Süddeutsche Zeitung 18.01.2007

"We're the opposite of Wikipedia." Sonja Zekri quotes French political scientist Jacques Semelin, initiator of a planned online encyclopedia on the genocides of the 20th century. When to use the term "genocide" poses considerable problems, Zekri reports. "The Holocaust was a genocide, as was the murder of the Armenians. But what about the obliteration of the Indians? What about Darfur, where Joschka Fischer, then minister of external affairs, spoke in icy diplomatic German of a 'genocidal potential' – but not of a genocide? It's questions like these and their consequences that make the planned online encyclopedia a highly explosive project. And it's such considerations that moved its initiator Jacques Semelin to call the website www.massviolence.org: 'We avoid the term genocide,' he says. 'But this is dynamite any way you look at it.'"


Die Zeit 18.01.2007

Thomas Groß went to Peking to find out what is making the youth tick. One of the people he met was Yan Jun, (33) a journalist and guru of the electronic scene. "In terms of individualism China is still a developing country, he said.... Yan divides Sinopop into three phases. First there were the old rockers who took to the streets to protest for democracy. Then there was his generation, grateful to be able to profit from China's opening up. Now there is the third generation, informed but completely forgetful, confident but also a little spoilt, who have 'never tasted the bitterness' as their parents say. Xiao huang di or 'little kings'. Some become punks because they don't know what to believe in. Some toy with the possibilities of the techno age. Most of them, says Yan Jun, just want to consume. They embrace the new times in the form of mass spectacles like the 'Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Supergirl Competition'." "Maybe true Rock'n'Roll is still waiting to happen in China," Groß concludes.


Frankfurter Rundschau 18.01.2007

Is redemption possible? Helmut Müller-Sievers, a Germanist at Northwestern University, looked to Thomas Pynchon's newest novel "Against the Day" for answers. "Pynchon replies with a resounding yes, not only with his characters and unfailing belief in the healing powers of sex & drugs & rock'n'roll, but also, and even more so, in the gift of his novel itself. Drug consumption without a bad comedown, sex without a bad conscience, dogs that read Henry James (the late works): of course it's a utopian novel. But the hours spent reading it are real, and really satisfying. Unfortunately, they're also irrecoverable."


Franfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 19.01.2007

Oliver Jungen was in Hamburg's Reeperbahn district, a few doors down from where Beatles began, to attend the test gig for the Glasgow band "Shitdisco" - a test apparently not for the band itself, but whether the continent was ready for them. After waiting what seemed like an age, the boys with their fluorescent tape covered guitars start up. "Devil be damned!" cries Jungen. "New Rave has got what it takes. It invariably starts out fast and drum-heavy, high voices lay a trance-like tralala over the songs which soon flow over into a well-considered noise chaos. ... The boys are four clumsy oafs who manage to disconnect the power every twenty seconds, forcing the technicians to crawl around the stage for the duration of the concert, to save what can be saved. After the fourth song, the drum kit has also collapsed and has to be put together again. (...) The continent is ready! Bring on the new rave."