Here’s a description of one of the most vivid nightmares of my life, which invaded my head when I six or seven: I was inside an old-fashioned jail cell, the kind you see in old western movies. The lighting in the cell was dark, but there was a large gleaming kitchen at the end of a large hallway that was adjacent to the cell. I was a prisoner in the cell, and my imprisonment was part of an instructional TV show about cooking — i.e., how to prepare this or that gourmet meal. I was to be the main course, but instead of Julia Child in the kitchen the hosts were two boxer dogs walking around on their hind legs with white aprons tied around their waists. They were carrying large silver trays covered by large cloth napkins, and all sorts of knives were arranged on top. The show was being narrated by one of the dogs, and I remember that he sounded like an upper-crust butler — like William Powell in My Man Godfrey or Edward Everett Horton in Top Hat. The boxer dog explained very slowly and precisely how I was to be prepared just so. The legs and arms and the meat around the ribs were the tastiest, but the right sauces and spices had to be applied in the right way and the oven had to be pre-heated at a certain temperature, etc. The carving wasn’t part of the dream. The dream was about the dogs following the cook book instructions to the letter. The narrator was speaking in the calmest and most civilized of tones.