I couldn’t help but compare the visual purity of Swiss design—its monolithic, self-assured insistence—with my own racial/cultural/aesthetic ambiguity and ambivalence. I knew from the innumerable faces that had gazed upon mine over the years—quizzical, contemptuous, aroused— that neutrality was the last thing I inspired. My pursuit of Swiss authority just seemed too ironic. It was indifferent and pure, and I wasn’t.