In an act of solidarity with local surrealists all my future posts will be made at Flying Stone, the online bulletin of the Portland Surrealist Group.

Realizing Bakunin's assertion that destruction is also creation, the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens achieved a level of devastation that displaced an entire region, dissolving landmarks and turning day to night. The primary feature of the initial pulverizing eruption was a haunting column of ash railing into the sky, forming what geologist Catherine Hickson has poetically termed a "stone wind." This enormous plume, a convulsively beautiful and dangerous giant, appeared motionless yet continually growing like a consuming mass, both moving yet also in its repose.

I have memories of finding in our yard fragile, hand-sized rocks coved with gas holes that my parents told me were from the volcano. Although they may have been from the eruption, my youthful assumption that these rocks came directly from the column of ash to my yard seems highly unlikely. In spite of the truth, those rocks came to metonymically symbolize for me the eruption and its aftermath. In school years later I created a rather unimpressive sculpture, a dull block of clay covered with holes, of which the psychological implications are today overwhelmingly obvious.

Perched along the Columbia River a tall, eroded rock, due to its phallic shape, is said to have originally been given the crude yet poignant label Cock Rock. Yet, today's repressive hegemony, entirely at odds with Eros, has given this visual metaphor the sterile designation Rooster Rock, a semantic escape from the rock's erotic mimicry.*

When ordinary things become sexually extraordinary the word "revelation" could be applied in its most visceral sense. Akin to Breton, what draws me out in regards to vision "is that, as far as the eye can see, it recreates desire." Our internal selves are continuously speaking to us, and our words travel back and forth through a network of corridors, as if Ariadne's thread was being used for a telegraph wire. But these corridors swell and contract, transforming and morphing to keep our desires from ever reaching us.

With its towering stiffness this basalt pillar from Baudelaire's forest of symbols, a principal illustration of the veiled-erotic, exists to help us "get along in the labyrinth."





*In Chinook, a jargon native to the region, the word "wootlat" can literally mean erect phallus, basalt column, or pestle. This rock is often cited as an example of a wootlat.

"The night," wrote my friend Kevin Sampsell in his opening to The Insomniac Reader, "seems so limitless with possibilities, so unpredictable, and fraught with the unknown and hidden." This dark frontier, Kevin goes on to explain, is a shifting process where things and people look and act "different," becoming erratic and out-of-character. Routinely associated with sleep, the world of the night often reflects the domain of the unconscious even without the assistance of the dream. Under this absence of the sun our intimate and private selves no longer need to haunt us, they can possess us.

While a teenager I wandered aimlessly through the night, drifting within the suburban environs of Milwaukie and Gladstone, along roads that appeared hostile and off limits during the day. I don't recall why I started. Maybe it was insomnia, or perhaps it had something to do with searching, similar to Patsy Cline in her famous song. As business-as-usual grows more intolerable these solitary walks have become more habitual, a frequent part of my waking life.

Portland at night resembles a void, yet even a city such as Portland has its nocturnal crowd. At night an intoxicated thug fighting with the police becomes heroic, rather than arrogant; a teenage girl urinating in the middle of an empty boulevard seems horrifically erotic; an unseen drummer, pounding in the South Park Blocks, sounds haunting and passionate; while a hideous modern sculpture, when covered by child-like chalk drawings of faceless lions, pumpkin-headed men, whales that look like vegetables, and quotes from Bertolt Brecht, appears mysterious and ancient under the lustrous moonlight.

One peculiar night in the summer of 2002, while passing through the Portland State campus, I found an object hanging from a tree that looked like the upper half of a pupa left over from a very large butterfly. Perhaps four feet tall and two or three feet wide, the object appeared to be made of medical gauze and plaster, while its interior was covered with a blue fabric. In some ways the object, because of how it moved in the wind, reminded me of the corpse of a cattle, skinned and hung in a slaughterhouse.

The night is a Rorschach shroud where our desires find expression. I have nothing but contempt for the day.

I remember at a very early age when I called my mother from a friend's house only to have the most bizarre conversation. I had dialed a wrong number, and when the woman I was speaking with realized I was not her son she abruptly ended the conversation. This was my first experience with the irrational problem of wrong numbers and my immediate reaction was that of curiosity. However this curiosity was quickly overcome by a feeling of anxiety that ceased only after I dialed the correct number and reached my mother. It is evident to me now that already at that early age I was programmed with a certain fear of chance, and the prospects of misdialing again nearly petrified me.

