Switzerland – IT IN Place

Art Addiction

alex — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:54:46 +0000

Vernissage TV. I think it’s produced out of Basel Switzerland (go figure) and it’s heavely loaded to European shows (though they seem to be doing some tapes of New York as well). It’s like getting to go virtually to a museum or gallery. Great eye candy for your computer.

Hanging Myself

alex — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:52:25 +0000

Not funny really in this time of Infinite Jests, but maybe it is really exactly how I feel. I mean in the sense of eternal return, or Metampsychosis, or however you spell it and whatever Joyce was talking about…. I’m hanging the show. I feel like a worker… in the Marxist sense of that word: working on the ladders with the back into it. I mean to say that hanging a book is a physical act. I’ve been training for it like a boxer at the gym.. but my fucking thumbs are still weak for the push pins and the map pins and the pins and needles and needles and pins…..feel like a carpenter… feel like Christ crucified… stigmata on my thumb. LOL. music here is some odd Brian Wilson post Smile mid mad period song. Fucking lovely and perfect fit for my raw time lapse. More to come…

2002

alex — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:36:09 +0000

Some old footage of Fasnacht and a new drawing.

Morgestraich

alex — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:52:51 +0000

morgestraich Basel Fasnacht from Alex Itin on Vimeo.

Hell's Gate

alex — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 07:26:33 +0000

Another Library collab with Chuck Sassoon (before and after)

Brown Ain't No Place For White Shoes

alex — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:13:33 +0000

Been on some sort of reunion vibe these last few months… some sort of black sheep returneth trip or what have you. So in keeping with that mode, I went for a little dumpling picknick with one of my favorite Alums of old Camp Bruno and we blathered for a long time and drank beer from paper bags in the park while the chinese kids played handball and layed out a pang thud thud pang soundtrack in the summer night.

Earlier, I had a near religious experience (not only was someone sky writing x and y all over brooklyn, but…) when I crossed Manhattan bridge by foot, the light came behind the brooklyn in such a way that it cast a magnificent reverse gothic arch shadow across the flaming sunset water… the key hole arches both cut out in fire on the water. It was only there for about sixty seconds, but good shit it was glorious and luckily I was on a nikon safari. New York is just a magnificent place sometimes and its filled with people that you know and love, but didn’t know were living so close to you. One big urban reunion project.

Zarathustra's Secret Garden

alex — Wed, 23 May 2007 08:29:03 +0000

A vlog fooling with painting and Lou Reed and Bowie and thoughts on upcoming Royal Wylds music Video for Kimbo and some documentationof my work next to Crista Grauer’s at Artflux last week and just, you know, loving spring in Beautiful Sugar Mountain Brooklyn.

Pittsburgh Going Ashore – Pittsburgh Coming Aboard

alex — Tue, 22 May 2007 14:15:53 +0000

ABC is as easy as 1 2 3 as easy as Do Ray Me, you see?

Once I saw the changing of command on the USS Pittsburgh at Grotton, CT with my brother from a Bolex mother. When The Captain leaves the ship they blow a dog whistle and say: “Pittsburgh going Ashore.” It is as if the soul of the boat has left the boat. When The new Captain walks the gangplank, the dog whistle is blown in opposite progression and the Ensign speaks these magic jazz hand words: “Pittsburgh Coming Aboard!” and it is as if the boat is born again.

Me and Pat call melady Young Pas (or green onion in Korean, or Sly to the Midwesterners or Sylvie to you… etc.): Pittsburgh. She is the Captain my Captain. She is the queen of that little steel Swiss, but rusting Town in the middle of the Eastern Sea Board. I was throwing out all my old clothes yesterday and getting rid of all the wire and plastic hangers… nothing but wood is good quoath Pittsburgh and I concurred while wearing the buddhist Stettson and the silk guns and the Star Wars blasters still in the a tiny casket to be burried by the IRA somwhere beside the river Liffey. I tripped and fell upon a Bazooka shell full of old memories of Pittsburgh’s youth and there were steller shots of her as Stella amongst the stars and my street car named desire and some calling cards from old beaux and a shot of her leaning away from a dire wolf… him stealling kisses and trying to eat her heart out and I realize it is good to walk with pax but always have silk guns in a silk casket somewhere… the silent big stick as the Church on the Hill said, or was it The Mac daddy Author, or Ike? Yes Ike who I like if only because he said, “Beware the military industrial complex”… The king can speak the truth, but the wolves are still there… stealing kisses, and hearts, and gold, and souls.

