The World Dream Bank: Cuteness Pageant

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The Cuteness Pageant

dreamed 2008/8/29 by Wayan
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Shakespeare was wrong. All the world's no stage:
it's manga. Worse yet, we're all cartooned
in the style known as Super-Distorted:
topheavy babydolls, toes all gone,
flipperlimbs, and nary a neck,
squat as a fetus aborted.
And we overact.
A cloying incarnation! Still, no need for me to rant:
just a style. The Big Cartoonist won't or can't
write your soul-script. You sketch that
in, deed by deed. Still, I wanta
punch the nose of manga--
you see, I gotta
judge the Cuteness Pageant! And to be fair,
I must see past, and crack on through,
that hardpan cartoon crust. Which
adorable contestants hide
lovely undertruths?
Sweet aquifers lurk. I sense some few
hide the deep beauty: spiritwells
I must dowse for, through
their bimbo sheen.
Ohh, what an airhead,
cartoon-silly,
super-
point-
less
dream.

WHEN I WOKE

The poem's form: I shaped the stanzas like their subject quite unconsciously! Yet it's so obvious--shrinking verses (7 lines, 6,5,4,3,2,1) make it feel stumpy, top-heavy, ending on a helpless, toeless one-word nubbin. Super-Distorted!
Cartoon universe: Today I saw an improvised mock-Shakespeare play. For the title we shouted "The Chamberpot", "Forgotten Peaches" and the audience favorite, "Jousting at Midnight." And so, Lemonius and an army of whores bring down wicked King Richard with rotten fruit, tragicomedy and flying pots of... All the actors play multiple parts, and some end up onstage in two roles at once, forcing quick switches and stand-ins. Crazy but fun.
Manga, Super-Distorted style: I'm reading Negima, a manga by Ken Akamatsu. His normal style swings between realistic and cutesy, but he uses S.D. for emotional outbursts, asides and soliloquys. The dreamworld was actually more extreme than either Negima or my sketches here--I can't do that no-neck look.
Read under the style-skin: in a question-and-answer after "Jousting at Midnight", one actor said "you can parody a genre without knowing it well, but real improv requires real knowledge."
Cuteness: I was judging the actors (and the audience too!) by sexiness/cuteness, not talent/character. Hungry to find a girlfriend, I ignored souls, hunted for a body that cried to mine! But after, during questions and answers, I started seeing improv the actors' way, and found that changed how I saw them; in minutes, I quit seeing bodies per se--instead, sensed their feelings, spirit or brains. Or lack thereof.

I live with double vision, always--both body and soul. But the mix can shift! I'm single and lonely right now; so I see body more, spirit less. The churches of the world are dead wrong! Sex helps you see others' character and spirits, helps you see people as people. You're not hungrily distracted, mate-hunting! And isn't it true for other hungers too? Capitalism makes you financially anxious, so you hunger to make money off every soul you meet! And what of politicians and religious nuts, hungry for teachers or followers--not people!

But when you have enough, when the fear fades,
the animal relaxes. The creature likes to play.
Then the spiritwolf lopes from your torso out!
Or, of course, if you fast down to naught

Hunger himself gives up; the old ascetic way.
When life was "nasty, brutish and short",
'twas oft the sole recourse, if you sought
soul-clarity; for enough could not be got.

But now, today, we're golden in the sun.
Enough is better, easier than none.
Either path'll do. Relax, have fun!
Calm your hunger, let soulsight in.

Just don't mess with
Mr. In Between!
Mr. Hunger,
he gets
mean.

This is Dreamverse #16. Every morn, a dream-poem. Even if my ring finger's sore, I must type on: my soul fidgets if I don't tell you my dream.
My super-pointless dream.

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