Dream Sweeper

A Dream Sweeper contraption manufactured in Ha Noise, Vietnam remembered evolutionary and revolutionary Communist nightmares and B-52 bombers dropping millions of tons of ordinance on Laos, Nam and Cambodia with hallucinations and bliss evolving from a point of light traveling at 186,000 miles per second.

The efficient Dream Sweeper Machine collected unconscious talking monkey stories. From deep narrow Ha Noise alleys where death worship was a constant reminder of rapacious ancestors eating incense, dreams arrived crawling, flying, dancing, staggering, singing, laughing, weeping, and sighing into The Machine.

Dreams begged for mercy, pity, clarity, understanding and interpretation. How did I get here? What if I die here? Who will be my unconscious role model? Who will save me from ultimate absolute reality? Who will feed me in a Peoples’ Communist Paradise dream world where everyone shares toilets, kitchens, spoiled whining children and education is a waste of time and money?

Bored Asians existing with an emotional level of -7 exchanged drab artificial lives playing on Fakebook, a glorious electronic frontier of equality, equity and endless hi-tech distractions with firewalls, barbwire and rusty window gratings. Dark. Silent. Black is the night. Cold is the ground.

Turkish attitude

Adult Ankara language students said they were tired.

They loved being addicted to a phenobarbital phenomenon reality altering life, taking anti-depressants (Xanax) by mouth. He processed their fear and anxiety.

A national Turkish problem, according to a male psychiatrist is anxiety.

A clinking small musically inclined silver spoon dissolved square sugar cubes made in a factory where the hygiene conditions were abysmal.

We sat in a teahouse filled with Turkish and Iranian carpets, blue amber oil paintings and thick embroidered cushions near a well-thumbed Zen tarot deck. Fortune telling is an art and science depending on a suspicious, auspicious way. We gifted each other the state of relaxation. Reading, feeling, absorbing the future is the process.

These a-dolts eat their fear, humiliation and guilt with yogurt, said Zeynep in Bursa drawing in a Moleskine. 

the distance of the moon

Here is a delightful animated magical legend of Italo Calvino's story, The Distance of the Moon.

Enjoy.

http://youtu.be/EZ9cEZhiGPw

Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles (4/4)

She and Dr. Scary run and mismanage (if fear, ignorance, incompetence and greed IS management) the Great Educational Scam Machine. She reminded me of Chinese teachers in Fujian schools screaming, Just blend in. I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears!

Welcome to my nightmare, said Yeah-Yeah.

She invested her princess sums in offshore rice paddy accounts near Burmese refugee camps bothering Thailand.

Why did you leave?

I'd witnessed enough of the dystopian Kafkaesque-like suffering. The teachers' apartments resembled prison cells. I've more useful things to do with my time, energy, love and compassion.

Give me a urine sample.

Yeah-Yeah in her infinite wisdom minus kindness expected me to write a lesson plan for the Kindergarten kids in the library.

You're joking.

It was Friday, June 8th at exactly 1:17 p.m.

I'd taken the geniuses to the bibliotheca for thirty minutes. They found books, sat reading, looking at pictures and sharing with friends. She wandered in and sat down.

I see you brought the kids to the library.

You are very observant.

Where's your lesson plan for the library?

You're kidding.

At 3:10 p.m. I gave seven-days notice to Dr. Scary. Here's my lesson plan. Probation is a 2-way street.

Good for you.

Yes. Life is too short for this nonsense. I shredded the truth with kids. I helped you. We helped each other grow. We walked slowly. We danced. We sang. We discovered sharing. We meditated. We had fun. Now it's time to ride my elephant through jungles back to Cambodia.

I left a sewing machine and umbrella on an operating table in the teachers' cellblock. I departed Mandalay without delay.

That's another story about creativity, independent thinking and free choice.

Yes it is. Thank you for your attention.

Dr. Scary and Mrs. Marbles (3/4)

Sounds like the blind leading the blind. Where did they meet, these educational super heroes?

They mated at the Day Grow Country School in Saipan. She was head babysitter. He ran a doctoral marathon between Tainan and Rota.

What does she do in this improbable profitable scheme?

Yeah-Yeah is the bureaucratic stone face of the Macaroni Monti Sorry Money Story program.

She hired thirty female Myanmar university graduates for the Monti Sorry program. They signed a five-year - no option out contract - same as teachers were required in China. She and the good Doctor sold the Burmese managing director great expectations of wealth. The school paid a discounted rate of $3,500 for each teacher's training and certification program. Sublime slavery. Yeah-Yeah took her cut.

Is she a certified Monti Sorry trainer?

No. She learned the methodology in Havana ten years ago. She's not certified for anything. She's a little fish out of water.

For three months the local teachers have been training from scratch. Yeah-Yeah goes through the motions. School started on May 20th. Now it's on the job training, learning and laughing with 20 kids/three teachers per class (8 classes) plus six tedious hours on Saturday. They watch instructional videos featuring an OCD state side teacher with one student, create materials and practice lessons. They "graduate" next year after being certified by a real Monti Sorry woman in the states of confusion.

Smells like a shell game.

Teachers make $200 a month. The average Burmese makes $804 a year. A SIM card costs $300. 9% of the people have phones. Call collect. One-percent of the population has Internet. 26% are unemployed. 16% do not have electricity.

If local teachers are late thumbing a fingerprint after 8 a.m. in the admin office the school charges them 25 cents. Live and learn fear school.