Harp on it

Andrew Bird

Armchair Apocrypha

In other hands or mouths, Andrew Bird’s crossword-puzzle vocabulary and lyrical obsession with science, psychology and obscure history might come across as pretentious; or, worse, pedestrian. But accompanied by his trademark layered violins, glockenspiels and guitars – and his elegant voice, as capable of deadpan as jazzy soul – the Chicagoan’s profundities are like juicy tidbits of a refreshing and witty late Sunday afternoon conversation (or therapy session). Set around modern fears and revelations, the conversation began with 2003’s Weather Systems, Bird’s first solo album, and continued on 2005’s brilliant The Mysterious Production of Eggs. On Armchair Apocrypha, Bird’s ruminations have grown even deeper, with rich musical flourishes to match. On tracks like Heretics, Dark Matter, and Cataracts, Bird isn’t just feeding us food for thought; these are some of the sweetest pop candies of the year. Alex Pasternack

tha ring master

Dan Deacon

Spiderman of the Rings

Bespectacled surrealist musician plus trash-salvaged electronics plus a love for German synths, video games and children’s shows: to get some idea of what this means, just search Youtube for his name. There, in the space of three minutes (and on some local TV morning show no less), the Baltimore native unspools his magical assault on dance music …

Wait, no – the robotic blips, voice and organ, are far too friendly to be part of any assault, and too far afield to be responding to anything, period. So goes his grandest LP to date. Replete with sublime feedback, grinning choral sections and helium-tinged hip-hop hooks, it’s like a glass of spiked Tang at a circus after-party: not exactly the kind of thing you savor, just the sort that puts a big toothy grin on your face. Alex Pasternack

Beijing's Migrant Smog Problem

Where Does the Capital's Air Come From?

Among environmental scientists and cab drivers alike, the cause of Beijing’s pollution—and thus how to stop it—is an old topic of debate. Now, thanks to a municipal research program to clear the air for the “Green Olympics,” it’s a $3.2 million question. If the task were as easy as shutting down local factories, phasing out coal-fired heating, cleaning up power plants, and restricting traffic during the Games – plans already being carried out by officials – Beijing would be on course. But as researchers have realized in recent years, much of Beijing’s dirty air is drifting in from outside. But figuring out from where, and what to do about it, is looking much more complicated than anyone expected.

“The general implication is that it’s not going to be so easy to clean up Beijing for the Olympics,” says Kenneth Rahn, an environmental engineer and visiting scholar at Tsinghua who works with the university’s Air Pollution and Control Institute. While his students study everything from ozone to nasty sulfur dioxide, Rahn’s passion is aerosols, or the microscopic particles that create haze and may contribute to health problems when lodged in the lungs. These days, Rahn is seeing a lot of the stuff coming from outside Beijing. “If you focus on Beijing alone, you’re only controlling half the problem.”

The usual suspects – that is, metal smelters in Inner Mongolia, Mongolia, and Western Siberia – appear to be the source of much of Beijing’s external pollution. But as Rahn and his team are learning from their measurements, much of Beijing’s imported pollution is also coming from coal-fired factories and cars to the south of Beijing, from areas as far away as Shandong province, Henan province and Shanghai. The implication is that these areas too may need to clean up ahead of the Olympics. “This is something really new,” Rahn says.

During a typical pollution cycle, Beijing first feels its smog-carrying breeze from the northwest. Then, winds from the south begin to pick up, traveling easily across the flat coastal region that Rahn affectionately refers to as The Bathtub, for the way dirty air here easily “sloshes” around. When it arrives in Beijing, the migrant smog mingles with local particulate matter—until a cold front or rain washes it away in the direction of Korea, Japan or even the U.S., leaving behind a few days of blue Beijing skies.

