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On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, host Kristen Collins chats with Roos Slegers on the uncanny valley, Freud, and cyborg science fiction. They explore the uncanny valley and Freud's concept of the uncanny, connecting them to ETA Hoffmann's “The Sandman”, Donna Haraway's “Cyborg Manifesto”, and contemporary AI debates. While Mori's uncanny valley describes discomfort with almost-human robots, Freud links the uncanny to repressed fears, particularly around gender and sexuality. Roos critiques Freud's reading of “The Sandman”, highlighting its deeper commentary on romantic ideals and the preference for submissive, artificial women—paralleling modern AI assistants like those in the American sci-fi film, Her. Haraway's cyborg offers an alternative, challenging rigid binaries and embracing technology's potential for transgression and liberation. They critique how today's AI and transhumanist movements reinforce traditional hierarchies rather than dismantling them, urging a more critical and playful engagement with technology's role in shaping human identity.Dr. Roos Slegers is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.Read more work from Kristen Collins.Notes: Masahiro Mori, 1970, “The Uncanny Valley"Sigmund Freud, 1919, “The Uncanny"Donna Haraway, 1985, “Cyborg Manifesto”ETA Hoffman, 1817, “The Sandman” Meghan O'Gieblyn, God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning, 2021If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
Finalizamos mais uma temporada do Literário viajando para o início do século XIX para decobrir a origem do soldadinho que está presente de diversas maneiras na cultura popular e no imaginário natalino.
Wer kennt nicht das Märchen von Hänsel und Gretel? Aber können wir dieses Märchen von den Eltern, die ihre Kinder loswerden wollen, weil sie sie nicht mehr ernähren können, noch wie die Brüder Grimm erzählen? Wenn der Wald stirbt, die Luft verpestet ist und der Winter nicht mehr Winter ist, sondern nur noch schmuddelig grau? "Auf keinen Fall", meint Kim de l'Horizon und hat darum das bekannte Volksmärchen umgeschrieben. Christoph Leibold hat sich die Premiere für BRKL angesehen.
The German Romantic author of horror and fantasy published stories which form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, the ballet Coppélia and the Nutcracker. In the theatre he worked as a stagehand, decorator, playwright and manager and he wrote his own musical works, his opera Undine ended its run at the Berlin Theatre after a fire. But during his lifetime he also saw Warsaw and Berlin occupied by Napoleon and during the Prussian war against France, he wrote an account of his visit to the battlefields and he became entangled in various legal disputes towards the end of his life. Anne McElvoy is joined by: Joanna Neilly Associate Professor and Fellow and Tutor in German at the University of Oxford. Keith Chapin senior lecturer in music at Cardiff University. Tom Smith a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He is Senior Lecturer and Head of German at the University of St Andrews. You can find details about performances of Offenbach's works on the website of the society http://offenbachsociety.org.uk/ Producer: Tim Bano
An instant bestseller in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther was carried by Napoleon on his campaign in Egypt, it led to spin offs in fashion, porcelain and perfume and created Werther fever. A work of his Sturm und Drang years, Goethe's epistolary novel was published anonymously when he was aged 24. The story captures the intensity of unrequited love, frustrated ambition and mental suffering. It is also a novel that keys into the big philosophical arguments of its age and has given rise to a wide range of artistic responses in the two centuries since. With the Royal Opera House staging Massenet's operatic adaptation of the story, Anne McElvoy explores the ideas that fed into it. Professor Sarah Hibberd is Stanley Hugh Badock Chair of Music at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on nineteenth century opera and music theatre in Paris and London. Dr Sean Williams is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and Senior Lecturer in German and European Cultural History in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Sheffield and is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker. Dr Andrew Cooper is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick and is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker. Dr Sabina Dosani is a doctoral researcher in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. She is a consultant psychiatrist and a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker. Producer: Ruth Watts Werther: Antonio Pappano conducts Massenet's opera with a cast including Jonas Kaufmann and Aigul Akhmetshina. Performances at the Royal Opera House are from June 20th - July 4th You can find other discussions about artworks, literature, film and TV which are Landmarks of culture gathered into a collection on the Free Thinking programme website. They include episodes about Gunter Grass, ETA Hoffmann, Hannah Arendt, and Thomas Mann https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44
Asylum and psychiatric institutions, obsession and heroin, and imagining a new self are explored in the writing of Anna Kavan (1901-1968). With the republication of her novel Ice, her reputation is now on the rise. Matthew Sweet is joined by critic and author Chris Power, Carole Sweeney, who researches experimental fiction, Sally Marlow, who studies the psychology of addiction and is Radio 3's researcher in residence, and the literary scholar Victoria Walker, who founded the Anna Kavan Society. Producer: Luke Mulhall You might also be interested in an episode of Words and Music curated by Sally Marlow exploring ideas about addiction and intoxication being broadcast in January. Free Thinking has a playlist called Prose, Poetry and Drama where you can find plenty of conversations about other authors including John Cowper Powys, Sylvia Plath, Claude McKay, ETA Hoffmann
The German Romantic author of horror and fantasy published stories which form the basis of Jacques Offenbach's opera The Tales of Hoffmann, the ballet Coppélia and the Nutcracker. In the theatre he worked as a stagehand, decorator, playwright and manager and he wrote his own musical works. His opera Undine ended its run at the Berlin Theatre after a fire. During his lifetime he also saw Warsaw and Berlin occupied by Napoleon and during the Prussian war against France, he wrote an account of his visit to the battlefields and he became entangled in various legal disputes towards the end of his life. Anne McElvoy marks 200 years since his death gathering together literary and musical scholars to look at his legacy. Joanna Neilly is Associate Professor and Fellow and Tutor in German at the University of Oxford. Keith Chapin is senior lecturer in music at Cardiff University. Tom Smith is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. He is Senior Lecturer and Head of German at the University of St Andrews. You can find details about performances of Offenbach's works on the website of the society http://offenbachsociety.org.uk/ Producer: Tim Bano
E.T.A. Hoffmann wirkte u. a. als Jurist, Komponist und Zeichner. Heute wird er vor allem als Schriftsteller geschätzt. Ohne Hoffmann-Lektüre, sagt Ingo Schulze, wären viele seiner eigenen Werke gar nicht vorstellbar.
CW: Injury, menstruation, some intimated underage sex, it's weird. Is THE NUTCRACKER a ballet? Yes. Is it also a novella by ETA Hoffmann? Yes. It's a Christmas miracle that Lauren Emily Whalen (@laurenemilywri, laurenemilywrites.com) is here to discuss all the different ways we can have a sexual awakening to small kitchen appliances! Buy Lauren's books! Be A Patron: Patreon.com/fuckboisoflit Link to ETA Hoffmann texts: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/2008 Link to The Hard Nut Part 1 // Part 2 Link to Boston Ballet Trepak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgyliXHF9j8 // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-qVbWl5TYg Trailer of the Dutch National Ballet Nutcracker: https://youtu.be/V3RoTxIuhvU Trepak from So You Think You Can Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4tyxXymgc Russian/Cossak Dancing: https://youtu.be/O7MYUP_rGWE More Trepak/Hopak/Gopak dancing: https://youtu.be/WBrmIKf_PEM
Though we knew this moment was coming, that doesn't make it any easier. We finish our discussion of Book II, which means goodbye for now to the Murr Cinematic Universe. The book ends with an editor's postscript informing us of the fictional Murr's death, which coincides with the death of ETA Hoffmann's real-life cat Murr. With ETA Hoffmann dying a few months after the publication of Book II, the saga of Murr and Kreisler remained unfinished. But the circular structure of the book means the end of Book II actually takes us back to the beginning of Book I. And so, we will remember Murr as he was at the end of the story, at the beginning of the book, poised to continue his life and adventures (and, of course, opinions) with Kreisler.
