Geneve Journal: Dec 5-7

My first visit to CERN was the result of bad navigation.  I made an appointment for my second visit.  This time 'round, I came to CERN to record an interview with Ariane Koek, the force behind the Collide@CERN artist residency program at the scientific research center.  When I say she is the force behind the program, she really is the force, the dreamer and creator of the entire Arts@CERN initiative which includes the Collide program, she is the curator, producer, administrator, artist relations person, camp counselor, tour guide, house mother, fundraiser and pr person. The residency program, which took full effect this year with the first two resident artists, is the result of a feasibility study conducted by Koek while she herself was in residency at CERN as a Clore Fellow.  She made her case and the administration of CERN invited her to establish and run the arts initiative.   Collisions are the reason for being - for the Large Hadron Collider, and the invocation of that term for the name of the residency program is not just a poetic affect.  Ms. Koek is determined to create the kind of collisions of culture that tweak, irritate and enliven the experiencial landscape of the CERN campus.

"...dancers perform while a scientist reads in Cern's library." Photograph: Maximillien Brice/cern.

via: The Guardian

I was taken by the notion that the arts program was not, as I expected, born of some institutional process of development by committee, but rather pushed into being through the imagination and initiative of a single individual that was then embraced by the institution.   There a certain poetic feedback loop that the Collide program's objectives of instigating and nurturing creative interactions which bridge the two research disciplines of art and science are in fact harbored deep within it's own DNA. 
The audio I recorded will find its way into an upcoming Dead Hare Radio podcast, along with more links and information. 

My interview with Ariane Koek took place on Wednesday.  Early in the day on Thursday, I returned to the Musee d'art e d'histoire, and this time, the painting galleries were open.  It was a quick visit although was struck by some familiar but forgotten faces on the walls of those galleries.  Specific works of Félix Edouard Vallotton, Giovanni Giacometti, Ferdinand Hodler and others, as it turns out, had lodged themselves into deep recesses in my brain, this became only evident when standing directly in front of these works. 

On this visit my attention was commandeered by the pastels of Jean-Ètienne Liotard.  Really exquisite and glowing pastel portraits that seem more radiant and compelling because of the medium in which they're created.  In this group of drawings, the rosy illuminated flesh tones luxuriate in relation to the clear powdery blue in many of the sitters' garments.  I'll work on getting some images to plug into this post.  The image above is a brochure that accompanied an exhibit of Liotard drawings which I visited multiple times when it was mounted at the museum in 1992. 

Andre Dussoix, acrylic on canvas, via: karaartservers.ch

On Thursday, I arranged my second (re)meeting of the trip with artist Andre Dussoix.  Andre was among the group of artists, musicians and writers I encountered first in 1992.  I have a publication given to me by Andre at that time which accompanied a multi media group exhibit which took place in 1984 and included the work of several members of this circle .

Espace Corps, large format publication.

 Even though I've never been able, nor have I really tried to read the publication in French which has long served in my mind as a talisman emblematic of the ideal of the creative collective.  What I garnered from this group of artists-friends, who are collectively my elders by about 20 yrs, is the representation of the possibility of maintaining productive creative relationships through the long haul.  I recorded a conversation with Andre in his home in which he detailed his progression as an artist long invested in the conjunction of moment and painting and he gave a little insight on the type of environment that exists for artists Geneva.

Xavier Dussoix, metal, plexi glass, lighting fixture.

Andre's two sons Hadrien and Xavier are both artists, and I recorded conversations with both of them  the following week. I had met Xavier back in 1992, even painting a gestural figurative image on his motorcycle helmet back then.  I hadn't met Hadrien on my previous trip, so my opportunity to meet him for the first time came on Friday, Dec 7 at a closing reception of sorts at his studio at Theatre le Grutli, a multi purpose arts venue that houses a handful of artists studios on its top floor.  Studio space - let alone affordable studio space - is in short supply in Geneva, particularly with the demise, in recent years, of the squats.  The city of Geneva has a program providing work spaces to select artists free of charge for a period of three years.  The reception at Hadrien's studio marked the close of his three years in residence at Grutli.

