The American Dream…scape

The American dreamscape. A strange topology beneath the moon that our oddly faceless icons walked on, then abandoned, an issue suddenly as dead as the dust under their nasa boots. We Americans inhabit stories and myths, not reality. We’re fictional characters who believe ourselves to be real, but disbelieve the real world. We’re wraiths wandering the in-between purgatory that’s not entirely fiction and yet not real.

We’re a danger, which most of us deny and the rest can’t quantify. Are we a danger just to the people inhabiting the real world? Certainly that. Are we a danger beyond that, to the world itself? Most probably. And beyond even that? What is the scope of the danger we represent? To our fellows, to our world, yes, but to our reality itself? We don’t know. If anyone does, we would not listen to them.

The darkness at the edge and center, twisted thorny black stems wrapped around the skull of a false god, and acolytes, so many acolytes upon acolytes, dissolving into the acid swamp but still hooting, the hot steam of hate whistling out of what’s left of them. They’re devolving into slabs and chunks of rotting flesh but they can still shoot, and there are so, so many of them. They can do serious damage before they’re just an oily scum on the surface of the stinking sewage.

On the scattered dry hassocks of grass and mud poking out of the caustic waters we can find zombie groups focused on the particular idols of their clans and tribes. The worshipped idols are cold metal, oiled and precisely machined killing machines. The acolytes deny that they reside in death cults, denials that confirm it. Their idols, being entirely represented in the physical realm, are never quite fulfilling enough. Their answer is to amass more and more in the vain hope that they will eventually, somehow, fill the emptiness.

Beyond the stinking swamps lie vast plains of grass and mythical creatures; this is the realm of the lean, weathered riders. They are men of few words, taciturn models of inner strength and outward commonness. They have little variation, since all are the recapitulations of just a handful of self-similar models, nearly all of whom are long dead in reality but live on in blue-tinged light late into the disappointingly pedestrian night full of driveways and curtained windows and stick-built walls that only somewhat exist in the American dreamscape. Turn your head one direction and they are solid and endless; look the other way and they instantly fade, leaving the arroyos and canyons and corrals that are always there underneath, in the wish-world of the Americans.

There are cities here; cities that are ugly, dark, and dangerous when you enter by one path, but the selfsame city is a bright, shining beacon of society and aspiration and hope when entered by another path. The very same structures change and shift depending on your path through the dreamscape. The paths themselves change, for those able to find more than one. Rustic dirt for some, seamless, flawless pavement of other stone for others, and elevated, lofty skyways for still more dream travelers. And yet the cities, somehow, are the same beneath those shifting perceptions; neither heaven nor hell but something much more ordinary and alive.

Life in the dreamscape is constrained. The fabric of the dream is shallow and simple and unable to support the complex life of reality. Life that can thrive there is simple and emblematic. Geometric, inorganic. Flat rather than solid. Adorned by a few primary colors, not the full palette.

Living things in the dreamscape are just sketches of real plants and animals. Most have no internal dimensions at all, and thus no way to feel, to experience, to process. You cannot find a cat or a cow or a bird here that is more than a simple attempt to draw those things, and the drawings don’t attempt to partake of the true nature of the creatures, but only their appearance. Farms and forests in the dreamscape are inhabited only by children’s attempts to depict what lives there — and the sketches will always seem to have been created without any samples to try to copy. They are just the idea of what a cat or cow or bird must be, by someone who does not (or cannot) really care.

The American dreamscape is mesmerizing; maybe overly so. You can get lost in it. You’d have a lot of company.

Photography

You can move in time, you can move in space. Right now, you’re just moving in your mind.

Tales from the Forest scape

“Bring me some snacks!” yelled Ferret. “And something good to drink!”

“What’s gotten into Ferret this time?” asked Squirrel. “Why can’t he get his own snacks?”

Dog sighed. “It’s not so much what’s gotten into Ferret as what he’s gotten into,” she said. “Did you notice his latest costume?”

“Of course I did,” said Squirrel, “he looks ridiculous. And what’s that thing he’s sitting in?”

