Today's post reviews imagery from this entry in my dream journal blog maboroshi no yume.
One of the strongest immediate images for me is the image of the bicyclists. This image definitely comes from the new MV for the song "Mou Setsunai to wa Iwasenai," by J-pop group Gesu no Kiami Otome. Here's the video.
The MV for Gesu no Kiwami Otome's "Mou Setsunai to wa Iwasenai" was very powerful to me because it's basically about a group of three friends who, upon reuniting, remember the life of their other friend, who has since disappeared.
It's very sad, as I think it is a not uncommon story in the world of art, but also in the world of pop music, that artists who are such beautiful creators and people will often disappear from the lives of people who care about them. Many times they disappear by dying -- of suicide, overdoses, accidents, etc.
Most recently I thought of this as some people (friends of friends, or friends of acquaintances, I'm not sure) were really upset on the day the death of Frightened Rabbit frontman Scott Hutchison. I didn't know who Frightened Rabbit were until that day. But it suddenly became clear that Hutchison's beautiful art had impacted a lot of people's lives for the better. And there were a lot of people who were devastated by his passing.
To see friends of people I respect in Colorado's art & media community so upset about the death of an artist also reminded me of a Denver-based artist I was personally connected to, Colin Ward, who passed away on January 31st, 2018.
My involvement with Ward just began as my involvement with the art world was ending. Essentially, I was pushed out of the Denver art scene, by people who negatively influenced the people whom I most trusted. So, just about as soon as my relationship with Ward started, it basically dissolved. When I heard of Ward's death... it was just... so horrible.
Over the past couple days, some of the exact people who pushed me out of Denver's art scene also started popping up in some of the Denver media sources I trust. So this adds a whole other painful level to some of the emotions I've been experiencing.
The annoying deli man in my dream also comes from my life in Denver. On Friday, just as a concerned citizen, I attended a city planning meeting regarding Denver's new green roofs initiative.
Denver's new green roof ordinance was passed as one of the strictest in the nation. Since its passage in November of 2017 there's been a lot of pushback. Work has been done since then to propose changes to satisfy the parties pushing back. There have also been changes to the language of the ordinance, which was kind of shaky.
But overall, this initiative is pretty cool and pretty necessary. And the person who created it, Brandon Rietheimer, is a great guy.
Anyhow, at the planning meeting I attended on May 11th, there were some folks from construction companies specializing in 35-unit apartment buildings. Some said that being required to put green roofs on their buildings will make the construction of these buildings cost-prohibitive. One of those people described a lot of stuff about zoning requirements and his buildings at the meeting. And I think a lot of his descriptions informed the building in my dream. Probably a lot of the dramatic element of the conflict in this whole city planning issue informed my dream.
The teacher in my dream relates to the SM Entertainment celebration in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Michael Jackson song "Man in the Mirror," written by Siedah Garrett. Quincy Jones produced "Man in the Mirror." And he plays a big part in the stories told during the celebration. But he also plays a pretty strong role at the end of the celebration. It seems he expected K-pop star BoA to be onstage with Siedah Garrett during the final performance. And for some reason that expectation of his -- which was very big-hearted and inclusive -- has stuck with me ever since I watched the video. So I think that's why Quincy Jones appeared in my dream.
The writing project in my dream is related to my having felt inspired to get to writing on a novel I've been thinking of for a while. But the whole image of replacing a middle part to the story that I'd originally edited out probably comes from this Brown University lecture on risk that was given by Kara Keeling, an amazing theorist. She mentions how the ideas of finance capitalism relate back to the slave trade and how, in our thinking on American economics, we need to put the "middle passage," i.e. the history of the slave trade, back into the narrative.
This talk has been a key part of a lot of my thinking since I first saw it back in February. It also became a sort of cornerstone for the ideas I was trying to express in a Twitter thread I wrote around automation in society and our increasing dependence on easy indicators and sticking to consensus instead of practical observation and critical thinking in our decision making processes.
Also, coming back to the imagery of the bicyclists, that definitely has to do with another person whose work I've been researching: Veronica O. Davis. She's a big advocate for cycling, especially for creating more visibility for the people who bike in the black community.
I haven't really managed to pull all these images together to kind of give a theme to my dream. I can see how a lot of this stuff deals with my own social struggles over the past couple years, as well as some of my thoughts about social and political situations in Denver and elsewhere. But I don't have a solid answer to it all. Probably because I'm just starting to work a lot of this stuff out in my life.
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