Wednesday, June 01, 2005

God Save the Kinks?

This morning in the space between my hitting the snooze button and the second alarm going off I dreamt an entire Sex Pistols concert.

I was in high school again and the show was apparently part of some school function. It was being held in an open-air venue, maybe the school's football field. There were tall bleachers leading to a plateau at the top of which I sat with Rachelle.

As the band broke into the first chords of God Save The Queen the people in the row beneath us all stood and ran, in tight formation, diagonally down the steps. The bottom row had also stood and ran opposite, towards us in an exact parallel course. This maneuver also took place through the crowd in the open expanse in front of the stage, front and back rows exchanging places. The audience, aside from this obviously rehearsed spectacle, had little reaction to the start of the show.

God Save The Queen had quickly melded into Anarchy In The UK. Looking on stage, John Lydon seemed in good shape, moving as if he were a young man. He moved well, in fact - in perfect unison with the back-up dancers. Everyone in the band was dancing, practiced choreography that appeared lifted from the Backstreet Boys. Upon closer inspection I saw that the bass player was not Glen Matlock nor Sid Vicious but was instead himself a former member of the Backstreet Boys (or maybe it was N'SYNC - who can tell the difference?). The band seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I was in the parking lot looking back. Before the first song ended the fans had begun moving toward their dirty cars to go home.

I woke up singing a Kinks song in my head.

1 comment:

Tymmi said...

What is this trying to be?

Is it naturalistic description of a surreal event? Stream of consciousness dream narrative?

Certain words or phrases betray a dishonesty antithetical to these approaches. The qualifying adjective in the first line (entire) indicates that a great expanse of time will take place in the dream. Reading on, one realizes the dream could very well take place in real time within the nine or ten minutes of silence a snooze button allows.

Obvious care was taken in word choice. Certain words are not repeated in order to avoid diluting their singular impact. The narrative was probably shaped in a similar manner. To what purpose is the reader misled?

It's a stretch but it is possible that the piece is some kind of social commentary. However, prior knowledge on pop-culture event and phenomina is required for full impact. Experience with the Sex Pistols, the Backstreet Boys, N'SYNC, high school and the Kinks are primary prerequisites for a complete analysis. Pre-formed opinions on such may also alter interpretation. Of course, a cultural bias of some sort is always present in any social commentary.

But why, then is it told in the form of a dream (and in the first person perspective)? And why the undue focus on some of the specifics?

Perhaps the fragment is needlessly complex.

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