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Travel Notes
By Sylvain St-Pierre
Photos by the author, unless specified otherwise.
Wednesday, July 28th, 1999
I have not yet succeeded in compiling a table that would give a satisfactory equivalence
of the Obscure time, so I will continue to use familiar dates. MM. Schuiten and Peeters
have already noticed that days seem neither longer nor shorter on the Continent than in
our world, but the excitation generated by this journey is seriously skewing my
objectivity in this regard …
Indeed, have I already «passed»? It is hard to say for sure. I arrived in the
middle of the afternoon, coming straight from London through the Chunnel. The train
might have taken a side track in the darkness without me being the wiser.
Various public notices proclaim that I am in Brussels, in Belgium, but the very atmosphere seems to be permeated by the feeling of Brüsel. Obviously, it leaks! It is difficult to express in words. At any rate, the reports describing the climate of both cities as cold and rainy are apparently much exagerated. The weather is absolutly radious! Maybe professor Pym, upon learning about our expedition, has tweaked a bit the gears of Armilia? Whatever the reason, I certainly will not complain.
| My hotel is marvellously located, barely twenty meters from the
Grand’ Place. The view from my window opens on the roofs, and is very
Brüselian. I can see several centuries of architectural history summarized at once.
I have started to explore the neighbourhood a bit. Lots of pleasant narrow streets,
crisscrossing each other according to strange angles. A pleasant change from the
rectangular grid of Montreal, to wich I am more accustomed. Illustration: Map of Brussels, Michelin, 1998 |
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Picture: Olivier Tissot |
My first Obscure site is only a few steps away: the mural of
the street Marché-au-Charbon. It's a complete surprise; I was expecting just a painted
wall, but the technique used appears to be that of the sgraffite, the same as for the
Maison Cauchie, which I also want to visit. I hope that my picture will turn out allright,
for I heard that some of the Obscure World influences are not compatible with photography. I dined with one of my belgian contacts: Michel Kempeneers, of Leuven. It is strange indeed to meet face to face for the first time a person with whom one had only had electronic exchanges for so many months. He turns out to be a very nice guy. He also brought with him a most detailled analysis of the Obscure Dictionary, and found numerous errors that had escaped me. I will be busy editing for quite some times when I return. We discussed until late in the evening, comfortable that we were on the restaurant's terrace. The meal was excellent: rabbit à la Gueuze, a local specialty, with a most pleasant belgian beer. |
Michel also left me several documents of a great interest, including an article on
Schuiten and Peeters that he wrote himself for a belgian newspaper. It is too bad that I
cannot read dutch. It is also regrettable that he will not be able to join the rest of us
for the rest of the convention, as he his otherwise taken. It is starting so well!
The full Moon is amazingly bright tonight, which I take to be a good omen. Isn't
Luna a recognized point of Passage to the Obscure World?
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