The World Dream Bank: Larry's Multiverse

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Larry's Multiverse

dreamed 2008/2/16 by Wayan.

THAT DAY

In low dawn light, I get some painting done--do the Quenna Islands and northeast Gaiila on the surface of my giant alien-planet model, Lyr.

Stretch! Walk over the hill to the Farmers Market and buy vegs.

Off to a Saturday matinee with my friend Alder: Sleepwalking through the Mekong. It shows a band called Dengue Fever who play Khmer pop/rock classics from before Pol Pot. Except for the lead singer who's Khmer, they're white guys who heard the CD "Cambodia Rocks," liked the style, and learned the songs by ear, without knowing Khmer. Near the end, touring Cambodia, they meet students in a Phnom Penh music school (in a slum of concrete high-rises) that's resurrecting their tradition after the Holocaust. They hold a joint concert there, in shantytown. I liked that a lot.

Wander 16th St a bit; buy mangoes, look through used books, listen to an Andean band at the BART station. Lunch at Sunflower, a Viet restaurant. Jammed! Cute tattooed girls next to us, other "Dengue Fever" film-goers behind us. Try baby coconut, but it's prepackaged. Juice and meat both taste a bit off. Stick to fresh food, your own cooking...

Back home, edit a Dreambank submission, True Love Is Choice. And add some follow-up info to A Musical Amoeba.

Evening: Watch Smallville on TV. A mess of gorgeous girls, many with odd powers from exposure to kryptonite: Lois and her brilliant cousin Lana, Kera the hot blonde amnesic, and Chloe the healer. Now let's visit inside Lex Luthor's brain! A grim maze of halls where Lex's adult self-image hunts and tries to kill his own inner child, snarling "You're weak!" No wonder: his dad was a devious, paranoid, brutal liar. Left Lex insecure--he clings to memories of ex-wife Lana. Surprisingly fragile guy. Yet his "weak" inner kid is tough, decent--a survivor. A rather perceptive portrait of the Bush-era male psyche. At least of criminal zillionaires.

Next: a behind-the-scenes short on filming Dr Who--the London Blitz episodes! Little of it special effects; mostly real stunt work--real falls. Billie Piper up on wires...

Ah, TV is a quality time-waster.

THAT NIGHT...

Welcome to our shamanic seminar,
taught by... Larry the smartass?
Saw him last at ten, when we were
in a gifted class. A smug kid then
and a smug adult now. But Larry
does have power: he disappears.
It's our exam: track Larry's laugh
into the spirit world.
His spoor leads through a windowless
maze whose gloomy rooms
cluster into concrete suites
whose inmates think them worlds.
And they may be; the maze is just
my sensory map of the under-truth:
the multiverse. To be
trapped in one world? Jail to me!
The interworldly borders
often follow walls
but are unmarked. They must be learned:
scent where physics fails!
Oh, the locals often silently know
their own world's boundary, but
the mystery as a whole, no one's
ever followed out.
A lab, in a gutted factory zone.
In this suite, breaching world-walls
is a child's myth--AND a crime! So,
research teams slum and hide...
but get results! Show me with pride:
lab mice leap to other worlds alive,
and local rules are gently set aside
in baby miracles.
So I investigate nearby halls
for most worlds are mundane.
But my pencil-map's all grayscales;
for magic here runs thin,
but not thin equally:
I find a gradient of spell,
radial as a gravity well!
Through the wall lurks wizardry's
singularity: a world that's well
aware of its positional power.
Center of the multiverse,
with a Fair Folk ruling class
smug as Larry at his worst.
Middle Kingdom! The rest of us?
Shadows and savages! Of course
I've read Zelazny's Amber, but
A rosy glow somewhere inside a cluster of translucent cubes, each signifying a universe.
still it's hard to take. Did Larry ever mock
at all? These people take the cake!
So rude beneath that slick-polite.
But while they sweetly hint that I'm
a rustic wasting his betters' time,
a hedge-witch who should toddle
on home to play with clods,
privately I topo-model
their suite-world's magic too:
mundane sumps, and knots of gods.
The power wells undammable through
their walls! Yet their wizocracy
denies the gradient, will not see
that every world abutting theirs,
(though dreary to their jaded eyes)
hides oases in its seams,
buzzing with uncanny power
to rival even the Core!
And in this N-dimensional
maze, there are far more
neighbors than the six there'd be
in a mere apartment tower.
Of their thousand colonies,
the sorcerers coolly state
their amber world alone is magic:
sterility past the gate.
That myth has helped them dominate,
but faith in monopoly means
the core-folk miss the reeking slums
where labs research their doom.
And what of Larry? I'm not sure,
but I scent soul-traces in the room.
Was he one of them, Earth-slumming?
He certainly had their style! Or
did he snoop and they caught him coming?
Smells like, but I'm unsure.
But Larry will have to wait,
whether or not it was kidnap
For the wizards of the core deserve
a resounding wake-up slap
and I itch to help apply it.
I'll join the lab, and help them quiet-
ly learn just how to reliably pierce
the walls of this dreary multiverse
Til that hoarded heartland power
spatters hot as aorta gore.
They got me that furious--
assholes at the core.

