New Format: The Promo Post!

So, dear Squeeglets, I wanna try something new. We have many readers but only very few among you and some of those hardly at all. I have noticed something though: many of you are SUPER TALENTED! I.e. they draw great pictures or they crotchet and knit or they bake and cook or write, you name it. What I want to do, therefore, is give you a platform on this blog that you can use to make your (or a relative's) work known to some more people. Why? Cause I believe that sharing is caring. If you have something you want to share, be it your or somebody else's thing, email me at

kakashisensei4444@gmail.com

and I will see what I can do for you! If you become really famous, will you promise to think of me from time to time?

And because I have a very talented husband who told me in a frank moment that he wouldn't mind finding a foreign language publisher (a very interested American publisher turned him down after he found out that there is a female devil with naked breasts in it!), I will start this new format by with giving you a glimpse of his latest book, which happens to be a children's book (written by husband) with fantastic images (drawn by Chrigel Farner). It's the story of little Nemorino, who gets lost in the world of tarot cards and has to survive great adventures.

Nemorino
and
The Fool’s Bundle

Gion Mathias Cavelty (text)
Chrigel Farner (illustrations)
Translation by Steve Ghilardi
I: Grandmother’s House

Fall vacation! And what exciting fall vacation they would be, Nemorino was confident about that. For the first time he would be allowed to visit his grandmother, who lived far away, in the middle of a forest with a terribly complicated name. Nobody could memorize the name.
Neither could Nemorino, despite having already learned all the letters in school. There was a minimum of seven ö in the forest’s name. It sounded somewhat similar to Szöböröszöbörörö or Szöböböröröszö. Or sö… uh, so.
(Naturally, Nemorino could recall his own name perfectly. Though, it was not so simple. Quite the opposite, as everybody would have to agree.)
The little house, where grandmother lived, was of eggplant color and had a very long chimney.
Grandmother looked much older than on the black and white photograph that Nemorino had once been shown. Well, everybody looks older than their photograph, simply because he or she has gotten older in the mean time. But with grandmother it was quite noticeable: the countless wrinkles! Like one of those rubber masks from the Halloween store.
Nemorino’s chamber was dark and cold. Scarlett paprika sausages hung from the ceiling. His bed was not really a bed, but a former potato crate. In it, one lay as hard as in a coffin.
For dinner there were apricot dumplings. What a pleasant surprise – the first pleasant surprise, to be honest.
The dumplings tasted divine. Nemorino ate fourteen of them. Afterwards he felt sick, as anybody could have predicted.
After dinner he had to go to bed.
Grandmother blew out the light in his chamber.
And the house lay quiet.
II: The First Night

Nemorino could not sleep a wink. That had several reasons.
First, there were the before mentioned apricot dumplings in his tummy.
Second, there were the noises from the forest intruding on him: the howling of the wind, the rustling, the scuttling, the growling, the smacking, the snarling …
The growling, the smacking and the snarling were maybe just in Nemorino’s imagination. In any case, he felt everything but comfortable.
In the living room the pendulum clock struck twelve times.
Midnight.
At the twelfth stroke Nemorino could hear the sound of hooves outside. And very clearly, too (Yes! This was not in his imagination!). And it came closer. Outside of his window there wasthe loud snorting of a large beast. Somebody jumped to the ground. Then, there was a knock at the door.
Nemorino’s heart was beating like crazy.
There was the creaking of the front door. Murmurs. Steps in the living room.
Nemorino held his breath.
“I have no time! I have no time!” Nemorino heard a man’s voice hiss. “My troops are restless!
At dawn they must go into battle! What do the cards say?”

III: The General


“Calm yourself, my General,” came the voice of his Grandmother. “Have a seat.”
What was going on?
Nemorino tiptoed over to the door of his chamber and peered through the keyhole into the living room.
Grandmother was sitting at the round living room table. Her face was illuminated by three candles. In the flickering light she looked much younger, like in the photograph.
Facing her, a man took a seat – short and fat, with imposing side-whiskers and a two-cornered hat on his head. He wore a dark blue uniform with golden buttons and countless medals. A saber hung on his belt.
Grandmother took a deck of cards out of an artfully decorated box. Silently she shuffled the cards. Then she spread the cards face down into a fan in front of the man.
“You know how this works, General. Chose one,” she invited him.
The General was sweating. He pointed with the thick, red finger of his right hand to one card.
Grandmother turned the card slowly.
A brick tower was visible on the card’s face. Angry lightning struck the tower from all sides, bringing it down in a dramatic way.
“I would not start a battle tomorrow,” warned Grandmother urgently. “This is not a good card.”
“Humbug,” cursed the General and jumped up from his chair. “I cannot postpone the attack any longer.”
With these words he stormed out the house, swung on his mount and galloped away, into the howling winds.
IV: The Monocle

Grandmother – she was a soothsayer, after all. Or maybe even a witch?
This question occupied Nemorino through the whole of the next day. He did not dare to address her on the occurrences of last night.
They had been picking mushrooms in the forest. For dinner there were champignons stuffed with garlic.
The following nights the same happened again. At midnight an enquirer would knock at the door and grandmother would let him come in.
In the second night it was the daughter of a count, who wanted to know the odds for marrying the Tsarevitch Arkadi Romanov. On the card she drew there was a picture of two young lovers. It heralded good fortune in matters of the heart.
The client of the third night was the President of France, a long and thin fellow in a black suit, a black top hat and sporting a monocle (an old-fashioned type of glasses, with only one glass).
The Premier had invited him for a foxhunt on his estate in Burgundy and he had a bad feeling about the affair.
“You are correct,” confirmed Grandmother, when the President had chosen a card. It showed a man hanging upside down from a tree. “This is the Hanged Man. An assassination is planned for you. Under no circumstances are you to participate in the hunting party.”
The President gulped.
“Petit salaud,” he cried (which does not mean “little salad”, but closer to “son of a … , uh, very mean woman”).

V: The Box

With pricked ears, Nemorino had listened to the exchange. After the French President had left the house and Grandmother had retired to her bedroom, he silently sneaked into the living room.
Where did Grandmother put the box? Ah, there it was, on the mantelpiece, above the fireplace!
He climbed on a chair and reached for the box. It was made of black wood and on the lid there were shining ornaments. They formed snake-like symbols which Nemorino could not make head or tails of.
He opened the box. Inside were twenty-two cards. He counted them carefully. There was writing on all the cards. Names could be made out, like “Wheel of Fortune”, “The Chariot”, “The Devil”, “Death” or “The Magician”.
Scary – those were magic cards for sure.
On the card titled “The Fool” Nemorino saw a young man in a worn, colorful jester’s costume. Without a care, he was about to walk straight into a deep crevasse. His eyes were raised to the sky, which was as yellow as saffron. In his right hand he was carrying a walking stick from which a tied-up bundle was hanging. A small white dog tried to grab his leg to keep him from falling into the crevasse.
“Master? Master? Are you down there?” a voice came from the fireplace at this very moment.
And then, the real adventure begins.........

The book (only printed in German so far) can be ordered here: http://www.salisverlag.com/title/gion-mathias-cavelty-mit-bildern-von-chrigel-farner-nemorino-und-das-b%C3%BCndel-des-narren

and looked at here: http://issuu.com/salisverlag/docs/salis_cav-far_nemorino_leseprobe