Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Rigot

We have a coffee machine that takes a full two minutes to manufacture deep black, remarkably addictive drab. (Made with love, an unknown individual told me once, after I complained)

We have a character called Dixit-Stiglitz (say it out loud), we have ghosts that live here when everyone has gone home. (They work on their Ph.D.'s and once in a while, they will smoke a shisha out on the steps; sigh, slowly watch the smoke spiral up, say something about econometrics).

We have a history to tell. (The place was built by the Swiss government as a temporary place for refugees after the Second World War. The refugees left and economists moved in. They have since refused to move out. Or so our trade professor will have us know.)

We have economists and some political scientists (They leave their Wall Street Journals everyhwhere, walk around with their mathematical notes and their heads full of problem-solving, they occupy fourty offices and two class rooms, scribble on the boards and talk jargon to each other.)

This is the micro-world called Rigot. (don't pronounce the t.) Mark my words because they want to finally break down this worn-out place with grey linoleum floors and dark wooden window shutters and backless comfy couches, on which you can lean against the central heating with a hot coffee in your hands in the winter and revise your notes. They want to build the Maison de la Paix.

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