DREAM, 1991/7/25

I'm a cheetah visiting the library. I came to get a book called Krazy Kat: the Magnificent Obsession, that compares George Herriman's classic comic strip Krazy Kat to Dan O'Neill's equally strange Odd Bodkins. I can see the parallels--both surreal indie comics by eccentrics who still got their stuff in the papers. And naturally I'm interested in stories about other talking cats...

But a skinny, snobby librarian tells me "Put your search on the list, and I'll look it up"--BLOCKING me from running my own search. I don't need a librarian--it's a simple search. But he insists I can't. Then he fusses "You didn't sign the list." I do. He says "THAT'S not the list..." On and on...

I'm slow to see it. He's trying to block me. He's a specist--I'm an animal, I shouldn't be in his nice human library. Maybe big cats scare him, or our sensuality brings up sexual issues, I don't know. But for him, I'm just a symbol.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Library: I worked in Stanford's library a decade, but last year I quit to be a dream artist. So this guy can no longer mean my literal co-workers. My own head? Do I put down my own animal side?
• Cheetah: stretching, being in my body. I am cheetah-like--lanky, fast, working best in short bursts.
• Krazy Kat + being a cheetah: echoes a milestone nondream fantasy I had: Cheetah.
• Krazy Kat resembling Odd Bodkins: I never noticed, but it's true. Out of all cartoon surrealists, the two surrealest--yet they both got their underground, deeply personal work not just published but in mainstream newspapers. No role model for a dream-artist there, huh?

DRAWING, 1991/11/13

I try an automatic drawing, just scribbling on screen with a digital brush made of a tiny giraffe. This is what popped out. What's it mean?

The giraffes in the back are talking about Lamarck. He was an early evolutionist who thought your kids inherit the traits you acquired in life: if you're a giraffe, and you stretch your neck longer, your kid's necks get a head start--so to speak. Wrong, as it turned out.

As the leopard camouflaged in the grass on the right (see, you didn't notice, did you? Camouflage works! Of course you DID notice that MY body's composed of thousands of superimposed little giraffes, right?) had to learn the hard way, even hunting isn't an inherited instinct.

Want to stretch your abilities?

Gotta do it yourself.

NOTE, 2021

As I transcribe dreams from my early journals I'm finding much of my "nondream" art was in fact dream-based. I'd forgotten the dream four months earlier--after all, I'd had hundreds more by then! So I considered this sketch nondream for years--until I typed up my July 1991 journal and found...

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites