Last night I dreamt I about one of my undergraduate professors. She was essentially a character in a Louis Auchincloss novel—down on her luck, selling off her family heirlooms. Somehow her furnishings wound up in a mansion owned by Sotheby’s. And then I was there, discussing how she could buy back her Empire sofa and a fireplace treatment on credit.
Auden said “in human dreams earth ascends to Heaven” but the good poet wasn’t always right, and sometimes dreams head straight for the Devil. Failing to procure the proper funds, my professor vanished, as people do in dreams and life. Then the entire thing became about vengeance and someone (Freud would say it was me) stalked Sotheby’s killing the Ivy League bastards one by one.
We are often selected to mourn for our age. That’s how it is. Do they dream of political economy on other planets?
Planet of the Blind 