"Hello" from "Saas-Fee."

"The European Graduate School EGS Media and Communications program, aiming at creative breakthroughs and theoretical paradigm shifts, brings together master's and doctoral students with the visionaries and philosophers of the media world who teach about art, media, communications, film, internet, web and cyberspace studies from a cross-disciplinary perspective."

But you probably think it's fake...

An EGS student poses an engaging quandry to his fellow students as they carry him back to his room at the Allalin Hotel after a night of drinking. .

I know I did, basically until I got off the bus at Saas-Fee. More than that, nearly everything at EGS seems pretty much shrouded in mystery when you, like me, are heading to EGS without ever actually talking to anyone about it. So this screen is meant to clarify this and also a few practical issues that you probably aren't going to get taken care of through the message boards, or through email. Like any place, EGS is only full of humans and ultimately, like every school it's a business. What say, then, let's cut through the fog? So follows the truth about EGS...

The Big Picture.

Or: How do I know this isn't just part of the great scam that is EGS?

Proof positive, I have not. But I figured at least if you saw this, you might assess that the scam would have to be fairly colossal, or at least terrifically well orchestrated. Also, since this is up under a site that is myname.com, at least you'd have someone to blame directly for lying to you. As of this revision of the site it is more likely than not that if you have gotten this far, you probably know EGS is real. Maybe you don't though. I didn't. Anyway, it is. [ top ]

Shawn knows that the way to make tedious travel time pass more quickly is to play his guitar and to sing a song, which he does at the bus depot in Brig.

Travel Basics.

I found, upon my first journey to Saas-Fee, that the EGS website had seemingly unintentionally not been entirely forthcoming in regards to a few basic things. As such, I propose to you a bit of extra pragmatic information about the process of getting ready to actually show up in Saas-Fee. You'll be smart if you know these things, which I was not when I arrived.

The website will tell you that, "it gets cold at night, so bring a sweater." Bring more than "a sweater", ok, because it could be raining and cold for a week or two. Bottom line, EGS can't control the weather and we're talking about June in Saas-Fee, which is a Swiss city with an altitude of 180m (5900+ ft).
EGS is pretty vague in describing what kind of Internet access thing they have on campus in Saas-Fee. Let me tell you. Some of the rooms have Internet connections, mine didn't even have a phone. You can use the two computers in the office pretty much whenever you want, but that's only two computers. Also, the line-in is an ISDN line, which ends up feeling in in American home-usage terms to something like a 57.6kbps dial-up, so forget any strenuous Internet work. I was never around to see this, but according to all sources, EGS is currently set up with a wireless connection, and, with the most recent intel I can get, the lab consists of one (1) W*ndows 98 box and 1 Fedora Core 2 box.
Swiss electricity is probably going to be somewhat problematic for your average traveler, in particular for the gadget-minded student preparing for Saas-Fee, so here is what you are going to need if you use a laptop, conveniently available to be delivered to your home:

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Frequently Asked Questions.

1. How do the classes work? The classes work like this: you go to class almost every day for three weeks, from 9:30-12:30, and from 16:00-19:00. There are often enough open lectures at 20:30. You have a professor for a total of five or six of these three hour sessions, sometimes once a day, sometimes twice a day.

Magnolia and Nioucha chew blades of grass.

Magnolia and Nioucha relax in the idyllic pastures of Saas-Fee, and stave off malnutrition by chewing blades of grass.

2. Where do you live, or: how does that work? You live either in a hotel room, or in one of the apartments surrounding the hotel. Saas-Fee is actually less a town than a collection of hotels, which apparently fill up at some point, but I haven't seen any real evidence to support that, except for all the closed-down snowboard shops.

3. There are classrooms here. Or what? There is a somewhat creepy wooden oblong structure, which supports the two classrooms currently used by the first and second year students respectively. One of the most clearly spectacular parts of the EGS experience is having your audio spectrum shared by Jean-Luc Nancy and sheep herders corraling their flock. Technology: There are some projectors and vcrs and stuff, but there's no technician per se so it always takes a while to get things going. (Of course, this may have gotten better since my tenure, just don't expect a ton of capable technicians. You may think this is a technology-oriented place, but it is a philosophy school "plain and simple.")

4. What is the food like? The food is exactly bland but nutritious. A lot of flaky white fishes and dill sauce, and the exact same salad bar every lunch and dinner for three weeks. It gets old, but it does the job. And if you're lucky, you can find a resturant that's open. (I have been assured that this has not changed one bit.)

5. What does "Leuca Fortis" mean? It actually means "The Lion is Strong" or something like that. But the better one, I think, is "Leuk Stadt is Strong". Extrapolate further at your own peril.

These things are real animals and they mow the grass of Saas-Fee.

6. What's the deal with Schirmacher? This is probably the question among questions, and there is certainly at least a book's worth of stuff to say here, so I'm not going to say anything. Which means you should be ready for anything. To wit: He is the single-minded force behind EGS. It is a certain kind of thing to start and run a program like this. EGS is "Wolfgang's party on the hill."

7. So isn't that stuff decriminalized there? Yes, it is. But that doesn't mean you can get it. Let me give you a tip here: Stop in Bern or Basel on your way to Saas-Fee, which, as I said before, is a dead place for the month of June.

8. I like to drink. Is that going to be possible at all? Let me assure you, with all my heart, that it will not only be possible, but necessary. [ top ]

David is enjoying a moment of peace and/or diet coke.

David enjoys an unusual moment of peace with a warm fire and a cool diet coke, as students skip the open lecture of DJ Spooky.

Tips.

Thoughts gathered from students EGS, each in the process of trying to determine a way to survive better.

1. Make yourself a sandwich at breakfast. There's a reasonable chance that you're not going to want to eat what's for lunch, and, lucky you, the Swiss like to eat a lot of hearty breads, meats, and cheeses for breakfast. Make a sandwich, wrap it in a napkin, eat it later. You will know this is a professional-grade tip by the third week.

2. Mental exercise you are expecting, but just to inform you, the classroom building is on top of a giant Swiss hill, which you will have to walk up two to three times a day every day. So if you are smarter than I am, maybe its a good time to cut back on the smoking.

3. Read the books, it makes the (short) classes go much more smoothly.

4. Bring floppy disks or CDR(W)s, in case your room doesn't get access to the internet. You might have to do some data transfer.

5. Bring Entertainment! EGS is taxing, and I completely failed to bring anything to watch or read that wasn't theory. Some basic entertainment will save you from more than one overwhelming day. [ top ]

Dean of Students Wolfgang Schirmacher and filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff enjoy a lively debate on the finer points of Derrida's thought on translation.

Translators.

As it stands, there is a similar page to this in the Spanish language, created and maintained by Alejo Duque. If there is any interest anywhere in translating it to another language, or if you have something like this email me, and I will post the link here.

Mi amigo y colega, Alejo Duque, ha creado una página introductoria para los estudiantes en EGS en español, disponible aquí. [ top ]

Andy sent me this very rare collectors' photo.

Etc.

Former/current EGS Students, Send me your EGS points of interest to post here, which I will do at my flitting discretion.

I went to the June session, but according to all information gathering, this material applies to either session. The exception being mainly that in August there are more tourists. Either time, you may see some fluegelhorns, which are devastatingly fantastic.

This page is maintained sporatically and as whim provides by Paul Tulipana.

Additional photographs are provided by Marji and Rick and the lovely wallpaper and horizontal rules are provided by my hero over at squidfingers.com.

What does this mean?: Is a genetically engineered tomato a vegetable or a machine? [ top ]

Paul and Rick anxiously await the airplane chicken, after three weeks of assessing the merits of cannibalism.