“Every holiday season, throughout the land, Mirlitons, Candy Canes, and other treats bounce briskly through The Nutcracker's Kingdom of the Sweets.” (_The Ballet Companion_ p.158) “The Nutcracker” ballet is such an epic part of Christmastime, and though I can't possibly provide an exhaustive account of such a dancing phenomenon, I'd like to share some of the history and my own fascination with the music, dancing, costumes, and magical story. Hopefully it sparks a bit of your own childlike wonder, dreams, and fantasies as well as your grown-up appreciation of music, storytelling, and the art of dance. “The Nutcracker is a Christmas holiday favorite and the most popular ballet in America. There are more than 2,000 performances of it every year around the country. You will probably have a chance to see it someday–and maybe even dance in it yourself, since it has a lot of roles for young dancers.” (_A Child's Introduction to Ballet_ p.47) I share insights from George Balanchine on "The Nutcracker," the literature origins of the story, authors ETA Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas, The Dance Channel's "History of the Nutcracker Ballet" video on YouTube, psychological elements in Barishnikov's "Nutcracker," themes of vengeance, Matthew Donnell's _The Boy with the Patch_ children's book about Drosselmeier's story, the ballet's debut in 1892 at the Mariinsky Theatre, Petipa and Ivanov, Tchaikovsky, Sadler's Wells, Ballet Russe, San Francisco Ballet, NYCB... Here are some music favorites, and those I use in creative dance interpretations of the story are included in the'Nutcracker' Story for Creative Dance playlist on Spotify: Scene 1: Overture, Party Scene, Children's Dance Scene 2: Godfather Drosselmeier's arrival, Dolls dance Scene 3: All go to bed, Battle Scene, Marie/Clara's role in winning Scene 4: Snowy Forest, Waltz of the Snowflakes Scene 5: Kingdom of the Sweets, Sugarplum Fairy/Pas de Deux, Waltz of the Flowers, Arabian, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, Mirlitons/Marzipan, Mother Ginger/Polichinelles/Candy Canes divertissements. Scene 6: Marie's return home, Finale For a full ballet or dance class, I have arranged tracks from the ballet in my “Nutcracker” Ballet Class playlist Questions for reflection: What versions of “The Nutcracker” have you seen? Which is your favorite? Have you performed in “The Nutcracker” ballet or other wintertime productions? What holiday traditions will you enjoy this year? What music fills you with the spirit of the season? More resources will linked in the blog :) Thanks for listening and happy holidays! Blythe Stephens, MFA she/her or they/them A Blythe Coach: ablythecoach.com @ablythecoach move through life with balance, grace, & power
Vier Noten für die Ewigkeit. Mit dem Anfang seiner dramatischen Sinfonie in c-Moll lieferte Beethoven 1808 eines der berühmtesten Motive der klassischen Musik überhaupt. Dabei war seine Tonsprache damals keineswegs populär, sondern höchst experimentell. Und den pathetischen Beinamen "Schicksalssinfonie" hat erst die Nachwelt erfunden. (Autor: Michael Lohse)
1838 sitzen die Komponisten Robert Schumann und Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig mit dem Schriftsteller E.T.A. Hoffmann zusammen, um einen bahnbrechenden Klavierzyklus zu schreiben. Gut, Bach und Hoffmann waren da natürlich schon tot, aber Schumann verwandelt ihre Vorlagen zu einem Schlüsselwerk der Romantik. (Autor: Dominik Mercks)
In this episode we discuss The Sandman, the 1816 short story by ETA Hoffmann. The story has had a substantial influence on fantasy and horror genres, as well as on early psychoanalysis, and as you’ll soon hear, we just love it. It’s full of fun spooky motifs, creepy imagery, and lovingly making fun of over-dramatic young men (always a favorite). Content warnings: light discussion of body horror imagery, mental health-related issues, and mention of death and suicide. NOTE: This is the last of our pre-recorded episodes! Thank you for your listens! From here on out, we will be releasing bi-weekly, the next release on Friday, February 19.
Helene liest euch den Anfang des Klassikers von ETA Hoffmann vor.
Vier Noten für die Ewigkeit. Mit dem Anfang seiner dramatischen Sinfonie in c-Moll lieferte Beethoven 1808 eines der berühmtesten Motive der klassischen Musik überhaupt. Dabei war seine Tonsprache damals keineswegs populär, sondern höchst experimentell. Und den pathetischen Beinamen "Schicksalssinfonie" hat erst die Nachwelt erfunden. (Autor: Michael Lohse)
Under rådande Corona-kris lyfter vi några olika filmer och böcker som hjälper oss igenom denna märkliga tid på olika sätt. Tomas slår på stora flagellanttrumman och kuppar in musiken från Det sjunde inseglet redan under första kvarten, och Lars berättar om vad som får honom att tänka på mopedavgaser, mouintainbikes och matbutiken i bostadsområdet där vi gick i skolan. Vi pratar också om: Ingmar Bergman, Abigor, Funeral Mist, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Max von Sydow, pesten, digerdöden, Cormac McCarthy, The Road, Chuck Palahniuk, Haunted, Hålet, El hojo, Terminator, AI, artificiell intelligens, Elon Musk, Sam Harris, John Carpenter, Lost Themes, Rovdjuret, Predator, Plan B i Vietnam, björnen på stranden, Minilivs, Råslätt, Thriller, Diamond Back, Min granne Totoro, Hayao Miyazaki, Joe Hisaishi, The Witch, A Tale of Two Sisters, Studio Ghibli, Hana-bi, Ponyo, Kickis expressbud, Prinsessan Mononoke, Nausicaä and the Valley of the Winds, Nintendo, Space Balls, Det våras för rymden, Det våras för scheriffen, Det våras för Frankenstein, Mel Brooks, Star Wars, Bark at the Moon, Creep 2, Tremors, Hotet från underjorden, John Williams, Hajen, Ernest Troost, Kevin Bacon, Fred Wards, Brokeback Mountain, Judas Priest, Roger Rabbit, sandeman, Sandman, ETA Hoffmann, Der Sandmann, Dick Harrison, Stora döden, Naomi Klein, No Logo, Eric Schlosser, Snabbmatslandet, HP Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls, Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death, The Andromeda Strain, The Crazies, Chernobyl, Contagion, Outbreak och Hereditary. Mycket nostalgi denna gång, en del löst tyckande och kanske något av det akademiska här och där.
Herzlich Willkommen zur Masterclass "Symbolistik". Hier spricht Robert Langdon. Bitte halten Sie Ihre Lektüren von ETA Hoffmann, Maurice Maeterlink und natürlich Sören Kierkegaard bereit, wenn wir uns auf wilde Fahrt begeben. Nächster Halt: Coppelius. Das DISCOVERY PANEL erörtert die “Lage der Föderation” in der neue Serie “Star Trek: Picard”. Wir freuen uns über eure Meinung: www.discoverypanel.de Oder auf Social Media: Twitter: @PanelDiscovery Instagram: @DiscoveryPanel Facebook: @DiscoveryPodcast Email: info@discoverypanel.de Oder ruft uns an oder schickt uns Nachrichten auf WhatsApp unter: 02291/UKTAUK2 https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/discovery-panel/id1287128600
Megan and RJ attempt to atone for their episode 69-related sins with a dose of wholesome holiday cheer via ETA Hoffmann's classic Christmas tale, The Nutcracker! Wherein a potentially insane clockmaker refuses to help a small girl who's being extorted by a mouse with seven heads! Megan is confused by ballet, RJ does some exceptional word-mangling, and we make every possible "nut" joke in existence. From the midroll: ohnolitclass.threadless.com litographs.com @NarcissistCook
Katie Derham considers a seasonal favourite - Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. She looks at its journey from the short story by ETA Hoffmann, via Alexandre Dumas, to the ballet stage and talks to conductor Paul Murphy of the Birmingham Royal Ballet about the nature of Tchaikovsky's music and how, as a conductor, he sets about shaping it to make it work for the dancers.
Weeeeellllcommmme to Meeeeeereeee Rhetoooooric! It’s our annual Halloween episode, which means a little bit of the people, ideas and movements who have shaped rhetorical history, but mostly a ghost story. This year, we’re going with our first not-MR-James story. Don’t worry--there are still intials--but first--to business. If you’re going to talk about ghost stories and influential thinkers, you won’t dig long until you come across Freud’s contribution, a little piece called “The Uncanny.” You might not peg Sigmund Freud as a connoisseur of boogeymen, but he was capital-f freaked capital-o out by ETA Hoffmann’s story “The Sandman.” If Hoffmann’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you know him from writing the story of the Nutcracker ballet. Look at that--our annual tradition here at Mere Rhetoric just founds 3-degrees of separation to every ballet company’s annual tradition! Anyway, the Sandman is a freaky sci-fi horror tale that eventually inspired another ballet called Coppelia. The original is even more terrifying. Don’t worry--it’s coming up after we talk about Freud. Right now all you need to know is that the line between reality and madness is thin, thin and shaky. Freud was, as you might expect, very into that. He draws heavily on a German pun--evidentally heimlich means both homey or familiar and secret or hidden. In terms of the uncanny, things are most terrifying when we think we’re playing in the realm of our daylight reality and then suddenly the rules change. No one, for example, is horrified when Snow White RISES FROM THE DEAD, because we already are accepting that we’re in a fairy tale with, like, singing animals who do housework. As Freud says, ““as soon as it is given an arbitrary and unrealistic setting in fiction it is apt to lose its quality of the uncanny” (19). And what are these eerie occurances? Because Freud is a master classifier, they can be split across “either when repressed infantile complexes have been revived by some impression, or when the primitive beliefs we have surmounted seem once more to be confirmed (17)--so he believes either the terrors of childhood or of primitive man resurface in our horror stories. The parts of us that we repress resurface as ghosts and witches and we confront them in physical manifestations separate from us. For example, the supernatural power of, like, a giant or a firestarter, relates to our own narcissistic impulses to dominate others. Freud goes through and gives a catalogue of things that are uncanny: dismembering the double living dolls repetition (like seeing the same number all day) evil eye ghosts witchcraft madness As you listen to this year’s Halloween episode, The Sandman, you can point out where these pop up--see if you can get Uncanny Bingo! NATHANEL TO LOTHAIRE Certainly you must all be uneasy that I have not written for so long - so very long. My mother, am sure, is angry, and Clara will believe that I am passing my time in dissipation, entirely forgetful of her fair, angelic image that is so deeply imprinted on my heart. Such, however, is not the case. Daily and hourly I think of you all; and the dear form of my lovely Clara passes before me in my dreams, smiling upon me with her bright eyes as she did when I was among you. But how can I write to you in the distracted mood which has been disturbing my every thought! A horrible thing has crossed my