Stage designers is developing more and more into the most important element of stage productions. It is set designers or ?spatial artists? like Johannes Schütz, Muriel Gerstner, Stéphane Laimé and Olaf Altmann who are ?to blame? ? they are the ones who can turn an evening at the theatre into a total work of stationary art....
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Die Welt | Rue89 | The New Republic | Gazeta Wyborcza | Prospect | L'Espresso | Przekroj | The New York Times
Die Welt 05.08.2008 (Germany)
The German newspapers are today full of articles about the death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. For writer Victor Erofeyev, despite some criticism, he is still a giant. "My feelings for him are very animated – I have strong and contradictory emotions. For me, he was above all the writer of 'The Gulag Archipelago', this memoriam of all victims of Stalinism. With this book, he was not only able to bring together the testimonies of hundreds of victims of repression, but he managed, as a writer using derision and ridicule, to awaken a shocked Russia. That is a heroic deed for a writer. It caused political upheaval of European magnitude. 'The Gulag Archipelago' destroyed Euro-Communism: he dispelled the 'left's' illusions of a 'shining future'. But Solzhenitsyn didn't just see himself as the liberator of Russia. He carried with him the image of Leo Tolstoy as a teacher. He wanted to be a new Tolstoy and create his own artistic world to transfigure the Russian language. He didn't succeed in that. His book 'The Red Wheel' (an endless historical epic from the start of the 20th century), written in the spirit of 'War and Peace', didn't go anywhere, and remained uncompleted. The novel's hero turned out to be a stillborn child. His linguistic experiment with few words and folkloric expressions was painful on my ears. It is very fake and distasteful."
Rue89 02.08.2008 (France)
After centuries of the remorseless centralisation process which saw birchings dealt out to Breton children who didn't want to speak French, France has now placed its regional languages under the protection of the constitution, considering them part of the "national heritage". Whilst Elisabeth Cestor does support this decision, she also looks in dread at the situation in neighbouring Spain: "Whilst the debates about integration and official recognition of regional languages were going on in France, the Spanish government won a legal case against the Catalan government meaning that in Catalonia's primary and secondary schools, three hours of Spanish-language teaching instead of two are now obligatory, because teaching should not be exclusively in Catalan."
The New Republic 13.08.2008 (USA)
In the last few years, without anyone noticing, Chicago has become almost European, observes Alan Ehrenhalt with dismay: "In the past three decades, Chicago has undergone changes that are routinely described as gentrification, but are in fact more complicated and more profound than the process that term suggests. A better description would be 'demographic inversion'. Chicago is gradually coming to resemble a traditional European city - Vienna or Paris in the nineteenth century, or, for that matter, Paris today. The poor and the newcomers are living on the outskirts. The people who live near the center - some of them black or Hispanic but most of them white - are those who can afford to do so."
James Kirchick presents the 'Devil's Advocates' - the lobbyists who work for Africa's despots in Washington. For example the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Mervyn Dymally, briefly represented Mauritania, a country where slavery is still practised. The most infamous of them all was Edward von Kloberg III ("Shame is for sissies"!), who worked for Saddam Hussein and Nicolae Ceausescu and was even caught in a sting operation by the satirical magazine Spy, in which a writer disguised as a neo-Nazi leader of a group advocating the German annexation of Poland wanted representation.
Gazeta Wyborcza 02.08.2008 (Poland)
In search of Poland's lost lefties, Joanna Derkaczew speaks to the young theatre directors Monika Strzepka and Pawel Demirski. The pair are not thrilled by the realities faced by their generation: "My father, an intellectual, started up a company after 1989, which came to nothing. He couldn't understand it as he did everything the way he was told to. That's what most people our age do too – they do everything one is supposed to do: training, courses, work experience. And a couple of years later when they realise that nothing has changed, they panic. For they retain the belief that if they just make that little bit more effort, then everything will work out. But even if everyone were equally talented and made the same effort, it's not enough for everyone. That is one of the biggest traps of neoliberalism", states Demirski.
Anna Bikont praises Joanna Wiszniewicz's book about the "March Generation" – Polish Jews who had to leave Poland after the 1968 campaign of anti-Semitism. Many never really settled in their new homelands and struggle with their Polish-Jewish identity: "Wiszniewicz doesn't comment on anything and tries not to make generalisations. She allows her heroes to tell their story. It is an excellent piece of 'oral history' which is still a historical methodology viewed with distrust in Poland where there is more belief in documents, amongst those the documents of the Communist Secret Police, than in the spoken word. The book is also simply excellent literature.."
Prospect 01.08.2008 (UK)
To talk of "good character" is just not fashionable any more. But the British are now rediscovering character. Not as a bundle of innate qualities, but as something that can be created. Richard Reeves explains: "Since character is an unfashionable concept, it is important to be clear what it means in this public policy context. The three key ingredients of a good character are: a sense of personal agency or self-direction; an acceptance of personal responsibility; and effective regulation of one's own emotions, in particular the ability to resist temptation or at least defer gratification. Progressives are realising that, thus defined, character is intimately linked to many of their social goals—and also that it is unevenly distributed. Indeed, inequality of character may now be as important as inequality of economic resources."
