Aging Polymaths and Weird Dreams

[mallorys_camera]

"It's all about the math," said the guy walking his dog. "Calculus. See, they don't do the math anymore. It's all computers."

I laughed uneasily. "That's a problem. Good day to you, sir."

I always try to be polite to the age-addled inhabitants of this little Long Gisland enclave.

Three steps later, it dawned on me that the man walking his dog was probably just about my own age.

At what point will I start barraging random strangers with my odd theories about numbers and the universe, I wonder?

So, anyway – the dream –

In the Future, the primary form of entertainment is something called prowling. Prowling consists of locking into the psychic feed of another person, some strange hybrid of sensory information and memory so that you are following their narrative point of view but as yourself. There are prowling stars, kind of like Reality TV celebrities, chosen by media networks. They choose people who have the ability to translate their sensory feed into metaphors – so if you look up and seen the clouds, for example, you might get a playful wisp of a fresh laundry smell.

But there's a whole underground prowling scene, kind of like bittorrenting. And these prowlers prefer to lock on to the psyches of dead people, people from the recent past. In particular, they prefer to lock into the heads of violent criminals, to experience murder and mayhem up close and personal.

So in the dream, I was the (male) cellmate of a particularly violent and loathsome serial killer who was really, really popular among the prowlers of the future. Guy had never been nabbed for one of his actual slaughtering sprees, but was in prison on some sort of technicality. He would have these long, elliptical, Hannibal Lecter-ish conversations about the murders he'd committed, but he was too smart to incriminate himself directly.

Problem was that his strange evil mindset was infiltrating into the minds of his prowlers in the future, who were all embarking upon crime sprees.

So I was being visited by detectives from the future in the hopes that I could somehow get my cellmate to confess so he would be executed. The thought was that this would get him off the prowler market – although now that I'm awake, I can see the hole in the plot.

I was being promised redemption for my own dark, not quite understood crimes…

Very strange dream. Well nigh philkdickian.

Comments

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

That reminds me. Have to check and see if Demonoid.com is back up.


Saw yesterday that Ben Affleck is helming "The Man in the High Castle". This could be good or bad. Judging by Argo, probably bad.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

The only Ben Affleck movie I can remember seeing was an adaptation of a Denis Lehane book. It wasn't as good as Clint Eastwood's adaptation of a Denis Lehane book, but it wasn't bad...

Oh, wait! There was Affleck's George Reeves bio! That one was actually kind of good.

Haven't seen Demonoid in a really long time. Pirate Bay is still chugging along from Sweden or wherever.

[bel-ebat.livejournal.com]

eeeee—one of the worst (read: horrifying) celebrity interviews i have ever seen was between ben affleck and meredith viera while he was promoting that george reeves bio. meredith viera was like, "did you take on this part because you identified with george reeves?" and ben affleck said, "what do you mean?" and she said, "some people might say your career hasn't really taken off the way it seems it would have. you have the looks, you won an oscar for good will hunting, but then you took roles as action heroes, your career slowed and now... many people might say your path hasn't quite matched your potential. you haven't done very much. did you tap into that for this role?" and he was PISSED. i think he just said, "no, i don't feel that way at all" and then the whole interview was derailed because the energy between them became so bad.

he was like 33 or 34 at the time. i was still a teenager, and even i was like, "come on, lady—i think it's a little rough to be assuming he feels typecast, broke, and suicidal." if anything, i feel like most men now don't even start getting very good/substantial roles until at least around that age.

anyway—remembering that interview makes me happy to see him writing or adapting, directing, and starring in things now.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the George Reeves biopic? It doesn't quite come off, and yet it's very... interesting. Affleck took it in some interesting directions. I actually think of Viera as among the more sophisticated practitioners of the utterly banal art of Celebrity Interview, so I'm a bit surprised to hear that she behaved so badly.

Affleck has had a god career arc so far as I'm concerned.

[bel-ebat.livejournal.com]

i haven't! it's in my netflix queue. i'll watch it during this break. i always remembered when it came out + that uncomfortable interview.

[fuzzilla.livejournal.com]

What didn't you like about Argo (I haven't seen it)?

[robby.livejournal.com]

That's a fascinating dream, and you remember so much detail. My dreams from last night have already faded.
Be careful, there are lots of sf writers on LiveJournal who will steal your story lines.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Yes, one of my few talents in life owuld appear to be the ability to remember dreams vividly.

If that's a talent. :-)

Most of my dreams are very stupid. A few -- like this one -- have interesting storylines.

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

snow crash....?

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I never read Snow Crash. Same plot?

[a1icey.livejournal.com]

it's very complicated and i can't even suggest the wikipedia article as an explanation, but there are some strong similarities. not enough similarities to say that you poached the idea by osmosis from snow crash.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

i wish i had dreams like this, instead of dreaming about old lovers.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I'm actually kind of surprised you don't have dreams like this. :-)