{"id":2157,"date":"2020-11-17T12:29:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T17:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/?p=2157"},"modified":"2020-11-18T09:35:31","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T14:35:31","slug":"new-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/new-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"New Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Joseph Keckler <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My dreams are big budget affairs now: elaborate sets and costumes, huge casts, special effects, endless locations. They are vivid and artless, with choreographed violence. In the custom of dreams, there are no plots, but there is always the feeling<\/em> of a plot.  In one life, I\u2019ve been locked in my apartment for months, yet in the other, I\u2019m off having every familiar adventure, incarnated in various genres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this week, I found myself in the penthouse of a shabby New Orleans hotel. I was wearing fur and a gambler hat with a feather, waiting for my mother. When she eventually arrived, the woman at the front desk urged her to stay as long as you like<\/em>. The woman gave this line a hushed emphasis, as though she hoped not only to be in a movie, but also to be foreshadowing some grim fate that would later befall my mother and me. Another night about twenty-five \u201cbad guys\u201d with assault rifles took my friend into the classroom of an abandoned high school. Oh no, were they going to kill her? \u201cDon\u2019t worry about that,\u201d assured another friend, \u201cthe writers wouldn\u2019t have written it that way\u2014it\u2019s against the rules to eliminate a main character at this point in the story.\u201d \u00a0You see, the people in my dreams have begun to act like they\u2019re acting<\/em>. They can step out of the story at any time and so can I. No matter what startling twists and turns or high stakes scenarios unfold around me, I know it\u2019s all a show and I never wake up terror-stricken with a racing heart.\u00a0On the other hand, I\u2019m perplexed: my unconscious has become self-conscious, like a performer overdoing it, egged on by the cheers of the crowd. An air of mystery has dissipated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had a sci-fi dream with Buddhist overtones, about life being artificial, a simulation probably. A voice kept telling me if I stopped participating in the illusion then it would disappear. \u201cOr, if you keep staring in one place that no one would ever stare,” it explained, \u201cyou will see the scaffolding.\u201d I kept waking up for a few seconds and fixing my suspicious eyes on the laundry bin, hazily trying to obey the voice\u2019s instructions. But the skeleton of reality did not reveal itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One night I dodged machine gun fire in the Emerald City. One night a brother and sister I know were in skin-tight body suits and red lipstick, gazing through electric white eyes, pressed shoulder to shoulder like horror movie twins as they slithered backwards up a sand dune. (Hi.) One night the world was underwater and one night a god came down and told us that handwashing and wearing masks were the rituals we must perform as part of a new religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a dream that was not cinematic,\nbut it took place at the movies. I\u2019d stepped into the lobby of my hometown\ntheater, where tickets are still three dollars. But in an instant, I started\nworrying about the contagious virus, since the place was crowded and everyone\nwas zigzagging around, advancing in clusters, just as they normally would. So I\nturned around to go back home, and as I did I noticed a traveling exhibition\nwas being installed here in the lobby.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone on a ladder was stringing a netted canopy from the ceiling. Others were building enclosures and small labyrinths. Ghoulish effigies and automated Halloween figures had been positioned in dark corners, presumably to startle visitors later, catch them unawares.  And on the walls was a patriotic motif: red, white, and blue stripes and stars, chalky and agitated like a Leon Golub painting. Golden eagles had been stamped throughout. The eagles were perched and watching and looked like hieroglyphics, locked into a rigid geometry. A podium stood in the center of the room and a nearby sign advertised a string of upcoming events by a famous prophet-like orator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understood now that this was the new center of life: not the movies, but the popcorn-littered antechamber and the elaborate yet ramshackle assemblage it would now host. Yes, it was time for a reckoning in the lobby. Because the lobby was suddenly everything: a carnival, a revival tent, and a trading floor of beliefs, fears, and ideals. America as a haunted house\u2014I could come back, it was opening soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Joseph Keckler<\/strong> is a singer, musician, writer, and artist. He performs widely and has appeared at Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, SXSW, Miami Art Basel, and Centre Pompidou. Keckler is the author of Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World: Portraits and Revelations <\/em>(Turtle Point Press, 2018).  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My dreams are big budget affairs now: elaborate sets and costumes, huge casts, special effects, endless locations. They are vivid and artless, with choreographed violence. In the custom of dreams, there are no plots, but there is always the feeling of a plot. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152],"tags":[157],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTraveltainted | New Religion - Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.turtlepointpress.com\/traveltainted\/new-religion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Traveltainted | New Religion - Turtle Point Press Magazine \/ TPPM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My dreams are big budget affairs now: elaborate sets and costumes, huge casts, special effects, endless locations. 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