Urban Mole - City Fables

Ten Ways to Escape the Festive Madness

Image of street art on the side of a building in Leipzig. A woman leans down over a balcony and holds the hand and head of a man climbing up a rope ladder. She's wearing a yellow dress, he, a red tunic, blue tights, and red shoes. Both their costumes look late medieval.

Some things creep up on you without you noticing: crows feet, dried apricots(*), JWs. Christmas should not be one of those things. It’s big, it’s shiny, it’s loud. It starts in October. Yet here it is.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

He Made it Mauve (and I Like it)

A picture of a cartoon, egg-shaped bee with purple-magenta stripes on its yellow body. It has two black dots for eyes, a big, smiling mouth, and rosy pink cheeks. It's borne aloft on two tiny white wings. I’m out on the bi-weekly bean run. The weather may be grey, but…

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

Iced Tea, Old Chum?

A photo of two giant, ribbed concrete domes reflecting the setting sun. A full moon rises between them. In the foreground is an area of brown-green heathland. In the background, a cloudless blue sky.

Near the MDR railway station in Leipzig is a giant concrete brassiere daubed in colourful graffiti. It’s called the Kohlrabi Circus, and it’s not what you think.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

I Once Met a Man on the Edge of a Volcano

A view from the ruins of Tusculum, on Tuscolo hill near Frascati, Italy. Four crumbling stone walls emerge from the earth in the foreground. In the distance is the green, fertile landscape of the caldera of the dormant Alban volcano. In the distance, a storm brews over the Alban hills.

A walk in the icy November drizzle reminds me of a wet hill in Italy.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

From Misanthrope to Marveller and Back Again

Black and white photo of two men standing besides a large sculpture of an Orangutan sitting on the floor in a meditative pose, from Iris Sageser's Buddhaminders, N-O-W series.

I’ve caught another bug: the sapient shivers.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

Shopping, Shuffleboard, or Zombie Apocalypse?

A woodcut print by Hans Holbein the Younger depicting a monk trying to flee death, who (represented by a skeleton) has a firm hold on his cowl. A dog flees the scene at the monk's feet. An hourglass is set upon the floor, its sand run out.

I go to the shops to buy spelt flakes. I find myself amidst the shambling masses.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

I Think I’m Coming Down with a Cold. My Editor Will Be Pleased.

Cartoon of a blond-haired boy with blue top, green trousers, and brown shoes blowing his nose into a white handkerchief.

Sneezing season’s upon us, the mid-autumn malediction of coughs and sniffs which sets most Germans slipper-shuffling and clutching hankies to their faces.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

The Knight-errant with the Heart of a Carpenter

A black and white photo of the front of a house. A door with a 6-segment window is on the left, and a window with cacti behind the panes is on the right. In front of the house are paving tiles borderied by small, neat cobbles.

Despite the cool night air, The Man Who Shouts at Doors is back. I can hear him through the double glazing. He’s having an argument. It sounds one-sided.

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

Sometimes Nothing Happens (and Other Lies You Tell Yourself)

Black and white photo of a man and a woman working by an IBM 700 mainframe computer. She's sitting at an operating terminal, he's standing looking at the mainframe itself.

Sometimes it turns out doing Sweet FA is actually A, and the F turns up later as Feelings. Funny ...

Christopher Mollison In City Fables

The Dancer’s Child, the Shawn, and the Court of Margaret of Austria

A photo of two wooden baroque recorders with intricately carved head- and foot joints and monstrous mouthpieces.

The Mathematician and I sit and listen to the city's small moments.

Ten Ways to Escape the Festive Madness

He Made it Mauve (and I Like it)

Iced Tea, Old Chum?

I Once Met a Man on the Edge of a Volcano

From Misanthrope to Marveller and Back Again

Shopping, Shuffleboard, or Zombie Apocalypse?

I Think I’m Coming Down with a Cold. My Editor Will Be Pleased.

The Knight-errant with the Heart of a Carpenter

Sometimes Nothing Happens (and Other Lies You Tell Yourself)

The Dancer’s Child, the Shawn, and the Court of Margaret of Austria

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