A View from A Broad

The World Should Have Such Problems

2011-09-01T11:25:00.007+02:00

Recently, an interviewer for JAM magazine asked me, "Which phrases do you over-use the most?"

My answer: "Cry me a fucking river" and "The world should have my problems."

Indeed. The reason I haven't posted a blog since the New Year has been that I've been consumed writing my latest book, which, I'm happy to report, is turning out to be every bit as agonizing, soul-crushing, and demented as my other three.

I've also been on the road. A lot. You'd think I'd have blogged about this, but no. The whole point of traveling, these days, has largely been to avoid writing. But among the top ironies and headline-worthy events: I recently went to Luxembourg, where I visited an exhibition on poverty. Yes, you read that correctly. It seems the tiny nation is so full of, well, luxe, that it felt compelled to put poverty -- past and present -- on display in its city museum.

As icky as this sounds at first, the exhibition actually had merit. First, it showed how, up until the turn of the last century, Luxembourg looked pretty much like the worst slums on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. "Just hold on a minute there," it seemed to be saying to all the bankers and well-heeled Luxembourgians (?) who now hurry through its boutique-lined streets. "Check your sense of entitlement at the door. Not so long ago, you were all sleeping six to a bed -- or on the floor with the rats. Your forefathers were starving."

Its comparisons of monthly salaries between day-laborers in developing nations, the President of the United States, and Prince Charles were also illuminating and sobering (and enough to make you want to take a polo mallet to all those commemorative plates for Will and Kate's Royal Wedding). So were its displays on its drug-treatment centers for the homeless. Amazing what you can do when you're a tiny country with a lot of wealth that you haven't frittered away on a mismanaged war or subprime mortgages.

Smartass that I am, I'd entered the exhibition primed to make derogatory remarks; instead, I found myself thinking that it wouldn't be a half-bad export: a bit of high-brow consciousness raising for Masters of the Universe everywhere.

Continuing my procrastination, I also had the great pleasure of hosting three fabulous, teenaged nephews on a whirlwind, Short-Attention Span Tour of Europe. Four countries in two weeks. How truly American. But I taught the boys how to say "Auntie Susie needs a cocktail" in Spanish, French, and Italian, so we were pretty much good to go. Rome, Barcelona, Paris: we hit 'em all. With the skyrocketing Swiss franc, I shit thee not: it was actually cheaper to fly to all three of these cities on Easyjet than to eat dinner in Geneva.

Once, years ago, I'd gotten it into my head to lead a group of high school students through the British Isles for three weeks. I'd had the idea that it was crucial for American kids to see the world beyond our borders (plus, I was a starving writer: Hey, a free trip to England!) But by the time I got back to America, I told my friends, "If I ever volunteer to lead teenagers through a foreign country ever again, put me in a straightjacket."

Well, this time, no jacket was required. Seeing my phenomenal nephews respond to the works of Bernini, Gaudi, the ancient Romans, and Da Vinci was amazing. So was watching their world-views and their sensitivities dilate. Best yet, however, was accompanying them to do extensive research for my foundation, the Susan Jane Gilman Institute of Advanced Gelato Studies. I will write more about the Susan Jane Gilman Institute of Advanced Gelato Studies later on, but suffice to say that its mission is global -- and globally important (who doesn't like ice cream?). Its cutting edge research, which is often both quantitative and comparative, is required up to three or four times daily in certain cities, and you would not believe how demanding it is. I cannot for the life of me imagine why those bastards at the National Science Foundation have yet to award me a grant.

So this, in short is why I haven't been blogging. Cry me a fucking river, indeed -- but thanks, readers, for sticking with me.

The Airborne Lunatic

2010-12-07T02:21:00.003+01:00

Ah, ‘tis the season for holiday travel. And I, for one, am greatly looking forward to the new, full-body pat-downs at airport security. You want to run a metal-detector over my nether parts? Please, be my guest. While you’re at it, feel free to rifle through my toiletry bag and dismantle my laptop. A strip-search? Sure, go right ahead. Knock yourself out.

Combining highly invasive security measures with the odd grope is just fine by me. I’m one of the most anxious fliers in recorded history. Though I take planes frequently, they make me incredibly nervous – and bring out my very worst behavior. I become rude and needy and compulsive and insane. I am not proud of this.

But being an air passenger is a total relinquishment of control. Is anybody out there really okay with this?

Whenever I fly, I experience an overwhelming urge to make everything around me as pre-measured and processed as one of those little airline meals.

Maybe it’s because a friend of mine was killed on Pan Am Flight 103. Maybe it’s because I knew people in the Trade Towers and on the planes on September 11th. Maybe it’s because I’m a writer – and thus capable of imagining limitless catastrophes. Maybe I’m just a nutjob.

But the instant I book a flight, I start obsessing: Is my seat on an aisle? If not, what happens if I get hemmed in by a sleeping passenger beside me? I could pee in my pants or die of a blood clot. In the event of an emergency evacuation, I’ll be trapped. I'll either lose my legs or burn to death in the fuselage. I start trying to finagle ways to get a seat in the bulkhead. But the bulkhead tends to attract families with screaming, inconsolable children. Last time I had a bulkhead seat during Christmas break, it was like flying in a 767-foot tube of birth control. Half a dozen toddlers shrieked for the entire nine-hour trip. If the flight attendants could’ve offered in-flight vasectomies, trust me: they would’ve had takers.

Invariably, I get an aisle seat. But then, I start worrying about deep-vein thrombosis. And so, EVERY DAY UNTIL I’M SCHEDULED TO FLY, I CHECK THE SEATING CHART ON THE INTERNET TO SEE IF THE SEAT BESIDE ME REMAINS EMPTY. If not, I fanatically start trying to switch my selection so that I can eek out some extra legroom.

Relatives are out of work. Children are dying of AIDS and dehydration. There’s cholera in Haiti, economic unrest in Portugal and Greece, nuclear material being developed in Iran and North Korea, sex trafficking, trapped coal miners, climate change. But from the way I carry on about my fucking seat assignment, you’d think the fate of the world depended on it.

And I haven’t even gotten to the airport yet. Following the dictum “It’s better to be hanging out than freaking out,” I always arrive at least two hours early to steady my nerves. I linger at the security check-points, too, eying other passengers and second-guessing the security staff’s vigilance. Inexplicably, I also need to be the first person on the plane. And so, this holiday season you’ll see me. As soon as the announcement is made that a flight is ready to start boarding First Class passengers only, I’ll be that asshole who plants herself directly in front of the boarding gate even though she’s clearly booked in economy. I’ll be wearing yoga pants and Crocks, for Chrissake; I’ll have brought my own snacks. “Seat 46J” will be plainly visible on my boarding card, but I’ll stand there anyway hoping to pass as a Global Elite Member.

Of course, I’m even worse when there’s open, “general” seating. In Europe, the Amazing Bob and I often take Easyjet – not unlike Southwest Airlines in the USA -- where you board according to when you’ve checked in, then grab any seat.

I believe it is imperative to nab the Exit Row.

Last time we flew Easyjet, we were the first ones at the gate. Yet an announcement was made that people with “special needs” – i.e. passengers with disabilities, pregnant women, and the elderly – were to be given priority. I practically had a seizure. All these limpers and waddlers got to board ahead of me, and they took FOR-EVER. Finally, Group One was told we could proceed. Many of the “special needs” passengers, I noticed, were still taking their time on the tarmac, so I strode past them, hopped nimbly up the gangway, and claimed the row with the comforting escape hatch and extra-extra legroom. Only once I settled in did I realize that my husband was no longer beside me. He didn’t arrive for another 10 minutes, in fact, well after everyone else had boarded. And oddly, he seemed upset.

“What’s wrong?” I said. “Look! I got us the exit row!”
“Yeah,” he said, “And you pushed past three pregnant women and a paraplegic in the process.”
“But pregnant women and paralytics aren’t even allowed in the Exit Row,” I said. “How is that even relevant?”
Bob stared at me. “From hereon in, I’m going to give you a report card on your traveler behavior,” he said.

My husband knows me all too well. If there’s anything I love even more than being the first one on an airplane, getting an exit row, or a strip search, it’s grades. They are so reassuring.

Unfortunately, my husband told me that as an air passenger, I’ve been averaging a “D.” But this means there’s room for improvement – and as we all know by now, I’m a gal who likes her room.

And so, I stretched out my legs, donned my noise-canceling headphones, inflated my terry-cloth neck-pillow, and arranged my People magazines, lip balm, booties, granola bars, ear plugs, antacid, water bottle, Ipod, and aspirin carefully in the seat pocket in front of me. After takeoff, I pried my fingers from their death-grip on my husband’s forearm and exhaled. “Relax,” I said. “It’s all good.”

Once I’m airborne, it seems, I’m perfectly fine.

But until then, apologies to everyone – and happy holidays. Perhaps I’ll see you in the line for airport security. I’ll be that lunatic who’s cutting in front of you.

My Sad, Irish Valentine

2010-08-08T17:39:00.006+02:00

This month, Frank McCourt would've turned 80. This blog is in his honor.

Recently, I went to Ireland to honor my late, great mentor and high school English teacher, Frank McCourt. As you may know, Frank McCourt taught in the New York City public school system for 30 thankless years, then wrote a little international bestseller about his childhood in Limerick called Angela’s Ashes.

Although he became one of the most celebrated authors on the planet, the denizens of Limerick were not always quick to embrace him. His memoir of devastating poverty was slanderous, they protested – real Limerick wasn’t like that at all– he’d maligned them, he had! But no matter. Now there’s an “Angela’s Ashes Walking Tour” that ranks #4 of the top ten things to do in town.

And just a few months ago, the city’s movers and shakers unveiled a bronze bust of Frank in his honor outside his former primary school.

Clouds of volcanic ash were still threatening Irish airspace at the time of the ceremony, but luckily, the Amazing Bob and I and our friend Maureen (another student of Frank’s) and all the other guests were able to make it. Appropriately, the mayor spoke at the unveiling, along with the dean of the University of Limerick, Frank’s phenomenal wife, Ellen, and his three beloved, wickedly witty brothers. (“Our mother Angela is saying to that volcano: ‘You want ashes? I’ll give you fuckin’ ashes’,” announced Alfie.)

The rain stopped, the crowds applauded wildly outside Leamy Primary School Gallery, and to everyone’s great relief, the bust not only looked like Frank at his handsomest, but captured his sly look of bemusement.

Then, the partying began in earnest. Drinks all around! Buffet! Speeches! And biggest of all: Music and singing! Frank’s nearest and dearest came to the mike to perform ballads, Irish folk songs, pop hits. It was astonishing to see how easily the culture tapped into itself.

When was the last time I’d been among a group of people who could provide their own live entertainment for hours and hours? Possibly not since I was 12, watching the boys in my seventh grade class hold a spitting contest off the balcony during Lloyd Goldfarb’s bar mitzvah.

The Irish know how to party around their grief with more gusto, skill, and eloquence than any other culture I’ve encountered.

I’ve been to Ireland several times. The first time, I was a student, sleeping on the floor of Maureen’s bed-sit, where we had to burn peat in a tiny stove in order to keep warm, and the bathroom down the hall had a meter: hot water cost 25p a shower. Unemployment was 25%, and the country was hemorrhaging its young people. A few years later, I returned to find the Celtic tiger revving up its engine: suddenly, there was a new Writers’ Museum in Dublin, the renovated Temple Bar district, and more than sausage and chips on the menus.

Now, 15 years later, the country is falling on hard times again, but an outsider wouldn't know it. In the past decade, Dublin has transformed almost as much as Shanghai – whole districts of gleaming glass architecture have sprung up to such an extent that parts of the city are unrecognizable. A futuristic silver needle soars over the entire skyline at the top of O’Connell Street. Fusion restaurants, private clubs, fancy boutiques, arts complexes…Dublin now no longer reminds me of 19th century Manchester but of another great phoenix of a city: Berlin.

And the Limerick of Angela’s Ashes? While it ain’t exactly a boomtown, someone has definitely taken a paint brush to it. The slums of Frank’s childhood have become a charming little neighborhood -- the tenements of his old lane replaced by single-family homes with tiny lawns and flower boxes. The only commemoration of the McCourt family in evidence is at the old neighborhood pub, which has touchingly replaced its “Men” and “Women” bathroom signs with the words “Frank” and “Angela.”

When I saw this, I wept. “You’re crying over a bathroom door?” Maureen chided as we made our way through our teacher’s old stomping grounds.

Yeah. For all the changes it has undergone, Ireland’s most marked characteristic, for me, still, remains this: an inspiring sadness.

It’s a country steeped in melancholy, in a palpable, lyrical grief. This is what struck me about Ireland more than anything else the first time I visited – and continues to strike me each time I go back. The Irish understand suffering and loss first-hand; their culture is saturated with mourning, with the understanding that bad things can happen – and have happened -- to good people.

And instead of turning away from the terrible beauty and sorrow of this, they’ve embraced it, celebrated it, channeled it into art – into amazing music and literature. And they continue to do so. It’s living. It’s on their tongues and fingertips. It’s grabbing the microphone in the banquet room at the Strand Hotel in Limerick on a rainy Thursday evening.

