Or Where I Meet a Citizen of the World and am Suitably Impressed
The other day, on a café terrace, in a conversation with a group of acquaintances, I blithely asked someone where they were from. (Simple curiosity, a belated attempt to vanquish my sempiternal timidity and enhance my conversational and social skills.)
“Oh, I’m a citizen of the world.” was the reply.
“Sorry,“I said, “I’m a bit slow, what do you mean by “citizen of the world”?”
“Oh you know man , like where you’re from is just not important, I’m at home everywhere.”
Man, that is NOT the thing to say to me, even when I’m just back from holiday. I loathe and abhor this kind of bourgeois self-sufficient flippancy and shallowness. Let’s just say that a rather animated discussion followed… so much for my trist try at being sociable…
It turned out this global villager was from Detroit of all places, spoke only English (plus a few Swiss-German swear words learned from his grandfather), had never visited much anything else in the US (well, okay, Las Vegas) and was on his second trip abroad (the first one being across the river to Windsor, Ontario).
Citizen of the world, sure… my wife speaks several languages, has seen three times more of the world than I, and to get her a simple tourist visa to accompany me to the US (she is Iranian, a citizenship patria non grata at most embassies) we must provide:
Her current passport and ALL expired passports.
Her resident’s permit here in Switzerland.
2 photos from a professional photographer.
My reason for going to the US, along with a letter saying she will accompany me.
Proof we will return to Switzerland and not seek asylum in the US (airline tickets, etc.)
Papers proving we have a house, and any other proof that she has sufficient incentive to return home.
Our son’s passport and proof he lives with us here (one of the reasons she might wish to go back.)
Proof we have somewhere to stay while in the US.
A resumé of where we will go, who we will see and what we will do while in the US.
Our marriage certificate.
Proof of health and travel insurance.
My registration at the chamber of commerce. (As an independant, I have no employer, thus I must prove I have a profession to go back to. I can see myself now… “But I designed a history-making blockbuster fantasy movie trilogy!” “I’m sorry sir, that’s not sufficient evidence of a profession.”)
Three months of bank statements (proof of sufficient funds).
A 100 dollar fee (non-refundable, whatever the outcome of the application).
All this must be set in motion at least 6 or 7 months before the trip, since it takes several months just to get an appointment and then a further 3 months (minimum) to get the visa….
But, I certainly appreciate their preoccupation with our wellbeing. Imagine we got invited by just anyone, who’d put us up in a spare cupboard and feed us cat food…
I think they have borrowed the handbook from the defunct Soviet Union. Point by point it’s about what you needed to visit the former Eastern Block (now the “new” Europe).
Walls come down. Walls go up.
It’s in their nature.
Some are made of stone, some of paper.
Either way, when you’re standing behind one you’ve built, it seriously restricts your view of the horizon.
For Australia, we both need visas, and must apply for them in Berlin, a mere 600 miles as the crow flies, since the Aussie Embassy in Switzerland no longer issues visas. If you can actually wheedle a reply of some kind out of the embassy, which has a visa help desk that does not respond to e-mails, and has one of these wonderful automated services (“For English, press one…”) instead of a human being on the line. Needless to say, sending our passports off to a place that will not tell me how long they may decide to keep them is not terribly enticing.
At least the crow doesn’t need a visa. Yet.
Global village, anyone?
(Just as an aside, the Canadians are no better. Any visit to Canada means applying for my wife’s visa in Paris, with all the hassles that implies. Of course I understand the Canadians needing to be reassured, we’ve only been married 21 years…)
CAUGHT
Lunch with my illustration professor and the film crew, or the risks of sitting across from someone quick on the draw…
Usually I move just fast enough to keep ahead of clicking shutters, but I didn’t see this one happening.
(Paper tablecloths in restaurants are an illustrators’ delight. Every time a bunch of us get together, we fill the table with doodles. Want a free drawing? Invite an illustrator to lunch, but choose a place where they have paper tablecloths…)
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Notice how in a few lines, Claude captured my receding hairline, ugly nose, permanent squint, crummy posture and scrubby beard. No, I mean notice how in a few masterful strokes he captured my high and noble forehead, penetrating gaze, patrician nose, ever-attentive equipoise and distinguished and patriarchal beard.
I must remember to keep moving a little faster…
SOLID STUFF
Thank goodness for things like film shoots – otherwise I would only leave the house to go shopping for groceries and art supplies. When this documetary airs, it will appear I spend my days romping about the landscape, climbing cliffs, swimming rapids, poking about in crypts and cathedrals, and generally meeting famous people left and right…
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Well, of course I look worried. Wouldn’t you look worried too? I swear I saw that thing move. Hieronymous Bosch would have felt right at home in H.R. Giger’s garden.
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Trying to sort out my microphone… Come on you guys, we come all the way to meet the greatest name in sci-fi art and my *”%& mike doesn’t work?
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Checking to make sure that the castle of Chillon is still the same since my grandmother drew it in 1890. Hmm, let me see, that freeway seems to be new…
Otherwise, I believe there’s a bit of news on Solid Entertainment’s documentary site.
All photos © Chris Maris/Solid Entertainment
THE DEEP END
What have I done with this last week? Certainly not drawn anything, but scanned, colour corrected, resized, saved as…, burnt CDs, prepared FedEx shipments, reviewed layouts, approved layouts, corrected texts, written countless e-mails and generally been bathed in the unhealthy glow of the computer screen. What HAVE I done wrong? And here I used to sneer at those artists who spend more time wheeling and dealing in imagery they’ve already done than actually doing anything new…
The worst is that I cumulate two functions in one, that of disorganised and forgetful boss and inefficient and forgetful secretary. At least I get double the coffee breaks.
But, when I look at the calendar, what seems like weeks of it is only days, so there is hope….
STUFF TO DO
Finish reading Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. If only I could remember a tenth of what’s in there, I could pass myself off as middling or at least mildly intelligent.
NOT go see “King Arthur”. Admittedly Guinevere is quite fetching in her leather battle bikini (the boy appeal factor), but WHY is King Arthur wearing chromed American football padding? (The best bit is the mail shirt with the holes under his armpits, which I suppose is to keep him from sweating too profusely while clobbering Saxons…)
I’ll wait for “Hellboy”. No I won’t, I’ll pick up the DVD, which is out in the US before the movie hits the theatres here… Sometimes a street in that old global village takes six months to cross.
