Two short surrealist inquiries recently posted online.

DREAM FILMS INQUIRY

Do you have any memories of strange lost films from your childhood? Films which may have been real or may have been dreamed, or perhaps were combination of both?

Casi Cline:
First Scene: A young apprentice prostitute in a white nightgown is laying on a brass bed in the middle of a cherry orchard in bloom while Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay plays in the background.
Second Scene: An Egyptian cat sarcophagus with a mummy inside that’s been sealed with a curse has trapped the soul of a magician inside it. The only way he can get out is by trapping another soul in his place.

Aaron Dylan Kearns:
The disembodied head of an older Asian looking woman is floating in a black void. The head is obviously a wax sculpt with a plastic skull underneath it. This shot had a bit of a 60s Japanese horror feel to it, like a shot from Jigoku. The head lingers onscreen for a little bit before it catches fire. The shot lingers on the head burning until the wax skin melts away. The skull underneath starts to char. After that, it cuts to a shot of two women in suits/school uniforms walking down a sidewalk. The video now looked VHS-quality, like it was a Guinea Pig film. The camera angle was far away from the two girls and at a low angle. It felt uncomfortably voyeuristic.

Amy Hale:
I saw this film when I was a kid, my Mom took me to see it in the theater. It was supposed it be a European children’s film, but started with a mother dying in a flood and the father and child coming upon her floating, dead body. It still haunts me, and I have no clue what it was or how to find it.

Stuart Inman:
There is a serial killer aboard an ocean liner. Eventually, he is traced to the ballroom where he is revealed to be a clown, sitting upon a throne. He flees and is chased around the liner until he falls over the stern. The final scene is of the ship’s screws churning the water which is turning dark with the killer clown’s blood.

Stelli Kerk:
I had reoccurring nightmare images from a film my parents took me to see as a child—black and white blurs of being trapped in a dirty meat locker. Later I realized it was Los Olvidados.

Jason Abdelhadi:
I have a memory of watching a film on my grandfather’s big old wood paneled cabinet tv. The cabinet tv looked like a coffin and the screen could be entirely hidden behind the wood panels which moved automatically. There was a film scene of a desert, vast and harsh. There were bedouin on camels, but also tigers, and a big crash scene with a chariot, possibly in a battle. My grandfather kept actual arabian swords and a bedouin drum next to the TV so I am not sure if these things also featured in the film. This film experience defined my mental image of the desert. I thought in later years it might have been Lawrence of Arabia but it doesn’t have tigers or chariots so I probably conflated several things…

Allan Graubard:
The Navigator (Buster Keaton). Those doors on deck opening and closing as the ship rocked, slicing through the water petrified me. Since then I have never forgotten them. I certainly didn’t dream them. They are in the film. But when I close my eyes and see those doors opening and closing I’m on that boat, not knowing where I’m going.

Steven Cline
Mine was about a group of military types hunting androids in a nondescript desert landscape. Slowly they begin to realize that many in their team are also secret androids, having been implanted with false memories a la Blade Runner. Paranoia and mistrust break out, and they start killing each other off. When they are shot, these androids bleed white blood. Eventually every member of the team is outed as being android. Only two android-people survive the slaughter to make it to the end of the film. They sit on a rock together, feeling very confused about this weird world. But they are both in love, and so they “ride off into the sunset” together, unreality be damned.

IRRATIONAL RITUALS INQUIRY

What are your irrational rituals?

Steven Cline:
I have a set of matching yellow glasses in my cupboard. Whenever I put them out of order I get the vague sensation that they are angry with me. In order to avoid bad luck, I tap my index finger and thumb together two times.

Jason Abdelhadi:
When I go for a walk, I have an irrational compulsion to never come back the same route I left on if possible. It feels somehow bad luck. I also happen to keep a random key that I found outside on my keychain in the vague hope that it will help me or one day get me out of a bind.

Paul Moon Day:
Up until my 20’s if I walked anywhere I had to try and walk back the same way so that ‘the thread’ spooling out behind me didn’t get snagged, on lamp posts etc. I still catch myself doing that every so often.

Doug Campbell:
Small found objects get offered before the various statues and idols I live with. Most recently, I found a silver five penny bit placed carefully at the corner of my doorstep when I went to pick up the milk in the morning. I gave it to the group of African sculptures that guard the entrance to the house at the top of the stairs.

Georgia Albertus:
I have a tripartite mirror altar to Hecate in the hall. Whenever I catch a glimpse of my face in one of the panes? I have to stop and look into the other two, too.

Craig Wilson:
I’m not sure how irrational it is, but I really prefer that my shoes are aligned together when I take them off, and not spaced apart sitting on the ground. I will go back and fix them if they get bumped. It just feels better when they take up space that way.

Penelope Rosemont:
Back when I was young my grandmother would advise me to throw salt of my shoulder to avoid bad luck. I threw grandmother over my shoulder instead….it seemed to work….