Introduction
G
loom has its attractions, although Christopher
Hyland, of unipolar sunny temperament, would disagree
with me. Who among us, at least among artists and writers,
has not inhabited some dark garret student room, if only in
imagination. In H.P. Lovecraft's haunting tale, The Music of
Erich Zann, the narrator recounts a spell of living in a tall,
tottering house on a narrow, precipitous street full of evil
smells, the Rue d'Auseil, whose existence he can no longer
confirm, for it appears on none of the maps he studies of
his former, unnamed city. It has been suggested that Lovecraft derived the name Auseil from au seuil—at the threshold—and indeed, The Music of Erich Zann is the story of the
crazy threshold at which all creative persons, at one time or
another, hover; the liminal land between light and darkness.
To me, it is from the latter place that a work of art emanates,
eventually seeing the light of day in its realization.
HYLAND
