Recently in Switzerland Category

You can expect to see more of this funny, charming lady in the coming months.

By David

by Emily

Now, I am more of a subcultural fashionista than a mainstream one, more prone to swoon over evocative styles of the past and the unknown histories of the many women and men who wore them, than to obsess about "what's in" this season. However, I have to admit that visiting one of the world's legendary shopping streets did give me a bit of a thrill.

As we wandered away from this boulevard of dreams, after snapping photos of the window-displays I found most intriguing, we heard an Italian (or Spanish) woman murmer to her friend in hushed tones, pointing over: "Mira! La Spiga!" Look! The Spiga!

I think that, like visiting the Vegas strip, enjoying a shopping experience this high-end requires leaving some of your social conscience at the door. Truly, $3000 for a handbag is an egregious price, fueled by brand lust and conspicuous consumption. And the angry-looking models on the wall-sized screens in these boutiques, strutting down the runways like they're trying to spear some unlucky rodent with their stiletto heels? Verily, they are malnourished waifs who promote unhealthiness wherever they show their bizarrely-made-up faces. Just look what kind of carnivale burlesque awaits you on La Spiga (it really takes clicking on it for the large size to even understand what's happening):

Out to lunch, I agree. I felt justified in overlooking all of this for the space of two days because (a) I love the clothes, however I may feel about the clothiers; (b) I wasn't going to buy anything (well, OK, I did buy a little something); and (c) these pictures are largely idea-storage-units that I will later subvert to my own devious purposes. But mostly I just love clothes.

I realize, looking back over my photos, that my favorite fashion detail by far (at least, that's "in" right now) has got to be pleats. You'll remember this little gem, that I posted earlier as a Milano teaser:

Pleats! That cream-and-lavender Marilyn confection up above, that would make you feel like you're floating on the South of France? Pleats! `I have to admit, it is hard for me to resist a set of crisp pleats. Which is kind of a shame, since I don't particularly enjoy sewing pleats. Oh well!

That pink dress on the left was one of my favorites in Milan. So fresh and girlish. There is something 1930's about the feminine economy, the dropped waist and the vaguely Deco central line, where the smooth fabric surrounding the neck flows down to the waist. And I love the contrast between the bound pleats of the bodice and the flowing pleats of the skirt. (Personally, I might go without the big hip bow, so as to leave that line uninterrupted.) The combination of the light-colored, floaty fabric, and having a lot of fabric going into a form-fitting garment, almost lends an air of classical antiquity to it. Nothing better than being able to feel like a 1930's croquet nymph and a Greek goddess simultaneously! I mean, what are you, Katherine Hepburn or something? I think this deserves a side view as well:

In a slightly less high-rent district, we also ran across this little pleated wonder:

I like how the top here makes the blousy-undershirt/fitted-overshirt combo look vintage, without looking like you're headed off to a Renaissance Faire (no disrespect to faire-wear, just not my personal cup o' stew). It's always a challenge to use vintage details in a way that looks respectably current, especially with the wide variety of ideas about what "current" ought to look like. I tend to want to veer away from updating altogether, what with my desire to transport myself into my grandmothers' shoes, although I also want to avoid looking like I'm wearing a costume. Here is inspiration.

And here is more inspiration, for those moments when nothing will do but to feel like a 1950's film star, and that lavender-and-cream thing is at the cleaners:

Pleats! Chiffon! What could be more delicious? Pure, voluptuous charm that ignores all those nasty, repressive parts of the 50's and luxuriates in the cocktail glamour of the silver screen. Yum.

Believe it or not, there were also a few non-pleated garments that caught my attention, both of which look vaguely Victorian (go figure, right?). I absolutely love this lacy, wide-waisted treatment:

Put a zillion tiny buttons all in a line, and I'm pretty much won over immediately. Ever since falling in love with high-button boots on my first watching of Anne of Green Gables at age 5, my devotion to them has rarely wavered. Unfortunately, this is another effect that's not particularly fun to accomplish on a sewing project. Once it's over, though, you will truly knock 'em dead. Again, I think this suggests antique lacy undergarments without looking like it would be more appropriate at a Jack-the-Ripper reenactment party.

And finally, we have this, which strikes me as a Victorian-schoolgirl-gets-revenge type of outfit (you know that type?):

I like the gender ambiguity of the sheer undershirt whose seam looks like a man's tie. I also love the cropped bodice with (again) tiny buttons, the contrast between the shirred bodice-and-sleeve texture and the multi-layered, smooth-and-crinkled skirt. I love the lines of the skirt layers as they approach and recede from one another. It's gothier than most of the things in my wardrobe, but I would definitely wear it, especially to some event where I felt people were trying to intimidate me. It has a Jane-Eyre-lights-fires-with-her-mind thing going on which I could definitely work to my advantage. It also sort of reminded me of Seaplane, which made me happy. Especially since finding a similar thing there would mean paying $300 instead of $3000. Not that I even have $300, but the thought is nice.

And I almost forgot. Here is my little souvenir from La Spiga (vegans, avert your eyes):

Italian kid, lined with cashmere. They are very, very pretty, and, as my boss Eva proclaimed, "feel like butta." I think they are the kind of gloves in which a dapper young ne'er-do-well would take her roadster out for a spin in the years prior to WWII. So much so, in fact, that I woke up our second morning in Milano chanting "Racing gloves! Racing gloves!" until David agreed to go back to the glove shop with me. What bracing gallivant I'll take in them, old chap, is yet to be written.

by Emily

Seen on the doors of the town church's outdoor WC in Scuol, Switzerland.

by Emily

Milano was wonderful. It’s hard to believe we’re on the train back to Zurich now, our suitcases heavy and our laundry dirty, ready to catch the plane back to good old Portland. For us, Milano was composed largely of walking; we walked miles and miles both yesterday and today (especially yesterday, when many of the miles in question were “around and around in a circle”). And in order to get into the Italian spirit, I walked this entire distance in – you guessed it – high-heeled boots. Many of you who know me know these boots, and may even be among my many acquaintances who have made comments like “Those are some crazy boots,” or “Can you really walk in those boots?” But let me tell you friends, my humble little shoes are the training wheels on a pink plastic tricycle to the sleek black café racers of the shoe world that Italian women are wearing. Sti. Let. Tos. With incredibly pointy toes. I couldn’t believe it. They manage it with remarkable aplomb; I never once noticed a woman walking as if her feet hurt, which is what most Portland ladies look like the minute they put on a pair of heels (or, in some cases, shoes). My new theory about the seemingly sudden and complete transformation Italian women undergo from stunningly beautiful, tall and thin, to squat, hunched and full of character: the shoes. Also: giving birth to many children. Also: cannoli, gelato, and quattro formaggi pannini.