In Franklin Rosemont's esoteric gem An Open Entrance to the Shut Palace of Wrong Numbers, he sees these wrong numbers not as something to be ignored, but rather, like a slip of the tongue, a problem to be examined by playful, adventurous, and poetic means. For Rosemont wrong numbers are not annoyances, as utilitarian logic would have it, but possibilities to overcoming the atomization of our present social condition. In a world where we are emotionally estranged from each other and from ourselves, wrong numbers can be seen as objectively offered moments. Similar to the ever-present corner Paul Garon once spoke about, these moments are pregnant with surprises, and can break through the fetters of modern living with their impulsively poetic potential.

Standing on the rock while the hurricane lashed at my hair and cloak, I ecstatically watched the full force of the storm hammering away at the ship, under a starless sky. In triumphant fettle I followed all the twists and turns of the drama -- from the instant the vessel cast anchors until the moment she was swallowed up within that fatal garment which dragged those whom it clothed like a cloak, down into the bowels of the sea. But the time was approaching when I myself would play a part as actor in these scenes of disordered nature. When the spot where the vessel had battled clearly showed that she had gone to spend the rest of her days in the stalls of the sea, some of those who had been borne overboard by the breakers reappeared on the surface. They clung to one another, grappling in twos and threes: this was the way not to save their lives, for their movements were hampered and they sank like cracked beakers .... What is this army of marine monsters swiftly slicing through the waves? There are six of them, with sturdy fins that cut a path through the heaving waves. The sharks soon make merely an eggless omelette of all the human beings who flail their four limbs in this unsteady continent, and share it out according to the law of the strongest. Blood mingles with the waters and the waters with blood. Their savage eyes sufficiently illumine the scene of carnage .... But what is this new turmoil in the water, yonder on the horizon? A waterspout approaching, perhaps? What strokes! I realise what it is. An enormous female shark is coming to partake of the duck liver pate, to eat the cold boiled beef. She is raging, ravening. A battle ensues between her and the others to contest the few palpitating limbs that here and there bob silently on the surface of the crimson cream. To left and right her jaws slash, dealing mortal wounds. But three live sharks surround her still, and she is forced to thrash around in all directions to foil their manoeuvres. With a mounting emotion hitherto unknown to him the spectator upon the shore follows this new variety of naval engagement. His eyes are fixed on this valiant female shark with her vicious teeth. He hesitates no longer. Musket to shoulder, and adroit as ever, he plants his second bullet in the gills of one of the sharks as it shows itself a moment above a wave. Two sharks remain, displaying even greater tenacity. His mouth full of bile, the man throws himself off the rock's summit into the sea and swims towards the pleasantly-tinted carpet, gripping the steel knife he always carries. From now on each shark has one enemy to reckon with. He heads for his weary adversary and, taking his time, buries the sharp blade in its belly. Meanwhile the mobile fortress easily disposes of her last opponent .... Swimmer and female shark he has rescued confront each other. For some minutes they stare warily at one another, each amazed to find such ferocity in the other's stare. They swim, circling, neither losing sight of the other. Each thinking: "Till now I was wrong -- here is someone wickeder than I!" Then of one accord, in mutual admiration, they slid toward each other -- the female parting the water with her fins, Maldoror smiting the surge with his arms -- and held their breaths in deepest reverence, both longing to look for the first time on their living image. Three metres separated them. Effortlessly, abruptly, they fell upon each other like magnets, and embraced with dignity and recognition, in a hug as tender as a brother's or sister's. Carnal desires soon followed this demonstration of affection. A pair of sinewy thighs clung to the monster's viscous skin, close as leeches; and arms and fins entwined about the loved one?s body, surrounded it with love, while throats and breasts soon fused into a glaucous mass reeking of sea-wrack. In the midst of the tempest that continued raging. By lightning's light. The foamy wave their nuptial couch -- borne on an undertow as in a cradle -- they rolled over and over towards the unknown depths of the briny abyss -- and came together in a long, chaste, hideous coupling! ... At last I had found someone who resembled me! ... From now on I was no longer alone in life! ... She had the same ideas as I! ... I was facing my first love!

[from the Alexis Lykiard translation (Exact Change: 1994, p. 97-99) of Comte de Lautr顭ont?s Les Chants de Maldoror (1868).]

This dream, which occurred on February 11, 2004, opened on New Year's Eve. I was running north on the sidewalk of SW 1st Avenue in Portland. The street had suddenly become very long, and parts of the sidewalk were missing as if due to construction, leaving sections to jump over. On several occasions there were pieces of garbage to step on: an empty butter container and a dirty rag acted as nice Lilly pads. Other sections were obviously made from fresh concrete. I remember stopping at one point and writing my initials into the sidewalk: BJF. As I left the tag I regretted not putting the date next to my initials, but I was having trouble remembering what year it was.

