Echoes of Post-punk

Alright, so I'm going to try and be a little shorter and sweeter and post more often. The first song I've got for you is by one of my favorite bands, the Comsat Angels, a perfect example of a quintessential post-punk band whose output has gone largely out of print. They later had a small measure of success when their sound became more synthpop oriented, but remain relativley obscure. This song is a single released in 1981 around the time of their first album, Waiting for a Miracle. The drums sound out a syncopated start-stop machine gun beat while the chimey guitars keep time in a vaguely reggae kind of way, while singer/guitarist Stephen Fellows' lyrics explore the typical post-punk mythos of isolation in a sort of self-destructive yet detached way.

"(Do the) Empty House" - the Comsat Angels

For a while you could find this song on the limited 4-cd reissue of their first three albums, It's History, which contained more excellent bonus material than you can shake a stick at, but it's sold out now, so your only option of getting a copy of the album is eBay (currently at about $95) or doing me sexual favors.

The second song this time around is a newer song by Detroit's Goudron, one-man band of artist Ron Zakrin, who used to be labelmates with Adult.. Goudron shares some similarities with Adult., but have a much warmer sound. The song I'm putting up, "Frontline," hooked me when I heard on their label's site. It's a perfect blend of Peter Hook-esque high basslines, and chunky analog electro Detroit-style synths. Like some odd descendant of Cybotron and Joy Division. A little bit funky, a little bit detached, but all cool.

"Frontline" - Goudron

I narrowly missed seeing Goudron in Pittsburgh, but hopefully he'll tour again. You can find this song on 2004's excellent Raw Voltage. I receommend buying it from Tonevendor or checking their label, Ersatz Audio.

Elation

Two songs today, one old and one new, as before. The first song is by L.A.'s Soviet, who are one of my favorite groups. After disappearing completely for a couple years, Soviet resurfaced on Myspace with details of a new album, Spies in the House of Love, which will be their first since 2001's We Are Eyes, We Are Builders, one of my 10 desert island discs. The Soviet Myspace account has details on how to buy We Are Eyes.... The song today is "Photographs," an ecstatically happy synthpop tune that belongs in the opening credits of Pretty in Pink 2 if they ever make it. Play it during the opening credits of your life.

"Photographs" - Soviet

Following that we have a tune I have dug out of the recesses of the internet after failing to get the CD for a reasonable price on eBay. The song is called "Council Houses," and it's by a group called Denim. Denim formed following the dissolution of better-known post-punk act Felt, whose repertroire consisted mainly of soft, intricate and artsy 60's-influenced jangle pop, often namechecked by bands like Belle & Sebastian. Denim, formed by singer/frontman Lawrence Hayward, was pretty much the diametric opposite. Despite penning a song about how much he hated the 80's, Denim's sound was sort of a hybrid of 70's glam and 80's synthpop. "Council Houses," like a number of other Denim tunes, sounds like a kickass Saturday morning action-oriented cartoon with floppy-haired dudes flying around in hawk suits and laser guns fighting evil robots in castles. Except the lyrics are all about modernist architecture, namechecking le Corbusier, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe in as many breaths. The record is terribly out of print, it came out in 1996 to not much fanfare, but I think it sounds more in tune with today's recyclist music scene than it ever did during the height of britpop. It can be found on Denim on Ice if you can track a copy down. If you're interested in more humorous if less kitschy similar fare, track down some Go Kart Mozart, the current project of Lawrence's.

"Council Houses" - Denim

First music post: Ciao Italia!

Ok, well I'm going to try this out anyway. Today I'd like to bring you two songs from Italy, one new and one old. I'll put them up as MP3s and you can download them for a couple weeks and then I'll take them down. If you like them, it's up to you to buy them. The first of these two songs is by Florence-based musician Alexander Robotnick, who despite being an Italian sings in French. It is possibly my favorite song of all time, and apparently the MP3 I play most out of all several thousand of them, according to iTunes. Possibly because my friends are always asking me to play it.

"Problemes d'Amour" is a classic song, and not all that obscure. It falls in the middle of the Italo-disco and Electro movements, not really fitting neatly within either genre but completely superceding both at the same time. You can find the song in remixed form on recent compilations like This Is Not the 80s and Disco Not Disco vol. 2, but the original was released in 1983, and the version appearing here, the 'Ah Ou Ah' version, dates from a year later. You'll see why it's called that as soon as you listen. The song itself is simple and funky in a Kraftwerk vein, but features the most ridiculous French vocals you have ever heard. To this day I don't know what it is that makes me love them so much. It's just that it's this Italian guy singing French really low. I can't explain it. Just listen.

