Destination: Kazakhstan

We've posted his censorship alert 6 hours ago, but nobody cares. Visits from Le Monde or any other of the elite French newspapers...forget it. Nobody is interested. Nothing but the usual, lechery visits of our site for our naked girls from...(don't ask).

I informed Sacha about this unfortunate turn of events (is it a "turn," actually?), and he decided to let it go, and leave the country, leave France, leave the old, tired continent, and look for uncensored pastures elsewhere. And there he is, on his way to Kazakhstan---the only transcontinental destination available at this late hour by train (8:36pm, the train is late, of course), pictured above. Fortunately, it's a non-stop ride that will take only 6 days and 6 minutes.

Bye bye, Sacha, we will miss you!

Keep your powder dry, especially in Kazakhstan! And send us a picture of the rotating golden statue of President Breftzerk. And quit smoking at an appropriate moment in the future---especially cigarettes that look suspiciously like something more.

-"Uncensored pastures, that sounds like a flip from the washed-up scriptwriter."
-"Come to think of it, we haven't heard from him in a long time."
-"Well, he was supposed to have disappeared in the Mediterranean, off Cannes."
-"Perhaps he is in Kazakhstan now, and works as a poet for President Breftzerk."

Burlington, Vermont

We had barely arrived in the North-East Kingdom, or Perry would haul us off to visit an old friend, Big Al, in Burlington. Burlington is in the Guinness league, twice, for being the largest city of Vermont (more than 10k inhabs), and for being the cloudiest city of the continental US. It borders on the Lake Champlain (pictured), which is widely held responsible for the microclimate.

I had never seen the sun in Burlington before, but it did shine upon our arrival for dinner with Big Al and Helen, his lovely wife, whom we had last seen in December of 1988, when we had been invited to her perfect Christmas Dinner. Nothing had changed, of course.

Al is an emeritus of the University of Vermont, and we could not resist the invitation to his alma mater.

The University is home to the Dudley H. Davis Center, where the university's coop is located (T-shirts, Maple syrup), and where the Value Hall enshrines the values of the university. Respect, Openness, Integrity, Innovation, Responsibility. "Why not Justice," a Senior Vice President of Academic Communication must have asked during interminable Power Point Presentations. Was she fired? No, justice was duly added to the value spectrum,  and is missing only from the picture because our Samsung travel camera does not do wide angles.

We however, are in a spiky mode. Why Justice, we ask Big Alk, even though we know the answer already. Stay tuned.

Back from the races

The 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco is still on, while I am introduced to Alastair, the master of the black holes. Yes, he is a computer scientist at CERN, where the new quantum ring (located conveniently under the town of Willem-Voltaire that erected a minaret recently in the honor of Prince Willem’s sexlife)...where the new quantum ring was built to make newer and better particles.

Alastair	black hole

The problem is, some of these buggers might coalesce to form black holes---BLACK HOLES---ultra-dense objects that exert a merciless gravitational grip on their environment and could, once created, swallow up the planet in a nick of time. Alastair keeps his cool. "Don’t worry," he shouts across the sound barrier of the vintage cars below, "cosmic rays would long since have created similar black holes,"---the implication being that the holes would long since have swallowed the planet. That’s a comforting thought, and I tell everybody.

Ann-Carole in the middle	Rasender reporter

The glasses are filled again, and we dance to the sound of the vintage decibels to celebrate our new friends, the counterfactual cosmic rays.

Terry and Josie, another neighbor

De Lempicka in Monaco

We are still watching the 7ème grand prix historique of Monaco. (Click here for the first part of the story). The champagne flows, more up here than down below on the decks of the superyachts. Is this a good or a bad sign?

I suddenly realize (it must be the alcohol) that two suspiciously small paintings of Tamara de Lempicka, the art deco painter, adorn the room. I try to get the message across, but nobody is interested. Tamara had a run of auction records with paintings selling above US$ 7 million recently, much to the dismay of M&’s favorite art critic, Souren Melikian, who never fails to mention “Edelkitsch” in her presence. The paintings here on the wall should be worth millions, I tell the other guests. Still, nobody is interested. One, out of sheer politeness, mentions that one should never insure in France, what with those leaks at the assurances.

Are these de Lempickas real? One is signed, one is not. Closeup, they look suspiciously flat, as if printed. But they do raise interesting questions, like, “where is the kitchen,” and “is this the right or the left bosom?”

The 7ème grand prix historique race continues with a parade of vintage models, while an alien spaceship lands effortlessly on the shining Mediterranean outside, and then transmogrifies into the super cruiser, The World, the home of homeless billionaires.

No, I stand corrrected. It's not The World, it's just some minor cruiser of the Holland America Line, a hopeless outfit for the toiling masses.

Stay tuned. The story continues here.