Writer: William Firebrace
Leto Litho Leningrad
20.02.2020
Leto Litho Leningrad20.02.2020
Joseph Brodsky, in his short essay ‘A Guide to a Renamed City’ (1979), wrote: The characteristic features of Leningraders are: bad teeth (because of lack of vitamins during the siege), clarity in pronunciation of sibilants, self-mockery, and a degree of haughtiness towards the rest of the country. Mentally this city… Read More
Learning from the Tortoise
09.08.2019
Learning from the Tortoise09.08.2019
I. The tortoise is certainly slow, but in the ancient fable it arrives sooner than the hare – or according to the even older paradox of Zeno it always arrives before the mighty runner Achilles. Slowness is usually seen as a negative characteristic, lacking the vibrancy of speed. But everything… Read More
Scaletales: Dr Franz Gibarian’s Lecture
08.05.2026
Scaletales: Dr Franz Gibarian’s Lecture08.05.2026
– William Firebrace
The following fictional text was extracted from William Firebrace’s Scaletales (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Köln, 2026). The book investigates the various meanings of the word scale through a story about two elderly women on a journey from Finland through central Europe to the Black Sea. They… Read More
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