Not understanding why he had come there, to this black and solitary place, a low muffled pounding began coming from the inside of the door. As Ray moved nearer to it, the speckles living inside his face and head began swirling around and moving faster, like leaves in wind, and glowing brighter by degrees, as one sees in time lapsed photography of a rising sun over a meadow. Now, as the pounding grew in intensity, the door began slightly moving, quaking as if being battered out from the inside –- but there was no inside. Fearing the increasingly violent thrashing and shuddering coming from the enormous wooden portal, Ray stepped his way around to the other side of it, and as he did, the latch and the master lock were broken open – in his direction – and out came pouring, in a savage rout, all manner of things from the recesses of his mind. Dreams, fantasies, nightmares, and realities – all manner of twisted perceptions flooded out at once and made a mad dash –- right for Ray’s face!! In an instant they were upon him, and pulling back very quickly now, so quickly that his perception was again revolved to the outside of his head, Ray, standing in the pallor of the co-op lobby lights, heard the low rumble of the tramping, rushing footsteps of a distant army approaching the walls of his eyes. Now standing there, slack-jawed and immobile, a single tear pushed forth from his right eye, as the figments of Ray’s raging, exploding mind rushed forth and pressed themselves against the glazed milk of his inner eye, so forcefully that when the flood first hit him and carried him off, creatures could be seen through the clear black spheres in his pupils, clawing over each other to escape. The world spun itself around now for Ray, and though his feet were still immersed in the floor’s crystalline nebula, floating, the room was upside down, and the creamy white tiles of the lobby’s walls and pillars were now flowing and alive, as if they were milk running out of a carton in the wrong direction. A shiver ran through his body, and a stream of white smoke, like cold, crystalline frost, emitted itself from his gaping mouth. And suddenly Ray found himself in a room with chairs and desks, and staring at gray-metallic, partially smashed in, dingy, bespeckled, half-rusted metal can. A can like any other you might find in a N.Y.C. public high school or elementary school, except this one had an old, extremely wrinkled and thin black bag tightly wrapped around the inside of it that looked like it was previously used on something else. Not wondering why or how he had come to be in his new surroundings, Ray simply continued to stare at the dingy metal can. He knelt down to the floor and peered his head over the top. Something was in the can. Something he had to find out. He did not know why, but he had to sift through it. At the bottom of the can, beneath the neat pieces of discarded paper which mask the true grime contained inside are soiled paper towels, damp with the bleedings of Ray's mind. What he sees there astounds him, shocks him into paralysis, and can only be described as........ as…....as............ysbgefewgyf.....ygbcauygbrygU.........OHNBUKBD .....FFTYFYTTGHHFGHGGEM............GGAWWWW.................... RAY!!!!!!!!!!! There is a man standing in the front of the room, looking up at the ceiling, with a faraway look, eyes wide staring forward, fixed. Mouth only slightly agape, as if the muscles in his jaws just simply forgot how to hold themselves. Eyebrows arched up so that there is no furrow in the brow. Then, eyebrows smushed slightly together in a quirky sort of way so that the top of the brow wrinkles up, bottom lip protruding........That man is you! w-W-WW-wwWWhHeeeRrEeEE??@?%!!....w-W-wH-HuWa-**.. WwHHaYyrRzZsSrwAAeeYYee....................HGF..HHFGVVHV......K-KKhH-GHHHFFTTT....... rrRRrwwwWraYYYY......RRRrrrWaawwaaaayyyyyyeeee........W-w-WWww-WWWWWWWWWWW..........WWwwwWRRRRAAAAyyYYZZzzz..............HhgggHhFfpHH....hHhhhAAaaVvvinGGg...hhHHHaaHH..PhhfFfvvVInnGGguHH.mmmmmmmb....SssTTTtttROooWKE!!!!!.................OooOOHHhhWWWW!!#!&*.....))OOoOOhhHHHhnnnNNoOOOwWW!@$$!$%!. .............................................................................................................R-r-R-R-rrrrrRuH...^&rffr5gfr67rg67R^&T^&%^%^*T*HT^HT(*yhj70.....HhHHHAAAAAA!!!!!....*&Y*^&**((())^& y079hy7098y78y78yn78y*&)Y&*Y&(YK)()O*J&#Q@W342412@!$$% $$^&65444=2xk2939x32=1RAyZs<>7htwv347......DD:dbv93b,,.......islkjZZss comMMpleEEty’[0)987y5g5rr+ppHHHHfuKkTTTd0900wxvf)90t38738(?..uppPPppPp! #$@%*^&!!!!!!@