Most of our walking involved taking in the bizarre and beautiful offerings in the boutique windows of one of the fashion capitals of Europe. Yesterday being Sunday, all of the shops and most of the restaurants were closed. This was actually great for my purposes, which involved taking photos of clothing ideas I found lovely or otherwise compelling. They don’t really like you to do this in high-end boutiques, because they are selling that dress for $5000, and are afraid that you’re going to design a copy and sell it for a price that most people would consider sane. Unfortunately, it doesn't really fly if you say to them “Oh no, you don’t understand! I just want to take pictures of your designs so I can copy them for myself!." So I was lucky to be there for one day when everything was closed, and another day when everything was open. I’m going to do a whole separate entry on all the things toward which I gravitated on Milan’s high-falutin’ fashion streets, so I won’t go into details here. But if anyone has a few grand to drop on the little number on the right, my dimensions are 34-26-37:

(Note: this is a joke. Spending thousands of dollars on a dress is totally wrong! I may try to copy this myself, though, and if you want to go to the fabric store with me it’s a date.)

Can I also just note that the number of Dolce & Gabbana stores in Milan is truly staggering to the mind? You really would think that a city would reach market saturation for that particular brand of ultra-expensive couture, especially when the streets are packed with other, equally expensive options. This, apparently, is not the case in Milan. Dolce & Gabbana in Milan is like Thai restaurants in Portland. How can we support so many of them? It may remain forever a mystery.

Today, when the shops were open, I did buy some lovely new things in the only-fairly-expensive stores, which are beautiful and exciting. I was glad that I hadn’t really bought any souvenirs other than postcards before we arrived in Milano, because the town was awash in “Saldi” (seasonal sales), and it was just one sartorial temptation after another. More on that later!

There were, if you'll believe it, non-shopping delights in Milano as well. Before we even arrived at the shopping/Duomo district, we happened upon a magical-seeming public garden in the European tradition, with a stream running through it, wide paths populated by couples strolling arm in arm, fountains with people lounging around them, a bumper-car rink, a carousel, pony rides, a dog party, and a funny older couple who were selling balloons and making a monkey marionette dance to music from a portable organ.

It was a beautiful sunny Sunday, and lots of folks were taking leisurely strolls in the park with their bambinos, spouses, dogs, or ipods. The enchanted atmosphere had a somewhat lotus-eater-like effect on me, and David had to prod me back into action in order to get me to continue on our exploration of the city.

On the other side of the shopping district from the public garden (actually at end of the shopping district where “ultra-expensive” has given way to “fairly expensive” and is headed south into “sort of sketchy”) lies the Duomo, or cathedral, which is apparently second only to St. Peter’s in size. It is definitely huge, and decorated in an unbelievably ornate fashion. I felt like I would have appreciated it more if I had gone on a tour with a knowledgeable guide; as it was it felt overwhelming. I am able to relate more easily to places of worship that are constructed on a more human scale, like the person and the building are quiet partners in peace, rather than the building feeling like it’s meant to squish you under the heel of God. Even if that heel is really impressive and beautiful, it still feels a little off to me.

It is amazing, though, the amount of work this edifice took to build, and how many different directors, not to mention individual craftspeople, put in blood and sweat to make it exist. This cathedral was begun in 1386 and finished under Napoleon! That’s 400 years of construction, which is pretty hard to fathom coming from a modern perspective. Another thing that’s pretty hard to fathom is the amount of work put in just on the roof, details you can barely even appreciate even if you climb all the way up to the top of the building and actually stand on the roof looking around. That picture up there was taken on the roof, as was this one:

Astounding. Then we ate at a tasty little sidewalk café where I enjoyed a warm four-cheese pannini and then an outstanding cannolo at the dessert shop next door. Very, very delicious.

After losing our way several times on the way back to the hotel, we were so exhausted that we had a quiet evening in. This made me very happy, and I was also happy that we’d had our fancy, three-hour Italian dinner experience the night before. Last night we lounged about eating room service (the desk worriedly informed us multiple times that they didn’t have a restaurant, only a bar, and were worried we wouldn’t get enough food, before delivering two full pizzas to compliment the contents of our free mini-bar). We also snacked on a bit of this beautiful marzipan, which David picked up at the dessert shop:

Spending time in our hotel room also offered us chances to get in touch with the lovingly chaotic slapstick quality of Italy as depicted in Roberto Benigni film. Our room was very nice, but sort of set you up for hilarity. The soap dish, for example, had no sides, and was subtly angled so as to cause the slippery soap to fly directly into the bidet if the soapee wasn't careful. Also, the water in the shower would change pressure drastically at random intervals, making the showerhead rear up in its holder like an angry horse, spraying the shower-user comically in the face. Somehow the hotel's fanciness made all this even funnier. Oh, bumbling rich people: when will they ever learn?

Highlights of today were mostly shopping-related (stay tuned for details!), including our discovery of the fancy sweet shop that shares David’s surname: Giovanni Galli has gorgeous displays of fancy chocolates and other delicious delights, of which David Galli bought a number of tasty samples. He also tried to share his delight at sharing the name of the store with the girl behind the counter, but she didn't seem as impressed as we were. We talked afterward about how we would react if we were working in, for example, a Johnson & Johnson outlet, and someone came in glowing with excitement and said "I am a Johnson TOO!" Yeah...great, pal. Good going. That was pretty much the woman's demeanor - not the tearful reunion with an aging Italian codger that I had imagined in my mind's eye. However. Still lots of delicious sweets, and fun to take them away in bags with "Galli" all over them.

