For the first two years of his PhD in Basel, Ortiz lived on the only bad street in Switzerland. His apartment was a narrow white box on the third floor with two little vestibules for the entryway and kitchen. The light offered by the one wall of glass made it feel like we were figures inside a cramped diorama. We would sit for hours on the balcony looking down at the door of a traphouse, a drooping tenement with a heavy metal door that swung through the night. Ortiz called the house’s patrons Svenoids, named for their habit of approaching and shouting up to an open window "Sven—Sven!" until they were let in to complete whatever fetid task awaited them. They were natural clowns, prowling around the road as if engaged in some secret errand and yet immediately identifiable by their stilted gait. They moved like a bad animation, spoke only in stage whispers, high whistles, and barks. Whenever two or more convened, they would fall into long Shakespearean disputes until the scene reached some height of dramatic intensity, and then I would yell out "Kokain!" in the voice of a Turkish market vendor or toss down torn pieces of pretzel, causing them to fall on one another in a rage.
The other residents of Efringerstrasse seemed aware of the activity but completely undisturbed by it. While the Svenoids snarled and scrabbled in the street, or dragged in stolen bikes and threw themselves in desperation against Sven’s locked door, a young Swiss couple would eat pasta silently and then lie awake in bed for hours, staring immobile into one another’s eyes, their drapes wide open. Ortiz’s girlfriend, a cat-eyed Connecticut psychologist, guiltily proffered a pair of binoculars and we all fell into an electrified focus.
These scattered notes by Ortiz from a once-lively group chat on Telegram are the only record of Sven's cruel reign that I managed to save. As someone commented, it always felt like Ortiz was born to watch the hangman's door.
I believe the Svenoids are the actors and inventors of a new anthropology. The only knowledge I want about them is knowledge I can use, which means fragments and glimpses. They are global: in fact they are universal. Do they come from the door in Europe or is this just one of their nests? Are they birthed there, fully formed? How many are there? Are they suffering, are they exultant? Who is the Hanging Man? These notes are a record of our answers.
In October last year I was looking for a room in Europe. There was a problem with my visa: the HR department was demanding I get an address in our city by the end of the week. The woman who showed me the room from which I first saw the Svenoids seemed weary. She wore new running gear and had a pale, watchful face. She wouldn’t look out the tall row of windows across the room from the bed, except once when she tried to call the morning light milky and explained that I could block out harsher days with the metal shutters. The strap and pulley device to bring them down was falling out of the wall and had gotten white paint dust all over her table. She operated it once quickly, stopping them from making a bang with an expert and almost nautical gesture. There wasn’t much street-noise, she said, and twelve applications had already been filled out. An hour later the landlord emailed me saying the room was mine. They left the key in an unlocked mailbox. It sat out for the afternoon while I hurried over the border and back to get my bag from the Airbnb I’d been staying in.
That night, sleeping on a mat a colleague had loaned me, I heard voices outside - high, harsh, precise; theatrical and somehow private. There was a commotion on the street, and I lay there for a long time in the dark thinking about figuring out the shutters. Every time I stood up the voices would stop.
I began to see figures clustered around the door to the building next to mine. At first it was like I was seeing them from the corner of my eye. Sometimes, walking home across the river in a grey rain, I thought I could catch them clustered under one of our city’s many bridges or waiting for trams which they kept letting roll by. The voices started speaking every night. The door was always opening, always closing. I noticed on my street, near the door, all around the city and even once in the countryside the figures walking a unified walk, these bent and spectral neighbours and their metal door.
When the weather got warmer I could watch them more closely from my balcony. It became important to me to record these figures. I did so initially by means of a Telegram group chat, compiling pictures and observations. The record of that group chat - under the title here Svenian Field Notes - is our first entry. It can explain itself best. Some texts from friends I invited have been redacted as inessential; everything relevant to the Svenoids themselves has been retained.
One detail needs addition here: the Hanging Man who was the group chat’s figurehead and stands or hangs at the start of this compiling. I found him when I went through the door: a bright Spring afternoon (they have always been quietest from 1 to 4 pm); some construction workers digging a trench in the street that required them to service something in the Svenoid basement, the door propped by an orange cone; I wandered through and hurried up wanting to reach the top floor, the one on a level with mine next door. The staircase was empty; rotting fruit everywhere and cig butts and a pile of submerged chicken bones left in the courtyard out back on a tarp collecting rainwater. I would have made it to the fifth floor if I hadn’t seen him on the fourth. A door next to him had a scrawl of writing all over it. The group chat contains the translation, although certain idioms in it remain unclear.