But how many days of blue skies will Beijing get during the Games—and will the city meet Olympic air standards as promised? According to Rahn, while Beijing’s pollution cycles become weaker and less frequent in summer, they begin to reappear with moderate strength in August, just when the athletes roll into town. “That means that the degree of air pollution during the Summer Olympics is purely a matter of chance,” he says. Blue skies could happen, he says, but “if you forced me to take a guess, I would say [Beijing] won’t meet the standard.”

For the future, Rahn says China needs stricter emissions controls on cars and policies like the U.S.’s landmark 1970 Clean Air Act, which enforced pollution standards for all new factories and power plants. “It’s not about the Olympics but the next fifty years.” For the time being though, his advice to Beijing’s Olympic planners is simpler: “Best to pray to the Mongolian Weather Gods.”

In China, Protest by TXT

One million text messages. That's how residents of China's port city of Xiamen spread word to protest -- and eventually halt -- construction of a chemical plant on Thursday, according to local news reports. The $1.4 billion facility was meant to produce the petrochemical paraxylene, exposure to which can cause eye, nose or throat irritation, affect the central nervous system and may cause death. Though international standards dictate that such a plant should be 100 km from the nearest city, the short text messages that mobilized Xiamen's smart mob warned the factory would have been only 16 km away.

While the central government is clearly showing more interest in protecting the environment, local governments, eager to cut corners in the name of economics, are helping block the path to sustainable development. But the Xiamen protests, thousands of people strong, are the latest sign of people power in China, where tens of thousands of protests over tainted land and water are recorded every year, threatening the government's dream of a "harmonious society" while pointing the way forward for environmental action in a place that seriously needs some.


That local officials in Xiamen reportedly began blocking text messages too in an attempt to stem the protests, and that the protests continued apace, is an indication that, try as it might, China's authoritarian controls simply can't keep up with the power of cell phones blogs, bulletin boards, and the smartmobs they might create. (Local governments are getting into the SMS act themselves, using text messages to warn citizens of floods and even stop protests.)

Clearly, stopping protests just isn't possible the way it used to be. Between increasing countryside unrest (there may be nothing scarier to the government) and deadly pollution (China's rural cancer rate rose by 23 percent in the past two years, and more than 70 percent of the country's waterways and 90 percent of its underground water are contaminated by pollution) something's gotta give.

Since the plant's not been completely scrapped, residents are still protesting, according to Reuters. And the more word spreads, the more likely it is that protests will continue elsewhere too. An large expansion of a chemical plant in the southeastern city of Quanzhou that produces paraxylene and other chemicals was announced in March, funded by China's No. 2 oil company, Sinopec, Saudi Aramco, the Saudi government oil company, and ExxonMobil Corp. Paraxylene is a key material in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) saturated polyester polymers--the stuff of which the world's plastic bottles are made.

Double Edge

Tag Team Records and Modern Sky team up for the second CH+INDIE fest

Just for the record, the second annual CH+INDIE rock fest, subtitled “The Wrath of Khan,” is not a reaction to other yaogun festivals in Beijing. (That its name was inspired by a murderous tyrant in the second Star Trek film is little more than nerdy homage.)

“We just wanted to represent as much independent Chinese music as we could in one day, but in a more relaxed kind of way, with beers and ice cream,” says Matt Kagler, head of Tag Team Records. His label and Modern Sky, Beijing’s other big US-China record company, have organized the outdoor festival not to compete with the city’s other fests, or even simply to showcase the labels’ bands: “This is just about music we’re into,” says Kagler.

But that straight-up approach means that it is a far cry from the rambling multi-genre orgies of festivals like the MIDI Modern Music Festival or Beijing Pop. “Basically, sometimes at festivals you get curious bookings, hodgepodge-y type stuff,” explains Kagler. Instead, CH+INDIE (pronounced “Chindie”) features a tight, wholesome line up that’s the rock equivalent of a street-side jianbing, and easier to digest. Day one features six bands, including lo-fi indies Arrows Made of Desire, post-punk outfit Scoff and local legends Brain Failure; lunatic SUBS kick things off a delicious day two, featuring spacey Lonely China Day and local darlings Joyside.

