Tao of the Creative Class

Split second thoughts between a
tiredness and unexpected calls,
collegial banter on the stairway, dark
laundry and an overdue affection,

Between spam and mail, tea, rain, and
online porn. Now I leave, now return,
pick up the tousled threads anew
then, then again, and weave them whole.

Then: play my cards nervously, mind on other
important matters, like who is to blame
and for what. Play my cards, mind you,
to no avail, to fullest satisfaction,
amongst the split of seconds and the
pains of love.

Autumn Companion

With a recent, very comprehensive, addition to my music collection and some strong recommendations I decided that it’s about time to read Richard Power’s The Time Of Our Singing. Scary 749 pages of the german translation are to be conquered. Classical music and race, what a strange combination of topics.

QQuite Some Community

Tencent, more commonly known as QQ, is the largest online community in China…
270 million users of their QQ IM service.
Covers 85% of China’s Internet users
Largest portal in China
Largest online casual game portal, with 3.2 million users
Largest blog site in China, with 77 million active user accounts”

(Via Thomas Crampton)

Addendum: Actually, these numbers are somewhat misleading. Estimates say that China has a little more than 160 million Internet users. 85 percent of that number would be around 135 million. With 270 million QQ Instant Messaging accounts this means that averagely speaking every QQ user has two IM accounts. Meaning that there must be a lot of them who are playing around with several personas. Same goes for the even more surprising number of blogs.

Dukkha and Anatta

“[…] I didn’t give a goddamn about the mythology and all the names and national flavors of Buddhism, but was just interested in the first of Shakyamuni’s four noble truths, All life is suffering. And to an extent interested in the third, The suppression of suffering can be achieved, which I didn’t quite believe was possible then.”

(Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums)

Monitoring the Fate of the Four Basic Principles

Next week, starting from tomorrow, the Communist Party of China will hold its 17th National Congress (十七大). For those interested in the byzantine and sometimes bizarre conventions and procedures of Chinese party politics, I’d like to recommend an english-language Weblog called “The Insight Track” which already has a couple of highly informative preparatory articles. The blog is provided by the China Media Project of Hongkong University. Its author is CMP scholar Qian Gang (钱钢),a veteran print and TV journalist and documentary director, renowned inter alia for a 2002 CCTV documentary series (and book) about 120 chinese boys being sent to the US for education during the last years of the Qing Dynasty, to become the very pillars of modern China.

Booth Peeping

Today is the starting point of a semester project that is going to be fun. Online journalism students of the 2nd year will cover the campaign for the upcoming Hessen state elections in a group weblog, starting from November and ending with the election day, January 27th, 2008. We will focus on our local Rhein-Main region and topics that are relevant to young voters.

In four introductory workshops, we are working our way through elementary political knowledge (election procedures, principles of federalism, relevant parties and their programs, state budgets,…) and essential skills (live blogging, interview techniques, how to handle a press contact,…). In additional weekly ‘editorial staff’ meetings we are going to do thematical and logistical planning and talk about quality control.

The weblog will be part of the website of “Frankfurter Rundschau” which recently has been the first major German newspaper to be relaunched in the internationally popular tabloid format.

The Other Meaning of CCTV

Glasgow seems to be a good place for female filmmaking. Andrea Arnold’s Red Road may not be quite as compelling as Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, but it is still an excellent movie. There is a lot to admire: the seeming casualness with which we are drawn into the story (through the use of a battery of surveillance cameras and monitors), the unobtrusive social realism of the setting, wonderful camerawork and lighting – and, above all, the unpretentious confidence with which everything is done.