Other articles: If the Fareed Zacharias and Thomas Friedmans of this world had less prejudices and would just open their eyes, they would recognise that George W. Bush has led an extraordinarily successful foreign policy, writes Edward Luttwak. Andrew Keen is worried about American newspapers which are taking a hit from publications like the Huffington Post. Stephen Chan describes the tragedy of Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who has unfortunately contributed much to Mugabe's success.
L`Espresso 31.07.2008 (Italy)
Italy is sending two boxers to the Olympic Games: Clemente "Tatanka" Russo and Domenico "Mirko" Valentino. Both train in Marcianise, not far from Naples. Roberto Saviano transforms them into the ambassadors of their angry homeland in his report. "In their punches, there is the built-up rage of this region. In the streets of Marcianise they are all asking: 'When are we going to Beijing?' They don't ask 'When are you going?', but 'When are we going?' Because nobody here is merely an individual, but they are rather the sum of the many. This support gives a boost. And so only one thing is demanded of the two guys: bring back to this area that which has been taken away and show everyone what lies hidden away back here – rage, loneliness and the emptiness of the evenings. Clemente and Mirko are cut from the same cloth which doesn't exist anywhere else. They are so hungry to become something and to achieve something and emancipate themselves."
Przekroj 30.07.2008 (Poland)
The Polish magazine devotes its lead story (with a nice cover picture and the title "Europe's Ringleader"!) to Nicolas Sarkozy, "who heals his own complexes with the help of big-stage politics", but who is also "the most reputable French politician since de Gaulle". The "Telepresident" has recently raised a lot of attention for his foreign policy initiatives, above all the Mediterranean Union summit. "Looking more closely at the successes, it becomes evident that the visionary initiatives are often of cyclical nature and that Sarkozy is as much statesman as he is showman, and that his biggest ally of recent times has been pure luck."
Jarek Szubrycht looks back at 40 years of heavy metal, which was just born in the hippy year of 1968. The most interesting part of the history is that of heavy metal's reception by communist Poland – from its difficult beginnings to the silent toleration in the 1980s. To illustrate, there is the example of the band Imperator, who once had to confront the censors before a concert: "It was about the verse 'The beast comes from the deep.' The official screamed: 'What's that about?! Is it perhaps about Solidarnosc?' The musicians answered, truthfully: 'It's about Satan.' - 'OK then, you're in luck, you're allowed to play it.'"
The New York Times 03.08.2008 (USA)
"A powerful, brilliantly researched and deeply unsettling book" is how Alan Brinkley rates "The Dark Side - The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals" (excerpt here) in the lead article of the Sunday Book Review. The book by New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer compiles all the facts from the darkest chapter of recent American history: the advent of torture in the "War on Terror". "There is no happy ending to this sordid and shameful story. Despite growing political pressure, despite Supreme Court decisions challenging the detainment policy, despite increasing revelations of the once-hidden program that have shocked the conscience of the world, there is little evidence that the secret camps and the torture programs have been abandoned or even much diminished."
RSS
Portfolio portrays the dark prince of Wall Street, who saw the storm coming, while the sun was still shining. In the Guardian, Jeanette Winterson explains why a tough life needs tough words. Polityka criticises the Catholic ideology officers monitoring Polish schools. Magyar Narancs is concerned about Hungary slipping back to the Stone Age. The New Republic eyes the collection of forceful characters on Obama's staff. And in Monde diplomatique, Juan Villoro describes a Mexico in the grip of a drug-induced here and now.
Who will be India's Obama? asks Outlook. The New Yorker looks at the tricky relationship between Obama and civil rights activism. The Guardian is stunned by the seething cauldron of neuroses that was the Wittgenstein family. Tygodnik Powszechny stares into the eyes of Polish Jews on film. Al Ahram introduces the ambitious online project of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina on Egypt's history. In Radar Rodrigo Fresan puts bestsellers in the dock. Vanity Fair meets the top news provider of the future: Bloomberg.
Shortly before his death, Studs Terkel calls for more reg-u-lat-ion in the Huffington Post. The Spectator shines a light on the China Poly Group - an arm of the People's Liberation Army, with a strong interest in art. The Observator Cultural compiles a dossier on the writer Mircea Nedelciu. The New Statesman looks into Chinese-Muslim relations in Kashgar. Umberto Eco finds suicidal tendencies in Italian terrorism. The New York Times portrays Lauren Zalaznick, the creator of "layered" TV for savvy urbanites. And in the New York Review of Books, Zadie Smith sounds the death toll for lyrical realism.
The new Slovakian internet magazine Salon translates articles from Miroslav Kusy, Rudolf Chmel und Gaspar Miklos Tamas on the tension between Hungary and Slovakia. In Portfolio, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen tells newspapers to scrap their print editions. In Le Point Emmanuel Todd foresees the return of Marx and Bonaparte. The Polish papers report on the Kundera affair. The TLS introduces lit crit as practised by a militant pro-capitalist. In the Weltwoche Paul Scheffer talks about the boomerang effect of immigration.
