Calmy-Rey instead of Monet

I've been to several museums in the last few days with my nephew Daniel. Yesterday, my son Miles and I went with him to the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen to see the Brancusi-Serra exhibition, but mostly to see the permanent collection. We were looking forward to seeing Monet's Waterlilies (visible in the middle window of the picture above) and my favorite painting there, Kandinsky's Improvisation 10:But instead, we did not get to see much of the permanent collection at all, because it was closed because a film was being made.

Near the end of our visit, we talked to a guard who was watching the barrier between the final Brancusi-Serra room and the lovely room of Rothkos that was closed, and he told us that the film was a recording of a speech for the Swiss National Day next week by Federal Councillor Micheline Calmy-Rey:

So we did not get to see Monet because of Calmy-Rey.

Everwine; Idling

I liked this poem, "Aubade in Autumn," by Peter Everwine, in the October 15, 2007, issue of The New Yorker. They've got something going about handymen right now (as with Cornelius Eady's "Handymen"). Alice Quinn's farewell theme? :-)

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The same issue contained a "Talk of the Town" item about letting your car idle, "Idle Hands." It includes a reference to car-engine idling in Switzerland (or the supposed lack thereof):

'“In Switzerland you have to turn your engine off if you’re more than four cars behind the stoplight,” Rebecca Kalin, the group’s founder, said the other day. “Idling is rude there. It’s like burping—you just don’t do it.”'

Well, actually, idling is not illegal in Basel-Stadt, the canton I live in. But it is in Geneva, which is why Irène Jacob turns off her car at the stoplight in Kieslowski's "Red."

But I turn off the car whenever I am at a stoplight. For reasons, check here and here and here. And before you say, "But you should only turn it off if you are going to be idling for ten seconds or more," here's my response to that: I might have the engine off for less than 10 seconds once in a while, but considering how often I am at a stoplight for a minute or two, my turnoff time averages to well over 10 seconds per time I turn my engine off.