Final Exam

2007-03-24T16:59:27Z

Actually, I think, for me at least, the exam went rather smoothly, which was surprising considering I was able to follow just about none of the advice everybody was giving in class about pre-exam prep. I had, like, a buttload of things due on the same day as the exam, and so was forced to stay up literally all night the night before getting them done (I think I got about 1 hour of sleep right before I came in, because I just couldn't take it anymore). I hadn't eaten any breakfast, I was dehydrated, exhausted, and my head was still filled with all of the things I was writing for the 20 page paper I was working on, which had nothing to do with this exam. But I think all of that sleeping and having a clear head n' stuff is for candy-asses anyway! Who needs it! A true Spartan warrior takes his English exams at the brink of exhaustion just to prove he can! Ha! Naww, I'm just kidden, I would have given my left, umm, arm (yeah, just my arm) to have gotten a good night's sleep the night before. But I still think I pulled it off OK. I got that 11th hour adrenaline going that always snaps me into focus (At times like this, I'm like the Terminator, of English, and those lines from T3 keep repeating in my head, "What is your mission!" "To do well on the English exam!" [that's my version, alright!] n' John Connor shouts ta me, "Well you are about to fail that mission!" And when he says that, then I get the strength of ten men, batter down my fatigue, n' come up swinging, drawin' upon my reserve intellectual strength to dominate that test! Dramatic, isn't it?). So I think I did Ok after all. It helped that I recognized about 8 out of the 9 passages that I selected also. I totally bullshitted my way through the second part of the exam, but I think I was able to do it eloquently and interestingly at least , so I'm hoping I got some cool points for that. Did anybody have anything really unobvious to say that was intersting about those poems? I thought about my choices for a while (even slept on it for about 2 minutes to gather my thoughts--that really does help!), and I think came up with something original and intriguing to say about the 1st and 3rd poems, but I may have also erred on the side of not being structurally (even factually?) based enough. But watever, I got through it, I knocked it out, and I think I deserve the English purple heart for the way I took that exam (and then went to work right after, while all you bastards were partying! lol). I think we all deserve props, in fact, for knocking this big bastard of a test down, and doin' what we had to do. N' now it's all smooth sailin' from here on out boyz and gals, so I say, it's time ta crack some Heinekens and celebrate some more! Who's down for partyin' after the MoMa on Wednesday!