"Problemes d'Amour" (Ah Ou Ah version) - Alexander Robotnick

Since we began with something old, I'd like to finish with something new. You may already know international music geek superstar Erlend Øye from his two-piece folk group Kings of Convenience, or from his excellent solo album in 2003, Unrest, or possibly even his excellent set in the DJ-Kicks series from last year. Erlend is a Norwegian wunderkind with a flair for finding breezy electropop to lend his vocals to, such as on 2001's collaboration with fellow Norwegians Royskopp on their debut album. Well, I've tracked down a bit of a hidden gem. Øye recorded a couple songs with Italian Marco Passarani for his new album Sullen Look, including this one, Criticize. The secret is that Erlend is credited under a false moniker, Orlando Occhio, or the Italian translation of Erlend Øye (Øye and Occhio both mean Eye apparently). The song itself is a bubbly Summery tune that somehow makes me feel like I'm near a runway, but also relaxing. It's great background music for transversing Switzerland by train or walking with a quick pace down the Champs Elyesees as the sun filters through green leaves across your back. At least until the old skool acid techno breakdown straight out of "More Energy" as the end of the song hits.

"Criticize" (featuring Orlando Occhio) - Marco Passarani

I had no luck locating either of these artists' recordings when I was in Italy, but you can purchase them on Boomkat here and here. If anyone knows of anyplace in the U.S. that carries these releases let me know.

We Fade to Grey

Greetings Everyone,

Well, I am back in the United States obviously. Yes, I survived the trip back, although one of my flights was cancelled and I spent the night in Detroit. I experienced my only pronounced bout of culture shock when I was at the hotel there. I decided that since the hotel restaurant was packed with people having drinks and possibly closed that I'd walk to the McDonald's I saw on the shuttle ride. It ended up taking about 15 minutes and I was amazed by the distances. Each business needed miles of lawn and parking. It was such a waste of space compared to cosy old Europe.

I had planned on immediately writing something about my experience returning, but I have been so wrapped up in my resuscitating life that I haven't had time. Thanks to the many people I saw around who said they enjoyed reading this blog, it was good to know someone was actually taking the time to read it. I know I can be pretty verbose at times.

I have done all the American things I missed since I got back. Free refills everywhere, Mexican food, drive throughs, Sheetz, oh especially Sheetz. You name it. And for the first time I took a little pleasure in the American-ness of such activities. But mostly I adapted more quickly than I anticipated. I was only in my apartment for a week before I had to leave for Charleston for a little work vacation, which is good since I don't have an actual job yet. I went to a baseball game and really appreciated it for the cheap beer and hot dog fest that it was. And last night I went to see a metal show with my friends Ryan and Jeff and played pool. I guess you can do that in France or somewhere but it feels more appropriate in Huntington, all the while drinking Budweiser, the King of Beers.™ King of beers! What a joke! But it definitely makes me appreciate some of the things we have for what they are, having been gone for a month.

But now that my holiday is over, it leads me to wonder what I will do with this blog. I think I am going to continue to use it, not as frequently (every day is a lot), but I'll post some observations on culture and design, since this is my field, and occasionally some crazy music. So if these things interest you feel free to come back. I really want to give this thing a proper facelift. If I end up working as a freelancer for a living I probably will, but if I get an agency job soon I probably won't have time. We'll see. Be sure to check back.

I Drew the Eiffel Tower upon Her Dress

It looks as though my travels are going to be ending soon. Today was the last full day I'll be in Europe, and I tried to make the most of it here in Paris. Hopfully I did everything I could, I certainly wore myself out. I still have some packing to do tonight and I want to get up early to get to De Gaulle as early as possible but I'd like to update this while it's still fresh in my mind so... looks like I'll lose out on some sleep. I need to try and sleep on the plane anyway I think.

I took 139 photos. One hundred and thirty-nine. That's all in one day! I think that's definitely the most pictures I've ever taken in my life. Now, given, some of these were shots I took multiple times that I'll only keep the best one of, but still! My plan of attack was simple. No shops would be open, no time for museums, so I would concentrate my attack on seeing landmarks and areas of town. Pretty sure I hit all the big ones, but let's see, where to start.

I woke up a little after 6am and got ready. My breakfast was the most delicious croissant I've ever tasted, from the patisserie across from the Metro. I got a daypass for the Metro and I certainly got my money's worth. Now I've been warned about pickpockets in Paris and in the Metro specifically, but maybe Sunday is their day off? I certainly didn't have a problem, and the Metro in Paris was the nicest one I've been to in my travels.

Right, so I took the subway to Place Charles de Gaulle, home of the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most recognizable Parisian landmarks. It's one of the big three - l'Arc de Triomphe, le Louvre and of course, la Tour Eiffel. Oh and Notre Dame! I don't know, it's hard to rank them, but I did them all. So back to l'Arc de Triomphe at 7:30am, Sunday morning. Desolate. If Paris had tumbleweeds, they would have been there. But beautiful. Part of why I wanted to do it was to see Paris' streets empty. One of my favorite photographers, Eugene Atget, who photographed Paris' streets and buildings almost exclusively, always awoke in the morning for this reason.

