Thoughts from a week before and during traveling to/through/from Kielce, Poland
(iEvery text is in a state of flux but are nonetheless original texts which belong to Andrew Ryan McLane unless otherwise stated or cited.)
***
"What do you even do," he asked. "You just sit there and make remarks that sound nice and you think you're doing something important."
He smiled half sadly and looked at the floor where the cord to Justin's headphone lay. The moments passed where not empty. Alan was traveling through his dreams to search for the truth. Such an answer as "I teach English" would be like a dull weapon into a bag of freshly donated blood--a big lie.
"I breathe," he said. "The world moves and I move too. I listen and turn my eyes toward sounds. I see more than what's there.
***
Life and death are both false friends. We exist now within our dreams.
Closing his book around a folded serviette, he walked into the cafe where he saw a colleague rubbing bits of her lunch around the sauce on her plate. "Guten," he wished her in mid-stride and walked onward to the toilet. The bathroom smelled like buckets of malleable butter like the base of buttermilk toffee or croissants. For such a delightful smell he felt sick. How could such a rich smell be true? It was all contrived to trick.
***
The apathetic optimist -- he doesn't even hope, that's too much work, he only justifies
The apathetic humorist -- putting poking fun before authentic works
***
A dj takes whole songs and scatters them together and takes fractions of dislocated noise to makes a cohesive sound.
He sat on the ground with one leg folded underneath him and the other knee below his chin. He rested on it and wrapped his thin arms tightly around this shin.
On the ground before him was the fragments on a few dozen magazines he had cut and collected over the years. He shuffled them unconsciously. Before this moment he had had no plan for gluing them together. But now his desire had changed. Something called him to dump out his drawer and start to experiment with what fits with what.
With the fragments strewn and piled on the floor he found it difficult to start. What image is the foundation of the collage?
What time in history have beings not formulated images from fragments?
Why then would our day and age be suffering from a remarkable fragmentation?
A time when it is all known without the assembly process would be a time void of many challenges.
Thus, wouldn't our supposedly broken days be of a greater potential than the past millennia?
I hypothesis that there have always been fragments out of which we strive to make whole worlds. Indeed before media, print, and architecture, humans have at least had other humans and these humans have been striving to thrive together since then. Before pictures and images and stained glass windows there have been the split images of God within humanity, no matter how primitive or advanced we were or will be.
So what's the commotion about today? Why are psychologists and art historians and authors prescribing, discussing and writing about the fragmentation of the soul and of the images of a shattered God?
Because it is difficult to know where to begin putting it together.
Furthermore, putting it together for one person does not fit to the preferences of another.
The painters of the world take fragments of pigment and lay them atop and against each other to regenerate an image that we all see--an automobile, for instance. The painter chooses the most adequate method for doing this. Depending on skill and diligence the automobile fits better or worse to the public's collective eye. Of course there will always be a member of the public who is disgusted by the artist's rendition of an object that could easily be viewed in its perfect form by just looking out the window at the nearest parked car. But that is not exciting for the eye of the onlooker because it is only when something is remade with flaws and new characteristics do we really look at it for what it is--as an unified whole of fragments. The car traveling swiftly down the highway is a car. The blurred car in a painting is an amalgamation of only the superficial aspects of material and movement but somehow it touches a deeper appreciation in the viewer than the real subject itself.
***
"The patience and content of those groups of women in the Neuss Hbf who stand ready behind their booklets about Jehovah's Witness written in German, English, Turkish, and recently Arabic are the essence of a citizens who feel intact and connected to life as it is."
"That's the face they put on at least."
"It's more than that. I heard them as I walked by, a stranger, or it could have been someone they see everyday judging by their response, well he walked by or bent to get something off the ground near them and they all three said Hello! with enthusiasm I hadn't heard since arriving here."
"Maybe they should be actors."
"Don't you wonder how they're not sour? All those people walking by and never stopping? I at least try to smile so they know I saw them. That's --"
"Worth more than stopping, huh?"
