Stødte på et ikke helt ueffent citat af Kurt Vonnegut, der i en tale i 1978 fremhævede at der i nordlige områder er seks fremfor fire årstider:
One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize that there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time.
I mean, spring doesn’t feel like spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for autumn, and so on. Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June. What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right? Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves?
Next comes the season called Locking. November and December aren’t winter. They’re Locking. Next comes winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not spring. ‘Unlocking’ comes next. What else could cruel March and only slightly less cruel April be? March and April are not spring. They’re Unlocking.
Principielt opfatter jeg det danske klima som bestående af 11 måneders permafrost, der flygtigt afløses af en måneds moderat lunkenhed.
Men jeg kan nu godt lide at Vonnegut har givet mig locking/unlocking typologien til at de beskrive de tre fuldstændig nytteløse og ofte særdeles ubehagelige måneder november, marts og april1. De er mellemmåneder, der ikke rigtig er noget som helst bevendt og bare skal overstås. De er kalenderårets svar på Fyn – noget man passerer igennem på vejen mod bedre steder.
- December regner jeg fortsat som en vintermåned [↩]