Tuesday, February the 24th, 2004

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Ülm

A number of readers have written to request further information about the 1955 Festival of Argumentative Music held in Ülm (see Lothar Preen News, 3rd February). And guess what—Dobson was there! Bizarrely, he never published his observations as a pamphlet. The text given here has been transcribed by Marigold Chew from a dictaphone recording made by Dobson which was lost for many years, and only recently came to light, hidden behind the pipes of an intricate plumbing system in the basement of the Pang Hill Fireworks Factory. What it was doing there is anybody's guess. Dobson is known to have had various altercations with the janitor of the factory, one Joost Van Dongelbracke, who later became famous—or infamous—as the “Suburban Shaman”, founder of a cult which gained an incredible four million adherents across Europe and North America in the 1970s before imploding in ghastly circumstances. Persistent rumours that President Nixon was a member have never been proved one way or the other. Whatever, as the young people say. What concerns us here is the Dobson transcript.