Thursday (Thanksgiving) was the day of my talk. I made the most involved beamer presentation I've made to date and thought I gave quite a good talk. Self criticism: I probably spoke too fast for the non-native speakers. I had a couple more typos than usual, including one where I copy and pasted the wrong line from another talk and ended up defining the ring of integers of Q(\sqrt{-5}) as a ring involving \sqrt{-23}. Whoops! And there was one slide towards the end that I could have explained more clearly. But people seemed to follow the material well and I got through my talk in exactly one hour. Unfortunately, no one had realized the room would be in use immediately after, so we ended up having no question session! I couldn't really blame anyone, because scheduling had been unusual that week and there's usually not anything running that late into the evening, but exceptionally, this time there was. Still, I couldn't help but feel that my talk wasn't complete. I even had a joke in the appendix because I had anticipated a question Alfred would ask. Oh well. At least the talk got me to organize the material and actually prove a more general result that unified and simplified a lot of our results.

Post-talk dinner occurred at the Krebsen Keller, a traditional Styrian restaurant (the one where one of my Styrian writing examples comes from). At one point Alfred noticed my ring and asked if I was married and I said yes and he asked for how long and then asked if my wife was with me in France. I was hesitant to go along this line of interrogation because the table was filled with a bunch of people I didn't know well and frankly I didn't even know how Alfred would react. If it was just him or a couple people, I wouldn't mind and just tell him, but announcing that I have a husband to a whole table of colleagues I'm trying to court, while seated in a public place in a highly Catholic country, well, that just had me uncomfortable. But then as I'm hesitating, Andreas the postdoc says incredulously to David: "Didn't you know he had a husband? George mentioned it to you." Ah yes, thank you, psifenix, your blabber mouth precedes me. I was surprised that some people already knew, but at least that took off the tension of telling 6 new people down to telling 4, which felt more manageable. So I guess I'm thanking you, George.

Dinner was pretty good. They had roe deer (Reh) as a special, and I (and David) really wanted that, but they were out of it, so for dinner, but they were out of it, so we settled for some other kind of larger wild deer (Wildpfandl). I suuuppose I can settle for common Wildpfandl. But, as with my talk, there was an unsatisfying non-finish to the meal: I didn't get dessert. :(

Life is meaningless and full of pain.

Suddenly it seems a thousand years ago when the G-Men were 5-0 and dominating. What the hell happened? Clearly I can't leave the country during football season. My teams just seem to fall apart without me.

Just to give a better example of what the Austrian dialect's like, here's some examples I've picked up from written text (which is of course very conservative for indicating variation), as well as one extreme oral example. These examples are only from the last two days, without searching hard.

(source)

Styrian = Deutsch = English

-----
(advertisement for Puntigamer, a Styrian beer whose slogan is "das 'bierische' Bier" = the 'beery' beer)

Darf's a bisserl mehr sein = Darf es ein bißchen mehr sein = Could there be a little more
-----
(traditional restaurant menu)
Anfoch steirerer = einfach steirer = simply/only Styrian

für der nix steirerer essen will = für der nichts steirer essen will = for he who doesn't want to eat Styrian

-----
(headline in the cultural life section of a local newspaper)

Advent "wia's früahrer wor" = Advent "wie es früherer war" = Advent "like it was before"

-----

(title of a columnist's piece in the same newspaper)

Wenn's mit'm Wetter so weitergeht, miass' ma halt in Badehosen und Bikini vorm Christbaum Weihnachtslieder singen.
=
Wenn es mit dem Wetter so weitergeht, ? mich holt in Badenhosen und Bikini vor dem Weihnachtsbaum Wiehnachtslieder singen.
=
If the weather keeps up like this, I'll arrive in bathing trunks and a bikini to sing Christmas carols in front of the Christmas tree.

-----

At dinner Thursday night, Andreas spoke his village's dialect of Styrian German and it was wild. So many consonants disappear that the dialect uses glottal stops ubiquitously to indicate the ends of words because otherwise one word would blend into another. (This came up when I mentioned how people learning English don't usually learn that t's get replaced with glottal stops all over the place) The phrase he used as an example was something I could have understood: "fetch the carrots from the cellar to feed the piglets" but I couldn't understand it AT ALL.

All week long in Graz I've been going to restaurants and just eating the meal. I haven't had anything sweets or vaguely dessert-like the entire time, not even some chocolate to nibble at home (well, except the niblet left on my pillow by the hotel). Today was my talk and afterwards we went to a fancy restaurant for dinner and I thought that I'd finally get a good dessert or something. Nope, after the meal they just paid the bill and didn't ask about dessert. And since we had waited so long to get the waitress' attention to pay the bill, I wasn't exactly going to stick my head out to ask to prolong dinner while I gorged myself on sweetness.

