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Feb
21stCapital M Literary Festival Comes Back to Beijing for a 2012 EditionAs most of you know, the Bookworm Literary Festival is taking place throughout march with quite a few of the events already sold out… The folks behind it, and i have no less than 4 friends involved, are doing a great job but I’ll get to blogging about it soon enough. That said, there is a new kid in town: The Capital M literary festival, that’s coming back for a second edition. The folks behind it have been operating the Shanghai edition for a long time already and that one rivals the BILF in terms of scope, attendance, and authors. The Beijing edition is making baby steps so far but it’s good baby steps! I made it to quite a few of the talks last year and they were enjoyable, well organized but unfortunately not well attended. I’m hoping this year is different! * visit the festival’s website over here * download the festival’s program here: The festival takes place over 2 weekends with a few other scattered sessions in between. They’re kicking things off this weekend at 11:00 a.m. with sinologist Geremie Barme talking about the intrigue surrounding Hangzhou’s West Lake. I’m mostly interesting in some of their food-related events including that with Harold Mc Ghee that deals with the art and science of cooking! I’m also quite intrigued by the March 1st session with Jeff Fuchs who will share with us his stories about a grueling 8 months spent with Himalayan muleteers. The sessions are all RMB65 including [...]
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Mar
28thTime Out Beijing Awards 2011: Critically Boringly YoursHot on the heels of The Beijinger Readers awards, the Time Out Beijing Awards took place last thursday with a panel of “experts” making the picks. This is a complete departure from readers’ awards as it rewards quality versus popularity.. or so they say. Let’s take a look at this year’s categories and winners: – Reader’s Choice: Maison Boulud à Pékin – Best Lunch Deal: Ai Jiang Shan – Best International: Aria – Best Wine Experience: Modo – Best Interior Design: Capital M – Best Service: Maison Boulud à Pékin – Best New Restaurant: Ssam – Best Regional Chinese: Karaiya Spice House – Best Chinese Fine Dining: Tiandi – Best Asian: Bei – Chef of the Year: Matthew McCool (Aria) – Restaurant of the Year: Bei for a more complete list along with the Merit Awards, check the time out website There’s a whole bunch of thoughts crossing my mind about these awards so I’m gonna try and put them in order somehow…. bear with me folks! The Panel: This is what makes the Time Out awards stand out supposedly as they use a panel of experts to pick out the nominations and winners in each category. This guarantees the quality of the winners making them “the cream of the crop”… Well, this year, Time Out dining editor Lillian Chou is the only recognized food expert on that panel. The other four members are outstanding representatives of the media industry and probably know their dishes but that doesn’t make them [...]
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Mar
10thInaugural Beijing Capital M Literary Festival: Great First Effortman the times have changed!!! A few years ago, China was considered cultural wasteland as far as foreign literature went! heck, it was difficult enough to buy foreign books, much less have an opportunity to sit down with authors and discuss their inspiration/work/whatever… My oh my!! we’ve come a long way. The Bookworm literary festival set things in motion and set the standard, a high one that is. Now, we’ve got the new kid on the block: The Capital M literary Festival with their inaugural edition. I got lucky enough to get tickets early on for a few sessions that caught my eye right away: A New Sexual Revolution in China: A look at what “sex in the city” means to modern Chinese. With Zhang Lijia. Food of the Silk Road: Food writer Jen Lin Liu talks about her journey spent discovering the foods of the Silk Road. Photographer Craig Simons will also display his works. Out of the Ordinary: Comic book writer Marjorie M. Liu of X-23 and Dark Wolverine discusses warrior women, shape-shifting men and how her day job as an attorney fits into it all. Illustrating Women: female illustrator/writers discuss the graphic novel The overall impression is a positive one! – The first session i attended was pretty much full but that tends to be the case when dealing with a topic that is sensitive/controversial. Other sessions were not that popular by the look of things with only 2 paid participants showing up for Marjorie Liu’s “out [...]
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Feb
24thQuickslants: Residence A, Buyi, Rolling Stones tribute and a healthy dose of literatureGee how the week flies! It’s fun time again and I haven’t even gotten around to writing about last weekend’s amazing shows! Let’s get this party started baby… Thursday February 24: No Purpose show @ Mao Live: Some really cool bands on this bill tonight: Residence A is one of the better young bands I’ve seen in Beijing over the past year. Grinding Ear, CNdY and Elenore have all been making enough noise to peak my curiosity so this is a nice opportunity to check them all out in one go. I really wanna see how Elenore comes out live.. they have a bit of a southern blues slide guitar feeling to their songs. Friday February 25: Buyi @ Jianghu: You know them, you know the place and you know the show is always fun. I’ve actually never really seen them play jianghu now that i think about it. They have a high energy type of show so I have a hard time seeing how they can play there sometime. This band is a bit of a canandrum because they can sell out the starlive and have an empty jianghu… Good old Rock from Ningxia Spring Metal @ Mao: If you wanna get your rock on, Metal style, this is the place and the time. Mao has put together one hell of a bill with 5-4, Army of Jade Kirin, Thug Life and other really cool up and coming bands from the metal scene. This might be one of the [...]
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Dec
9thWu Force:Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei fuse the perfect quiet storm to Capital MThere’s a lot of music happening in Beijing and some of it takes place in the most unexpected of locations. That was the case last saturday at Capital M over by Qianmen. Yes, you heard right: there was a concert over in the posh side of town and yours truly managed to get out of dive-bar mode long enough to attend and witness the beautiful coming together of East and West with Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei. Abigail has carved herself a beautiful slice off of the Americana Roots music pie with Appalachian characteristics. Wu Fei in some ways has done the exact same way on the opposite direction! On saturday, both ladies got together for the coming out party of their cooperation project: Wu Force! For one whole hour, the two of them proceeded to merge eastern and western roots sounds with flavors as diverse and their personalities: Yunnan meets Alabama, Sichuan meets Oklahoma, Banjo meets Guzheng. Being a self-professed adopted redneck, I have a deep appreciation for everything banjo and Abigail’s performance was as good as i’ve seen or heard her. She’s just a great talented soul that is a joy to talk and listen to. Wu Fei was a bit of a mystery even though I’ve been aware of her years before i knew Abigail existed. Her instrument of choice, the guzheng, is one that i am not familiar with and definitely do not appreciate as much as i’d like to or should. As the two of [...]
The Mini Skinny
What once started as my personal ramblings has morphed into the number one collective resource about underground live music in Beijing and China. All bands, all music, all Rock n Roll, all the time with a little side of eclectic topics.. best of all, it's still as BIASED as ever
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