Der Impfpass, and an announcement
My satirical short story “Der Impfpass”, based on Kafka and on current events, has been published at the New English Review, here. I’ve been collaborating with them since last year, mostly with fiction. Also, remember that my personal blog with longer non-fiction articles is now found at contrarium.substack.com. Here at the site I will be posting mostly updates about our books, magazines or other projects, and occasional shorter texts. Thanks for reading!
Happy 2022
This is me playing (very badly) “In the Bleak Midwinter”, a wonderful Christmas song with lyrics (actually a poem) by Christina Rossetti, and music by Gustave Holst. However, I am still learning and I play really badly. Check for other versions for a better experience. Hopefully, one day I will learn to play it… Here we are at 2022, but it feels more like 2020, a dejà vu feeling with “lockdowns” and new restrictions popping all over again. I was hoping for a less mad 2022, but I am not sure it will happen. That said, here at Contrarium we have many plans. New upcoming books and a new Geist magazine coming in May. NOTE: here at the website blog,
Merry Christmas!
Recently, I received many corporate emails from different companies wishing “Happy Holidays”, “Happy Season”, but curiously enough not one of them was wishing “Merry Christmas”. One of them had the outline of a Christmas tree, but it only wished “Happy New Year”, even though it was sent on Christmas’ Eve. And yet, it is Christmas. No one can stop it. I always loved Christmas. I always liked the imagery, both Christian and pagan, and I enjoyed the festivities, the music, the food, and of course, most of all reuniting with the family. Once more, due to the current surreal regulations, it is not possible for me to be together with my extended family, but I am having a great time
Frozen
Today, even though it’s only early December, there was a lot of snow. It had fallen the previous night and all the streets were white. So I went out for my morning walk and I saw this little girl walking all alone, with a “Frozen” bag and a huge “FP2” mask covering her face. She said “Hallo”. I smiled at her. I couldn’t see if she smiled back because she had her mask on, but she kept staring at me. Then she kept on walking, and a little later stopped to play in the snow. It’s always sad to see children with masks on, not only because they are basically immune to the disease, but because it teaches them to