I kept silent, but was so, SO in the mood for some sweetness fix and realized that the gas station on the way home would be a good place to get something -- like one of those super hydrogenized Hostess cupcakes or just a trusty Kinder Bueno snack cake. My standards had severely dropped from the wistful imaginings of hot apfel strüdel or Linzer Torte in the restaurant. So I go into the gas station, and wouldn't you know it, all they fucking had was Mozartkugeln, Ferrero Rocher, chocolate seahorses and truffles! Only in Austria would you go into a gas station looking for crappy chocolate and only be able to get high quality schokolade. Goddammit I didn't want to spend so much money! The chocolate's good though.

Feeling much better this morning, and off in a few minutes to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends and family.

(I am once again relying on TIVO to record the Giants - Broncos contest tonight, so no commentary about it here, please. I probably won't watch it until tomorrow).

I have a lot to be thankful for. My readers, my friends, and most of all Parris.

I hope all you reading this are similarly blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving.

It's a good time to be in Austria. (hat tip to lingboy)

Also, I went to dinner with the postdocs tonight to Glöckl Bräu, a traditional bräuhaus that only served its own beer. Our waiter was no more than twenty years old, already cute in a sort of inexperienced way, but wearing the restaurant's obligatory snug-fitting, just-above-the-knee grey lederhosen and cream-colored wool knee socks pulled up all the way, rendering him adoooooorable. He kinda look like these guys, but in a blue stripe button down shirt and looking far cuter. I want one as a pet. :-P

I am about halfway through watching the football games that were TIVO'd for me while I was overseas.

I came back from my trip sick to my stomach, as I reported last post. These games are only making me sicker.

Life is meaningless and has no joy but the Raiders.

I got home a little past midnight on Sunday night, after a long and gruelling trip from Casablanca. Three flights, changes in NYC/ JFK and Minneapolis/St. Paul, close to twenty-four hours in transit since the wake-up call came through in my Casablance hotel. I was pretty much a zombie by the time I stumbled off the last flight into Parris's loving arms, and a rotting zombie at that. After being oh-so-careful in Morocco -- not drinking the water, brushing the teeth with bottle water, avoiding uncooked food, etc -- I made the grievous error of eating at the McDonald's in the Minneapolis airport during our layover there, and came down with an nice all-American case of food poisoning. By the time I boarded my last flight my stomach felt as if I'd swallowed a lead bowling ball. It was the first time I'd eaten at a Mickey D's in a decade, and I hope that it's the last.

Anyway, the last day and a half I've spent mostly in bed or in the john, but I'm feeling a little better now. This is the first time I've felt strong enough to boot up my computer... where, of course, I found five hundred emails waiting.

The trip was great, and I hope to write more about it later, when I'm feeling stronger.

I have to say, though, I am not sure how many of these overseas trips are left in me. It's great when I get there, but air travel has just become SO exhausting and SO uncomfortable, especially when oceans are involved, that the mere thought of any more just now is daunting.
Where are the rocket planes that I was promised in the SF of my youth?

The whole day today I was trying to remember what the word for "light" (noun, as in "turn on the light") was in German. I could remember all these other words: lamp, lightbulb, outlet, sun, etc. But not light. It just hit me: licht ::headslap::

So I went to the pizzeria tonight again, but no Leo. Instead I talked with the Kurdish guy a lot, including about what pizza is like in France and the US and what good pizza is and what people erroneously call pizza in California. The guy really liked this idea that pizza sauce in NJ and NY is cooked for a long time with herbs -- he says he might try that with his own pizzas.

Last night I went to a traditional Austrian place further down the street and ordered some pan of liver and potatoes and bacon in a mushroom sauce. Mmmm. Hearing the waitress there speak, as well as Leo and his friend from the other night, I've realized: Austrian's a really, really different dialect. I mean, I can talk to people all right, but there's just so many words they use -- little filler words -- that I've never heard used before. Words like "jo" instead of "ja" as a sentence filler "das ist jo richtig" as opposed to the meaning as "yes" which is still "ja" (or that pan-German "jein"[English]). I swear there's some "zwo" or "zwa" word that floats around. And people greet each other with "Grüß Gott" (Greet God) or "Servus" (from Latin "at your service"), which also works as a goodbye, as does "babaj". And there's other ones. Pronunciations are more different than I remember, too. I had noticed the diphthong 'ei' is pronounced '/ɛɪ/' here, which is more conservative than the German German /aɪ/. And their 'o' in words like 'morgen' just sounds like they're opening their mouth much wider as they're uttering it.

