Writing About Mallo Al Mar

(photo by tergiversation on flickr)

I had one of the best dreams in recent memory a couple weeks ago.  

It was set in this seaside town that had been deserted, called Mallo Al Mar (so said signs in my dream.)  There were run-down boardwalks with old tile-decorated lamp posts and peeling paint storefronts around the perimeter, but the whole place had recently fallen into the hands of some company that wished to turn a profit on historical tours and such.  (Yes?) 

My dream self walked toward the end of the boardwalk, before it seemed to turn a corner. I leaned on a dirty, but ornate metal railing, watching the water burn.  There were craggy rock formations in the shallows, and at high tide, a toxic algae seaweed substance would become snared in the rocks, then catch fire until the water was clean again.  The sky was heavy grey.

I watched this happen, until the glow stopped and the water was dark and quiet.  

Then, I was on an open-air trolley winding up a cartoon-y mountain;  (perfectly conical, all evenly green... like Switzerland, or the Smurfs.) There was a scary old lady (similar to the tyrranical Hilary Matts, former teacher and head of IB at West Vancouver Secondary School) narrating historical facts about the mountain.  I wasn't paying attention.  Instead, I looked over at the branch of land that I could see beyond a river that snaked around the mountain base, silver and unmoving in the afternoon light.  There was a beautiful cathedral perched on the very waterfront of the other bank.  

Allison was sitting beside me, both our hands folded on this roller coaster-like tour.  I said, "Hey, do you see that cathedral?"  Because suddenly, it was only visible through some giant buildings and cloud structures.  (Upon googling, it looked similar to this one, which I haven't been to, but I've seen some like... this image really did it though.)

Back at the bottom of the mountain, we wandered into a beach souvenir shop which was dimly lit by grey fluorescence.  The shop had inflated waterwings and tubes hanging from all wall surfaces.  We shouldered our way through the place, and I looked at goggles while Allison talked to the surly shopkeeper; an old man in a wifebeater stretched over a tanned hairy belly.  She was trying to negotiate employment for her boyfriend, who had inquired about working in this shop earlier.  The shopkeeper insisted he did not actually need anybody else, but Allison didn't believe him and was upset on her boyfriend's behalf.

We left angrily without making any purchases, and emerged onto a path leading to a small beach under a tall bridge.  The beach was bound by the cement foundation for the first major pylon, and on the other side, dense blackberry bushes.  There was a birthday party on the sand, and somebody had a bouncy castle set up.  I swam, watched it from the water.  

We retreated abruptly, crossing the bridge to get back to Mallo and by the time we made it, I was dry.  Allison wasn't there anymore.

It was twilight again, and I was up to my waist in the ocean.  I was being chased, and it was supposed to be a game, but I was afraid.  I was in the shallows, with the rough rock formations, but here was a sort of underwater arcade of naturally formed columns, evenly arranged for the surface area of maybe a basketball court.  The waves frothed against all of them when they came to shore, and gasped as they pulled back through them.   I moved erratically, hiding now and then underwater.

I waded in and out, avoiding my pursuer, and eventually made it ashore before the seaweed caught fire again and fizzled out by the rocks just behind me.  A crowd watched from the boardwalk, their expressions all equally unconcerned.  I don't know what happened to the person chasing me.

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I am trying to figure out where I got these images.  The obsession with so called Mallo Al Mar:

Mallo means husk in Italian.  Al Mar means to the sea in Spanish.  I am also told that Mallomars are a popular snack in the States.  I had never heard of them, but I've eaten them under a different name.  I'm not sure how they are related though.  Ha.  

Also, there is a town called St. Malo in France, which I once wrote  a brief report about, but have never been to.  This picture looks remarkably like one of the sweeping aerial views of the town in my dream.)

This dream was very beautiful, and I thought about it a lot.  It is responsible for a more quiet psychosis, not so much the usual laughing madness.  I think I will include all dream material as legitimate psychotic content for the purposes of this blog, as dreams are often strange, illgoical, and warrant fixation the day(s) after.  And fixation often leads to a strange sort of delirium.  

I'm sure the surrealists would be in favour of this move.  Maybe I really will write about something remotely academic/not myself!  Coming up next, my favourite psychotic artists?!