Following the Arc de Triomphe, my next goal was the Eiffel Tower. I figured if I went to the biggest tourist attractions first I'd get those out of the way before pickpockets woke up. There were still a fair number of people there at the Tour Eiffel, waiting in line to go up. I don't know how long it would have taken to wait but I kept thinking I'd need to conserve my day and not get too in depth with anything. I took some pictures, and put on a couple Eiffel-related songs ("Alec Eiffel" by the Pixies and "Burning Hearts" by My Favorite, from whence the subject for this entry came). I felt pretty inspired, I can tell you, being there, and as I made my way to the South pillar, I noticed that it had almost no line, and I saw on the sign that this was a line to ascend the steps yourself if you wanted. It wasn't even 4 Euros.

Well, I quickly decided to do it. The climb was steep and a lot of people had to stop and rest. I took a break on the first leg but I think that dance marathon the night before last did me well. There are two observation decks, and a lot of stairs between each one. I took probably 30 pictures at the Eiffel Tower alone, maybe more. It's totally different from any tower I've been on, except maybe the Eiffel Tower at King's World, which I can't remember too well anyway. Everything looks and feels like a factory. You still feel secure thanks to lots of metal fencing in between you and instant death by falling, but you can still see what it might look like to fall. The views are spectacular. My only qualm was that since it was so early in the morning it was so light in the sky that pictures were kind of hard to take well. The camera keeps either wanting things too dark or too light because the difference between the land and the sky is so great.

I took a short tour of the gardens around the tower and then plotted a course past the Paris Hilton towards the Metro. No, not that Paris Hilton. Since there wasn't much else on this side of the city, I considered going to the Corbusier Museum. Corbusier was if not the most famous modern photographer, second only to Frank Lloyd Wright, and a lot more influential in Europe. He was actually Swiss-born, but he did a lot of his best-known work here. Unfortunately for me the museum was closed anyway. Well, nothing ventured.

Next up was les Champs Elysees, the most famous street in Paris. I actually could have gone to l'Arc and taken the Champs Elysees from there, but I didn't know that I'd be going back down it this soon. So I hopped the Metro back over there and started walking. First I came to the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, or the big and little palaces. They were both very impressive, so I snapped some pictures but had to move on. This will be a theme throughout the day if you're paying attention. Next was the Place de la Concord. There they were dissembling stands of benches that I believe were used during the Tour de France. There's an obelisk here with some writing on it. I don't understand French so well and there were no signs anywhere, so I had to go back on my four years of French for help. Not much came to mind. It was neat anyway.

Then came le Jardin des Tuileries, which was sunny and beautiful and relaxing. People were reclining in the shade on metal chairs. My hunger was starting to peek out but I felt completely at ease, so I decided just to follow form and lounge on a metal chair for a little while. I read a chapter in my book, and got up completely refreshed. There was this moment when I put some music on and one of the songs from that French CD I bought in Geneva came on. It's a kitschy '60s number but it's kind of serene and happy-go-lucky. You know, the kind of song you just know will have a flute solo about a minute into the song. At that point in time everything in the world felt perfect, like a finished jigsaw puzzle. I was totally at ease, in no rush, haing a good time. It occurred to me that there are a lot of niceties about travelling alone, just because you do whatever on Earth you feel like doing.

Well, I got to the Louvre after my little walk, and it, like just about everything, was gorgeous. Now, I comitted some kind of tourist sin by touring the grounds of the Louvre but not going in. Yeah I know. The thing is I knew it would take me all day in there and I needed all day for other things. I did vow to come back though, and spend more than a day so I could do things like go to the Louvre.

I crossed the Seine and I was, according to signs, now on the famed Rive Gauche, the Left Bank. To be honest I don't know where that starts and stops, but the section I was in was pretty stuff. Lots of antique shops and realtors, nothing fancy and artsy. I was in Saint Germain and near le Quartier Latin. I should have done more research but I remembered hearing about le Quartier Latin and it looked like it would be East Village-y, so that had been one of my goals.

I don't know where one neighborhood begins and the other ends, but I started seeing cafes so I decided it was time to eat. I settled on Leon, a Belgian restaurant, in fact I think a chain around here. Their specialty is mussels, and at first that's what I was going to get. Mussels and some gaufres (aka waffles). But as I looked over the descriptions I decided instead to get Encroite (sp?), which is a cut of steak with, I think, Bearnais sauce on the side. I wasn't so keen on the sauce but the steak was awesome. I was completely full and content and ready to make the most of the rest of the day.