I don't know why I never noticed it so strongly, but I can only guess that I'm noticing it now because of the trip to Bremen two months ago. Being exposed at length to a completely different German dialect has probably attuned my Deutschohre to that way of speaking, making Austrian sound completely wacky to me now.

Super 8½ [1995]. Bruce LaBruce makes a pseudo-biography called 'Super 8½' about the failed career of cult director Bruce LaBruce, starring Bruce LaBruce.( parody of auteur egotism ) 6/10.

Dünyayi kurtaran adam (Turkish Star Wars) [1982]. A Turkish bootleg of Star Wars, which shamelessly steals much of its footage from that movie in order to make a Turkish sci-fi epic.( copyright? what's that? ) 4/10.

Cruising [1980]. An undercover cop (Al Pacino) investigates a serial killer of gay people by entering the seedy underworld of homosex.( pun intended ) 5/10.

My Winnipeg [2007]. Filmmaker Guy Maddin revisits his Canadian hometown in a half-documentary half-fable.( winnipeg is awesome?! ) 9/10.

Nowhere [1997]. Self-described as "Beverly Hills 90210 on acid", the trippy adventures of several Los Angeles teens.( second time around ) 4/10.

Er Moretto - Von Lieben Leben (Er Moretto - Living Off Love) [1985]. A semi-documentary interview with a teenaged Italian boy ("Er Moretto") about his life on the streets of Rome since he ran away from home.( irredeemably exploitative ) 1/10.

In the Loop [2009]. A political satire about the inner workings of the American and British governments.( great satire ) 9/10.

*side note: They released this film here as Winnipeg, mon amour, which has to be an intentional reference to the famous French film Hiroshima, mon amour.

Today I got to check out Bern's annual onion festival; although I didn't get up early enough to catch the beginning, I enjoyed the second half of it (from 11 AM to a bit after 5 PM). The streets (between the Bahnhof and the Zytglogge, give or take) were lined with large numbers of stands, from snack sands (with onions, naturally, begin a big theme) to confetti stands (which sold plastic squeaky hammers and confetti bags).

Apparently kids are supposed to hit themselves (and passers-by) with the hammers... and everyone throws confetti at each other in the streets! (I took part in this latter tradition; I bought the standard 100-gram confetti bag for 1 franc while some kids actually bought special confetti PISTOLS which they used to shoot confetti at each other - kind of like a watergun fight.)

I made sure to stop off and enjoy quite a few of the snacks (onion cake, onion soup, garlic bread) and drinks (naturally there would be Gluhwein for a cold outdoor festival) - for the main meal I actually had a DELICIOUS mushroom risotto. Did I mention that I also bought pumpkin pie from one of the stands for dessert later that day - only to find that it's a SAVORY dish here? ;-)

Add that to visiting the "Luna Park" (a temporary amusement park near the train station up during the second half of November, though I was stupid and didn't realize that there were ticket kiosks next to each ride BECAUSE EACH TICKET WAS ONLY FOR THAT PARTICULAR RIDE... and was 'asked' to leave one ride as it was moving because I had the wrong ride chip - but at least the Kamikaze ride that I DID go on was fun) and it was an interesting day (which Bern seems to use as the unofficial start of the Christmas season here)!

With just 25 days to go before I leave Bern (most likely with a day trip to Zurich in the middle for work), I think I should ask: what do you recommend that I really make sure I do in my last few weeks here?

last night's short but bizarre dream: I was brushing my teeth or something and looked in the mirror into my mouth. In my throat, I saw a black nylon strap, hanging off my uvula. That's strange, I thought. I reach into my mouth with my fingers and pull on it and it slowly comes out, more and more nylon strap until at the very end I pull a blue fanny pack out of my body.

The end.

Arrived in Graz no trouble. Geroldinger picked me up from the airport and David G. was with him, which was a nice addition. It's really funny to me that David's here in Graz now because I knew him all the way back from when I did my REU at Idaho. That REU had some thematic proximity to Trinity's REU, but the programs stayed pretty separate, so I didn't think these people would be crossing my path again. Apparently he's the "new blood" at Graz factorization theory.