All of this may sound facile, but remember: I’m American. Despite the big Irish population in my homeland, mine is not a country that in almost any way, shape, or form accepts pain. Smile! we order. Lighten up, big fella. Jeez, don’t be such a downer.

We almost pathologically refuse to accept the fact that sometimes, shit happens: If you’re poor, sick, or old in America, we tend to believe it’s your own damn fault. Our peculiar, adolescent mix of Puritanism, individualism, and optimism has bred a national conviction that if you just hit upon the right combination of lifestyle choices – if you just work hard enough, take enough vitamins and antioxidants, exercise, don’t smoke, invest wisely, attend a certain church, vote a certain way, buy the right, groovy shit, and behave -- you can outwit tragedy. If you don’t, well, that’s not just life. You, personally, have somehow failed to be clever and industrious enough.

This is why we Yanks are so suspect of universal health care, welfare, unemployment insurance, or any other policy that stands to benefit the common good in some big and basic way.

Although America has been generous internationally at times, domestically? Not so much. Even today, we Americans still believe that we’re each in this alone. We're taught as children that we're masters of our own destiny: We can grow up to be president, or the next Bill Gates, or the next Warren Buffet. The flip side of this is that if we don’t, we have no one to blame but ourselves. And so, if our neighbors are down-and-out, we write things on the internet like: “Why should I bail out some lazy-ass welfare mom who took on a mortgage she couldn’t possibly afford?” “I don’t want my tax dollars subsidizing health insurance for some lowlife.” “Get a job and quit whining, scumbag.”

Our lack of empathy and imagination is stunning. While he was alive, even Frank McCourt had a few such remarks directed his way. At one of his readings for Angela’s Ashes that I attended in Washington, D.C., a woman asked him, “Weren’t you ever mad and frustrated that your mother didn’t just get up off her bed and get a job?”

It was one of the only times I saw Frank get angry. “Are you a mother?” he shot back. “How many children have you lost? If you buried one child, then another, then another, how sure are you that you’d be able to ‘just get up out of bed’?”

To be fair, Angela’s Ashes doesn’t portray Limerick as a hotbed of humanitarianism, either. The Church, the schools, the local charities…even distant family members appear criminal in their indifference, negligence, hypocrisy, and snobbery towards the McCourt’s.

But great art requires both outrage and compassion. And Ireland – far more than America -- breeds both. Certainly, Frank had them. “What James Joyce did for Dublin, Frank McCourt did for Limerick,” a speaker said at the unveiling. He wasn’t being hyperbolic. He was simply stating fact.

Bill Bryson once noted: “No country has given the world more incomparable literature per head of population than Ireland.” Given its painful history, its indomitable culture, and its unique, elegiac tenderness, I can’t say I’m surprised.

It's No Longer the Germans I'm Worried About...

2010-04-09T19:19:00.007+02:00

Confession: until this week, whenever I visited Germany, I felt a little queasy. Even as I laughed with German friends, raised a beer, and feasted on strudel, part of me was on red-alert, one eye on the door, my heart thumping nervously.

The first time I ever set foot in Deutschland was 1987. I went to visit my friend Eckehardt, a beautiful West German man who’d helped rescue me in China a few months before. Eckehardt was one of the kindest, most heroic people I’d ever met. Yet I couldn’t stand to be in his homeland. Everything– the linden trees, the brightly-painted medieval houses, the lively beer gardens – struck me as sinister, suspect, and unforgivably unfair.

What had happened inside those historic buildings, I kept wondering. Where did those train tracks lead? Every time an old man or woman walked by, my mind began reeling: “What were you doing 45 years ago? Which of my relatives were you helping to murder?”

After two days, I had to high-tail it out.

Since then, I’ve returned to Germany a half-dozen times. Though my uneasiness lingers, each visit has gotten easier. First, the demographics have changed. It’s now 65 years since WWII ended. A sizeable portion of German grandparents have been born after the war.

And I’ve changed too. I have family members who refuse to set foot in Germany. One won’t even change planes in Frankfort Airport. I completely understand this. But as a post-war baby, I’ve had the luxury of developing hopefulness and idealism. And I’ve decided that I don’t want the Nazis to have the last word.

I want my generation of Germans and Jews to write a better, next chapter.

I’m not saying we should ever forget – or forgive – the Holocaust. But we’ve all been impacted by the genocide. We’re all aware of the Evil. So let’s follow it up with Good. Let’s be able to tell our children that once, Germany committed unspeakable atrocities against the Jews – but now, just decades later, look: descendents of both Nazis and their victims are hanging out together in nightclubs, collaborating on world aid projects, and building beautiful museums together. While people are capable of monstrousness, we are also capable of extraordinary humanity. We have the capacity for both. Never forget either.

And so, I go to Germany and engage. I stroll along its rivers, joke with its locals, visit its museums. Maybe I’m naïve. But, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once said: The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

And few cities, it seems to me, have more first-rate intelligence right now than Berlin. It used to be East vs. West. Now it’s a brilliant union of contradictions, a metropolitan Janus looking both backwards and forwards.

Berlin today is quirky and dynamic, filled with innovative new glass architecture, graffiti art, museums, night clubs, and cutting edge-fabulosity. Sometimes, there doesn’t seem to be a citizen anywhere over 35. Even the older people are hip, riding their bicycles, recycling their trash, going to film festivals. Everyone seems to have the funky sneakers, the little Scandinavian eyeglasses, the ethnic scarves.

Yet it’s a city of scar tissue. Berlin doesn’t shy away from its hideous history for a minute. Memorials to the Holocaust and the Cold War are everywhere. It has literally embedded the directive “Never Forget” into its sidewalks. Brass cobblestones dot the city streets, naming the individuals who were arrested, deported, and murdered by the Nazis there.

There’s the new Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The Jewish Center at the Neue Synagogue.” Track 17. Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Daniel Libeskind’s Judisches Museum. (Yes, in some ways, the very concept of a Jewish Museum is icky and unnerving – it seems to reduce Judaism to a specimen. But what’s the alternative?) There’s the extensive “Topography of Terror” exhibit documenting in painstaking detail the rise of the Nazis and their extermination machinery.

Germany’s brutality and culpability are presented unflinchingly: Jews didn’t “die” in the concentration camps. They weren’t “killed” or “exterminated.” Plaques read bluntly: “Murdered by poison gas.” No euphemizing in that.

At several sites, a clear analysis is given of the circumstances that enabled Hitler to come to power: a combination of terrible economic times, endemic racism, and a trumped-up fear of Socialists and Communists – all of which the Nazis exploited. When they seized power illegally in 1933, they insisted they were doing this to “save” the homeland from “dangerous socialists” – their name for the legitimate, democratically elected government at the time.

Bombed-out churches, bullet-holed buildings, and open spaces have been left standing as they were in 1945, looming as a constant reminder. Even the Neue Nationalgalerie, filled with modern art, displays black-and-white reproductions of paintings that were seized by the Nazis as “degenerate art,” then burned or auctioned off.

Add to this Checkpoint Charlie. The Stasi Museum, the Stasi prison, the DDR Museum, and “The Story of Berlin” -- which includes a guided tour of a nuclear fallout shelter – and it’s almost a little much.

It’s almost, dare I say, overkill?

But that’s exactly appropriate.

The Holocaust, as a friend of mine reminded me in Berlin, was uniquely evil – a systematic, state-sponsored genocide that was meticulously designed and implemented for years with industrial efficiency across borders against a peaceful, helpless minority. “The reminders should be overwhelming,” she says. “It should never be easy to witness.”

Even so, Berlin’s mea culpa impressed me. Let’s face it: genocide has happened before and elsewhere. While the Holocaust may be the definitive evil, plenty of other atrocities have been committed throughout history. Yet few countries have ever owned up to their crimes the way that Germany has.

In Berlin, I didn’t find myself looking around anxiously, wondering What happened here? Are the people aware? Are they even sorry? The city itself makes it clear: Everything happened here. Yes, the people know. And wow, are we ever sorry.

For the first time in Germany, I felt something like hope.

Two days later, however I returned home. A book review I’d recorded for America’s National Public Radio had aired on “All Things Considered” while I was away. The book was The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. I’d begun the review by comparing the strengths of this biography to those of the President. Both, I said, seemed “even-handed, eloquent, and beautifully packaged.” That was it. One sentence. The rest of my critique was mixed.

The first response I received was titled: Jobama Rectum Sniffer. It called our President “a treasonous n***ger,” told me to get my head out of his ass, and ended: “Safeguard the Constitution, Strive for the Death of all Domestic Marxists.” Another read: “You’re an idiot.” On the NPR website, I was called a “drooling liberal” who should invest in sturdy “knee pads.”

I then read that threats against lawmakers had increased threefold this year. I read the speeches being made by far-right pundits and politicians calling Obama a radical socialist. I read about the Tea Party protestors.

I reflected upon everything I’d just seen in Berlin.

It’s no longer the Germans I'm worried about.

Hallelujah, We're in Fahrenheit!

2010-02-22T15:16:00.002+01:00

So I’m back in the USA again, prostituting myself again for the brand-new, gorgeous, shiny, highly-affordable paperback version of Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven (please buy it, please buy it! –there, required shameless subliminal plug done) and what do I find myself doing all day? Math.

To my great horror, I have been living abroad long enough now that my brain is starting to slide into some distinctly alarming European numerical marshiness. For example, when I’m paying the bill in restaurants here, I’m forgetting to tip! I am a former waitress who used to run her tushie off in a cocktail bar, yet I’ve gotten so accustomed to service being included in the bill in Europe (where, perhaps not coincidently, the service is generally – how do I put this diplomatically? – I don’t – it sucks) that I tend to forget it’s not included here. Friends glare at me after I’ve ponied up for the check: Aren’t you going to leave a tip? “Oh my god, yes,” I say with embarrassment.

Then I realize, I need to calculate it. And I’ve forgotten how. What’s seventeen percent – is that what we leave? What’s twenty? Do we still double the tax?

And then there’s the exchange rate, and the shoe sizes here, which aren’t “36’s” and “39”’s but simply sixes and nines – and the fact that liquids are no longer measured in deciliters but good, old-fashioned, nonsensical ounces. In the supermarkets, I find myself converting pounds into kilos – the exact reverse of what I do back in Switzerland.

But the biggest challenge, strangely, is the weather. Suddenly, I’m no longer in a world that’s measured in centigrade. It’s disconcerting. I only just got used to it back in Switzerland – I’ve mastered the conversion formula in my head -- F= C x 9/5 + 32 -- yet now I've returned to Fahrenheit and don’t have to do the calculations?

Well, all I can say to this is Hallelujah. Yes, Fahrenheit makes no sense. Yes, the USA should get with the program and join the rest of the world in using the metric system. Culturally, geopolitically, and mathematically, I get this. And while we’re at it: Enough with calling baseball “The World Series” too, when so little of the rest of world plays it and only American teams participate. And enough with abbreviating dates by writing MONTH/day/year when everybody else does it DAY/Month/year, which is infinitely less confusing. Would it kill us to conform just a little?

But Fahrenheit? That’s where I say we hold the line.

You see, I’m a writer. And for a writer, there is no more beautiful system of temperature measurement than Fahrenheit. Kelvin -- which I learned all about in science class in high school then promptly forgot –is based on absolute zero. Absolutes are no good for a writer. There’s no vagueness, no poetry with Kelvin. Boo Kelvin.

And Celsius? Yes, it’s functional, it’s logical, it’s nearly universal. Surely, it seems like the way to go. But c’mon. It’s pretentious. Celsius t prides itself on being a decile system of measurement – oh, you should hear the Europeans go on about it. And yet, it’s actually oblique and un-evocative. I mean, the difference between 20 and 23 degrees Celsius is the difference between whether you should wear a jacket or leave it at home. But who really gets this? And how can one of the hottest days on record somewhere be, say, 46? Forty-six? That’s the best you can do to inspire shock and awe? Please.

Fahrenheit, on the other hand – sweet, ridiculous Fahrenheit -- is messy. Some German guy invented it by sticking a thermometer in salty ice water, then just frozen water, then under his armpit -- thus imposing what’s at best a quasi-rational measurement system on the entire physical world. How typically human: arrogant, confusing, and slightly misguided. This is the stuff of real literature. What’s more, with Fahrenheit, if it’s broiling outside, you’re in the triple-digits, and if it suddenly turns freezing, the mercury will drop a whopping 70 degrees. It’s gradated and extreme, with a vast capacity for both nuance and hyperbole. With uptight, snooty little Celsius, you simply sweat at 35 degrees, shiver at five. How unexpressive. Give me Fahrenheit any day. There’s so much more to work with.

And so, here on book tour, I’m going to take a break, turn on the Weather Channel, and watch the local weather forecast in rapture. Then I’ll call (not ring up) my friends on my cell phone (not my mobile), drink a pint (not a liter) of water, and make sure to tip my waitress. It’s 29 degrees F here in Providence, Rhode Island this morning – and I couldn’t be happier.

What is in a Nickname?

2010-02-02T18:30:00.004+01:00

Ah, once again, it seems, I’ve pissed off the Brits.