And now, after getting soaked in the Milano rain, and drying off in the foyer of our hotel, trying to cram new purchases into already-full suitcases, after the five-hour train ride, on which an American dude and a Mexican dude discussed the intricacies of calling someone "gay" in Central American slang, here we are back where we started, in our nice little pensione in Zürich, the one above the coffee shop which will serve us a pleasant bon voyage breakfast tomorrow morning. I am actually excited to get home again and sleep in my own bed, see my own people, eat and hang out at all those Portland places I love. But it has been an amazing trip, and there will be more posts about it as video editing and mental processing takes place. We also write about other interesting things on this blog when we're not traveling, so all you new readers should check out normal sepiasalax. See y'all soon, y'hear?

by Emily

Yesterday David and I had a number of…let’s just call them “adventures.” They were all “adventures” of the best kind, though, those that pay off in the end and make you laugh afterward. Like the one where David went downstairs to use the internet in our hotel in Chur, locking the door behind him because I was about to take a shower. Little did either of us realize that there was no unlocking mechanism on the inside of the door, so I was locked into a fourth-floor room with no ability to get out. At first this was okay, but I have to admit that after a little while of David not coming back and me being stuck in the room, I started to panic and imagine all sorts of things, such as “David isn’t coming back because a fire started on the ground floor and everyone had to evacuate but I won’t be able to get out because I’m locked in.” Also, he had left his cell phone in the room with me. And the phone had no clear way to contact the front desk. And there was no internet in the room with which to draw his attention. Eventually, after banging on the locked door for a while without anyone coming, I managed to get the front desk by frantically mashing the keys on the phone until a beleaguered Swiss man answered, and explaining to him to bring the young man with the computer to the phone. But by that time I was pretty upset about the fire, etc. What a way for David to start his 28th birthday.

Luckily, things improved after that on the birthday front. We were spending the night in Chur because we had scheduled to take the scenic Bernina Express train into northern Italy, and spend the evening of David’s birthday in the country of his paternal ancestry. The Bernina leaves early from the Chur station, so we were there at 8:20, and hoisted all our suitcases, etc. into a train car. I thought that something might be amiss about the car, because I had heard about the “panoramic” Bernina carriages, and the windows where we were sitting were nothing special. Also, our ticket showed that we had reserved seats, numbers 35 and 36, but there was a woman already sitting in 36, so we just took the seats across the aisle. To our dismay, when the conductor came through to take the tickets, he looked at ours and said “This is not the train to Tirano.” What? “That is up front,” he explained. “The train switches in S_______.” This explained the lack of panoramic views, but unfortunately we had chosen a carriage at the very back of the train, and now had a limited amount of time to find our proper seats and haul all our luggage over dogs and through skiers’ parkas before the back uncoupled from the front. This was pretty exciting! We walked through a vast array of different train cars, some spacious and wood-paneled, some cramped and filled with snowboarders. We found some seats we thought were ours, but some little Italian ladies peered at our tickets through their reading glasses and insisted we go further up the train. It seemed to us that the only thing up there was first class, for which we definitely didn’t have tickets. After our second or third hapless-but-awkward wandering through the different cars, the people who were already seated started to chuckle and ask us things in German. When we couldn’t answer them in German they would say “Oooooh. English!” with a small smile. We had to ask the conductor several more times before finding our actual seats, which were in the second cabin to the front, and were indeed panoramic, with windows up to the ceiling enabling easy picture-taking:

We actually got ourselves and our luggage onto the correct half of the train just in time, and once the snack cart came and sold us sandwiches, we felt much more positive about the whole “being the train buffoons” experience. The scenery was beautiful, and an electronic female voice kept coming on the system and explaining interesting tidbits to us, often describing the rail track, which is the steepest in the world not to employ cog-and-wheel technology, as “very ingenious.” Things got whiter and craggier as we groaned upward, traversing viaducts and twisting around on ourselves in order to gain altitude more quickly:

Toward the top we were no longer taking pictures, because there was nothing but white to be seen anywhere. It was otherworldly, especially the huge ice field right at the top, where tiny-looking dots of people were slowly making their skiing or para-skiing way along. The top of the pass, at Ospizio Bernina, is 2253 meters above sea level, and the train riders are looking up at the Bernina (4049m) and Palü (3905) peaks. The Silverstein-esque cadence of the recorded voice announcing that we were passing the peak of Piz Palü got the phrase stuck in my head, leading to verses like:

Passing the peak of Piz Palü
The wind it howled and the snow it blew
But the little red train continued through,
Passing the peak of Piz Palü.

Passing the peak of Piz Palü,
I wasn’t sure which said what to who.
It could’ve been me, or it might’ve been you,
Passing the peak of Piz Palü.

Passing the peak of Piz Palü,
You wonder if all of the rumors are true:
A German man with a yodeling gnu,
Passing the peak of Piz Palü.

Passing the peak of Piz Palü,
You think of fine china and Elmer’s Glue,
And the palest stripe on a peppermint chew,
Passing the peak of Piz Palü.

Et cetera. You may notice a certain rhythmic similarity to “Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too.” (And in case your curiosity was peaked, the German man across from us did have a stuffed toy animal that yodeled when you squeezed it, but it wasn’t actually a gnu. We think it was some kind of rodent.) After Piz Bernina we began our descent, which the recorded female voice described as “exciting, and very windy.” In all that white, I could really understand why they would want to make the train carriages a cozy red color:

I was definitely glad to be inside the train, rather than outside it. At the bottom of the train route, the last stretch was closed for construction, so we transferred to a bus to take us into Italy. It wound around, through little Swiss-Italian villages with washing hung out to dry, narrowly avoiding small cars that came zipping out of windy little side-streets with little or no warning. The Swiss train authorities had warned us about making sure to have proper documents for entering Italy, but at the border the guard just waved the whole bus through with no questions asked. The bus stopped in the little cobbled square of Tirano, and we went into the small, deserted train station to see about our later tickets to Milan. There were only two train departures displayed on the flickering old monitors, but they were both to Milano, so we bought our tickets and went looking for a place to eat, lugging our bags with us since the station was closed and there was no place to check them.