The doorway to Hadrien Dussoix's studio.

Hadrien's recent paintings of renditions of baroque interiors created with spray painted details over generally flat expanses of background colors predominated the studio space, but also visible were sculptures and samples of his text paintings.

I particularly liked the series of collaged skull and crossbones which are made using various found and painted skulls and masks with the crossbones being form from collaged images from porn magazines which almost all included a cleaved buttocks (or close proximity) standing in for the archetypical joints capping each bone. 

Geneve Journal: Dec 4

After my appointment with Jérôme Hentsch, waiting for the tram at Place de Neuve, my eye was caught by a geometric anomally in the distance which I pursued and observed.

In the studio today

Geneve Journal: Torch Bearing Shrub

A view toward the Petit Palais in 1992

You might think that the extent of my Genevois arboreal reflections related in the previous post would be limited to just one post.  But no.  They continue...

I'd like to make visible the my mental map of Geneva. But this is impossible because, in considering the impressions of a place in Geneva from my memory, I conjure the place itself, not  its relation to other places in that realm.  Those ligatures and linkages between specific places are lost in a dream fog.  It's a kinetic map, this mental one I have.  One in which places roam and flitter around in an undefined cluster like a swarm of gnats.  Navigation through this virtual terrain is achieved by a series of leading cuts or edits, as in a film; a specific action or route is not seen but is felt through the info expressed in the segments prior to and post-transit.
The primary factor in this Cartesian impossibility is that this mental map doesn't actually mark where locations are.  It marks where places are not, and generally only when confronted with the actual encounter with actual places in actual space.  In fact, these moments of virtual/actual locational discord are the ones in which my mental map is most clearly defined, if only for an instant, as I try to reconcile the two.


One such defining encounter in Geneva was with the Musee duPetit Palais, a rather confined, - and now that I'm writing this I'm recalling - dank modernist monument and shop of horrors.  I'm recalling a cellar level gallery - velvet hanging walls(? ) The building itself is far from modern, but I remembering housing a collection of early and mid century modernist art.  We're talking about modernism in the historical sense here, I can't even find a website for this joint.

Nevertheless, I was suprised to walk out of the Art and Archeology library and encounter - not only the museum, but along with it, a profoundly memorable sight.  In '92, approaching the PP from another location, I turned a corner and for a split second, I was presented with a shrub with arms upraised, holding torches.  This was a living, respiring, auto-anthropomorphological organism, complete with gilt flames.  Whoa.  What trippy, surreal sight that was.   I snapped what turned out to be a disappointing photo of this vision, which of course, I would have known until months later when I had the film developed back in the states.  Those were the days of deferred visual gratification, kids - no embedded LED screens.  My memory of that shrub was sharpened by my inability to capture it with my camera.  In fact the image at the top of this post is that very photo.

Detail of the armed shrub, 1992

The surprise encountering this torch limbed shrub again was doubly powerful.  Although I'd never forgotten this shrub, it never entered my thinking when drawing up my list of sites to see/things to do while in Geneva, and in any case, I hadn't expected to find it where I did, walking home from the library.

The shrub today.

I immediately recognized my chance, finally, to get the effect I failed to achieve twenty years before.  I snapped some pictures but for some reason, just couldn't get the effect right.  It was only after returning home that night and looking at the original photo which I brought along with me that I realized that this shrub had changed.  It too had twenty years to grow - even under the suppressive shears of some gardener.   This plant is now taller and wider by a couple of feet - while I've gotten, wider and slightly shorter in the same period.

A zoomed in almost-approximation of the 1992 vantage.

Part of the potential objective of this trip  is to find, if they exist, the quantifiable differences between the two moments, my two selves and my perception of that single place(s).  How to achieve that objective is part of the meat of the project, to be sussed out through the various media I'm bending toward that end.