“That,” said Dog, “is a genuine Barbie pink Corvette. And Ferret is dressed up, near as I can tell, as Country Club Barbie.”

“What’s that?” asked Raccoon. 

“Ferret was playing with Sally’s doll costumes again,” said Dog, “and he found this stuff. And even worse, he was watching TV and says this Barbie character has shows.”

“We had an end-of-summer party at Hare’s every year for as long as I can remember,” said Beaver, “and nobody ever yells for somebody else to bring them anything. Why did you even carry Ferret here with that stuff, Dog?”

“How was I supposed to know Ferret was going to act like this? He just asked if he could bring the toy car, and he was already dressed up. He dresses up all the time. It’s not my fault.”

“Waiter! More apple juice! And make it snappy!” yelled Ferret. 

“Okay, that’s it,” said Dog. “If I’m starting to get blamed, this has to stop.” She went over to Ferret and poked him with her nose.

“Oh, hi Dog,” said Ferret. “Did you bring my apple juice?”

“I certainly did not,” said Dog, “I brought a message. You’ve got to stop acting like this, Ferret. It’s annoying everyone, and they’re starting to blame me for bringing you to the party.”

“What’s wrong with the way I’m acting? Country Club Barbie does this all the time.”

“You are not Barbie and this is not a country club, whatever that is,” growled Dog.

“A country club is where you sit around and call for waiters to bring you stuff,” explained Ferret, “and they do. I can tell this isn’t one of those, because the waiters aren’t any good at all.”

“There aren’t any waiters,” said Dog. “If you want snacks or apple juice, just go get them yourself.”

“Barbie never has to do that,” said Ferret. “At least Country Club Barbie doesn’t. But now that I think of it, Career Barbie usually does. But that show isn’t as nice to watch. Astronaut Barbie is pretty good, but Sally doesn’t have that costume.”

Dog sighed again. “Then why don’t you just be Career Barbie?” 

“That wouldn’t make any sense,” said Ferret, “Career Barbie is focused on her job; I don’t think she’d even come to a party like this.” 

“How about this,” said Dog, “you take off the costume and get out of that toy car and just be Ferret?”

“Oh don’t be silly, Dog,” said Ferret. “I’m not about to do that. But maybe I can figure something out. You say the problem is calling for service? I think I can fix that. The service around here is really bad anyway.”

“There ISN’T any service around here,” said Dog. “Don’t you get it, Ferret? Everybody. Gets. Their. Own. Snacks.”

“Yes, yes, I get it, I get it,” said Ferret. “Now leave me alone, Dog, I have to check some of the other things I brought with me. They’re in the trunk.” Ferret got out of the genuine Barbie pink Corvette, opened a hatch, and started rummaging.

“Oho!” said Hedgehog, who was sauntering past, “there’s a bit of faulty verisimilitude right there! Everybody knows Corvettes don’t have trunks!”

“Huh?” said Dog.

Ferret, who was now half buried in a pile of other Barbie outfits he’d brought in the Corvette, didn’t say anything.

“Humph,” said Hedgehog, stomping away. “I get worried when toymakers can’t be bothered to get the details right. What’s to become of modelmaking? What’s to become of craftsmanship? Pride of workmanship?” Hedgehog hurried over to Beaver, who would be more likely to enjoy a good complaint session. 

Ferret, meanwhile, had found the outfit he wanted and put it on. “Ta daaa!” he said to Dog. “Now everything will be okay! Seeya!” He hurried away in the direction of Hare’s house, where all the snacks were. Dog noticed Raccoon and Ma and Pa Mouse near the Medium Sized Rock in the meadow and went to talk to them. They ended up in a long conversation about cheese with Masie and Hortense, who had been muching on grass nearby. Dog lost track of what was going on with Ferret.

A while later Magpie landed on Masie’s back. “Nice party,” she said. “It was pretty clever of Hare to turn his house into a country club for the day.”

“What?” said Dog, pricking up her ears. “Did you say ‘country club’? Is Ferret causing trouble again?”

“No, no, quite the opposite,” said Magpie. “Ferret is the key to the whole thing. And everybody is delighted!”

