09 June 2006

Ten horses


I noticed a black animal in a crowded Olympic-sized municipal swimming pool, and it turned out to be a horse, and upon further inspection there were ten horses in the pool. I asked the life guard, a middle aged man drinking red wine, why the horses were there and he said that they had tried apes but found the horses more manageable. While we were talking, the pool’s water quickly drained and all the swimmers and horses fled the recreational complex and someone had to be rescued from an underground chamber.

5 comments:

Ian Keenan said...

THis is a dream btw, it didn't actually happen.

david raphael israel said...

Your dream stories are interesting to read. I know another writer who does this, calling them "dreamlets" -- but regrettably she's not blogging 'em.

Ian Keenan said...

DRI, Don’t know if you ever checked out Kerouac’s Book of Dreams, but it’s my favorite of his books.

A motive for this other than that stated in Print Collector post below is to deal with my inhibitions, which I think block me sometimes. If I had several books finished and out and was satisfied with them I’d blog a lot more.

david raphael israel said...

Ah, wasn't aware of the Kerouac Book of Dreams. I do, though, have a general idea that the practice of writing down dreams can sometimes contribute to an increased habit of remembering them. (Though I've not gone in for this myself, have merely read about it.)

In the Print Collector passage, <<...I keep the situations against me like a miser; unbearable is the moment when a story leaves me to never return. >> -- the notion of the simile seems to be that writing a thing down is a case of relinquishing it, and then it will not "return" (having been "given up"). It's not a mode of thought that quite makes sense to me -- or at least, I might as easily think in an opposite way, as this way, regarding the relationship between writing and -- what? -- the "situations" of the imagination. I suppose, though, another way of saying it might be taht the dream situations are more like things in a seed state, which potentially could grow into any of many possible things (being sheer potentiality). When expressed as a definite narrative, if this is analogous to sprouting of the seed, then it takes specific form or shape -- and therefore will not (in the terms of this metaphor) return to the state of infinite potentiality. However, an alternative trope is that of the root or rhizome -- which might send out a multiplicity of shoots.

And then, anyway, how this relates to blogging more or less, or to writing or not writing dream narratives. Well perhaps the idea anyway is that transcribing the dreams keeps them in the seed form, whereas "ordinary writing" is like the endless sprouting of dream material . . .

At any rate, not to worry. Am simply thinking aloud about the curious sketech of a formulation seemingly implied, in a somewhat unclear way, though one senses it as clear enough and meaningful for the one concerned. Writers at any rate are not obliged to explicate all details of their creative process. Such things come up at times in interviews and whatnot. The explication itself can seem germane to the sense of the hedged in, shielded process too.

Ian Keenan said...

I enjoy the process of composition.. If I have time to go over what transpired before distraction, then I get to choose what is interesting and try to piece together what happened. I try not to make up stuff, but some editing goes on.

I take it you enjoyed Ron’s dreams from zyxt..

http://markszine.com/701/rs/ind.htm

One thing about Ron’s work is it tries its hardest to give you clues to his inner psychology which I respect. Under Albany is one of the most candid memoirs I have ever read, maybe the most..

One of the things I like about the dream format is that it doesn’t reference ‘literary elements’ consciously, that it is not trying to affect a stylistic impulse. In fact, it may be a balancing of stylistic impulses.