I got to this performance space, and was going to play a show. My first show in fact. I was preparing my equipment, and singing some of my set. Just getting ready. It was dark, though people were gathering. I had piles of papers on stage with me, including an 8×10 headshot and an old Johnny Cash (?) record and various other little things. I was trying to arrange it all so it would be of use after I had finished. At some point when I thought I would be going on soon, someone popped his head through the curtains.

When they finally opened up, I found that I was situated way behind the main stage that had the Cowboy Junkies playing. They were just finishing up a tune. Apparently I was supposed to just jam with them. I had the guitar on my back and I worried that swinging it around to the front would make me look stupid. I didn’t know how to jam! What the hell would they be playing anyway? It was seriously cool to be in front of all these people, as it was a stadium’s worth of people screaming. And they played, and I tried to look like I was doing something but really not.

And then it was like they were singing openers for the MTV Video Music Awards. We kind of just sat there as the nominees were played on some screen. I walked up to the main stage. I was getting mad at this point, and then the scene changed.

I was on my way out of the performance space. As I gathered my things I could hear this mouse squeaking (or whatever that sound is). And I looked over and saw a large mouse/small rat at the baseboard. I tried to shoo it away, but it didn’t really seem to have anywhere to go but around the baseboard. Somehow it got into this large plastic container with another mouse. It was now a small white lab mouse. The container was like one of those bulk mayonaise jugs, filled with some sort of grain, and the lid had all these slits so the mouse’s foot clws came out. I guess I had caught them? Anyway, one tried to squeeze its way out of the lid, and I commented on how they can squeeze through just about anything.

So I ran over to the stairwell where I dropped the container down the center shaft. There were two girls on their way down and the container bounced off the stairwell railing near them. I would retrieve the container as I left. When I was down there I saw this beautiful rocker that I was apparently giving the cold shoulder. She said something about the container (which was now filled with a nasty liquid, two presumably dead mice, and was made of glass). I merely walked over, grabbed the container by the lid and walked cooly out the building with it. Yeah, way to not try and get a date with the pretty lady.

I walked out of a large building with large concrete columns. The city was in a police state due to the president’s manuevering. Barricades all over the place, police cars blocking traffic, people mad because of the delays. It was a mess. As I walked by a biker locking up his bike, a guy was making fun of his lock. It was one of those seemingly flat thin metal locks. Actually quite strong. The guy made some stupid comment, the biker didn’t really hear, and the guy repeated something about it. The biker was all “whatev’s dude”, but noticed he left a little bag of things on the handlbars. He grabbed it as a woman checked him out as she walked on by and the city remained chaotic.

While I didn’t do any advertising of the event, on Friday I debuted my sign language matchbooks. At the Incredibly Thin Miniature Spectacular, I showed a full ASL alphabet as well as a version of the original inspiration for the matchbooks (see #2 of previous post). Dave Glanz took the photograph for me, which I’m thankful for, since I haven’t gotten my new digital camera yet.

What I’m really surprised at is that no one got drunk (and stupid) enough to set the matches ablaze. I’m very thankful, but it wouldn’t have shocked me…

I’ll get a page made specifcally for the matchbooks soon. But since I’m in the process of moving to Detroit, and getting prepared for grad school, it might be a while. Need to get my new camera as well I think.

Whoops, guess I should thank Ryan for asking me to be a part of the festivities. I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to making the full alphabet without the impetus of the event. So, thanks!

Scans of 6 of the original matchbooks I made back in February the weekend prior to interviewing at Cranbrook. I thought I’d post these in light of the event I was a part of on Friday (see next post). I’ve been collecting matchbooks off the ground for the past 7-8 years now, and finally figured out something worthwhile to do with them. Putzy work, but I’m quite fond of them.

Oh, I almost forgot… After finishing the full alphabet, I did an image search for “matchbook art” and came across SubText, a nice blog about the NYC subway system. In particular, there was a post about Edwin Glass’ NYC matchbooks. I can’t believe I see this after leaving NYC. Found another image of what I can only assume is Edwin’s matches at Incidental Findings, another blog.

First thing I remember is that I kissed this girl on the lips. Half-open mouthed kiss, 2 seconds, not entirely erotic or anything, but a definitive gesture. She had on this pink glittery lipstick that I thought was cute. She had go wait on a table or something. I think I was backstage at someplace like a dinner theater, and there were performers and waitstaff coming and going. Then I struck up a conversation with another girl, who I was more interested in as a person. I was charming her with stories of being in Antarctica and other feats that bordered on the hyperbole. Not really sure what other tales I was telling. There were other people back there listening in as well.

But the second girl said I was lying, which I took great offense to and told her that I was most definitely not lying, but that in the years to come I would defintely lie to her every chance I got. For some reason this was supposed to come off as suave. Apparently in the dream it did. Anyway, I could sense that the first girl was getting a little miffed at my flirtacious speak. Minor part of the dream. And I talked some more, and then the second girl asked me about my impression of someone famous (not sure who she thought), and I looked a littled puzzled. She fake-sang a little of the bit. I firmly corrected her that it was not an impression of whomever, but rather of R. Buckminster Fuller (though it really had nothing to do with him whatsoever). And I asked her how she knew about that. She said she had googled me and found this tidbit of info on me.

Ah! I had met a suitable match! And I prepared myself to do a rendition of the “Jonathan Edward Keller Song” that MLO came up with back in the day. I told the girl that I’d have to contact MLO to get the key component of the sing-song impression.

Ryan Sprake asked to see what was in the Altoids tin I had in my hands. I thought it was my matchbooks, which he’d already seen a couple of, but when he opened it up, there were these tiny things in there (I knew what they were in the dream, but now I can’t remember). And he proceeded to dump them in the kitchen garbage. I was all like, “Hey! What are you doing that for?” and tried to retrieve the items from the trash. They seemed important, whatever they were. [trying to fall asleep]

Not sure when I had this one, but what I remember is that I was looking at a bank statement, and lo-and-behold! I had a 40′000$ deposit listed. Of course I was surprised, and then remembered that it was money for school. It’d be gone soon.

There had been a number of bombings in the city. Certain buildings were being targeted by terrorist suicide bombers. It had been quiet for some time, and yet, here I found myself on the top of a high-rise looking around, kind of waiting to see if something else would happen. And I was thinking to myself, what am I doing up here? This is insane! What could I do to escape if they came here?!? And of course a minute later, an Arab military officer came running up on the building shouting for us to gather together. He only had a gun and was alone still, why weren’t we doing anything?!? And could I escape and hide out while the others came? The top of this building held no real options. And then the bomber came up, and another guy. We seemed to be somewhat doomed, it’s not like we were going to negotiate our way out of this situation. And then I thought about if I could make a run for the bomber… grab him and jump off the building, hopefully detonating the bomb on the way down, lessening its effect. Would I have the guts to do it? [upon awakening]

All I remember from this is that this huge moose was running towards me with its antlers down. I was going to get creamed and I kept thinking about how I could get the moose to only attack me (I was with unknown others), and not trample me. I guess I thought I could survive the smack from the antlers, but not trampling or repeated blows once I was down. [trying to fall asleep]

I was in a spaceship (I guess…) in outer space. We were going to go into this time warp/black hole/wormhole thing and we had no idea what to really expect. I was explaining the science behind what we were to expect based on past studies, but until we actually went into the thing, we wouldn’t really know. And so we got closer and closer and our view started to distort and we were sucked into it as we all cried out in beautiful agony. [trying to fall asleep]

Found this drawing on Ellsworth Avenue today. I almost made up for when I dropped my coffee on Craig Street. Check out the hemp in her hair.