"Worth something."
Modest Mouse's Issaac Brock was the core definition of an Outsider. From his (their--the band's) position as outside each of the established genres of the early 90's it was incredibly difficult for them to be accepted by the fans of such common sounds. But their success came from the assimilation of the other Outsiders in the public arena. Whether it was because they didn't like what existed or they loved the lack of existence is still a mystery, but MM found a paradoxical niche to fit snugly into.
In the age of extreme sadness and exaggerated happiness there is little natural but gradual strengthening and weakening.
The unluck of the Germans can be based on the indiscriminate and unhindered use of pearls as accessories.
The unluck of the Poles could be due to their strength in Faith in an unbelieving corner of the world.
"I dreamt of seeing a woman's hips that were the perfect shape to my liking. She was a woman with young blonde dreads who walked like a queen who could care less about her garden pure and queendom. Yet all around her was life fulfilling. The most anxious of her subjects (not under her control, but care) expressed his discomfort by only half of a restless eye that peered at her passing figure.
I saw this man's desire bloom like a fluorescent flower to the moon while all others slept and awaited the bright heat of day. Though he showed no more than a slight glance I could grasp his completely humane urge to become her victim while at the same time making her his victim.
The Dreaded Queen flew by like a fluff of cotton in the lion's breath of Early August. I followed her now slightly tainted by the man's projection of his unbalance.
She wore a great bubble around her figure that I could see shimmer like a mirage. With great energy I resisted the temptation to touch this bubble with my eyes for fear of rupturing it.
As she walked under the archway into the Courtyard of Transgression her clothes changed into worn jeans and a grey zipped up hoody over a cut tank top that exposed her upper cleavage.
The scattered people about the Courtyard did various strange activities that had no purpose. Some ground sharply pointed sticks on the rough granite blocks of the Courtyard wall. Others sat cross-legged on their hands facing each other with gloves without thumbs in front of them yet unreachable. They wiggled and fought to get theirs hands out from under them, but they were entirely unsuccessful. Each eye on every person was a different size. The size seemed to somehow accord to the distance from which they were from their mother and father. Some whose left eyes were large had their mothers far away. The larger the left eye the farther way the left eye. The right the father. Under a tree completely covered in vibrant yellow moss sat a young child who had no eyes. He sat straight upward as if he were watching the horizon through the courtyard walls. He wore brown sneakers, light red shorts and no shirt. Although he was quite young he had a chest full of hair that looked like a rising phoenix.
The Queen in her casual clothes strode in through the normalized confusion in the Courtyard with a lighthearted step yet a heavy presence floated above and behind her right shoulder. That mass bobbed up and down on the surface of an invisible ocean.
... "
***
life is a series of trying to hold onto the long days of fading summers.
***
"Smash Fascism" A sticker on a metal post about knee high betwixt the bicycle and pedestrian path on Grafenberger Allee. Smash, bash, beat. The man with arms as large as a baby anaconda who looks around at women with an open mouth and red cheeks has his wallet on the outdoor bar table. Girl beside me asks him What would you do if someone took this? After closing his mouth and redirecting his thoughts from abstract image of relish to physical communication he said, I'd smash his face in. "Smash Fascism"
***
Hanging from the upturned world in my dreams is the threat of passing beyond. If I were to pass today I would declare my appreciation for my mother, father, Laurel, Kasia, Michael S., Paul and Matt K., Faith, Storm, Kevin, Pan i Pani, Krzysztof, Arleen and George, Beth and Gregg, Jane and Jim, Steve, Paul and Chris, Jan, Joe and Niki, Peter and Natalie, Sean, Rick, Christopher and Alina, Andi, Majd, Sid, Pablo, Sebastian and Bine, and so many more. Love with its many faces and poetry can transform the world.
***
Does the river stop flowing because it suddenly realizes its a river?