Recently, my husband, the Amazing Bob, and I went to London. From Geneva, it’s an hour-long flight, followed by an eternity stuck in rush-hour traffic. Yet as our voluptuous British taxi jerked and crawled through the streets, we were dazzled. Before us stood Buckingham Palace.

“Hey look,” I giggled, “it’s Lizzie and Phil’s place.”

Of course, I was kidding. Bob gave a little laugh. But our cab driver cleared his throat and glared at me viciously in the rear-view mirror.

England may be the birthplace of Monty Python, Fry and Laurie, Eddie Izzard, “Blackadder,” “Absolutely Fabulous,” and much of the most brilliant and irreverent comedy of the past fifty years. Yet even in the honking, headache-inducing congestion of London, it seems that one must never refer to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip as “Lizzie and Phil.”

As an American abroad, I’m generally very conscientious about not perpetuating the negative stereotypes associated with us. I speak softly, avoid wearing tank tops and shorts, say “please” in the native languages, and never complain about no ice in my Coke. But the one habit I can’t seem to shake is treating the aristocracy like regular people.

If Bob and I visit a 19th century palace of the former Baron Von So-and-So, I find myself wise-cracking, “Hey, check out the crib.” If we’re ushered reverently into some rococo tomb of Great King Austerbottom, I’ll whisper to Bob: So, like, what was up with this guy? And if I see a picture of Prince Charles? I can’t help it. “Hey, look,” I’ll grin. “It’s Chuckie!”

Let’s be fair: the English themselves are guilty of nicknames, too: “Princess Di” and “Fergie,” for starters. In their tabloids, Michael Jackson was gleefully rechristened “Wacko Jacko,” Madonna is "Madge"; Paul McCartney, “Mac,” David Beckham, "Becks."

But those who are to the realm born? That’s different.

Of course, in the States, if some foreigner called President Obama “Barry,” I probably wouldn’t be thrilled, either. But in general, we Yankees view and use nicknames with extreme generosity.

Nicknaming someone implies that you’re close enough to dispense with formalities. Sure, it can be patronizing. But it can also be a profound expression of affection. Among American men in particular, nicknames are often an ironic sign of respect. Giving another guy a moniker – be it “Otter” or “Snoop Dog” -- in a fraternal setting confers acceptance and camaraderie.

When I was in high school, a group of guys who’d grown up together would even give each other nicknames based on embarrassing situations, personal habits, or fuck-ups. For example, they might nickname a guy “Tucks” because he suffered from hemorrhoids and had to use Tucks Anal Wipes. Then “Tucks” would morph into “Tuckie,” which they’d then abbreviate into “’Key.” You’d ask them, “Why do you call him ‘Key’ when his real name is ‘Nathan.’? Oh, it’s a long story, they’d laugh –not unkindly. And here’s the real kicker: "Key" would actually refer to himself as "Key," too, instead of Nathan. It was a badge of honor. “Key” meant he was accepted, ahem, warts and all.

(In a further an aside, do I even need to say that we women don’t do this? If our friend Amelia suffers from terrible menstrual cramps, we’d never dream of nicknaming her “Kotex.” Nor do we go around in a group saying, “I’m PP, and this is my friend we call ‘Bra Strap,’ and that’s Dip-Z, Cocktail Shaker, Donuts, and Boyhound.”)

But I digress…

Back to Lizzie and Phil.

Herein lies the rub. In America, nicknames confer intimacy and familiarity. And in this way, they are wildly democraticizing. If Prince Charles is “Chuckie,” then suddenly, you don’t really see him as the future King of England. He’s more like your next door neighbor or the guy at Home Depot. He’s “Chuckie from the block.” And this, to Americans, is not an insult. Yes, it’s a debunking of the aristocracy. But we Yankees believe that this is a good thing – a necessary correction of an antiquated, unjust order, in fact—and that being “down home” and “keeping it real” are so much better. We’re a country, after all, that maintains that anyone can grow up to be president – and in which everyone insists they “just want to be treated like everyone else.”

What’s more, we Americans consider it the ultimate compliment to say that someone’s “just an average guy, “ one of us,” an “everyman,” a “regular Joe.” Reality TV and celebrity worship aside, being mainstream in America is as good as it gets: We’ll say admiringly: they’re just all-American, apple pie.

Certainly, we insist on this in our leaders. Never mind if they can understand geopolitics, nuclear fusion, and Latin. For better or worse, they need to appear accessible, friendly, and down-to-earth, too. They should be someone we’d like to have a beer with. Do they feel our pain? Have a great homemade cookie recipe? If we do give them a nickname, are they a good sport about it? Being perceived as stuffy is the kiss of death for a politician in America. Wanna slander them? Say they speak French. Worse yet, say they’re “part of the elite.”

Which in Britain, of course, is precisely what the royals are. As Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth is above the law, a separate entity, privileged at birth simply by virtue of her royal bloodlines. She must never behave -- nor be regarded in any way -- as a “regular Josephine.”

We Americans, of course, hate this idea. We like to believe that everyone is born equal. Who cares if your great-great-grandfather was Lord Pemberton Vestige Himmelhead Pippycock? That was, like, two hundred years ago. What have you done for us lately?

And so, when I see Buckingham Palace – where the very nobility Americans rebelled against over two hundred years ago resides to this day -- I guess I can’t help it. My first impulse as a Yankee -- encoded perhaps in my cultural DNA -- is to reduce the inhabitants inside to “Lizzie and Phil” – you know, just another couple from the Rotary Club.

I mean it in jest, with playfulness and affection. (In fact, let’s be honest – nobody on earth feels as much goodwill and admiration towards the Brits as us Yanks. We’re unabashed fans). And yet, my cheekiness is also an inadvertent shot fired across a proverbial bow. It’s a little bit of Lexington and Concord all over again.

On Moroccans, Minarets, and What’s Up with the Swiss

2009-12-02T19:19:00.005+01:00

A few weeks ago, the Amazing Bob and I had the great, good fortune to go to Marrakech with some American loved ones. We spent a week in a family-run guest house in the medina. Each day, we toured Morocco like the tourists we were. The souks. The Islamic palaces. The red clay countryside: All of it was magnificent.

Since our guides were local, we also had the great, good fortune to have lunch at a Berber family’s house in the Atlas Mountains. Our guide, Mouha, also insisted on inviting all ten of us home for dinner. His very pregnant aunt prepared a feast for us at a moment’s notice. Friends arrived to join in. Fourteen of us -- Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants -- American, French, Berber, and Arab -- sat around low tables in Mouha’s apartment eating couscous, drinking mint tea, and laughing together until we were nearly comatose.

Needless to say, the hospitality was stunning. Does anybody know tour guides in America or Europe who spontaneously invite 10 foreign clients home for dinner? Mouha claims, however, that such generosity is typical in Morocco.

Friendliness can be faked, but warmth can’t. And I have to say, such warmth has been bestowed on me not only in Morocco, but in every majority-Muslim country I’ve ever visited – Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Morocco. India (not majority, but with one of the largest Muslim populations on the planet). Even in the streets of East Jerusalem.

The everyday people I’ve encountered in these places – in restaurants, parks, post offices, guest houses, souks, and gardens -- have been nothing like the caricatures of Muslims that awaited me a week later when I arrived back home in Geneva.

By now, the world has seen the political posters. They were plastered across Switzerland leading up to a vote on Nov. 29th over whether to constitutionally ban the construction of minarets. Mind you, there are all of four mosques in the entirety of Switzerland. Only two more are slated for construction. And the Muslim population here is roughly 6% -- most from Eastern Europe.

Yet the poster showed a caricature of a woman encased in a black burqa looming ominously over a Swiss flag. The flag was punctured by black minarets in formation like missiles. The visual was scary and stark, the message unmistakable: minarets=burqas, terrorism, and war. Islam is threatening to overtake Switzerland by force, by cultural and military jihad.

The poster was courtesy of the right-wing UDC party – the same folks responsible for an immigration opposition poster that showed three white sheep booting a black sheep off the Swiss flag. Nice, right? Subtle, they ain’t.

The other politicians here pooh-poohed the minaret resolution. Most people seemed certain it wouldn’t pass. But by late Sunday afternoon, 57% of the population had voted to amend the Swiss constitution. Although voters insisted that they weren’t banning anyone from practicing Islam – just minarets themselves– Please. The message was clear: Yosef, go home.

The month that began for me in Morocco ended here in Geneva with friends and family calling in a state of disbelief:

Like the Genevoise themselves -- who heartily rejected the ban—I was dismayed by the vote. But frankly, I was surprised that people were shocked. “So what’s up with the Swiss and the minarets?” my friends in the U.S. cried. “How on earth could they pass such a hideous ban?”

Well, I’ll tell you how -- and I say this not to excuse or endorse, but simply to explain:

The Swiss passed the ban on minarets because they’re pretty much like us.

Think about it.

Right now, there aren’t many Western nations acting smitten towards Muslims. Certainly, we Americans aren’t. We are on high-alert. Are we amazed the Swiss harbor fears similar to our own?

And like American voters, the Swiss electorate is split. One bloc is rural, isolated, pious, and conservative. The other is urban, urbane, progressive, and internationally interactive. This is precisely how the vote went. The rural block voted for the ban; big cities and the international zones voted against it.

Like us, the Swiss pride themselves on religious tolerance. But this doesn’t mean they don’t resent having to make “concessions” to “outsiders” and “minorities.” It’s one thing to tolerate other faiths on paper, quite another to practice it. Hmm. Again: does this sound familiar?

If you look the reasons some Americans currently give for opposing gay marriage, you get a good dose of much of the same thinking behind the Swiss ban on minarets. The rhetorical cocktail of fear, conservatism, and nationalism is virtually the same:

We’re a Christian nation... We’re sick of politicians and big-city elitists trying to impose their agenda on us... So-called tolerance is destroying our nation...We’re taking back our country. We’ve had it with minorities trying to force their lifestyle down our throats...It’s not the norm. Things have gone too far...We want to return to good, old-fashioned values...Don’t kid yourself. We’re in a war.

Switzerland may pride itself on its shining humanitarian ideals – yet like America, it doesn’t always live up to them. Why is this shocking?

And like everyone else on the planet, the Swiss are also given to moments of misplaced vengeance. The ban of minarets was seen as a largely symbolic act: a “The buck-stops-here” sort of posturing. Yet oddly, I don’t think the voters intended it so much for Muslims in their own neighborhood, as a message to extremists, terrorists, and Muslim leaders on a global scale.

Currently, Switzerland is locking horns with Libya. The summer before last, Swiss police arrested Gaddafi’s son and daughter-in-law here for allegedly beating two employees. In retaliation, Gaddafi expelled Swiss businesses from Libya, recalled diplomats, withdrew Libyan assets from Swiss banks, and arrested two Swiss nationals. This fall, Gaddafi even proposed that the UN General Assembly dissolve Switzerland as a nation all together–divvying it up between France, Germany, and Italy.

Needless to say, the people of Switzerland are not big Gaddafi fans at the moment. Some feel the Swiss government has tried too hard to appease him. Others see Gaddafi’s actions as a direct assault on their homeland. Dissolve our country? Excusez-moi?

This likely added to the background noise during the minaret campaign. The ban was seen by some, I imagine, as a way of firing a shot across Gaddafi’s bow – or across the Swiss government’s -- or both.

Logical? No. But we Americans should know better than anyone how conflicts with one or two Muslim leaders can easily mushroom into a wholesale maligning and distrust of Islam – or how a legitimate war on fundamentalism and terrorism can make a nation go ga-ga, and act illogically and counterproductively. We should know better than anyone the follies that fear and defensiveness can spawn. Surely, we should know better than to throw up our hands in disbelief at the Swiss.

And so it goes. Just now, in the days following the minaret ban, Libya has announced that it’s sentencing the two Swiss nationals in custody to 16 months on a prison farm.

Far beyond myself, and Mouha, and the shopkeepers in the souks kindly offering tea, and the good Genevoise people hanging their heads in shame, another round has begun.

Dildos, Chocolates, and Commies

2009-09-25T16:53:00.012+02:00

I just paid $17 to look at a bunch of ho-hum dildos in Prague. Serves me right. Like a gazillion other tourists, I got suckered in by the “Sex Machines Museum” here just beyond the Old Town Square. Well, I thought, who can resist that? I’d been to Prague before and seen the Top Ten Sights already. Amazingly, I thought an obvious gimmick like this “museum” would actually be unique. Amazingly, too, I thought I was being some kind of renegade by visiting it. Let other, less sophisticated tourists go to the 600-year-old astrological clock and listen to Dvorak being performed in a Gothic church. Me, I’m going to check out a 19th century “Voyeristic Chamber Pot” and a collection of Czech butt plugs.

Yeah, well. The chamber pot – a frou-frou bowl with a hand mirror -- proved to be just downright silly. And the butt plugs? New, and downright silly, too, displayed like a bunch of cocktail napkins at a society luncheon.

Much of the small museum is dedicated to modern devices – waterproof vibrators, hand-blown (no pun intended) glass phalluses, restraining S&M furniture that looks unnervingly like the weight-lifting machines at my gym. Yawn. Go to any online sex-toy catalogue and you can pretty much see the same stuff for free – without having to fly to the Czech Republic first.

