Slides

I’m walk into a crowded movie theatre as a movie is playing. Robin Williams is on screen in what seems to be a serious story set in a foreign country. There are two screens one on each of two walls that meet at a 90-degree angle. There are rows of seats facing each screen. The screen to the side is smaller. I sit down in an empty aisle a few rows from that screen. A man is sitting near me and starts talking to me nonstop. I try to ignore him, then get up and move to the front row of the other screen. I try to find a seat and see Craig Humphrey and perhaps a few other people from high school sitting in the aisle. Tim Funke is a few seats down and waves at me. They start sliding back and forth across the row as if on a conveyor belt that keeps changing direction. The result is that I cannot sit in the constantly filled empty seat I intended to.

Then I am walking down a city street and see a party going on in a loft. It is some kind of dorm building and the party is packed elbow to elbow with people having an amazing time.

Then I am looking into another building. It is a giant window of what looks like a gleaming modern storefront. But it is labeled as The Portfolio Center. The walls to each side are covered in student ads from top to bottom. The wall facing the window has huge posters of student ads hanging from small chains from the ceiling or hung on the wall by glass held in place by large steel screws. The work is amazingly good and one of the pieces is a tequila ad and is labeled with Karl Backus’ name. There is an old pick-up truck (like an old ford with rounded wheel wells.) on display on the floor right in front of the window. It is painted bright crazy colors like an art exhibit or maybe it is an ad. The sidewalk starts sliding and feels like a moving walkway at the airport. But it quickly changes direction and starts swinging back and forth in a long fluid glide. I look down and realize that it is actually the building that is sliding back and forth in front of me like a giant amusement park funhouse.