In Which Dreams Get Political

I love the unconscious brain! Yesterday I went to the university library and took out a bunch of books, including The Arrival, which is very impressive visually and conceptually (I'd only looked at it -- "read" seems the wrong verb for a wordless book -- once in a bookstore, and wanted the chance to really stare; also, the director of the library, David Beronä, reviewed it for Rain Taxi, so I thought it would be fun to borrow it from David's library. He was a very appropriate reviewer for it, since he's the author of Wordless Books: The Original Graphic Novels) and The Jameson Reader (what I really wanted was Marxism and Form, but the library doesn't have that [gasp! ack!], so I was hoping to be able to trace some of the ideas I was trying to trace via the selection from Jameson's other writings).

So anyway, I looked at The Arrival, then read some Jameson, then read the Times article about Rachel Maddow getting her own show. I haven't actually watched or listened to Maddow very much, but I've enjoyed her when I've happened to see her on something or other (as often as not, YouTube), but I'm thrilled a major network is giving an out lesbian with a doctorate in political science her own show. I also love that her birthday is (according to Wikipedia) April Fool's Day, which is also the birthday of my paternal grandfather and Samuel R. Delany. (And wouldn't Delany just make the greatest guest on the show?! Imagine! They could do a birthday show together!)

All of this was apparently brewing in my brain last night, because I woke up this morning having dreamed that I somehow had become an advisor to Barack Obama, and we were in a little room with Noam Chomsky and China Miéville, trying to decide which one was going to be Obama's running mate. Chomsky protested that he's older than McCain, and Miéville said he's not a U.S. citizen, and Obama stood there and held his chin in his hand and looked thoughtful for a long time. But somewhere during the dream, he said, "Okay, I'm going to go make the announcement." And that's all I remember.

Naturally, I was disturbed this morning to wake up and discover that, in fact, Obama has not announced his running mate yet.

At least Rachel Maddow getting her own show was not a dream...

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