With both the Midi and Strawberry festivals going down this past weekend, hip hop impresario Damon Dash was spotted out and about town taking in Beijing's music scene. 

Renowned for being Jay-Z's first producer and launching the careers of Kanye West, Beanie Sigel and Cam’ron, among others, Dash rose from rough and tumble beginnings in Harlem and amassed an empire that included "a record label, five clothing and shoe companies, a Swiss watch company, a top-shelf vodka company, a television production house, and a movie production company ... worth an estimated USD 50 million," according to the Atlanta Post.

But his fortunes fell in 2004 after a very public falling out with his former protege, Jay-Z (read all about it here). With his marriage, houses and business interests on the rocks, the 38-year-old has been working on rebuilding his empire with a host of creative music, art and business related projects - among them DD172, a four-story art salon-cum-music space in Tribeca, Creative Control (an online TV station) and the BlackRoc project that has paired Ohio blues rock wunderkinds The Black Keys with a who's-who of MCs, including Mos Def, Raekwon, Black Thought, The RZA and more.   

Google rarely runs smoothly at the best of times in our office, but our friends down at Shanghaiist are reporting that we may now be entering the worst of times. At least, if you discount the existence of alternative search engines, or depend just a little too much on the Internet to get through the day.

August’s issue of the Beijinger has hit the streets - and to celebrate, armies of journalists, the world’s finest athletes, thousands of tourists, and heads of state from around the globe have descended on our fair city. They might even stick around for the Olympics.

If they do, they can find all the information they could possibly need in our latest issue – the best places to watch the Games if you haven’t tickets, and, for those have, things to keep in mind when you go to the venues. Of course, the Olympics aren’t just about sport – they’re a celebration of humanity and getting wildly drunk at every opportunity.

Adriane Quinlan gives her tips on the best international houses where you can go and raise a glass to the Games, while Matt P. Jager recommends bars that will offer some respite from the Olympic bedlam. Likewise Venus Lau reminds visitors that the Beijing art scene isn’t all about 798 and Eric Mendel previews the top concert events for August.

In many ways the BBC's Reith Lectures are a classic example of the British public broadcaster's penchant for busying itself with the moral improvement and edification of their listeners. Inviting serious intellectuals and public figures to talk about the "big issues" of the day, the lectures often take on a didactic tone. However, this year's series of five lectures, presented by eminent China scholar Jonathan Spence, manages to do a better job of upholding the institution's stated mission of informing, educating and entertaining (though a few people on our forum disagree). The first two lectures in the China Vista series have already been broadcast and are available on the BBC's website here. We especially recommend the second episode, English Lessons, and also the Q and A sessions that follow both of the talks.

Professor Spence is one of the most well-known Sinologists in the English speaking world. He has published many influential works, including The Search of Modern China (you can read the full text selected excerpts here), which, even today, still serves as a popular choice of textbook for undergraduate courses on modern China. His latest work, Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man, is similar to many of his earlier works in that it draws on the writings of a historical figure to offer broader insights into a particular phase of Chinese history. In this case Spence focuses on the writings of essayist and historian Zhang Dai (1597–1689) and uses them to reveal details about the tumultuous period of Chinese history during which the Qing replaced the Ming Dynasty.

Hi friends and supporters of that’s Beijing magazine:

It's official – our company, the producer of "that's Beijing" magazine since its debut issue in October 2001 right through the June 2008 issue, will now no longer be involved with the brand "that's".

Our publisher, who controls the official publishing license of "that's," has abruptly ended our long-term cooperation mid-negotiation and behind our back hired someone else to produce "that's Beijing" magazine from now on.

Our company, however, will be soldiering on with a magazine you'll find to be quite similar to that's Beijing -- a magazine to be called "the Beijinger" which will make its debut with the July 2008 issue.

It features the same layout, the same content, the same distribution, and most importantly, the same team that has brought you that's Beijing since we created its debut issue in October 2001.