If I were a Jim Jarmusch, I would convey the waiter’s tale through a series of short episodes forming a movie called Coffee and Cigars. But alas, I’m not an artist—just an elderly, stooping professor who grew up in the shadow of the Circle. And so I’ll simply tell you its story from the beginning, as best I can.

— Exact thinking in demented times by Karl Sigmund (Page 8)