Three Blind Mice

Pharaoh famously dreams of seven fatted and seven starved calves which predict the seven years of famine and seven of feast. Enjoying a dream's penchant for prophecy involves the willing suspension of disbelief. You probably don't rely on dreams for predicting the future any more than you would the machinations of a palm reader. The average patient reporting a dream to their therapist is more likely to find out what is right before their eyes rather than what will be. If it's weather you're after, you're more likely to depend on the Farmer's Almanac. Dreams are actually mnemonic fitbits. Have you ever had a dream about taking the train to "the end of the line?" The dream may accurately reflect the feeling that for good or bad you're there (at the end of the line that is) with nowhere else to go. Such dreams possess their own topography. When you get to the end of the line, you may find other people you could know. The shoe fits the foot. These arrivistes are just like you. When Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself turned into a cockroach, he has to deal with his carapace. It's a surreal nightmare but also very real. The dream predicts an inescapable present--masked as the future in a fortune teller's ball.

read the review of The Kafka Studies Department in Booklife

See the animation of Erotomania at the Nihilist Film Festival, Santa Monica, December 15