We didn’t want to haul our bags very far, so we stopped into one of the first restaurants lining the square. Having come so far in so many types of conveyance, some overcoming truly forbidding conditions, and arrived in the seemingly deserted main square, I was surprised that there were so many people in the restaurant. I was even more surprised when, after finding a table and stowing my bags under it, I heard the young people at the table next to mine speaking English. I was even more surprised, upon getting in line for food, to hear a man’s voice remark “It’s not fah, we just stepped down from the coach!” In fact, everyone in the restaurant was speaking English. We were in the midst of a British invasion, and were taking advantage of a buffet set up for the Brits. Even more funny was the strange and mediocre quality of the food: it was like “Italian food” served by a retirement home at a little league baseball game: overcooked pasta, cakey pizza crust, wilted pre-packaged salad. I know this should have been depressing or disappointing, but I actually found it totally hilarious: there we were, having travelled all the way to Italy by plane, train and automobile, negotiating the forbidding mountain pass, only to suddenly find ourselves in the drab interior of a restaurant that could be in Beaverton, eating mediocre Italian food with a bunch of Brits, listening to Guns N’ Roses. What a surreal and postmodern experience. Even more surreal: about ten minutes after we arrived, all the Brits were gone! We suppose they were with a bus tour that stopped for a pre-arranged buffet, and amused ourselves thinking about how the Italians at this restaurant probably serve excellent food as a general rule, but know from experience that Britishers complain bitterly if they’re served anything decent, so the Italians put together this terrible buffet to make them feel at home. I was already laughing pretty hard at this imaginary scenario, and then – I shit you not – the Sex Pistol’s “God Save the Queen” came on the hifi. Completely overcome by giggles at this bizarre amalgamation of cultural signifiers and stereotypes, we made our way out of the restaurant and caught the train from Milano.

Said train also reinforced some cultural stereotypes: in contrast to every Swiss train we have taken during our stay, which glide into the platforms early, opening their doors in an orderly fashion and departing right on the dot, even from tiny, small-town stations, and in which a conductor always comes right away to make sure your ticket is in order, this train squealed into the station ten minutes late, and almost squealed right past the station, causing one woman to run after it yelling “Trena! Trena!” We then spent almost an hour and a half admiring the country scenery of Northern Italy, before our ultra-cool, sunglasses-wearing, tan conductor casually stopped by our seats to check our tickets. They weren’t exactly in order, as we hadn’t known to validate them at the machine in the station, but hey, that’s no big deal. He just wrote the date on them with a ballpoint pen, and passed on down the train. A few hours later, we pulled into Milano Centrale, and were on our way.

Our hotel turned out to be beautiful, and we got an upgrade to an “executive” room. We are not sure if this is a coincidence that happened to fall on David’s birthday, or a little present from someone back home: anyone?. Anyway, it’s the lap of luxury, and Milano seems like an appealing city to explore. The spirited man at the front desk was very excited to find a Galli checking into the hotel. “Where in Italy?” he asked, when David said his father’s family comes from the country. When David explained that one grandparent came from Parma, the other from the south, the desk man nodded approvingly. “You are very lucky,” he said. “You have the good life from the south, and know great food from the north.”

The same desk man gave us a recommendation for an amazing seafood restaurant down the street, where we split an entire sea bass with tomatoes, olives and capers between the two of us, complimented by greens, a delicious smoked salmon appetizer with garlic butter and little toasts, and a transcendent panna cotta for dessert. The experience of having the entire fish presented to us, still with its head and everything, was a little intense for my mostly-vegetarian nature, but the dinner was an exception to the rule in almost every sense. Everything was delicious, and David got to celebrate the love of great food inherited from his northern Italian ancestors. When we came back to the hotel, our desk man was on the way out, but he yelled “He paid?” and without really waiting for an answer, grinned and said “Typical Italian guys!”

And today, my friends, we have Milano to explore.

by Emily

Wow. Okay, let me just tell you about this Roman-Irish Bath thing that David and I got to do today. I deeply regret that, due to the nakedness of the people walking around it, including yours truly, it was not a photo-friendly environment, and so I don’t have pictures for you. HOWEVER. Hearken to my words, O my sisters and brothers, and what a tale I will relate.

First of all, you need to understand what a high-life, 007-type buildup the Bath receives. We check out at our hotel, get our “bath slip,” and walk with robes and suits down the long, heated, cedar-and-glass passarelle to the spa, gazing out at the magnificent Apine scenery, the mountains bathed in a golden sunny glow, as illustrated (only slightly later in the day):

Once at the spa, we are issued two sets of cards: one pink set that look like our regular day passes, and another set that look similar except that they are gold. We are told, in heavily-accented English, that we are to go down to the waterfall in the changing room and swipe our gold cards over a discreet censor at exactly one o’clock. At which the waterfall will open to admit us. That’s right: the waterfall, which we had passed a dozen times on our way to the pools and saunas described yesterday, is actually a set of secret-agent doors that will only open if presented with golden cards at a precise, pre-arranged time. So. We head downstairs, and get there a little early. Just for the heck of it, we try our cards, but an angry flashing light admonishes us in German. At one ‘til one, we try again: still no dice. We watch in suspense as the minute hand makes that final lurch toward the vertical position, and then, in breathless anticipation, swipe our cards…and the wall making up the waterfall swings inward on hinges, admitting us to a circular, marble-lined reception room which we enter through the waterfall-drips still clinging to the doorway. The doors glide shut behind us, and we are on our way.

The man at reception hands us togas and slippers, the latter of which, he says, we should always wear when walking around, because the entire facility is made of marble, and the wet floors do get slippery. Yes, it is a rough life, isn’t it? Then he explains the procedure, which is amazingly appealing. Those who know me, know that I am always a sucker for an attractive “setup,” or series/package of activities/objects bundled together in an appealing way, whether it be a complete, matching edition of Proust, a little wooden box full of attractively-labelled tea cannisters, or a Burt’s Bees Head-to-Toe Starter kit of creams and body products, all arranged in their little plastic bag. But this! This, my friends, was the setup to end all setups. It was a 2.5-hour circuit of sensory delights, featuring fourteen beautiful stations, each with an allotted time period. Are you ready? Let’s go through it now.

After changing into our togas and slippers, and leaving our swimsuits in the glass cubes of the changing rooms, David and I met at the first station: the Warm Air Room. I should say that, although there were a number of people in the Bath complex at the same time as us, we had (almost) every station totally to ourselves, so it was like being a Roman fatcat that could enjoy his own private bath process at his leisure, with only a few toga-ed or un-toga-ed Senators making their way here or there, adding atmosphere. The look of the place wasn’t fake, replica Roman, but rather a beautiful, modern channelling of the Roman mood, and it was gorgeous. The Warm Air room was tiled in a calming, light turquoise, and kept at a delicious 54 degrees Centigrade. We walked in and laid our togas on two of the cedar chaises, and relaxed in warm, dry, green air for fifteen minutes (there were helpful clocks in each station). At the end of the fifteen minutes, we took our togas and progressed onto the chaises in the Hot Air Room, where five minutes felt wonderful and any longer would have felt almost unbearable (it was kept at 70C, which Nevadans can tell you is pretty hot even if the heat is dry). After the two dry saunas, we were ushered into the showers and then told to lie down, still wet, on a soft sheeted massage bed for the short-but-spectacular soap and bristle-brush massage. This confection of slightly-warm water went on for just under 10 minutes, which was just the right length to feel invigorated by the cool air and bristle brushes, and soothed by the massage. Then another quick shower to get the soap off, and we progressed to the Vapor Rooms.