I became quite green with jealousy looking at the explosive contents of the shell… and then I found a receipt for the first futon we ever shared and a letter I wrote to fair Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh when I was in the Tower of Pain and hats and song. It was not the most regal of things… a manic all night scrawl on yellow legal paper… but you know what? It was really a very romantic letter. It brought a single tear to my eye that dropped into the vast Atlantic… How can a shell hold such wealth I thought? For in that moment I realized that this was a contract signed thirteen years ago… So Why has it taken me so long to honor it and honor fair Pittsburgh?

… Because you see, I have been hiding in plain sight, playing the fool on the hill. Now it is time to wear the purple robes and take the crown that is mine. Today Pittsburgh. Tomorrow the world. It is my job to be her knight in shining armor coming to her emotional rescue on a fine Arab charger. It is my job to keep the dire wolves at bay. Hail Pittsburgh hail the Queen.

I was at Freddy’s the night Sly Fox left for Las Vegas and I gave two guys my moleskin and said, “Make me a drawing, buy me a beer…sort of as a joke…and I went outside to smoke… when I got back they had drawn this and bought me a magic hat #9… it is names of the superbowl champion (two years in a row) Steelers from the seventies when I used to wear the black and gold slicker to protect me from the hard rain…. Coin see dances coincidences…. They were Pittsburgher… friends from many moons ago… reunited in the city on a drunkes Spree… fiddle di di.

Drunken Boat

alex — Sun, 20 May 2007 13:10:45 +0000

Oh the honey and the wine and women and song did pour fourth from the mouth of a yellow whale, where I crashed upon the shore of some magnificent island populated by circe and her two sisters yin and yang. It was like the crystal noise from Zimmerman’s lyre and moaning of monica. There were the hebrews and the Romans and Celtic tribe as well, but I walked with silk guns and white arab charger to unite the world on one great drunken boat

or: I went eating and wine tasting at Tribecca festival. If you want to be treated well in life, I suggest you roll with beautiful Korean women, you’d be surprised what people will give you for free, just because of those lovely smiling eyes. Then off to the temple on the mount for Noahs Barmitzvah… havanagela and MORE wine and food and dancing of the horah and on and on. You cant make this sort of stuff up. It is just wild eyed JOY…. Be Attitude and Beat Less.

This is Harry Twep… an Id character that I drew on a retreat when I was maybe thirteen years old, or so… ironic…. My mom scanned it for a my fortieth birthday card. She’s some kind of witch or something… I mean that in a good way.

Another Green World

alex — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 14:05:19 +0000

Another vlog while I scan and scan. This remix has a lot of Goddard clips and a Brian Eno mash up. The drawing is a finish of a Carloine VK start from The Library Project. Stangely today Moby Dick came on TCM. I missed, however, Orson’s Sermon.

Cern

alex — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:24:33 +0000

A new music experiment and a new book start by Me-jade for the Library. This post seemed to grow out of the fact that Butterfly made it onto the daily reel’s top ten (finally got around to submitting it)… so I’ve been looking at that piece and thinking about the love story.