I could see that better than my own fuzzy recollections, this chance photographic record of an encounter and re-encounter with a personally phenomenologically imbued location, could give a tangible, nearly-natural illustration of the time that has past. 
Not a perfect measurement, for sure, since this bush has continued to be trimmed and trained for the past twenty years.  But then, my own experience has not been without the mitigating influences of outside forces.
Reviewing the photos, I saw that my original perspective of the torches and plant was from some distance away.  I returned a few days later to try to recreate the original vantage.  My effort was foiled by another, perhaps more accurate measurement of the time that has passed.  A stand of trees which not existed before were now partially screening the view, rendering replication of an already difficult to capture image impossible.  An added obstacle is the parking sign that is now in front of the shrub.

In any case, the armed shrub I saw in 1992 doesn't exist anymore.  And, like the claims of Sasquatch sitings, I have only vague photographic documentation as proof of it's once existence.

sketchbook, 12.8.12

______________________________________

I should say that I'm back in the States now, having returned on Tuesday night (Dec 18).  There were a few other trees that caught my eye and which I caught with my camera in my final days in Geneva. 

They're almost self portraits, particularly the last two tall ones, whose shabbiness could not entirely be pruned into repression.  Although I can empathize a lot with those little brown ones too.

Geneve Journal: Dec 2-3

The movement of events, and my efforts of working on drawings, writings and recording some conversations with artist has curtailed what I had intended to be frequent posts relating to my time in Geneva.  It became clear early that the best I can do in short order is to give a general diary of my doings, since any deeper reflections, of which there have been some, would be longer in developing into a form suitable for sharing.  Alas, even that basic diaristic posting was back burnered pretty quickly.  Now, with a handful of days left in my time here, I'm going to try to sketch out the calendar of the past two plus weeks over the course of the next couple of days.

My previous post left off as the intrepid traveller oogled some terrifically weird and badly painted nudes at the Plainpalais flea market.

The following day, Sunday, I met up with an American woman living in France who I had met in '92.  I met Muriel in a small gallery in Hermance, a village further up the lake right on the frontier with France.  She invited me to dinner and invited me to stay at her place if I ever needed it.  I think I ended up staying at Muriel's house for a week or more and largely running around the area with her daughter Cheryl, and a couple of times hitchhiking back into Switzerland to catch the bus into Geneva. 
 On this Sunday, I met Muriel at the cathedral in Geneva and we drove to her place for lunch, stopping first to stroll around Hermance.

Plane trees in Hermance.

The communities around the lack all sport these bizarre looking trees.  They are often bulbous and deformed looking.  They're called plane trees and are actually a kind of sycamore, which makes sense given the look of their bark.  But the manner in which the trees are pruned all through renders them a little weird, mildly disgusting.  Muriel told me the name of the tree on our drive.  For 20 yrs, I thought of them as weird alien trees, but waited until this moment in the car to actually ask someone what they're called.  I half expected - or hoped they were a mystery to everyone. 

This memorial was carved by the deceased - prior to being deceased.

There were a couple examples of natural stones engraved with the names of the decedents.  I don't think I've seen this in American cemeteries.  They're very lovely.

After walking through the streets of Hermance, its beach and its cemetery, we crossed into France and had really scrumptious vegetarian lasagna.  My stomach recalls Muriel's status as a great cook perhaps more than my conscious memory.  Although, I remember one morning when we were devouring her homemade beignets as soon as they came out of the pan.

After lunch we drove up to Amphion/Publier.to collect rocks along the lake shore which she is using to - little by little - to build up the grade of a turnaround at her house.  

Another plane tree in Amphion.

There are a couple of baby sequoia trees in Amphion les Bains

 After collecting a couple of shopping bags of stones, we drove a little further to Evian - the place where the water is from.  Also on the lake, Evian has a quaint resort-like town center which feels a little like Vail in the Summer - except very French. 

There's a fountain flowing with Evian right from the source.  As we approached the fountain, couple was loading up their car with bottles they had brought to fill up with the stuff.   We each took a couple of swigs and descended the pitched streets back toward the lake.  We stopped in the church to take a look.  A simple but elegant, this church features a little aesthetic twist.  High up on the wall, flanking the nave are two rows of round paintings, I imagine depicting the stations of the cross.  only one is illuminated at time, for some short duration, then next one is lit.  What's crazy about thes paintings are that they are done in a very VERY naive manner.  Bright colors, flatly depicted scenes with naively rendered, cartoon-y figures, googly eyes and all.  The degree of craft feels very much like the homemade mural restoration of a portrait of Jesus done by that woman in Spain.  Just much more colorful.  It's unlike anything I've seen in a church.  Pretty wild and pretty great.  Although, I think they'd be hard to look at for long...not a type of imagery that inspires long contemplative study.  It makes me wonder if the sequential lighting scheme isn't just for preserving the work itself, but preserving the sensibilities of church goers.   It might be just too much to take in it's full gory glory.  If I can find any info on this work, I'll update it here.

