A note on Tense Dave and Numb Alison

I fear your webmistress has been somewhat defatigable this week. Fluency has abandoned me, words flee my questing tongue and ideas shrivel unborn in the desert of my mind. Whatever. Osip Mandelstam coined the phrase "pre-lyrical anxiety" for a similar cluster of symptoms; St John of the Cross described such a state as being close to Englightenment. I draw comfort from these thoughts, but it could