I will always be amazed by the incredible personalities that come across my way at MIT. This morning I attended a Master Class by Chris Claremont of X-Men fame organized by CMS.

The following lines are directly quoted from the “about” section in Claremont’s own website. I think they say a lot about his contribution to the superhero genre, and the reasons why he was able to give life to some of the most memorable female characters in superhero history.

The class was scheduled early [I should say early for me], and I woke up late, so I had to skip breakfast in order to get there in time. Surprisingly, only two MIT students showed up, leaving Claremont with a comfortable audience of three people to work with: me, a girl named Jennifer that can draw Manga like a pro, and another dude called Chris.

Claremont wasn’t planning to talk about his work or theorize about world building or visual storytelling. Instead, he wanted us to spend the following couple of hours with him and his partner Beth Fleisher brainstorming a superhero plot from scratch. We were lucky to have been such a small group. It made it very easy for us to interact and exchange impressions and ideas.

Beth played the roles of editor and moderator, filling the blackboards with notes from our discussion that eventually became an outline for a 5 issue miniseries.

Right before the end of the class, Beth wrote our names in the blackboard next to the title of the story, added a copyright sign, and took a picture of the whole thing. Over the course of the class, Claremont and Beth made a few interesting remarks about copyright and creator-owned work, and I remember having a really good question I wanted to ask him about all that, but I never found the right time to speak it out, and overtime it diluted in my head under a pile of considerations about super celebrities, indian deities, natural disasters and post apocalyptic global politics.

I was lucky to arrive the day Geneva celebrates L’Escalade, the most important festivity of the year there. Tradition tells the story of a French invasion in 1602. Back then, Geneva was protected by a wall. In order to invade the city, the French mercenaries prepared themselves to climb the wall, but never expected the wrath of Geneva’s housewives and their top secret culinary weapon. Hundreds of cauldrons of hot vegetable soup were dropped on the French invaders from the top of the wall, burning them with carrots and mushrooms and beets.

The best part of this traditional celebration comes after dinner. A cauldron made of dark chocolate is filled with marzipan vegetables and placed in the center of the table. The eldest and the youngest in the table hold hands on top of the chocolate cauldron and smash it while reciting “Ainsi périssent les ennemis de la République!” (Thus perish the enemies of the Republic). Dark chocolate and marzipan mushrooms accompanied with an espresso and mulled wine. Can life get better than that?