Abstract Random

Winter is officially over (though it certainly doesn't feel like it). The change of season has reminded me of my favourite "dream" from Facts of Winter (a book of [fictional] dreams, dreamed by people in and around Paris in the winter of 1881, by Paul La Farge), printed below for your reading pleasure:

Burning of Spring

Five days later Baron Haussmann dreams that he is once again the Prefect of Paris. His administration is put in charge of the seasons of the year: summer, fall, spring, etc. He draws up a plan for a system of warehouses in which the best-known features of each season will be stored: the summer smell of hot stone, the graying skies of autumn, the snow dirtied by Parisian feet, the trees in bloom. He also designs a network of channels by which each season can be delivered to the city within a week at most. We could change seasons seven or eight times a year, easily, he notes in his report to the municipal council, or we could add new seasons to satisfy the needs of a growing population: sprall, a season of mist and fine rain, good for gathering various fruits in the forest; or fammer, a hot, gray, still season, suitable for riots. Not long after these "weather axes" become operational, the Baron learns that there was a fire in the warehouse where they keep the spring, and that the vernal season has been entirely destroyed. Now the question arises, what are they going to do on March 21? Baron Haussmann can't decide whether to have an early summer or to draw the winter out. He wakes up, still unable to choose between the two.