Margaux

admin — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:49:29 +0000

“We should order some wine,” he said.
“We’re drinking wine,” she said.
“I mean something special. Enough of the Swiss white. It’s all good, but let’s have something great. This is supposed to be an extravagant shopping spree and you haven’t bought a thing.”
“I didn’t see anything I want. It all looks sort of matronly.”
“I told you Geneva is dull town. Politician’s wives,” he reminded her.
“But what about the mistresses?” she asked. “Where do they shop?”
“They shop in Paris,” he said.
“Of course,” she agreed and they asked the waiter for the Carte de Vin.
He looked at it earnestly for a long time and then admitted, “What I don’t know about fine wine is a longer book than what I do know.”
“Yeah,” she said. ” What I know is a short story.”
“Well speaking of,” he said and pointed to a Chateau Margaux. “This is the wine Hemmingway named his daughter after.”
“Which one?” she asked.
“Margaux.” he said.
“….Ummmm duuuuuh. Was she the one in Manhattan, or was that Mariel?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “I get them confused. One was the suicide and one was Lolita.”
“Both pretty,” she said. “I think Margaux was in the Manhattan and lived.”
“Nope, I think she was the tragic beauty,” he said.
“Mmmm tragic beauty sounds delicious,” she said
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll drink her… whichever Hemmingway she was… You have to figure Papa wouldn’t name her after plonk.”
And he oredered a vintage that was about as old as that Soon Yi was when she first Lolited Woody Allen, or he Humberted her… whichever way you tell that story.

Pharmacopia

admin — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:23:51 +0000

My last studio Patron called me a few months ago and informed me that my painting is hanging next to a Damien Hirst. I couldn’t imagine why I should care, as I’ve never been a huge fan of his. However, there was this one series of prints he did using Swiss Pharmeceutical design. He replaced the brand names with food names. This one I just altered said, “Chicken”. There were also ones that said, Fois Gras, Steak, Caviar, etc. One should have said Mushrooms. Food and drugs are related for sure and I have always been intrigued by how Swiss pharmacology seems to have grown out of Swiss food science. The whole act of making chocolate and or cheese is a very complex act of chemical engineering and leads nicely to making any sort of drug. It is an issue of being Chinese and making Tea. You put nature into solution and then percipitate out crystals of the compounds you want. It is sort of Alchemy. Though this time not lead, but something like Coca leaves that you suspend in petroleum solvent tea and then percipitate out the purified (what did Sherlock Holmes call it? Seven Percent Solution) cocaine. T being the symbol of Switzerland always seemed fitting to me as it’s less about Christianity and more about T and Tea and TNT and all the permutations that cruciforms have meant to man long before some desert Jew named Jesus started making trouble in the Empire.

Anyways I was raised with this kind of packaging all over the studio as it’s what my father did for a living… Infact, here is a fluke, in searching for an image of Clearasil’s orginal packaging which my dad designed a million years ago, I found only this image of Keith Moon using a tube from The Who Sells Out. Talk about Pop art… my mind reels. Getting in Tune… right in tune.

The character that is missing now, Is Monsieur Tristan of Geneva Switzerland. I imagine him as a sort of cross between Albert Hoffman and one of the grand Titans of Industry: a sort of Rockefellor/Pailey. A fellow of infinite jest and resources. He is a kindof active chemist, chairman of the board, CEO of a Swiss Pharmaceutical company that is more or less Sandoz. When I was at Brown, one of the departments that suddenly blew up in the 80’s was neuroscience. Thanks to digital imaging technology, the mechanical/chemical way that the human brain (and therefore human conciousness) works cold be seen and studied. There were all the new Magnetic and sonic and blah blah imaging machines and also ways of mapping and compliling data. Don’t ask me, because I don’t know, but I do know that the backwatter became a torrent and suddenly had a new building, etc. The new frontier was innerspace.

My conceit for this story is that the Swiss and specifically M. Tristan and his company (not Sandoz…maybe Canndoze) never having quit research in so called “psychodelic” drugs have a profoudly advanced understanding of human brain chemistry and are poised on the moment of introducing a line of experiential pharmeceuticals that are edible states of conciousness: Nostalgia, dread, joy, fear,mirth,lust,angst,panic,intolerance,acceptance, etc. ad naseum.

These chemicals are so subtle and so prfound (the side effect (affect?) of hallucinations is done away with and leaves only the pure emotion/ state of mind) that they are like keys that could open a world of Peace, or a world of Armegeddon. Afterall, they could create brilliant joy, or work as a weapon to create hysterical warfare…

They are the Flouride in Dr. Strangelove to the fifty fifth power.