The drug den next door - now called Sven’s or Sven’s Place - is really heating up on Friday. Talia in the past ten minutes has seen - all the men going in and out, many, almost one a minute, all approach the house by checking the end of the street, walking back down past the door, then doubling back and suddenly rushing loudly through it with a metal banging sound - the all carry water bottles - many pull out money just before they hit the door, some seem to check a small item in their hands she as can’t make out - some men linger and chat outside - once two men flirting with a woman leaving the house, who talia said scorned them - then a blue van drove up to the men and the driver said something from the window - the men two men grabbed bikes and seemed to direct the van somewhere - one man drove his bike in front the van and another behind so it went bike van bike as if they were guarding it as they drove away
Men frequently rifle through the trash, which is extensive and often enigmatic: rotting pallets of woods, mattresses with huge stains that seem like they couldn’t have come from weather exposure, neatly stacked identical black bags tightly knotted
We think multiple products: powders, pills, liquids
If they aren’t rifling through the trash they’re looking for something on the ground
One man spent about five minutes working violently at a bike chain. When he ripped it off he exultantly lifted it to the light. He formed it into a loop and walked inside as if he were going to use it as some sort of implement
The whistling house next door to me was open for some reason - door propped with a construction cone. I went inside and found an odd atmosphere. One man stumbled up the stairs and ignored me, hand wilting with an unlit cigarette. There’s a tarp behind it where the residents seem to throw their trash: apples, bones, rainwater pond in the sump. Then this:
“Sunday is for business” - a large group of Svenoids seem to conduct some sort of deal, most of them self-possessed and even slightly aggressive; earlier a bereaved woman was shouting out on the street for Michaela.
Apologies for the SVENIAN INTERMISSION - my phone got broken. Things have been quiet next door. During the afternoon, the front shutter on the bottom floor has been open. Looking in you can see the Svenoids are building something inside. The room is very clean: new paint, professional lighting. Sometimes non-Svenoid construction workers are in there. I’ve seen Svenoids directing their labour with confident gestures that reveal an understanding of interior renovation. These Svenoids have lots of metal in their face, wide gauges on their ears. By 5:00 pm the shutter goes down again. Moreover: the high, rising female voice with the Hitler accent that seems to command the Svenoids I heard on another street a neighbourhood over. I also had a beer at the Portuguese restaurant - Carvalho - next door. I pretended to lose my way finding the bathroom to try the connecting door between Carvalho and the Svenoid nest. The Portuguese have barricaded their side with metal chairs. When I peaked through the inch I could force open I saw blackness with some glinting of steel in the dark as if the Svenoids had also barricaded their side but then, excited one evening, had ripped the chairs apart and scattered the tubing in the hallway like bones.
Rare footage of THE WATCHER - an old man the building over, a confirmed Sveener: I have seen him many nights on his balcony looking down on them with me. He also keeps, in a hollow space of his balcony railing, plastic bottles. When the rain fills them he goes down to his corner and tends to this tree and bush.
A physique forged in suffering and wakefulness.
I followed these two south on Feldberg. They hit the atm at the intersection with Klybeckstrasse, then circled up to the cash point at the post office on Oetlingerstrasse. A woman and a man spoke to them there: both stops were very long for a simple withdrawal and the man seemed to be keeping guard. Then back up to Efringerstrasse: they waited on the stoop with some other Svenoids for a while, at one point seeming adjacent to some interaction with a bag. Then they went back south on Feldberg, passing an obvious bike sale (spinning wheels, checking the seat) as they did so. The row of Svenoids waiting in a line for their signal to act: Svenoid detention; the principle will see you now.
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Svenoid Research - the gambling ring, a model for the array of behaviour we've seen so far; what games are played in the Svenoid Nest? does it account for the desperation you sometimes see as they go in? what are the bets? Also a route in? Imagine sitting down at your first Svenoid gambling table...trying to learn the rules as quickly as you can…
Lazy sunday under the wakeful eye of the MYSTIC - a restrained elder, most often peacefully smoking; sometimes on dark nights you see him walking in slow awkward claymation toward the door. On Memorial Day he had a lawn chair out front.
A third nest - I followed this woman in white and black stripes down to a complex a few blocks south. She went in and exchanged words with the big man in the doorway; later, within a few minutes, two more bearing the Svenoid mark did the same. Before I left I saw the woman in the stripes in a facade window taking off her costume for bed, wearily drawing the curtain.
Sad to see the MYSTIC make the fatal choice, he was on the stoop all weekend.