As I delved deeper into the Quartier Latin, I started to see signs of life in the shops. Yes, although just about everywhere closes on Sundays, some shops open for a few hours after lunch and before dinner. I managed to hit three used CD/vinyl places that were right in a row. Unfortunately I didn't find much of excitement. I was feeling pretty beat though, so I decided to go back to the hotel for a bit and take a little rest since I'd been up so long already. On the way over I found a couple more shops open and got a couple more things, but that was pretty much it for shopping in Paris.

After my break at the hotel it was around 5pm. I wanted to do two more things before anything else, go to the Ile de la Cite and Notre-Dame, and see the Centre Pompidou. While at the hotel I checked and noted the Centre was actually open until late that evening. Imagine my surprise! I went to the Ile de la Cite, which I think is a really well-preserved area on this island in the middle of the Seine. Unfortunately there was no way to find out since it's walled in. They probably open it to the public, but not on Sunday nights. Notre-Dame is nearby though, so of course I had to check it out. The bells were tolling as I approached and it made for a very fitting introduction to the structure. I've gotten a bit numb to all these cathedrals but this one still managed to impress me.

So now I had only the Centre Pompidou, which is a crazy structure housing Paris' modern art museum. Outside it kind of looks like a weird water processing plant. I got a ticket, which wasn't too bad, and started checking out the exhibits. There was an exhibition on a Modernist French architect which was so-so, an exhibit on modern African art which was mixed, and the permanent exhibition. Their collection is impressive. Name a modern artist and they had a piece represented. Picasso, Dali, Magritte, Warhol, and on and on. Everyone but the Impressionists pretty much. Still, the disappoining bit is that none of the pieces by anyone well-known impressed me much. They are all minor works and me-too purchases by the museum with a couple exceptions. One being Dali's Guillame Tell, which I was able to appreciate very much, and the other being Marcel Duchamp's famous Pissoir. Now, not to knock that artwork as a historical achievement, but it looks about the same in pictures as it does in person. Some of the works by lesser-known architects were very good, but mostly I didn't like the idea behind the exhibition, which was to try and tie in groups of artists doing vaguely similar things. Like a room of artists who had a female nude in their piece. Sorry it just didn't cut it for me. If you take them out of historical context you've got to have a pretty good excuse to tie them together in my mind.

The exhibition I'd most wanted to see, called D-Day: Today's Design (well that in French), turned out to be in a completely different part of the museum, and by the time I'd gotten to it you could no longer enter the exhibit. So I was a little bummed about that, and hungry by now. I tried finding a restaurant with French cuisine but all I could seem to find were ethnic restaurants and bars in which the only thing that was French was a Croque Monsieur, or toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Ok, I can make that at home, Paris! Dejected, I plotted out a course to the metro and tried in vain to find something on the way over, away from the touristy les Halles, the area I'd been in. Nada. So I just got some fast food and came home. Well, I was tired, and it sounded just as authentic as eating Italian in Paris.

Ok, to recap. I loved Paris. Everyone was super-nice to me here. I think the people who find the French rude don't try to speak any French to them. Think about it, how would you feel if someone came up to you at your job and started speaking in Chinese or Spanish or, imagine, French! You'd be pissed they didn't at least attempt to use the language of the country they were standing in. Plus the French have an inferiority complex being so close to England.

Honestly though, I found Paris to be the most like America of anywhere I'd been. I can see why the French are so determined to keep their culture and language intact when they are bombarded with everything American except apple pie. Levi's jeans, McDonald's (where they do serve a Royal avec Cheese), the Fantastic Four (les Quatre Fantastiques), American music (I heard "Fade to Grey" in a record store again today. They're English but still, it's close), you name it, they have it. But I think the cool thing about the French is they recontexturalize everything American they adopt.

Some people say the French hate us but they're wrong. They totally love us! They adore Jerry Lee Lewis and American funk and soul. They just like to pick and choose what they like about us, and one of the things they hate is our current foreign policy, which I would have to agree with them on anyway. They also try their damnedest to adopt American things as part of a spectrum of different foreign influences. Italian, Brazillian, African, Turkish. All these things have their place here too. They don't seem to see why we should get some special treatment.

Well, I was hoping to upload pictures tonight too but it's already almost 1am and I need to finish re-packing to make my small bag heavier and my big bag lighter so that I don't exceed any weight limits. I'll try and post an update from an airport somewhere in the world tomorrow, and I'll definitely be having something to say once I'm back about the whole experience.

Onwards to Paris

Well, I'm safely in Paris, the last leg of my journey. I'm getting some hardcore travel fatigue, and I'm alone in Paris, so I've decided to stay in the hotel tonight. More on that in a bit. But let me catch you up on Switzerland first.

So yeah, I went to this discotheque last night and it was crazy. As I said before, I had scoped out the location, so I had only to walk over there, and I did. Close to the square there was some loud, punk-sounding music going on. "That doesn't seem right..." I thought. A lot of people were milling around the square. I thought maybe it was some bizarre opener, so I went inside and looked around the area before where you pay, and sure enough, it just looked like a punk show. I thought maybe I had the days mixed up, since I'm pretty sure my phone is a day slow.

