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Delphic Dreams is back for the second semester to answer all of your

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nightly mysteries. Send in your puzzling dreams to the X-Press by letter or e-mail, address them to Delphic Dreams please.

My boyfriend and I broke up about 3 months ago, and I have been dreaming about him A LOT ever since. What is unusual (although pleasant) is that most of these dreams are about us getting back together. What do you think this could mean?

Lonely without him

Dear Lonely,

Honey, I don’t even need to use my delphic powers for this one! Your dreams are telling you something that you just don’t want to admit to yourself. Reconcile with him, and give your relationship another try!

Every night I have dreams of being chased by lampshades. They are pink and have bunnies on them. Oh, and the lamps aren’t there, just the shades. Should I have myself committed, or can this have some logical meaning? Confuzzled

Confuzzled:

It would appear that you are being chased by the mythic bunny of happiness. The usual connotation for the lampshade is one that we may have all experienced at one time or an- other: that fabled party where you get so drunk that lampshades make great hats. It would appear that you will not open yourself to your inner party animal. Let loose, go wild.

Dear Delphic:

Last night I dreamt that all of my friends (from high school through till university) lined up and then each one told me specifically why they disliked me. Needless to say, this has me very disturbed. Does this really mean that I have no friends?

Friendless

Dear Friendless:

Maybe you’re insecure about your faults, or maybe you’re insecure about your friends. The actions of people in dreams often represents what you need torecognize in yourself, in your case low self esteem. Appreciate yourself!

Dear Delphic Dreams:

Every month or so, I have a dream about my jaw becoming locked open, this causes me great distress for awhile and when I manage to clamp it shut again it shatters my teeth in the process.

Toothless in Seattle

Dear TL

Dreaming of teeth in various forms generally represent change in your life. There are issues in your life that need to be dealt with. The breaking of teeth is symbolic of transition in your life. (Freud says that this can represent penis anxiety, but we all know what to think of Freud, right?) Then again, maybe you just need to switch toothpaste.

Stella (Dec. 1994)

As darkness falls

and the cold wind blows,

I walk alone, alone

through the dark frozen fields.

Dee TMG tiller: melee

arm eer) COAL

BEN Gar liane

not knowing my path home.

Suddenly the sky clears and she begins to emerge.

Helping guide me,

she takes away my fears, lighting my path,

and hiding my tears.

The path is long,

and I am cold.

So I sing a song,

Ky TRL ae OMe LMI

-- Marco Scappa

( ir, | oe J S Be

This Week: Pointless, silly, stupid animated violence! Cool!

A nuclear war. The survivors of the holocaust fight for survival in a blasted waste where water, food, hope, and just about every- thing else except motorcycles and street gangs are almost gone. And through this bloody, brutal world wanders Ken, The Fist of the North Star, trying to improve the lot of the world by being even more bloodily, disgust- ingly, senselessly violent that the gangs he destroys.

That’s right folks, this week we cover a true classic of Japanese animation: The Fist of the North Star. It’s the incoherent tale ofaman and his fists, and the killer headaches they give people.

Plotwise, there’s not a whole lot you need to know. Nukes fall. World goes to hell. Ken, the Fist of the North Star, (kind of a cross between a king, a messiah, and Bruce Lee), is killed by one of his four ‘brothers’. One of his ‘brothers’, Ral (or Ruh, or Raoul, or what- ever), a big, stoic, bulky black guy, goes to the Temple ofthe North Star and attempts to prove that he is the new Fist. We don’t see him again until the last ten minutes or so

Meanwhile, a young boy named Fox and hissister getinto trouble with a street gang. They are rescued by a guy in a beard who practices a bizarre form of slum clearance before wiping out the bad guys. Guess what? It’s Ken, back from the dead and pissed as hell!

The rest of the movie is pretty straight forward. Ken wanders across someone who claims to be The Fist of the North Star, wipes out about a zillion henchmen, and then bursts his cool leather jacket and blows up the im- poster’s head. Along the way he finds his old girlfriend, makes a few allies, meets a couple of cool fighters and kills hundreds of people in rather messy fashion. Then, about fifteen min- utes from the end, he meets of with Ral (or whatever) and they have a big fight full of laser lines, unexplained earthquakes and speed ef- fects before realizing that they are two sides of the same coin and cannot destroy each other. Ken wanders off, and the movie ends. Acting (or Lack Thereof): Three words: Bad English Dubbing. B.E.D. has been the downfall of many a Japanamation classic. It changes the story, destroys the mood of the original, and makes you long for subtitles. Or earplugs. This dub was done by Streamline Pictures back in their worst days, and you’ll probably recognize a few of the good voices from Robotech. The rest sound like they flunked the audition for Enter The Dragon. It can get to be painful.

The really scary part is that it was

based, word for word and scene-for scene, a Japanese comic of the same name that ma even less sense.

Not-So-Special Effects: Ever had one those days when you just had to see two hor of laser lines and speed effects? This mo has more of ‘em than your average Star Wa marathon. Not to say that’s a bad thing; tl movie is justifiably a classic, and the creati use of these old animation stand-bys is o reason why. My favourite character in whole movie isa guy I call Ray, after his abili to draw lines of energy with his fingertips then slice people into chunks with them. Stuff to Watch For: FIGHT SCENE Glorious, bloody, ultra-sickening FIG SCENES! As Ken meanders along from i poster to imposter, he fights many large, int esting people and kills them all. His North S technique allows him to punch a guy hundre oftimesasecond. Ifthat don’t put them do he can cause all the nerves in their body to simultaneously. This has the effect of boili their brain and causing them to explode me ily, skull first. As Plucky Duck once s ‘‘Eewwww’’. These creative little boom sce are fun at first, but they get repetitive afte while: Ken gets threatened. Ken says, ‘‘I the Fist of the North Star. You're alre dead.’’ Ken’s leather jacket explodes as flexes his muscles. Ken hits the bad several times, then walks away. Bad guy s4 ‘*Come back here! I’m not through with yet!’’ and then he goes Ker-splork.

My favourite scene is not a fight, ho ever. It’s the one where Ken, back from dead, strolls through a forest of deserted s scrapers and casually breaks them off at foundation with his bare hands. One of th falls on his head, andhe keeps walking thro it like Wile E. Coyote on earthquake pi Now that’s an attitude!

The Bottom Line: Okay, it’s bl disgusting, senseless, horrifying, disturb! redundant, gory, stupid and violent, but kind of fun to ridicule. You can have end! fun making up a Rocky Horror-like audi¢ participation script to mock its silliness. N the little glitches like Ken’s regener! leather jacket.

Also, one has to wonder just how this wasteland can be, when there are armi¢ literally thousands marching across it wit! food, water or logic. And all the ten foo! muscle bound mutant giants! Is it some in the non-existent water, or are they just 5 irradiated steroids, or what? <sigh watch it when the kids are asleep, okay’ Available at: Off The Wall Video, *! mond Street, across from Confed Centre

January 31, !