If such healthy servings of sweet Beijing rock are not enough to justify the 45RMB per day entrance fee, the organizers ensure that five kuai of each ticket will go to Altruistic Alcoholics, who are using the cash to build schools in Hubei. In true festival style, the charity will set up a booth on the lawn alongside Red T, Sugar Jar and The Veggie Union.

And just as Kagler promises there’s no beef between CH+INDIE and other local fests, his festival also promises no beef, or other meats for that matter. Though he’s not a vegetarian, Kagler called local food collective Veggie Era, in the name of alternatives. “I’ve never seen anything like that in Beijing. I figured we’d try something different.”

The record labels will of course have booths too—and maybe even right next to each other. In an environment that doesn’t exactly encourage profits (“You’re happy just to break even”), there’s no sense of competition; promoting Beijing’s music with a unified front is a matter of survival. Sure, love for the music is top priority at a showcase like CH+INDIE, “but, hell, we may even make a little bit of money, which would be nice for a change,” says Kagler.

As they have relied on joint shows to spread the word in Beijing, both labels are also striving to position their bands in the widening overseas spotlight. Last April’s edition of the U.S.’s indie music mecca, the South by Southwest Festival, saw visits by Lonely China Day and post-punkers Rebuilding the Rights of Statues (Re-TROS), while Joyside recently played sold-out shows in Europe. Meanwhile, Tag Team and Modern Sky are starting to sign U.S.-based artists.

At home and abroad labels’ collaboration is rooted in cross-promotion, but it helps that Kagler and Modern Sky manager Meng Jinhui are chummy. “Jin and I like to drink beers and listen to Joy Division on vinyl 'til someone gets sick.”

Both labels wear that post-punk love on their record sleeves: Re-TROS, which is represented by Modern Sky in China and distributed in the U.S. by Tag Team, are clear Ian Curtis acolytes. While it’s hard to complain about that influence, Kagler is happy that as China’s rock scene gets more exposure, it’s also growing more original too. “A couple of years ago everything sounded like Green Day and Limp Bizkit,” he says. “Now there’s some really good stuff going on. I wouldn’t have said that three years ago.”

Leading the way are some new venues like upstart D-22, which has been cheered in all corners since it opened last year. But its Wudoakou locale, far from the club-land on the east side of the city, has created what Kagler dubs “the East-West thing.” “These bands that play at D-22 hardly ever play in Chaoyang,” he explains. “There’s no animosity, but somehow it just goes down that way.” He’s hoping CH+INDIE, which features D-22 staples like Scoff and Joyside, will do something to bridge the gap.

For all the free love, rock-and-roll attitude, Kagler has a decidedly un-rock-and-roll piece of advice to fans: arrive early. Rules are rules, especially when it comes to outdoor noise restrictions, and the festival, which opens at 4 pm, needs to wrap up by 11.30. “But it’s cool. There’ll be plenty of stuff to eat, drink, and hear,” he says. “It is after all a festival.”

School Shooting, 24 Hours a Day

I wrote this after the shootings at Virginia Tech.

It's sad that it takes a tragedy to awaken our senses, to compel us to start important discussions. But it's even sadder when such a tragedy fails to awaken us at all. Of course, the shootings at Virginia Tech certainly highlighted significant problems with America's confused system of gun control—or lack thereof—and reignited debate about one of America's oldest rights. It also showed flaws in the mental health system at some of the country's universities, and with the way that hospitals and police communicate about potentially dangerous individuals. And it pointed to, as if on cue, the powerful influence of Hollywood and video games, the dangerous blurring of violent art and reality in the hands of a student whose own gruesome fiction writing foretold his plans.