I think M. Tristan is waking up in Geneva as the Characters arrive. Perhaps they will meet at a cafe? Well here is a relatively straighforward T. Rex Glam of N.Y.C. water taxi trip:

Opposite Sides

admin — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 10:54:40 +0000

Ali in his corner brushing up on Psychological Warfare ITIN circa ’99 + Discard, a collab of Driftwould and Paperandme of The Library Project.

The birds have been eaten and the movies watched and wine turned all to headaches, every ounce… So, like leftovers, I heat up a short surveillance about parking in Brooklyn. All those lovely leaves are off the trees and the street sweepers are dead serious about clearing the streets of them. November rain and leaves in the gutter have a way of spelling flooded subway. It’s put the screws on the already tense game of opposite side of the street parking. There is small lesson to be learned about conflict (The Chinese say: Life is War, Living is Strategy and Tactics… It’s something you can supposedly see in their character for I, or self which is derived from a pictogram of two battle axes crossed like pirate bones or swords, or keys on a European Coat of Arms). If you can’t get it together with your neighbors on a national holiday, or actaully national hangover day, how can you expect any real peace in the Mid East,or Africa, or….Name the nation?

Now I’ve been thinking about this subject anyway, as the characters have hit the main train Hub at Interlaken where they must detrain and either shop in Interlakken, or decide on a more glamorous city to tour. This is a conflict too. I imagine him arguing for Zurich and the Bonhaufstrasse.
“It’s one of the most famous shopping streets in the world,” he says. “You’ll love it. It’s like Park Avenue, or the Champs Elysee. The most exclusive boutiques.”
“Zurich doesn’t interest me,”she says.
“Why?”
“They speak German. It is pointless to shop for clothes where they speak German. We should go to Geneva.”
“Why?”
“There’s no such thing as the Zurich Convention now is there?”
“No,but I mean… Geneva? It’s a sleepy sort of town filled with diplomats and beauracrats.”
“Exactly. Who shops more than the wives of politicians?”
“I don’t know.”
“The mistresses…. Besides, the Geneva train is right there,” and she points to a jaunty, sleek, and elegant blue train. It is a beautiful train and the sign does indicate it is going to Geneva. The ease of it, wins the argument.
“Geneva it is,”he says and they climb the stairs of the train and show their rail pass to the conductor.

It is probably here, where he tells her about the Swiss Army, or maybe his is reading a copy of John McPhee’s Place de la Concorde Suisse. I like to think that they play a game out the window of trying to spot the camoflaged artillery, the underground aircraft-carrier-style steam catapaults, the highway landing fields, the entrances to enormous bomb shelters, etc. I like to think they are staring out the window at the beautiful landscapes and trying to see the nest of bees that’s buzzing just underneath.

And in every station along the line, military units are loitering around, smoking with their machine guns.
“Must be time for maneuvers,” he says.
“It’s like I’m in a movie from the forties. I’ve never seen somany service men… so many guns. I’m not sure if I feel safe, or totally terrified.”
“Fortress Switzerland,” he says.
“You ain’t kidding,” she says and they roll through the valleys and around the lakes towards Geneva.

Boxing Aliens. A collab with Facecrunch from The Library Project.