What I’d wanted, I guess, was history. Each generation, it’s been said, thinks it has invented sex. So show me the past. Show me something different. Teach me something about bygone eroticism, expand my understanding about human proclivities. If nothing else, turn me on a little. Shock me. Dilate my imagination.

But no. There’s only a smattering of cultural artifacts here, and some of them aren’t even labeled with dates or provinces. There are a couple of chastity belts. Some torturous-looking electronic “anti-masturbation” machines from 1915. A few hand-cranked vibrators – pre-batteries – that look like egg beaters. Hmm. I suppose that’s what they were…

The most interesting object was a rough-hewn wooden machine that could best be described as a “dick-cycle” or a “pedal-peenie” – a cross between a cobbler’s bench, a bicycle, and a vibrator. Apparently, the phallus entered riders as they pedaled. (Hmm: I’m thinking of my gym again…incentives?). What amused me most was the sign: Used to assuage ‘fervent feelings’ at a German women’s prison. Oooh. Anyone want to elaborate on that one? There’s a series of images for you. And sounds.

Speaking of images, the museum proudly plays what it calls “jewels of pornographic cinematography” -- two Spanish porn films circa 1920. They’re silent, black and white, jiggly, and slow: lots of women in petticoats coming in and out of a parlor fanning themselves. When the action finally happens, it mostly focuses in on the women’s truly huge, dimpled, gelatinous buttocks. You can tell immediately what the filmmaker’s fetishes were. But what interested me was that one of the films was titled “The Confessor of the Friar’s Blessing.” Yep. The male star was dressed as a friar. The premise was that female sinners would come to him, and he’d make them do penance by pulling down their bloomers and so forth. Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of porn – but I’ve certainly never seen any starring clergymen. Curiously though, from what I could tell, this didn’t seem to be intended as the shocking part of the film.

Okay Then: Chocolate.

With the Sex Machine Museum so unfulfilling, I had no choice, really, but to go on to the “Choco-Story Museum” around the corner where “Our cocoa fairy invites you to discover the extraordinary story of chocolate.” Only nine bucks? Great. Sign me up.

Never mind that it’s a museum dedicated to Belgian chocolates in the Czech Republic. I always feel a moral compulsion to visit chocolate museums whenever I find them in the world, and the “Muzeum cokolady,” manages to do as decent a job as any. There are story boards tracing the history of chocolate from the Aztecs to Europe, the introduction of sugar to the chocolate, and the introduction of genocide to the indigenous South Americans.

The production of chocolate from bean to bar is documented clearly. But best is a series of panels declaring chocolate a “health food” that “lowers cholesterol.” This is so much more satisfying, really, than the run-of-the-mill cock rings on display around the corner.

To be fair, the staff at the chocolate museum seemed beyond bored. The woman giving the chocolate making demo managed to condense an entire forty-minute process into five. She simply poured chocolate into a mold, announced “Chocolate cold for 15 minute,” and stuck it in a freezer. Then she pulled out another prefabricated tray -- and tah-dah. “Chocolate ready.” That was it. Take your free sample and go home.

But what did I expect? I went to these tourist traps because waxing rhapsodic about the splendors of Prague is as clichéd as the phrase “waxing rhapsodic” itself. It’s almost as bad as writing about Paris or extolling the beauty of a sunset. I mean, really. It’s been so done.

And Now, For the Commies…

What is worth noting, however, is that Prague, even more than Paris, stands as a monument to What the Rest of Europe Could Have Looked Like If the Nazis and the Communists Hadn’t Fucked It All Up By Starting Wars and Demolishing Everything. (I’m letting the Allies off the hook here because hey, we didn’t start the WW’s). Unlike the French capital, Prague had to duck two bullets: the massive aerial bombardments of WWII and the hideous, ego-driven architectural decision-making of the Communist dictators. As a result, Prague is perhaps the greatest Art Nouveau jewel-box in the world. It’s just street after street of late 19th and early 20th century gorgeousness.

A reminder of this is currently on display in the plaza beside the National Theatre. After the chocolates and dildos, my next stop was there: a photography exhibit on Bucharest sponsored by the Romanian government.

Of course: talk about contrasts. I found the exhibit heartbreaking. Documenting the changes in Bucharest from the mid 1800’s to the present is like watching a beauty makeover in reverse. Early photographs show a city as lovely as Prague, full of parks, spires, domes, wedding cake buildings dripping with angels. Then – boom – come the wars. The 1940 earthquake. And then the Communists. Any little bit of beauty that’s managed to survive, they bulldoze. And what they build instead is concrete grotesqueness: an architectural embodiment of hopelessness and oppression and arrogance and really, really bad taste.

Communism. If you yourself didn’t grow up with it, it’s easy to forget about it in Prague: There’s so much new life and old beauty here. But particularly now, when some of my fellow Americans are insisting that President Obama is no different from, say, Stalin or Ceausescu (or Hitler), a reality check is in order.

And a Reality check, please...

Prague is a good place to do it. My friend Beth and I take a “Walking Tour of Communism.” Oddly, we're the only ones on it. Our guide is Josef, a vigorous, debonair 77-year-old opera singer who's lived through it all in Prague: the Nazi invasion. The Communist takeover in 1948. The Prague Spring. The student uprisings. The Velvet Revolution. He takes us from one historic landmark to the next, but most interestingly, he tells us his own experiences. Finding Soviet tanks in his garden. Everyone in his neighborhood removing street signs to confuse the troops. Having his passport confiscated after he’d spoken critically of the government. The old women who used to sit in the lobby writing down everyone who came and went.

His own past suffering is palpable, but his humor is effusive.

“And it wasn’t all bad,” he said diplomatically. “What was good was, when I got sick, I went right to the hospital. They gave me excellent health care, an operation – and at the end, no bills. And I am happy because today, we still have this. I need operations on my eyes, and still no bills, even though we have democracy now, and I am free to make my own decisions about my life.”

Lest anyone still think that a public option for health care is the equivalent of totalitarianism, allow me to propose a visit to Prague’s Museum of Communism – where I ended my tour.

Aptly, this museum is hidden away in a back alley off Wenceslas Square. And – here’s your irony supplement for the day – it’s wedged between a casino and a McDonald’s. Really. As if that doesn’t say it all.

For people who never experienced first-hand the delights of, say, the Aral Sea, East Germany in 1967, or a Soviet gulag, the Museum does a fine job of conjuring up the misery, ugliness, and delusions wrought by Communism. There are sections on Marx, Lenin, and Stalin, of course, plus anti-American propaganda; “social realist” art extolling factory workers as heroes; and full scale recreations of a dreary schoolroom under Communism; an empty, Eastern Bloc butcher shop with nothing but a few canned goods for sale; and a secret police interrogation room. There’s an exhibit of government surveillance equipment, too, including wiretapping machines from the 1950’s. Funnily enough, they look exactly like the anti-masturbation devices back at the Sex Machines Museum…

Displays are also dedicated to the ways in which entire populations were manipulated to inform on their friends and family; the imposed groupthink and conformity; and the environmental atrocities committed by the government. According to a plaque, immediately after the fall of Communism, the average life-expectancy of Czech men increased by five years.

It’s a small, sobering place. Seeking to avoid the very type of propaganda it condemns, the museum contains, impressively, a section called “Life Goes On.” Here are pictures of Czech citizens enjoying themselves despite their government: going to the beach, spending a day in the park, etc. The display seems meant to confirm what Josef told us: “To be fair, Communism wasn’t all bad. No system is all bad or all good.” Having endured the oppression of absolutist thinking, the Czechs refuse to be absolutist about it.

The museum illuminates a whole other, dark dimension of history.

It’s powerful – and also cautionary.

The phrases “Communism” and “big government” are bandied about so recklessly in America these days. Yet we Americans have so little idea of what they really mean or entail. We label an attempt to give everyone access to health insurance “Communism” – yet there was no similar clamor and rhetoric when, say, the American government declared it had a right to secretly wiretap its citizens…or journalists were jailed a few years ago for not disclosing their sources…or suspects were detained at Guantanamo Bay without due process…or environmental protections were stripped…

If we’re worried about becoming a Communist country like the Czech Republic and the Soviet Union used to be, trust me: This museum shows us that we’re focusing on the wrong things.

Maybe I’m getting older, but in the end, it hasn’t been the sex toys or the chocolate displays in Prague that have satisfied me, but the Museum of Communism. Here is history. Here is a past we can learn from. Here is a museum offering some insight about human proclivities. It’s shocking in places, and it dilates the imagination. Certainly, it has left me wanting more –for everyone.

Need Health Care Reform? Raise a Glass to the Swiss.

2009-08-17T14:04:00.011+02:00

Given all the hot-under-the-collar hullabaloo over health care reform in America, I feel compelled to offer my fellow Yankees a drink. Let’s all peruse a wine list and chill out for a moment, shall we? How about a premier cru Chablis? Or a wonderful 15-year-old Bordeaux? Or, if you’re a Bubblehead like me, champagne? Veuve Cliquot is available in splits and full bottles.

This wine list I’m using, by the way, comes from a “semi-private” hospital here in Geneva, Switzerland – a “clinique” as they’re called. I am not kidding. In Switzerland, among other things, you can eat and drink damn well in its health care facilities.

When it comes to health care reform, everyone’s talking about our neighbors to the north these days. But I say: Yoo-hoo. Over here. I know it’s easy to confuse Switzerland with Sweden (or, in the case of our credit card companies, Swaziland), but you gotta check it out. Because right now, Switzerland probably has the system that’s closest to what Obama is ideally proposing for America. And lemme tell you, it doesn’t suck.

In Switzerland, everyone is required to have health insurance. This can be provided by employers (the cost deducted from your pay) or purchased privately. It’s not cheap. But for those who can’t afford anything else, a basic “public” health insurance is offered by the Swiss government at reduced rates. Everyone is covered, and there are no exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Admittedly, I don’t fully understand the nuts-and-bolts of the system – I think malpractice liability is also extremely limited here – and there are undoubtedly drawbacks, shortcomings, and abuses like anywhere else.

But overall, health care in Switzerland seems to be a hybrid between the socialized medicine of Canada and the current for-profit dysfunction of our own.

And the quality ranges from decent to ridiculously, obscenely good.

Case in point: that wine list.

At a clinique, you can come out of an anesthetized fog and order a bottle of Rasteau’s Domaine La Soumade’s Cuvee Prestige for only 34 francs. Or plunk down 120 bones for a 1994 Haute Medoc.

I know this because recently, I had a small, routine “procedure” done here in Geneva. In the US, it would’ve been performed as outpatient surgery, but in Switzerland, they keep you overnight because it involves general anesthesia, and they want to make sure you’re okay afterwards and infections don’t set in. Care and caution – not expediency – are the priorities.

Lucky, lucky me, I’d never had to stay overnight in a hospital until this point. Now I was going into a clinique where they spoke only French. To say that I was an anxious wreck is an understatement.

I should mention that I went to this particular hospital simply because it’s the one my doctor is affiliated with. Also, it required a guarantee from our insurer beforehand stating that we were, in fact, covered. My husband is what might be termed "an international civil servant," and I’m a writer. We’re comfortable, but in Switzerland, with its bankers and Saudi princes and gazillionaires, we’re probably barely middle-class. The health insurance we have is very good, though not gold-plated top-of-the-line. It covers us for roughly 80%. And the cost of doctors and such, as I’ve said, is high – at least as much as it is in the US.

Nonetheless, I was required to fill out only one short form before my admission to the clinique, and they dealt directly with our insurer for the guarantee.

Then, I was led to a gorgeous, phenomenally light and clean room that almost looked like a Philip Starck hotel. I was given a flimsy robe – but one that thoughtfully closed on the side – and also a pair of slippers! And a toothbrush with a tiny tube of toothpaste! And a comb! And a Caran D’Ache pen! (So sue me: I’m easily impressed. I still go bazookies over the little shampoos at the Marriott).

Then, I got a visit from “la dieticienne.” I thought she was just coming to tell me what I shouldn’t ingest after the anesthesia. But no. She wanted to know what I wanted for dinner after the surgery. Did I have any allergies?

“Well, goat cheese,” I laughed. “But I guess that shouldn’t be a problem here.”

“Actually, it is,” she said, straight-faced. “Tonight, we’re offering a warm goat cheese salad with fresh rosemary. I’ll make sure you just get the salad.”

Then, she held up a menu.

I had a choice, she informed me, between seafood lasagna and beouf bourgignon. Tarte tatin or a berry cobbler.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I said. “Ha. Ha ha. I suppose you’ve got a wine list, too?”

With a shrug, she pointed to the drawer in my nightstand. There, right between the tv remote and the bed pan, was the wine list.

As soon as she left, I told my husband that – if I did indeed survive the 20-minute procedure – he had to go get our digital camera and photograph all this shit. Otherwise, folks back home would never believe it. God knows I didn’t – and I was sitting there.

After I’d placed my dinner order, the anesthesiologist stopped by to confirm what we’d discussed during our uninterrupted, 45-minute meeting the day before. I got several lovely visits from nurses as well. And then, after the 20-minute procedure – which went without a hitch -- my doctor came by to see me. Twice.

