Verbier Dispatch

Inexplicably, the entry hall to my hotel has but two items of decor: an AC/DC poster ("Hell's Bells") and a "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" poster. Swiss chalet=freshman dorm? And though no one seems to work at the hotel at all, except to spread an unbelievable amount of lemon-scented cleaner on the floor around noon, making my hallway a deeply treacherous experience (perhaps this is meant to assist with the skiing?), somehow about 20 Swiss teeny-boppers found their way into the hitherto-locked entertainment room this morning (!) to have some sort of mild Euro-rave. Also this morning at 8 it was deemed necessary to move what sounded like an armored assault vehicle, slowly and scrapingly, across the terrace beneath my window; I could count the gravel bits as they were crushed under its weight. A nice touch of hospitality.

It sounds like I am complaining, but I must admit these disturbances haven't really bothered me at all; the Swiss air has made it possible for me to sleep epically, so that I feel I could have slept through the entire festival without too much incident, a Rip van Denkle. I would like to make the following astute cultural observations, cross-ocean: 1) Capri pants are in, for boys. 2) America needs to get on the crepe bandwagon, immediately. 3) We need to throw many more diva fits at American festivals, to make them interesting. 4) --which is a complex corollary to 3-- Black Audis, or black, somewhat evil-looking vehicles of any type, need to drive around ominously and importantly and pick us up at odd hours and transport us obscenely short distances; we need to put posters of ourselves in hiking gear shops, grocery stores, and other odd places; we need whole towns to make into shrines of classical music so that non-classical music people start wondering "what am I missing out on here?" etc. etc. If it is possible let's create these town/shrines in outrageously beautiful places with tremendous cheese and chocolate. The possible American candidates for this sort of thing must be limited; get to work! I think Aspen must be the closest (since they already have the crepe wagon) but like so many American locales they need to shore up their cheese credentials.

Right now I feel as if I am in a Mentos commercial. The fog is lifting off the mountain. I am on the terrace, breathing the cool fresh air. Fragments of horn calls reach me from afar, echoing off the mountainside (I am not kidding!). I am waiting waiting waiting for the waitress of the Milk Bar to come back and offer me another coffee, dammit! With all their sense of proportion they don't understand that we imbalanced Americans need more more more of everything. She will look at me funny when she finally comes back and I order a crepe on top of my croissant. But I don't care. I even get a kind of perverse pleasure in horribly fulfilling the gluttonous American stereotype; but really it's a form of cross-cultural love! it's because the crepes are so so so good and they don't start serving them until noon which is now!!!!! Are you enjoying this real time blogging experience, readers? I would give you a bite-by-bite account of my chocolate banana chantilly crepe but perhaps that might become boring. My gym membership is so far away, in New York, calling over the ocean, counting off hours of Stairmaster and Elliptical Cross-Trainer as chocolate appears on the table. Shut up you. I will deal with you when I get home, maybe. A new enemy: a vicious bee, having immersed itself in my confiture, buzzes greedily towards my crepe, it is a pitched battle, away you scoundrel, this you may not have!, as you can see I am very busy, there is no time for more blogging ...