Total eclipse of the heart

Also, this picture of Angela from the NY Times reminds me of a 70s album cover.

Did you know you can actually get a sunburn on your eyeballs? Even wearing sunglasses. Current experience proves it to me. It is not very pleasant. So be careful, my blue-eyed friends – protect yourselves. I'll be going granny-style from now on. I suggest you do, too.

Words of wisdom from Snez

(and also apparently Christopher Morley)

king of pop everywhere

Swiss mr is asleep, in a deep, pierogi-induced stupor. I should maybe wake him up, as it's 8:30 pm, but since we can't seem to sleep enough these days I think i'm okay to sneak in a quick blogpost.
can I say how lucky we are to have added some MJ hits to our iPod before leavin for this trip? otherwise I'm not sure how we could pass this time of mourning appropriately. I'm sure cable news is doing a good job for everyone in the us but the BBC has stopped its 24 hour coverage. wait, did i say appropriately? anyway, we are so tempted to see if we can start a spontaneous group moonwalK or if that's only in paris. there were some heartfelt memorials at the us embassy in Moscow. interesting time to be away. I wonder what made us decide we needed billy jean with us on this trip?

Can't help thinking about our still trembling neighbor to the south and feel incredibly sad about all the loss to which it awoke this morning. Even an airy-fairy blog about an airy-fairy life must once in a while come down from the mountains and deal with reality, at least at those times when its author cannot bear wordplay or anecdotes or pretty photographs. One's arm gets tired from pointing at the sun amid the clouds; perhaps you yourself are tired of squinting into it.

"Cruelty is a mystery," wrote Annie Dillard, "and the waste of pain. But if we describe a world to compass these things, a world that is a long, brute game, then we bump against another mystery: the inrush of power and light, the canary that sings on the skull. Unless all ages and races of men have been deluded by the same mass hypnotist (who?), there seems to be such a thing as beauty, a grace wholly gratuitous."

Whether we are listening or not, leaves rustle, birds chirp, water laps. The sun does not disappear when we close our eyes. A field of wildflowers still smells glorious without our breaths. We may shudder, close our eyes, become willfully insensible – a rightful pause – but that does not stop life from lumbering along gratuitously without us.

Swiss Ms. gives public narcissism a try (for 29 minutes)

1:29 p.m. Swiss Ms. can't believe it's 1:30 and all she has done today was cut small shapes out of paper. 
1:33 p.m. Swiss Ms. is glad it is raining today so she doesn't feel guilty about this. 
1:34 p.m. Swiss Ms. thinks it is clever of Lugano to wait until it rains to clean the streets. 
1:35 p.m. Swiss Ms. wonders why Swiss have not learned about beer from their German neighbors. Swiss Ms. ponders the fact that Carlsberg beer is not Irish and wonders why they serve American Budweiser on draft in Dublin.
1:38 p.m. Swiss Ms. is talking with Swiss Mr. about a bog monster in the office.
1:41 p.m. Swiss Ms. wonders if Tina Turner still lives in Zurich. 
1:42 p.m. Swiss Ms. catches up on the news of the day.
1:52 p.m. Swiss Ms. hopes Russia and the US really do get a fresh start and by July, if possible.
1:55 p.m. Swiss Ms. wonders what's so narcissistic about reporting her every moment as long as it's interesting.
1:58 p.m. Swiss Ms. finishes her coffee and the news and decides it's time to be (more) productive.

I hadn't been planning to mention this, but it turns out I am still very perplexed by it, so I will. The this I am talking about is the fact that most all of the people of African descent here in Lugano seem to sit at the back of the bus. The first time I noticed it about a year ago, fresh off the boat from America, I blushed and looked fervently out the window for the rest of the ride.

It turns out this was not a freak occurrence – it's just the way of the bus here – so I have had ample opportunity to observe, ponder, and adjust to it in the last year. I have managed to tame my easily excitable superego, but I still can't help a faint sense of outrage.  It's pretty much a useless feeling, though; as far as I can tell, there's really no one to direct it at. (And believe me, I have surveilled bus interactions carefully, looking – hoping – expecting – some sort of transgression, but no dice. These Swiss hold their cards, close, man. Saying they keep to themselves might be an understatement. I couldn't even catch a dirty look.) It seems to be a self-imposed segregation. 

But why? Why? There doesn't seem to be an obvious explanation (e.g., they are all friends, the other doors were broken, etc.). Are there metaphysical forces acting on the seating arrangements? Is it somehow engrained into the subconscious of the bus? Is there subliminal social pressure? Feelings of powerlessness? Social awkwardness? Has nothing from the Rosa Parks story resonated here? Or am I just imposing my story on the place? 

Okay, so, as per the usual, I have no conclusions about this cultural matter, only more questions and some odd reflections about myself and my own weird milieu. I do have a feeling, however, based on a several conversations about the "dangerous" neighborhood in which we live, that I am not off-base in suspecting something. I just don't know what exactly to suspect. Thankfully I am just a visitor and not the culture police so I can leave it at that. 

At 11:00 a.m. at a cafe with some friends, drinking beer may be cultural. At 9:30 a.m. in your backyard by yourself, I think it's something else.

