The Aare River doesn’t have surfing waves, but what it lacks in rideable breakers it certainly makes up for in congeniality. A couple of summers ago, I was lazily floating down this milky-green river in Bern with an art critic from New York, chatting about the outrage and insults that flow from writing about living people. He told me about the time, walking down Broadway, someone he’d written about shouted, “You germ.” Is that all, I thought? Shortly after passing the Bärengraben, I shared my story about the time I was sued for a story printed by Andy Davis.