path. Dark forebodings of a cruel, threatening fate tower over me like dark clouds, which no friendly sunbeam can penetrate. I will now tell you what has occurred. I must do so - that I plainly see - the mere thought of it sets me laughing like a madman. Ah, my dear Lothaire, how shall I begin ? How shall I make you in any way realize that what happened to me a few days ago can really have had such a fatal effect on my life? If you were here you could see for yourself; but, as it is, you will certainly take me for a crazy fellow who sees ghosts. To be brief, this horrible occurrence, the painful impression of which I am in vain endeavoring to throw off, is nothing more than this - that some days ago, namely on the 30th of October at twelve o'clock noon, a barometer-dealer came into my room and offered me his wares. I bought nothing, and threatened to throw him downstairs, upon which he took himself off of his own accord. Only circumstances of the most peculiar kind, you will suspect, and exerting the greatest influence over my life, can have given any import to this occurrence. Moreover, the person of that unlucky dealer must have had an evil effect upon me. So it was, indeed. I must use every endeavor to collect myself, and patiently and quietly tell you so much of my early youth as will bring the picture plainly and clearly before your eyes. As I am about to begin, I fancy that I hear you laughing, and Clara exclaiming, 'Childish stories indeed!' Laugh at me, I beg of you, laugh with all your heart. But, oh God! my hair stands on end, and it is in mad despair that I seem to be inviting your laughter, as Franz Moor did Daniel's in Schiller's play. But to my story. Excepting at dinner-time I and my brothers and sisters used to see my father very little during the day. He was, perhaps, busily engaged at his ordinary profession. After supper, which was served according to the old custom at seven o'clock, we all went with my mother into my father's study, and seated ourselves at the round table, where he would smoke and drink his large glass of beer. Often he told us wonderful stories, and grew so warm over them that his pipe continually went out. Whereupon I had to light it again with a burning spill, which I thought great sport. Often, too, he would give us picture-books, and sit in his arm-chair, silent and thoughtful, puffing out such thick clouds of smoke that we all seemed to be swimming in the clouds. On such evenings as these my mother was very melancholy, and immediately the clock struck nine she would say: 'Now, children, to bed - to bed! The Sandman's coming, I can see.' And indeed on each occasion I used to hear something with a heavy, slow step come thudding up the stairs. That I thought must be the Sandman. Once when the dull noise of footsteps was particularly terrifying I asked my mother as she bore us away: 'Mamma, who is this naughty Sandman, who always drives us away from Papa? What does he look like?' 'There is no Sandman, dear child,' replied my mother. 'When I say the Sandman's coming, I only mean that you're sleepy and can't keep your eyes open - just as if sane had been sprinkled into them.' This answer of my mother's did not satisfy me - nay, the thought soon ripened in my childish mind the she only denied the Sandman's existence to prevent our being terrified of him. Certainly I always heard him coming up the stairs. Most curious to know more of this Sandman and his particular connection with children, I at last asked the old woman who looked after my youngest sister what sort of man he was. 'Eh, Natty,' said she, 'don't you know that yet? He is a wicked man, who comes to children when they won't go to bed, and throws a handful of sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads. He puts their eyes in a bag and carries them to the crescent moon to feed his own children, who sit in the nest up there. They have crooked beaks like owls so that they can pick up the eyes of naughty human children.' A most frightful picture of the cruel Sandman became impressed upon my mind; so that when in the evening I heard the noise on the stairs I trembled with agony and alarm, and my mother could get nothing out of me but the cry, 'The Sandman, the Sandman!' stuttered forth through my tears. I then ran into the bedroom, where the frightful apparition of the Sandman terrified me during the whole night. I had already grown old enough to realize that the nurse's tale about him and the nest of children in the crescent moon could not be quite true, but nevertheless this Sandman remained a fearful spectre, and I was seized with the utmost horror when I heard him once, not only come up the stairs, but violently force my father's door open and go in. Sometimes he stayed away for a long period, but after that his visits came in close succession. This lasted for years, but I could not accustom myself to the terrible goblin; the image of the dreadful Sandman did not become any fainter. His intercourse with my father began more and more to occupy my fancy. Yet an unconquerable fear prevented me from asking my father about it. But if I, I myself, could penetrate the mystery and behold the wondrous Sandman - that was the wish which grew upon me with the years. The Sandman had introduced me to thoughts of the marvels and wonders which so readily gain a hold on a child's mind. I enjoyed nothing better than reading or hearing horrible stories of goblins, witches, pigmies, etc.; but most horrible of all was the Sandman, whom I was always drawing with chalk or charcoal on the tables, cupboards and walls, in the oddest and most frightful shapes. When I was ten years old my mother removed me from the night nursery into a little chamber situated in a corridor near my father's room. Still, as before, we were obliged to make a speedy departure on the stroke of nine, as soon as the unknown step sounded on the stair. From my little chamber I could hear how he entered my father's room, and then it was that I seemed to detect a thin vapor with a singular odor spreading through the house. Stronger and stronger, with my curiosity, grew my resolution somehow to make the Sandman's acquaintance. Often I sneaked from my room to the corridor when my mother had passed, but never could I discover anything; for the Sandman had always gone in at the door when I reached the place where I might have seen him. At last, driven by an irresistible impulse, I resolved to hide myself in my father's room and await his appearance there. From my father's silence and my mother's melancholy face I perceived one evening that the Sandman was coming. I, therefore, feigned great weariness, left the room before nine o'clock, and hid myself in a corner close to the door. The house-door groaned and the heavy, slow, creaking step came up the passage and towards the stairs. My mother passed me with the rest of the children. Softly, very softly, I opened the door of my father's room. He was sitting, as usual, stiff end silent, with his back to the door. He did not perceive me, and I swiftly darted into the room and behind the curtain which covered an open cupboard close to the door, in which my father's clothes were hanging. The steps sounded nearer and nearer - there was a strange coughing and scraping and murmuring without. My heart trembled with anxious expectation. A sharp step close, very close, to the door - the quick snap of the latch, and the door opened with a rattling noise. Screwing up my courage to the uttermost, I cautiously peeped out. The Sandman was standing before my father in the middle of the room, the light of the candles shone full upon his face. The Sandman, the fearful Sandman, was the old advocate Coppelius, who had often dined with us. But the most hideous form could not have inspired me with deeper horror than this very Coppelius. Imagine a large broad-shouldered man, with a head disproportionately big, a face the color of yellow ochre, a pair of bushy grey eyebrows, from beneath which a pair of green cat's eyes sparkled with the most penetrating luster, and with a large nose curved over his upper lip. His wry mouth was often twisted into a malicious laugh, when a couple of dark red spots appeared upon his cheeks, and a strange hissing sound was heard through his gritted teeth. Coppelius always appeared in an ashen-gray coat, cut in old fashioned style, with waistcoat and breeches of the same color, while his stockings were black, and his shoes adorned with agate buckles. His little peruke scarcely reached farther than the crown of his head, his curls stood high above his large red ears, and a broad hair-bag projected stiffly from his neck, so that the silver clasp which fastened his folded cravat might be plainly seen. His whole figure was hideous and repulsive, but most disgusting to us children were his coarse brown hairy fists. Indeed we did not like to eat anything he had touched with them. This he had noticed, and it was his delight, under some pretext or other, to touch a piece of cake or some nice fruit, that our kind mother might quietly have put on our plates, just for the pleasure of seeing us turn away with tears in our eyes, in disgust and abhorrence, no longer able to enjoy the treat intended for us. He acted in the same manner on holidays, when my father gave us a little glass of sweet wine. Then would he swiftly put his hand over it, or perhaps even raise the glass to his blue lips, laughing most devilishly, and we could only express our indignation by silent sobs. He always called us the little beasts; we dared not utter a sound when he was present, end we heartily cursed the ugly, unkind man who deliberately marred our slightest pleasures. My mother seemed to hate the repulsive Coppelius as much as we did, since as soon as he showed himself her liveliness, her open and cheerful nature, were changed for a gloomy solemnity. My father behaved towards him as though he were a superior being, whose bad manners were to be tolerated and who was to be kept in good humor at any cost. He need only give the slightest hint, and favorite dishes were cooked, the choicest wines served. When I now saw this Coppelius, the frightful and terrific thought took possession of my soul, that indeed no one but he could be the Sandman. But the Sandman was no longer the bogy of a nurse's tale, who provided the owl's nest in the crescent moon with children's eyes. No, he was a hideous, spectral monster, who brought with him grief, misery and destruction - temporal and eternal - wherever he appeared. I was riveted to the spot, as if enchanted. At the risk of being discovered and, as I plainly foresaw, of being severely punished, I remained with my head peeping through the curtain. My father received Coppelius with solemnity. 