Life is perfect in Graubunden. 

Photo: Keystone/Arno Balzarini (via SI)

In which I rail against Amtrak

Is it unfair to complain about Amtrak these days? Is it like beating a guy while he's down? Well, I don't care – I am tired of being patient and understanding. Amtrak needs to get a clue.

Do not let Amtrak's somewhat updated website trick you: they are as lame as they always were. When you buy your "ticket" online, they can't actually give you a ticket, they give you a bar code which allows you to go to a "Quik-Trak self-service ticketing kiosk" to pick up your ticket on the day of your journey. I am sure they thought they were being very 20th century by putting these self-service kiosks in some of their major stations, but a better, actually useful step would have been to provide conductors with ticket scanners so as to eliminate the need for ticket pick-up altogether. All the kiosks do, in my opinion, is save them money on service counter staff. We see right through your ruse, Amtrak.

But I live in Munster, Indiana, you say, a kiosk would be better than nothing – we have no service counter at all! So true, my dear Hoosiers, so true. But this illogical, c-fearing organization, I am sorry to report, only puts "Quik-Trak" kiosks in their "larger Amtrak stations," i.e., in cities.

So what is a resident of or visitor outside the city to do, then? Pay, of course: It's the American way. $15 and an afternoon off work to receive your express-delivered ticket later, you are enabled to participate in the pathetic excuse for a train system that is Amtrak. Not only is this just a lame way to do business, our country just cannot afford discrimination of this kind at this polarized moment. I say: Equal opportunities for all riders!

You know, Amtrak's board of directors is appointed by the US president. Since the future vice-president of the US is such an avid Amtrak user, I am thinking he might-could take this issue straight to the president in January. They seem to be in the mood for cleaning house. Although Mr. Biden probably has some fancy east coast version of the Amtrak service, I am sure he has at least one horror story of his own – or someone in Pennsylvania told him one. If any case, it's pretty much common knowledge that service in the rest of the country (pardon me) sucks. And since it's clear that Americans are too nostalgic (or practical) to give up the idea of passenger rail, we might as well make it worth all the money we are pouring into it.

So, why not get to redistributing the kiosk wealth? Why not wrest some of the tracks from rail freight companies so we can be on time for a change? Why not promote train travel as an often cheaper, more efficient alternative to driving? And, if nothing else, why not use US mail to deliver tickets?

A meditation on dirt

Here is the truth: the more time you have had at home, the more, shall I say, idiosyncratic you may become in your definition of clean. As I see it, this is because the more you are around the house, the more attentive you become, and the closer you get to actually seeing the dirt being created. I feel like I might actually catch the smears appearing on the counter. I hear the grains of litter roll across the floor. I sense particles in the air, looking for a place to land. It feels like a battle and the dirt is always winning. 

As I write this, the dust is gathering subversively beneath my feet, ready at any moment to gather into an small fluff just large enough to be eye-catching. The more time you have to think about these things, the more annoying they become. I should be able to prevail here, I am always thinking. I have the time. I have the resources. I have the training. 

But life itself is entropic. Cookies will always crumble, flowers will wilt, hairs will fall, fingers will leave a shadow of themselves behind. The struggle against dirt is indeed a continual one, a microcosm of our struggle to put matter in its place, uphold categorizations we've carefully constructed, impose order on the impending chaos. What happens if we do not clean? No one knows exactly – and that's frightening.

Give me a break, eh?

Before I lose any more readers and/or friends, I shall break my silence. I was more "away" than away: just taking a week off to do some work and hosting. Still "here," just not exactly right here. Taking a technology break.  Ignoring my email. Keeping my computer off. Leaving my cell phone uncharged. In short, pretending to be a hardcore neo-luddite. Social networking is my Russia: enemy or overlord, nothing in-between. 

This reminds me of an ongoing discussion that my significant other and I have going, which involves brainstorming various answers to the question "What's your Canada?" (For Americans, nothing is more delightful than playfully mocking our dear northern neighbor. At least in my case, this is because I am secretly jealous of its progressive ways, the very same progressive ways which make Canadians smug and, to be honest, somewhat annoying at times.) This began when we realized that Switzerland is, in so many ways, Italy's Canada. Switzerland is Canada enough for many countries, actually. Indiana's Canada? Michigan, no doubt. George W. Bush's Canada? Tony Blair. The pancake's Canada? The crepe. You see? Everyone has a Canada. Even Canada has a Canada (Greenland). So, who is your Canada? 

I hope that I have distracted you from the fact that I have put no content into this blogpost and diverted you from your latent resentment about my technology vacation. Hey, just because you're at work and looking for something to read doesn't mean I have to sell my soul to the technology monster. Go join Facebook or something.

The Swiss Miniatur effect

My older sister – I'll call her "Heidi," like the Swiss milkmaid - has always been my hero (cf. the 7th grade character sketch I wrote about her, calling her my personal hero. One of my reasons was that she'd never taken drugs "even though she's been offered." Also around this time, though I did not put this in my paper, she told me that this really mean kid who harassed me on the bus would probably get "stuffed in a locker" once we made it to high school, a bit of perspective which gave me great comfort that year.) Lately I've been thinking about how hard it is to be the oldest – she has to be braver, more determined, more responsible, more forgiving, and more patient than the rest of us. We're generally twenty steps behind and totally unaware of what happened while we were catching up.