And I got not only a three-course dinner, but a three-course lunch before check-out the next day. Salad Caprese. Fish in a beurre-blanc sauce with potatoes “nature” and homemade wild mushroom ravioli. I shit thee not: it was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. I almost forgot dessert – blackberries in a red wine sauce. They served it to me when I was already changed out of my robe. “Madame, n’obliez pas votre dessert!” the nurse cried.

M’am, don’t forget to eat your dessert.

That was the only thing they handed me before I left – no further forms to complete, no bills to pay. Just a spoon and a cup full of berries.

God, I loved that clinique.

This is semi-private Swiss health care.

Now, I’m aware that comparing Switzerland’s system with America’s is in some ways specious, misleading, and unfair. Apples and oranges, to a degree. The entire population of Switzerland (7 million), after all, isn’t even equal to my hometown of Noo Yawk alone. It’s easier to provide excellent health care to a limited number of people with a huge amount of resources – especially when these people are generally in fine shape to begin with -- given their mountain air, and their perverse addiction to things like hiking, biking, and skiing, and their high standard of living and excellent fresh food an’ all.

What’s more, unlike us Americans, the Swiss are, well, how to I put this? Anal. They’re not only highly organized, but reserved – there’s none of the rhetorical or emotional extremism that we have in America. Temperamentally and culturally, they’re a lot more community-minded and a lot less freewheeling than we are.

While this can make for some truly terrible rock’n’roll, it can also result in remarkably shrewd, balanced, and humane policy-making. They’ve managed to strike a balance between single-payer, universal, “socialist” health care and a system where 15 percent of the population goes uninsured, a pre-existing condition can screw you for life, and even those with coverage can go bankrupt after a single nasty twist of fate. It's also a system that incorporates holistic and preventive medicine: massages and herbs, anyone?

Sure, I’ve had a bad experience or two with Swiss doctors – one ob-gyn kept fondling my breasts long after the exam was over – and my little stay at the clinique cost my husband and I a hefty amount out-of-pocket when all was said and done, too. Like I said: it ain’t perfect.

But in certain ways, it’s better. So while many Swiss doctors do some of their training in the US, some of our policy makers might want to do a little more investigating over here in return. The Swiss system has its costs and inequities, but nobody’s uninsured, or denied coverage because they once had a polyp, or living in fear of losing their job because it means their asthmatic child will go without medicine, or having to take out a second mortgage because their spouse had a stroke and they’ve maxed out their lifetime deductible.

The Swiss system strikes a balance between the private sector and public health. It’s pricey, but humane and inspiring. It suggests what can be delivered when the focus of medicine is on healing and prevention.

I, for one, will drink to that.

Oz: There is Some Place Like Home

2009-06-06T09:17:00.004+02:00

So I just spent two weeks in Australia. This should be a big deal and a big blog because, let’s face it, Oz, as they call it, is one big continent and one even bigger hassle to get to. Unless you’re in one of the “‘Nesia’s” or that other galactic outpost, New Zealand, Australia is far away from just about anywhere.

What’s more, when I arrived in Melbourne, I reunited with Sandy Fenton after 23 years. If you’ve read my new book, ahem, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven, (insert shameless subliminal plug here) you know that Sandy is a Canadian who saved my life in southwestern China 23 years ago. Today, she’s living in Melbourne. Reconnecting with her was a very big deal, too.

Obviously, however, these opening paragraphs are a drum roll to an anticlimax. Sandy met me at the airport, there was a huge shriek and hug – and then we started to talk. And it was like: So anyway, as I was saying 23 years ago…

We practically picked up in mid-sentence. Two decades have gone by but we slid back into our friendship like a pair of beloved slippers. Which was wonderful for us, but boring for readers. Who wants to hear about how two women, seeing each other for the first time in 20 years, start talking about where they can get a really good deal on handbags?

And then, there was Australia itself. The Aussies are going to hate me for writing this. They will no doubt bar me from entering their country again – though I don’t mean this as an affront to them at all. But that said: Australia, to me, was very much like the USA. There. Gulp. I’ve blasphemed.

Yet I’m doing this not to gloss over cultural differences or dispense with nuance or to commit the ultimate, typical American faux pas of measuring another country against the “standard” of us. Rather, I say this, because as much as I’ve traveled and lived abroad, no other place has challenged my idea of American exceptionalism quite so much as Oz.

Through traveling and living abroad – as documented in this blog -- I’ve come to better understand American culture, foibles, shortcomings, and character. To this end, I’ve also come to better appreciate my country’s uniqueness as well: our idealism, our founding principles, our outsized humor and friendliness.

That is, until I arrived in Australia – where, harrumph, American uniqueness suddenly didn’t seem quite so unique anymore.

For starters, there’s the superficial, physical stuff. Never mind that the Aussies have better accents and drive on the wrong side of the road (wink). The few places I went to Down Under looked unnervingly like parts of California and Florida -- shiny, tinker-toyed housing mixed together with historical architecture and palm trees -- or like Chicago and San Francisco – pretty 19th century buildings next to brawny glass skyscrapers …cable cars weaving among them… There are brazen billboards in English, American tv shows, drive-thru McDonalds, Subway franchises, malls, Krispy Kreme donuts. (Mmm. Donuts. Can’t get those in Switzerland…) It felt more than a little familiar.

More importantly, the streets in Melbourne and Sydney look like the United Nations in motion. And at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, there’s an introductory video showing immigrants on ships loaded down with bundles and suitcases. A better life, the screen reads. Freedom from persecution. Escape from natural disasters. Reuniting with family. These are some of the reasons why people come to Australia.

Immigrants of all different backgrounds are then filmed talking about their journey to Australia while old newsreels play of Chinese laborers disembarking from steamers and Greek street peddlers hawking goods in Brisbane decades ago and Jews fleeing pogroms back in Europe then settling in Sydney. If maps didn’t show arrows radiating from all over the globe to Melbourne and Perth, the video could’ve been plucked directly from the Ellis Island Museum back in my hometown.

Harrumph again.

Apparently, there’s another country on this planet that prides itself on being a haven for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, yearning to be free.

Granted, while we Yankees never shut up about our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, the Aussies still have the Queen on their money. And while we have our Statue of Liberty lifting her lamp beside the “Golden Door,” Australia had a “White Australia” immigration policy well into the 20th century -- and “white” really meant British – not so fast all you Slavs and garlic-eaters.

But the legends that we two nations promote about ourselves are strikingly similar. We both pride ourselves on being the New Frontier, the Multicultural Melting Pot of the West, the land of opportunity. We are the fresh start, the Can-Doers, the beaches full of blond surfers dashing boldly into the sunshine to catch the next wave.

And for all our high-minded ideals, we share similar hypocrisies, too: genocide against indigenous people; discrimination against immigrants; quota systems; ongoing hate crimes; crazed national security measures, etc. Australians, I was surprised to learn, even interned their Japanese citizens in camps during World War Two just like Americans did.

Yet to be fair, just like in America, on a personal level, Australians are one gregarious, fun-loving bunch. Histories aside, they are sunny and just fucking great to be around. God bless ‘em: Aussies don’t give a shit. Like us Yanks, they’ll start talking to you in elevators, cafeteria lines, public restrooms. Who cares if they’re a bell-hop and you’re a customer? They’ll tease you about your flat American accent while they toss your luggage into the back of a taxi. No worries. It’s all in good fun. They’ve got a fabulous sense of humor and irreverence. They claim they’re a bit rougher than Americans – but to me, this simply makes them closer to New Yorkers.

So what can I say? Apologies, mates. But I flew halfway around the globe and felt closer to home than ever – if a bit more humbled.

The Book Whore on the Book Tour: Part II

2009-05-14T11:45:00.004+02:00

I’ve just returned from a six week book tour in the United States for my new tome, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven. I was in ten different cities – three of them twice – which meant I got to get a really good, satisfying dose of my homeland. I also got to drink tequila and eat a lot of turkey burgers –neither of which really exist in Switzerland.

And since I was on the road a lot, I got to see a lot of billboards, road signs, and bumper-stickers, too. This doesn’t sound remarkable, but trust me, it is. Europe doesn’t have this stuff, either. People here don’t feel compelled to use their back fender to tell you that their “boss is a Jewish carpenter” or to “Visualize Whirled Peas.”

Only in America are roads, stores, and cars so declarative. My favorites? Outside of Philadelphia: A giant billboard for a Jewish paperback thriller, “Murder at the Mikvah” with an erotic photo of a nude woman emerging from a ritual bath. Can you make this stuff up? In Michigan, a billboard reading: “East Lansing: One of the most diverse and dynamic cities in America” – hung over a used car lot going out of business. A drive-up ice cream parlor near King of Prussia announces: “Ice Custard – and Happiness.” Happiness! They’re selling ice cream and happiness. God, I love America.

And then, of course, in Virginia, a giant gun store right next to “Fat Boys’ Barbecue.” Aah, yes. Home. Bullets and BBQ!

The phrase “book tour” sounds incredibly glamorous. And part of it is. This is the part where you get your photo in bookstore windows, hotel room upgrades, and drivers holding pieces of cardboard with your name misspelled on them at the baggage claims in the airports.

But book tours are also exercises in manic-depression.

Mind you, I’m not blogging to be a prima donna and moan about my pampered little authorial life: OMG. You have no idea how hard it is being on the road. I have to go to bookstore after bookstore. And every night I’m in a different hotel. Please. Cry me a river. I know only too well that the world should have my problems.

However, a lot of people think that writing is not only glamorous, but easy – that if you can talk, you can write. Any idiot, in their opinion, can publish a book. And given some of the dreck that gets published, they’re unfortunately right.

But the great irony of writing, like that of any art or sport, is that if you do it well enough, you make it look effortless. Then everyone around you thinks that it is effortless, and so they say stuff like:

“Yeah? You’re a writer? No kidding. You know, I was thinking of taking a few months off and writing a book myself.”

(To which I always want to respond. Yeah? Funny, I was thinking of just taking a few months off and practicing brain surgery…Oh, we writers are such a prickly, humorless bunch).

The reality of being a “glamorous” author is this: for years on end, we are not on book tours. We are not being published. We are sitting alone in a room somewhere, staring at a blank notebook or a blinking cursor. We write and delete, write and rewrite, and the bulk of our efforts never see print. We have no colleagues except for the relentless, needling little voices in our head that tell us one day we’re an unsung literary genius, the next day that we are total shit.

Let me be clear: There are far worse jobs to have. Writing is neither high-stakes nor mind-numbing nor physically dangerous, though we do seem to have a predisposition for alcoholism and suicide (though hey: who doesn’t?).

And I’m happy just to be employed, period.

But the book tour itself is a bipolar experience. One night, 150 people will show up to a reading at a Barnes & Noble; they’ll applaud. They’ll buy my books. They’ll tell me they love my work. And I’ll feel exultant, like champagne is raining down on my head.

The next night, in the next city, there will be a whopping crowd of eleven. And two of these will be homeless people sitting in the back eating a Styrofoam cup.

And of course, I’ll look out at the sea of empty chairs and stacks of unsold books and feel like a failure, publicly humiliated.

And this is par for the course on any book tour, even in far better economic times. Each reading is like a wedding where you don’t know if the guests – let alone the groom – are going to show up. One night, you’re a star, the next night, you’re jilted. Over and over.

And amazingly, it’s an experience you only get if you are very, very lucky.

So overall, I feel blessed to have had the chance to prostitute myself for weeks on end in my beloved homeland. Who knows if I’ll ever get to again. Keep your eyes open. Next time you see a book title of mine, it might just be gracing a billboard off the Interstate. Or the back of a fender. And I just might call it Ice Cream and Happiness.

Note: My next dispatches should be from Australia, where I'm heading not only to promote 'Undress Me,' but to reunite with Sandy Fenton, a Canadian nurse who figures prominently in the story. We'll be reunited after 22 years. We haven't seen each other since Asia.

The Book Whore on the Book Tour

2009-04-07T17:58:00.003+02:00

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been blogging recently. This is because I've been on the road in America tirelessly and shamelessly promoting my new book, Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven. I suppose, before I write anything else, I should say that it is an absolutely fabulous, stupendous, riveting book about my misadventures in China -- and that it got a rave review in Oprah's "O" magazine; that USA Today named it as one of its "Top Nonfiction Picks"; and that it just hit the local bestseller list in the San Francisco/Bay Area.

Plus, my totally unbiased dad says it's the best thing I've ever written.

Then, I suppose, I should just start begging: Please buy it. Please, please, please. And none of this "Hey, I just got it for $2.99 on Ebay" stuff, either. Please spend the extra dough and support a local bookstore (not to mention yours truly; more than a few books on Ebay are recycled reviewers' copies and don't mean diddly in publishers' assessments of me).

But beyond this necessary and embarrassing prostitution, I wanted to let readers know that I haven't been blogging here because last week, I was blogging for Powell's independent bookstore in Portland, OR. If you have nothing better to do or are in dire need of new procrastination techniques, you can check out my back blogs at http://www.powells.com

Otherwise, as soon as I get a break in my tour (sometime next week, I'm hoping, between appearances in DC and Richmond), I'll be back at it, writing about America, and all the groovy, poignant beauty and irony I've seen in returning to my homeland.