Welcome to our shamanic seminar, taught by... Larry the smartass? Saw him last at ten, when we were in a gifted class. A smug kid then and a smug adult now. But Larry does have power: he disappears. It's our exam: track Larry's laugh into the spirit world. His spoor leads through a windowless maze whose gloomy rooms cluster into concrete suites whose inmates think them worlds. And they may be; the maze is just my sensory map of the under-truth: the multiverse. To be trapped in one world? Jail to me! The interworldly borders often follow walls but are unmarked. They must be learned: scent where physics fails! Oh, the locals often silently know their own world's boundary, but the mystery as a whole, no one's ever followed out.	A lab, in a gutted factory zone. In this suite, breaching world-walls is a child's myth--AND a crime! So, research teams slum and hide... but get results! Show me with pride: lab mice leap to other worlds alive, and local rules are gently set aside in baby miracles. So I investigate nearby halls for most worlds are mundane. But my pencil-map's all grayscales; for magic here runs thin, but not thin equally: I find a gradient of spell, radial as a gravity well! Through the wall lurks wizardry's singularity: a world that's well aware of its positional power. Center of the multiverse, with a Fair Folk ruling class smug as Larry at his worst. Middle Kingdom! The rest of us? Shadows and savages! Of course I've read Zelazny's Amber, but

still it's hard to take. Did Larry ever mock at all? These people take the cake! So rude beneath that slick-polite. But while they sweetly hint that I'm a rustic wasting his betters' time, a hedge-witch who should toddle on home to play with clods, privately I topo-model their suite-world's magic too: mundane sumps, and knots of gods. The power wells undammable through their walls! Yet their wizocracy denies the gradient, will not see that every world abutting theirs, (though dreary to their jaded eyes) hides oases in its seams, buzzing with uncanny power to rival even the Core! And in this N-dimensional maze, there are far more neighbors than the six there'd be in a mere apartment tower. Of their thousand colonies, the sorcerers coolly state	their amber world alone is magic: sterility past the gate. That myth has helped them dominate, but faith in monopoly means the core-folk miss the reeking slums where labs research their doom. And what of Larry? I'm not sure, but I scent soul-traces in the room. Was he one of them, Earth-slumming? He certainly had their style! Or did he snoop and they caught him coming? Smells like, but I'm unsure. But Larry will have to wait, whether or not it was kidnap For the wizards of the core deserve a resounding wake-up slap and I itch to help apply it. I'll join the lab, and help them quiet- ly learn just how to reliably pierce the walls of this dreary multiverse Til that hoarded heartland power spatters hot as aorta gore. They got me that furious-- assholes at the core.

NOTES

Broke, little rooms, complex: 1: the Cambodian music school, in Sleepwalking Through the Mekong. 2: the maze inside Lex Luthor's mind!
Larry: Lex Luthor, abused as a kid, splits into a brutal adult who wants to kill the child-self he calls weak
Seeking Larry: Self-interest? Or just showing off? He was our class clown. I'm still not comfortable actively pursuing my own interests OR promoting myself.
Magic, arrogant center: Lex gives Clark a tour of Lex's brain, rubs his nose in the fact Lana married Lex. But of course it's broader than that: American oil-fed capitalism! I will say nothing about imperialism, 9/11, none of that... but it's hard not to think of the basement labs where Gazans built homemade rockets to fire at the Israeli Army.
Gradient of magic:
1. Many characters on Smallville have a range of wild talents caused by various levels of krypton exposure.
2. The gradient may also refer to Roger Zelazny's old fantasy-novel series, Nine Princes in Amber; under the swashbuckling they had a similar critique of American arrogance. Amber was the world's heart; the further away, the less real you were. The more expendable!
3. Diana Wynne Jones's multiverse-novels have similar themes: complacent jingoism meeting its come-uppance.
Magic universe: The evidence for psychic dreams I'm slowly collecting on the World Dream Bank. Turns out Musical Amoeba probably wasn't subliminal but truly predictive--it referred not to a song he heard in his sleep but one he was about to when he woke!
Rigid model with one magic place, all the rest mundane: This is how I often see magic in my life! At least ESP. Only happens in dreams! Or so I pretend. But really, it's just strongest there. It's in my waking life too, and I suppress its warnings and promptings. To my peril and sorrow and loss.
ACTION: Get comfortable working for my own interests. But be open to mysterious urges, too! I don't have to be an American about it. Like Larry... or core-folk... or Lex.
This is #14 of the Dreamvers project: every day, a dream-poem. But I slept badly and didn't recall my dreams this morning. So I went back a few months to an old dream--one so epic and troubling I broke my rule and took three days to write it. Whew!

A NOTE NEXT YEAR

Sorry this one's so prosy. Hard to wax lyrical about such a glum, angry, unjust world. What a disappointment it was, learning the universe is infinitely bigger and complexer than we thought... and is still a shabby empire of jerks.

But the dream says it doesn't have be. Magic's not constrained to dreams, whatever habit thinks! Miracles in the material world are possible. Just harder. A... gradient.

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