I walked over to where I had seen one of the flyers to make sure the show I was thinking of was happening on the 15th, and sure enough it was. This is weird. I walked back and checked out the club again. I was going to ask someone when I noticed a flyer with different bands listed for tonight but the same address. Aha! I went outside and looked around the side of the building and sure enough there was a separate entrance.

I went in and there weren't many people there yet, but the place looked correct. The DJ was the opening DJ and he was spinning some EBM and synthpop, and that and some of the people there reminded me of Ceremony in Pittsburgh. I went over and looked at the beer menu. There were several things listed at 3 francs, so I ordered one, a panachee. The bartender took out a smallish plastic cup, filled it about half with something from a bottle and then poured beer in the rest. It tasted delicious but kind of light. Later I ordered it again and figured it out. It was a beer and citrus water together. Very tasty but not so high on the alcohol content. I saw a guy ordering just beer so I followed suit later.

The first DJ did play some really good songs (one I had to write down the lyrics in my phone so I could try and track down) but a lot of stuff that was just hard and not so danceable, and mostly no one bothered to get up. More people started to come in and eventually the main DJ, Plastique de Reve took the stage.

Within a couple songs he was playing some really good, danceable stuff that got the first couple people on the floor. It was definitely electro, but some was harder like EBM and some was more like fashionable sounding electro but still pretty hard and house-oriented, thus, easy to danc etc. At several points in the set the DJ stopped playing records and slid into some keyboard and vocoder stuff, which was impressive and made me want to try that. At one point in time he did a fantastic rendition of the 80's new romantic hit "Fade to Grey," one of my favorite 80's singles by one of my favorite, lesser-known groups. Coincidentally I had been listening to it on the trainride to Geneva. Later I heard him play "Disco Rout" by Legowelt, a Belgian electro group I like with a harder, dancefloor-oriented sound which was pretty much in line with everything he played. Those were the only two songs in about 3 and a half hours that I recognized, but it was awesome.

At first I entertained some ideas of just being a bystander, but before long I started dancing up there with everyone else. It's definitely a late club, this Usine. At first it was pretty sparse but when I left at 3:30am the place was still completely packed. I danced from about half past midnight until then, the whole time, which is I think the longest I've ever danced for. There wasn't a whole lot of room on the dancefloor so a lot of the time I was just moving a bit, conserving energy, but there was room to dance around sometimes too. By the time I left, the floor had become a swamp of discarded beer cans and beer, and my shirt was soaked in sweat down to the last couple inches of my waist.

I tried to talk to one guy I thought was speaking English but when he responded to me I couldn't hear what he was saying and I think it might have been Dutch or German. He definitely wasn't Swiss, but most of those in attendance were, I think. I danced with one girl up by the front for a bit, and I swear as I was leaving this guy tried to get me to give him a high five, but I would have felt really dumb if he hadn't been so I pretended not to notice, and he looked slightly offended.

I walked home and I was worried about getting mugged but Geneva is pretty safe so I was fine. Most of the streets I took were large and well-lit, and it was only about a 10 minute walk away. When I got home I was so gross and sweaty I decided to take a shower at around 4am before bed. I got up at about 8 to get ready for checkout at 10am.

I packed my bags and put them into day lockers. The best train I could take was at about 1pm and would get me into Paris before 5pm, but I had to be careful because the front office was closed from noon to one so I had to get my bags before noon. Having only about an hour and a half I really didn't have time to do much. I started walking towards the Jet d'Eau, a giant water stream hundreds of feet up in the air that's one of the main tourist attractions here. It's impressive, going way over houses, but i just don't understand the point. It's kind of like the European version of the Greatest Ball of Twine in Minnesota.

I needed to eat, so I only had a little while to go around. I still had a little over 110 Francs, and although I wanted to save some of the bills, I wanted to use most of it up since it was money spent already. I got a postcard and found myself a Swiss Army Knife. I had already gotten some at a good price at the hotel lounge but I hadn't found one for myself until then. Good, good, there went about 20 francs. I tried unsuccessfully to find the travel section in the bookstore I had been to the other day.

As I was walking to the Jet, I found some t-shirts to get and with lunch that pretty well was the money I needed to spend. I had lunch at Burger King because I wanted something substantial and fast, and in this case also cheap. I figured I'd get plenty of croissants and gaufres in Paris anyway.

I got back to the hotel and began moving my bags to the train station, about a five minute walk away. Let me tell you, my bags have gotten so heavy that I had to stop about every 100 feet and take a break. Man are they heavy. I finally got to the station and went to purchase a ticket. Lucky me, my train was sold out. Great. The next one left close to 5pm. I got a ticket and checked out the locker situation at the train station, finding that they were all too small for my huge bags. Not wanting to drag my bags back to the hostel, I decided just to kill time at the train station. I found a seat near customs and read for about 3 hours.

