My recently remixed and reassembled bicycle spells out as a terrific gain in mobility, in this small town. Not that you always need it. I could watch Lars Brandt’s HC Artmann documentary yesterday (posthumous celebration of Artmann’s 85th birthday, on June 12) without ever leaving the 客厅 kè tīng, but today I passed by thousands of Frankfurter Würstchen on their way to the pompously announced projection of 11 Emotions to the city skyline and made it to Städelschule, the local Art College, where a small but very international crowd contemplated a new Dictionary of War in the first of a series of events, to be continued in Munich, Graz and Berlin.
Heavy Blossoms
And suddenly, without apparent reason, a tree falls down upon us, in the middle of the night.
Zeitung als Luxusprodukt
Kleiner Beitrag in einer Serie über die Zukunft der Zeitung, der in einer Sonderausgabe des Handelsblatts zu dessen 60. Geburtstag am 16. Mai 2006 erschien.
After jogging through Grüneburg Park
Three layers of flying machinery against the beautiful evening sky. The mosquitos on balcony level, the lively swallows above the roofs, and high up the quiet arrows of the airplanes. From the restaurant below come the friendly clatter of dishes and cutlery, and the characteristic smell of entrecote. Some have even made it to the crème catalan, which adds a vanilla note.
On the Sweet Path to Immortality
Talking about teas. A more mundane pleasure (compared with fresh Dragonwell leaves) is the Jiaogulan (jiǎo gǔ lán 绞股蓝), a herbal tea coming mostly from the south chinese province of Guangxi, but also known in other southern mountainous regions, and in Japan, where it is called amacharuzu (meaning sweet vine). Chemically related to the Ginseng agents, the tea is attributed with a lot of medicinal benefits. People in the chinese South call it a herb of immortality (xiān cǎo 仙草) and are said to hold its consumption responsible for the significant number of centenarians in the province of Guizhou. The taste of Jiaogulan is sweet (as the japanese name implies) and slightly bitter. It’s a very pleasant every day drink.
Ein Hauch von Nichts
These days I have been drinking one of the most precious teas in the world. The Westlake Dragonwell (xī hú lóng jǐng 西湖龙井) is a green tea that is grown in a small area close to the city of Hangzhou. The best leaves are plucked between March 21 and April 5, they are sold at prices reminding of excellent Bordeaux wine – and the aficionados cherish its tender taste with similar passion.
Only the tips with no more than 2 or 3 leaves are plucked for the precious first crop. They are then dried, lightly roasted for fermentation, and carefully pressed. The result is of light green and slightly yellowish colour. The tea has a very special, equally intense and fragile aroma (not that a dà bízi 大鼻子could really find the right words to praise this little miracle of nature!). It’s, as I’d say in German, ein Hauch von Nichts (a ‘breeze of nothingness’?), ein zarter Frühlingsduft.
Hinweis
Medienthemen blogge ich pflichtbewusst jetzt immer hier.
(Nicht dass jemand denkt, ich sei DOCH kein ‘Hard-bloggin’ scientist’…)
Micklethwait, again
Und hier ist noch einmal eine kompetentere Diskussion der aktuellen Entwicklungen beim Economist.
Ubu President
Wenn man so über den Atlantik schaut und sich dabei der üblichen Medienkanäle bedient, wird immer schwerer verständlich, wie sich George W. Bush mit seiner Junta überhaupt noch an der Macht halten kann – so überwältigend ist mittlerweile die Kritik. Gerade jüngst haben sich eine Reihe hochrangiger Militärs (bzw. Ex-Militärs) in erstaunlicher Offenheit und Bitterkeit gegen den US-Verteidigungsminister in Stellung gebracht. Eine vernichtende Diagnose und zornige Abrechnung mit all jenen, die Bush viel zu lange die Treue gehalten haben, hat die Schriftstellerin Jane Smiley im Blogportal von Ariana Huffington veröffentlicht: Notes for Converts.