Crossroads

2007-03-15T05:00:54Z

I'm at that big Chinese restaurant again, on Queens Blvd., across the street from the big movie theater. It doesn't really exist, this place, and that theater, that also don't exist, but I suspect somewhere in the back of my mind it is the same one that I've been to many times before, in those weird memories that don't quite add up right. I'm at work again. This is the big place that Bill moved to with the new Outback staff, where that asshole Doug had branched out to. It's a big Chinese theatre-style restaurant, with live shows on stage next to the big upscale-looking bar, and tons of big party style seating and smaller private tables up front, just like that place in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I've been working here for a while now, ever since I left Outback, under some duress. I'm putting things back together here, n' a lot of the old staff is here, both from the Outback and The Ol' Slaughtered Lamb Pub, and Jekyll & Hyde too. But they're all mixed in with a bunch of new faces that I've never seen before. It's funny, their upstairs here looks like a bigger, fancier version of the upstairs bar at Jekyll & Hyde, in fact a cross between the downtown restaurant and the uptown club. N' Garfield is here, and Pete, and even Hobbes, still workin' the bar (weren't you a manager once buddy?). Will even comes in every now and then, even though he doesn't work here, just like he used to do at The Lamb, after he quit and started working in TV. He just drops by to say what's up to the old gang, and drop some knowledge on ol' Fubu, who is still trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life. He ain't doin' shit. But for now I'm content here, ya know? Content to be around a few familiar faces, and trying to get adjusted to my new surroundings, to the bigger place, and make it through, while I struggle to come up again, to gain some solid ground, while I try to rebuild my life, even though I don't know what it is I'm building towards, and what I'm really gonna do. I'm trying to keep my head above water, and I don't wanna be back out, in the street, in the dark, in the cold. I've got a toe hold here. It isn't much, I'm still bustin' my ass, doin' nothin', but it's a home. A new home anyway, an imperfect hodgepodge of broken relationships, broken places that I thought were home, but at least I've got something here. I'm not out in the cold. But I'll tell ya, all this moving around has made me realize something. This isn't it for me anymore. This isn't the place for me. I don't wanna be like Troy, 35 years old, pushing 50, a strung out, burnt out, journeyman waiter. Nothing but the place, nothing but the fuckin' place, and the place is just temporary, it ain't even his. It's not even going to last while it lasts, it's always changing. New faces, new faces, and after 3 years, you're the old man on the block. Ya get dumped, go to a new place. Now you're the newbie again. A newbie with experience sure, a salty old dog, got loads of friends, experience, a few connections...got nothing. Nothing but a new place, a new beginning, starting over again at square fucking one. Even G's here now, I can't believe it. It's great ta see the salty old bastard, even if it is like this. He was my boss, my pal, now he's an underling in this machine, but whatever, at least he's somewhere now. After he got canned from Jekyll, he was no where, not even his wife and kid saw him. Last I heard he had taken off for Florida, or was breaking legs in New Rochelle, or gone to Vegas to work the casinos, but he was nowhere. He was just gone. We had a lot of good times when he used to run the crew, bastard though he was. Good times. We had a real crew then, tight, loyal. Everybody's gone. Scattered to the four winds by lightning. A fucking bolt ripped apart the bar, and it never again recovered. It even got me. So G's here now, workin' for Bill. Underling, bar manager, not even. He's a fucking slave again, unhappy like he used to be, like before he ran the crew, when he had to lie cheat, steal, and kiss ass ta make his way to the top. He ain't the same. He's used up. Even Kenny in the kitchen is used up, and Garcia keeps tellin' me what the hell I'm still doin' here, still workin' for this shit, for this nothin'. But it has its good times, good moments, that make it OK. Make the time fly by. Sometimes ya don't even notice that your standing still. I talk about it a lot now with G. What we're still doin here'. How're we gonna come out on top, ever? Ain't no comin' out on top. Just hustlin', every day, make your money and drink yer drinks, and go home, to your apartment. Do it all again tomorrow. Till yer used up. Then you die. I think it's time for a change G. We keep at this, and keep at this, 'cuz we don't know anything else to do. What else am I gonna do, he says. This is it. Or break legs. But when i get in with those guys, they suck me down. I'm freer here, even though I'm not. Well this ain't free G, I says, this ain't what it's all about. You're looking empty man, empty as I'm startin ta feel. I'm gettin old before my time, even with all of the good times, even with the craziness. The craziness is always the fuckin' same, and in fact, it aint even as good as it used ta be. Is that all we're workin' for? Is that what we're doin' here? Ta act like the party is gonna go on forever? We're killin' ourselves man. We're gonna die alone, and with nothin'. With nothin'. Why don't you go back to your wife and daughter man. I've missed ya man, but this isn't where it's at. If Rachel hadn't gotten pregnant, if she would've left her man, that's where I'd be. Not here man. I see ya gearin' up ta be the same old way. We're just doin' all the same old things, with people who ain't even family, just tryin' ta hold on to what got smashed. Tess is gone man. Jose's gone. Anne Marie. Rachel. The whole crew from Polyesters is gone. Down the Hatch watched us go, and now the sun has set on all of that too. This is just a job now man. I love all you guys, I'm glad a few of you are here, but I don't know what I'm doin' here anymore. I don't know why this is all we got. It ain't nothin' anymore. It ain't mine. It's a restaurant. I'm goin' home ta think about shit man. You should do the same. Think about your wife and daughter old man! But G just keeps on tallyin' up the bar totals, schemin' on the ways he's gonna cut corners, scream on the waiters, save the bar money, get noticed, and take over again, so he can run drinking and cocaine parties and gambling tournaments out the new spot again. So he can build a new crew. But this place is like the last place. It ain't his. It's Bill's. In fact it ain't even Bill's, it's corporate. Sure, we can play king of the castle while Bill's away, while the masters let us. And then one day, it's gonna get destroyed. They're gonna flip on the sunlight, turn up the blinds, and chase every last one of us outta here. You don't own nothin' G. And none of us got nothin'. Good times, paid for at a high price. Revolvin' in circles for years, chasin' a good fuckin' time. I'm goin' home man, goin' home. I got ta think about something else for my life. I get outside, leave G at the bar, still there looking over the sales. It's windy and still dark. The first gleams of sunlight are startin' to peep over the horizon, and I grab my coat and pull it close. I'm lookin down, and inside, as I walk over to my car, parked in front of the meters. They're all expired, and morning's on the rise. It's so chilly. I realize something as I'm walking over. G never did come to work for Bill; he didn't even have a Chinese retaurant. In fact, when G disappeared, I never saw him again. I never saw most of those people ever again, and I never had that conversation with G. But I did have it, I had it years ago, because I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember workin' in this place, n' feelin' just like I felt tonight. I was there. I know I was. But if all this wasn't real, who was I talkin' to? I realize that I made this decision long ago, a long, long time its seems, years longer mentally than it's even been. N' I've got somewhere ta go again. Something ta break away from. That chill is moving back up my spine as I realize what it is that I'm facing. What the implications are of what I decided long ago. It's a harder road to hoe than I ever expected, more than I ever bargained for, and it scares the living crap outta me. Damn! The good times come snapping back at me from the distance, rising up in one last beatific hurrah! And then I remember this feeling. This feeling I had that night, that night that never happened, but that was the realest night of my life. The night I left G in the bar. And I get in my car and drive away. I'm never coming back to this place again. I've got a journey to go on, and at the end of it, I'm gonna build my own home. Goddamnit, I'm not gonna waste the rest of my life pretending that the good times are free, and I'm not gonna spend it clinging to a past that I can't put back together again. I can't say to myself any longer that the fun things and good times don't eventually fall apart. No. This is it.