They dropped me off at the hotel, which is just 10 minutes' walk up the hill from the university. The room's big and has a separate "closet" with a proper desk that you can work at in isolation. After a few hours, I got hungry and wandered over to the pizzeria across the street. Being Sunday night, the place was empty except the bartender, so I just ordered a pizza and beer and sat down. The bartender made small chat, finding out that I was from the US and France and clearly seeing that I had trouble with my Deutsch. I thought this lonely one-on-one talk would last the whole time I was there, but boy was I wrong. Just a minute after my food arrived, these two fifty-something bruisers came in and sat down at the bar. Since I was the only other living soul there, they immediately noticed me and started speaking to me in quick, highly accented Austrian slang. I couldn't understand but three words. The bartender thankfully explained that I wasn't Austrian but American and then the one guy started speaking somewhat more slowly and trying to avoid slang. Though if he had been speaking 95% slang with heavy accent before, it only went down to about 60% with his efforts. After asking where in the States I was from, out comes "So do you think Obama's making things better or shitting them up?" Oh great, politics, the subject that brings people together. I delicately tried to be optimistic, but mostly just let him ramble and nod with agreement as I understood about 20% of what he said. I understood enough, anyway, to hear him argue at one point that people need to fix their own countries first and when people are plopping out five babies in a row, they need to have their nuts cut off or tubes tied. I'd love to see this guy run a political campaign.

Anyway, the conversation eventually switches to other topics and the guy introduces himself (Leo[n]) and his friend just kinda nods. The friend didn't speak much to me, which was okay, since he had even thicker 'n accent than the first guy. Leon, however, was a talker and loooooooooved gesturing out his points about beer bellies, puny dicks, poop and diarrhea. All this while I'm eating. The high point of crudity was a joke where an American, a Styrian and a Chinese were stuck on a mountain in the winter and there was a small hut that they thought they could take shelter in. The American goes in and gets swarmed by flies and after a minute runs out. The Styrian then goes in, gets swarmed by flies and after a minute runs out. The Chinese goes in, but doesn't come out right away. The American and Styrian wait several minutes, but the Chinese still hasn't come out. Finally they peek in and see the Chinese in one corner without a fly near him. "Ching chang choong, I'm Chinese but I'm not dumb. I shit in the other corner and all the flies are flying around it" (it rhymed auf deutsch). As eigenvalue would say, "that's racist!". Wait, wait---there's another joke. This one's mathematical. What do you call Einstein standing next to Einstein? Zweistein! ahahahaha. I actually didn't get this joke because I didn't even think they were talking about the person, just the stones. There was another math joke (Was ist dreizehn plus dreizehn? Sechs Zähne!) relying on dialectal pronunciation before the jokes finally boiled down. By this time I had finished my pizza and had been invited to the bar to join Leo & Co. The conversation had given me practice speaking German, so I was starting to speak with less difficulty (beer helped) and Leo said that I actually didn't have a discernible American accent, and that it was the way I sat and held my knife and fork that gave it away. He said that when I first spoke he wasn't sure where I was from -- France, Finland, who knows. He and the bartender were curious where I had learned to speak German so well, so I told them it was in high school back in the States. "High school in the States?? Where's your swastika??" Leo exlaims as he playfully inspects the back of my neck. Apparently the impression in Austria is that the only American high schools that teach German are the neo-Nazi ones. While the conversation certainly spilled over into un-PC terrain more than once, I had fun talking to a local and getting immersed into that scene so quickly. Turns out the bartender's a Kurdish immigrant from 5 years back, which totally explains why I had an easier time understanding him than Leon or his friend. Anyway, I've been invited to drop in again sometime during the week; Leon's comes often so I likely will run into him again. What a start to my Graz trip!

Had a slight bit of stress on my trip to Graz. I was walking to the airport shuttle stop in Lyon, but on the way the shuttle passed me 7 minutes early! I couldn't believe it. I was still a couple blocks away so there was no way I could run to catch it. Sure enough, the next one ran late because it was picking up all the passengers that, like me, thought that they were arriving in time to catch the previous one. I arrived at the airport 47 minutes before my flight and hoped HOPED that there would only be one or two people in front of me at the Lufthansa checkin (a legitimate hope actually because that's the way it's generally been before). Just my luck, but there was about a dozen people waiting in line and they were clearly having issues with the checkin kiosks. I zipped around them and cut the line--something I've never done before--and tell the Lufthansa guy:
me: "My flight leaves in 45 minutes. Can I skip the line so you can take care of me?"
him: "Normally you have to check in through the kiosks. With that short line it will only take 10 or 15 minutes."
me: "but, but, my flight leaves in 45 minutes! They are going to close checkin any minute now!"
him (laughing): "Non, non, Monsieur. We close checkin 15 minutes before departure."
My jaw dropped. That's it?!?! That's incredible. At that point I was ready to go back to the line, but since the people in line were still having issues and had not progressed, he just offered to take care of me right then and there. Stress gone. I knew that there was more leeway with Schengen Zone flights, but I really think what lets them get away with the 15 minute policy is that there's never, ever a line at security. Most of the time I go through security the people there are twiddling their thumbs, and they "randomly" screen one of my bags just because they're so bored they have nothing better to do. I have to say, flying in and out of Lyon has greatly improved my attitude toward flying.

