WANDERKAMMER

a walk through texts

"My room is situated on the forty-fifth degree of latitude {...] it stretches from east to west; it forms a long rectangle, thirty-six paces in circumference if you hug the wall. My journey will, however, measure much more than this, as I will be crossing it frequently lengthwise, or else diagonally, without any rule or method. I will even follow a zigzag math, and I will trace out every possible trajectory if need be [...] There's no more attractive pleasure than following one's ideas wherever they lead, as the hunter pursues his game, without even trying to keep to any set route. And so, when I travel through my room, I rarely follow a straight line: I go from my table towards a picture hanging in a corner; from there I set out obliquely toward the door; but even though, when I begin, it really is my intention to go there, if I happen to meet my armchair en route, I don't think twice about it, and settle down in it without further ado."

Xavier de Maistre, A Journey Around My Room, 1790

J.R. CARPENTER
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