Thursday, August 13, 2009

car dream



The Marketts - Take To Wheels (listen) I was looking for "Here Come the Hodads," listed in this playlist for Thomas Pynchon's new book Inherent Vice but couldn't find it, so this set of car-themes instrumentals will have to do, which actually fits a dream I had last night.

In my dream I bought a '57 Chevy off someone for $1000. It was two-tone, sky blue and white, and in serviceable shape. In reality, I am not a car person, and while I appreciate the aesthetics of a classic automobile such as this, I really have no desire to own one. The A/C is out on our car, which I guess is partly a sponsor to this dream. Anyway, I had to take it immediately after purchasing it to some meeting "in the city" - a mix of the diagonal streets of the back part of the French Quarter and scenes of Paris from movies where tiny cars zip down ancient narrow streets. The streets got narrower and narrower until I got to a point where this huge car got basically stuck, wedges in between buildings.

The car was even bigger on the inside than the outside, like a small living room. The backseat was more like a couch, and the from it, you had a commanding view of the cramped city through the windshield, like the front seats were two small chairs that didn't get in the way of the view. There was a rug and a table lamp too, completing the student apartment feel of the car's interior.

I got out and entered the building in which I thought my meeting took place, but it was a giant maze that was part office building and part department store. I went to the back of the store where customer service area was, just to ask and walked past gift wrap, a returns counter, little open alcoves full of pay phones and, weirdly, urinals, until I got to a stock room with swinging doors, and then I woke up.


This playlist thing is a smart move on Amazon's part; it makes me want to go read this book even though I have never made it more than halfway through any book of his; not even The Crying of Lot 49. I just get stuck in his words and characters and narrative, kinda like the car in my dreams.

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