However, I do have one complaint: the checkin kiosks NEVER work for me here in Europe, regardless of whether I'm flying Lufthansa or Air France. But the staff always insist that you use them, even when I warn them it won't work, and then they're always surprised when after wasting five minutes failing to retrieve my itinerary, I report that the machine said to see a ticket agent. It's not only me that's had this issue: Christian's never had success either and I'm pretty sure Janak's had issues too. Do they just have something against Americans?

Layover was in Munich, which has become my absolute favorite airport in Europe. I can always make tight connections there, and if I'm there longer, there's complimentary tea and coffee stands all over the Lufthansa terminals. And if I'm in the mood for relaxing, big liter cans of beer are only 2€ and you can drink them anywhere. This time around, I happened to pass by the weird waiting area that's shaped like a large white ball that you walk into. I had sat in it this summer and it was very comfy and isolated, so when Christian and I were travelling through Munich on our way to Warsaw last month, I tried to find it. This led me to ask an employee the bizarre question: "Entschuldigen Sie, wissen Sie, wo daß größes weißes glühendes Kugel ist, worin man sitzen kann?" ("excuse me, do you know where the large white glowing ball is, the one you can sit in?") Christian couldn't keep a straight face as I pressed on trying to describe this fantasy ball to the bewildered woman. Anyway, it's real and it's by gate G31. That's G for glühende.

The flight to Graz was so pretty. The highest Alps already had a good layer of snow on them, while the lower foothills and valleys were lushly green, wooded and occasionally had a dusting of snow. It was so... alpine. But as we approached Graz, all the valleys appearing were filled with thick fog, until we got over the flat plain Graz lies in and then it was just a sea of white foam ringed by mountains. The plane made a U-turn and from the other side it was literally an ocean of thick white foam that had doubled upon itself, stretching all the way to the horizon. The plane quickly descended and we were enveloped in thick whiteness and I kept waiting for it to break, for us to get under the cloud cover. But minutes passed and it was still solid white out the window. Finally I got eye of the ground, but it was the fence at the border of the airport! We were only about 20m in the air and landed just seconds later. I've never been in a plane landing in such thick fog before; it was an eerie experience not being able to see the ground for so long, yet knowing it was rapidly approaching.

This week before going to Graz has been pretty movie heavy, since I've had work to do so I haven't hung out with people many evenings and with Christian not around I've had to amuse myself. Also, the tedium of peeling chestnuts for my soufflé lent itself to watching some lengthier, perhaps duller, silent films. Feature films to come once I arrive in Graz this afternoon.

In Nacht und Eis (In Night and Ice) [1912]. The first fiction film of the Titanic disaster, made and released only half a year after the sinking.( early disaster film ) 7/10.

His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz [1914]. King Krewl has the witch Mombi freeze Princess Gloria's heart when he discovers she loves common boy Pon.( Dorothy to the rescue ) 6/10.

Blacksmith Scene #1 [1893]. The first commercially released film, done by Edison's Kinetoscope company, and showing three blacksmiths at work.( another notch in the belt ) 6/10.

In the Closet [2008]. A young man (gay porn star Brent Corrigan) goes home with another guy, but there's something else in the closet besides his homosexuality...( where's the porn? ) 5/10.

Attack of the Killer Refridgerator [1990]. A bunch of college kids insensitively defrost a fridge during a party and it takes revenge on them one by one.( low budget fun ) 6/10.

Black Devil Doll [2007]. A black puppet terrorizes women after having sex with them.( not better than amateur YouTube ) 2/10.

ETA--Mon 23.11.2009 12:06am missed one.

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge [1888]. Le Prince's two second shot of the eponymous subject; only the second film ever made.( duh, America's #1 ). 8/10.

I'm feeling better about Graz now. It's funny, but my dreams from the past two nights totally telegraph the dissipation of anxiety. Two nights ago I dreamt that I was in Switzerland with Christian. We got into a car being driven by our friend Sitome, with her son in the front seat. We miss a turn on the winding mountain roads and suddenly get on an inescapable highway tunnel going into the mountain, where first the road ascends sharply -- with terraced bumps along the way so the car bounced violently as we passed over them. Then the road descended quickly and we zoomed down, stopping at a depot where the a train would come to haul us and the vehicle through the rest of the tunnel. We waited for several minutes and then the train came, but I was carrying my suitcase and my camera loosely and suddenly I lost track of my backpack and thought I left it in the waiting room and I just felt so overwhelmed. The whole time in the dream Christian was a faint figure that didn't say anything and just floated alongside me. I woke up very stressed that morning.

