Photos: December 2005 Archives

Since business is going so well (swimmingly in fact) , I thought I'd treat myself to a expensive, fucking watch.  That's right, I put the verb and the adjective in the right places.  Its a !@#$ing watch - and the most expensive I've ever seen, as far as watches of that sort go.  But it wasn't an expensive watch by any means.  It was a fair price for a "nice piece" of art.

I went to the premiere of an exhibition/sale of a local collector's artwork: 1000-objekte.  It was nice, something to do; and a break from the cold weather outside.  The proprietor/collector, Peter Grunbaum, was very cheerful and immediately noticed my interest in his collection of watches - one of which clearly stood out, or rather looked out of place as it was a Franck Muller sitting along side a few designer Swatches and an old pocket watch.  Had I stumbled upon a garage-sale find?  Then again, this is Switzerland and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had said, "That's two-hundred thousand swiss francs."  But he didn't.  When I asked if it was real, he said, "No.  Its a fuck watch."  What was that?  Surly he meant a "fake" watch, but it got lost in translation.

At my confusion, and with much delight, he removed the watch from it's box and opened it to reveal the reverse side.  Ah!  While, indeed this was a perfect replica, the forger had a sense of humor, as did Peter - as did I.  So I bought it.

In the spirit of remakes, I'm playing:  Just Like Heaven from the album "Piece By Piece" by Katie Melua.

Oh my!  What a disastrous choice Zurich made by getting rid of the old lights in exchange for the new ones that run along Bahnhofstrasse during the Christmas holidays.  You can see them in the photo here, or at WiFi-Art.com, where there's a great shot of them in the dead of night.  They are the white toothpick looking things lining the center of the street.  Apparently the old lights were too old and too expensive to maintain, so they gathered all the smart minds of the city to devise a fancy, new decoration for Zurich's main shopping district.  In a nod toward Swiss clocks, its supposed to be "The World's Largest Timepiece" - designed Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler.  Well the people of the city hate it; and I can see why.  Its just plain ugly.  And the lights are too white.  It looks industrial, not festive.

There is still a section of Zurich where you can see the old-style lights - on Rennweg.  They look warm and inviting, so I understand why the new lights are the talk of the town.  Zurich is old, small and charming; and Bahnhofstrasse is like New York's Broadway.  But they ruined it with white test tubes.  However, from what I here, the talk is that the smart minds are being asked to reconvene early next year to "fix" the situation.  What I'd like to know is, "Was making a poor choice cheaper than keeping the old ones?"

Click on either of the two photos and tell me what you think.

While considering this, I played: City of Blinding Lights from the album "The Complete U2 - How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" by U2.

I've been traveling so much lately that I'm looking forward to Christmas not as a time of celebration, but as a time to sleep and relax.  In the last six weeks, I've been overnight in Miami twice, Maryland once, Switzerland once, DC for a quick one day meeting and I'm  heading back to the land of chocolate again next week.  Its been go-go for so long I don't know if the milk in the fridge is old or new.  Come Christmas its old movies and lots of sleep.

While writing this I played: Show #20 Drugs, Sex, and The Last Man Standing from the Podcast "Cush:Things I Say" by Cush.