Doing Bees Knees In Switzerland

admin — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 03:31:35 +0000

They walk down the path towards the train station and all around are the bird sounds and all a long the path he finds his lost memories of dawn’s drunken stumble home. They are like bread crumbs on the path layed out in reverse: here he danced for joy at spotting the chalet, here he picked a fight with a tree, here he stumbled, here he held her and wiped her tears and gave her his jacket, here he lost all hope and sat at the side of the road in despair, here too she started crying, here he paused to watch the sun pop up ubove a ridge of mountains and turn the lake a fire red, here he sang “Smoke on The Water”, here he saw a fox, here he saw an enormous white rabbit, and here was the train and they hopped on.
“How do you feel,” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
“You’re not too high are you?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t tell anymore where the omlette ends and the hangover begins… It’s been a few hours, right?”
“I think so… hard to say really… Time and space being relative and all.”
“Whatever,” she said…
They were silent and sitting on the train waiting for it to depart and she stared out the window and he closed his eyes and in the suddenn dark, the silence gave way to low decible electric buzz, perhaps coming from a flourescent light bulb and the longer he kept his eyes shut, the more destinct and facinating the buzz grew in his ear untill it sounded like a hive of bees and he thought of how bees gather honey and if one bee finds a patch of flowers, it comes back to the hive and informs the rest of the hive and they all pour out and go to the exact same place as the flowers and gather the pollen. For a long time, no one knew how the information was realyed from the first bee to the hive and then some super intense bee person observed the scouts coming back and dancing and dancing and dancing around the hive and all the other bees watching the first bee, like it was Gene Kelley, or some pop and locker and then all the bees would start dancing and shaking their money, or honey makers and this dance was the directions. Someone figured out more or less how the choreography would break down into a simple syntax of five ass shakes to the tree, a twtich straight on, a wing flutter passed the rock, or whatever… it was what scientists call observable, verifiable, and repeatable. The bees had not only invented complex arhitecture in the form of modular, hexagonal housing and storage, but had invented some kind of syntax and vocabulary…. a language of dance. Bees were some freaky creatures he thought and the buzzing screamed now in his ears and he opened his eyes and woosh the world came flooding in and he was staring at a small green hexagonal sign on the wall. It depicted an abstract cigarette.
“Do you hear that noise?”
“What noise?”
“That electronic buzz?” he said.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said. “Maybe you’re hallucinating.”
With his eyes open, the buzz seemed distant and vague. “Maybe,” he said. “We should go dancing tonight.”
“Wow. This REALLY IS opposite day,” She laughed.
“I feel the urge to shake our money makers.”
“Money maker, money money money maker,” she sang.
“Bend over let me see you shake a tail feather,” he sang
And they sort of hummed down and smiled to themselves and danced in their imaginations as the train hissed and lurched to life.

The First Breakfast

admin — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:23:32 +0000

When she’d dried off the shower and hung the clothes upon herself like onaments on a tree she came down to the kitchen and he presented her with eggs and she said,” What the hell is this then? It looks like Jabba the Hut.”
“It’s an omlette,” he said, deflating a little like a balloon.
“It looks like Dick Cheney on crack,” she said.
“Some one woke up on the wrong side of bed,” he said.
“That I’m awake at all is a small miracle… I had to drag your insane ass through half the train stations in Switzerland last night and you kept trying to yodel and buy more beer,” she said.
“Really?” he asked… “It’s all a bit foggy for me now.”

Collab with CM3

“It tastes good actually,” she said chewing the first bite and he inflated a little again and said:
“Good news… They got voted out.”
“Who?”
“The Republicans… the Democrats took the House and maybe the Senate.”
“I’d almost forgotten all about the mid terms.. I vowed not to vote again untill the Democrats ran an actual candidate… ” chew chew chew…”How much money did I give to them last time?” chew chew chew “And you were out there volunteering for the idiots…” chew chew chew “Best thing I’ve eaten in weeks,” she said chew chew chew.. “Or is it that I feel I can hold food down for the first time in years…?” chew chew chew.

From Double You of The Library Project.

Stone That I Am

admin — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 20:50:43 +0000

From Tan-jun of The LIbrary.

