The stations are not a pretty sight, though they did try to art some of them up. I'm staying near Hankar while I find my own place. An enormous mural was painted in 1970 by Roger Somville with the help of a couple of friends. Called it "Our Time":
The platforms are very long and at night, the trains seldom come with more than two or three coaches. For some reason, this reminds me of a futuristic novel written in the fifties. Who knows what they were trying to do.
The pleasant surprise was that it's musical. And it's not bad selection of songs, either. I heard Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone at the Arts-Loi stop (Kunst-Wet in Flemish - yes... okay...) earlier today, which I took as a sign that maybe things wouldn't be so awful.
I read a while ago that they used music to soothe tormented souls and so reduce criminality in some places. I can't see how this could be the case here. Brusselians seem to be tranquil people. If anything, they could use some energizing. I came here for a few days in October, to meet my new co-workers. I hadn't been here two hours that three people had told me to slow down. That worried me.
My first weekend here as a resident is ending. I took off at lunchtime on Saturday for a walk around town. I am not depressed, but it's not for lack of being exposed to potentially suicidal thought-inducing visions. The weather is cold and rainy. I made a couple of wrong turns and found myself in some freakishly empty streets. If Chaussée d'Ixelles and Flagey are hotspots here, then I'm thinking what they call a quiet area would be what we, hyper-urbanites, call cemeteries.
From time to time, you come across funny little details. Here's hoping this was intentional: "Robin Fernand Vokaer, sculptor, slept here (a lot)."
Brussels is definitely not what you call a beautiful city. Get off at Gare Centrale on a Sunday at noon, for instance, you'll find yourself alone and surrounded by enormous government buildings that look like they were built for some megalomaniac ruler in the 70's.
But I'm being a spoiled Londoner. To be fair, I did find a couple of cool comic bookstores: Espace BD, a small, neat place with an exhibition space in the back, with original drawings by a couple of artists. And Le Dépôt, which is apparently part of a chain. Lots of second hand comics, classified by collection rather than by publisher. Both have a decent amount of mangas, which is great. The erotic sections in both were also very good, giving the phrase "graphic novel" its whole meaning.
The cold and the rain got to me. After queuing for 20 minutes at the only ATM available on this very commercial street, I took a break in a small café called A l'Opposé du Contraire, facing Le Dépôt.
I guess it could've been worse.
1 comment:
Another comic bookstore which is worth visiting: La Bande Des Six Nez. It's a classical one. It's in the middle of a quite funny African neighbourhood, as far as I can remember.
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