At least that's what the news told us. In fact, what the media told us and didn't tell us about this massacre might be the deeper problem. The press's early misfiring (pardon the expression) about the shooter's identity—the Chicago Sun-Times and other outlets labeled him Chinese to the ire of many here—was only the auspicious beginning of the media frenzy that was to follow. Dutifully, America's 24-hour television news channels (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) stepped in fast, and for the next week paid attention to almost nothing else. And yet, something about that attention seemed inadequate, counterproductive even, to explain anything about what happened that day in Virginia.

The facts, few but grim (33 victims, the deadliest mass shooting in American history), and the imagery and language (police cars, helicopter shots, distraught students and talk of "a loner," "coping," etc) were part of what seems to be a now-familiar TV journalism template. In the contemporary American consciousness, "SCHOOL SHOOTING" has become practically an American fixture, a phrase we have grown accustomed to seeing about once a year on the bottom of the CNN screen, in serious red or black lettering with an animated target hovering in the background, as if we need a reminder of the severity of the situation, or of some immanent danger that remains. Four days after the incident, CNN's ticker still told me that the shooting was "Breaking News."

The accompanying commentary—in this case, the chatter of a news anchor filling airtime over idle video footage, or a repetitious talking-head debate on gun control and school safety—with the addition of new journalistic props, like students' amateur video, photos, blogs, and social networking comments, all seems intended, I feel, to satisfy the audience's questions: How? Why? More often though, all this news spectacle appeals to is a simpler need: the public's "need to know," and the morbid curiosity, voyeurism and hunger for sensation that comes with it.

Nothing wrong with that—as the popularity of youtube.com can attest, we all like to watch reality this way sometimes. Yet, one suspects, the more we watch, the less we can see. That is, the more we sink ourselves into some oblivion of information and images, the harder it becomes to confront and understand the reality underneath. As critic Susan Sontag reminded us in one of her last essays, this idea is not an offspring of our recent 24-hour news cycles: in 1800, in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, poet William Wordsworth denounced the dulling of sensibility produced by "the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies." This overstimulation acts "to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind" and "reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor." I am reminded of how, following the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, a friend of mine recoiled at my description of that killing. I had called the events "cliché"—horrible word choice to be sure, but after the "spate" of school shootings that preceded Columbine in the media—that's how a school shooting felt: something to be expected.

And yet, there is nothing to be expected at all about a person opening blind fire upon classrooms of students and teachers. But expectation, familiarity, and a kind of fatigue, is one of the few outcomes of the media frenzies that follow (the "circus" of reporters grew so big that a week later Virginia Tech students issued a statement begging the media to go home). The valiant attempt to explain what happened and even to comfort audiences—two journalistic responsibilities that were not completely forgotten by the news coverage—ultimately ended in little more than sensationalism. And worse: while the video, photos and hate letters sent to NBC News by the evidently TV-savvy killer shed some light on his mental state, broadcasting large parts of his "media kit" only hurt the victims and fueled concerns that his menacing image would inspire copycat acts.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that such an event, and even the killer's messages, should not have been reported extensively. Rather, I'm pointing to the effect of which Wordsworth wrote, the way that a saturation of shocking data can dull our senses. Consider America's fatigue with the violence in war-torn places like Sudan, Afghanistan or Iraq. On the day thirty-three students were killed at Virginia Tech, sectarian violence killed two hundred people in Iraq, including the dean of the college of Political Science at Mosul University and a professor from the school's Faculty of Arts. In January and February, 110 students, faculty and staff were killed by suicide bombings at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University.

This I did not learn from CNN. The networks' incessant coverage of the shooting excluded practically all other news of the day. And even if there had been no massacre in Virginia, Iraqi violence would likely have been given little attention anyway, given the public's fatigue of that kind of coverage. On one hand, American networks like CNN ought to be paying more attention to Iraq; on another, TV news' steady stream of sensation, meant to keep us from switching the channel, might help dull our ability to think, or even to care.