'Now to our work!' cried the latter in a harsh, grating voice, as he flung off his coat. My father silently and gloomily drew off his dressing gown, and both attired themselves in long black frocks. Whence they took these I did not see. My father opened the door of what I had always thought to be a cupboard. But I now saw that it was no cupboard, but rather a black cavity in which there was a little fireplace. Coppelius went to it, and a blue flame began to crackle up on the hearth. All sorts of strange utensils lay around. Heavens! As my old father stooped down to the fire, he looked quite another man. Some convulsive pain seemed to have distorted his mild features into a repulsive, diabolical countenance. He looked like Coppelius, whom I saw brandishing red-hot tongs, which he used to take glowing masses out of the thick smoke; which objects he afterwards hammered. I seemed to catch a glimpse of human faces lying around without any eyes - but with deep holes instead. 'Eyes here' eyes!' roared Coppelius tonelessly. Overcome by the wildest terror, I shrieked out and fell from my hiding place upon the floor. Coppelius seized me and, baring his teeth, bleated out, 'Ah - little wretch - little wretch!' Then he dragged me up and flung me on the hearth, where the fire began to singe my hair. 'Now we have eyes enough - a pretty pair of child's eyes,' he whispered, and, taking some red-hot grains out of the flames with his bare hands, he was about to sprinkle them in my eyes. My father upon this raised his hands in supplication, crying: 'Master, master, leave my Nathaniel his eyes!' Whereupon Coppelius answered with a shrill laugh: 'Well, let the lad have his eyes and do his share of the world's crying, but we will examine the mechanism of his hands and feet.' And then he seized me so roughly that my joints cracked, and screwed off my hands and feet, afterwards putting them back again, one after the other. 'There's something wrong here,' he mumbled. 'But now it's as good as ever. The old man has caught the idea!' hissed and lisped Coppelius. But all around me became black, a sudden cramp darted through my bones and nerves - and I lost consciousness. A gentle warm breath passed over my face; I woke as from the sleep of death. My mother had been stooping over me. 'Is the Sandman still there?' I stammered. 'No, no, my dear child, he has gone away long ago - he won't hurt you!' said my mother, kissing her darling, as he regained his senses. Why should I weary you, my dear Lothaire, with diffuse details, when I have so much more to tell ? Suffice it to say that I had been discovered eavesdropping and ill-used by Coppelius. Agony and terror had brought on delirium and fever, from which I lay sick for several weeks. 'Is the Sandman still there?' That was my first sensible word and the sign of my amendment - my recovery. I have only to tell you now of this most frightful moment in all my youth, and you will be convinced that it is no fault of my eyes that everything seems colorless to me. You will, indeed, know that a dark fatality has hung over my life a gloomy veil of clouds, which I shall perhaps only tear away in death. Coppelius was no more to be seen; it was said he had left the town. About a year might have elapsed, and we were sitting, as of old, at the round table. My father was very cheerful, and was entertaining us with stories about his travels in his youth; when, as the clock struck nine, we heard the house-door groan on its hinges, and slow steps, heavy as lead, creaked through the passage and up the stairs. 'That is Coppelius,' said my mother, turning pale. 'Yes! - that is Coppelius'' repeated my father in a faint, broken voice. The tears started to my mother's eyes. 'But father - father!' she cried, 'must it be so?' 'He is coming for the last time, I promise you,' was the answer. 'Only go now, go with the children - go - go to bed. Good night!' I felt as if I were turned to cold, heavy stone - my breath stopped. My mother caught me by the arm as I stood immovable. 'Come, come, Nathaniel!' I allowed myself to be led, and entered my chamber! 'Be quiet - be quiet - go to bed - go to sleep!' cried my mother after me; but tormented by restlessness and an inward anguish perfectly indescribable, I could not close my eyes. The hateful, abominable Coppelius stood before me with fiery eyes, and laughed maliciously at me. It was in vain that I endeavored to get rid of his image. About midnight there was a frightful noise, like the firing of a gun. The whole house resounded. There was a rattling and rustling by my door, and the house door was closed with a violent bang. 'That is Coppelius !' I cried, springing out of bed in terror. Then there was a shriek, as of acute, inconsolable grief. I darted into my father's room; the door was open, a suffocating smoke rolled towards me, and the servant girl cried: 'Ah, my master, my master!' On the floor of the smoking hearth lay my father dead, with his face burned, blackened and hideously distorted - my sisters were shrieking and moaning around him - and my mother had fainted. 'Coppelius! - cursed devil! You have slain my father!' I cried, and lost my senses. When, two days afterwards, my father was laid in his coffin, his features were again as mild and gentle as they had been in his life. My soul was comforted by the thought that his compact with the satanic Coppelius could not have plunged him into eternal perdition. The explosion had awakened the neighbors, the occurrence had become common talk, and had reached the ears of the magistracy, who wished to make Coppelius answerable. He had, however, vanished from the spot, without leaving a trace. If I tell you, my dear friend, that the barometer-dealer was the accursed Coppelius himself, you will not blame me for regarding so unpropitious a phenomenon as the omen of some dire calamity. He was dressed differently, but the figure and features of Coppelius are too deeply imprinted in my mind for an error in this respect to be possible. Besides, Coppelius has not even altered his name. He describes himself, I am told, as a Piedmontese optician, and calls himself Giuseppe Coppola. I am determined to deal with him, and to avenge my father's death, be the issue what it may. Tell my mother nothing of the hideous monster's appearance. Remember me to my dear sweet Clara, to whom I will write in a calmer mood. Farewell. CLARA TO NATHANIEL It is true that you have not written to me for a long time; but, nevertheless, I believe that I am still in your mind and thoughts. For assuredly you were thinking of me most intently when, designing to send your last letter to my brother Lothaire, you directed it to me instead of to him. I joyfully opened the letter, and did not perceive my error till I came to the words: 'Ah, my dear Lothaire.' NO, by rights I should have read no farther, but should have handed over the letter to my brother. Although you have often, in your childish teasing mood, charged me with having such a quiet, womanish, steady disposition, that, even if the house were about to fall in, I should smooth down a wrong fold in the window curtain in a most ladylike manner before I ran away, I can hardly tell you how your letter shocked me. I could scarcely breathe-----the light danced before my eyes. Ah, my dear Nathaniel, how could such a horrible thing have crossed your path ? To be parted from you, never to see you again - the thought darted through my breast like a burning dagger. I read on and on. Your description of the repulsive Coppelius is terrifying. I learned for the first time the violent manner of your good old father's death. My brother Lothaire, to whom I surrendered the letter, sought to calm me, but in vain. The fatal barometer dealer, Giuseppe Coppola, followed me at every step; and I am almost ashamed to confess that he disturbed my healthy and usually peaceful sleep with all sorts of horrible visions. Yet soon even the next day - I was quite changed again. Do not be offended, dearest one, if Lothaire tells you that in spite of your strange fears that Coppelius will in some manner injure you, I am in the same cheerful and unworried mood as ever. I must honestly confess that, in my opinion, all the terrible things of which you speak occurred merely in your own mind, and had little to do with the actual external world. Old Coppelius may have been repulsive enough, but his hatred of children was what really caused the abhorrence you children felt towards him. In your childish mind the frightful Sandman in the nurse's tale was naturally associated with old Coppelius. Why, even if you had not believed in the Sandman, Coppelius would still have seemed to you a monster, especially dangerous to children. The awful business which he carried on at night with your father was no more than this: that they were making alchemical experiments in secret, which much distressed your mother since, besides a great deal of money being wasted, your father's mind was filled with a fallacious desire after higher wisdom, and so alienated from his family - as they say is always the case with such experimentalists. Your father, no doubt, occasioned his own death, by some act of carelessness of which Coppelius was completely guiltless. Let me tell you that I yesterday asked our neighbor, the apothecary, whether such a sudden and fatal explosion was possible in these chemical experiments? 'Certainly,' he replied and, after his fashion, told me at great length and very circumstantially how such an event might take place, uttering a number of strange-sounding names which I am unable to recollect. Now, I know you will be angry with your Clara; you will say that her cold nature is impervious to any ray of the mysterious, which often embraces man with invisible arms; that she only sees the variegated surface of the world, and is as delighted as a silly child at some glittering golden fruit, which contains within it a deadly poison. Ah ! my dear Nathaniel! Can you not then believe that even in open, cheerful, careless minds may dwell the suspicion of some dread power which endeavors to destroy us in our own selves ? Forgive me, if I, a silly girl, presume in any manner to present to you my thoughts on such an internal struggle. I shall not find the right words, of course, and you will laugh at me, not because my thoughts are foolish, but because I express them so clumsily. If there is a dark and hostile power, laying its treacherous toils within us, by which it holds us fast and draws us along the path of peril and destruction, which we should not otherwise have trod; if, I say there is such a power, it must form itself inside us and out of ourselves, indeed; it must become identical with ourselves. For it is only in this condition that we can believe in it, and grant it the room which it requires to accomplish its secret work. Now, if we have a mind which is sufficiently firm, sufficiently strengthened by the joy of life, always to recognize this strange enemy as such, and calmly to follow the path of our own inclination and calling, then the dark power will fail in its attempt to gain a form that shall be a reflection of ourselves. Lothaire adds that if we have willingly yielded ourselves up to the dark powers, they are known often to impress upon our minds any strange, unfamiliar shape which the external world has thrown in our way; so that we ourselves kindle the spirit, which we in our strange delusion believe to be speaking to us. It is the phantom of our own selves, the close relationship with which, and its deep operation on our mind, casts us