my old house in los andes.
i walked to the corner where the opuntia with the peace symbol carved into one of its pad used to stand. when i was a boy i didn’t know if it was a modified mercedes logo or a satanic mark made by the mariguaneros that loitered on the other side of the brick wall. i turned the corner and found my dad’s red pegaso truck burnt and destroyed. he was next to it. he seemed distraught. we walked to his taller where he began making a great roughly carved wooden eagle like the aquila that rests on the standard of roman legions. then he built a sign as large as the wingspan of a condor. he carved into it the english word “war” in rugged letters. woke up.
Category Archives: sueño
cerberus
dream
I speak to old classmates. We talk about my upcoming bday. I show them a slideshow of photos from a long train trip.
Now we’re on a train. We pass a cemetery. I point it out.
The main gate of the cemetery sticks out from the forest like the doors to Jurassic Park.
Behind the cemetery a city of blue and dark blue skyscrapers.
I say “El Cementerio General.” Of what city? Santiago? There are houses near the entrance. The houses are walled with white adobe like a huaso pobre’s hacienda.The walls stand shoulder high. There’s a tall ancient oak tree with roots clawing the ground like a mangrove. We see four figures loitering outside the closed hacienda’s gate. They have long, thick necks and mullets. They’re anthropomorphic hyenas.
A few of us get off the train and approach the creatures for a quick picture. The place is humid like June in Ithaca. The hyenas appear to be small men dressed in costumes, walking on two legs and grumbling. They scramble away through a hole under the hacienda’s gate. Rising from behind the wall, two columns painted with red, green and yellow Buddhist motifs. The columns hold a Korean temple-style roof. The hyenas stick their head out from a gap on the wooden gate. The three or four heads seem to belong to one body like the guardian dog of Hades.
Before we can get close to the hyenas we’re intercepted by two nuns with black veils and habits. As they approach us, an arrow flies in front of the older nun. We look up and see four or five metalhead youths on the second floor of an a-frame house. Their terrace extends to the branches of the oak tree. The teens have long black hair and lounge about on sofas and bean sacks. Some sport black iron maiden tshirts and ripped jeans. The mother nuns reprimands them. She turns to us. She’s ancient, small and fierce. The nun looks at the first one of us. She says to him “Ud. es perfecto.” and touches his arm. To the next guy she says, “Ud. esta gordito. Mire, su polera le queda chica.” The guy’s belly bulges and sags over his waist como un saco de harina blanca. I’m nervous. I don’t want to be made fun of. She looks at me and says “Necesita un poco mas de trabajo”. Then moves onto the last guy. To him she says “Esta muy flaco.” I wake up.
gustave dore via wikipedia
Protected: a large dark cat / a book for january
Cemeteries and dead moviemakers
Saturday night. I’m in another cemetery dream. Fourth one in six months. They are actually never scary but thrilling and filled with expectation.
Night. Graves scattered up and all around a hill lit by orange street lights. City lights spread below like the first sight of Las Vegas driving in from the East. I’m walking up a winding road that snakes through the ruins of Cerro Santa Lucia‘s fortress. The trees have a few purple leaves left. I wake up briefly. Then back to another dream. I’m in the river from The Master. There’s a lone cameraman in the water looking through a large camera as Joaquin Phoenix runs up the banks of the river. The tripod legs run into the water. Southern willow trees in the breeze. I tell the lone man I’ve seen this before. He turns around, it’s Tony Scott.
I’m not surprised. I sort of know this is a dream already. Director Tony Scott jumped to his death from Vincent Thomas Bridge in LA last month. But he’s here, wearing a pink baseball cap. He explains that this camera records into these tapes. Ejects a miniDV tape from the camera and shows it to me. I’m obviously not impressed and he seems distracted. He walks away leaving me to look after the camera. “Red” says a production assistant that stands arms crossed behind me. “I think the camera is a red.” I notice that one of the tripod legs rests on a leather treasure chest under the water. I move the camera to open the treasure. Inside, wrapped in newspaper like the Maltese Falcon, Halloween masks. I’m a little disappointed. They’re John Belushi masks in Blues Brothers character. I wake up.
Dongnae, Busan.
Napkin, Thirsty Moose, PNU, Busan.
mortality
Flat Rattle Snakes, Necropolis
i just had a dream about your blog.
north africa. first it was a flashback. it’s you and a guide on a dune. you almost step on a nest of snakes while taking a picture. the guide, who is moroccan, attemps to help you, and steps on another nest of snakes. these are not normal snakes… they’re flat snakes with multiple rattle spots along their bodies. he gets bitten several times in slow motion. poor guy. you and the guide jump in the white pickup truck and ride away to a hospital.
as you and the guide drive…
the flashback ends. and i’m in the pickup truck with you, and the guide, who apparently has survived. he’s driving and charges 100 (monetary unit of the country) the hour. we split the cost. i give you a bunch of large reddish bills.
we’re coming back from the same flat rattle snake dunes as the flashback.
we drive by a vast cemetery. dusk approaches. there are immense mausoleums the size of 20-story buildings. some are 30 or 40-story high carved on black marble. others resemble stalinist structures built to honor an eternal dictator. these buildings are besieged by a disorganized sprawl of black pine trees, gravestones, smaller mausoleums, and wooden crosses.
i ask if this is the country’s main cemetery. “yes,” the guide says. he seems annoyed because the snake bites still itch him. now the guide looks like mr. bobby, a motor rickshaw driver who gave me dal recipes in new delhi.
i ask you if this cemetery has been in your blog before.
you say yes. and then it’s another flashback as you explain your blog entry. i come with you into the flashback. it’s dark. we’re walking through poorly lit tunnels inside the necropolis. you take pictures of the signs. they read “no bragging about being alive,” “careful with bio,” “no obscenities to the dead.”
i look at my feet and notice i have no shoes. i say, “i forgot my shoes. let’s go back. i don’t want to get ringworm.”
we head out through a path of red earth in a forest of dark pine trees and elaborate graves. the forest ends on a swamp. we walk into the swamp. we wade, stepping on what seem to be decomposing logs under the water. we’re lost.
we see a tourist van and wave our hands to call attention. it’s driving down a road between the forest and the swamp. it doesn’t stop but the tourists wave us back.
we get on the road and feel silly we didn’t see it before.
at the end of the road we find cheering american backpackers. they are waiting under the grand entrance to the cemetery. it’s dark and lit by a single fluorescent streetlamp.
i try to be funny. i scream “the zombies are coming!”
nobody laughs. i look at you “we just walked through a pond full of rotting corpses and death water.”
i wake up thinking i’m late for work. it’s only 6:27am, korea time. the end.
Sunday March 18
Remote-controlled armored vehicles roll down Gwangalli beach.