“This I have to see,” said Dog, and trotted toward the tree where Hare’s house was. As she got close, Ferret came over. 

“Good afternoon Ma’am,” said Ferret. “What can I get for you?”

“Get for me? What are you talking about? And why are you calling me ‘ma’am’?” asked Dog. She looked Ferret up and down, wondering what this new Barbie outfit was. Ferret was carrying a tiny notebook and pen and pretended to write something.

“We have all manner of snacks and drinks,” said Ferret. “Would you like to see a menu?”

“A menu?” said Dog. “What the...Ferret, would you please just explain what you’re up to this time?”

“Oh,” said Ferret, “I forgot you don’t know as much as you should about Barbie World. It wouldn’t hurt to get a little more education, Dog. Watch the Barbie show. Nose around in Sally’s costume box.”

“Ferret…” growled Dog.

“Okay, okay,” said Ferret. “It’s simple. As you can see, I’m not Country Club Barbie any more. Now I’m Waitress Barbie. And can I take your order?”

Just then Otter and Muskrat called “Waiter! Waiter! More apples!” 

“Oh, excuse me for just a moment, ma’am,” said Ferret. “I have some other guests to attend to. In the meantime, please have a look at our menu.” He handed Dog a leaf with some pictures of snacks drawn on it.

Dog sighed. “It’s always something,” she said, shaking her head. She went back to talk about some more about cheese. It turned out Masie knew practically everything about cheese.

Word scape

If you were to unsuspectingly come across a bunch of nonsense words — say, for example, “’Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe” — you might just call it “balderdash” and continue on your way (possibly keeping a wary eye out for any looming jabberwockies). You’d be in the company of folks from Andrew Marvell from 1674 (“Did ever Divine rattle out such prophane Balderdash!”) to Thomas Carlyle from 1888 (“No end of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash.”)

But if you were to unsuspectingly come across a pail of sudsy dishwater, would you also remark “balderdash”, like Thomas Nash did in 1599 (“No end of florid inflated tautologic ornamental balderdash”)? And for that matter, if you saw someone pour two beverages together that normally would never be mixed, you’d be in the company of Ben Johnson, who wrote in 1631 “Beare [beer], and butter-milke, mingled together..It is against my free-hold..To drinke such balder dash.”

“Balderdash” seems like a nonsense word itself, but it’s been around for hundreds of years. It no longer has anything to do with liquid mixtures, frothy or not, but it still means nonsense. Nobody really knows where it came from. But it MIGHT be related to a word that’s completely disappeared from English: “balductum”.

At the time “balderdash” started showing up — that would be in the late 1500s — “balductum” had already been in use for decades. It originally meant a kind of drink — in fact, one that would qualify as balderdash. It was hot milk mixed with beer (sorry about that mental image). Its earliest mention was by Thomas Wright, who produced a sort of dictionary in 1450 and explained, not very helpfully, that “balductum” was a “posset”. As sometimes happens, if you try to find out about “posset”, all you’ll see is that it’s an obsolete word meaning hot milk mixed with beer. They thought it was medicine back then — possibly proving that it’s more important thing that a dose of medicine tastes ghastly than any cure it might provide.

“Balductum”, unlike “balderdash”, does have an etymological root. It comes from the Latin word “balducta”, which means “pressed milk” — evidently curd, not to far from cottage cheese. And in a bit of parallel word-evolution, by the late 100s “balductum” meant not only a nasty liquid mixture but also nonsense words. Gabriel Harvey used it in 1593: “The stalest dudgen, or absurdest balductum, that they, or their mates can inuent.” By the way, the title of Harvey’s book is much better than average for the time: “Pierces supererogation, or; A new prayse of the old asse.”

“Balductum” didn’t turn out to have anything close to the staying power of “balderdash”; by the 1600s it was already obsolete. That’s perfectly okay, really, seeing as how we had “balderdash”, which is anyway more fun to say. And “balderdash” is doing just fine, usage-wise. It peaked somewhere around the 1920s, but it’s now holding pretty steady at about the same rate of use it had in the 1800s. I guess it just goes to show, like the old saying, “cows may come and cows may go, but the balderdash around here goes on forever.”

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