More than you needed to know

I want all my garmonbozia

In Living in Oblivion, the jinxed indie director played by Steve Buscemi has cast a dwarf in the dream sequence that he's having no luck at all filming. Exasperated by the various failures of the day and the ignominies he suffers as a result of his role, the dwarf shouts at the director: "Have you ever had a dream with a dwarf in it? Do you know anyone who's had a dream with a dwarf in it? I don't even have dreams with dwarves in them! The only place I've seen dwarves in dreams is in stupid movies like this!"

However, over the weekend, a dwarf appeared in two otherwise unremarkable dreams that I had.

In the first, Ellen and I were walking down a busy city street when, in the crowd, I noticed a dwarf. He was wearing a suit and had a tiny head, perhaps the size of a coconut, and his face was painted with thick red greasepaint that made the whites of his eyes stand out sharply. As we passed each other, he stared at me and I couldn't help but stare at him, even though I knew I shouldn't. Ellen and I then went for a trip on a boat full of tourists.

In the next dream, the following night, I was in an old grocery store in a foreign city. The dwarf walked past the windows, staring inside. This time, his tiny face was painted half white and half orange. Later in the same dream, while I was talking to a talentless American street performer, the dwarf walked past again, but now he had half-pink, half-white face paint.

Very early this morning, I was woken up by the sound of someone walking towards my bedroom door. For the few moments before I realised that the sound was coming from outside the flat, I believed absolutely that it was that little man again.

Notes for Freudian analysis

Initially, I couldn't think of anything that might be connected to this but, when writing this entry, I noticed that the word that struck me as being exactly correct for describing the size of the dwarf's head was, "coconut". On Friday, I told Ford, who I believe to have an exceedingly good grasp of Spanish, that the similarity between the Indonesian words for boat (kapala) and coconut (kalapa) had once caused my Indonesian teacher to nearly rupture himself laughing when I inadvertently told him that I had come to Java in a coconut. I didn't think it was so funny. The Indonesian word for head is, "kepala", which is the third of the three nearly identical words that I could never be sure of getting quite right. I don't know whether any of that is relevant, but it might be, as I note that the first dream had a boat in it and the second dream took place in a foreign city. If so, I expect that the dwarf could be read as being a symbol of my miniscule talent for learning foreign languages.

Political Wrestling

It was Iain M Banks day in the Scottish Parliament, which meant that everyone had to come with a copy of Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, and either speak about it or refer to it during their speeches on other subjects. Not only was it Iain M Banks day, it was also wrestling day, to which end a wrestling ring had been erected in the well of the chamber between the Presiding Officer's desk and the front bench. I understood that the idea was that people would make their speeches whenever they were able during their bouts, such as when they were sitting on their opponent or circling each other. Furthermore, it was also staff day, which meant that the MSPs were all sitting in the public gallery while the staff filed in to the chamber to wrestle, each carrying a copy of Consider Phlebas.

Sitting in the Tory front bench area, I was not too concerned about the proceedings as I had arranged not to have to wrestle but to be the person who sits at the edge of the ring and gives the fighter water and towels (perhaps that only happens in boxing; I don't know). Accordingly, I had wound a long strip of towel around my book.

During the bout that my team of wrestlers was involved in, we had to address the members in the public gallery, rather in the manner of gladiators addressing Caesar in the Coliseum. As we stood at the edge of the chamber, looking up towards the banks of seats above us (the chamber being, by this time, considerably more massive than it usually is), it became clear that I was to be the next speaker/ wrestler. How could this be? I hadn't prepared anything to say and it had been years since I had read Consider Phlebas. I wouldn't have been able to say anything about it during a normal conversation let alone while trying to fend off a parliamentary clerk who was trying to put me in a head lock. And anyway, I was the towel guy! I had a job to do! However, I couldn't tell anyone that as I had forgotten what the real name was for the towel guy. The situation was pretty bad.

Finding the prospect too disturbing, I contrived to end the dream by waking up.

All the News that's Fit to Lose

Evidently, I was the editor of a newspaper, which I was publishing out of the bedroom I had had as a teenager. I shared the room with a new employee, who appeared to be the only other reporter. He sat on one bed with a desk in front of him and I sat on another, resting a chessboard on my knees as a surface on which to write, as I used to when I was at school.

John Swinney knocked on the door of our office and entered. He had a complaint about our paper's output, which was that there hadn't been any. He explained that, even though recent months had brought many exciting developments and events, our paper hadn't published a single story. He had come around to tell me that he knew that it was because the new journalist wasn't a real journalist at all and had lied on his application form.

All this was true. I couldn't remember the last time we had published anything and I knew that the new journalist had lied on his form but I had felt sorry for him and hired him anyway. However, not only did he have only the loosest idea of what sort of thing went into a news article, he could barely write a grammatical sentence. It had been terribly hard work trying to train him.

I told Swinney that, as editor, the failure of my staff was my responsibility and that I was solely to blame for the present situation. Swinney said that he hadn't come here to argue; he only wanted to say his piece and leave. He had time, however, to draw my attention to his new and extremely fashionable leopard skin shoes.

As he was leaving, I suddenly remembered that I had wanted to tell him that I had discovered that Arthur Koestler had included him as a character in "Darkness at Noon". When re-reading the novel, I had been surprised to come across a chapter in which John Swinney has a long philosophical discussion with Comrade Rubashov in his cell. Saying that he had already read it and didn't think much of the book anyway, he left the room.

Notes for Freudian analysis:

Yesterday, in the modern art gallery, I experienced mixed feelings while looking at a series of extremely lovely black-and-white woodcuts. On one hand, these were great little pictures that were the result of years of training and practice. On the other hand, why wasn't I back at the house training and practicing instead of farting around in an art gallery? I hadn't even brought my sketchbook with me. And I hadn't drawn anything at all for more than two weeks. And I hadn't been to the printmakers' workshop for more than a month. Time passes quickly! I'm not a teenager any more! It's later than you think!

Across the road, in the Dean gallery, there was an exhibition of advertising by Ashley Havinden, who was obviously an enormously creative and productive man. One of his posters was meant to inform 1950s gentlemen what sort of vile leisure shoes they should buy this year. Is that any sort of work for a talented young chap?

In the evening, I felt a passing hint of guilt about not having written this blog while I was on holiday and hoped that I'd have an interesting dream that I could post today, perhaps something along the lines of the exciting one where I appeared to be a commissar out of "Darkness at Noon".