It began with a girl, emaciated, sparse hair, trapped in a tube barely large enough for her suspended (rather, surrounded by, since there was little room in the tube) in a viscous fluid (the usual... tube... imagery) in some abandoned building...

Emotions riding forth at this point in the dream are of confusion; loss, both of orientation, direction...

And then she meets her Cheshire Cat. At least, that's the closest imagery I can think of... an androgynous creature, lying sideways, trying to escape the random arrangements of what seems to be a deathtrap in the building outside of her tube... sexless, perhaps... but the first image is of it lying sideways, eyes observant, tubes, blades, arranged downwards upon it much like lying sideways under vertical blinds, with only one of the blinds broken off, lying on top of it, to shield it from the rest.

The bond between them is warm, loving. I'd almost put here that it was much like God's love for his creation, but that's more of an Adam/Eve interpretation that I will get into later...

The androgynous creature disappears, but there is no confusion, after a kiss on the tube it flits away and all that is left is a feeling of comfort...

And then a wild man, lithe, beautiful, agile, comes through the tubes, and she treats him innocently as friend, though his intentions are unknown... and he lies beside her tube, one arm under it resting under it... much like someone lying on their side gazing at their lover in the morning as she wakes, and for a moment I seem to sense that the androgynous, loving creature watches, then disappears.

The lithe, young man swings away as well, and is replaced by a snake, this time which slithers into her tube, coaxing yet instilling fear... I cannot recall their conversation and I wish that I could...

As I wake the dream becomes a little less hallucinagenic and more literal, as the view pans out from the warehouse, we see someone breaking a watermain (on purpose) and drowning the building in which the tube resides... and a protagonist now that I can feel being (rather than observing) driving down the road, looking for the girl, as a creature runs overtop his car and you can see a wasteland of suburbia in the background, abandoned, and a walled city with searchlights in the air in the distance...

And this... protagonist... comes upon the warehouse, shuts off the water after noticing it, dives under and rescues the girl, and the next memory is of the girl being dressed in what clothes could be found, transformed in a way... more beautiful than she was suspended, though still somewhat emaciated more whole, somehow... (thinking... Evie at the end of V for Vendetta... tinge of Natalie Portman but I was thinking more the novel than the film)... there's a conversation here too that I wish I could remember but I recall being full of wisdom... and then I wake.

Interpretations to follow... at some point.

As to the movie, the acting and camera work were superb... so I'll put it in the win column for Antonio Banderas' directing debut. I wouldn't say it's a movie I'd recommend anyone to watch if they needed a recommendation for something to rent... but if it's on the telly, it's not one to avoid.

Now I'm going to get myself a drink, and try to coax the thoughts out of my head so I can sleep.

My creative drive lately seems to be slipping as more practical concerns (school's a big one, as it's coming up) and I haven't gone out to shoot photos or even done any drawings at home in a while... I've just been sitting at home reading (actually, a lot of Poli Sci stuff to get my brains accustomed to reading scholarly drivel again) so it's nice to have work coming up that leans towards the creative side, with a website that needs designing, weddings and cd releases to shoot... it's rather a relief.

Now onto cool things I've found about the interwebs lately:
This one really needs no explanation... it's nice to know that the Olympians get to expend their sexual energies with one another. Hoorah!

Here are some sweet photos of East End gangsters... reader be warned, explicit content ahead.

Finally... everyone who goes shooting photos with me eventually finds that I have a bit of an obsession with shooting staircases... and I just found the best website ever for my little obsession. Mmmmmmmmm. I love some of these shots.

That's it for now...

I still back Russia on their decision to go to war with Georgia. It is, possibly, a matter of my own personal tastes in conduct, the meaning of citizenship, and the responsibilities of government that guide me thus. Any attack on a nation's citizens and soldiers should be met in force and without compromise.

Still, Georgia is a remarkable victory for Putin's Russia. I'm not even going to pretend Medvedev's in charge... they've stopped pretending, so I won't.

Let's look at the hard facts. Georgia was close to joining NATO... the Americans were pushing hard for it and they're the loudest voice in condemning Russia for their actions in Georgia now. Why this sudden interest from the Condoleeza Rice in protecting the sovereignty of a nation? Does that not strike anyone as odd?

The answer is quite simple. Putin said it himself once upon a time... Oil is power in today's world. Russia controls a great deal of it, and they seek to control all of what they can possibly get at in the region. Ukraine's Orange Revolution fell flat on its ass for the same reason, that a great many of pipelines towards the West from Russia ran through Ukraine. Chechnya is still a mess for the same reasons.

