decisions

one time i had a dream that people were asking my advice.

my pet fish bubbles said that he couldn't make up his mind about my suggestions.   

the puppets

one time i had a dream that my favorite puppet performer, marotte nevrospastos, had come out with a new album of traditional balkan music.

she used her puppets in the creation of her work. all of the puppets had their own unique voice and personality. not many people can appreciate why these puppets are so magnificent. people sometimes complain "hey, these puppets are so fake. it's not realistic. fabric doesn't really have a voice."

that's what i like about marotte's music, however. it gives a voice to characters who don't have one of their own. so they might be isolated in the dirty laundry bucket with the rest of the socks, but they can sing aloud to the whole house when marotte uses her puppets.

other people complain that "these puppets don't have agency." they are annoyed that the puppets appear to be free, but they just mouth whatever the puppeteer tells them. ok. technically that may be true, but that is simply a surface analysis. it doesn't penetrate deeply enough into the puppet phenomenon. it's slapdash. today, puppets are free. they don't have to face the unimaginative barriers of the past.

some people oppose puppets because they think this is going to bring about a fundamental fracture. allowing puppets to have their own voice and perspective will cause everything to disassemble into a profound disorder. puppets, from this perspective, are dangerous to music. if many instruments provide sound, this is acceptable, because they have no personality and there is a long history of human interaction with harps and flutes. puppet voices, on the other hand, are relatively new and they will mislead the young people.

bubbles said that since young people will be so used to small, ineffectual, puppet voices they won't be able to form large pieces of coherent music like symphonies and grand oratoriological choruses. i asked him if he minded. bubbles said that he didn't. he preferred puppet voices. the puppet voices had been around for a very long time in the balkans and they had incorporated them nicely into their lyre-ballads and epic singing traditions.

i agree with marotte that puppet music is going to be very popular in the coming years.

the world's angriest canadian

one time i had a dream of the world's angriest canadian. his name was filbert. he was the monk who answered the telephones at the monastery. they made him the secretary because he was the most extroverted. he'd say "filbert speaking" in a sharp voice.

unfortunately, filbert wasn't exactly known for his ability to command his emotions -especially with new yorkers. he was still furious about loosing the war of 1812. filbert started screaming about the battle of plattsburgh. finally, he threw the phone at me.

bubbles, my petfish, said that it was a good thing that i ducked.

bvm

one time i had a dream that our lady started talking to me through an icon. she told me that she had my back.

the abbot arnoulf, who is the older brother of mathilde, the fiancée of my cousin harold, presented me with a photo of an icon the last time we met. it was very old and i liked it a great deal. i thanked him for it and told him i would hang it in the house in woodstock. arnoulf told me he would give me the actual icon, since i liked it so much. he said it had been in his family for a very long time. i asked him what the best way to ship it would be. he told me not to worry, he would have it wrapped by his underling monks and they would send it in a secure manner.

i figured that the monks would be especially good at wrapping, but apparently they don't get out very often, so they don't know how crazy shipping can be. they didn't give it enough padding, and it fractured in sending it across the atlantic.

one day after i had been making mustard, i walked into the kitchen to prepare lunch. as i was passing the icon, i thought i heard a voice calling me. so i said "¿que pasa?"

i thought i heard the voice of our lady say "nada." then she told me don't worry, and that she had my back. at first i thought i was going crazy. then i thought it was bubbles playing a trick. however, i could see he was lounging in the swimming pool, on a floating air mattress, with a drink with an umbrella in it. he might have been sleeping; i wasn't sure because he was wearing his black sunglasses.

i telephoned arnoulf in france. the monk who answered the phone, brother filbert, said that he was busy praying, but when i told filbert that it was about the icon, he got sort of nervous and sent a novice to go get the abbot. i told arnoulf what had happened. he said that of course, such things are possible, but not very likely and incredibly rare.

i asked him if the icon had ever spoke before.

arnoulf said that the icon dated back to the 13th century (he said it in french first, and then counted up from nineth in english to 13th), but there was never any miraculous claims about it. arnoulf wanted to know was i fasting or if i was getting enough sleep. he asked if i had bumped my head or had been staring at a strobe light. i told him that i didn't have lunch yet that day, but otherwise, no.

he asked if i had been exposed to any chemicals that afternoon. i told him i was in the mustard lab with the windows closed. he said i must be hallucinating from the mustard fumes.

he told me to say an "ave" and make sure that i was keeping the lab properly ventilated by throwing open the windows.

the screich o day

ance on a day a dreamit a waukent at the dawkennin. the sunlicht wis brichter as ocht seein-gless.