Until then, stay tuned, thanks for indulging me, and, oh yes -- did I say "Please buy my book?"

As always, thanks for playing.

Talk Like An Egyptian

2009-02-27T18:15:00.004+01:00

Last week, my friend Maureen and I did something typically European: we went to an Egyptian resort on the Red Sea whose sole design and purpose, it seems, is to make Westerners forget that they are actually in Egypt.

There’s a heated pool, a coiffed blonde singing Dido covers in the marble lobby, a beach-side bar. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves stand guard outside the “Kiddie Club,” and the main restaurant serves up a buffet night dubbed “Manhattan Grill.” I am not kidding. Take a quick look around, and you’d think you were in Cancun or Club Med or even Disneyworld.

That is, until you see the vacationing Arab women in hijabs, their arms and legs fully covered, lying on beach chairs just meters away from sausage-y German men in their unfortunate Speedos and small-breasted Danish women sunbathing topless – despite the hotel’s signs asking them kindly not to.

Half the clientele was speaking Arabic and eying man-less Maureen and me with suspicion, while the other half was wearing less fabric than it takes to make a dinner napkin and sipping rum punch and thumping along to the tiny Kayne West videos playing on their Ipods.

The architecture was vaguely Islamic, the staff entirely male, the menu devoid of pork. But there were also hamburgers. Snickers in the mini-bars. CNN. Menus in German, English, French, and Russian.

Needless to say, it was a strange convergence of sensibilities – a paean to Westerners’ perverse desire to “get away from it all” in a foreign locale without ever actually having to step outside our own culture.

Maureen, like me, is a Damn Yankee currently living in Europe. She and I went to this resort in Hurghada for the very same reasons the Europeans do – because winter in Yurp is hideous, frigid, and depressing, and Egypt is not only nearby and sunny, but cheap. After two and a half consecutive months of gray in Paris and Geneva, we knew that if we didn’t make like the Europeans and head for the sun, we’d end up making like the Europeans and become alcoholics.

Still, we both felt ashamed of trekking to a land laden with so much ancient booty only to lie on a beach for five days. And so, in addition to booking a trip to Giza, we did our best to mitigate our insulation as uber-tourists by learning a little Arabic. Our contact with the Egyptians was going to be severely limited, we knew, but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t at least make an effort.

So okay. Easier said than done. Arabic writing looks to me like lace. But with help from a few bored security guards at Cairo Airport, Maureen and I learned “thank you” (show-croon), “please” (mum fat lock), “beautiful” (gamilla), and “handbag" (shan-tah). After much perseverance, we even managed to count as high as four. And we learned the polite form of “hello” (as-salem alekham), which I walked around chirping annoyingly to everyone I came into contact with.

To our surprise, we were the only Westerners who attempted this, who treated the Egyptians as anything more than servants. When we croaked As-salem alekham, the Egyptians looked at us with delighted astonishment. “Oh, you speak Arabic?” they laughed. “Welcome to Egypt! Where are you from?”

Clearly, we had impressed them. And yet consequently, we found ourselves faced with a very un-European dilemma. Given all that has been happening with the U.S. and in the Middle East, did we dare fess up to being Americans?

For the past eight years, being an American abroad has meant living in a sort of purdah. Feeling both vulnerable in the wake of Sept. 11th and appalled by the Bush Administration, many ex-pats have either kept our nationality veiled or flat-out lied.

Maureen and I could resort to that great fall-back of saying we were Canadian, or tell the truth and hope that in doing so, we wouldn’t inspire hatred but perhaps a more favorable view of Americans. Self-preservation versus p.r.

Drama queens that we are, we opted for bold, self-promotional, possibly stupid honesty. “We’re from New York City,” we said.

As soon as we said this, the Egyptians smiled. “Oh, you’re American!” they cried. “America and Egypt are very good friends! Obama, yes? Obama is a good man!”

“Obama,” it seems, is quickly becoming a universal slogan of approval and a shorthand for forgiveness. Since the November election, I’ve been in Turkey, France, and Egypt. Without exception, the people there have cried “Obama” as they would “Hallaluyah.” In Cairo, in fact, Maureen and I found the entire staff at our hotel wearing “Yes We Can” buttons. (Granted, they claimed that it meant “Yes, we can serve you better,” but c’mon. No one was wearing “Country First” buttons and claiming they meant “See our Country First, then go to the beach.”)

Some of the Egyptians in Hurghada told us that we were only the second Americans they’d ever met. Others had had a lot of contact with Americans. But all of them were cognizant of our policies and our power. “When America vibrates,” one man told us, “the world vibrates.”

Maureen and I are not only New Yorkers but former waitresses, so we’ve got fairly well-honed shit-detectors. We never felt we were being snowed. The Egyptians spoke thoughtfully to us, with good humor and frankness, asking us about how effective Obama could really be in the face of so many crises, telling us about how important he is symbolically, and offering their opinions.

“Don’t worry about George Bush,” a physical therapist named Wahid told me. “We know that the Americans are not the same as your former president. We know that half of you did not vote for him, and that most Americans now dislike him and think that he has created many problems for the world. We know that you have protested. We have knowledge here. We watch the news, we read, we see on the internet. We Egyptians are well informed about the world.”

Later, en route to Cairo, I recalled Wahid’s words with a renewed sense of shame. The day before, a bomb had gone off in Cairo’s big, heavily-touristed medina. A 17-year-old French girl was killed, and scores more tourists and locals were injured. A second bomb had been found un-detonated. The Egyptians were beside themselves, and Maureen and I were sure that our loved ones back home would be frantic. But when we called the U.S. to assure everyone that we were fine, people had no idea what we were talking about.

The bombing went largely unreported in the United States. When we vibrate, it seems, the world feels it. But when the ground shakes in Cairo, it doesn’t even register.

Mama Mia. Shalom. Inshallah. Obama...

2009-01-27T21:20:00.005+01:00

Stunningly, amidst all the Obamania of this past week, there’s actually been some other news coming out of Europe; my favorite headline concerned those lovable, madcap Italian bankers. According to the Swiss media, the Italian banking industry is bragging that it managed to avoid much of the credit crisis because Italian bankers don’t speak English well enough to understand mortgage-backed securities.

Mama mia. Could you make this stuff up? The Italians are essentially saying – proudly – that their economy hasn’t completely tanked because they're simply too incompetent to grasp what’s been going on.

Although there are a zillion reasons I love Italy, this one really takes the Panettone. The only other country I know that’s ever been as cheerfully forthright about its own ignorance is, well, the U.S. of A. itself. ( We confused Sunnis and Shiites? Whoops! Our bad…)

The banking industry’s claim is the most amazing news I’ve heard out of Italy since Silvio Berlusconi announced that he had been missing in action for almost a month because he’d been getting a face lift in preparation for the 2004 elections. No, I am not making that up, either. What’s more, he was completely unabashed about it; he behaved as if cosmetic surgery was not only his right, but practically his political obligation: how else would he remain a virile, powerful leader? (read: sexually active). Wilder still, perhaps, was the fact that nobody in Italy laughed him out of office for this. They actually seemed to think it made sense. La bella figura trumps all.

My other favorite news story from the past week is more poignant: on the eve of the U.S. presidential Inauguration, Jews and Arabs here in Geneva got together at a public square to hold a sort of bonfire/candlelight vigil/dialogue. Among those present was Ruth Dreifuss, a former president of Switzerland (not only the first woman, but une juife, as the newspapers are often quick to point out.)

As news cameras panned across a huddle of women shivering in hajibs and men in yarmulkes shivering in down parkas, Dreifuss explained in the fire light that Jewish and Arab residents from all over Geneva – whether they hailed from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Israel, or Switzerland itself – had come together to show the world that they could meet, speak together peacefully, and reaffirm their common humanity during the crisis in Gaza.

It was a small group, and Dreifuss spoke with humility. The media coverage here seemed glancing; elsewhere, it was simply nonexistent. But it was a story that I believe deserved more attention. After all, it embodied the same ideals that were being celebrated that very moment half a world away on Capitol Hill.

Which was precisely the problem, of course. While the vigil’s intentions were admirable, its timing was terrible. On January 20th, there was really only one story worldwide. For the first time in history, even French television broadcast the L' Americain Investiture as it's called. (And the earth, as you might imagine, nearly fell off its axis...)

Now, a week later, while the Italian bankers and Genevoise Arabs and Jews are no longer news, Obama still is – he’s a brilliant, blinding star, the center of the media universe here. He and Michelle grace the cover of almost every magazine. Every half hour, Euronews leads with his cabinet picks and executive orders. Large portraits reading “Barack Obama 44th President of the United States” fill the windows of the biggest international bookstore downtown, displaying no less than 23 different books about Barack and Michelle in a variety of languages.

If the world’s attentions are not on the Italian banks, or the well-meaning Arabs and Jews here, it’s because everyone is besotted with “the kid with the funny name.”

I can’t say I blame them. I've got to admit: I'm swooning along beside them -- one proud (albeit smartass) Yankee.

Never Let Them See Your Sweatpants

2009-01-12T11:05:00.005+01:00

Every New Year's, I make the same two resolutions -- to overeat more and drink to excess. The way I see it, this is win-win. If I keep these resolutions: terrific. More pasta and inebriation for me. If I don't, I'm leaner, healthier, soberer. Either way, there's no guilt. Unlike with other New Year's resolutions, I'm not setting myself up to fail.

This year, I set about breaking my resolutions rather early. Just this week, I headed back to the gym. And no sooner did I tromp into the Women's Locker Room (La Vestiaire, if you care), than all the women stared at me with haughty, European disdain. Because I had committed a grave faux pas. I had actually worn my workout clothes to work out.

The Genevoise, I've found, much like the Parisians and the Italians, have a very funny idea about fashion. They seem to be under the impression that when it comes to clothes, form should take precedence over function. You don't dress not to be naked, but to establish yourself in the world as a person of elegance, refinement, and, implicitly, money.

And so, the women here will routinely put on full make-up, an Hermes scarf, and a floor-length chinchilla in order to run out to the store for dishwashing liquid.

We Americans, of course, tend to take the opposite view. Our day-to-day clothes aren't designed for other people's appraising, aristrocratic gazes. Frankly, we don't care what you think. Our clothes are designed for us -- for our personal comfort, for our facility of movement. We are all about casual sportswear. In fact, we take the concept of "sportswear" quite literally. In America, people will weigh 400 pounds but dress like Olympic athletes: track suits, hoodies, jogging pants with racing stripes down the side. We Yankees drive everywhere, but dress as if we're always en route to the health club or the ball park: leggings, tank-tops, sweatshirts, baseball caps. To us, putting on eyeliner and an Armani jacket to buy milk is absurd.

And when we actually exercise, we're even more casual. Barring the Yuppies, singles, and L.A. types, most Americans do not dress up to sweat. Our approach to workout gear goes something like this: Hey, see this old, bleach-stained Chuck Mangione t-shirt I just found on the floor of my closet? Before I rip it up and use it for dust rags, why not wear it to the gym?

Most Europeans here would sooner die than work out in a ratty, oversized tee. When folks here do exercise (and they exercise a lot -- everyone's always skiing, biking, hiking, and hang-gliding here. Switzerland is as kenetic as an ant farm), they wear specific outfits: hiking boots and khaki shorts; high tech ski gear; flourescent Lycra biking outfits that seem to have been designed by gay men in the 80's...every activity has its couture, its special look. Nobody here, but nobody, wears sweatshirts.

Except me, of course. I live right down the block from my gym, and I'll be damned if I'm going to put on heels and a skirt just to cross the street and change into my workout clothes in a basement. And so I show up at my health club already dressed to exercise in -- you guessed it -- stretchy pants, an old t-shirt, and, la piece de resistence, a hoodie with the words "New York" emblazonned on it.

And so the other women eye me contemptuously. They'd sooner be seen naked than dressed the way I am in public. And ironically, they are. Because while European women are loath to be seen in their workout clothes outside of the gym, conversely, they think nothing of being seen without their workout clothes inside it. They lounge around naked in the Women's Locker Room for hours.

Unlike American women, who dash in and out of locker rooms as quickly as possible, and cower behind curtains and locker doors to strip, and wrap ourselves in towels like tourniquets on our way to the showers -- our body language and averted gazes crying Don't look at me! -- the Europeans here feel no compunction at all about standing buck-naked in front of the mirror in the dressing room and chatting on their cell phones. They don't mind if you see them wriggling into a thong, then sitting around topless as they clip their toenails. They'll parade around in the nude as they dry their hair, put on deodorant, apply their lipstick. They have little of the Puritanism or body shame that we Americans do.

They are who they are. Voici: their bodies. To them, nudity is no big deal.

Just don't walk outside in sweatpants.

Foie Gras, Freemarkets & Les Femmes

2008-12-07T13:39:00.003+01:00

Since I didn't blog last week, here's a foot-long hot dog of a blog to compensate...