into hell or transports us into heaven. You see, dear Nathaniel, how freely Lothaire and I are giving our opinion on the subject of the dark powers; which subject, to judge by my difficulties in writing down. its most important features, appears to be a complicated one. Lothaire's last words I do not quite comprehend. I can only suspect what he means, and yet I feel as if it were all very true. Get the gruesome advocate Coppelius, and the barometer-dealer, Giuseppe Coppola, quite out of your head, I beg of you. Be convinced that these strange fears have no power over you, and that it is only a belief in their hostile influence that can make them hostile in reality. If the great disturbance in your mind did not speak from every line of your letter, if your situation did not give me the deepest pain, I could joke about the Sandman-Advocate and the barometer dealer Coppelius. Cheer up, I have determined to play the part of your guardian-spirit. If the ugly Coppelius takes it into his head to annoy you in your dreams, I'll scare him away with loud peals of laughter. I am not a bit afraid of him nor of his disgusting hands; he shall neither spoil my sweetmeats as an Advocate, nor my eyes as a Sandman. Ever yours, my dear Nathaniel. NATHANIEL TO LOTHAIRE I am very sorry that in consequence of the error occasioned by my distracted state of mind, Clara broke open the letter intended for you, and read it. She has written me a very profound philosophical epistle, in which she proves, at great length, that Coppelius and Coppola only exist in my own mind, and are phantoms of myself, which will be dissipated directly I recognize them as such. Indeed, it is quite incredible that the mind which so often peers out of those bright, smiling, childish eyes with all the charm of a dream, could make such intelligent professorial definitions. She cites you - you, it seems have been talking about me. I suppose you read her logical lectures, so that she may learn to separate and sift all matters acutely. No more of that, please. Besides, it is quite certain that the barometer-dealer, Giuseppe Coppola, is not the advocate Coppelius. I attend the lectures of the professor of physics, who has lately arrived. His name is the same as that of the famous natural philosopher Spalanzani, and he is of Italian origin. He has known Coppola for years and, moreover, it is clear from his accent that he is really a Piedmontese. Coppelius was a German, but I think no honest one. Calmed I am not, and though you and Clara may consider me a gloomy visionary, I cannot get rid of the impression which the accursed face of Coppelius makes upon me. I am glad that Coppola has left the town - so Spalanzani says. This professor is a strange fellow - a little round man with high cheek-bones, a sharp nose, pouting lips and little, piercing eyes. Yet you will get a better notion of him than from this description, if you look at the portrait of Cagliostro, drawn by Chodowiecki in one of the Berlin annuals; Spalanzani looks like that exactly. I lately went up his stairs, and perceived that the curtain, which was generally drawn completely over a glass door, left a little opening on one side. I know not what curiosity impelled me to look through. A very tall and slender lady, extremely well-proportioned and most splendidly attired, sat in the room by a little table on which she had laid her arms, her hands being folded together. She sat opposite the door, so that I could see the whole of her angelic countenance. She did not appear to see me, and indeed there was something fixed about her eyes as if, I might almost say, she had no power of sight. It seemed to me that she was sleeping with her eyes open. I felt very uncomfortable, and therefore I slunk away into the lecture-room close at hand. Afterwards I learned that the form I had seen was that of Spalanzani's daughter Olympia, whom he keeps confined in a very strange and barbarous manner, so that no one can approach her. After all, there may be something the matter with her; she is half-witted perhaps, or something of the kind. But why should I write you all this? I could have conveyed it better and more circumstantially by word of mouth. For I shall see you in a fortnight. I must again behold my dear, sweet angelic Clara. My evil mood will then be dispersed, though I must confess that it has been struggling for mastery over me ever since her sensible but vexing letter. Therefore I do not write to her today. A thousand greetings, etc. Nothing more strange and chimerical can be imagined than the fate of my poor friend, the young student Nathaniel, which I, gracious reader, have undertaken to tell you. Have you ever known something that has completely filled your heart, thoughts and senses, to the exclusion of every other object? There was a burning fermentation within you; your blood seethed like a molten glow through your veins, sending a higher color to your cheeks. Your glance was strange, as if you were seeking in empty space forms invisible to all other eyes, and your speech flowed away into dark sighs. Then your friends asked you: 'What is it, my dear sir?' 'What is the matter?' And you wanted to draw the picture in your mind in all its glowing tints, in all its light and shade, and labored hard to find words only to begin. You thought that you should crowd together in the very first sentence all those wonderful, exalted, horrible, comical, frightful events, so as to strike every hearer at once as with an electric shock. But every word, every thing that takes the form of speech, appeared to you colorless, cold and dead. You hunt and hunt, and stutter and stammer, and your friends' sober questions blow like icy wind upon your internal fire until it is almost out. Whereas if, like a bold painter, you had first drawn an outline of the internal picture with a few daring strokes, you might with small trouble have laid on the colors brighter and brighter, and the living throng of varied shapes would have borne your friends away with it. Then they would have seen themselves, like you, in the picture that your mind had bodied forth. Now I must confess to you, kind reader, that no one has really asked me for the history of the young Nathaniel, but you know well enough that I belong to the queer race of authors who, if they have anything in their minds such as I have just described, feel as if everyone who comes near them, and the whole world besides, is insistently demanding: 'What is it then - tell it, my dear friend?' Thus was I forcibly compelled to tell you of the momentous life of Nathaniel. The marvelous singularity of the story filled my entire soul, but for that very reason and because, my dear reader, I had to make you equally inclined to accept the uncanny, which is no small matter, I was puzzled how to begin Nathaniel's story in a manner as inspiring, original and striking as possible. 'Once upon a time,' the beautiful beginning of every tale, was too tame. 'In the little provincial town of S____ lived' - was somewhat better, as it at least prepared for the climax. Or should I dart at once, medias in res, with "'Go to the devil," cried the student Nathaniel with rage and horror in his wild looks, when the barometer-dealer, Giuseppe Coppola . . .?' - I had indeed already written this down, when I fancied that I could detect something ludicrous in the wild looks of the student Nathaniel, whereas the story is not comical at all. No form of language suggested itself to my mind which seemed to reflect ever in the slightest degree the coloring of the internal picture. I resolved that I would not begin it at all. So take, gentle reader, the three letters. which friend Lothaire was good enough to give me, as the sketch of the picture which I shall endeavor to color more and more brightly as I proceed with my narrative. Perhaps, like a good portrait-painter, I may succeed in catching the outline in this way, so that you will realize it is a likeness even without knowing the original, and feel as if you had often seen the person with your own corporeal eyes. Perhaps, dear reader, you will then believe that nothing is stranger and madder than actual life; which the poet can only catch in the form of a dull reflection in a dimly polished mirror. To give you all the information that you will require for a start, we must supplement these letters with the news that shortly after the death of Nathaniel's father, Clara and Lothaire, the children of a distant relative, who had likewise died and left them orphans, were taken by Nathaniel's mother into her own home. Clara and Nathaniel formed a strong attachment for each other; and no one in the world having any objection to make, they were betrothed when Nathaniel left the place to pursue his studies in G___ . And there he is, according to his last letter, attending the lectures of the celebrated professor of physics, Spalanzani. Now, I could proceed in my story with confidence, but at this moment Clara's picture stands so plainly before me that I cannot turn away; as indeed was always the case when she gazed at me with one of her lovely smiles. Clara could not by any means be reckoned beautiful, that was the opinion of all who are by their calling competent judges of beauty. Architects, nevertheless, praised the exact symmetry of her frame, and painters considered her neck, shoulders and bosom almost too chastely formed; but then they all fell in love with her wondrous hair and coloring, comparing her to the Magdalen in Battoni's picture at Dresden. One of them, a most fantastical and singular fellow, compared Clara's eyes to a lake by Ruysdael, in which the pure azure of a cloudless sky, the wood and flowery field, the whole cheerful life of the rich landscape are reflected. Poets and composers went still further. 'What is a lake what is a mirror!' said they. 