So here I am. Happy. Who would have expected such a sudden change in appreciation? I've instantaneously forgotten my misery. I've risen above the dregs.
Such temptation! In a wild frenzy existent purely in a moment imagined sought I choose to wipe my windshield clean.
Her nose! among her eyes and temples with signs of wear like a loved and read book, it sleeps in its drowsy creation to where no one else has a key, she's given it quietly, a diplomat seeking entrance to a sacred place of rest.
***
Pink Eye
From the bathroom, "I think I may have pink eye."
"Why, did you put poop in your eye?"
"I don't know, but it itches."
"Your eye?"
"Yeah, my right one."
"Just leave it alone for a bit see if it still itches."
"It's too late. I was rubbing my eyes on the toilet for some fucking reason, I don't know, I think I'm tired.
"Well at least it wasn't after you wiped."
"Well it was actually."
"Why were you still sitting after you wiped?"
"I told you I think I'm tired."
"Come lie on the bed or something, not on the toilet rubbing poop in your eye."
"It was just comfortable. I was there. I like the toilet. Like when I was young I would go into the bathroom and turn the fan on and it was a thing of relaxation for me."
"That's fine, but now you can come out here with me."
"Could you look in my eye maybe? I think something may be in it. There's no mirror in here so I can't look myself."
"Sure, but I don't think I'll be able to see some tiny poop particle."
"I think it might be bigger than that. I'm trying to blink it out. I stopped rubbing it after I flushed, but there's something there."
"Probably just an eyelash or something. Come out here."
"All right. Sorry it stinks. It's just got to air out."
"That's gross but it's you do it's fine. Let me take a closer look."
"Good."
"Oh, dude. There's poop there. Actually poop."
"..."
"Like actually a streak of poop."
"Stop it. No there's not I would feel it."
"I'm not joking. It's poop. It's like Fluffy wiped her butthole on your eyelid."
"Bull shit"
"Could be."
***
Dream Sense
The racial consciousness or the Jungian collective unconsciousness
Stanisław Lem once wrote about the future of books. He surmised that we, today, would be using handheld electronic blocks to read literature. He was not the only creative mind to guess correctly about the condition of a technology obsessed world consciousness.
This however brings up the issue of dreams and where they come from. Lem and many others have dreamt about their innovations. However are these innovations really "theirs"?
Average minds of a 21st Century scientific nature (friends and relatives for example–who are no doubt smarter than I) often justify their provable reality by claiming that dreams are only the left over of images, sounds, and other bits of experience experienced at an earlier date. The concept of dreams motioning forward to what we haven't experienced is an idea worthy of no more investigation. That's a fatal lie to the life giving core of a human being.
A human being is as connected to a collected consciousness as all hot-spot islands are to the collective head of Earth's boiling metallic core.
How indeed would Lem dream of a hand-held technological device of the future if dreams are only based on what has yet before been sensed (seen, heard, etc.)?
My argument is that dreams should be considered an entitled individual and consequential sense just as vision and smell.
A sense must not be equally well outfit in every individual as it is in a specific person with high achieving abilities. A woman with 15/15 vision has great natural abilities with her vision sense. Not all other woman need to equal her ability of vision in order to say that they also have the sense of vision. It is the same with the sense of dream.
Many scientists still wonder why we dream. Some say it's to digest the products of what we've passively experienced (yet not always acknowledged) before. But do scientists still question why we see or hear? To the best of my knowledge scientists have attributed our sense of sight to survival. So to with smell, touch, taste, and hearing. Yet of course we all know, to certain degrees, that these senses are a part of us not only for survival, they have special uses for us. Certain people require touch to fully love, others require more taste than a warm hand to enjoy the evening. The spoils of a safe and technologically rich life (in various part of the world) have kicked our senses from survival to enjoyment of excess and luxury. That not being inherently bad nor the topic of this text, I will go no further in explanation.