A funny thing happens in Geneva at the start of the holiday season. The prices drop. That is, at least, for such traditional staples as foie gras (traditionally consumed with Sauternes and without any PETA-induced guilt on Christmas) and champagne (for New Year's, like the rest of us). Go into the local supermarkets, and suddenly, as December nears, these high-end luxe goods go on sale, precisely when they're in demand the most. And this happens every year -- it ain't just the recession.

Peculiarly, the Swiss have the nearly socialist idea that at least once a year, during the holidays, everybody should be able to afford a little luxury. Granted, this isn't exactly the height of radicalism -- oh, foie gras is now only 24 francs a slice! Moet is now down down to 28 francs a bottle! Vive la revolution! -- but it is exactly the opposite of what happens in the USA, where the holidays have traditionally been viewed by retailers as a time to bilk us bubbly-swilling partiers for all that we're worth.

But what happens in Swiss liquor stores and supermarkets is emblematic of a deeper cultural schism. Though capitalism and fierce competition are alive and well here, Switzerland is not a nation where the freemarket reigns supreme above all else. It has a tighly-controlled marketplace. And sometimes, the common good takes precedent.

Hence, it's considered more important to ensure that everyone can afford a little champagne on New Years than it is to profit as much as possible from sales of Veuve Clicquot.

When the Amazing Bob and I first moved here, this completely bowled me over. Whoo-hoo, I cried, as I went down to Denner, the discount liquor store, and stocked up on Mumm's Cordon Rouge (marked down to 20 francs, or about $14 at the time). "That's it," I announced, uncorking it, "I'm never leaving Switzerland. Tomorrow, I'm going down to the embassy to apply for asylum."

And yet, over time, even Leftie/Gauchiste moi has come to see the nuances --as well as the flip side -- of a regulated culture that does not always put profits ahead of people.

In Switzerland, stores are generally open from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. and often, they're closed for one to two hours during lunch, too. This, of course, is horribly inconvenient for anyone who's working: good luck getting groceries unless you sneak off. It's also not great for shopkeepers as far as maximizing profits are concerned. So why are these hours kept? Because, the Swiss reason, lunchtime and evenings are sacred family times. (Most school children are sent home for lunch.) At 7 p.m., people should be home with their loved ones, not manning a check-out counter or pricing a lawnmower.

Most stores are also closed on Sundays. Why? Again, it's the family thing, mixed with a bit of old time religion: Sundays are a day to spend quality time hiking, biking, skiing, or resting -- not running around some shopping mall in a frenzy of consumerism. Make like the Lord and take a day off. In some villages, the Swiss will even scold you for gardening on a Sunday. I shit thee not. They complain if you hang out your laundry.

On one hand, living in a culture that does not completely revolve around the marketplace is extremely calming. Once Bob and I got used to stocking up on groceries before the weekend, we found that Sundays here force us to chill-the-fuck-out magnificently. With everything closed, the streets of Geneva become a little like a sensory-deprivation tank (ok, except for the scenery), and so we're content just to stay home (or go out into the countryside) and drool. This can be a beautiful thing.

That is, until Monday, when I alone brave the supermarkets to restock our Lilliputian fridge, hit the post office, pay the bills. I do this because as a writer, I work at home, and therefore have the more flexible hours. But even if I didn't, the Swiss would expect me to do these things.

Because here's that flip-side of Swiss humanism, of the modified store hours and community-minded pricing: they are predicated not only on a desire for balance, protectionism, and family life, but upon deeply traditional values. The Swiss marketplace presumes that someone will always home -- home to do the shopping between 8 a.m.-noon during the week, home to prepare a hot lunch for the children, home to make sure that all is in order for Sunday. And guess what? This someone is presumed to possess a vagina. If it's not the femme de foyer (housewife), it's the femme de menage (housekeeper). But either way, it's the femme who's expected to be the angel of the house.

A few years ago, the Swiss, who vote on referendums every 2-3 months, considered a proposition to allow cantons (the Swiss equivalent of states or provinces) to extend their store hours. Huge posters opposing the measure sprung up all over Geneva. They showed a cherubic baby, tears streaming bathetically down his face, beside the quote, "Mama, I want you, but you are gone. You have to work."

Mind you, the proposition at issue allowed stores to stay open for exactly one extra hour. One day a week. Thursdays.

Geneva passed it. Other cantons in Switzerland did not.

Renowned for watches, efficiency, and punctuality, Switzerland is perversely behind the times when it comes to women's rights. Women didn't get the vote here until 1971. Age requirements, gender, (and implicitly, appearances) are still included in job listings. Abortion was only de-criminalized in 2002. And the marketplace, with its holiday spirit and family-friendly hours, is structured as an impediment to women working outside the home.

The reduced-price foie gras. The champagne on sale. The free Sundays. It's all good stuff. But there's another price you pay for it.

In the city that never sleeps, the girl who never shuts up

2008-11-18T13:47:00.003+01:00

So I'm back in the USA for two weeks for business, pleasure, and -- that purgatory of food products -- turkey. I'm here to give thanks, inflict myself on my relatives, record the audio version of my upcoming book, and, real American that I am (take that, Sarah Palin), I am here to shop. But perhaps more than anything else, I am here to talk. Returning to the Motherland means fourteen days of nonstop yakking. We Americans, I've discovered -- especially us Noo Yawkahs -- never shut the fuck up -- and I for one, can't get enough of it.

Admittedly, when the Amazing Bob and I first moved to Geneva in 2002, I couldn't unpack my suitcases quickly enough and begin shedding my red-white-and-blue skin. Oh, how I wanted to assimilate, to become a cultured, erudite, sophisticated European!

(Amazingly, all I thought I needed to to achieve this was the French I vaguely remembered from high school, which enabled me to perform such awe-inspiring cultural feats as ordering grilled cheese sandwiches and observing that "the house, she is big" and "the cat, she is brown." I had no idea that everything about me - my energy, the way I grinned at nothing in particular, how I gaited down the street swinging my arms, and sat in a voluptuous sprawl, and guilelessly poured out my heart to strangers on trains -- would mark me, from 100 yards away, excusez-moi, from 100 meters, as one of those Damn Yankees.)

At that moment in time, I was mortified to be an American: our culture seemed to be nothing but a big, plastic, supersized mall full of fast food, trashy television, and obese, gun-nut, Bible-thumping yokels (oh, keep your pants on, obese, gun-nut-Bible thumping yokels -- this blog isn't over yet) The Europeans, on the other hand, had classical architecture, fine wines, and seven weeks of vacation; in France, chefs and intellectual philosophers were considered to be rock stars. We'd spawned Bill O'Reilly, they had Alain Ducaisse. (note: have fun with my spelling y'all. It's notoriously bad).

And so, for my first year abroad, I balked at speaking English or identifying myself as American. Granted, the combination of Sept. 11th and the subsequent Bush Doctrine and Iraq War had a lot to do with this, too. I was not only embarrassed, but scared. I prended un verre at the local cafes, put on full make-up and heels to go buy laundry detergent, and tried in every way to dial my volume down from an American Spinal Tap "eleven" to a whispery Swiss "three." Whenever someone European said that they hadn't realized I was American, I took this as a compliment.

And yet: Quelle surprise. After about a year of living elegantly, my perspectives began to shift. Diana Vreeland (again spelling, anyone?) once remarked that "elegance is refusal," and I began to see that the Swiss and French tended to "Just Say No" an awful lot. The flip-side of the richness of the culture around me was stinginess - plus snobbery and a certain ossified pessimism. Manners, I realized (duh) could be as fascistic as they were civilizing. Everything was done a certain way, and everything and everyone had their place. Fin. End of discussion.

Despite all that was going on in the world, I found myself missing American exuberance, our optimism, our candy-striping, sunny-faced, star-spangled Can-Do-ism. Our happy sloppiness, Our improvisation. And more than anything else, I missed our out-sized, confessional, emotional incontinence. I missed the way that Americans just talk.

We Americans don't give a shit if your great-great-great grandmother back in Dumfries once showed her ankle to a vicar, or if your name has a "von" in it, or if you went to one of the Grandes Ecoles. We don't care about your pedigree. (As far as we're concerned, pedigree is for dogs). We just want to have a conversation --even if we're, say, on a check-out line at Bed, Bath & Beyond or waiting tables at Applebee's. Hi, my name is Heather? we'll say. And I'll be your server today? And - oh, that's such a lovely necklace you have on. Did your husband here give it to you? He did? Oh, that is so sweet! (To your husband) How sweet are you? My boyfriend? You see this? Well, he's not officially my boyfriend, he's sort of, well, it's complicated -- but he just like, whatever, he got me this necklace for my birthday last week ...here, you see?...it's from Belize, where he goes scuba diving? What? It was your birthday last week, too? You're also a Sagittarius? Ohmygod. You know, there's this new book out by these identical-twin astrologers called the 'astro-twins',* and they say that this year is supposed to be totally amazing for Sagittariuses...

One shot, and we're off.

In New York City, a 60-year-old woman with hair dyed the color over overcooked-carrots and a voice like a car-wheel on a gravel driveway will come up to me in Central Park and a propos of nothing, she'll say, "Look at this, all these strollers! Twins, twins, nothin' but twins! It's like, if you have only one kid at a time anymore, it's not normal!" The UPS delivery guy asks me, "How you doin,' beautiful? You have a good day so far? You doin' some shoppin'? Yeah. Whaddya buy? Oh yeah? I just got one of those for my nephew..." The women spritzing perfume at Macy's, the clerk at the dry cleaners, the plumber at the hotel, people on buses, on park benches, at newsstands, sitting beside you on the Amtrak to D.C.: if they're not talking to someone on their cellphones, they're talkin' to you.

And I love it. Oh, do I miss this abroad: The outpouring of stories. The great, primordial ooze of personality and accents and anecdotes.

They don't do this in Europe. Maybe because they've all been at each other's throats for 3,000+ years, or because they're all living on top of one another...I don't know. But I do know that for all the crises we're facing at the moment, and for all our own shortcomings, we Americans are still an amazingly warmhearted, garrulous bunch. We're oversized puppies, really, hungry for attention and eager to connect. We're loud and proud and big, but we're friendly as hell.

And I cannot tell you what a relief this is to be around.

Or maybe I can. Do you have a minute?

_________

*a shameless plug for my friend Ophi's book

No Verduns or Vicksbergs here. Chocolate, anyone?

2008-11-11T17:44:00.005+01:00

Veteran's Day in Switzerland might as well be a holiday in Borneo or Guatemala: it's something that occurs elsewhere. It's someone else's commemoration of someone else's problem. If not for the international news, you'd scarcely know that today is the anniversary of the armistice. The Swiss are no dummies. For the past two centuries, they've thrived on their neutrality in the center of what has largely been a non-stop battlefield. When it came to both World Wars, the Swiss took a pass. Non, merci. Nein, Danke. No, Grazie, they said. If you don't mind, we're going to sit these out. Well, officially, anyway...

Drive ten minutes across the border to France (which is visible from our window), however, and you'll see enshrined in every single town, smack in the center of the square, a World War One memorial to Les enfants qui sont morts pour La France: The children (and many of them were children, of course - 16, 17 years old) who died for France. And in a town that could've scarcely have had more than a population of 200, there will be 26 names, and many of the last names will be identical. Fathers, sons, brothers, and uncles all obliterated together.

In case that's not sobering enough, there's usually an addendum on the memorial, added 27 years later, for the next generation of "les enfants" killed in World War Two.

In the northeast, at Verdun, you'll see land that is still traumatized from the shelling that occurred almost a century ago; the topography is like a giant egg carton, endless acre upon acre of consecutive bomb craters. Towns were literally wiped off the map. To this day, nothing grows in the soil. Seeing it is visceral. It makes it easier to understand the French acquiescence to the Germans in World War Two. If that kind of devastation occurred on my home territory, I might tell the Germans that they could walk right in, too. Fine, install a puppet government. Take the Jews. Just please, please, no more bloodbaths. And spare my last remaining male relative.

But Switzerland doesn't have any historic battlefield to visit - no Verduns, no Vicksbergs, for that matter. When you go to a town square in Switzerland, all you see are begonias, and rustic stone cisterns, and maybe a bronze statue of some hallowed, constipated-looking educator.

True, the Swiss have run a lucrative side-business for years renting themselves out as mercenaries, and they did some battling during All Things Napoleon, too. But the last time the Genevoise were officially at war with another country was 400 years ago, when they fought off invading Savoyards in 1602. The most famous moment of this battle was when a Swiss noblewoman repelled the attackers at the city walls by pouring a cauldron of boiling soup on them (hey, it was dinner time. Don't underestimate the power of soup!)

Today, the event is commemorated each year with a holiday called L'Escalade. This is marked by several festivities, the most important of which involves smashing a cauldron made entirely of chocolate (filled with marzipan veggies) and devouring it.

There are many reasons to love Switzerland, but for me, the combination of pacifism and big chocolate cauldrons is pretty unbeatable.

A whopping 24 people died the Escalade. Every year, their names are read in memoriam. The fact that more Americans have died in one day due to whack-jobs with semi-automatic weapons makes this even more stunning.