The Warm Vapor Room, 42C, has three-quarter-circular marble benches to sit or lay on, and is a darker blue in color, although the thick, warm fog of water vapor also clouds the room. Our ten minutes passed in delightful relaxation, after which we donned our togas and headed through the relatively cool complex to the Hot Vapor Room, where we found air at 48C, a delicious smell akin to peppermint, and strait, stair-step benches. Another ten minutes, and we both felt like noodles. A trip through the semi-circular row of showers, where we could sample the huge-headed, “it’s-dumping-warm-rain-on-me” showerhead, the “pouring-a-sheet-of-cold-water-from-a-shovel” showerhead, the “highly-condensed-massage-jets” cold showerhead, and the “regular old” showerhead, and we were ready for the next stop on our journey: the whirlpool bath.

A word before I continue: this was not remotely akin to any “whirlpool” bath you may have encountered, unless you too have been to the Roman-Irish Bath at Bogn Engadina. This was a three-foot-deep by twenty-feet-wide, semi-circular marble grotto of perfect 36C water which erupted thunderously into agitated bubbles every five minutes or so. Looking across the white-and-turquoise bath complex, we could see the ripples from the large mineral bath reflected on the carved scenes of sea gods in ceiling. We let the bubbling jets buoy us along until our fifteen minutes were up, after which we entered the mineral bath itself, fed from nearby springs and topped by a multi-colored dome of lights. It was slightly cooler, 32C, and much deeper, maybe four-and-a-half feet. There was a definite mineral quality to the water, which made it feel thicker and softer than normal water. We floated and kicked, twirled and floated, until ten more minutes had gone by. Then it was time for a bracing dip in the cold pool, whose temperature I can’t remember but which was quite chilly, and left my skin all tingly and awake. Another warm shower, and we were ready for the penultimate station, where we dried off and moisturized with delicious-smelling body lotion on our way to the panoramic “resting station,” a semi-circular, windowed room with a view to the Alps. An attendant helped us each to one of the contoured beds, and wrapped us up in clean, dry sheets and soft yellow blankets. Then we were left in quiet to fall asleep or admire the mountains, with tingly-warm skin and more relaxed than a month of Sundays. The relaxing room also returned me to the 007 mood I got from the waterfall doors, as it was definitely the kind of place that you imagine Mr. Bond being slipped a secret message by a gorgeous (naked) woman, or momentarily surprised when his arch-rival is wrapped up in the bed next to him. And then they would both end up in an action-packed chase, having jumped on skis and zigzagged across the mountainside, cigarettes and guns blazing. Even without the secret agent stuff, though, it was truly, truly amazing.

And then it was time to go. We went back to our hotel and finally got around to having our free “welcome drink” glass of Prosecco while sitting in the comfortable lobby chairs, looking out at the show-dusted mountains and, in my case, knitting. Then it was a short shuttle ride to the train station, and a scenic goodbye ride away from the beautiful Engadina valley. Today was cloudless and beautiful, and I have to admit it was hard to go.

The sun lasted until we passed through the tunnel separating the Engadina from the rest of Switzerland, fading off the tops of the mountains last. We arrived at the town of Chur in the dark, and unfortunately won’t get to see much of it, as it’s just our jumping-off point for the special, scenic birthday trip (for David) to Italy tomorrow over the alps on the Bernina Express. Our camera batteries are charging, so wish us luck. The next time we write, it will be from Italia.

by Emily

Well. I have been a little sluggish with blogging because David and I have been enjoying the most luxurious experience of my life, old-school sanatorium style. I intentionally tried to find good deals for the lodgings on the rest of our trip in order to splurge on these two nights, and it certainly has paid off so far. If anyone has read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, you will know what I mean when I say that we’ve been feeling like we were plopped down in the middle of the Swiss sanatorium featured therein – except, of course, that people aren’t dying all around us, and instead of the “rest cure” there is an incredibly fancy nouveau-Roman complex of spa facilities at our disposal.

Engadin Scuol, where we are right now, is actually just a few miles from Davos, where The Magic Mountain is set. At the beginning of that novel, the protagonist is on a long train journey to the remote location of his cousin’s tuberculosis sanatorium, and the train is where David and I spent most of yesterday as well, after bidding a fond farewell to Rahel, our super-nice landlady in Basel, and lugging all our bags down to the train station. Then we got on a big-city train, rode it for a few hours, transferred to a small-time train, rode it for another two hours, then, finally, transferred to a bus. On the second train I was busy snapping mediocre pictures of all the pretty mountain scenery, such as this one:

Also on the second train, there was a mother with a small child who was yelling something that sounded like “Cello! Cello!” repeatedly. He would get up a head of steam and then his mother would quieten him. After a while he started yelling something that sounded like “Dykes! Dykes!” and I was imagining a troupe of lesbian cellists promenading around the mountain towns. Alas, I failed to spot them myself.

After a few failures to communicate with the bus driver (all, needless to say, totally our fault), we arrived at our fancy, fancy hotel. The nice Italian-seeming man at the checkin counter, who always says “Exactly!” when the answer to your question is yes, spent a good five minutes explaining to us how this was our drink ticket for the in-house bar, and this was our drink ticket at the sister bar down the street, and how this card entitled us to unlimited use of the “big spa” next door, but that if we wanted to go more than four separate times, we needed to recharge it at the counter. This was the view from our room when we arrived:

Along with our room, spa access and “welcome drink,” the considerable price of our room includes an amazing five-course dinner downstairs in the dining room. This was a delicious experience, although anyone who knows me, knows that after two courses I’m about ready to pack it in for the night. There was a beautiful salad, a scrumptious soup course, a cheesy torte which unfortunately involved beef, cheese ravioli (for me) or fileted chad (for David), and panna cotta/crème brulée for dessert. I actually ate a few bites of the torte, which was a strange experience for me, since basically the last time I ate beef was before my conscious memory set in. It’s seldom that you are reminded of something from so far back, that you haven’t experienced at all in the intervening years. Since the torte was already made and served to me, and the cow therefore already slaughtered, I felt sort of bad not eating the whole thing, but seriously, there was SO much food. I couldn’t even finish my main course as it was; stuffing people to bursting is another feature of Swiss sanatoriums that our stay shares with The Magic Mountain.

