in the multi-planar sphere, all functions are simultaneously one and zero

last night, i had a dream about quantum physics.

when we lived in mexico, someone told me that you knew you knew a language when you dreamed in it. in mine, at the bottom circular drive at valle escondido, (if you chuckled, even a little, the other part of the neighborhood is hacienda valle escondido) monica was there, but her hair was still long so she didn't have cancer yet. it was easter.

my cousin goes through food in phases. they are always gross things, such as cheez-whiz and that yogurt that comes with a capful of little oreo pieces and is definitely not a healthy snack. well, neither is cheez-whiz, i suppose. you have to be careful with cheeze in strange states of matter, and make sure that when you look at the label it doesn't say "cheese food" or "cheese product". i think innovations in the field of cheese food are the reason we can buy a five dollar hot and ready.

it all started last thursday, when i decided to go listen to a guy called Christopher Payne talk about his book, Asylum. the premise of his lecture, as paraphrased by me, was that he was an architect who got bored and decided (thanks to an idle suggestion by a friend) that his new creative project would be photographing mental institutions/abandoned buildings. how original. before he opened his mouth, it seemed as if it would be at least slightly intriguing, but, unfortunately, not only was he irritating and slightly offensive at times, it was apparent that he was not really interested in what he was doing.

i stepped out for a drink of water and didn't go back in, partly because it was hot in there and we were standing awkwardly in the back of the auditorium and partly because i was busy thinking about what i had heard before leaving. Payne apparently spent a bit of time at the Pilgrim Psychiatric Hospital in West Brentwood, New York. he gave some historical background on the place, noting the thousand acres of farmland purchased by the state of New York in 1930 that would less than one year later open as the largest hospital of any type in the world (a size yet to be surpassed). bizarre sidenote: the largest haunted house in the world is abandoned-mental-institution-themed. it is in japan somewhere.

later that night, i decided to look into Pilgrim a bit more, largely because i'd spent an hour fuming about the guy's inaccurate portrayal of the historic trends of psychiatric care with a friend of mine (as an architect, she was particularly aggravated with his use of the word 'picture' rather than 'photograph', and postulated that he most likely had a trust fund, what an ass). as it turns out, the place was a spectacle in and of itself, without even considering its actual purpose.

essentially, it was a self-contained city, complete with police and fire departments, courts, post office, Long Island Railroad Station, power plant, swinery, potter's field, cemetery, and staff housing. at its peak in post-WWII 1954, Pilgrim had 13,875 patients and over 4,000 employees.

unfortunately, the 1960s brought about a shift in attitude in the field of psychiatry; institutionalization was losing its footing as the predominant form of psychiatric treatment as pharmaceutical interventions gained momentum (it's always about money), and the hospital was forced to downsize, even selling off some of the land to Suffolk County Community College.

what does quantum physics have to do with this hospital? maybe nothing, maybe everything. i got a little curious and decided to look into the concept of being a pilgrim as well as that of engaging in a pilgrimage. that story is worth holding out for.