'Can we look upon the girl without wondrous, heavenly music flowing towards us from her glances, to penetrate our inmost soul so that all there is awakened and stirred? If we don't sing well then, there is not much in us, as we shall learn from the delicate smile which plays on Clara's lips, when we presume to pipe up before her with something intended to pass for a song, although it is only a confused jumble of notes.' So it was. Clara had the vivid fancy of a cheerful, unembarrassed child; a deep, tender, feminine disposition; an acute, clever understanding. Misty dreamers had not a chance with her; since, though she did not talk - talking would have been altogether repugnant to her silent nature - her bright glance and her firm ironical smile would say to them: 'Good friends, how can you imagine that I shall take your fleeting shadowy images for real shapes imbued with life and motion ?' On this account Clara was censured by many as cold, unfeeling and prosaic; while others, who understood life to its clear depths, greatly loved the feeling, acute, childlike girl; but none so much as Nathaniel, whose perception in art and science was clear and strong. Clara was attached to her lover with all her heart, and when he parted from her the first cloud passed over her life. With what delight, therefore, did she rush into his arms when, as he had promised in his last letter to Lothaire, he actually returned to his native town and entered his mother's room! Nathaniel's expectations were completely fulfilled; for directly he saw Clara he thought neither of the Advocate Coppelius nor of her 'sensible' letter. All gloomy forebodings had gone. However, Nathaniel was quite right, when he wrote to his friend Lothaire that the form of the repulsive barometer-dealer, Coppola, had had a most evil effect on his life. All felt, even in the first days, that Nathaniel had undergone a complete change in his whole being. He sank into a gloomy reverie, and behaved in a strange manner that had never been known in him before. Everything, his whole life, had become to him a dream and a foreboding, and he was always saying that man, although he might think himself free, only served for the cruel sport of dark powers These he said it was vain to resist; man must patiently resign himself to his fate. He even went so far as to say that it is foolish to think that we do anything in art and science according to our own independent will; for the inspiration which alone enables us to produce anything does not proceed from within ourselves, but is the effect of a higher principle without. To the clear-headed Clara this mysticism was in the highest degree repugnant, but contradiction appeared to be useless. Only when Nathaniel proved that Coppelius was the evil principle, which had seized him at the moment when he was listening behind the curtain, and that this repugnant principle would in some horrible manner disturb the happiness of their life, Clara grew very serious, and said: 'Yes, Nathaniel, you are right. Coppelius is an evil, hostile principle; he can produce terrible effects, like a diabolical power that has come visibly into life; but only if you will not banish him from your mind and thoughts. So long as you believe in him, he really exists and exerts his influence; his power lies only in your belief.' Quite indignant that Clara did not admit the demon's existence outside his own mind, Nathaniel would then come out with all the mystical doctrine of devils and powers of evil. But Clara would break off peevishly by introducing some indifferent matter, to the no small annoyance of Nathaniel. He thought that such deep secrets were closed to cold, unreceptive minds, without being clearly aware that he was counting Clara among these subordinate natures; and therefore he constantly endeavored to initiate her into the mysteries. In the morning, when Clara was getting breakfast ready, he stood by her, reading out of all sorts of mystical books till she cried: 'But dear Nathaniel, suppose I blame you as the evil principle that has a hostile effect upon my coffee? For if, to please you, I drop everything and look in your eyes while you read, my coffee will overflow into the fire, and none of you will get any breakfast.' Nathaniel closed the book at once and hurried indignantly to his chamber. Once he had a remarkable forte for graceful, lively tales, which he wrote down, and to which Clara listened with the greatest delight; now his creations were gloomy, incomprehensible and formless, so that although, out of compassion, Clara did not say so, he plainly felt how little she was interested. Nothing was more unbearable to Clara than tediousness; her looks and words expressed mental drowsiness which she could not overcome. Nathaniel's productions were, indeed, very tedious. His indignation at Clara's cold, prosaic disposition constantly increased; and Clara could not overcome her dislike of Nathaniel's dark, gloomy, boring mysticism, so that they became mentally more and more estranged without either of them perceiving it. The shape of the ugly Coppelius, as Nathaniel himself was forced to confess, was growing dimmer in his fancy, and it often cost him some pains to draw him with sufficient color in his stories, where he figured as the dread bogy of ill omen. It occurred to him, however, in the end to make his gloomy foreboding, that Coppelius would destroy his happiness, the subject of a poem. He represented himself and Clara as united by true love, but occasionally threatened by a black hand, which appeared to dart into their lives, to snatch away some new joy just as it was born. Finally, as they were standing at the altar, the hideous Coppelius appeared and touched Clara's lovely eyes. They flashed into Nathaniel's heart, like bleeding sparks, scorching and burning, as Coppelius caught him, and flung him into a flaming, fiery circle, which flew round with the swiftness of a storm, carrying him along with it, amid its roaring. The roar is like that of the hurricane, when it fiercely lashes the foaming waves, which rise up, like black giants with white heads, for the furious combat. But through the wild tumult he hears Clara's voice: 'Can't you see me then? Coppelius has deceived you. Those, indeed, were not my eyes which so burned in your breast - they were glowing drops of your own heart's blood. I have my eyes still - only look at them!' Nathaniel reflects: 'That is Clara, and I am hers for ever!' Then it seems to him as though this thought has forcibly entered the fiery circle, which stands still, while the noise dully ceases in the dark abyss. Nathaniel looks into Clara's eyes, but it is death that looks kindly upon him from her eyes While Nathaniel composed this poem, he was very calm and collected; he polished and improved every line, and having subjected himself to the fetters of metre, he did not rest till all was correct and melodious. When at last he had finished and read the poem aloud to himself, a wild horror seized him. 'Whose horrible voice is that?' he cried out. Soon, however, the whole appeared to him a very successful work, and he felt that it must rouse Clara's cold temperament, although he did not clearly consider why Clara was to be excited, nor what purpose it would serve to torment her with frightful pictures threatening a horrible fate, destructive to their love. Both of them - that is to say, Nathaniel and Clara - were sitting in his mother's little garden, Clara very cheerful, because Nathaniel had not teased her with his dreams and his forebodings during the three days in which he had been writing his poem. He was even talking cheerfully, as in the old days, about pleasant matters, which caused Clara to remark: 'Now for the first time I have you again! Don't you see that we have driven the ugly Coppelius away?' Not till then did it strike Nathaniel that he had in his pocket the poem, which he had intended to read. He at once drew the sheets out and began, while Clara, expecting something tedious as usual, resigned herself and began quietly to knit. But as the dark cloud rose ever blacker and blacker, she let the stocking fall and looked him full in the face. He was carried irresistibly along by his poem, an internal fire deeply reddened his cheeks, tears flowed from his eyes. At last, when he had concluded, he groaned in a state of utter exhaustion and, catching Clara's hand, sighed forth, as if melted into the most inconsolable grief: 'Oh Clara! - Clara!' Clara pressed him gently to her bosom, and said softly, but very solemnly and sincerely: 'Nathaniel, dearest Nathaniel, do throw that mad, senseless, insane stuff into the fire!' Upon this Nathaniel sprang up enraged and, thrusting Clara from him, cried: 'Oh, inanimate, accursed automaton!' With which he ran off; Clara, deeply offended, shed bitter tears, and sobbed aloud: 'Ah, he has never loved me, for he does not understand me.' Lothaire entered the arbor; Clara was obliged to tell him all that had occurred. He loved his sister with all his soul, and every word of her complaint fell like a spark of fire into his heart, so that the indignation which he had long harbored against the visionary Nathaniel now broke out into the wildest rage. He ran to Nathaniel and reproached him for his senseless conduce towards his beloved sister in hard words, to which the infuriated Nathaniel retorted in the same style. The appellation of 'fantastical, mad fool,' was answered by that of 'miserable commonplace fellow.' A duel was inevitable. They agreed on the following morning, according to the local student custom, to fight with sharp rapiers on the far side of the garden. Silently and gloomily they slunk about. Clara had overheard the violent dispute and, seeing the fencing-master bring the rapiers at dawn, guessed what was to occur. Having reached the place of combat, Lothaire and Nathaniel had in gloomy silence flung off their coats, and with the lust of battle in their flaming eyes were about to fall upon one another, when Clara rushed through the garden door, crying aloud between her sobs: 'You wild cruel men! Strike me down before you attack each other. For how can I live on if my lover murders my brother, or my brother murders my lover.' Lothaire lowered his weapon, and looked in silence on the ground; but in Nathaniel's heart, amid the most poignant sorrow, there revived all his love for the beautiful Clara, which he had felt in the prime of his happy youth. The weapon fell from his hand, he threw himself at Clara's feet. 'Can you ever forgive me, my only - my beloved Clara? Can you forgive me, my dear brother, Lothaire?' Lothaire was touched by the deep contrition of his friend; all three embraced in reconciliation amid a thousand tears, and vowed eternal love and fidelity. Nathaniel felt as though a heavy and oppressive burden had been rolled away, as though by resisting the dark power that held him fast he had saved his whole being, which had been threatened with annihilation. Three happy days he passed with his dear friends, and then went to G___ , where he intended to stay a year, and then to return to his native town for ever. All that referred to Coppelius was kept a secret from his mother. For it was well known that she could not think of him without terror since she, as well as Nathaniel, held him guilty of causing her husband's death. How surprised was Nathaniel when, proceeding to his lodging, he saw that the whole house was burned down, and that only the bare walls stood up amid the ashes. However, although fire had broken out in the laboratory of the apothecary who lived on the ground-floor, and had therefore consumed the house from top to bottom, some bold active friends had succeeded in entering Nathaniel's room in the upper story in time to save his books, manuscripts and instruments. They carried all safe and sound into another house, where they took a room, to which Nathaniel moved at once. He did not think it at all remarkable that he now lodged opposite to Professor Spalanzani; neither did it appear singular when he perceived that his window looked straight into the room where Olympia often sat alone, so that he could plainly recognize her figure, although the features of her face were indistinct and confused. At last it struck him that Olympia often remained for hours in that attitude in which he had once seen her through the glass door, sitting at a little table without any occupation, and that she was plainly enough looking over at him with an unvarying gaze. He was forced to confess that he had never seen a more lovely form but, with Clara in his heart, the stiff Olympia was perfectly indifferent to him. Occasionally, to be sure, he gave a transient look over his textbook at the beautiful statue, but that was all. He was just writing to Clara, when he heard a light tap at the door; it stopped as he answered, and the repulsive face of Coppola peeped in. Nathaniel's heart trembled within him, but remembering what Spalanzani had told him about his compatriot Coppola, and also the firm promise he had made to Clara with respect to the Sandman Coppelius, he felt ashamed of his childish fear and, collecting himself with all his might, said as softly and civilly as possible: 'I do not want a barometer, my good friend; pray go.' Upon this, Coppola advanced a good way into the room, his wide mouth distorted into a hideous laugh, and his little eyes darting fire from beneath their long grey lashes: 'Eh, eh - no barometer - no barometer?' he said in a hoarse voice, 'I have pretty eyes too - pretty eyes!' 