(4/20/05) darth baseball; speeches

(Entered in paper journal at 5:30 AM at home in Harlem.)

Dream 1

I was watching the new Star Wars film. I was surprised by how few computerized special effects were used. The emphasis seemed to be on a fun story and strange, transfixing visuals. There was one scene of a bad guy looking out the windows of a narrow, dark room in a ship, out to a bunch of stars in the distance. His pale skin glowed purple in the dark light.

Then there was a whole sequence made Terry Gilliam/Joseph Cornell style of a "newspaper clipping man" in a business suit flying through a kaleidoscopic sky of "Post-it" neon yellows, pinks, greens, and oranges, raying circularly like sunbeams at one moment, fragmenting and mixing with other collage clippings at another moment.

Then there was a strange scene where Darth Vader visited Yoda's house (which was like Yoda's cottage except full of things like stereos and TVs) and demanded that Yoda give him the secrets of the good power.

During this time I was Darth Vader. I wondered why Anakin was all dressed up as Darth Vader this early in the movie. Then I realized that it was in the second movie, not the third, that Anakin changed into Darth Vader. All the while "I" was walking through Yoda's house as Darth Vader.

Then there was a scene of a couple guys in the first row of a baseball game. I thought, How characteristic of Spielberg (!) always to add that contemporary touch to his films.

One of the baseball fans now stood on the field, holding onto the barrier between the field and the seats. The barrier was about three feet tall and made of some adobe-like substance. His feet lifted up and flailed behind him. He was beginning to float away, but he was trying to stop himself, all the while joking rather easily and lightly with his male and female friends in the front row.

Dream 2

I stood by a van that looked like a silver camper trailer. In the distance was a long picnic table with a bunch of members from my NYC Americorps program. We had been dismissed from some meeting where only some of us were supposed to give speeches, though all of us had prepared speeches.

I felt a pang of regret that I hadn't given my speech. The chief of an NYC Americorps crew I was not on, AP, walked up to me. I concealed my minor disappointment so she wouldn't think I was just some dumb, obsessed weirdo.

(10/2/05) allegiance to the tree; star wars old and new

(Entered in paper journal at 8:30 AM at Ozzie's coffee shop on Garfield Street and 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.)

Dream 1

I was in a forest, sitting across from a monk or wizard. I was pledging my allegiance to a certain tree, the tree being a symbol for a certain clan. But I only had allegiance to the tree because I liked the tree.

There was another tree I also liked. I had to stop myself from liking the other tree, which was a somehow shameful tree to like. But when I would visualize the one tree so I could describe my allegiance to it, I kept seeing the other tree.

The look of the trees was somehow the same. They both looked like beech trees with serrated leafs which by this time of year were a pale gold-tan. But only one tree was opposite-branched, and only one tree had some special mark at the edges of its leafs. I might even have said the name of the tree out loud, only to be told it wasn't the name but the description that counted.

Dream 2

I was in a living room, probably with my friend R and his girlfriend L. We were watching a Star Wars movie.

We all walked away. The current movie may have ended. We were at a bar or counter that bounded the far end of the living room from the kitchen. My friend R's dog came running up.

We were talking about which movie to watch. I was going to leave because they were going to play one of the movies in the new series (i.e. the prequels), which I didn't want to see. But then it turned out they were going to play one of the movies I wanted to see. But I still wasn't sure I would stay.

I held a vase in my hands. It was porcelain and had a diamondy shape.