Six Definitions of Surreal

Dali Lobster Telephone

    • Packing to move from New York City to the Hudson Valley, dismantling your life which even with very frequent travel  has seems very fixed. Manifestly it is not — not when it is so easily swallowed into boxes and spirited to another place.
    • Leave for a long-scheduled week-long trip to Canada in the middle of the move. Arrive airport for flight out already exhausted. Nap during taxiing. Awakened from nap by announcement that plane is returning to the gate to let off a passenger who has suddenly realized she cannot leave her two year old for vacation in Jackson Hole with friends due to the approach of Hurricane Irene. Suspect she really wanted to go shoe shopping.
    • Delay causes missed connection. Add 5 hour layover in Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport. Struggle to stay awake until flight to Vancouver. The airport lights seem too bright, everyone speaks too loud, wonder which bathroom Larry Craig liked to frequent.
    • Arrive at Shangri-La Hotel and it is lovely. Very hungry and too tired to wait for room service. Open bag to discover packing for a trip in the middle of the move generally went okay, except for restocking the emergency snack bag, which contains only: one ziplock baggie of Splenda packets, a few tubes of energy drink powder and three very old Dove chocolates that have gone chalky. Eat the chocolates. Press  many buttons from the control panel on the side of the bed, causing blinds and sheers to open and close madly and various lights to dim and brighten until figure out the right one to hit to make all the lights go out.
    • Hurricane Irene arrives in Northeast the next day. Monitoring news and coverage from home while walking around Stanley Park on the sunniest, golden lit, most pleasant weather day imaginable.
    • Visit The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, the most comprehensive exhibition of Surrealist art ever to be shown in Canada, at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Consider what Dali’s lobster telephone would sound like if it rang.

       

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      2 Comments

      1. Kerry Dexter September 7, 2011
      2. Alison Stein Wellner September 12, 2011

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