Ray's in Cement

The morning sun is just starting to rise above Avenue A and the homeless are waking from their drunken stupors in Tompkins Square Park. Beautiful young families, parents around thirty and a baby in a stroller, are walking through the park and I am walking alone, free to admire them.

I start to feel hungry so I wander across Ave. A and walk into Ray's Candy Store for perhaps an egg cream and a beignet. There is no line. Ray hands me an egg cream and the shop starts to go dark. I look out the window and see huge trucks covering the building with cement. Ray yells at the top of his lungs "get down here with me" as he opens up a hatch into a cellar. I hop over the counter and climb down the ladder and turn around at the bottom, seeing a group of 5 or 6 people. About half of the group was Native American and the other half were Dutch, like Peter Minuit and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. They welcomed and hugged us and said "You didn't think it would last forever, did you?" I suppose they were right.

--Victor B. (age 15)

I Dream of Jeremiah 2

I turned up in the dream of another blogger, C.O. Moed:

We were in a van traveling west on Houston Street. A tall thin, young man with long dreds and a beautiful bandana sat next to me. He wore magenta / deep purple lipstick--the kind I wore in the late seventies. His nails were either green or purple.

I began pointing out different things from the van window as we passed "First Avenue," but in fact it looked more like 2nd or the Bowery. There was all this construction. A tenement building like a chess piece was standing at an angle to the corner, awaiting removal. I pointed to the corner and said, "Oh, and this is my neighborhood and that is a big glass building soon," and perhaps another remark about the destruction of my neighborhood.

The van stopped and metamorphosed into an area by a skating rink. The tall young man went off to get something and I realized THAT was Jeremiah Moss and I didn't need to tell him anything about the neighborhood! He came back and I made my introductions. I was a bit flustered. He was incredibly gracious.

--C.O. Moed (dreamed 4/15/12)

I Dream of Jeremiah

Goggla had a dream about me. She writes:

You lived in a room in the cellar of NYU. It was full of copiers and you were employed as their master xeroxer. There were no windows. The only natural light came through a skylight, which was really a hole that looked up through dirt at Washington Square Park and NYU buildings. The room was like an abandoned office--pillars here and there, gray carpet, fluorescent lights. It was really crappy and messy with paper all over the place, wires hanging out of the ceiling and a huge amount of dust. I was house-sitting for some reason, so you weren't there. I recall being quite surprised and horrified that you lived (and worked) there. Also, you left a date planner for 2010 on the floor and it had lots of personal info in it, like bank account numbers. I thought you really should be more careful.

--Goggla (dreamed 3/28/12)

50s City

June 4, 2012

Last night I dreamed that I stumbled into a part of New York City that had been preserved in the 1950s. Or maybe I had gone back in time. I wasn't sure. The windows were full of wonderful neon signs and I had my digital camera, taking pictures of everything.

It was Midtown and the office buildings all held book publishing companies. I was overcome with excitement, and could not stop saying, "Once, long ago, New York was full of book publishers! They had power and influence! Everyone wanted to work in their offices!" And I felt terrible grief about the present fact that books have been rejected by the culture in favor of electronic screens.

The dream was decorated with beautiful, Mad Mennish set design.

--JM