In the pisser, he thought he saw the ghost of his father in the mirror, but it was simply his own face which resembled that of his fathers and had grown quite a bit older since he’d last looked at it deeply. Two other men came to piss beside him and he grew fearful and thought, “They are two thieves and they want my money… I’m surrounded…” He was not sure what to do with his new fear and suddenly he imagined the image of Christ crucified… he too had been surrounded in a trinity by two thieves and he decided that the ghost of his father’s face in the mirror would protect him and so he shook his cock and flushed and walked out from the back of the bar where he noticed a small flower placed in a vase on one of the table, glowing purple yellow by candlelight… It flickered and radiated and pulsed at him and when he came closer to it he saw that the petals radiated out from a central idigo Hexagon… like a perfect fortress and he said to himself: “So that’s what the hippies meant by flower power.” And the flower radiated a color of love and so he looked in the dark crowd for his love (and her being Korean in a cast of cheese-white Swiss caused her to stand out and radiate and glow not unlike the little purple/yellow flower. He hugged her emotionally:
“I want to got back to the cemetary,” he said.
“What?” she said.
“The cemetary. I want to see the stone again.”
“We just went this morning.”
“Yes, but now I think I know what I’m looking for.. Or atleast I know that I’m looking for something in the stone…. It’s… Nothing…. Nothing is what it appears to be.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“I know… I’m a little fucked up, but you see, here everything means something else, do you see? The stone, you see is something other than stone… it’s like words only words made of stone out of pictures.”
“I think you’re high,” she said. “The Cemetary is closed… Look outside it’s late.”
“But we should go at night… maybe you can read it like runes in moonlight.”
“God you are high.”
“Am I?”
“The stone will be there tomorrow… The stone will be there later… whenever… The stone will always be there. That’s the nature of stone.”
“That IS the nature of stone,” he said. “You ARE SO RIGHT!… you’re brilliant and beautiful.. Kiss me.”
She kissed him and then she gently lead him outside to get some fresh air and they kissed again in the full moonglow and the Cathedral bells began to chime across the river.

Stone from double-you.

Swiss Night

admin — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 23:05:12 +0000

At some point in the evening he is leaning over a table staring into one of those ubiquitous circles of soft cheese when someone says to him, “You are looking at ze perfect model of the Swiss nation.”
“What?” he says…”I’m looking at a cheese.”
“You see a cheese,” said the stranger. “I See a perfect model of the Swiss Nation.”
He noticed the brand was “Swiss Knight,” “Oh I get it, the knights of the middle ages.”
“No,” said the stranger. “The defended fortress.”
“I need a beer,” he said and stranger made one appear.
“Do you know the story of the last Romans?”
“No.”
“They came to live here in the mountains at the end of the empire….well here and at the Watican in Rome…It is why they only speak Latin in the Watican and in certain part of the Alps…Romansch..it is the fourth Language of Switzerland.”
“I”ve heard of it,” he said.
“It is Latin,” said the stranger.
“I’d heard that.”
“The story starts much earlier when the Roman empire was in its period of shrinking and expanding and shrinking… the decline…”
“The decline and Fall.”
“It was not so much a fall as several centuries of war and corruption. Like all empires they became arrogant and lazy and set in their ways… but around them ze people were trading and learning from all parts of the world… and the Swiss who were not called Swiss yet, but were the ones who live here….They were particularly clever and mean, yes? The Swiss have a particular capacity for war, it is why they take peace so seriously here. You know everyone thinks of what when they think of Switzerland?”
“Cuckoo Clocks.”
“Yes, exactly, but do they know that the cuckoo clock is also the key to military victory in Europe?”
“I don’t get you?”
“Spring steel make a clock go tick tick, but it is also the key to a very sharp sword. When folded into the hard center of carbon steel you get a blade that is felexible and strong and stays sharp. It is the Japanese trick, but also Persian.. and also Swiss… Spring and Steel makes a knife and a clock and later a gun verk. Ze Swiss learn these tricks from ze east, by trading, by buying, and by making and so The Romans come up the Pass from Italy and they are used to go someplace and take the wine and the women of the willage and ze cows and ze food, yes?”
“Sure. They’re the Romans.”
“So zey come wis a whole legion… 5,000 man and they are met on ze pass by only a few Swiss men with their steel swords … the Romans use bronze, or iron now I zink… short swords… so It is usually told with five men in the shape of a Pentagon, but it could be six in a Hexagon,” said the stranger dumping the cheese wedges on the table.”
“Tell it with five,” he said opening a cheese and popping it in his mouth and washing it down with the beer.”
“Yes,” said the Stranger. “Five… it is the shape of a hand and the four elements plus spirit… so you have the five men: the king who is the center and he has the sword of the center which is the thumb,” The stranger said, closing his thumb. “Then you have the sword of ze West – Earth,” and the stranger closed his indexfinger. “Zen sword of North – Wind,” and he closed the middle finger. “Zen Sword of South – Fire,” And he closed the ring finger. “And finally you have Sword of East – Water,” and he closes the pinky and turns his hand around to show his fist… and these five swords make a perfect weapon.”
“I see,”he said