Analysis: Switzerland=Austria (the train transporting cars through a mountain tunnel is directly from a trip I made with my parents to Austria when I was younger). The inescapability of the tunnel conveys my sense of having committed to something which I don't feel ready to do, hence the bumpiness. Christian's presence is faint because he's in Mexico, so I feel unsupported here, and the friend is there because she's a mother (another symbol of support), but she's not my mother, so I can't turn to her either.

Last night's dream: I'm at home and get a surprise visit from the guy I had a huge crush on in high school. We talk about things calmly and exchange some smiles and I feel like the awkwardness caused by my long ago crush has subsided. That's it. I wake up feeling renewed.

Analysis: Just before going to sleep, I had finally gotten a result I had been working on all week in partial preparation for Graz. I had been frustrated that I couldn't even solve such a simple question, but now it was out of the way and I felt like I could handle things hanging over my head.

Yesterday I had to fight to turn it into a productive day, but today I had no trouble at all. I've finalized plans for Graz with Geroldinger and he's visibly excited about my visit. I feel like I can pull together enough of my "research in progress" in time to make a good talk. I FINALLY baked the freaking chestnut souffle that I had been tinkering with all week long. There were two factors adding to the delay: 1. I bought a kilo instead of a pound because I got a good deal (4€ total instead of the $11-12/lb I'd get in Berkeley!) and unlike the last time I bought in Berkeley, almost all the chestnuts were not rotten, so I ended up having a lot to prepare. 2. I screwed up somehow in removing the second skin of the chestnuts, so I had to spend hours fishing out chunks of it from the paste I made. A sticky and tedious activity.

I'm stupid. We recent grads got a notification over the summer that our Berkeley email accounts would be deleted in October, and then got another reminder at the start of that month. I wrote it down in my calendar and actually kept right on top of it, right until the day it got disabled. I downloaded all my past mail locally so I wouldn't lose it and I set up forwarding to my Gmail. Well, I didn't read directions and set up forwarding through Calmail (the email server system) rather than through the alumni network. So my account got deleted and the forwarding information with it and now I've contacted Calmail Support and they say it's too late to do anything; I've been wiped out of the system. Oops. So FYI, no more emails to my math.berkeley.edu account.

Oh, and today is the first time I've ever had a telephone conversation interrupted by an unruly donkey. Christian's voice just can't compete against an assertive heehaw.

While looking at the Swiss national semi-tabloid '20 Minuten' today, I found some interesting information about just how rich and poor the average person was in Switzerland.

( Numerical data here )

which explains *a lot* about the way things work in Switzerland. Since almost no one is really poor, we don't have a lot of really cheap, really seedy stuff. Instead, there's lots of stuff that LOOKS cheap - but whose cost is solidly mid-range by American standards (and has comparable quality). Vending machine coffee drinks are a good example; whereas you would expect to pay $1 or a little over for a small such drink in the US, in Switzerland it costs three times as much... but tastes A LOT better than the American version!

This also explains why you see no one wearing really cheap/seedy clothing... or why the McDonalds sells gourmet sandwiches on fancy bread... or why there are no true slums (or why the 3.95 CHF ready-made fondue kit tasted almost as good as the 'best fondue in Switzerland' I had in Geneva, for that matter ;-))

Looking at it another way, my graduate student salary in the US places me at around the 40th percentile of Americans (remember that I heavily supplement myself with other sources) but places me near the poorest of the poor here; after all, the only way to be really poor in Switzerland is to be paid by another country where prices are lower!

And as for the really rich? (the ones who have the notorious private banking accounts and buy the small handful of REALLY expensive goods and services here, for example) The parity in income here means that Switzerland pretty much needs to import its multimillionaires from elsewhere!

I just discovered this early French silent film comedian, who preceded the famous American comedic stars of the silent era. I already saw one of his films, Max Reprend sa liberté (Troubles of a Grasswidower) a year or two ago without even realizing he had been a big star (in Europe at least). Apparently he created the first recurring character in film, Max, and was who Charlie Chaplin named as his inspiration, dubbing him "The Professor". The character of Max is very different from Chaplin's Tramp, or Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd. He's sincere in his efforts and tries to act intelligently, but his incompetence eventually gets the best of him. Invariably, he also gets embarrassed by his failed actions and people laugh at him. In short, he's much more like a real person that you're laughing at, instead of some caricature (Chaplin) or bumbling innocent (Keaton). While that's a refreshing comedic type for the era, I found that in almost all of shorts I saw in this collection, there would only be one joke per film and if you happened to not find it funny, the film would fail entirely. Sadly, with two shining exceptions, I found Linder's films to be utterly underwhelming and unfunny.( about a dozen silent shorts )

