Race
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
I am not a rah-rah animal activist. I am not an animal activist. I am not an activist. Although politics do fascinate me, I’m afraid I lack the conviction to take actual action for whatever cause I agree with. My dream last night, however, proved that tucked somewhere in the pleats of my subconscious is the desire to uphold the rights of native Australian faunae. Or not.
The first half of my dream had something to do with sketching cartoon figurines or cartoon cels onto large pieces of paper. I think I was intimidated by the change in scale, so I was really anxious about doing the grids right. Anyway. That segment slipped into me lurching down the Amazon river in one of those rickety boats with the gargantuan fans at the back, accompanied by English-speaking koalas, kangaroos, and some other creatures I no longer remember. Apparently, we were on the tail end of a river race, and the other teams were composed completely of humans. The koalas made this big speech about how humans should stop antagonizing them, and that we were definitely going to win the race against those bastards because the kangaroos had an extra-special ability.
The Amazon river was marked every once in a while with a pink and blue MMDA pedestrian bridge. As our boat sped on, the kangaroos would suddenly latch onto the edge of these bridges with those heavy-duty metal measuring tapes (the ones construction workers use, with the metal coils rolled up into small plastic cubes; the ones that retract with frightening, I-will-slice-your-fingers-off speed at the push of a button). Then, they would swoop way over to the opponent’s boat, Tarzan-style, and then repeat the process at the next bridge. Sometimes, if the boats were near each other, the kangaroos would hop instead, but that didn’t look nearly as cool as the measuring tape maneuver, of course.
Most of the dream’s details have naturally dissolved since I got up, but that much I could remember. I’m not exactly sure why we would win if the kangaroos got to the finish line ahead, considering it was a boat race, and what the koalas meant by their being antagonized, but the fuck I care. The dream seemed tinged with propaganda, animal-related or not. All I know is that it had something to do with something fighting the something rights of something something. And that I woke up this morning wondering what the hell brought all that up.
Then again, I have been watching The Maxx like a fiend recently, and the Outback (okay, so it's the Outback in another, weird creature-laden dimension of Maxx's subconscious, but it's still a huge dusty plain) is one of its main settings. And I made myself sit through Madagascar a few days ago. And I saw this episode of Jeopardy yesterday that had a category on the Amazon. And the tiny stuffed koala that the octopus gave me has always been in my room, staring. There may be an explanation for everything.
posted by marguerite @ 1:18 PM
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