So that was my Sunday with Muriel.  It was pretty great.  I caught the bus back to Geneva, and strolled around just a bit before catching the bus back to the apartment.
Spent sometime looking at the installation of gas can baby-devils decorating the tree outside the eglise de Madelaine on the Rue de Purgatoire. 

L'enfer de Bibi

Created by the artist Bibi and titled L'enfer de Bbi, it's one of the more interesting illuminated trees sprinkled around vieille ville. 

Les Delices

The following day was rainy/snowy, and my only venture to the outside was to visit Les Delices, which was Voltaire's first residence during his long exile in the region.   Along with manuscripts of Voltaire's writing and various artworks by artists of Voltaire's acquaintance, some of them depicting him throughout the house, the 2nd floor is devoted Houdon's sculpture of the seated old man.

Geneve Journal: Update, Nov 29-Dec 1

Met up with Mathias Aubert around midday.  We had lunch and ran to an art store so I could pick up a few things.
Mathias' cousin Tiffany was appearing in a production called Psychodrame 3 at the Theatre Saint-Gervais, so we decided to go.
We arrived a bit early, so we took in an exhibit of work by Gea Augsbourg.  Mostly loose, caricature-esque drawings of society types.  It's a kind of typical mid century Frenchie portraiture imbued with a facility of drawing that I can envy, but which I find boring to look at. The works that did interest me were some made while the artist was in NY and Atlanta.  These are quick "reportage" drawings of life in the streets.  I have to admit to a solipsistic interest in the symmetry, as Mathias said "He was a Swiss artist in NY, and you are here."

A sketch of Madison Sq Garden by Gea Augsbourg.

A Space Invader work in the stairwell.

 Given the title of the play we were set to see, I was expecting some sort of noirish thriller, even after Mathias reported that it was an example of "new theater" production.  As we entered the theater we were given our show "kits".  This is when we learned the show was going to be interactive and participatory.
I took this news pretty calmly.  Participatory theater is normally something I try to avoid - even when it's conducted in a language of which I have a command.   French is not such a language.  I didn't panic, though.  I was resolved to sit tight and pray I would not be called out of the audience for any kind of role playing game.

The kits with which we were armed were made up of a pen, a short stack of white, Post-It sized pieces of paper clipped to a piece of cardboard and a pair of ear plugs.

The piece started in Spanish, actually- easy spanish for certain, and it comforted me.  Shortly after the intro, though, the standard theater form was "broken" and the writer, and main protagonist, Oscar Gomez Mata, explained that what we were in for was an example of a theater "atelier" or theater workshop.  The nuance of everything that followed was lost on me.  However, I was able to comprehend the general direction of the narration, including a riff on the dichotemous nature of Geneva as both an open, welcoming International city and as a closed provincially conservative enclave (as evidenced by the Canton's bisected heraldic crest depicting an eagle with opened wing on one side and a skeleton key on the other), a trip unfused with Bertolt Brecht essence (was it a trip to his home?), and footage of recent demonstrations in Madrid.

We in the audience were invited to write words or phrases - one per piece- on the paper provided in our kit.  Were the words meant to be aspirational?  I can't remember.  After an interim, we were instructed to fold in half and place the paper in boxes being passed through the aisles.  After all the paper was collected, the boxes were passed back and we were to pick three pieces of paper out of the box.   We were then invited to arrange these word/phrase combinations into randomized poetry and read them through microphones being passed around.

