The Faces of Shanghai

魏玉芳 （山东籍 小贩） 我们的日子过得很苦，每顿都是煎饼就着咸菜吃，加上一杯白开水。孩子们想吃荤菜时，就烧一个鸡蛋给他们吃。只要不下雨，就天天早出夜归，每天做十五、六个小时生意。希望孩子们上好学，我那怕东借西凑也要让他们上大学，别象我这样没文化。大儿子很争气，每学期都得奖回家，我很开心。外出摆水果滩被地痞流氓欺负，让我伤心透了。

Wei Yufang (Shandongnese, Vendor): "We are leading a hard life and eat battercakes, pickles and a glass of water for all three meals. When our kids want meat dishes, we cook them an egg. We work more than 15 hours a day if it doesn't rain. We want our kids to be educated and not to live like us. I will risk anything if our kids can go to university. My eldest son is excellent and wins prizes every semester. I suffer being teased by local ruffians."

-:-Look into the faces of Shanghai residents through the lens of Hu Yang-:-

Photojournalist and artist Hu Yang has created a lasting record of Shanghai people in their living quarters. Each individual is introduced to us in their own words (see above). There is a total of 97 documentary photographs.

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Color Art

Art work and images © Konstantin Grabowski

Konstantin Grabowski was born 1965 in Siberia, and lives in Germany. He graduated in painting and graphic design from the University of Omsk, where he studied from 1985-1991.

His oils and acrylics on canvas span colorful abstract, semi-abstract and figurative painting that is modern, yet has a somewhat dreamy quality.




The works are typically rich in relief and textured with multi-layered paint.

Grabowski began exhibiting in 2000. He is represented by galleries in Europe and in the U.S.



Von einem Katalogtext für Konstantin:

" Ein gutes Bild ist wie gefrorene Musik, eine Landkarte vergangener Bewegungen. Paul Klee sagte: 'Das Auge folgt den Wegen, die im Werk für es angelegt worden sind.' Aber es ist noch mehr: Schwere wird unschwer, Leichtigkeit unleicht, der Raum selbst wird aufgehoben und wie von falschen Beweisen entlastet. Es ist so wie der österreichische Schriftsteller Robert Musil sagt: 'Man hat noch eine zweite Heimat, in der alles, was man tut unschuldig ist.' "


"The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible."

Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), renowned Romanian early-modernist sculptor


[See also: Art for our sake]

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The Lives of Others

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CROSS CULTURAL OUTLINE Film Pick

Das Leben der Anderen

Dieser gründlich recherchierte Film von Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck erzählt von der Verlorenheit des Individuums im erbarmungslosen System der Kontrolle und Überwachung. Ost-Berlin, November 1984, fünf Jahre vor der Öffnung der Berliner Mauer. Hier spielt das Drama über Verhörspezialist Stasi-Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe), der im Verlauf seiner Spitzelei an sich selbst zu zweifeln beginnt. Dieser Zweifel an seinem Auftrag und an der Staatsmacht der DDR schlechthin wächst, bis er ihn letztendlich in hoch riskante Tat umsetzt.

Ein eindringliches, spannendes Drama um Liebe, Leidenschaft und Mut, und um die ewige Faszination der Freiheit, das in 2006 mit einem Oscar ausgezeichnet wurde.





Der Schauspieler Ulrich Mühe starb am 22. Juli 2007 in Walbeck, Sachsen-Anhalt, an Magenkrebs.

Sein letzter großer Erfolg war die Hauptrolle in dem Oscar-prämierten Film "Das Leben der Anderen".


The outstanding actor who portrayed the main character, Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, in the oscar winning German thriller/drama "The Lives of Others" died in July from cancer of the stomach.

CROSS-CULTURAL OUTLINE featured film:

The Lives of Others

German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck debuts with his feature The Lives of Others, which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006.

The film is set in 1984 East Berlin five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It provides an exquisitely nuanced exposé of life in a totalitarian regime. The main character, Gerd Wiesler, played by Ulrich Mühe, is a secret police (Stasi) surveillance expert trained to perpetuate the oppressiveness and the lack of freedom in communist East Germany, the former GDR. His professional stoicism gradually melts as he becomes swept up in the lives of the artistic community he is spying on. Eventually, he secretly and heroically intervenes in the outcome of his investigation.

This role had particular resonance for Mühe, who was himself under surveillance by the Stasi at the time he was a star of East German theater.



[Read about Ulrich Mühe in Der Spiegel (in German)]

::Have you seen this film? Post your review under "Comments"::

Goliath

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Examining the Power that is Google





Friend or Foe
Google's page ranking monopoly, also known as "Google-opoly", has been a source of endless frustration to owners and webmasters of modest, strictly non-commercial websites who are exercising their right of free speech and want to be heard amidst the din of blatant consumerism.

It is like pitting an Internet David against an Internet Goliath of dubious integrity, namely google.com, who has been shown to exert unfair dominance over the search-and-ranking business giving giant commercial and ad-laden sites the highest rankings and thereby the greatest prominence. Contrary to the legend, prospects of David winning this (mis-) match are slim to none.



On the other hand, it is an undisputed fact that Google is the world's largest and most widely utilized search engine, fielding about 150 million search requests a day. Beyond that, Google offers an overwhelming menu of tools and services, most of which a mere mortal average web user is blissfully unaware of. The Google development team is comprised of a slew of whizz-kids coming up with ever more far-reaching widgets and applications to enthrall the google-devotees and keep them firmly in the fold.



The Google Cheat Sheet shown above and below lists a total of 44 Google Services URLs, 9 subsidiaries owned by Google, 13 Google blogs, 11 additional tooli-gigs and countless Google domains world-wide.

Impressive? You betcha.

You will probably need to use magnifying glasses in order to make out the topmost illustrations in this post. The reason: 'Blogger',that is to say 'Google', imposes a limitation of a 408 pixel width on each image.

Squint and sigh.




The two opposing camps of Google fans and Google critics are clearly defined and equally vociferous. There seems to be a lot of emotionalism at play here. Few web users have a neutral attitude about the Google phenomenon. Surely, you have made up your own mind in this matter.

And, oh, by the way, have fun trying out some or all of the goo-features listed (you must type each individual URL into your browser window).

Google away...


[See also: 'Google vs. Evil']


[Related: Frick and Frack]



:: Are you google-eyed? Please comment ::

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