'Madman!' cried Nathaniel in horror. 'How can you have eyes? Eyes?' But Coppola had already put his barometer aside and plunged his hand into his wide coat-pocket, whence he drew lorgnettes and spectacles, which he placed upon the table. 'There - there - spectacles on the nose, those are my eyes - pretty eyes!' he gabbled, drawing out more and more spectacles, until the whole table began to glisten and sparkle in the most extraordinary manner. A thousand eyes stared and quivered, their gaze fixed upon Nathaniel; yet he could not look away from the table, where Coppola kept laying down still more and more spectacles, and all those flaming eyes leapt in wilder and wilder confusion, shooting their blood red light into Nathaniel's heart. At last, overwhelmed with horror, he shrieked out: 'Stop, stop, you terrify me!' and seized Coppola by the arm, as he searched his pockets to bring out still more spectacles, although the whole table was already covered. Coppola gently extricated himself with a hoarse repulsive laugh; and with the words: 'Ah, nothing for you - but here are pretty glasses!' collected all the spectacles, packed them away, and from the breast-pocket of his coat drew forth a number of telescopes large and small. As soon as the spectacles were removed Nathaniel felt quite easy and, thinking of Clara, perceived that the hideous phantom was but the creature of his own mind, that this Coppola was an honest optician and could not possibly be the accursed double of Coppelius. Moreover, in all the glasses which Coppola now placed on the table, there was nothing remarkable, or at least nothing so uncanny as in the spectacles; and to set matters right Nathaniel resolved to make a purchase. He took up a little, very neatly constructed pocket telescope, and looked through the window to try it. Never in his life had he met a glass which brought objects so clearly and sharply before his eyes. Involuntarily he looked into Spalanzani's room; Olympia was sitting as usual before the little table, with her arms laid upon it, and her hands folded. For the first time he could see the wondrous beauty in the shape of her face; only her eyes seemed to him singularly still and dead. Nevertheless, as he looked more keenly through the glass, it seemed to him as if moist moonbeams were rising in Olympia's eyes. It was as if the power of seeing were being kindled for the first time; her glances flashed with constantly increasing life. As if spellbound, Nathaniel reclined against the window, meditating on the charming Olympia. A humming and scraping aroused him as if from a dream. Coppola was standing behind him: 'Tre zecchini - three ducats!' He had quite forgotten the optician, and quickly paid him what he asked. 'Is it not so ? A pretty glass - a pretty glass ?' asked Coppola, in his hoarse, repulsive voice, and with his malicious smile. 'Yes - yes,' replied Nathaniel peevishly; 'Good-bye, friend.' Coppola left the room, but not without casting many strange glances at Nathaniel. He heard him laugh loudly on the stairs. 'Ah,' thought Nathaniel, 'he is laughing at me because, no doubt, I have paid him too much for this little glass.' While he softly uttered these words, it seemed as if a deep and lugubrious sigh were sounding fearfully through the room; and his breath was stopped by inward anguish. He perceived, however, that it was himself that had sighed. 'Clara is right,' he said to himself, 'in taking me for a senseless dreamer, but it is pure madness - nay, more than madness, that the stupid thought of having paid Coppola too much for the glass still pains me so strangely. I cannot see the cause.' He now sat down to finish his letter to Clara; but a glance through the window assured him that Olympia was still sitting there, and he instantly sprang up, as if impelled by an irresistible power, seized Coppola's glass, and could not tear himself away from the seductive sight of Olympia till his friend and brother Sigismund called him to go to Professor Spalanzani's lecture. The curtain was drawn close before the fatal room, and he could see Olympia no longer, nor could he upon the next day or the next, although he scarcely ever left his window and constantly looked through Coppola's glass. On the third day the windows were completely covered. In utter despair, filled with a longing and a burning desire, he ran out of the town-gate. Olympia's form floated before him in the air, stepped forth from the bushes, and peeped at him with large beaming eyes from the clear brook. Clara's image had completely vanished from his mind; he thought of nothing but Olympia, and complained aloud in a murmuring voice: 'Ah, noble, sublime star of my love, have you only risen upon me to vanish immediately, and leave me in dark hopeless night?' As he returned to his lodging, however, he perceived a great bustle in Spalanzani's house. The doors were wide open, all sorts of utensils were being carried in, the windows of the first floor were being taken out, maid-servants were going about sweeping and dusting with great hairbrooms, and carpenters and upholsterers were knocking and hammering within. Nathaniel remained standing in the street in a state of perfect wonder, when Sigismund came up to him laughing, and said: 'Now, what do you say to our old Spalanzani?' Nathaniel assured him that he could say nothing because he knew nothing about the professor, but on the contrary perceived with astonishment the mad proceedings in a house otherwise so quiet and gloomy. He then learnt from Sigismund that Spalanzani intended to give a grand party on the following day - a concert and ball - and that half the university was invited. It was generally reported that Spalanzani, who had so long kept his daughter most scrupulously from every human eye, would now let her appear for the first time. Nathaniel found a card of invitation, and with heart beating high went at the appointed hour to the professor's, where the coaches were already arriving and the lights shining in the decorated rooms. The company was numerous and brilliant. Olympia appeared dressed with great richness and taste. Her beautifully shaped face and her figure roused general admiration. The somewhat strange arch of her back and the wasp-like thinness of her waist seemed to be produced by too tight lacing. In her step and deportment there was something measured and stiff, which struck many as unpleasant, but it was ascribed to the constraint produced by the company. The concert began. Olympia played the harpsichord with great dexterity, and sang a virtuoso piece, with a voice like the sound of a glass bell, clear and almost piercing. Nathaniel was quite enraptured; he stood in the back row, and could not perfectly recognize Olympia's features in the dazzling light. Therefore, quite unnoticed, he took out Coppola's glass and looked towards the fair creature. Ah! then he saw with what a longing glance she gazed towards him, and how every note of her song plainly sprang from that loving glance, whose fire penetrated his inmost soul. Her accomplished roulades seemed to Nathaniel the exultation of a mind transfigured by love, and when at last, after the cadence, the long trill sounded shrilly through the room, he felt as if clutched by burning arms. He could restrain himself no longer, but with mingled pain and rapture shouted out, 'Olympia!' Everyone looked at him, and many laughed. The organist of the cathedral made a gloomier face than usual, and simply said: 'Well, well.' The concert had finished, the ball began. 'To dance with her - with her!' That was the aim of all Nathaniel's desire, of all his efforts; but how to gain courage to ask her, the queen of the ball? Nevertheless - he himself did not know how it happened - no sooner had the dancing begun than he was standing close to Olympia, who had not yet been asked to dance. Scarcely able to stammer out a few words, he had seized her hand. Olympia's hand was as cold as ice; he felt a horrible deathly chill thrilling through him. He looked into her eyes, which beamed back full of love and desire, and at the same time it seemed as though her pulse began to beat and her life's blood to flow into her cold hand. And in the soul of Nathaniel the joy of love rose still higher; he clasped the beautiful Olympia, and with her flew through the dance. He thought that his dancing was usually correct as to time, but the peculiarly steady rhythm with which Olympia moved, and which often put him completely out, soon showed him that his time was most defective. However, he would dance with no other lady, and would have murdered anyone who approached Olympia for the purpose of asking her. But this only happened twice, and to his astonishment Olympia remained seated until the next dance, when he lost no time in making her rise again. Had he been able to see any other object besides the fair Olympia, all sorts of unfortunate quarrels would have been inevitable. For the quiet, scarcely suppressed laughter which arose among the young people in every corner was manifestly directed towards Olympia, whom they followed with very curious glances - one could not tell why. Heated by the dance and by the wine, of which he had freely partaken, Nathaniel had laid aside all his ordinary reserve. He sat by Olympia with her hand in his and, in a high state of inspiration, told her his passion, in words which neither he nor Olympia understood. Yet perhaps she did; for she looked steadfastly into his face and sighed several times, 'Ah, ah!' Upon this, Nathaniel said, 'Oh splendid, heavenly lady! Ray from the promised land of love - deep soul in whom all my being is reflected !' with much more stuff of the like kind. But Olympia merely went on sighing, 'Ah - ah!' Professor Spalanzani occasionally passed the happy pair, and smiled on them with a look of singular satisfaction. To Nathaniel, although he felt in quite another world, it seemed suddenly as though Professor Spalanzani's face was growing considerably darker, and when he looked around he perceived, to his no small horror, that the last two candles in the empty room had burned down to their sockets, and were just going out. The music and dancing had ceased long ago. 