As I approached SW 1st and Burnside I noticed many buildings were missing from the area, along with the Burnside Bridge. In reality this is the area of town I work in, and in my dream the two buildings owned by the organization I work for, the Portland Saturday Market, were still standing. In reality these buildings are actually rather interesting: the one flush with the bridge, an extremely thin pale building four stories tall, is said to have been built in the 1920s and cut in half in the 1940s to make room for the expanding Burnside Bridge. The other building, the Skidmore Fountain Building, was built in the 1870s, and is an awkwardly shaped yet monolithic red block with a large painting of an elephant on one side. In the dream I remember walking to the basement entrance of the thin building, and noticed a new entrance to the left of it that resembled the entrance to an expensive hotel. The new entrance was flanked by security and service workers, leading me to believe part of the building had been rented out for a New Year's Eve party. It should be noted that at this point in the dream I was condensing the two building owned by my employers, that is, the thin building was taking on attributes of the Skidmore Fountain Building. In reality, the thin building simply doesn't have any floors to rent out for such an event.

I entered the thin building and it felt as if it had no ceiling, while a bright light descended from where the ceiling should have been. Not only was the interior of the building much brighter than in reality, it was also cleaner and newer: the rough concrete had been replaced with white and soft pastel colors. Inside the building I met with my boss who, in a panic, asked me to find a bottle opener. Frustrated and looking around at the floor, he shouted out some vulgarities. He then turned to me, handed me a bottle of beer, and asked me to search for the opener. At this point I ask him where the party was and, still frustrated and scanning the ground, he simply pointed up.

As I began to look for the opener I noticed one of the service workers from the new entrance sneaking into a mysterious hallway that I somehow knew went to the tool room, in reality an actual room filled with tools and used by workers for lounging. I walk down the hallway, which took the shape of an L, and at the corner I found an animal carrier that would probably have accommodated a cat or small dog. The door to the carrier was open, and there was a blanket inside. As I reached the tool room at the end of the hall, I quickly found the bottle opener inside a vase along with several obscure tools. The room then shrunk, and was absorbed by the hallway, shoving myself, a small writing desk, and the vase into the hallway.

I looked down the hallway, and noticed a large animal standing at the turn of the hallway where the carrier had been. I immediately identified this creature as a gibbons-koala. It should be noted that this animal does not exist in reality. Standing around 5'10'' this animal had a chicken?s body, yet it was covered with fur rather than feathers. It was round and husky with the feet of a bear, and it had a very small head that resembled a monkey's sitting at the end a bottle-like neck. Its eyes were black and blank. I remember specifically thinking that "these animals are known to be docile" and that my boss wouldn't release one in the building without this being true, so I tried to casually walk past the animal. As I approached the animal it walked towards me and eventually into me, like someone with bad vision trying to read a newspaper. Its large neck and chest thrust into me, and forced me against the wall. I put up my forearm to protect myself, but was overwhelmed by the strength of the animal. It was at this point, being thrashed up against the wall, that I finally woke up.

Not fitting in the dominant culture's deceitful view of surrealism as an art movement, the importance of chance gets considerably condensed in so-called critical works on surrealism. Luckily, surrealists have always reversed this falsified emphasis, viewing art as a lamentable expedient, and the pursuit of chance as one of the pinnacle surrealist experiences. These shocking disruptions in common sense we call chance events arise as the internal synchronizes with the external reality, proof that we are always unconsciously searching and seeking. When not dominated by religious idiocy, these encounters can act as flights from the territory of the mundane into the intuitive world of the Marvelous.

Perhaps my most sublime chance experience occurred while attending Portland State University in the late 1990s. After reading Freud's essay on the uncanny a brief class discussion ensued concerning the epileptic fit and its automaton-like effects. Less than thirty minutes later, while riding the bus home, the rider sitting next to me jolted into an epileptic fit. As the rest of the riders panicked, I was strangely overjoyed by the coincidence. What caused me to sit next to this unfortunate man? Did my unconscious perceive something my conscious could not?

It was also around this period that I developed a mysterious bond with the year 1888. This chain of repetitive encounters started after being introduced to Paul Serusier's small painting Le Talisman, created in 1888. Following this the date 1888 began appearing in other scholastic readings, and then some of my extra-curricular activities, curiously following me into the present. A recent example of this happened on November 19, 2003 when I impulsively attended a reading by an author I knew nothing about. Just after seating myself to hear Mark Essig discuss his book Edison and the Electric Chair I was astounded to hear him reveal -- as if on cue -- that electricity was first discussed as a means of capital punishment in 1888.