My found poetry elements: manifestaion, Etre un ami des homme, TRAVAIL

I never used my ear plugs.   Overall, the work was an exercise in the theatrical principles of action and inaction through a plotted course of scripted narration and orchestrated, but unexpected response.  It was a play about a workshop of theater, as metaphor of life AND theater, captured as a unique theatrical moment all in pursuit of a utopian ideal, all with a very play-like ending.  I can't explain more, as, I'm sure much was lost to me and my franco-ingarus ears.  I ultimately did get up and do a little jig (speaking quasi-metaphorically), and it was a good experience.
Even more satisfying was talking about and critiquing the work with Mathias and Tiffany at the bar afterward.  Don't ask me to recount any of that, but for someone who's been more and more exposed to the participatory actions of artists in the gallery/museum environment, which generally don't go much farther than a call and response sort of moment of exchange, that Oscar Gomez Mata takes the added step of fitting these moments of intercourse into a broader narrative work, is ...I can't think of another word but interesting - but I mean that favorably.
The last ten minutes of each performance - the moment in which the audience is the action - are recorded and posted to vimeo. The L'Alakran website has links to these videos (our performance was on Nov 29th).

The following day, I did a little work on postcards for my kickstarter supporters then a couple of hours wandering around.  As the sun set, preparations were underway for the Christmas light festival around the old town.
I made the mistake choosing to take a short nap at around 7pm.  The nap wasn't so short.  I woke up just before 11pm.  Groggy, I thought I detected the sound of human commotion intermingling with the normal, constant soft but high pitched tone that is my co-inhabitant in this apartment.  This new sound got me out of bed.  I did a quick search online to see if something was a foot in town.  I couldn't find anything definite.   I got myself ready to head outside and follow the sound to it's origin.  My hunt didn't take long.  Just outside on the Rte de Florrisant, there was a foot race in progress.  The street was lined with spectators shouting  ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ! and some beating on drums and pots.  It was a big race, and as most of the hundreds of runners I saw had LED lights strapped to their heads, I assumed it was part of the Lumiere fest.  It took me a few moments to realize that the lights were a normal accessory for runners running at night.  It was just in their collective mass, that I interpreted this illumination as some form of a performance or installation.
This was the Course du Duc, a prelude to the all day series of races set for the next day, Saturday, which wind through the streets of old Geneva.  The races are a part of the observance of L'Escalade, a celebration of the Genevois repulsion of French Savoyard invaders back in 1602.  The vanquishing of the French is emblemized by a Genevoise woman who, from on high, tossed her pot of hot stew on on a soldier as he passed by.

A storefront history lesson.

 Every patisserie and chocolate shop is laden with these chocolate stew pots with marzipan vegetables inside.

The celebration continues this weekend with, as I understand, revelry and period costumes and the opening of a secret passageway that descends from the vieille ville. 
That's on for this coming weekend, on this past Saturday I met up with Mathias again at the Promenade des Bastions where the Course de L'Escalade races were starting and ending,.  His father, who's run in this event for 50 yrs, and his younger brother were both participating.

Some kids in their pre-race warm up in the Place Neuve.

This is a pretty serious deal.  Some 2500 runners of all ages participated in the races throughout the day.  I was particularly struck by the teams of kids preparing with their trainers.

A pretty great sculpture.

Forsaking the crowds, Mathias and I parted, he to a Godard film and me to the flea market at Plaine de Plainpalais.

Plaine de Plainpalais

That's some head of hair.

Might be my xmas card this year.

 More wandering, back through the old town, and back home to work some more.
I came back out later in the afternoon to visit the Musee de l'art et l'histoire.  Museum visitors were relegated to the archeological and applied art galleries as the painting and sculpture galleries were all closed.  They remained closed a when I returned a couple of days later, I learned, due to a shortage staff, and due to temperature conditions being too cold.


So all of this gives you a rough update through Saturday, Dec 1.

Geneve Journal: Disembarkment

My folly of flight that was the cancelled flight and the hotel room debacle allowed for time spent with Tim and Marion, as I have mentioned, and it led to a little bonding with Senhor Cavalho, another among our small number that had to travel to a second hotel, the Double Tree, to find rooms.  Contrary to assurances from the night before by TAP Portugal staff and from the representatives I spoke to on the phone that the airline would contact us with information and instructions regarding our next flight, we, at the Double Tree, were apparently forgotten (I'll spare you further gripes. I just don't think TAP will be anywhere near the top of my list of options for future travel.) 