I don't mean to suggest that the media should hold back on its imagery in an attempt to return us to some imaginary state of heightened sensitivity: ultimately, real-life violence isn't going anywhere. But just as there is a difference between watching and seeing, between consuming data and understanding it, there is a difference between journalism's "facts" and "the truth." The former can be shaped into an intense news segment, with a tone evocative of the Hollywood movies that some have blamed for violence. But the latter, the truth, is much harder to convey. One truth for instance, neglected in the media's fear-laden coverage of the Virginia shooting, is that violence among youth in America is much more common out of schools than in them.

Of course, it is the sanctity of a school that makes such a shooting so shocking, so apparently worthy of heavy media coverage. But the "shock" of the incident overshadows another crucial truth, one that Americans and people around the world often forget: no amount of amateur video, no amount of interviews with stunned students, or even stern messages about gun control by political talking heads, is going to help us understand what happened or prevent this from happening in the future. That's the job of citizens, politicians and even, one hopes, journalists, who can discuss, ask questions, and engage others in conversation—about topics like social isolation, violence, guns, and the media itself. Because thinking and talking about reality is much better than watching it on TV.

City Scene: How High for Houhai?

Is RMB 110 million too much for a courtyard? In Beijing – where a full-fledged traditional courtyard home (siheyuan) has become as uncommon as, say, an affordable apartment – maybe not. If the place is one of the city’s choicest courtyards, located in a serene hutong with a view of Houhai, probably not. And, if you’re a Russian billionaire on the prowl for new lao Beijing digs, well, it sounds like a downright bargain.

In March, those facts coincided to result in Beijing’s largest courtyard purchase to date: RMB 36,324 per square meter for a courtyard in Houhai (see tbjhome, May 2007), Beijing’s most sought-after old-school address. Bordered by alleyways to the north and the lake to the south and extending 3,000 square meters – it takes ten minutes to walk around the thing – it’s one of 40 remaining large courtyards in the old city. Of course, no billionaire’s courtyard would be complete without a lavish renovation featuring wood from a Thailand rainforest, which in this case will cost another 300 million kuai.

“I’m not surprised at the price,” says Hu Xinyu, of hutong preservation group Friends of Old Beijing, who remembers a 1,000 square meter courtyard selling for about RMB 10,000 per square meter a few years ago. Sources tell that’s Beijing that an even larger Houhai courtyard space is up for sale with an asking price of over RMB 200 million – a trend that is sure to continue in the run-up to the Olympics. “What I’m concerned about,” says Xu, “is the idea behind the investment.”

In the heyday of the courtyard, during imperial times, the most highly decorated courtyards – those with lavish doorways and screen walls – were entrusted to only the most prominent imperial officials. That thinking might have been behind the Beijing government’s decision in 2004 to open sales of courtyards to private buyers. As development was rapidly overtaking Beijing’s old quarters, the idea was to turn protection of the city’s legendary courtyard homes over to the market. Among those answering Beijing’s courtyard call have been billionaires like Asia’s richest man Li Ka-Shing, and Rupert Murdoch and wife Wendi Deng – and though foreigners only account for five percent of courtyard sales, many think that number is growing.

On the one hand, large purchases like the recent one in Houhai could help the cause of the hutong and courtyard homes, spruce up neighborhoods and perhaps draw in more money. “In general, gentrification can do something good, as long as the process is managed in a careful, slow pace,” Xu says. “But I’m afraid about the wealthy taking over the courtyards and, without knowledge or feeling, renovating them in an improper way.”

Rules exist, of course, to ensure that any fancying-up of a traditional courtyard honors its dynastic roots: a law passed last year stipulates a fine of up to RMB 200,000 for illegal modifications.

Given all the attention it’s received, adding a few minarets and gold leaf to the Houhai courtyard will be impossible to hide, and sources close to developer Wantong say that the home’s renovation will be faithful to its heritage. There will, however, be a swimming pool in the basement.

Alex Pasternack and Jessie Wang