I caught the train with no further hiccups. Paris has 4 or 5 train stations, and luckily the one that Swiss trains go into is also the closest to my hotel. I took a taxi, which was only 10 Euros. I had been expecting to pay the 40 Euros it will cost to go to Charles de Gaulle airport. I arrived here exhausted at 9pm.

The hotel is one step up from a hostel. There is no air conditioning, but there is a TV. There's a lift (elevator) but it's broken, so I had to lug my stuff up two sets of stairs. There's a computer with internet that's very cheap (4 Euros for usage from noon to midnight) but you have to wait your turn on it and it's in the lobby. I'm typing this on my computer and will burn everything to disk so I don't have to use everyone's internet time typing and so I don't have to use the crazy French keyboard it has.

I grabbed a bite to eat - McDonald's since I'm too tired to want to deal with ordering food at any restaurant I don't know so well and since mostly all there is near here is Turkish, Chinese and butchers. Interestingly the McDonald's here has free ketchup I think, unlike anywhere else I've been.

It occurred to me earlier that all of the shopping I would like to do is pretty much shot since tomorrow is a Sunday and apparently everything in Paris does close on Sundays. Just about. So it looks like I'll be doing some sightseeing, which is fine since there are a billion things to see in Paris and I'm positive I won't see all of them.

Like I said before, I'm mostly just ready to go home. I want to speak to people in English and have them understand me etc. But I am in Paris for a whole day so I will try and make the most of it. At first I wanted to get up very early and tour the city at first light, like the Parisian photographer Eugene Atget, a favorite of mine. I can't decide if that's the plan or not yet, it somewhat depends on the time the Metro opens. I think at least I'll be on it as soon as it starts running.

I'll probably get some internet time tomorrow evening, or at the very least at one of the airports during a layover. It's really crazy to think I'll be home soon, and I'm really looking forward to getting my life back in order and sorting through everything I've learned, bought and discovered and integrating it into my life.

Allo, Suisse!

Greetings All,

My only evening in Switzerland is drawing to a close but so much happened today it seems like it will be tough telling it without writing a novella. Following my previous post this afternoon, I descended into the central area of Geneva, which I presume to be the central shopping district.

My first goal was the record store I mentioned, Mental Groove Records, but I'm looking for a number of things. The first thing I noticed is that prices here are ridiculously high. I don't know what the Swiss are thinking. Actually, I think what it is is that U.S. banking policy has been to devalue the U.S. dollar against other currencies, thus making American exports cheaper and imports pricier. The result is that the U.S. economy does well but the forlorn traveller such as myself faces steep exchange rates.

Another disappointing aspect to Geneva in addition to the prices was the sheer number of tourist shops selling Swiss watches, knives and T-shirts etc. I am not exaggerating when I say there are more here per square mile than in Times Square in NYC. In fact it reminds me a bit of that. High prices, lots of tourist-themed shops. Not as many tourists though, thankfully.

Geneva is a strikingly international city. I have seen representatives of every race milling about, and I think that there is no such thing as a Swiss restaurant in Geneva. They're all Italian, French, Chinese, Indian, Thai, American, Mexican etc. And they're all expensive. Anyway, I made my way to the record store, but despite the fact that it was 4:30pm and it opened at 3pm, the owner had stepped out until 5:30. Thus, I had an hour to kill milling about.

I walked all around and went into a number of shops. The only reasonably priced thing I found was in the English section of a bookstore in which I found an English-French dictionary. I did figure out that the value of the dollar against the franc is higher than I thought, such that four dollars U.S. gets you five francs. Still didn't make anything much cheaper though.

Finally I got into the record store and it was suitably cool. Most of it was newer vinyl but they had a nicely stocked section of newish electronic CDs and a really bizarre assortment of used LPs. Mostly old trance and acid techno, which brought me back to 1993 and the days I used to listen to that kind of music exclusively. But nothing worth purchasing there. I did decide to buy two CDs. One was a really bizarre mix of cheeky French music by Mr. Flash that I had heard a cut from on the internet, and the other a really strange collection of 'Afro-disco.' I can't tell if it's all new, all old, or even a lot of old African disco newly remixed. Needless to say, it's both bizarre and awesome. You haven't lived until you've heard African chanting through a vocoder. The store had CD players for you to listen to stuff otherwise I might not have been so adventurous but thank goodness it did.

I took my findings back to the hotel and felt tired. I took a brief nap and considered my options. Earlier I had discovered an interesting-looking Indian/Sri Lankan restaurant that was fairly reasonable, and I had also discovered a Burger King. I also had found the name and address of the club in town that has the kind of music I'm into and I found out two electro artists would be performing or DJing tonight, and one of them, Plastique de Reve, I'd heard before. What to do? Be adventurous or get fast food and spend the night on the internet in the hostel? After all, I am all alone.

