and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

In this day and age of pervasive technology and every media format you can think of as just another data packet, cameras are becoming the norm. Almost everywhere you go there is someone with a little hunch in the neck from the weight of a digital hanging off them. Now you can even catch glimpses of people pointing their cell phones in various directions snapping stills of the most ridiculus things. We are, decidely, a picture happy nation. Between television, magazines, newspapers, posters, movies, and our own minds we are a nation obsessed with our own image. We can't even order food without a picture of it presented in front of us. It's no wonder publications like USA Today sell so many copies. It's no wonder that magazines have more and more pictures and less and less text. The image is a more raw format than text can ever hope to be and it shows.

Yet despite all this people still cringe at the business end of a camera lense. Walk around in your home town and snap a few photos of store fronts, parks, police officers, and you'll find more people staring at you, wary, than not. Perhaps because the act of taking a picture is tantamount to saying "Hey, look at this!" - which is most often expressed with a hint of "hey, look at this FREAK". Why would someone want to capture, on film, something normal? That is what the everyman is thinking to him or herself as they walk down mainstreet with their eyes narrowed to slants and directed like raybeams at your hands, which are raised with camera cradled in them. So if you aren't capturing something normal on film (and why would you?) then you must be capturing something awkward or strange or funny looking or just plain dumb.. and if you are then that is a reflection of the everyman walking by, down mainstreet of his or her hometown. They are being reflected upon at that very moment - and while the picture is not published in some magazine or tabloid yet, it could be, and at the very least at that very moment there is at least you, gawking. Why else would you raise camera to eye? Why else would you capture an image?

The photographer makes a great antagonist. He is the ever-present parasite, waiting to get paid for showing you the things you did not want to see about yourself. The film is the weapon, cutting you like a harsh comment or a rude remark. And if this is true, then we - we the people - we are the readers of this book and we are curious and intrigued by the problems that plague our protagonist. We want to see the problems our hero faces. We want to see an imperfect world. We want to know that it is normal to struggle and normal to be awkward and weird and disfigured and crazy. But we want to see our protagonist win out over the evils of the world. We want to see our protagonist come out o.k. in the end.. Because really, we are our own protagonist and we just want to feel normal.

We just want to come out o.k. in the end.