New Insights

2007-03-15T04:31:23Z

Practice Exam 2 I felt went way better for me than the first one. One major reason for that that was obvious to me was that I had had a good night's rest beforehand, and was not jetlagged and half-asleep. Having more of a chance to read over everyone's study guides and study some other sources on stylistic periods in literature I felt helped as well. Also, on this test I just happened to have the good fortune of recognizing many of the passages, and therefore was able to talk definitevely and at length about them, offering insights and ideas about the particular works that I was not largely able to on the first exam. But all of that was really just the luck of the draw, I guess. There were however, two passages which I answered that I wasn't entirely sure of (though I turned out to be right about them after all), and there I was able to employ Bob's very valuable technique of "forceful indirectness," which would have covered me sufficiently to not lose credit even if I had been mistaken. There was also one passage that I knew I knew, but couldn't come up with the name for, and on that one I employed the techniques that we have been discussing regarding syles and periods, and enumerated the characteristics of the poem in terms of the school it came from, and how the individual details embodied certain metaphysical qualities or ideals. The part of the test that was probably most valuable for me, however, was the post-mortem examination that we had afterwards, where everyone discussed the ways in which they went about identifying and articulating their knowledge about the passages. From everyone's very intelligent discussions of the passages, I was able to realize some new angles and approaches that could use on the test in elucidating the passages, particularly from a more structural and stylistic point of view, so I thank everybody. The class' as well Professor Tougaw's comments were also helpful in clarifying the expectations of the examiners on the test and, I have to say, I feel much more confident and prepared for it now than I had been the previous week.

Test Run

2007-03-06T21:25:09Z

I think of this picture as a pretty good metaphor for the practice test. Even though I was tired, jet-lagged, and unable to think, it was only a trial run to test what would happen in the event of the real thing, and even though I feel like I hit the wall on a few identifications, it was only a dummy test after all. Plus, I don't think I totally crashed and burned on it. I knew enough about the great majority of the passages I chose to discuss that I think overall the assessment of my knowledge by an actual comittee would have been not too harsh. The fact that, even on the ones that I wasn't sure of, getting close to the general period and being able to discuss some salient features about the style and content of the excerpt would score me some kind of cool points in the evaluators' hypothetical estimation was a comfort, and I think acted as a cushioning effect to save even my dummy effort from totally wiping out in the end. Now that the test is over, I am going to pick up the pieces, analyze the data, and most of all, get some more studying in before the next trial run, so that hopefully next time I can do a little better. I think the analysis we did in class of everybody's collective responses definitely helped me to get a handle on the way I need to approach explicating passages where my knowledge is a little shaky or incomplete, so I'm definitely glad that we have coming up a few more of these little trial runs to give me a chance to work on actual test taking techniques as well.