Well, I decided to be adventurous. I left the hotel and first walked over to the club, which is named l'Usine / the Zoo. Seemed an easy enough place to find in a safe part of town. Then I went back to the other bank of the Rhone River and found the Sri Lankan restaurant. I saved a menu card so I can actually remember everything I ate, but let me just say it may have been the best meal of the trip. Yes it was Indian, but like no other Indian food I've ever had in my life, and it ended up being about the same price as my lunch. I guess it doesn't seem so expensive if the food is kickass.

I ordered a beef curry in a brown sauce which came with some some kind of wafer, curried lentils and rice on the side. I also ordered some samosas and two different sauces. The samosas were very small but delicious, kind of like Thai Samosas. One dipping sauce was tomato and cinnamon, so it had the odd sensation of tasting like half apple butter-half salsa, but all delicious. The other sauce was sort of like the syrup from sno-cones, only onion-flavored and hotter than anything you've had before in your life. The curried beef was supposed to be spicy but it wasn't really that bad. It was quite tasty and soft enough to cut with the wooden fork and spoon that I was served. Luckily the lentils (which reminded me of Ethiopean lentil dishes) took the edge off the heat, but after I finished the beef I poured the hot sauce on some remaining rice and it was so hot even I couldn't handle it.

I read for a little while and then came back here. The club doesn't open until 11pm so I thought I'd use this time to update the ol' weblog and maybe do a little getting ready to go. I'm going to be safe and leave my wallet at home, taking just a little cash and my driver's license and room key with me. That way, worst case scenario I'll just be out some francs, not any credit cards or bank cards. Well, wish me luck. I'll probably be updating this thing very regularly in the next three days since I don't actually have any English conversations and this is a bit like calling everyone and saying hello.

Geneve for a Day

Bonjour,

It's taking me a lot of effort to get used to saying things in French instead of in Italian. I keep saying grazie instead of merci beaucoup. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it while I'm in Switzerland, the French themselves won't be as nice I have a feeling.

I did intend to write another entry last night but our internet went haywire at the hotel as it so often does despite the exorbitant cost. Honestly though, not so much to say. During early evening I did some last minute shopping. I finally found some shoes I like, after days of searching, and on sale quite low at that. Then I came home and made dinner - a pasta with tomato sauce and spicy pancetta. Unfortunately the tomato sauce I bought at the store was just that - tomatoes and nothing else. So the sauce was pretty bland and I didn't eat much of it.

Last night I hung out with my friends from our program, some for the last time ever, some for the last time until I get back to Morgantown. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Jessie and Brittany, but oh well. Some of them had projects due today so they were furiously working on drawings. Thank goodness I wasn't in that boat.

This morning I woke up early, and finally scooted myself out of bed sometime well before 7am. 6am? Thereabouts. The train I was hoping to take left at 8:25am so I had to get out of the hotel early. I made pretty good time but for some reason I was thinking I was running behind and even though I'd budgeted half an hour to wait for the taxi, I thought I was going to be half an hour late. Luckily I had just gotten my times mixed up and I found the train with few problems.

The train ride to Geneve rivalled any I have been on thus far. First we rode through the Italian Alps, craggy mountains covered in crumbling stone houses. And I mean literally crumbling. They seem to belong in the rock geography of the region. Before we crossed into Switzerland, just outside of the town of Brig, we had three different police officers, one with a handgun at his side, check passports and so on.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention. In Milan they had a series of about 100 arrests following the London bombing, though they admitted most of them were for other crimes such as drug peddling. Rumor has it that there were people arrested with intent to put a bomb on Milan's public transportation system. When I first heard this I was glad I was going to Switzerland and France. But now I am inclined to think that it was just a rumor, since none of the major news sites have even mentioned it.

Anyway, once through security we passed through Brig, a town on the Swiss border, and the differences were immediately noticeable. The mountains get steadily higher and the buildings began to look less run down and more like, of course, traditional Swiss structures. Interspersed with the chalets was the occasional sleek modernist structure, and as we got closer to Geneve these became more common.

I slept a lot of the way, since I hadn't had much sleep and my compartment was shared with an older, graying Italian couple who I couldn't see bothering with petty thievery. But I woke up close to Lausanne. Lausanne is a largish community across Lake Geneva from Geneve itself. I'm not sure of the differences exactly but it was gorgeous. Terraced gardens swung up the hill, full of green crops. I saw for the first time houses somewhat similar to ours in America, with little yards on little inclines, and I had a deep-seated feeling of homesickness. Luckily for me I'll be home in about three days.

Lake Geneva itself is stunning. There was a hazy mist on the water such that the distant peaks of mountain seemed the same blue as the water, and the fuzzy shorelines all disappeared. The effect was that the lake and the mountains were of the same material, a giant protrusion which went outward and then upward, like the wing of a glider. Small sailboats flitted across the otherwise languid surface.