Things I like
* cheap prices for food, travel, shoes, leather goods, woven goods, and souvenirs
* quesillo
* quesadillas with quesillo and flor de calabaza (mmmmmm)
* fresh ripe fruit, including lots of juices
* coffee, so long as it's not Nescafe, i.e. it actually comes from the coffee plantations surrounding the city
* getting better at understanding Spanish and even learning to speak some now
* walkability and plentiful transportation (bus, taxi)
* food available at any time during the day, including late at night (unlike France where you eat at fairly rigid times)
* marketplaces and being able to barter at them (I only had experienced this on the same level in Poland, but it's disappearing there in favor of malls and supermarkets)
* people are generally friendly when money's not involved
* the varied terrain of the state and how easy it is to get to someplace rural

Things I dislike
* bread and pastries seem to lack oil or something to not make them dry like stale bread
* treatment of animals. the concept of affection for a pet is completely foreign. While we were there, Christian's friend's cat got mauled to death by a stray dog. We saw a kitten stuck on the roof of a building one night meowing for help, but some passing teens just pointed and laughed at it. Christian and his linguist friends here have discovered that most of their subjects do not know the word for purring because they've never encountered a cat doing it.
* All the trucks that circle around the city with people yelling or using bullhorns to announce their products: agua, gaz de Oaxaca, or naranjas.
* Getting sick
* Related: tap water so unclean you can get sick from drinking just a little of it
* narrow sidewalks hardly wide enough for a person, and then they decide to stick a telephone pole in them
* no green vegetables (when I got back to France I went overboard buying spinach and salad)
* all the corn. When a dish doesn't have tortilla, it's a tamale with corn meal, and if you're sick of that, you can get elotes (corn on the cob). It's really hard to find something not corn-based, and after two weeks my body just doesn't want any more (funny, but I don't think this would happen with say, rice).
* hoja santa, aka yerba santa. It's a common herb in Oaxaca with a supposedly mild flavor, but for some reason I taste it strongly and don't like it.

Things I've become okay about
* alcohol. Tried "pricy" Mexican wine and it had a good flavor. Found Bohemia oscuro, which is a pretty decent dark beer, and it seems dark beers are rising in popularity in Mexico. Discovered that while I hate tequila, there are some mezcals that I find fairly tasty, so there's even a harder alcohol I can enjoy.
* internet. Cafes and restaurants are starting to get wifi. It's not fast (and in one place seemed to disconnect whenever they got a phone call...) but it seems to be improving.
* the toilets, including the whole used-toilet-paper-in-the-trash-bin idea.
* Christian being away for so long in the field and it being difficult to contact him. I'm not happy, but I've gotten used to it as a necessary thing.
* traveling for 2 or more hours in a bathroomless bus without stops to reach some other town. (it helps to not be sick)
* mole. I now know I usually don't like black mole (the most common one), but red, colorado and yellow moles are usually okay to good.
* corn. I've gotten used to eating lots of corn tortillas, at least.

Things I'm surprised by
* The sheer number of tourists we saw during Day of the Dead. It was like the town had gone white from the Americans, Australians, French and Germans.
* Oaxaca's gotten much more gay-friendly in the past two years. In addition to spotting gay tourists, I saw two Mexican guys walking around holding hands. And boy, was the eye flirtation from strangers much more aggressive and obvious this time around.
* just how extensively corrupt the government is. I knew it before, but hearing more stories of projects to funnel cash to personal interests just made it more apparent.

Inglourious Basterds [2009]. A team of Jewish-Americans land in Nazi-occupied France to kill as many Nazis as possible.( wonderful but flawed ) It's an uneven but satisfying addition to Tarantino's oeuvre and the best film I've seen in theaters this year. 8/10.

Kapitan Sowa Na Tropie (Captain Owl On The Trail) [1965]. Eight episodes of a Polish crime series about a sharp police detective called Captain Sowa (last name translates as 'Owl').( Read more... ) 5/10.

(500) Days of Summer [2009]. Two hipsters, Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), experience a failed relationship over the course of 500 days.( Aloof meets Muted ) while I responded really positively to the idea of the film, the actual execution that I saw on screen left a lot to be desired. 6/10. (What? When did this sneak into the IMDb top 250? Just saw this after writing the review)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince [2009]. Harry Potter and his friends deal with the evil Lord Voldemort, hormones, and a book filled with notes from someone named "The Half-Blood Prince".( half-blood writing ) I hope that things finish with a bang, because this film (not book) was a step down from where the series was going. 6/10.