And so, while people in the four nations that frame Switzerland's borders (I'm sorry, but Lichtenstein shouldn't really count as a country; it's a tax haven, thank you), are mourning their dead with a solemnity and gravitas that's simply alien to us Americans (sales at Macy's anybody?), the Swiss are going about their business as usual because they have no veterans. And if I have one prayer for the world, it's that one day, this will be the case for all of us. Let us have nothing more to do but read names from four centuries ago and eat a giant chocolate cauldron.

It's morning here in Geneva, too.

2008-11-05T21:43:00.005+01:00

Election night for us here in Switzerland was actually the morning, since the first U.S. polls closed at midnight our time. In Geneva, a mere 700 Obama supporters from around the globe piled into ballrooms at the Hotel Richmond starting at 10 p.m. for an extraordinary party that went on through breakfast.

As elsewhere, there was champagne, banners reading "HOPE," a tidal wave of cheering and weeping. President-elect Obama himself made an appearance, albeit in the form of a live-sized cardboard cut-out in the foyer of the hotel that everyone took turns posing beside goofily, grinning with pride. (Tres originale, n'est pas? I, sycophant of sychophants, was a repeat offender).

I don't think the blogophere needs anymore hyperbole (albeit accurate) about how fucking phenomenal it was to be a part of history being made -- or extolling how heartening and redemptive it was to see the better angels of America's nature prevail last night, from the breathtaking election outcome right down to McCain's elegiac concession speech. And does it still need to be said, either, that literally overnight, America's standing in the world has been revised and restored?

Yet through the fog of my ecstatic exhaustion (read: hangover), I will add just a few more notes to the global Hallelujah Chorus:

In the foyer of the ballroom: a large printed red-and-white poster of the Swiss flag reading simply: Four languages. One people. One hope. And in tiny letters at the bottom: Switzerland for Barack Obama.

As Obama gives his victory speech on a giant television screen overhead, an African woman calls back to her homeland on her cellphone, laughing and stomping her feet, she is so joyful. "He won," she shouts across the continents, dancing as she speaks. "Tell everyone in the family, he's president. He's the president of the United States! Of the world!"

A Danish man spontaneously hugs me. "I am so proud of America," he declares, tearing up. "You are such an inspiration."

Texts, emails, phone calls arrive from friends nearby. They are from France, Cameroon, Morocco. People haven't slept. They've been riveted. They've been thinking of all of their American friends. They tell me how relieved they are, how admiring, how jubiliant. "Ma soeur," one of them cries. "It is a new day." Another says simply: Thank you.

Gay Par-ree, politics, and voodoo dolls

2008-10-31T10:06:00.011+01:00

Since I was away and didn't get to write on Tuesday, here's a double-shot, double-wide, grande latte of a blog for this week, complete with visual aid.

So, with the world economy in a death-spiral and the upcoming election giving us palpitations, the Amazing Bob and I had absolutely no choice but to go to Paris this week to crash our friends' honeymoon. To be fair, our friends, Carolyn and Susan, actually invited us. (They were married in San Francisco, held a reception in the Blue Ridge Mountains, then headed to the City of Light to recuperate.) This is all the more reason for voters support gay marriage in California, by the way. More weddings=more parties. Free food. Flowing booze. Good for the spirit, good for the economy. Why these slogans aren't a part of the battle over Proposition 8 in California, I'll never understand...

But anyway, Paris is only a three-hour train ride away. To say, "we spent a couple of days in Paris" when you live in Geneva is like saying "We spent a couple of days in New York" when you live in Baltimore. And the parallels, in many ways, continue from there.

But alas, there was little respite from politics in Paris. The French are almost as obsessed with the American election as we are. All Europeans are. Ironically, they experience the daily effects our government far more palpably than we glassy-eyed Yanks do.

So far in the West, except for American troops and their families, it's been European civilians who've borne the literal scars of current U.S. foreign policy. The Spanish commuters on trains in Madrid, the Londoners aboard the buses and tubes that were bombed.. they've experienced more direct payback for Iraq than we have. When an American president decides to wage a war, much of the violence, Europeans know, will take place on their soil first.

Until recently, every building constructed here in neutral Switzerland was required to have a bomb shelter. Why? Because in the event of a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, the Swiss figured that some of the missiles would inevitably fall short of their targets and land on Geneva and Zurich instead. (I shit thee not. Our apartment building, constructed ten years ago, has a bomb shelter. It now doubles as a storage locker for people's Christmas decorations and bicycles).

Similarly, people here in Geneva who do field work for the UN see the most intimate ways in which U.S. policies directly impact the world. Want to try saving the lives of women in Africa who routinely die of AIDS or in childbirth? Well, okay, but we'll give you funding only if you agree not to distribute condoms or discuss abortion...

And then, of course, there are the financial shock waves of the mortgage crisis flattening banks in every direction.

For a bunch of flag-wavers and chest-pumpers, we Americans are strangely oblivious to our own power and impact in the world. I've regularly heard my fellow citizens saying things like, "I don't see how our elections are anyone else's business," "All politicians are the same in the end," and "Politics really don't affect me." But you're not going to hear those sentiments here in Europe. Well, at least not about the American government, anyway.

During the French election in 2002 between Chirac and Le Penn, Bob and I listened to French citizens interviewed on tv bitch bitch bitch about how all French politicians are corrupt, and how none of them represent the 'real people,' and how they don't see how their vote makes a difference, etc. It was strangely comforting. We almost felt like we were back home.

But not now, not with the American elections. 95% of the French polled say they'd vote for Obama if they could (which, unfortunately, is probably the kiss of death for his campaign. Nothing like the French liking something to kill it back home...) Some towns even sport campaign posters for him. In a tony boutique in Paris, Bob and I saw a crystal etching of Obama with the world "HOPE" engraved on it for sale.

Europeans often resent Americans. They see us as the global teenagers we are, full of energy, creativity, optimism, and strength -- which they envy -- as well as arrogance, narcissism, aggression, and dangerous naivete, which they fear. But as insufferable as teenagers are, everyone wants them to be okay in the end, to grow up, to succeed, to shine. Because if not, what's the alternative? The death of our collective future, the death of our hope.

On some level, I believe, the Europeans want to see the American Dream survive, even as they begrudge us it, because again: what is the alternative, really? On some level, they're as besotted with our best visions and hopes as we are. They want to believe -- in spite of their cynicism.

For eight years, they've seen an American president who personifies everything Europeans themselves loath and have struggled to overcome: imperialism, a sense of divine right, thuggishness, unilateralism, religious fundamentalism, small-mindedness, parochialism. Bush and the Republicans' policies have diminished US standing across the globe and undone 60 years' worth of good will.

Obama, in the world's eyes, stands as a direct antidote to this: biracial, global, visionary, articulate, broad-minded, brilliant. He represents what other nations believe to be the best of America -- our promise that anyone can thrive here, that "only in America" is such audacious success possible. If Obama were elected, he would "rebrand" America over night. He would restore our country's image and become a living embodiment of our best, symbollic selves. This isn't me speaking. This is what I hear from Europeans.

But lest I've made it seem like everyone on this side of the pond is high-minded and Democratic-leaning, there is at least one person who's been stunningly, politically petty. French headlines this week have also been fixating on President Nicholas Sarkosy having a hissy-fit over a bunch of voodoo dolls that have been manufactured in his likeness. Buyers can stick pins in parts of him labeled "Travailler plus pour gagner plus" (work more to earn more) and "texto" (SMS messages), as well as other references to his recent policies, mini-scandals, foibles.

A politician with thicker skin and a broader sense of humor (dare I say an American, perhaps?) might have seized upon the dolls as a chance to make light of him- or herself and thus further endear himself to the public. Have the lyrics "That Voodoo that you do so well" playing in the background at every public appearance for the next few weeks or so, and just yuk it up. Embrace the humor, own your own silliness -- exploit it, even, for effect. See what a good sport you are? But no. The French might call Sarkosy "President Bling-Bling" because of his American-style political aspirations, but as far as this Yankee is concered, any president who isn't proud to have an action figure made for him -- albeit one with pins stuck in its head -- isn't really one of us after all.

In closing, I'll just add this: for three days, we celebrated Carolyn and Susan's wedding all over Paris. Whenever restaurant owners heard that our friends were honeymooning, they didn't bat an eye. They simply smiled and said enthusiastically, "Congratulations" and raised their glasses. Vive La France. Vive love everywhere.

Get Your Yodel On

2008-10-20T18:20:00.006+02:00

So okay: Geneva, Switzerland. Word on the street is that it's a fabulous place to live, but that you wouldn't want to visit there. This is exactly right. It's a lovely, textured city set on a gorgeous lake with mountains ringing it. But show your guests this lake, and these mountains, and the "Vielle Ville" (Old Town) with its Calvinist-inspired medieval architecture, and you're pretty much done.

Unless, of course, you want to take them to the Museum of the Red Cross/Red Crescent for a multi-media experience of all the world's human and natural atrocities over the past two centuries. Or the house where Rousseau once...Zzzz...Snore... Or the Museum of the Reformation, which, as you might imagine, is a particular hit with teenagers.

To be fair, I'm not complaining. If you spend your time as I do -- sitting on your ass alone in a room for months on end typing and deleting -- Geneva is a godsend: elegant, not too hard on the senses, slightly hermetic. The week that the Iraq War broke out, headlines of both local newspapers decried the fact that the Swiss village of Gruyeres was overcharging for fondue.

Every season, there's also a festival (fete if you want to get all French about it)involving music, and you can crawl out from under your rock and be a human being for a few days with other citizens of the world. You'll likely be dancing to West African music with West Africans, Bulgarian music with Bulgarians, etc.

But you will always know you are in Switzerland. Because, inevitably there will be a Swiss oompah band, too, trying to keep up with the times by playing "Oops, I Think I Did It Again" and "Dancing Queen." You really haven't heard these songs in all their glory until you've heard them played on a tuba accompanied by an accordion.

The first time the Amazing Bob and I heard the Swiss' oompah version of Britney Spears' greatest hit, the tops of our heads almost came off. For about a week afterwards, I kept suggesting we adopt hip-hop names as a way of sort of resisting the culture: I could be Su-Z-Jay, and my husband could be The Notorious B.O.B. "'Yo. Bon-jour," I went around saying. "Shout out to all my peeps in the Alps."

"Qui est le mec', baby?" I asked Bob. "You da mec? You da mec?"

Oddly, my husband ignored me. Later, he said that he kind of liked the oompah band -- and that Richard Thompson had done a cover of "Oops, I Think I Did It Again" too. So much for our career as a Swiss ex-pat rap group, which, I admit now, was every bit as terrible an idea as it sounds. Though Richard Thompson's version of Britney Spears' song turned out to be pretty good...

Anyway, that's this week's Postcard from Smack Dab in the Center. Hope you've enjoyed it. I'm going to try blogging every Tuesday and see how it goes. Until then, as always, buy my books, and thank you for reading.

Welcome. Like You Care What I Think?

2008-10-14T13:30:00.001+02:00

So, like, Bonjour. Under orders from my publicist, I am to begin blogging today from my kitchen table here in Geneva, Switzerland, where I've been living with my husband, the Amazing Bob, for the past three or five years or so. The idea is that millions of readers will be hanging on my every word from overseas based on the success of my last two books-- which actually had very little to do with living in Europe -- but lots to do with attitude and ineptitude and my own highly partisan, potty-mouthed opinions. So tah-dah. Here we are.

Over the next few days/weeks/months, I'll be delivering dispatches from Kitscherland, otherwise known as One of the Whitest Places on Earth, except for Geneva, where I live, which is so international that it actually rivals my hometown of New York City (is that blasphemy?) Riding the buses here, I'm part of a daily smorgasbord of the United Nations: African men in kente cloth, Arabic women in hajibs, Italian teenagers with rhinestone cellphones and hair gel, stooped Portuguese men in tweed jackets, blue-haired French women with moth-balled Chanel and Chihuahuas in hangbags, cool blondes speaking Russian, bedraggled tourists speaking Dutch, diplomats in pin-stripes speaking Swahili. And then, of course, there are us Americans. You can always find us because we're the ones speaking English the top of our lungs, drowning out everyone else on the bus. There's a metaphor in this, but that's for another time. Anyway, thus begins my story. I'll keep it updated -- but only when I feel I have something genuinely interesting or funny to say. Life is too short for me to waste your time.

But if you are still in the mood to procrastinate, why not pre-order my new book on Amazon.com? It's called "Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven," it comes out in March 2009, and it is about being overseas and getting into all sorts of trouble-- except that it takes place in China, not Yurup. It's a true story. It's funny, it's harrowing, it's a page-turner. There. I've done it. The shameless self-promotion as instructed. Now I can get back just being a writer.
But please, stay tuned. And thank you for reading.

Today's Adorable Post

2008-09-19T07:59:00.000+02:00

Today I learned how to hyperlink. For instance to my fetching and brilliant friend Marc Acito who exposed me to a litany of adventures, including, but not limited to, visiting a submarine.

Losing my blog virginity

2008-09-18T06:07:00.000+02:00

This is my very first time blogging. I have no idea who any of the people in this photo are besides Floyd. I've lost it with total strangers...