Those who read fiction or listen to radio plays ears pressed to the pillow mind curious yet yearning for sleep know you can hold court without being a king or a baron Walter Scott regaled with his tales drawing others near with ghostly flames of the Borders when he himself was lame and perhaps even imagined he was the first Wizard of the North Stevenson was no different his weakeness was in his lungs and allaying the pain gave him access to laudanum and to Hyde in this Poe was his equivalent but Stevenson was hardly impaired when he was sick and lay a-bed and watched his leaden soldiers go with different uniforms and drills among the bed-clothes through the hills or when he sent his ships in fleets all up and down the sheets or brought his trees and houses out and planted cities all about for he was the giant great and still that sat upon the pillow-hill a nd saw before him, dale and plain the pleasant land of counterpane ...

There was a time when we looked askance at granola crunchers who wore Birkenstocks and socks--they made some effort at respectability even then--but that's all in the past now.  Somehow Nietzsche became new age, and Robert Louis Stevenson a herald from Ecclesiastes. If you read the side of a Sleepytime tea box, you'll see a quote from Nitch to the effect that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  So you are meant to sip at your Sleepytime--careful not to let anything slip or drip between the cup and the lip--and therewith drain the day of all ambition, comforting your gray hairs with the realization that you have addressed stress effectively and somehow survived the yoga stretch. Not to be forgotten in this context is Nature's Path Pumpkin Flax Granola, which features, on an inside flap a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson--Don't judge a day by how much you reap, but by how many seeds you sew/  Somehow Stevenson is broadcasting for the New Age variation o...