*I really don't know where this stereotype of French film comes from, but it seems to be pervasive. You know, the black-and-white stock of a shot of two faces: one in the foreground in profile, the second facing forward in the background, uttering in sequence some semi-philosophical words about loss and despair? This kind of formalist cinema doesn't fit with French New Wave or the Cinema of Tradition that preceded it, so I can only guess it originated in the 80s or something. But I can't really find a good French example of it and rather it seems to all be based on Calvin Klein's Obsession ad campaign... Side note: I wish, wish, wish I could find a video of SNL's parody commercial called Compulsion because it's the ultimate spoof of this archetype.

**I hope that J.K. Rowling, who had been drawing upon Latin roots for so many names, had the good sense to pluralize 'horcrux' as 'horcruces'.

Friday began with an early wakeup for my appointment (three blood samples were drawn from my biceps beforehand for testing, I was given my prescription of Asacol with instructions on how to use it - take the pills twice a day and gradually raise it to four - and will have to go back for a kit to self-administer another test) and continued with my Tyson meeting.

It looks like we're going on in another direction (trying to generalize my current result in whatever way possible; of course, most of the obvious generalizations DON'T work because we need strong hypotheses!) but in more exciting news, it looks like Bern wants to pay me for the talk that I gave last week - so we'll see what happens (how many layers of bureaucracy will need to thrust through for this... both for the department to give me the check and for me to actually cash it)!

And as for today? I got to go up to "Bern's mountain", Gurten. You get there by going to a station to take a special elevated train (the Gurtenbahn), which costs 10 CHF for a round trip; once there, you find all sorts of walking paths and scenic views... so I spent a good bit of time walking along paths (and climbing up a tower for a particularly good view) before eating at Tapis Rouge (their cafeteria-style, self-serve restaurant which was recommended in the wikipedia) and drinking some Sauser (which, as far as i can tell, is closely related to wine - but with 1.5% alcohol - and tastes surprisingly good) before returning for the day. It's a good thing that the weather was good and the skies were clear for most of that afternoon!

(Tomorrow is when I plan on checking out the zoo; Bern's zoo advertises that it keeps relatively few animals and gives them lots and lots of space... and, among other things, it was where the bears were kept before moving them to the bear park.)

In any event, I've also begun planning my 'future' (i.e. what next term might look like with Garnett) - and it looks like he's beginning to suggest that I might end up moving from the Heisenberg group to generalizations involving the differentiation theory! (What matters the most for me is that I get something significant done, even if graduating by June is looking more and more like a fantasy.)

I almost missed going to the market today because when I finally went to bed at 6am this morning I thought there's no way I'd sleep for more than two or three hours. Nope, almost 6. Consequently I was in a rush to buy all that I needed for the next few days, but wouldn't you know it, when I noticed one stand selling panais (parsley root) and decided to buy some, the woman next to me started asking me how I cook them. After noticing my accent, she asked where I was from and when I told her the US and she asks whether people there eat panais. I said, no, you can't find panais anywhere, but you can find something called parsnip, which is similar. She thought they were the same, so I took the moment to teach her what I only learned half a year ago: parsley root is the root of the parsley plant (duh in English, but French is another story), but parsnip is a different root more closely related to the carrot. Parsnip has a sweeter and milder taste than parsley root, the former is good to eat alone while the latter's better for flavoring soups. "OH! Like clam chowder!" Having never made clam chowder before, I just nodded in agreement. "Oh, so you can make clam chowder with panais? I love clam chowder. So you can use panais wherever they use parsnip?" First, the Simpsons was right: French people sound ridiculous saying "chowder". Second, I really didn't know about the substitutability of parsley root for parsnip. Meanwhile the vendor has been patiently waiting for me to pay for my veggies and is pleasantly surprised that we're having a conversation about panais.

The lady then asks whether I know about shallots and the vendor lady helpfully pulls out a basket to show me. I told her, yes, I certainly do. The woman then says she doesn't think Americans know about shallots. She once read an American cookbook where they described vegetables and after reading their description of shallots, she concluded Americans don't know what shallots are. I told her only Americans really into cooking know about shallots; everyone else just eats onions and garlic. We finish up our conversation since I was kinda in a rush, but then when I walk over to the nearby herb stand, who should follow me... We both end up buying laurel leaves, so we get into a conversation about how that's used in our respective cuisines, me Polish and her Hungarian. She was such a kooky, short, round woman in a huge purple parka bubbling with conversation (her, not the parka). Not a bad person to run into randomly at the market.

edit: I looked on wikipedia and panais is indeed parsnip. I was just accustomed to the markets here only selling parsley root, if at all, so that I assumed that was what I was buying (because of its rarity, I had forgotten its name). So the lady was right, but at least she learned about how ignorant Americans are about vegetables, even when, like me and her cookbook, they sound like they know what they're talking about. Related note: I'll have to keep my eye out for salsify root.