Lessons for Life Amsterdam, 25 Feb. 2021– When I once, long ago, privately met with the fabulous Miles Davis in Berlin after a concert arranged by Hans-Georg Brunner Schwer, he, among many other things said,: “It takes a long time to sound like yourself.” That remark surely took its time to ripen and grow as I went on with life…
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Making the beast with the two Backs Amsterdam, Feb. 25 2021– Long ago, really long ago, when growing up from a child to a young man, I became fascinated by a comment with a, for me then and at that time, strongly sexual connotation. A comment triggered as a lifelong and equally beautiful experience. One…
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Amsterdam, 24 Feb. 2021 — My good and faithful friend, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) is, according to many, not only a philosopher of the first order and category, but also a poet and one who thinks in prose. In his philosophical novel Also Sprach Zarathustra, published in parts now almost some 140 years ago, through the…
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The architecture of happiness For Frances Amsterdam- 24 Feb. 2021– Marvel about love, for example. Or else go travel, roam the world and search for the unveiling of these questions in your quest for love and happiness. My hero Alain de Botton makes that possible. First amazes us about space, about the fact that a beautiful…
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The story how the cock from the cathedral’s spire finally could be saved.
Measuring Today with Yesterdays Tools Amsterdam, 19 feb. 2021– The Alhambra in Granada, central Spain, is one of the many pinnacles of Islamic architecture. Toured by the art historian José Miguel Puerta Vílchez, it is a revelation and satisfies a lot of curiosity about the influence of Islam in Europe. He has written extensively about…
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Back into the Future Amsterdam, Feb 19th, 2021– Phrenology sounds like it belongs in a history book, filed somewhere between bloodletting and velocipedes. Not something in these days and age of modern times. We’d like to think that judging people’s worth based on the size and shape of their skull is a practice that’s well behind us. …
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The New China Story Amsterdam, Feb. 18th 2021 “Making the Foreign Serve China” was one of Chairman Mao’s favoured strategies, as epitomised by his decision to grant access in the 1930s to the American journalist Edgar Snow. The resulting book, Red Star Over China, was instrumental in winning western sympathy for the Communists, whom it…
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The New China Story Amsterdam, Feb. 18th 2021– But foreign journalists working at Xinhua, the state-run news agency, see their stories reaching much larger audiences. Government subsidies cover around 40% of Xinhua’s costs, and it generates income – like other news agencies, such as the Associated Press – by selling stories to newspapers around the…
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The New China Story Amsterdam, Feb. 18th 2021 — At the same time, Beijing is also seeking to shift the global center of gravity eastwards, propagating the idea of a new world order with a resurgent China at its center. Of course, influence campaigns are nothing new; the US and the UK, among others, have…
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