In Nouvel Obs, Oliver Roy explains what fundamentalists of every stripe have against culture. In Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan celebrates the golden age of journalism (we're in it). In ADN cultura, Paolo Coelho says we should look at Britain's history to worrying about internet piracy. For Commentary, the financial crisis is the fault of the state. For the Economist, the Milan Kundera case is just a drop in a toxic cloud.
The Observator Cultural introduces Stelian Tanase, a world champion of storytelling. In ResetDoc, the Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas recites his credo. In Lettre International, a Russian woman describes her childhood in a labour camp. In Esquire Mikhail Khordokovsky describes the Russian nomenklatura as the result of a process of natural annihilation. In Dissent, Carlos Fraenkel talks about teaching philosophy in Indonesia. In the Guardian Margaret Atwood sings the praises of Alice Munro. The Walrus visits Josef Skvorecky. Przekroj introduces Jacek Duka, the new Stanislaw Lem. And the Economist answers the call of nature. 
Protect investors from themselves, cries the New York Review of Books, in tune with George Soros. Teach the Roma how to work, calls Nepszabadsag. In La vie des idees, Historian Roger Chartier shows how the digital age has returned the book to its medieval state. The Economist thinks it has seen the light for the music industry. In Standpoint, tenor Ian Bostridge pops a rock 'n' roll bubble. Jonathan Littell goes to Georgia for Le Monde. Bollywood is to India what Dante was to Italy, says Outlook India. And the New York Times visits a rosy-cheeked Kleiner Perkins. 
In the Nation, Joseph Stiglitz is not buying anything the Bush administration is selling. L'Express introduces the "black book of publishing". The Times Literary Supplement warms to the unlikely Ukraine defender, Archduke Wilhelm Franz von Habsburg-Lothringen. Literaturen travels to Kamering with Austrian author Josef Winkler and his pepper spray. HGV has the end of lonely thinking in sight. And The Economist is keeping a beady eye on Total Information Awareness.
Portfolio portrays the billionaire Raymond Harbert who is knocking ever louder on the New York Times's door. In Espresso, Umberto Eco has a good old chuckle about downgrading. In the Gazeta Wyborcza historian 
Rupert Murdoch is fantasising about reaping sweet revenge on the New York Times, Vanity Fair believes. The New Yorker describes the sticky situation of the Putin-critical radio station Ekho Moskvy. The Spectator describes the impossible situation of bloggers in Iran. Le Monde diplomatique prints a posthumous text by Jacques Derrida about rogue states and how to outfox them. Outlook India celebrates India's rise to nuclear standing. And the Atlantic thanks the Met's Philippe de Montebello for never underestimating the public.
The New Yorker tells the tale of a hero, police officer James Zadroga. In El Pais author Javier Cercas seaches for happiness, boring as that might be. Le Figaro explains the difference between a snob and a dandy. Nepzsabadsag is amazed at how Serbian nationalism is moving with the times. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, political scientist Ivan Krastev admires the power of the paper tiger. Przekroj harbours the secret of the Westerplatte. The London Review of Books examines the malaise of party politics. And in L'Espresso, Umberto Eco calls for a new law on naming streets.
The New York Review of Books explains how Russia sent a message to the Ukrainians and the Balts. In Le Point, Bernard-Henri Levy awards Monsieur Putin a gold medal for his cynicism. Prospect meets the world's best and fairest society. Rue 89 asks whether France was waging a revolutionary war in Rwanda. Elet es Irodalom prescribes an "Operation Paprika" for Hungary. Gazeta Wyborczy remembers the Polish Danzigers. Folio goes on a dream holiday. And the Nation describes how New Orleans came close to reinstating segregation.
The Hudson Review tells the story of the boxing film "The Set Up" which was based on an epic poem from 1928. Wired plugs into the future of electric cars in Israel. In The New Republic, Joseph Stiglitz looks at the impact made by the Great Depression 2008. Tygodnik Powszechny tells the Catholic Church to wake up and smell the environment. In Babelia, novelist-turned-publisher Javier Marias explains how he ended up working for the afterlife. In openDemocracy, Ivan Krasten looks at the fatal consequences of the war in Georgia for Russia. And in the New Yorker, John Updike follows Max Factor on his journey from wigs to bee-stung lips.
The Atlantic holds up the termite as a paradigm of bio-efficiency. The New York Times investigates wine classification in Bordeaux. In Tygodnik Powszechny, writer Marek Nowakowski outlines his strategy for accommodating communism. Letras Libras misses the hawkishness of Roberto Bolano. Outlook India portrays the new Bollywood star Aksay Kumar. In Rue 89 Michel Wieviorka warns about burgeoning racism in France. And in L'Espresso Umberto Eco smells fear and regression in Italy.