Jens Lekman is playing tonight. This is really big news for indie kids who know what's what, but also for anyone interested in hearing one of the best songwriters out there (if you like brand names and statistics, how does a 9.0 from Pitchfork sound?). I first heard him in Boston, one half of one of my favorite bands, the Kings of Convenience, insisted that, instead of heading back to the hotel lobby after his concert, we speed across town to catch the last bit of his fellow Scandanavian's concert. Jens (pronounced "Yens") was fantastic, so earnest, sweet, smart, heartbreaking even. Then came his recent album, Night Falls over Kortedala, which complemented his fine lyrics with rich instrumentals and the occasional sample. Baroque pop and folk, Motown, jazz, and 60s rock. Stephen Merritt and Belle and Sebastian and Jonathan Richman, to name just a few easy comparisons.

Sep 26-27
AIR
RMB 700, advance RMB 550.
8pm, 11pm (after party). Yugong Yishan (6404 2711)

With their first ever shows in China, Air also happened to be a very fitting, along with the equally placid Benson and Jarreau, choice of first foreign act to perform in the post-Olympics, post-Bjork era: relaxing, intimate and ever uncontroversial.

The American Renaud brothers are known for their hard-hitting cinema verite documentary films, which have ranged on topics from college football rivalries to US soldiers in Iraq. It was there that the two witnessed severe injuries firsthand, and learned of the sporting program that turns wounded veterans into Paralympic athletes. Their current project, Warrior Champions: From Baghdad to Beijing, follows former soldiers as they train for the 2008 Paralympic Games.  Brent Renaud spoke to Alex Pasternack from New York, just before leaving for Okinawa to join the US Team in training. The brothers are producing web videos for the US Paralympic team while they are in Beijing, you can view the videos here. Melissa Stockwell failed to qualify for the 100m Freestyle and Butterfly earlier this week, she'll be competing in the 400m Freestyle on Friday morning.

This interview first appeared In the September issue of Urbane.

Alex Pasternack: How did this film come about?

Brent Renaud: There’s a scene in our film Off to War shortly after we get to Baghdad when a mortar hits the base where I’m staying with the soldiers. A number of them were killed, a number of them were injured; one of the soldiers I was with that day ended up losing his arm and having problems with one of this legs. When he returned to the States he started getting involved with these sports programs for injured veterans. They say if you or I get injured or lose a leg, we’d need to train full time for six or seven years and then we might be able to reach that level. But some of these soldiers have done it in less than year. It’s a pretty remarkable story.

Update (Sep 3, 11am): According to today's Beijing News, all the additional tickets to Paralympic events at the Water Cube that were made available yesterday, sold out in about 40 minutes. Tickets to events at the Bird's Nest are still available. The report also details the journalists failed attempts to book tickets online and how they were repeatedly met with "system error" messages. The official ticketing agency announced that of the 1.65 million tickets made available to the public (this number does not include the recently released extra tickets), 1.19 million, or 72%, have already been sold. There was no announcement as to how many extra tickets to the Water Cube went on sale yesterday.

As we mentioned last week, the Paralympic ticketing center has announced that they've discovered more tickets to events taking place at the popular Bird's Nest and Water Cube venues. The extra tickets go on sale today and you can purchase them via the official ticketing website or at various Bank of China branches around town. They've also announced that some tickets will be sold on the day of events at ticket booths outside the venues. As during the Olympics, if you have tickets to events at the Bird's Nest, Water Cube or any other venue in the Olympic Green (the Tennis Center, Fencing Hall, Hockey Stadium, Archery Field and the National Indoor Stadium) you also have same-day access to the Olympic Green and Olympic Park. For an idea of what to expect from a trip to the Olympic Green, keep reading Alex Pasternack's introduction to the sponsors pavilions that line the Green below. This is an edited version of an article that will appear in the upcoming issue of Urbane.

If Beijing's Olympic Games were as much about the city as about the athletes, one of the main venues of competition was the Olympic Green, a gargantuan moonscape of a public space that makes Tiananmen Square feel like a cozy courtyard. Here the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube and Digital Beijing and the freakishly long Convention Center commanded as much attention for their awesome physiques and showmanship as Jamaican world record setter Usain Bolt.

As we're all left wondering what next, this article in this month's Urbane seemed an appropriate comment on New Beijing. It was written on the cusp of the Games, that long ago age when the numbers on countdown clocks were shrinking surprisingly fast and every other word in the media seemed to be "Olympic" or "Jiayou!"

Standing eerily still and in machine-like formation over square tables, the army of thousands assembled before us portended something big. From one angle, they resembled angry youth, standing at attention before their school desks. Another interpretation might imagine them as factory workers listening attentively to morning loudspeakers before getting down to work. And then there is the obvious comparison with the theatrical image of soldiers lined up in uniform that has become shorthand for the Chinese government.