Communicating with the waitstaff was a little awkward as, surprisingly, everyone seems very monolingual in this corner of Switzerland, and the one language being spoken in German. This is interesting because Romauntsch, and not German, is supposedly the local dialect here, and we’ve encountered a bit of it: a lovely-sounding language that seems to me to share a similar relationship to Italian as Portugese has to Spanish. But, of course, most of the people in this resort town come from other, non-Romauntsch-speaking places.

Unfortunately, dinner took so long that we didn’t have time for a nocturnal spa visit, but we got up early and put on our white robes right away. Another inducement was this beautiful sunrise over the village:

Let’s get closer to those mountains, shall we?

It has always been a semi-guilty dream of mine to spend time at a fancy spa like this, and David can attest that I was very excited as we made our way down the heated passarelle (a beautiful glass-and-cedar-lined passageway that smells delicious and features soothing music) to the spa itself. Once there, I was not disappointed. I regret that the bathing experience doesn’t really lend itself to picture-taking, but believe me when I say that this is a very attractive place. There is a big central bath with a fountain in the middle of it and an enclave with seats and jets of water. Around the main bath are lovely little Romanesque grottoes containing different, wonderful experiences: the hot-water grotto, with a bubbly geyser and a back-massaging waterfall that alternate with one another; the cold-water grotto, also featuring a waterfall; the salt-watter grotto; the shower grotto; the “organic sauna,” featuring a delicious smell and colored lights, as well as a fountain of cold water in which to luxuriate when you get overheated; and the outdoor pool, which you can swim out to via a little flap in the wall, and which is situated at the base of all the gorgeous mountains that surround this place. It is heated to a comfortable warm temperature that causes steam to rise profusely off the top of the water into the chilly alpine air, and there is a current in the water that pushes you gently around in a circle while you admire the sublime scenery. Occasionally Seussian fountains start pouring jets of water into the pool, and you can go play in their spray. The whole thing really is some kind of dream-candy-store for grownups. I don’t expect to have that many similar experiences in my life, so I’m absolutely making the best of it now. At that early hour, it was largely empty, just us and assorted elderly people, everyone in a quiet, morningtime kind of mood. Now that we have been to this same bath three times at different times of day (afternoon=kindertime; evening=*ugh*teenagers), I can definitely vouch for morning being far and away the best. I have sometimes been accused of having been born with an old soul.

By nine-thirty, we’d sampled most of the delights of the upper spa (there is also a more intense sauna area downstairs), and we decided to go have breakfast. Again, Magic Mountain-style, this was a bountiful spread, including a wide assortment of fresh breads and rolls, locally-made jams, a gigantic cheeseboard, scrambled eggs and various meats, including a smoked fish about which David was very enthusiastic, more loose-leaf teas than you could shake a stick at, lovely silver juice dispensers, a whole buffet of yogurt and cereal products, lovely fresh fruit, and probably more that I’m forgetting. It was overwhelming, but in the best way. We both had delicious, hearty meals, and then, like Hans Castorp in the early pages of The Magic Mountain, decided to take a walk into the village, as it was beckoning:

Again like the sanatorium in the novel, ours is on a very steep hill, so although going down was no problem, going up had us huffing and puffing a bit in the thin air. You can get a bit of a sense of the streets’ steepness here, as well as some of the beautiful decorations on the houses around this area. I love the linear, stencil-like quality about them (you can see the decorations better if you click the picture to see the large size):

Our goal was the church whose melodious bells we’d heard chiming on the hour.

All throughout our trip, we’ve noticed that people are still using the church bells very enthusiastically, and that they chime, not only on the hour and half-hour, but for an extended period at certain times of day. In Estavayer-le-Lac they chimed for ten minutes at ten o’clock; in Neuchâtel for ten minutes at seven; in Basel we were back to ten. In Scuol the extended period of tolling happened at noon, and we happened to be sitting inside the church at the time, the overtones ringing in our ears, looking at this gorgeous stained glass window:

I really love this. It seems to me to combine the best elements of medievalism and modernism, and it’s so simple and clean-looking. And the lambs are cute. There were other interesting aspects of this church, such as the rose window above the entrace, which featured a Star of David made in red glass. You couldn’t really see it from inside, though, since the pipe organ had been pushed up against it. David and I wondered whether the window was used as a signal to Jewish folks fleeing Germany during WWII, that they had found a safehaven. Occasionally something will happen that will make me realize how intense it must have been to be in Switzerland during the Second World War – like when we were in Basel, which is in a tiny sliver of land sandwiched between the present-day boundaries of Germany and France. Where we are right now is just over the Alps from Austria/Italy, making imaginary Von Trapp children appear in my mind’s eye, singing as they cross the mountain range I can see from our window.

On the way back to the hotel, we sort of made friends with this guy:

At first he seemed a little standoffish, and then he seemed pretty friendly, and then he seemed really friendly, and then he seemed kind of crazy and started attacking the top of the gravel bin on which he stood, and then he started hunting David’s shoes, so we had to back away slowly and not make any sudden moves. Luckily, he became distracted by an invisible presence near his left paw, and so we were able to make a lucky getaway.

Back to the sauna for more relaxing, and then we had massages with aromatherapy! My massage therapist was a stern German-seeming woman who was very strong, and David’s was a gentle Italian-seeming woman who giggled a lot, but they both did great work. Afterward they gave us apples, and small bottles with the remaining scented oil in them. Noodle-like, we stood around “taking the waters” at the pump room, where you can sample four very different-tasting mineral waters out of beaker-like glasses, while looking in at the main pool of the spa. After a little writing and knitting, it was time again for dinner, a much more manageable size today, and much less meat-intensive, but just as delicious. After a final trip to the now teenager-infested sauna, I feel fully relaxed and ready for the next segment of our trip. Excitingly, we still have a reservation at the “Roman-Irish Bath” tomorrow, which is a 2.5-hour process of short stints in different temperatures and moistures of steam bath, while wearing a "traditional toga." I can hardly wait. And then: Chur and Italy!

by Emily

As you can see, we’re still in Basel, defended in every cobbled square by a cockerel-headed basilisk of the first degree. I wonder if citizens of Basel, alone in all the world, can safely look them in the eye…

It’s funny how staying in a place that’s slightly off the beaten path while traveling means that you actually get to know your little corner of the city, rather than just getting on the correct tram and getting off at the correct stop. Such is our experience in Basel. It is also funny how, when you’re unsure of exactly how to get home, every recognizable landmark is a source of jubilation and affectionate possessiveness. “Hooray!” you exclaim, “there’s our junk shop! And here’s the place where we have to cross the street to avoid the construction!” And, because this is Basel right before the festival Faschnacht, “Oh, here’s the third little bakery on the right that’s selling those creepy marzipan figurines! We must be on the right track.”

