Instead of an image made on Tuesday, here’s another Sunday image. It’s a little unfortunate, because yesterday I was outside shortly to visit the doctor and buy some medication and food. It was a bright, cold, sunny day and it was the first day of winter. Not according to the calendar, but you know what I mean, there is always some day in the year when it feels and smells and looks like winter, when the light is clear and milky at the same time, when the sun is up and gives no warmth, when you feel that winter has begun.
I didn’t have the camera with me, made no image, and probably I wouldn’t have been able to make it come across anyway. It may have been a smell thing 🙂
But back to this picture. You know, Austria is a catholic country and a country that has always been easy to rule. No revolutions around here. Contrary to other even more catholic countries like Italy, the shops in Austria have always been closed on Sundays. It’s been kind of a consensus through the whole society. Which brings up the question how Sunday papers are sold, and this is how they are. We call those bags, mounted to some fence, with something like a small saving box on top, “Stumme Verkäufer” (“mute sellers”).
I can remember them from my childhood and I can remember some people looking out of their windows, looking for people who took a newspaper without dropping money in. It was a perfect topic for rural gossip. “Have you heard? So-and-so is stealing newspapers! I’ve seen it with my own eyes!”.
Which may have been true or not. Recently I was asked if the mute sellers still exist around here and I couldn’t tell. Really, you see something all your life, something that you’re not interested in and have no use for, and you blend it away. Fact is, they do exist, only the prices have risen significantly 🙂
The Song of the Day is “The Morning Papers” from Prince’s 1992 “Love Symbol” album. Hear it on YouTube. I’ve already used the song for the oversaturated atrocity that was “265 – As I Went Out For The Morning Papers”. Oh well, we all learn, do we?