'Parting - parting!' he cried in wild despair; he kissed Olympia's hand, he bent towards her mouth, when his glowing lips were met by lips cold as ice! Just as when he had touched her cold hand, he felt himself overcome by horror; the legend of the dead bride darted suddenly through his mind, but Olympia pressed him fast, and her lips seemed to spring to life at his kiss. Professor Spalanzani strode through the empty hall, his steps caused a hollow echo, and his figure, round which a flickering shadow played, had a fearful, spectral appearance. 'Do you love me, do you love me, Olympia? Only one word! Do you love me?' whispered Nathaniel; but as she rose Olympia only sighed, 'Ah - ah!' 'Yes, my gracious, my beautiful star of love,' said Nathaniel, 'you have risen upon me, and you will shine, for ever lighting my inmost soul.' 'Ah - ah!' replied Olympia, as she departed. Nathaniel followed her; they both stood before the professor. 'You have had a very animated conversation with my daughter,' said he, smiling; 'So, dear Herr Nathaniel, if you have any pleasure in talking with a silly girl, your visits shall be welcome.' Nathaniel departed with a whole heaven beaming in his heart. The next day Spalanzani's party was the general subject of conversation. Notwithstanding that the professor had made every effort to appear splendid, the wags had all sorts of incongruities and oddities to talk about. They were particularly hard upon the dumb, stiff Olympia whom, in spite of her beautiful exterior, they considered to be completely stupid, and they were delighted to find in her stupidity the reason why Spalanzani had kept her so long concealed. Nathaniel did not hear this without secret anger. Nevertheless he held his peace. 'For,' thought he, 'is it worth while convincing these fellows that it is their own stupidity that prevents their recognizing Olympia's deep, noble mind?' One day Sigismund said to him: 'Be kind enough, brother, to tell me how a sensible fellow like you could possibly lose your head over that wax face, over that wooden doll up there?' Nathaniel was about to fly out in a passion, but he quickly recollected himself and retorted: 'Tell me, Sigismund, how it is that Olympia's heavenly charms could escape your active and intelligent eyes, which generally perceive things so clearly? But, for that very reason, Heaven be thanked, I have not you for my rival; otherwise, one of us must have fallen a bleeding corpse!' Sigismund plainly perceived his friend's condition. So he skillfully gave the conversation a turn and, after observing that in love-affairs there was no disputing about the object, added: 'Nevertheless, it is strange that many of us think much the same about Olympia. To us - pray do not take it ill, brother she appears singularly stiff and soulless. Her shape is well proportioned - so is her face - that is true! She might pass for beautiful if her glance were not so utterly without a ray of life - without the power of vision. Her pace is strangely regular, every movement seems to depend on some wound-up clockwork. Her playing and her singing keep the same unpleasantly correct and spiritless time as a musical box, and the same may be said of her dancing. We find your Olympia quite uncanny, and prefer to have nothing to do with her. She seems to act like a living being, and yet has some strange peculiarity of her own.' Nathaniel did not completely yield to the bitter feeling which these words of Sigismund's roused in him, but mastered his indignation, and merely said with great earnestness, 'Olympia may appear uncanny to you, cold, prosaic man. Only the poetical mind is sensitive to its like in others. To me alone was the love in her glances revealed, and it has pierced my mind and all my thought; only in the love of Olympia do I discover my real self. It may not suit you that she does not indulge in idle chit-chat like other shallow minds. She utters few words, it is true, but these few words appear as genuine hieroglyphics of the inner world, full of love and deep knowledge of the spiritual life, and contemplation of the eternal beyond. But you have no sense for all this, and my words are wasted on you.' 'God preserve you, brother,' said Sigismund very mildly almost sorrowfully. 'But you seem to me to be in an evil way. You may depend upon me, if all - no, no, I will not say anything further.' All of a sudden it struck Nathaniel that the cold, prosaic Sigismund meant very well towards him; he therefore shook his proffered hand very heartily. Nathaniel had totally forgotten the very existence of Clara, whom he had once loved; his mother, Lothaire - all had vanished from his memory; he lived only for Olympia, with whom he sat for hours every day, uttering strange fantastical stuff about his love, about the sympathy that glowed to life, about the affinity of souls, to all of which Olympia listened with great devotion. From the very bottom of his desk he drew out all that he had ever written. Poems, fantasies, visions, romances, tales - this stock was daily increased by all sorts of extravagant sonnets, stanzas and canzoni, and he read them all tirelessly to Olympia for hours on end. Never had he known such an admirable listener. She neither embroidered nor knitted, she never looked out of the window, she fed no favorite bird, she played neither with lapdog nor pet cat, she did not twist a slip of paper or anything else in her hand, she was not obliged to suppress a yawn by a gentle forced cough. In short, she sat for hours, looking straight into her lover's eyes, without stirring, and her glance became more and more lively and animated Only when Nathaniel rose at last, and kissed her hand and her lips did she say, 'Ah, ah!' to which she added: 'Good night, dearest.' 'Oh deep, noble mind!' cried Nathaniel in his own room, 'you, you alone, dear one, fully under
In 1815 an anonymous author published "Memoirs of an Old Wig" and lamented the influx of French hairdressers to England. From the writings of ETA Hoffmann and Charles Dickens, from Hans Christian Andersen to Balzac and beyond, New Generation Thinker Seán Williams considers the depiction of hairdressers in prints and prose and what it tells us about a transformative period in British and European history. The Essay is recorded in front of an audience as part of Sound Frontiers: BBC Radio 3 live at Southbank Centre celebrating 7 decades of pioneering music and culture. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to find academics who can turn their research into radio. Producer: Jacqueline Smith.
Vi återbesöker barndomens besjälade leksaker och prövar spänsten i några freudianska begrepp. Tomas lyckas osökt komma in på sina kära Lovecraft-filmatiseringar från 80-talet och Lars sjösätter en marxistisk spaning utan att ha bemödat sig med att kontrollera exemplen. Vi pratar också om: ETA Hoffmann, Sandmannen, Sigmund Freud, Ernst Jentsch, “Das Unheimliche”, Masahiro Mori, Dead of Night, Skuggor i natten, Devil Doll, Trilogy of Terror, Karen Black, Magic, Anthony Hopkins, Maria Gripe, Agnes Cecilia, Dolls, Childs Play, Den onda dockan, The Babadook, Puppetmaster, Charles Band, Richard Band, X-files, Stephen King, Sova med fienden, Jeremy Sisto, May, James Wan, Gregg Hoffman, Saw, Dead Silence, The Conjuring, Annabelle, Candyman och The Boy. Nostalgi, löst tyckande och akademisk analys i en salig röra.
The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life
In this week's episode, I interview the poet Vincent Cellucci, Plus Robert Wallace writes about reading The Grapes of Wrath. TEXTS DISCUSSED A Ship on the Line"> NOTES On October 22, if you are in the City Beautiful (that is Orlando), come see the Kerouac House receive its own historical marker. This is the house that Jack lived in when On the Road came out, where he lived when he wrote The Dharma Bums. The French novelist Patrick Modiano has won the Nobel Prize (The New York Times). According to The Guardian, Dario Agenta and Iggy Pop are crowdsourcing a movie adaptation of ETA Hoffmann's The Sandman. Check out the new podcast by Sherman Alexie and Jess Walter, A Tiny Sense of Accomplishment.
Diese Folge ist dann doch etwas sehr lang geworden. Trotzdem hatten wir viel Spaß und es gab ne Menge interessante Themen zu bereden. Zu trinken gab es Gyokuro http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyokuro - Ja nur ein Tee in einer sooo langen Sendung - also muss er wohl gut gewesen sein. Auch hatten wir wieder einen weiblichen Gast. * Heute drinnen weil Ihhh * Das ist der Anfang * Phonetisches Thermometerreiben * Straßenbahnen * Lymphknotenakkus * Podperlen http://podpott.de/ * Miezekatzentassen für Mädchen * Fremdpodcasts * »Man kanns schon trinken« * Möbel drucken * KEKSE!!! * Flowchart XKCD http://xkcd.com/518/ * Stallman XKCD http://xkcd.com/225/ * Wir haben keinen Schokobrunnen * Was wir nicht aussprechen können * IronSky Spoiler * Psychosolzialprodukt * Kevin auf der Schokolade * Schakeliene! http://chantalismus.tumblr.com/ * Lachflash * Alles Nestle, Alles Hähnchen * OUYA-History ja die Sendung ist schon nen Monat alt * tragbares Mikrofon * Spielgeld * Lochkarten * Technische Sammlung Dresden http://www.tsd.de/ * Tiergeräusche * Richard Stallman * Softwarelizenzen * Kaputtes Internet * Tolle Landesgranzen in Baarle http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle (NL-BE) * Jubiläum * Harry Potter lag im Koma * Ausgesetzte Wehrpflicht * Panama Tigerente http://tinyurl.com/9fr4ef5 * Große Menschen, Große Leiden * Granate Zurückwerfen! * S.U.Permann * Major Näse * Keksbruchgleichung * Der Weiße Neger Wumbaba http://tinyurl.com/9vcoa6t * Reinhard Lakomi * Theater Görlitz http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theater_G%C3%B6rlitz * Westdeutsche Kinderlieder * Westsandmann - »Und damit musstet ihr schlafen gehen?« * ETA Hoffmann http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_Hoffmann - Der Sandmann http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Sandmann_(Hoffmann) * [Der gute Mensch von Sezuan http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_gute_Mensch_von_Sezuan * Georg Büchner - Woyzeck http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woyzeck * Kafka - Die Verwandlung http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Verwandlung * Bugträcker http://ubahn.draco.uberspace.de/teepodcast/img/bilder/bugtracker.png * Deutschbücher * Funny van Dannen - Neues von Gott http://tinyurl.com/8h34rhd * Amazon Prime * Wie Prophezeiungen funktionieren * 10 Dimensionen (Video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCQx9U6awFw * Das Besondere an diesem Tee * Rote Haare und Hexen * Wikinger * Allllhoholoische Geärung * Olsenbande * Phil erzählt Monty Python nach * Mr Bean - Unsichtbares Schlagzeug http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_kloG2Z7tU * Einfallende Horden - Bodo Wartke * Reden übers Studium * Blase aus Stahl * Tiergeräusche II * Seegurke * Kiwi-Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs * Nierenherz * Richard Stallman Wiederspruch * Wir stopfen dem Mikro das Maul