Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/verlage/hanser-box

Only babies stay serious at the sight of animals. Babies never make fun of other beings, that is an ability (a doubtful ability, we doubt that it’s an ability at all) that we, the grownups, can claim for ourselves. If one questions the ability to make fun of others, it doesn’t take long before one is regarded as somewhat weird: a telling example of the humorlessness of people who consider themselves jokers. And one appears to be particularly weird if one protects and supports the baby’s admiring responses at the zoo: but I can’t help it. The shrieks of two Egyptian Geese are so delightful in their loudness and expressive power, the quacking couple’s choreography so convincing, the drama of accusing one’s partner and heaven simultaneously so overwhelming, that any stupid remark about those funny, comical, cute animals (remarks that have cropped up all around us from the moment we entered the zoo) simply forbids itself. From his stroller, the baby looks about in astonishment at this great spectacle (which happens to be taking place in the giraffe enclosure, to the complete disinterest of the animals themselves) while I put on the airs of a guardian of the world’s order by indulging myself in a loudly uttered comparison between man and beast (more specifically, I am making fun of man, the zoogoer per se). With lightning speed I move into the twilight realm of the dubious, dragging our baby with me. He saves the situation with a change of direction: There! His hand points up, where the giraffes’ feeding basket hangs (a humorous remark is already underway), and at the single specimen that is avidly plucking out hay and further processing it with broadly chewing mandibles. I could swear that it is not only our baby who is imitating the animal’s way of chewing, but that all the other visitors (who have already forgotten us) are chewing all at once.