Description

It’s like this, and it is no dream: First off, a plastic palomino and its

stiff-armed rider float above a toybox. The rider is a dyed Custer, and

everything’s red. I mean boots and kerchief and holster and eyebrows

even. He is one ruined and reduced cavalryman, he was poured and

solidified with horribly bowed legs, simply because his only reason for

existence is to straddle the palomino. Denied Comanches. But the horse

and rider float and revolve anyway, on the lookout for marauders. They

rotate at about a revolution a minute, as per specs. Also: a velour

basketball, half the size of a real basketball, hangs mid-aired over a

crib. In the closet, the arms of tiny jackets and sweaters wave and salute

wildly. The threads of the carpet flatten out like grass under a

helicopter, and then circular waves run outward from the middle of the

room. When the waves die down, it’s just a regular carpet again. The

whole cycle takes three and a half minutes. An empty rocking chair

rocks faster than any mortal granny could.

Out the wide window across the room, it’s a crescent moon in bough-

crook kind of thing; caramel lights through sectioned panes in houses

of white wood, trees blown and slanting like smoke. Windows and

doors of the houses wide open with Trust. Children breathe pillow air.

Hills roll away behind the row of houses in a fairly pastoral manner. It

is a kind of smooth blue Ireland. And the blue is in the room too. It is

the blue of night scenes in animation. The cloak of night and all that. It

is very much like the nights when little kids point at the moon and say

odd things. There is the smell of very clean carpet. There is no sound of

bugs and no sound of rocking chair or wind or of anything scraping the

windowpane. But you can hear the air conditioning. I rub my window

clean and enjoy a soft drink.

Here’s something, basically the abuse of an elderly couple. Watch:

when they first step in, I’m not worried. They stand in the doorway. He

pushes back his baseball cap. She goes for the camera and says, “Cry

Pete, woudja lookit all this…” All is well. His hands are behind his

back and he steps in, to figure out how it all works. She inspects the

finish on the dresser. That she can touch. I have no problem with that.

He gets closer and closer to the window (and the village of the caramel

lights) and, by gar, it still looks real. It even looks real when his toes

touch the crib. Which sits protectively in front of the window. But then

he puts his dusty boots on the crib, and his hands on the window frame,

and pulls himself up, leans in close to the pane. I cannot have that. I

key the mike: “Please refrain from interaction with the components,

sir!” Is that any way to talk? Still, it’s a living.