Monday, January 29, 2007

indoor sundial dream

12.19.14.0.7 9 Manik 0 Pax
In this dream, I was at the Meriden Square with a friend (which friend I was with kept changing so I'll assume that friend wasn't important). They were unveiling a new exhibit--an indoor sundial. (Not that the Square has exhibits! It's a shopping mall--oh, sorry, a "Westfield Shopping Town".) It was the opening and a lot of press were there, but it's not clear to me if I was there as a reporter or I just happened to be there.
The person who created the sundial had died right after completing it, which is sad. He was Mexican. They had some female relative of his speak in his place. She barely spoke English and knew nothing about the sundial and basically they made her look like a buffoon. Somehow I got the original notes she was speaking from and she'd written across the top that she made custom cakes. I think she thought maybe the paper would get passed around and she'd get advertising benefits. I thought maybe someday I'd call her to make me a cake or something fancy so I put the paper in my pocket.
The sundial itself was still covered, but there were all these other exhibits that were part of it. They made no sense. It was like just snippets of the guy's life.
As my ever-changing friend and I were looking at these snippets, the main unveiling happened. We went over to see it.
Technically speaking, a sundial is a kind of clock which works by a shadow cast on the ground by some kind of upright (called a gnomon). I'm not sure how it adjusts for the changing positions of the sun in different seasons; however that's not important. What is important is that you can't have an indoor sundial and I don't know why anyone would have commissioned one. What would it measure, mall time?
This sculpture wasn't a sundial. It might have kept some kind of time and technically been a CLOCK, but it was NOT a sundial. It had a lot of fiber optics that came on and off seemingly randomly in different areas. It was round. And vertical (like a clock, not horizontal like a sundial). It included lots of pictures, some of which had been in the attached exhibition.
And it was a ride, like a carnival ride.
I didn't ride it. I went to sit down nearby. People kept getting sick and having to get off. I didn't even watch how the ride portion of the sundial worked, that's how absurd I knew it was even as I was asleep.
There was a lot more to the dream, but only this part feels important.

Writing this out, I see that the "sundial" was actually some kind of akaskic record for the man who created it. That's why all the side exhibits were so personal to him and made no sense to anyone else. It measured HIS time--it was all about him, and therefore appropriate that he died upon its completion. Since no one truly wants to live another person's life, riding the sundial made everyone ill and want to get off.
And since this is about me, and most likely about my calendar...hmm. When I finish my Jaguar Nights 2008 calendar am I going to drop dead? I don't think so--too literal. Even the calendar part might be too literal.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I found your comments on this "indoor sundial" to be quite interesting, though I can say for sure that indoor sundials are indeed possible! I designed one several years ago and have been making them ever since...and if you would like to see one go to http://www.spectrasundial.com and have a look. Near the bottom of the page are links to my main pages and to a small gallery of sundials that actually do live indoors. So far they are in 6 countries and 30 states!

Jim in Ohio