I'm coming around to my point, which is that I always learn a lot from "Heidi" (and from her husband "Peter" for that matter.)  In addition to being my moral exemplar, she is my personal liberal arts tutor. So one thing I did not know before her recent visit was that artists used to paint themselves into their pictures (often with this queer look at you out of the painting). Now that I know this, I see it everywhere, of course. Anyway, this led us into a long discussion of "trompe l'oeil" effects, pictures within pictures, and how weird it is that took artists so long to use painting as a means of personal expression.

Here, art and science met in a weird philosophical way, as we considered the Swiss Miniatur effect – "probably our [my] most valid fear about living in Switzerland," according to Swiss Mr. That is, what would happen if we went to visit Swiss Miniatur and saw ourselves standing outside of mini Swiss-Miniatur, and then looked closer and saw mini-mini us going to mini-mini Swiss-Miniatur inside the mini Swiss-Miniatur... and so on. Would the world implode? Or would our minds fold in on themselves? If neither of these things happened, would we have physical proof of the multiverse theory? How fast would a paper about this get into "Science"? And would anyone care that artists have been thinking about this for more than a thousand years?

Save the budget, save the world

In a savvy budget-saving move, I am preparing myself an elegant leftovers brunch today. The goat sausages will go nicely alongside the mini-baguettes with reduced-fat cheese spread and very ripe kiwi-fruits. And there's some coffee I didn't even make myself. It's like brunch at the Four Seasons minus the butter boy.  

After this leisurely meal, I must prepare for our Italian class, which begins today. We skipped the first session for beginners so we have to make sure that we don't look foolishly self-confident about our abilities. I can't shake the feeling that we represent an entire nation sometimes; real or imagined, this is an extra little weight to bear, a little something else to think about at each moment. I'm so excellent at attaching meaning to mundane decisions. If there were an award for that, I'd be a finalist. Too bad the prize is just more to think about.

Accidenti! A stroll around The Internet reveals Swiss Ms. is not actually very clever at all

Blogging is admittedly a weird phenomenon. Although I am generally a big fan of technology in theory, I find that there are certain technological things for which I have limited patience. Among these are: small home appliances, digital photos, online accounts, tv remotes, cords, camera accessories, computer updates, and music players.  Oh, and printers. What I mean by "limited patience" is that, once (or if) the extreme amount of activation energy required to start using one of these things is obtained, the working relationship established is fragile at best; it takes very little for me to stop using it and/or throw it across the room. (I think this is the definition of volatile.)  But, to the point, until I stumbled upon this special trove of additional free time in my life, blogs used to be on this list. 

I still can't say that I am sure what I am doing is of any more value than passing notes in class, but I can say that I now get the fascination with blogs. Once you start peering into other people's lives, you start seeing yourself there, if only in the most remote way.  And it's a step toward recording the cultural history that most people generally agree has been lost along the way in our official histories (the inane content notwithstanding). For as much heat as Wikipedia takes, it has done something similar, something important. But more on my fascination with the idea of Wikipedia another time.  Back to the matter at hand.  

So recently I noticed a considerable number of blogs I had come by have "adventure" somewhere in or near their title.  Which led me to search for "Swiss adventure," and to realize that this little Swiss Ms. is just one among many.  

There's the famous Swiss Miss who is a real designer I probably should have known about before I started this blog and there's the Not-So-Swiss-Miss and the Un-Swiss Miss and SwissMissNOT! (are you detecting a trend?).  I won't even go into the number of college students who have blogs about their adventures abroad (even in Lugano) or of expatriated families having every kind of adventure. (Maybe someone should write something about cultural identity and social performance in the travel writing of Americans. Hmm....)

So I'm having some blogger identity problems. One of the downsides, I suppose, to open source cultural history. Perhaps I shall crawl back into the black hole of technological ignorance whence I came. I think it's the most dignified solution.

Sei triste?

This morning as I was eating my M-Budget chocolate muesli (which is more or less Cocoa Puffs for grown-ups), I started to think about this billboard I keep seeing, which says Sei triste? (Are you sad?) Its fluorescent colors and perky phrasing makes me think it would be hard for anyone to say yes to such a cheerfully-posed question. I was thinking, if they want people to admit it and call the hotline, they should maybe use a drabber palette so that people aren't tricked into thinking they're not. 

Then I sat down at my computer here and started thinking about how much sadness there can be found in our communities, great and small, and how amazing it is that we actually carry on, day to day, with so many things to be sad about at our doorsteps (if not inside the door). [Lengthy period of conclusion-less reflection about suffering, "magical thinking," heart-breaking times fallen on dear friends, getting old, hope, wrinkles excerpted.]  Not necessarily fluorescent thoughts.

As you see, I am having difficulty finding an adventure to write about this week, unless you count the adventure of having so much time to think.  Which I guess I will.