Was up late reading until about 1 AM. Agreed to edit a book that is turning out to be a much more difficult proposition than first imagined. The food here is very good. The air is thin, and I feel tired often. My tooth is holding up well enough.I look forward to getting it fixed. It seems we are going, en masse, to the Venice Biennial. Something like 8 hours on a bus each way. I don’t know if that is such a wise use of our time… I hate busses.

Today’s class was intense. Speck was rather provocative with some of his language and things got a little heated. Last night there was a reading by Nicholas(?) Baker that was very good. From his latest novel about a poet. I don’t remember who is on tonight.

Off I go!

Got very little sleep last night. Finally passed out around 2.30 AM. Up at 8 AM. Class with Hendrik Speck – another facinating romp through the world the the interweb thingie.

Finished songs for the Tate presentation, emailed them to Carlos.

Gotta trot.

I’m reading a book I can’t talk about.

:-/

I am in Switzerland at the European Graduate School. It is proving to be a lot busier than I expected, but not as frantic as I feared. The cap on my tooth popped off just before I left for the airport, so now I have a significant hole in my mouth. I am brushing all the time and doing extensive antiseptic rinses several times a day. So far, so good, except a night, where I am experiencing a minor drooling problem… Argh. There is a dentist here – if it gets out of hand or infected, I’ll get it dealt with. So far, so good though (knock on wood).

This morning and afternoon for the next three days I am in a class with Hendrik Speck, a professor who lives in Berlin and teaches in Denmark. He’s soft spoken and very much on top of this thing. Because the students are all from different technical skillsets, he’s been going over basic stuff like the history of the internet. I know a lot about this, so while I don’t find this very challenging, I am able to provide some useful comments, given my history…

Tonight, I attend a lecture by Wolfgang Schirmacher on Research Techniques, etc. I imagine/hope this is where he lays out the formats and formulae of our work here.

Have met some of the other students. A bright bunch, for sure.

This town, Saas Fee, is pretty amazing – we’re only about 500 – 1000 feet below the tree line, about 6000 ft / 2000 meters above sea level. The peaks around us are snowy chunks of rock, about twice as high. It’s pretty impressive – everywhere you look is some stunning view of some huge mountain. The altitude is such that I was a bit winded just climbingthe hill to class this morning. I will return to Toronto with Lungs Of Steel.

The food has ranged from very good to excellent. Of course, it is all Swiss, so it is big on dairy, which is useless to me, but there is enough variety that I’m NOT starving…

Oh – gotta roll. More later.

Edit: 8 PM: Second class was interesting – discussed a variety of efforts how people organise using new media and other media for resistance and political purposes. Outlined the next few classes and discussed the program.

Now to a class on Research Methods which goes to 10.30PM.