Here I made a small mistake. The announcer had mentioned two stops in Geneva - Geneve and Geneve-Aeroport. I figured it was best to get off at just Geneva, but when we got to the first of the two, I saw signs saying Geneve-Aeroport. I assumed this was the Aeroport, since the station was smallish, and continued on to what was, in fact, Geneve-Aeroport.

Luckily the airport is only about 10 minutes away. I got some money changed, and then found an American Express stand so I got some travellers' checks cashed as well. Swiss francs are the most beautiful money I have ever seen. I just want to keep them all. Five dollars is roughly equal to 6 francs. I'll have to take some pictures later.

I got a cab into town, and the cabbie was a nice guy who had gone to Cornell in the states bizarrely enough. Apparently Swiss cabs are privately owned and a lot nicer, and more expensive than their American counterparts. He exlained the tram system to me and chit-chatted as he drove me to my hostel. Final bill - 31 francs. Yikes. Expensive mistake.

I checked into the hostel but I can't get into my room until 3pm...which it is by now but I paid for an hour of time here at their internet cafe so I'm going to be in here a bit. I left my bags and found a small place to eat. Now, I don't know anything about Swiss cuisine, but this place was all Italian food excepting some salads, steaks and fish. The prices were very high, so I got a standard cheaper dish, spaghetti arrabiatta. Here in Switzerland they make it as spicy as hot Indian food is, which was nice. The sauce is nothing like Italian sauce, more of a spicy tomato broth than anything else, but the meal was quite good and in all honesty nothing like the pasta I'd had in Italy. I had planned on trying to find something more authentic for dinner, but at those prices I may just get a quick bite here and save up for a good meal in Paris. It was 20 francs (a litte more than $16) for a Coke and pasta, and this was just a little cafe.

So now here I am in the internet cafe. I found a record store I want to go to which Miss Kittin worked at before she became mildly famous. She DJed last night in Bern, Switzerland, and tonight is spinning at a big festival in Amsterdam, where my friend Jessie is going. But I digress. The store seems to be in the main area of town so once I check into the hotel and maybe grab some groceries I'll go in and do some shopping and sightseeing. It's possible I might pick up some flyers or ask at the store and try to find a club to go to tonight, but I'm on my own so I'm not sure about it. If I don't go, you might see me online tonight, since this internet cafe in the hostel is open until nearly 2am. Until then.

Hostels and Classes

Well, today is my last day of class. Ever. Assuming I don't hit any snags applying for graduation, but let's just assume I don't. I just got finished critiquing my magazine spread with my professor Alessandra and Giuseppe from Domus magazine, and his comments were really insightful. I wish I had a Pocket Giuseppe™ to lug around with me and ask "What do you think of this?" and he would respond, in Italian: "You killed the photo here." But yeah, I wish the class were more of this, doing work, getting it analyzed by professionals with amazing credentials, using the analysis to make improvements not only on the design but on the way I approach design. Too bad we only get it at the end.

I've booked myself rooms in two hostels for the next three nights. Tonight I'm sleeping my last night in the Hotel Arcobalena here in Milan. Tomorrow I'll be at the City Hotel Geneva in Geneva, Switzerland, which was very highly recommended on Hostelz.com. Then Saturday and Sunday nights I'll be staying at the Hotel Armstrong in Paris, which got a pretty good rating on Hostels.com. Please note, Hostels.com and Hostelz.com are totally different. Don't ask me why.

I was pretty concerned about going to Paris. Paris is a big tourist-filled city, and therefore a big pickpocket-filled city. And I have a laptop with me, not to mention a crapload of luggage since I was here a month. After talking with my dad about it, I decided to splurge and get private rooms instead of staying in dormitory style housing. In a perfect world, dorm style hostels are so cheap and usually no problem, but having to drag my Powerbook with me to avoid having it stolen from my room is a pretty unexciting prospect. And then worrying that someone might steal my bag complete with Powerbook, etc. I will have my camera and my wallet on me when I'm out and about, but they're a lot easier and cheaper to deal with.

I'm really excited about visiting Geneva and Paris. I feel I have gotten a lot of time here in Italy, but I really haven't seen anything of European culture outside of the Mediterranean. Given, I'm going to miss out on a bunch of places no matter what I do, but I am excited to see how the Swiss and the French live, and to try and dust off my French skills a bit. Goodness knows they could use some help. Geneva is on the French border so hopefully a lot of French is spoken there. Visiting Paris I think becomes mandatory once you've taken a few French classes. My mental itenerary includes the obligatory Tour Eiffel, Centre Pompidou, probably l'Arc de Triomphe and le Jardin de Tuilleries. I'm sure I butchered the spelling of that. Oh well. More tonight...or for you guys this afternoon.