But this wasn't about that China, at least not overtly. This was about a China of the past and the future, a China transcending a half-century of difficulties to reach backwards and forwards at once. It's a China defined by a sense of tradition and a capacity for innovation in the arts and sciences - a far cry from the reputation China has for, say, mass politics, rote learning, knock-offs and copy-paste manufacturing.

"I've never seen a country spend so much time showing itself off," a Chinese friend mentioned after watching the ceremony. She made a comparison to North Korea's Mass Games. "But I guess we have a lot to show."

Indeed it's a history and culture that remains unknown to most Westerners, and, as many Chinese will remind you, goes back 5,000 years. Of course, because successive dynasties interspersed with drastic upheavals, that number's not completely accurate. But that didn't stop director Zhang Yimou from attempting to pack it all in to a typically epic, spectacular ceremony.

Long-term Beijing resident and journalist Michael Meyer has experienced Chinese traditional life as an insider, living and working in one of Beijing's most well known hutong neighborhoods. In his book, The Last Days of Old Beijing, Meyer documents the colorful characters and unique situations he encounters. Tonight, Meyer will be at the Bookworm to talk about his work and the changing face of Beijing. Urbane editor Alex Pasternack recently caught up with Meyer and below we've include an excerpt from Alex's interview with the author. Look out for the complete interview in an upcoming issue of Urbane. Danwei readers might have caught a recent excerpt from the book. You can read what a New York Times writer thought about it here and listen to the author talk about the book on NPR's On Point here. The Economist also gives the book a mention in a recent review of Beijing-related books.

Aug 5
Book Talk: Michael Meyer
RMB 30 (includes a drink), RMB 20 (members).
7.30pm. The Bookworm (6586 9507)

Alex Pasternack: And in general, what do you think can be done now to best preserve what remains of Beijing's structural and cultural heritage -- and the area around Qianmen in particular? What bad ideas are still out there? Who might we look to for help?

Michael Meyer: In terms of cities with comparable politics, I think Hanoi has the right idea, for now -- let residents determine the fate of the neighborhood. I like the museum there, showing an improved home. Preservation is almost always born from citizen's opposing government/business designs -- involving outside funding and solutions -- and that's not a viable model in Beijing now.

One short-sighted idea in Beijing is to tear down original structures and rebuild them with red brick and beams. It allows people to stay, which is good, but it also erases any historical value, and will make it that much easier for the Hand to come along and say the homes can by destroyed because they date from 2008.

We're looking for a few good photographs of the city you love. And hate. And I know you've got them. They could end up being seen by lots of people, in the pages of Urbane's big August issue. But mostly, we'd like to have a look.

Here's the idea:

As the city prepares for its Olympic close-up, an era of creative destruction comes to a close. And so too do those institutions you might associate with it. Whether it's old subway signage, a favorite restaurant, some hutong scrawl, or curious evidence of Olympic preparation, we want to see the exciting and endangered people, places and things you miss and love about Beijing before the flame rolls in.

Photos should be around 1MB or larger, and you can email them to pasternack2 at gmail dot com. We need to get them in by Wednesday July 16.

We can't pay - I wish we could - but think of it as an art project, an exhibition, a love letter, free advertising, whatever.

Update: (May 27, 9.30am) Soho China have just announced that they've acquired a new large-scale commercial development project in Beijing for RMB 5.5 billion. Formerly known as the Kaiheng Center (Kaiheng Dasha), the property is on the southwest corner of the Chaoyangmen intersection (south of the boat-like CNOOC building and across from the Ministry Foreign Affairs building), and surprise surprise, will be renamed Chaoyangmen SOHO.

As the walls surrounding the Village at Sanlitun project come down to reveal an ultra modern, but as yet unopened, complex, urbane editor Alex Pasternack gives us his impression of the official launch of Soho China's new Sanlitun project.

At the tail end of Beijing's Olympic transformation, amidst government building restrictions and market jitters, it is getting a bit harder to spot those amazing, surreal moments of destruction in the city proper, when the old goes quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) in the face of the new.

But a vivid moment was offered up earlier this month courtesy of Soho China, which launched its new Sanlitun project with a big, brash grand opening. Hundreds of people pressed into their showroom to get a glimpse of classy, high-end apartments, gulp wine, and watch a pop cover band play beneath a screen showing a documentary set in Cultural Revolution-era China. The most exciting and surreal moment was when wiry models in suits serenaded the glassy architectural model with a flashlight dance (see video below).

This month's issue of urbane is adorned with a pretty neat cover image: a collage that forms a map of the Chaoyang district, with neighborhoods represented by bits of paper that have been collected from each of those areas. The design was done by one of China's many up and coming graphic designers, Guang Yu of Beijing-based MEWE design alliance, and was commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for their ongoing exhibition China Design Now.