Tuesday, July the 13th, 2004
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“Why,” writes Tim Thurn, “did you choose to illustrate chapter four of Unspeakable Desolation Pouring Down From The Stars [see yesterday, below] with a photograph of Emily Dickinson's gravestone? I cannot see the relevance.” Well, Tim, therein lies a story. For many years I have been plagued by nightmares about the Belle of Amherst. Sometimes she comes wafting towards me hovering in the air, surrounded by malignant hens or similar poultry. Sometimes I dream that I am sitting in a shaded bower, scented by honeysuckle and lilac, idly reading some imaginary pamphlet of Dobson's, when with terrifying suddenness a wraith-like Emily Dickinson appears before me, wailing, flailing a cutlass or scimitar at my head, a ghastly rictus distorting her face. At other times I have woken with Lovecraftian shudders, trying to expel horrible nightmare-visions of Emily Dickinson sat in the crows'-nest of a pirate ship, a necklace of teeth and bones around her white neck, dropping cake-crumbs on to the heads of the sailors below. So, Tim, every now and then I find that by contemplation of the poet's tombstone, with that irrevocable Called Back May 15th 1886, I can remind myself that she is indeed dead and gone, and so, for a few nights at least, my sleep will be untroubled by her restless spirit.
On a related note, readers may be interested to know that this morning I awoke from a vivid dream in which Pansy Cradledew got married to Anthony Newley (1931-1999), the actor, writer and musician (and influence on the young, Laughing Gnome-era David Bowie). Pansy hastens to assure me that this is not the case, citing that, like Emily Dickinson, the ex-husband of Joan Collins has also been “called back”. However, the alacrity with which she provided the picture below, a publicity shot for Mr Newley's 1969 film Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness?, gives one pause for thought.
The heading for this item, by the way, uses the Land of Nod in its now common sense as a euphemism for sleep. Lest we forget, Nod was the land to which Cain was banished after he slew his brother Abel. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden (Genesis 4:16). One of Dobson's earliest pamphlets was a gazetteer of Nod, excerpts from which we hope to publish soon.