Georgia holds not only pipelines out of Russia, but holds many of the pipelines under the control of American corporations. When Russia consolidated their Oil power (again, under Putin's leadership) they built a great many pipelines through Georgia (a pro-West state looking to join NATO) to bypass Russia. This conflict is a threat to those pipelines and a statement towards Russia's ability to control oil in their region.

Clever man, Putin is. I can't help but admire the sheer cunning and guile his route to power, and his actions while in power, have been. It's a genuine mixture of awe, admiration, and revulsion that makes me want to meet the man, pick his brains for a bit...

I have a speculation that Russia's gearing up, not only recovering its formula glory, but gearing up for the next great political and economical conflict. They can easily see the West is losing its place as the dominant economic power... without the EU Europe would've sunk already into a grave economic recession, and the American economy no longer (thanks in part to an overextension in outsourcing and an unhealthy focus on short-term gains) looms a giant over the rest of the world... they're now simply a really tall man in a world that's catching up.

We'll see what happens...

Back to my scotch now.

In this space, what one takes for truth are best examined and what details that otherwise escapes the sober mind are best applied to the problem at hand.

What I would give to call upon this faculty at a whim, without the aid of alcohol, to gift to my mind the balance in which all great truths are not only discovered, but throughly considered.

Morons, the lot of them. I will be sorely disappointed if the West doesn't look upon Georgia with consternation after this. They effectively declared war on Russia by firing upon their soldiers first. This is a pretty clear-cut case of feeling over-confident about having big, bad friends.

Let's hope this one doesn't turn too ugly.

T.V. Carpio has some of the best outfits in Across the Universe.

Have a ticket to Radiohead in Toronto. That's awesome.

- Allen Ginsberg, Footnote to Howl

But... I mean... why the hell didn't anyone tell me Elbow released a new album!? Elbow, for chrissakes!

Gonna sleep now... probably going to go to sleep to Scala & Kolacny Brothers... an amazing Belgian choir that does choral covers of stuff like Radiohead... another group that somehow slipped through the cracks of my music-scope.

I spent a little bit trying to figure out what else I've missed out on this past year. My mind... she is blown.

I'm offering massive respect (and depending on the information, other wonderful things, like a large free photo print) for anyone who knows the details of this location:

A location in Russia

I think it's the only blurred place on Google Maps in all of Russia, and given the amount of locations that are probably sensitive to military security... it makes me wonder what it is. Maps.live.com displays a duplicate spliced image of an area to the southeast, so it must be something.

Photos or some sort of proof of claim would be appreciated.

Cheers.

Possible thoughts at the moment: First strike ICBM base... it's positioned right next to Alaska... it is ideal for first strike operations... but that's just a guess.

All that excitement sort of disappeared in the late 90s, as government spending on space-related projects dwindled, and people just simply lost interest. Those with little imagination or overly conservative mindsets (especially about the environment, surprisingly, despite the fact that knee-jerk liberals are considered... well... liberals) were often absolutely against such an idea... building more big solid-fuel rockets? Oh no!

I even have a book from way back when that outlined the possible future of space tourism and a timetable for how things might proceed. I set it aside as fiction some time ago. I found it last time I was home and I was amazed at how close we're getting these days.

When I first mentioned Virgin Galactic on the blog some time ago I was understandably excited... this kind of thing is momentous. In the last few years, interest in space tourism has come back... EADS (the Europeans) have jumped in the game... and orbital living areas, after the success of the ISS, are being proposed and worked on by several major groups. Even Hilton's taking a jab at making a Space Hotel (Space Islands, to be renamed Hilton Orbital Hotel on completion). Space Adventures, the guys who've been sending people up with the Russians, are going to do lunar orbital flights at $100M a head.

Right now, of course, Virgin remains the most enticing. Though the first tickets will be expensive their reusable SpaceShipTwo stand the highest chance of being brought down to affordable (for a space flight!)...

I may or may not live to see a day when I myself can go... but either way, it's exciting stuff.

They shut it down today for US and Canadian users (Hasbro's been making a fuss for a while). Wheeeeeee.

I apologize for the lack of real entries lately... not much going on to talk about really. Busy with photo work and stuff, and when not doing that... busy being bored.

But I saw the Six Shooter show last night with some of my favourite musicians... pretty much all the awesome (bar a few) bands from the Six Shooter label (Elliott Brood, Luke Doucet, NQ Arbuckle, Melissa McClelland, etc.) on one stage all at the same time last night.

And it was awesome.

Most definately the best show I've ever seen.