SVEENAGE WASTELAND - going back to the States for a month. Last night was quiet. I saw Anklette walking slowly near the bus stop. It rained a bit on their trash. Nobody bothered to make much noise: just some silent figures going in then going out again. After I took this pic they threw a mattress out front - at least to enjoy a healthier sleep. I hope the DOOR OF CORRUPTION is still alive when I get back. Check out this view- I often think about the terrifying vividness of this sight for the Svenoids: when you transgress you get a moment of lucidity - the doorways are more vivid than what’s inside - I’ve seen Svenoids roll up their sleeves and kick the door in or run on their knees up the steps - once a man head-butted it - sometimes a moment of hesitation where they look at their hands as if pretending they aren’t going in again - you avert your eyes from beauty - the HANGING MAN on the fourth floor is the only man who can keep his eyes open all the time - godspeed to all SVENOIDS -
Scattering of Svenoid Updates - newcomers to the door as summer goes on - the newer the Svenoid, the harder it is for them to get in; several slap the door open-palmed for over an hour before anyone does anything
SATURDAY FIGHT NIGHT - I have never seen them this violent - and why does he sound like this?
The heat wanes but violence is always with us: this man (the Executive) I have seen before intervening with Svenoids; we can only guess what went wrong this time. A bonus: count the legs on the dog accompanying the final guardian who sends off Anklette’s sister with a firm gesture of command…
The squad rolls in; our Lady in Pink is making barking noises from a top window of the main nest and the cops are walking around in a daze as if confused where the vocalisations come from
He examines the tumult from his patch of shadow
Haven’t seen the Mystic in months. Fashionable, clean new look. Is he coming back to pull somebody away from the tables inside? Does he condition his beard now? Will others follow?
A familiar saying to the Sveen: “When the heat rises, you must be biting.” Some sort of violence happened earlier; police called in to play around with the new fancy door. They have planted roses as well.
I was walking down Oetlingerstrasse and saw a Svenoid crouching by some bushes. He tilted his head like he was hearing something far away. Eventually he got to the river where I saw this: the DIRGE FOR THE FINAL SVENOIDS? Almost everyone in the city was ignoring it; when I stopped filming the Svenoid who’d led me there had vanished. I tried following the boat for as long as possible. At one point I ran under a gangway usually just at water level to save time, but the swollen river had come up over the lower area - I tried crawling over on the sides, but it didn’t work and I had to go back. By the time I got back up on the main riverfront, the boat’s lights were out in France and Germany.
Last night under this huge moon I dumped some bags of trash in front of the Svenoids. This morning, when I came outside, a guy with huge gauges and withered arms, random spots of metal on his face, came over furiously in German pointing at an electric bill with my name on it - “Ortiz! Bist du das!” An oversight leaving something identifying myself in the bags. “Nein, bitte, nein!” He went to my door and hit the ringer next to my name. “He’s not answering!,” in English. Another Svenoid (woman with face like a crumpled bag) emerged and began piecing through the stuff. A handyman I’d scheduled to fix some wall damage in my apartment - beaming Irishman named Brian O’Toole - swung over “Ortiz, is it!” The guy didn’t hear, thank God. I got Brian inside quickly, came up to my balcony looking nervously down. I had visions of paranoia, Svenoid hits put out on me, 1000 franc for the head of the man with moustache. O’Toole might betray me. He had a mercenary Celtic glint. I was flying out tomorrow morning. Should I sleep in my department’s library? Imagining a troop of three of them with makeshift badges dragging me in for punishment. Then I saw the Svenoid was hanging his head; he seemed like he was about to cry. Riding down the elevator I knew I had to confess. “Hey man, I don’t speak German, I was kinda confused what you were asking me earlier.” Refusing eye contact, apologetic himself, he explained it was fine, it’s just that people left so much trash out there, all the time, “some of it is useful and we use it, but we always have to deal with it.” He told me his name was Rene, everyone called him Pen, he came from Germany (“but my father is in the military so I speak English”) and that he’d lived in Basel two years. As he spoke he nervously tucked his elbows. I asked him what was going on in this building: why was it such a street problem? “Ah, a few years ago two people moved in. At first they had just their rooms, but soon they took over three stairwells, they did bad things. They did not treat us well.” He wouldn’t say the word drugs. He wouldn’t say the word prostitution. I asked what they looked like and he said one had been a man who dressed like a woman, a figure I’d seen and heard many times when I first moved here, the one with the rising dictator’s voice. “Where did they go? It seems a lot quieter now.” “We kicked them out! It was hard but we kicked them out.” Eyes darkening he told me how long it had taken: it felt like he was describing a war. It took months to reclaim a stairwell. When it had worked, and they were gone, he said they still came back, and all their friends. “It is getting better now. We clean.” I told him I was moving and that I had a fan and a vacuum I needed to get rid of. Did he want them? When I handed them to him, he finally met my gaze, “these are good! These will help!” You can see him in the daylight picture, Pen bringing in his fan and vacuum to clean and restore, his hunched dignity. Godspeed to all Svenoids! If you see one abroad, send them to this chat. We have heard enough of the Basel crew.
