ANGEL-MAJOR

  Mondovì, vintage photo Italy, Mondovì, Delle Ripe Street. A few days before Christmas 1947. The basket of Baby Jesus was waiting, already filled with presents for the children of the Delle Ripe neighborhood. That year, it was mostly socks.  Exultate ! The hand-knitted woolen socks kept the children’s feet warm in their boots. For the following year, the planning foresaw mittens, also made of pure sheep’s wool and hand-knitted.  Jubilate ! What a pleasure, what a delight! Nothing was as warm as these mittens. A year later, after socks and mittens, it was the turn of the woolen scarves, also hand-knitted.  Laudate Dominum ! Long and shaped like windsocks, they protected the children’s necks from pernicious drafts. Once the three-year cycle was over, the same cycle began again. Let’s face it: the most disappointing side of these presents was their lightness. The children of Delle Ripe Street all agreed on this point. On the night of December 24 to 25, the children wen...

(English translation of the Italian original: “Il MinDimBit”)   Canberra, April 1995   It’s almost time to leave. Four years in Australia and the chapter is already closing. At this point it is customary to put together a few souvenirs.    The first one is ready. It is a small Plexiglass plate with a  Red Back  from Canberra inside. Red Backs are small, plump and very poisonous spiders, recognizable by a bright red triangle on their black backs. This embalmed spider exhales a sad memory. One bad day, David, our giant family spider – a  Huntsman , also from Canberra – went missing. Anny Moore, the small animal vet next door, was worried too. Six days away is a long time for a Huntsman. Anny had a lot of hypotheses. She had apparently ruled out the possibility that we had killed him. Over time, she had gotten to know us better and noticed that our Australisation process was progressing rapidly. Including the mutation from an instinctive arachnophobia to ...