The Sense of Dream works on the body as does any other sense. An individual may better dream than others and it means not that the rest of us must dream as often or as vividly as she who does. In addition, she with a strong sense of dream must not be also the mastermind of dream analysis just as the woman with 15/15 vision must not be an expert wild mushroom harvester. Some people are, however, born with the skills to comprehend their dreams and use them to influence their and others' lives in the waking world.
William Blake once wrote in 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell' that "Man has no body distinct from his Soul—for what is called body is that portion of the soul discerned by the five senses...."
Thus if we extent the Five to Six then we can finally see the method by which we as humans in individual bodies can authentically feel as if we were inside another person's body. Whether waking or asleep our dream sense can unconsciously extend our consciousness through the racial consciousness to feel the consistency of another's situation. This is an example of 'putting yourself into someone else's shoes'. How many times have you asked someone if they could just please try to imagine what it's like for them? ("You really can't see that mushroom under the moss right in front of you?")
Like with all senses we can learn to block our perception and fear the effect of clear acknowledgement.
A man named Paul Levy, author of 'Dispelling Wetiko' wrote in this book about an experience in the waiting room of a hospital. He was in the hospital because his family and friends had labeled him 'gone mad' after he had I fact broken through. He was sitting there waiting when he saw a woman who was blind. She could not see. He approached her and spoke this phrase 3 time "All you have to do to see is open your eyes and look." And a miracle happened. After Levy's meeting with the doctor, the woman met him in the corridor. She had begun to see.
Much of that story resonates with what I tell my teenage students in Germany while I taught English at a summer camp. I would give mini lectures about dreams. We would discuss dreams and share our own experiences. In one spectacular event I was talking about dream symbols, specifically death. Many students (adults as well) shudder at the image of death in dreams or on tarot cards or wherever. But I had informed them that death in a dream worked symbolically and like the words we read on the page we assign conscious meaning to them. Death to our dream sense organ means something completely different to our conscious thought organ. Often death in dreams means a transformation, a shedding of skin, a release of energy for the space making of new, unknown energy. I said this to the group and asked what they though about what I had said so far. A young man who spoke Beasley fluent English rose his hand and said something that I would have never in my life expected. He said, "I had a dream that you told us this."
A logically clever boy who wanted who take advantage of the authority of the teacher would have loved playing a trick like this, but his intention and focus on my eyes (not looking around the classroom for laughs or secret fraternity) reinforced my initial urge to trust him and his words.
This boy was an example of a highly tuned sense of dream. And like someone who has great vision, we occasionally remark on
It is detrimental to humanity to follow the corporate psychological methods at understanding the in-perceivable sense of to dream.
Senses cannot be influenced, but they can be listened to and ignored.
Particularly important is to train oneself how to identify fears and clues. Because we are now in the dream zone we are being approached by much of what we don't and cannot understand. Symbols come out of solid crack-less objects
***
A poet boy desires to publish poems of consequence and fame, for it is that he feels he is destined. Yet he has a dream about actually achieving it after years of struggling to do it. He is struck by the ultimate sadness he endures in his dream after reaching fame and controversy. Upon waking he closely analyses what it actually is that makes him happy.
He decides to sit at a great crossroads in order to help others find their right path.
He talks with them and gives them bits of food and drink to revitalize them yet also question them about their true aims.
Can he know indeed where each must go?
A young couple of outweighing content together approached the crossroads.
The six different paths stood before them. The Signalman welcomed them in to his hut for food and drink and to discuss where they should go.
***
We aren't the castle.
P. 155 The Outsider Colin Wilson. Phoenix
***
Dream 24.8.2016 Warsaw
Russian Soldiers Approaching like a wave.
