Category: Culture

Everything cultural that interests me: music, reading, science, arts in general, news, photography…

Swiss Culture Shock [en]

We sometimes feel like the German-speaking part of Switzerland is almost another country. Indeed, we often feel culturally closer to France, which is within eyes reach on the other side of the lake, than to our fellow countrymen who live behind the Röstigraben”.

Maybe “culture shock” is a bit strong to describe what happened to me in Zürich University library – but I was told “welcome to Zürich!” when I told the story back in Lausanne.

First shock: no bags or jackets allowed in the library, compulsory lockers, and a guard in front of the entrance. I used to like guarded entrances in India, because they usually guaranteed “safe space” where I could relax. But in Switzerland, it gave me an uneasy feeling. What is there to guard against here? In Lausanne, the only “entrance guards” I’ve seen are in front of night-clubs or bars in evenings (and preferably in the—relatively—worst areas of town).

Second: no Internet connection at all in the library building (apart from very limited access to the library research site). How do these people do any research? Anyway. It was very bad news for me, because I had forgotten the carefully written-down list of articles I had to photocopy at home, and was hoping it could be quickly scanned and emailed to me. No luck.

(Actually, I had the list dictated to me on the phone, and it was a lot simpler. That shows how web-dependant my thinking is becoming.)

Third: I was allowed to go into the library storeroom myself to retrieve the volumes I needed. (They’d never let you do that in Lausanne, no way!)

Fourth: I was actually allowed to borrow these publication back issues and take them home with me! (I’m almost positive you can’t borrow publication back issues here… I’d have to check. I wasn’t expecting to be able to, anyway.)

Fifth: after having signed up for an account (online!) I asked how many books I was allowed to borrow at the same time: fifty! In Lausanne, I can take 16 (which is really not enough, honestly, especially when you’re doing your dissertation). You get to borrow fifty if you are doing your PhD or teaching.

So, in summary, what seemed to be starting out as a very unpleasant experience indeed ended up being pretty positive. Maybe this strange mixture of “worse than at home” and “better than at home” is characteristic of cultural variations…

Claustrophobie [en]

Il y a cet immeuble qui pousse devant mon balcon et ça m’embête énormément.

Photo d'un bâtiment en construction devant mon balcon

Je ne vois bientôt plus le ciel quand je suis à  mon bureau. L’espace autour de mon appartement a rétréci et on est en train de me voler ma lumière.

J’enrage d’impuissance.

Je voudrais leur crier d’arrêter de construire, leur hurler que je ne vais pas pouvoir vivre comme ça, sans l’espace et les montagnes devant ma fenêtre. Que tout s’arrête, là , maintenant, comme c’est — ou plutôt, comme c’était il y a un mois, quand l’immeuble n’était encore qu’un grand trou.

Je ne peux que regarder l’espace se combler de briques rouges, chaque jour un peu plus haut, jusqu’à  m’emprisonner complètement.

Je ne veux pas déménager. Mais comment vais-je pouvoir survivre à  ça?

Mirror Project [en]

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all…?

Definitely not me on this Mirror Project picture.

English Culture Shock [en]

I don’t often get culture shocks in England. I did get one this time, though.

At the end of a live performance like a concert or a play in Switzerland, the audience applauds the artists until their hands ache too much to continue. The quality of the show usually determines how keen everybody will be to continue clapping despite the pain.

Curtain call follows curtain call until the audience wears out.

So, after the excellent performance that Danielle and I had travelled down to London to see, I was prepared to keep on clapping my hands until my skin went on strike.

I remained in mid-clap with my mouth wide open when after the second curtain call, everybody went silent and started getting out of their seats. They all knew that the artists had left for good.

It took me a couple of minutes to come back to my senses, close my mouth, put my hands on my lap and pick up my jacket. Obviously, two curtain calls was the rule in the country of dreary winter days.

Dvorakitty [en]

Allow me, for once, to jump on a meme bandwagon. Here is my Dvorakitty:

Dvorak with Bagha-kitty's head.

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p class=”note”>[Thanks to Meryl for the photoshopping. I’m hopeless at that kind of stuff.]

It’s nowhere as funny as Meryl’s Dvorakitty, of course. And it’s actually pretty spooky to see my cat looking at me from the top of that body.

Little explanation: Dvorak is the author of a pretty shallow article on the ‘Blog’ phenomenon. He said something about people posting less pictures of their cats on their sites, too. Not sure if it was supposed to be a good or a bad thing…

Update, July 2007: hunting in the archives:

Where is the bird? [en]

A bird has been hidden in this picture. Can you find it?

Picture of cat with bird hidden in it.

[Raph, je sais pas où tu les trouves!]

Anita suggests a caption contest. So here we go!

  • Send in your caption(s) by email before Feb. 26 (Tuesday)
  • Français and English allowed. Hindi permitted only if you explain the line to me.
  • Prize: signed picture (yes!) of me wearing my AntiBloggie prize. Cool, uh?

Studies [en]

Just in case you were wondering what my final philosophy exam was about: Ricœur and Changeux: What Makes Us Think?

Voyages [en]

A lire absolument (pour ceux qui aiment les gens qui savent écrire): Voyages.

Très joli texte de Romain qui, je l’espère, nous en réserve encore bien d’autres du genre!

Langage: analyse et synthèse [en]

[…] Le changement d’échelle [herméneutique -> sémantique lexicale -> sémantique structurale] du problème [le double-sens] fait apparaître une constitution fine qui seule permet un traitement scientifique du problème: la voie de l’analyse, de la décomposition en unités plus petites, c’est la voie même de la science, comme on le voit dans l’usage de cette analyse en traduction automatique. Mais je voudrais montrer en retour que la réduction au simple consacre l’élimination d’une fonction fondamentale du symbolisme qui ne peut apparaître qu’au niveau supérieur de manifestation, et qui met le symbolisme en relation avec la réalité, avec l’expérience, avec le monde, avec l’existence (je laisse à  dessein le choix libre entre ces termes). Bref, je voudrais établir que la voie de l’analyse et la voie de la synthèse ne coïncident pas, ne sont pas équivalentes: sur la voie de l’analyse se découvrent les éléments de la signification, qui n’ont plus aucun rapport avec les choses dites; sur la voie de la synthèse, se révèle la fonction de la signification qui est de dire, et finalement de “montrer“.

Paul Ricœur, Le problème du double-sens (in Le conflit des interprétations)

Live Nude Cats [en]

Head straight for livenudecats.com: those two cats show it all!

warning: if you feel you might be offended by the view of naked cats, please refrain from viewing the site.