killing yourself to live

so this past week i've started the book 'killing yourself to live' by chuck klosterman. he's written for publications such as spin, gq, esquire, espn; as well as having other books published (sex, drugs and cocoa puffs is on my 'to read' list along with what seems like a million books)

the book is really good so far. it's marketed as a journey to a variety of locations where famous rock 'n' roll deaths occured (grace land, the site where buddy holly's plane crashed, etc) but in reality it is less to do with this and more to do with klosterman's semi-philosophical musings on his love life, the affect these aforementioned deaths have had on the communities/culture as a whole and a collection of songs/records that is remarkably varied. there is also a surreal section where he talks about 'kid a' by radiohead can be interpreted as an accidental pediction of the 9/11 attacks.

but..this is not the main crux of this blog post. no, that stems from another passage in the book where he is having a conversation with a waitress in a diner (she reads kafka, much to his surprise) about the concept of time in relation to our dreams. this passage has got me thinking ever since i read it.

essentially, the conversation revolved arond how we, as humans, can make the distinction of how much time has passed whilst we are asleep and dreaming. for example, a dream usually lasts on average around 20 minutes, but in the context of the dream, the period of time could seem like anything up to 20 years or even greater.

now in the conversation, the waitress suggests that television as well as books and films has had an influenece on our concept of time passing in certain situations due to the fact that in almost all tv shows, films, etc there is a point where a passing of time is merely alluded too. in the the book the example is given of watching a tv programme where a couple is talking in the kitchen. the programme then goes to an ad break and when it returns the couple is in bed. now, although this passing of time has bot been shown literally, we all know that there has been a passing of time and that this jump from one event to the other is natural in establishing the passing of time from one set of events to another.

if television has affected the way in which we interpret time, especially in relation to our dreams then how, as klosterman points out, did the cavemen of the pre-historic era learn to make the distinction between 'real time' and 'dream time' and also, what did they dream about? were they always able to seperate their dreams from that of their reality?

the book goes into a bit more detail than that, but you get the general idea. i need to research this more as it's all i've really been considering for the last three days...




this weekend is going to be so so good: pbc dudes/lonewolves/road trips/set your goals dvd/watchmen/nintendo wii/little tokyo/seeing pretty much all my best friends over the course of three days/listening to copious amounts of pop-punk.

"...i wouldn't have it any other way!"

xo