Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

I have only experienced recurring dreams once. When I was a kid, and remembered my dreams with more frequency, and in greater detail, I had a dream that kept coming back for a few weeks. It was very detailed, and in hindsight, I'm not sure if it was exactly the same, but it had many of the same features. I  remember being confused that I kept having it because it never had before. One funny thing about memory is that you believe something happened in a specific way, and it might not have. Remembering a dream is even more challenging because nobody but you remembers it, so you cannot ask them if it really happened that way.  Visually, the dream was striking, memorable, and very strange. It was like I was trapped in a Scooby-Doo episode, except the animation was crisper and more bizarre than the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. There were two witches that looked like they had escaped from The Wizard of Oz that flitted in and out and a sled race that led me back to the beginning of the dr...

It is halfway through November, and the leaves are covering the ground, so it is probably time to read one of my Amphigorey  volumes by Edward Gorey. His taste for the absurd and the horrific have fascinated me since I first noticed his artwork on PBS's Mystery! opening title sequence. I never put two and two together that he was the same artist who did the Amphigorey collections until years later when I started seriously collecting cartoon collections and independent comics. As a kid, I was a big fan of John Bellairs's books with their gothic and creepy adventures in which boys like Lewis Barnevelt and Johnny Dixon faced sorceresses and wizards. The House with a Clock in its Walls and  The Mummy, The Will, and the Crypt were particular favorites. Gorey did the covers for these books and many horror collections that I have read since. I habitually buy any book that has Goreycover art and reread his works almost every year. Numerous Marvin Kaye edited collections, such as Ghost...

In my darkest days I tend to sleep a lot. Nap after nap comes in quick succession when turning off the world is as easy as clicking the light switch and settling into a light snooze. I have become reckless in my pursuit of sleep, searching for one long forgotten dream. Perhaps, I long for anything that will shut out the light. When I was a kid, I had a recurring dream filled with creepy witches and small children, rendered in cartoon detail. This brain animation came weekly for a period, then just stopped. I've never had it again. Could this be the dreamworld I seek? Or, perhaps, there is another world buried deep in my psyche, asking to be explored? I've never had another dream that beat on the doors so often as this one. Most dreams come once and never return. Dreams are always peopled with the strangest or most unexpected characters, random places from the past, and enough chicanery to make election year look like a triumph. Random classmates from grade school appear alo...