‘ You see yes, but ze Romans, don’t see this, they see five men in the middle of ze road and so the General says: “Out of the way farmer Cow man…We are ze Roman Legion, Yes? We come to pass and take wis us your wine and also women and food, yes?”
“You are what now?” says the Swiss man… Center- thumb sword who speaks.
“We are ze Roman Legion and….” He goes through it again ans the five swiss laugh.
“Why do you laugh cow man?”
“We think it is funny you announce that you plan to steel from us… It is not the way we do things here. Let me explain. If I were to come to wisit you….Where do you live?”
“Como”
“Let us say that I come to wisit you at the Lake of Como, yes? I would first bring you a gift… perhaps my best wine, or my best cheese, or my best cow… It is all depending, but I can assure you I would bring you first a gift. Have you brought me a gift?”
“We are the Roman Legion.”
“Yes, You say that before, but it is not the question I ask you. I know who you are, but here is the problemm you have… You do not know who I am.”
“You are a cow farmer.”
“If you say so,” says the thumb.
“We are coming through… now get out of the road.”
“You are still not understanding me Como. You are not coming through unless I invite you. If I were you I would try to persuade me with a gift… this is the story I have been telling you.”
“But I am The Roman Legion and I have five thousand men and five thousand swords and you have nothing, but five men,” and the Roman pulls out his ugly short dull sword and announces, “This should persuade you.”
“Perhaps it should, Como. But it doesn’t. I have not drawn my sword and I think it is rude that you draw yours.. Now put it back. We are discussing business here and this is not the time for swords.”
“It is time for swords when I say it is time for swords. I am the Roman Legion.”
“You never get tired of saying this, do you?”
“We shall pass,”said the Roman. “My five thousand say so.”
“You won’t unless I inwite you in.. My five say so.”
“Enough!” says the Roman and he make a sign and all the Romans draw their swords.
“I don’t know why it is,” says the thumb. “That I should have to teach the Roman Legion Manners?”‘

The stranger took the five cheese wedges and formed them into a radiating pentagon. “Look here,” he said. “You see the king take the five men and form them into this shape… Like where the U.S. has the army… no? It is an impenatrable shape… if you get through the walls you are in the killing zone center where all five blades can cut you from all sides of your body, on the outside points, the sword cuts a perfect arc and the Swiss sword is longer and sharper than the Roman… The crazy Swiss don’t so much fight the Romans as they do a Dance of Death… They spin and yell and yodel and the whole time the five swords are spinning and chopping off Roman heads and the Romans can not get through this pentagon shape of spinning steel …the steel cuts right through the armor and the bronze and iron swords.. it is a blood bath yes… In Twenty minutes the five thousannd are five hundred in a route.

They have cut of ze sword arm of the Roman commander and the thumb says, “Next time… WIth the hand you have left, you bring me a present and we will talk about doing business with you. I don’t hold a grudge. I hold a sword… you will hold a gift, or so help me, you will hold nothing. I have one of your arms already Como, I have no use for the other, but I will take it from you all the same and then you will have to come up the mountains next time carrying a gift in your teeth.”

“Great story.”
“So yes, the Roman probably looses the other arm coming back with two legions, but ewentually they are not so arrogant. Maybe they bring a nice Italian wine and so they become in business together with all the cheese, yes? The Swiss have always like war and business, but business more than war.”
“Nothing is just a cheese,” he said, eating another wedge.
“Nothing here is ever as it appears…. the whole country is a weapon. Behind everything is something else.”
She comes over with more beer, “What are you two talking about?”
“My friend was saying that Switzerland is a weapon, or a cheese, or something.”
“Yeah right. They haven’t fought a war in seven hundred years….Ha…These chickens are neutral.”
“Nothing is ever as it seems,” he said turning towards the stranger, but the stranger was gone. “Weird he said.”
“Swiss army,” she said laughing. “What a joke.”
“Well they do have the knife,” he said pulling his out of the pocket and there he saw a five sided shield with a cross in the center. It appeared to him now like a diagram of a perfect fortress. He was starting to feel slightly fucked up.