You know what else they’re selling for Faschnacht? Any other lovers of Gunter Grass out there? There was practially a whole store FULL of these:

Eat your heart out, Oskar! (For those who haven’t read Grass’s amazing anti-fascist novel The Tin Drum, I highly recommend it.)

Today dawned grey and rainy, so David and I spend a sleepy day at the art museum, or Kunstmuseum. Our main goal there was to see Hans Holbein’s famously gruesome depiction of Christ in the tomb. You’ve probably seen the painting: it’s really the only one around that shows a really dead-looking Christ, with green skin and skeletal fingers, laid out on a cold, solid-looking illusionistic marble slab, with the top of the tomb almost touching his chest. It is definitely an affecting image, all the more so seen in person. We were particularly interested in it because it features prominently in Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, a novel both David and I read and enjoyed. In the novel, the “nihilist” character (there’s always one in a Dostoevsky novel, isn’t there?) actually has the painting in his house, and it has a profound effect on the simple, good-hearted yet, of course, doomed, protagonist. It seemed to me that Dostoevsky regarded the painting as irreligious, and you can understand why someone might feel like that, looking at it: it could be interpreted as a 16th-century version of Mel Gibson’s gruesome Jesus movie, focusing on the gore and horror of human flesh rather than the more redemtive aspects of the Christian story. The painting is definitely hard to look at. It feels claustrophobic as well as gruesome, what with the long, narrow dimensions. But David and I both felt like it could be a genuine, religious effort to humanize Christ, to emphasize his humanity in order to stress how miraculous and loving his life was. Coming from an agnostic perspective, it was also interesting to have the human rights aspect of crucifiction brought home. I mean, looking at someone who’s just been nailed to a cross and hung there for days, shouldn’t be easy, because that is a totally inhumane thing to do to another person. Which makes the painting an interesting comment on the shortcomings of justice systems all over. Hans Holbein: unlikely anti-capital-punishment crusader! In any case, it was a very thought-provoking work.

After the Holbein, we ate a delicious if overpriced lunch at the museum café, then made a beeline for the modernist section, which is really more my kettle of fish than 17th-century Dutch and German painting. They had a good collection, although it suffered from the standard malady of having only one work by a woman on display, and that being a nude self-portrait. But good, nonetheless. Particular favorites of mine were a large Franz Marc canvas with the amazing title “Animal fates (the trees showed their rings, the animals their arteries),” which reminded me of my friend Miriam’s animal paintings plus some added apocalyptic fury; and a gorgeous little piece by Paul Klee entitled “Ad marginum,” which looked like an ancient illuminated manuscript somehow made by a man-child metalsmith from the distant future. YOU DON’T GET MUCH BETTER THAN THAT! Unfortunately, I can’t find a reproduction anywhere, but I’ll keep looking for “the complete marginalia of Paul Klee,” and maybe someday I’ll run across it. There was also a piece by Cy Twombly with the great title “Study to Establish the Presence of a Myth.” Unfortunately I didn’t connect that strongly with the piece itself, but the title I love with my whole heart.

When our museum legs had set in to their full extent, we wandered outside, took some wrong turnings and ended up here:

Basel’s Rathaus, or town hall, which is lavishly decorated in colors that I can only assume are meant to combat grey days just like the one we had today. David and I snapped pictures while munching on huge, soft pretzels from the vendor across the street.

Unfortunately, the light was already fading from the sky, but you can get some idea of the elaborate decoration, which was particulary impressive inside the couryard that the building encloses. I particularly liked these fine furry friends:

And one might worry less about bicycle thieves with the fierce spirit of this fountain watching over your bike:

We took pictures and video until our hands were almost frozen, and I started to get a little panicky, as I tend to do when my hands won’t work properly. To soothe our chill, we went across the street from the Rathaus and bought a wide assortment of AMAZING-looking chocolates and sweets, against the better advice of all our elders, who have sensibly been telling us to watch our waistlines. But do we listen? No, we eat chocolate-dipped candied grapefruit slices in the public square. These young people today. In our defense, the one truffle I’ve tried from this shop was on a level of no other chocolate I have ever tasted, including (for you Portland people) the stuff from Pix. So at least there’s some method to our gluttony.

Now it is 8:30pm, and David went to sleep fifteen minutes ago, claiming that he was “gerschlossen,” or closed for the night. I feel very affectionate toward Basel, especially the little paths we took along the way back to our guesthouse from the bio-foods store, where we stopped again tonight and wished the best to our French-speaking cheese lady. I am a bit sad to be leaving already; there are many more strange museums that we didn’t get the chance to visit, and many bookshops, hatshops and sweetshops we didn’t get to explore. HOWEVER. My shoulders hurt something dreadful from carrying around all my luggage, and I am SO ready for the spa that is the next stop on our trip. So, with the prospect of massages and saunas to console me, I bid you farewell, fair city of the Basilisk. May we meet again.

by Emily

Zum Basilisk!

HARRY POTTER RELEASE DATE: JULY 21!!!! And we are in Basilisk City over here. It’s like The Dark Lord is gonna jump out at you from every corner. The basilisk is the guardian creature of Basel, after all. And now, for those non-Potterfans, on to Switzerland.

We got a lazy start this morning and then had a semi-stressful encounter with the cleaning lady at our hotel over a misunderstanding about checkout time. Because of this, yesterday’s entry was kind of rushed, and I didn’t get a chance to tell you about how, when we let the automata museum it seemed like the whole town of Neuchâtel was out on the lake promenade, or how we went back up to the church at sunset and spent a long time admiring the evening light and the way the colors from the stained glass windows played on the inside church walls, as if shining through underwater gems.

Then we walked out to the edge of the courtyard and admired this beautiful sunset over the lake.

You can see that there were a surprising number of plane-writers out, and they were all headed over that mountain. The sunset was also gorgeous reflecting its pink and apricot light on the more distant, craggy peaks to the east.

