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Capybaras! (Wien): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 5 December 2013
On the wall facing my desk hangs a poster somebody gave me. The dog Snoopy is sitting at a typewriter, and in the cartoon you read the sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night. . . . ." Every time I sit down here I read, "it was a dark and stormy night . . ." and the impersonality of the incipit seems to open the passage from one world to the other, from the time and space of here and now to the time and space of the written word; I feel the thrill of a beginning that can be followed by multiple developments, inexhaustibly; I am convinced there is nothing better than a conventional opening, an attack from which you can expect everything and nothing; and I realize also that this mythomane dog will never succeed in adding to that first seven words another seven or another twelve without breaking the spell. The facility of the entrance into another world is an illusion: you start writing in a rush, anticipating the happiness of a future reading, and the void yawns on the white page.
Ever since I have had this poster before my eyes, I have no longer been able to end a page. I must take this damned Snoopy down from the wall as quickly as possible, but I can't bring myself to do it; that childish figure has become for me an emblem of my condition, a warning, a challenge.
Italo Calvino: from If on a winter's night a traveler, 1981, translated by William Weaver, 1981
Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their father: "Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other means of saving ourselves!"
The man's heart was heavy, and he thought: "It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your children." The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says A must say B, likewise, and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time also.
The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation. When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked the door, and Hansel could not get out.
Nevertheless he comforted his little sister, and said: "Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the good God will help us."
Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. "Hansel, why do you stop and look round?" said the father, "go on.""I am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me," answered Hansel. "Fool!" said the woman, "that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining on the chimney." Hansel, however little by little, threw all the crumbs on the path.
The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had never in their lives been before...
The Brothers Grimm: from Hansel and Gretel, 1812, in Grimm's Household Tales, translated by Marian Edwardes after Edgar Taylor, 1912
Kleine Winterreise #1 / Ennsbad: photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 9 February 2013
Kleine Winterreise #2 / Ennstalbahn: photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 9 February 2013
Gemeindebau / The Treasure of the Sierra Margareten (Wien): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 14 February 2013
Shortcut (Margareten): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 14 February 2013
Krah - Blues (Wien): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 20 January 2013
Drifting into Archetypes (Canton of Zug): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 6 March 2013
Rustensteg #1 /The Possibility of an Oasis (Wien): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 28 January 2013
Rustensteg #2 / If on a Winter's Morning a Traveler...: photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 29 January 2013
Staying Inside Is an Option (Bregenzerwald): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 6 December 2012
Velvet Periphery (Kahlenberg): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 25 December 2013
Too much Grimm (Kahlenberg): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 25 December 2012
Winterpfad (Kahlenberg): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 25 December 2012
B and W Shift (Kahlenberg): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 25 December 2012
Lichtfänge / Melancolia 2 (Lanne-Viru, Altje, Estonia): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), February 2011
Going D / Vergebliche Suche nach der Farbe des Imperiums (Wien): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 21 January 2013
Burghof 7:55 / Almost Street (Wien): photo by Michael Hummel (Spitting Doc), 21 January 2013