In my dream last night my friend Matt and his wife and his nephew were visiting Toronto from Chicago. It was awesome and lovely to have a surprise visit with them. When I woke up I remembered he died almost ten years ago but the dream contained no memories of that, just the pleasure of seeing him and trying to figure out a restaurant to meet. There is no convincing the occupants of the dream that they are not what they seem to be. Dreams are 100% real and they do not even exist. The brain is only two or three pounds, the part of it from where consciousness is located is maybe a gram. When it looks in the mirror, this gram tells itself it is not a small brain part but the whole enchilada. Not just a little wizard behind the curtain using technology to convince the inhabitants of Oz it is bigger, when in fact none of it exists. While controlling the thunder sounds and strobe lights, the wizard forgets what he is and believes in his character, that those are his powers, that he is that big. That’s the goal of the improvised musical states, for me anyway. Arriving where I appear to be making happen something I can’t truly take credit for, and yet who else is going to take the podium when the Juno’s award best improviser under 5’6 that freezes spotted bananas for smoothies? Whether or not I get there each time, the destination is a space I appear to own which is better than drugs and more surreal than opening a dragon fruit with its white flesh and black sesame seed size spots inside a pink swirly shell licked by yellow edges.