Back in Shasta
large store like Real,-
Prep for big party downtown
Zack M, Natalie S, and group
I ran to get raw wine
down the wide steps of a friend's house
announcement boss was soon arriving
task became to collect the shopping carts from the parking lot
I began and had collected a few carts before his big truck pulled up
"Keep up the hard work, McLane."
in the parking garage I found a few
the second level of the garage must have a few carts, I though
I left the carts I had collected on the first floor of the garage
I took the elevator up and realized it was big enough to have brought the other carts with
Too late
only one button -- up
the glass walls allowed me to see that the next level of the garage was an illusion
I ascended to the high reaches of the building that was before not nearly that tall
it climbed and climbed
into the upward unnumbered storeys
then finally the lift reached the slanted roof of the building
it ceased ascending vertically and began
to escalate up the 45 degree slope of the roof
I arrived at the only destination
I was an attic, a cleaning room with a broom and mop with bucket
wooden floors and walls held the room together
there was only enough room for one along with the material used for cleaning
I decided pretty quickly to go back down
Immediately upon the edge of the roof and wall where I ceased escalating and started elevating downward.
No. Falling. Quick.
Gravity stopped.
The lift became a parachute.
The bottom was glass and the parachute was green tarp tied to the class pane with tarpaulin twine.
Falling with the makeshift lift
I navigated it as it floated down the shaft.
But the tribe twisted
and the tarp collapsed
and the pane pointed downward
and shooting down the shaft
I focused on the knot that had made itself
I undid it by smacking up the tarp
to try to inflate it
it caught
but still falling swiftly
I descended at a gentle enough speed
I landed on the ground
the glass shattered
but I was fine
checked my watch
two minutes
and ran quickly to the shop
before the hand struck ten
to get the bottles of raw wine
for the party downtown.
***
The horn tribute
honor
***
North Rhine Westphalia is so densely compact that while rounding about to Cologne/Bonn airport we scrape Dusseldorf and while turning a casual glacé from the isle seat I see the glowing
circle of Bayer's production headquarters.
***
By registering for a monthly subscription to a €70 transit card, the authorities were so kind to send me a card in the mail. The square card popped up and like with open arms gave me a gift of appreciation. It was a €3 gift card to Kamps, for a coffee, sweet or salty item.
Not bad, actually. Nobody lost money in the deal between Kamps and the city transit authority and I got €3.
But somehow I felt there was a catch. I just couldn't see it.
I saved it. The card would come in handy when I had little money left and I needed a coffee during transit.
The day came when I went to my visa appointment.
***
Philosophical underpinnings.
***
Linear minded individuals
piano brains
lock step freedomists
chokehold pufferfißh
consequent policy pushers
bureaucratic make up artists
Mr Schleimbeutel
***
Love is not finding a diamond in the grass,
it is the making a diamond from the grass
***
What makes me less of a human
if I acknowledge my own misfunction?
No single party can be solely responsible for any one problem.
That is the underlying notion behind humble argumentation.
How many have and may consider me weak and pathetic for it?
But does a matador gleam in the eye of others as weak when he ushers the bull past himself in a coordinated dance of aggression and allowance?
***
Proof that humans project sexiness into others
comes from the way I look at the side of her body
her breasts are dense oceans
in the full grasp of a caught sail
but as soon as I undress the mast
and expose the rushing wind
there blows then no wonder
under the cloth of new discovery.
***
She's been abroad for a while now.
Yeah, back when she was a man her name was Allen.
***
The method to lucid dream often comes down to looking at something in the waking world often enough to do it in your dream to become aware to recognize that you're dreaming.
I recently had a dream where I looked at my watch (maybe) because I consciously decided to use that symbol as my lucid dream action. The dream was entirely based on time. Now what would happen if I consciously set my lucid dream action as pulling out my crystal from my jacket. Would that then change the nature of my dream? What would happen if I weren't so concerned about time in my dream and rather concerned about whatever is connected with my crystal?
***
I think we're having a great night but
I think we need Meerbusch.
***
I don't need good memory
I can access it through the Unconsciousness
***
He laughed a bit to ease the tension within him
his uncomfort with strength
within a woman
his uncomfort with his lack
of care.
Now he cracks his knuckles and looks over his