↑ Vantage pt for Jay Levine at tippity top of crow's nest before he jumped.
Das Boot: the first and perhaps most profound of the Dreamscape categories in that it describes not only the day-to-day adventures of a Caribbean escape, but also a moment that was much of a fulcrum or a rubicon for everyone involved, both a gathering and a dispersal. They were all twenty-four or twenty-five years old, an age where everything in the past seems like prologue and the next turned page is where the story really begins. There was a lot of debate about what comes next: plans hatched, destinies reconsidered. And soon after: Sebastian heading for Brazil, Christoph to Argentina, Helene to New Zealand, our pal Jayson and Natalie both to New York City. And the more we studied these pages, the stronger the urge became to apply allegory and deeper significance to everything that was written. And although 'reality' strongly resists such neat and tidy structuring, nonetheless here it is.
-- Eds
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Das Boot (5/33)
December 8, 1990
Choose a different dreamscape
“If you take the dinghy just around da corner… less fatigue…”
So said Boy-boy, our new and inexhaustible tourist advisor friend (?). We have changed locale! Moored now in a semi-sheltered bay somewhere on the east coast of St. Vincent.
But first! We rose and hoisted that immense snake of lead-like heft otherwise known as the anchor. About which I dreamt last night. Also dreamed of occupational inadequacy. Someone announces to an auditorium full of my coworkers that they hired me w/high hopes which have recently been dashed by bungling ineptitude such as, for example, me ordering brussels sprouts for the company breakfast. But I didn’t DO that. I filled out no order card as I am being accused. I eventually confront the girl (fellow worker: Robin? Susan?) with the fact that I had nothing to do whatsoever w/whatever she has said, and she, in effect, doesn’t believe me while simultaneously passing any blame to her sources. Later, I recall that I DID fill out a card, but only for MY OWN breakfast, but was that what she meant?!
Dream advanced to people w/guns, after me + PM for something. Me because I am with him, and now must die. Someone shoots me in the the neck, then puts the gun to the back of my skull and I clench my eyes in preparation for the inevitable end… But the person doesn’t pull the trigger, revelling in my helpless cringing and the power they wield, and this (more than my own precarious position) galvanizes me into a lightning twist turn, grab the gun + hand, bend, snapping fingers, in effect turning the tables. But I am waking throughout and then I am awake. And time to get up and drag that damned chain!So we sail out of the bay (motor out of the bay) and scrub the deck with Ajax and raise the sails. And we arrive after nightfall, navigating by compass, radar and depth gauge, into a glorious harbor where we could not land because the depth was perpetually too great for anchor, meeting, then, as we circled, confused and helpless, Boy-boy who led us here, flat + black volcanic sand, 20 ft. deep where it drizzles but I’m assured will dawn gloriously clear. In need of sleep (that’s sleep zzzzz not sheep baaah baaaah).