Another memorable event occurred in late 2001. When fumbling through a roommate's collection of books on Jack the Ripper I encountered an illustration of three men uncovering a women's limbless and headless torso in the Whitehall district of London. Some time later, on November 18 to be exact, I discovered a plaster female torso by the garbage compactor at my place of work. Limbless and headless, it strongly resembled the torso in the illustration. Oddly, this tangible torso had been glued to a large piece of cardboard, with both it and the cardboard painted white. Above the torso, written on the cardboard in blue letters were the words: "I must be a witch." The shoulders contained blue swirls, and between the breasts a blue square was placed, across which white letters were splattered. The words were written in English, yet unintelligible. While my boss would later confess that this found object was an old art project of his daughter's intended for demolition, this harmonized rendezvous will forever remain a poetic and vibrant memory. Even more fascinating, adding a complementary layer of the Marvelous to the situation, is that I recently discovered the event depicted in the Whitehall illustration occurred on October 3, 1888.





Note: The feeling of the uncanny Freud writes about is simply the horror of the Marvelous, akin to the hate of the Marvelous mentioned by Breton in the first surrealist manifesto. The uncanny is nothing more than a reactionary and fearful response of the return of the repressed.

- Fill Pioneer Courthouse Square with couches, recliners, and various other comforts, truly making it "Portland's living room." Erect an enormous umbrella at the center of the square to protect the restful on those wet afternoons.
- Strip Pioneer Place Mall of its economic interests and utilize it as an all access recreation hall, where bands can play, creative collaboration can occur, various groups can meet, and so on. Fill the bottom level of the mall with sand, transforming it into a colossal sandbox. Reworked the exterior of the mall to resemble the walls of a castle.
- Gut Pioneer Courthouse and turn it into a horse stable.
- Exchange City Hall for a tipi.
- Demolish Michael Graves' Portland Building and replace it with a vaporous lagoon. At the center of the lagoon submerge the statue of Portlandia and rename her Ophelia.
- Demolish all buildings over four levels high, unless they were built before 1930 or are exceptionally beautiful.
- Replace Tri-Met's transportation monopoly with a publicly owned fleet of antique streetcars.
- Ban all other motorized transportation from the downtown region and convert all roads west of the Willamette River into natural spaces, gardens, or recreational areas. Cut dirt trails for horses, pedestrians, and bicycles.
- Replace the statues of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt in the South Park Blocks with statues of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
- Reforest Waterfront Park, and make it an annex of the Hoyt Arboretum.
- Transform the Burnside and Morrison bridges into elevated beaches, illuminated by nightly bonfires. Equip the Steel Bridge with a lighthouse sending out a black light. Build a sanctuary for birds on the Broadway Bridge. Demolish the Marquam Bridge and rebuild it with glass and mirrors. Repave the Freemont Bridge to resemble storm-tossed waves.

In those days the Coyote was a spirit Coyote; he was a friend of the Man: they were cousins and talked together. The Coyote loved the night: all night long he would sit and watch the stars. There was one large star, more beautiful than the moon or the sun. He was in love with the star and would talk to her, night after night, and all night long. But the star would not answer him; she walked across the sky, looking at him, but saying nothing.

The Coyote grew more and more crazy for that star. He noticed that always, as she walked through the sky, she passed very close to a certain mountain peak, so close it would be easy to touch her. The Coyote traveled as fast as he could, a long, long way; till, very tired, he stood on this mountain, at the place the star always touched. He would not sleep for fear of missing her, so he sat and waited.

In the evening he saw her coming; she was very beautiful. He could see now that she and the other stars were dancing; they moved through the sky dancing. The Coyote waited; his heart was nearly bursting through his skin, but he kept quiet. The star danced nearer and nearer; at last she was on the mountain. He reached up as high as he could, but he could not quite touch her; then he begged her to reach her hand down to him. She did so, and took his paws into her hand.

Slowly she danced with him, up from the mountains; far up into the sky, over the earth. The Coyote got very dizzy; his heart was afraid. They went higher into the sky, among all the stars. It was bitter cold and silent. None of the stars spoke. The Coyote looked down, and fear made his heart very cold. He begged the stars to take him back to the earth. When they were at the very top of the sky, the star let go of the Coyote. He was one whole moon falling, and when he struck the earth, he knocked a great hole in it. His blood turned to water and made a lake. This is Crater Lake, in Klamath country. When the Coyotes talk to the stars at night, they are scolding the star that killed their father.

[from C.E.S. Wood's A Book of Indian Tales (1929), pp. 97-99.]