Having not heard from the airline, but knowing that we were booked on the 5:55 flight to Lisbon, Tim, Marion and I decided to head to the airport at 3.  At 2:30, I encountered the agitated Senhor Cavalho in the hotel lobby trying to get through to the airline on the phone.  He had been sitting in the lobby for most of the day waiting, not knowing as we had - via checking our ticket status online - that we were confirmed for the Lisbon flight.  When he finally got through to a human, we was told to get to the airport immediately.  The four of us gathered quickly and got on the 2:40 shuttle to the airport........retrieved and re-checked our luggage and made it through a long long wait to pass through security, or to do the striptease as Senhor Cavalho liked to say.

Senhor Cavalho knows just a little English, a little Spanish, and as it turns out, a little French.  My attempts at conversing with him was an ugly mashup of linguistic DNA - the conversational equivalent of that unfortunate baboon that gets transported in The Fly.  Mangled, half remembered Spanish with tufts of Italian clinging to the tongue and can't quite be picked off.  But we got there though, conversationally - pretty much - and we were true traveling companions for the two hour journey through the airport and onto the plane, keeping one another company, and keeping an eye on each other's luggage when needed.  It's that warm sociable feeling of comraderie that forms in short order in such situations.

Senhor Cavalho is from Madeira, and he's very proud of his home.  While waiting to check our luggage, he presented us with lapel pins with the flag of home.

I have heard about Madeira, but never knew anything about it.  Here are just a few facts: 
Madeira is an autonomous region of Portugal; an archipelago in the Atlantic that sits about 450 miles east of Morocco.  A favorite holiday destination among tourists - particularly older Americans.  Senhor Cavalho says there are many, many old Americans there.  There has been an outbreak of Dengue fever reported in Madeira this fall, with upwards of 1600 cases of infection.  Madeira's annual fireworks display is rated among the best in the world.

Despite leaving late, the plane landed in Lisbon pretty much on time, which was good as I had short time to make my connection.  On the flight from Lisbon to Geneva, I sat next to a very friendly and chatty Portuguese man.   He's an older man and speaks English well.  I don't think I got his name.  This man is a passionate ecologist, he's a farmer, I know, but I don't know if running a farm is his vocation.  I asked him what was taking him to Geneva, and he said business.  Later he asked me if I knew where the Central Bank in Geneva was.  I told him I didn't.  It seems he was going to Geneva to see if he is on a list to claim a key to a safe deposit box that may hold some sort of treasure.  This box, he thinks exists belonged to a man in the employ of his grand, or great grandfather.  My row mate had never been go Geneva, and seeing that I have been there - 20 years ago, thought I could provide him with ample information on where the bank might be, or the cost of hotel rooms in Geneva.  I'm not sure that he was certain that the bank he sought exists.  He felt there should be some such central location with keys to orphaned safe boxes.  I asked him if he new for sure this bank was in Geneva and not Bern or Zurich.  He wasn't sure.  I was able to tell him he could get a free train ride from the airport to the central train station and he'd be in the general neighborhood.  We parted ways at the baggage claim.

Our flight arrived at about 10:30 in the morning (Wednesday, Nov 28).  The time, from collecting my suitcase, hitting an ATM, hopping a train to Gare Cornavin, hopping on the 8 bus, getting off at my stop - Louis Aubert, was only about 30 or 40 minutes.  The longest part of getting to the apartment where I'm staying was finding the building.  That took 5 to 10 minutes alone.  Of course, I was standing right in front of it for most of this confounding time.

The place is on Rue Corbusier.  It's a little one bedroom apartment I rented through airbnb, and it fits my needs perfectly.  It's about a 20 min walk to the center of town, and the bus stop in just downstairs. The view from the window looks onto the Fondation Louis-Jeantet.

the view from the living room window.

