I awoke on April 23 from a dream, which I felt immediately compelled to share with the artist concerned (Tony Millionaire, of Maakies and more):

I had a detailed dream of a huge, twenty-five-pound signed-and-numbered limited edition Maakies book, 24 x 12 or thereabouts and and two inches thick, indigo dyed upper edging and deckle pages on the opening side. The book’s cover featured a large illustration and the book itself and the printed cover’s primary color was a light fawn brown. The printed cover of the book and the boards themselves felt soft and smooth, something like leather in the case of the boards and an unknown substance for the jacket.

The book came in an even larger box with a separate interior tipped-in ‘tear sheet’ (which appeared to be a signed silksceen). The box itself was possibly square, as the sales display literature referred to the book and box set as ‘Uncle Gabby’s Square Deal.’

The box was made of heavy cardboard wrapped in a kind of faux morocco leather, roughly the color of a 1940s Scrabble box, but the cardboard was much heavier, say 5 to 7mm. I did not see the cover art on the box that I remember but I think it was different from that on the book.

The interior of the box was lined with green baize, and the inner side of the box (the bottom of the box, which separated as does a board game box) was subdivided into several small compartments in addition to a large one for the book. Included in the compartments were at least two small croupier’s rods, apparently made of a fine hardwood and with delicate handwrapped leather grips, and a set of ivory or ivory-colored standard six-sided dice. It’s possible there was more stuff.

I don’t recall if the baize had gaming markings on it or not, but the intent was clearly to present the box as a kind of gambling surface.

The book was not titled ‘Uncle Gabby’s Square Deal’ and featured a large, intricate illo of Drinky Crow and Henrietta, possibly on the high seas, and whatever the title and copy on the cover, they were ensconced in classic, Greg-Irons-by-way-of-Millionaire nineteenth century bannering devices, possibly worked to appear as engaged in the rigging of the ship.

The book was signed and numbered, one of an edition of 550, and tucked behind the book display were three watercolor collage works by none other than you, Mr. Millionaire, only one of which I got a good look at. Apparently the watercolors were swag the proprietor was intended to bestow on purchasers of the tome at whim. They appeared to have careful and sarcastic or insulting instructions and invective to the bookseller on them in your hand, incorporated into the design of the works.

The book-and-box itself was priced at $550.

It seemed incredibly urgent to me that I let you know about this on awakening. I would say that I would be likely to buy such an improbability.

I wanted to get it in here too.