After finally succeeding in leaving our hotel yesterday, we stopped at a little café and had our first pot of fondue of the trip! I honestly expected to be eating it breakfast, lunch and dinner, but there has been a pretty wide selection of different kinds of food available, so we haven’t had to. The fondue was excellent, though, and I even had a café au lait with it that was totally delicious and worth ordering even though it made me feel a little sick a few hours later. Our waiter was really funny; I told David that interacting with him was almost like playing a video game where the friendliness of the person increases or decreases immediately as a direct result of how well the player is speaking French. When I was having a chatty conversation with him about our trip, he was very charming and friendly, but later, when I stumbled asking for water, he turned colder. I redeemed myself a bit telling him everything was delicious, but lost points trying to communicate that we wanted the check. Someone should program this waiter into a computer and sell him as a foreign-language practice tool, as his charming demeanor when you get things right is a real inducement to improve. I think it could sell.

After lunch we hauled our cases of too-much-stuff up the gigantic hill on which the town is built to the train station, which gave us a stiff bit of exercise and saved us 25 francs for a taxi ride. I felt sad to be leaving French-speaking Switzerland after so short a stay, but I do feel like I packed in a good number of interactions en français considering our visit was so short. My experiences in French Switzerland REALLY increase my desire to visit France proper, and David is even saying that he’d like to start French lessons! This is very exciting to me, as we could practice together and have secret exchanges that non-french-speakers would fail to understand.

On the train ride to Basel, there were people around us speaking French, English, Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. Being in Switzerland is such an awesome experience lingually, and makes the currently prevalent American fear of the “Mexican Invasion” that much more ridiculous. Remember the recent hoopla about that band that covered “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Spanish, and then all the DC fat cats went into an uproar and delcared that the national anthem was only to be done in English, and ohmygawd what if the US is no longer an English-speaking country? What if our precious uni-lingual status is threatened? WILL THE FABRIC OF AMERICA BE TORN ASUNDER????? Switzerland makes this concern seem totally laughable. The Swiss have preserved their national identity and unity since the mid-thirteenth century, incorporating four official languages and a handful of non-official ones, and the only effect, from what I can tell, is that everyone here is multi-lingual from childhood. AKA, smarter. Well, God forbid American children should become better-educated, right? Granted, it’s always easy to visit a new place and become superficially enamored of all the foreign ways. But really. Give the xenophobia a break. Anyway, it’s very inspiring and stimulating to be around so many languages being spoken at one time.

Upon arrival in Basel, a pleasantly gruff taxi driver took us to our lovely guesthouse, where Rahel, our nice landlady, had left a scavenger-style trail of notes to lead us to our room:

The house and room are beautiful, giving onto a little balcony and lovely backyard garden. There is a cute little kitchen with tea and coffee, and generally “all the amenities.” After getting settled in our room we took a little dusk-time walk down to Basel’s old town, which you enter through a medieval-looking portcullised clock tower. Within the old town itself we encountered an impressive church, an even more impressive synagogue, many gorgeous bakeries and sweet shops, and a glut of tasty-looking restaurants. We also encountered two basilisk fountains (!!) and beautiful little grocery store which proclaimed “Woll Bio!” which we think might mean “All Organic!” but we’re not sure.

Everything we got there was very tasty, though, including my new favorite food, Quark (like yogurt but more curdy, tingly, rich and delicious), and the intense, delicious German-style bread that came in a gigantic round loaf and which David jokes you need a saw to get into. The experience at the grocery store was especially exciting as the woman at the bread and cheese counter didn’t speak English but did speak French, so I got another opportunity for language practice.

Today we woke up to see that the sunny weather had broken and we were beset by rain. That’s okay, though, since we have some serious museum-going to accomplish. Team Galli-Johnson will report back. Au revoir!

by Emily

Yesterday we had many adventures. We hiked up some winding medieval stairs to visit this lovely place:

Our leg muscles were telling us the air was thinner than in Portland! While there, we visited with this fine young gentleman:

He actually isn't very young. The church of Neuchâtel was originally built during the 12th century. It's now reformed (e.g. Protestant), but still has an extraordinary amount of beautiful Catholic decoration, including lots of gargoyles - more of the cute than the frightening persuasion. Perhaps in a nod to their official reformed status, there is also a statue of a patriarchal crusader out front, tablet in his hands, treading over the severed head of some anti-reformation adversary. The text under him reads, "La parole de Dieu est vivante et efficace et plus pénétrante qu'un glaive à deux tranchants," which translates as "The word of God is living and true and more penetrating than a double-edged broadsword." So, that gives you an idea the kind of guy we're dealing with here. To me it felt like a contrast with the spirit of the church itself, which was gentle and meditative, not confrontational at all. (Actually, it seems like a double-edged broadsword is more a smashing and bashing type of weapon than a penetrating one, but who am I to question?)

We also took a walk along here:

The beautiful and sunny, if chilly, public promenade along the shore of Lake Neuchâtel. Noticing a preponderance of Italian being spoken in a certain area, we tried out the local pizzeria and had delicious wood-oven, thin-crust pies with slices of fresh mozzarella (for me) and mussels, shrimp and squid (for David). Down at the quai, each proprietor of a dock gets to decorate their own boathouse, leading to an appealing heterogeneity along the shore:

But by FAR, the most unique thing we observed today was the demonstration of 18th-century automata at the Musée d'art et d'histoire. It was very special to be able to see this, as the automata are only put into operation on the first Sunday of every month. What were the odds that we, a couple of kids from Portland, would be able to witness it? But we did, and soon you'll be able too as well (David videoed the demonstration and wel'll be posting an edit here!) It was totally amazing.

The writer (l'écrivain) is the most revolutionary of the automata, capable of writing any text you can imagine, in any language that uses the Roman alphabet. Which is a pretty astounding accomplishment for three Swiss guys living in the 1700's. He is like a very picturesque, slow-moving printer, which makes use of cutting edge quill-and-ink technology. He and the artist (who draws four different pictures, some with shading) work via three levers (one for the up/down hand motion, one for left/right, and one for pressure on the pen) that are controlled by a series of hand-sculpted revolving disks. The hills and valleys in the edges of the disks control the relative degrees of motion and pressure for each lever, and the disks are constantly turning inside the little guys. The mechanism is a little bit like a much more beautiful and effective Etch-a-Sketch. And that's just the hand motions: there are also details like the artist's exhalation of actual air every so often, and the way the writer's eyes follow his pen. Totally. Amazing.