Dear Mr Key, writes Tim Thurn, Please look very carefully at the attached photograph. I have been staring at it constantly for about five hours, and I have convinced myself that the person we see here depicted is the out of print pamphleteer Dobson. You may wish to assert that a) the image is not a photograph and b) Dobson would never have allowed himself to be caught on camera while so preposterously engarbed. You are of course fully entitled to express such objections, but bear in mind that I am a man of mighty optical acuity and I know what I am talking about. Call me a deluded idiot if you must. I am now going to go on an Easter picnic event. Yours sincerely, Tim.
Frank,
I have often pondered the question of why there are photographs, paintings or any other kind of depiction of Dobson’s corporeality. The Prophet Mohamed was known to have eschewed any physical depictions, however in my dobsonian research I have uncovered no such objection. Quite the opposite in fact, Dobson was obsessed with the idea of having his portrait painted – something which he believed he owed to posterity.
My theory is that Dobson was such an effusive conversationalist that any photographer, painter or poet who attempted to capture the man’s likeness would have been almost instantly transported into a dobsonian flight-of-fancy that he or she would have become entirely distracted from the task at hand.
I can picture this photographer, painter or poet emerging from Dobson’s dingy hut with photographic plates un-exposed, canvases pristine or notepads devoid of doggerel but with a mind whirling full of the kind of twaddle that the titanic out of print pamphleteer would spout.
Frank, please tell me if I am correct in this supposition or if I too am a deranged Idiot.
Yours in Christ,
Tristan J. Shuddery
Whether it’s Dobson or not, I know I’m not deluded when I say that that is certainly an impressive marshmallow-toasting get up.