My first act was to get some groceries.  My first meal was sliches of bread with hearty application of butter and strawberry rhubarb jam.  I enjoyed entire dinners of just this combination on my last visit.  This Swiss butter.  The power of this butter, with a little jam to compress space and time.  Somehow the descendents of the descendents of the descendents...etc. of the tastebuds that inhabited my tongue twenty years ago are yet imbued with the memory of this mighty fine treat.

the first meal.

 I did have the thought of jamming the bar of butter onto a stick and dipping it into the jam, like a strawberry butter popsicle.  I've thus far refrained from taking this step.

I had a headache since landing, so after eating, I took a nap.  A long nap.  The headache lingered, but it disappeared somewhere along the rain splattered walk I took down near the river and the vieille ville.   There's a scene in the film Prometheus (one of the three I watched on the plane) where the protagonists exploring a cavern are overtaken, and passed through, by hologram images of beings running through that very space in a distant time.  That's an uncanny representation of the sensation I had treading over the cobblestones beside the torrent of the Rhone.  It was a very sub-lingual, vibe of recognition I felt.  A deep one.  That hologram scene from the film gave image to my sense of walking parallel with a former self.  Dissolving images of moments remembered popped up and dissolved as I walked.   I didn't live in Geneva.  The time I spent here was relatively short.  But the time I did spend here was spent largely walking alone on the pavement and cobblestone.  That may be the most profound aspect of my time here.  That, along with the folks I met then, I think.

These illuminated acrylic cobblestones etched with salutations and well wishes in different languages look like conspicuous pieces of litter from a distance. That's what I like about them the most.

At the base of the Rue de la Cite

The Henry Moore in front of the Musee d'art et d'histoire.  This photo has a lurid Seurat-ishness about it.  I'm digging it.

Geneve Journal: Embarkment

I finally set out on my Geneve Journal journey yesterday.  Scheduled to depart yesterday from Newark at 5:15 pm to Geneva by way of Porto Portugal, I'm currently sitting in the Newark Double Tree Hotel.  "Technical difficulties" brought about the eventual cancellation of the flight and then the saga of getting hotel rooms for the affected passengers.  After the bulk of our fellow passengers filled all available rooms of the Renaissance Hotel, the remaining handful of us were given rooms at the Double Tree - at about 1:30 am.

From rm 311 of the Double Tree hotel.

Scheduled now to depart at 5:55, with the connecting city being Lisbon, the current snowfall - which is getting heavier now - makes me question the possibility of a timely take off this afternoon.

But, I took a pleasant breakfast this morning with Tim and Marion, a young French couple heading back to Paris after visiting NYC, and I'm able to catch up on some posting while I wait for the airline's call.

Over the last few weeks I began fulfilling the first rewards for supporters of the Geneve Journal Project.  All but a few handful of the Elliptical Drawings have been sent out - the rest will find their destination upon my return.  And I've been able to start making phone calls of thanks to those who joined in on the project.

I'm grateful to all these fine folks who agreed to participate:

Jo Cole, Angelika Rinnhofer, Lorrie Fredette, Deirdre Swords, Matthew Kinney, Beth E. Wilson, Brian Farrar, Lisa Townley, Michael Haskell, Trent Peaker, Erica Hauser, Pamela Todd, Tatiana Giametti, Angela Beloian, Rich Armstrong, Andrew Boscardin, Steffen Hyder, Chad Smith, Ilka Omdahl, Stan Gregory, Frank Albert, Desiree, Will Walker, Matthew Slaats, Andy Clayton, Richard Schoenstein, Randy Caruso, Olivier Pascal Zimmermann, Cristina Schuttmann, Cristin Frodella, Carla Rozman, elboso, Steve Rossi, Cole Wicker, AmyK, Rob Penner, Peter Iannarelli, C-monster, Kirsten Kucer, Peter Acheson, Marcia Acita, Marc Schreibman, Phyllis Lerud, Diana & David Armstrong.

 To project funders: if I've missed any pertinent links, please let me know.  I'll gladly add them.

 I've set up a tout profile.  I'll be posting 15 second videos to this profile which will follow my Genevois goings-on at a micro-temporal and microscopic level.  If you're on the blog page now, you can see the Tout widget in the sidebar to the right.