Radicals

From the New Statesman, an interesting comparison between radical anti-globalists and Jihad fundamentalists. Watch for the paragraph that mentions Ossama bin Laden and Naomi Klein in the same sentence. It’s an eye-opener–not in terms of slamming Klein, but in terms of understanding the retaliation against bin Laden.

Another dream!

This one, which I had this morning, is less linear than the one I reported Saturday. In fact, it makes no sense at all, but I’ll tell you about it anyway.The dream began in a building that from the outside looked like the building I currently live in, yet it was somehow representative of the on-campus residence where I lived during my last year at St.F.X. university (Lane Hall). Inside, however, it was unlike any building I’ve been in, yet it was familiar to me both within my dream and in my lucid state. I think I have dreamed of this place many times before, although it’s not a place I’ve ever actually been to. (I frequently dream about buildings and villages that I’ve never been to.)

The building is about four stories tall and has a long hallway that runs the length of each floor. On either side of the drab and dark hallway are doors that lead into small residential rooms, very much like a 1970s-era university residence, or perhaps more accurately, like high-rise low-rental housing projects from that era. There is no natural light in the hall, and what little artificial light exists is greenish and uneven. The feeling is that this place is populated by half-educated thugs, such as brutish football players or the current Concordia student’s union executive.

What’s going on is this: I live in this building, and it is, indeed, a former university residence. It is in the countryside, near a swampy lake, and I enjoy the rural and peaceful surroundings. Apparently it’s almost abandonned and few other people live here. It is summer, and there seems to be some kind of reunion of former students converging on the place. They are young–early twenties tops–so they must be recent graduates. They have no respect for the building or the few people (such as me) who live around there, preferring instead to booze it up and destroy things.

I have a view of me picking my way through the rubble in the hall–busted doors, broken cinderblocks, bottles and other garbage all around–hoping that my place was spared. (I don’t recall ever finding out.)

Oddly, I felt compelled to hang out with these thugs. Not that I wanted to, but there was some kind of sense of duty, as if we were all from the same graduating class and to not go along with them would be seen as a betrayal.

As happens in dreams, the setting morphed, this time to downtown Antigonish (the tiny town in Nova Scotia–population 5000–where St.F.X is found). Of course what I saw in my dream was definitely not Antigonish as it really is–a small, quaint, and reserved east coast college town. Instead, it was like a mini Las Vegas. The lights were all there, but the scale was extremely small. It was like the shopping village of the ski resort town of St. Sauveur, Quebec, but with Vegas lighting. I commented to myself on how things had changed.

I was following the gang around, all loutish half-educated thugs, as I mentioned before, and they ended up going into some kind of strip bar. Be it known that it will be many generations from now before a strip bar opens in the conservative and Catholic town of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, so you can imagine how absurd this was. Upon closer examination, it wasn’t so much a strip bar as we know it, but a seedy joint that used a fast food facade as a cover for a place where a few men at a time go in and get caressed by semi-naked women.

I stuck my head in for a look. There is no politically correct way to put what I saw, so I’ll just say it… there were about a dozen louts laughing it up while ten or so unattractive women* clumsily danced with them, half naked. (*Older charwoman types.) I remember thinking “this is so lame, but what do you expect in a town this size?” It brought to mind a cartoon I saw many years ago, in which a guy is sitting at a lunch counter with a cup of coffee and a donut. In the background you see “Topless Lunch” on the restaurant window. The waitress is matronly, with a thick waist and bare pendulous breasts. She has a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She says to him “For the price of a donut you want Joey Heatherton*?” (*A singer/starlet from the 1960’s with a bodacious bosom.)

I chose to wait outside. Next thing I knew it was dawn, so I went in to round up the guys, but they were long gone. There were just a few charwomen left, cleaning up. I went back outside and it was night again. I wasn’t too worried about the flip-flop in the time of day because by then I knew I was dreaming so I just went with it. Later I was back at the building, picking my way through rubble again, and someone stopped me and asked why I live there. “I like the view” I said.