<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.7600.16722"></HEAD>
<BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt" id=role_body
bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7><FONT id=role_document
color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Hello,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">This is a call from Harare / Zimbabwe
by Klaus Jürgen Schmidt, a resident German storyteller who would like you to
have a look at his recent project, which may need advice and ideas how to turn
it into a multimedia-package for an international audience.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"><FONT size=4><STRONG>TAZARA ... a
journey by rail through world history<BR></STRONG></FONT> <BR>What drives
TAZARA? David Shields may provide an answer in his book "Reality Hunger". He
takes up the notion that uneasiness can be observed when it comes to the kind of
realistic narration à la Jonathan Franzen. As part of his essayist theory of
literature, Shields discusses the sampling-method, in other words the use of
culturally pre-formed material, as Adorno called it. Well, that is more or less,
what I am trying to do, not forgetting thrill and fun. I juggle around with
authentic quotes by real VIPs of different trades and of different times. In
fact, such traceable (and clearly indicated) quotes represent a major part of
the text (sampling-method).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">As the pointsman of a mysterious
railway-network which leads through space and time, I involve these VIPs, but
also their co-travellers, in a fictitious debate about the baggage they left
along the tracks for us to live with. Thus, I present world-history on rails,
which once helped to conquer the world; and as it turns out, it differs from
what you read in history books — or, one could argue — it connects acts and
events without detour, thanks to virtual railway-tunnels which my controller has
invented ... </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">As one of the virtual VIPs on the
train, Doris Lessing is summarizing:<BR><EM>... „It occurs to me that the
transformation of this railway-express into a rolling stage, then into an
electronic book, the offer to check arguments through own research on Internet
and finally using formats of TV-talk-shows, all this reminds me of the
flickering of our nerve-system which lets us feel real pain and real joy but can
also create the dream-work of a virtual world.“ ...</EM></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">The complete project does already exist
as an interactive multimedia-offer on the Internet:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.radiobridge.net/tazaraintro.html"><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"><A
href="http://www.radiobridge.net/tazaraintro.html">www.radiobridge.net/tazaraintro.html</FONT></A><FONT
size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT></A></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Despite the fact, that it is accessible
in a German language version only, the 88 chapters are visited and re-visited
daily by six to twenty readers from all over the world. According to my
online-monitor, new visitors come mostly via GOOGLE-searches, and linger once
they start to read; and they quite often return. It seems to be a none-linear
kind of reading they prefer, jumping back and forth between chapters.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Although my mother tongue is not
English I started to transfer the 560-page-script into this language,
acknowledging that someone professional would have to make the final touches.
Introduction and 34 chapters are finished at my pace; they could be submitted
for perusal and, hopefully, feedback. Landscaping of the script in its final
form would be necessary, I think, since original quotes, fictitious talk,
reflections of the controller, and contributions of the "knowing voices", using
the public address system of the virtual TAZARA-Express, need to be
distinguishable.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Apart from getting the project into a
print-version, there could be as well scenes performed on real trains or
railway-stations in Europe and/or in Africa for a real audience involving actors
of a theatre-group and recorded for use in an online-documentary or in a movie
...</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">I would very much appreciate a working
relationship that will provide guidance and steam for the litera-tour of my
TAZARA-express. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Greetings out of Africa <BR>Klaus
Jürgen Schmidt</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">INTRODUCTION TO THE
SCHEME</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">TAZARA ... a voyage by rail through
world-history<BR>Pointsman: Klaus Jürgen Schmidt © KJS /
2011<BR> <BR>ATTENTION on the platform!<BR> <BR>We are on the
tracks of those who shaped the baggage of our time:<BR> <BR>Who caused the
worldwide crash of banks?<BR>Who benefits from global dissolution of national
sovereignty?<BR>What hides behind the idea to tackle world-hunger with
gene-manipulation?<BR>What is China doing in Africa?<BR>What is the NATO doing
in Eastern Europe?<BR>Who is the „godfather“ behind Barack
Obama?<BR> <BR>Answers to these and many more questions will be given
aboard my African railway-express. <BR> <BR> <BR>MISSION OF THE
POINTSMAN<BR> <BR>In every big railway-network you will find uncoupled
carriages, their load missing. One task of the railway’s pointsman is to trace
such uncoupled carriages and to guide them back via properly pointed
rail-switches into an orderly line-up.<BR> <BR>Almost every text you are
going to read is based on authentic quotes found during a voyage through the
world of published word — in books, in journals, on the World Wide Web — there,
however, uncoupled from the course of time. Such quotes have been recovered and
brought in line in a meaningful new way by me, the pointsman — and you can trace
all quotes online. (List of original sources will be provided.)<BR> <BR>On
the rolling stage of the TAZARA-Express, reconstruction of a historic timetable
takes place as framed by global pointsmen whilst playing their
world-game.<BR> <BR> <BR>HAPPENINGS ON THE
GHOST-TRAIN<BR> <BR>Dag Hammarskjöld is reading from his last will, and he
will give away world-secrets.<BR> <BR>Bill Gates will be kidnapped and will
learn what his „Creative Capitalism“ means to Africans.<BR> <BR>Kofi Annan
does not wish to become the „Uncle Tom“ of Bill Gates.<BR> <BR>A German
Albert-Schweitzer-School grows out of an African railway-platform.
<BR> <BR>A mountain, rich in ore, tells the story of how it was dragged
from Africa to Asia.<BR> <BR>Inventors and dealers of weapons are
confronted during a summit meeting.<BR> <BR>Germany’s famous
fiction-writer, Karl May, is going to report about his early strive for peace in
Sudan and in South Africa.<BR> <BR>Nobel-Laureate, Doris Lessing, will
confess to read, occasionally, Wilbur Smith.<BR> <BR>John Le Carré helps to
research the thriller-mission of an U.S.-diplomat in Zimbabwe.<BR> <BR>Leo
Trotsky quarrels with John D. Rockefeller Jr. about war and its
profit.<BR> <BR>Train-robber Ronnie Biggs accepts to write the scenario of
the great bank-betrayal.<BR> <BR>Cecil Rhodes wants to be resurrected as
Henry Kissinger.<BR> <BR>Germany’s maverick-politician, Joschka Fischer, is
unmasking the „godfather“ behind Barack Obama.<BR> <BR>Prince Charles will
wag his „green finger“.<BR> <BR> <BR>PROLOGUE <BR> <BR>TAZARA is
the name of the famous East African railway connecting the copper-mines of
Zambia with Tanzania’s sea-port of Dar-es-Salaam. For passengers, it is a
journey of almost three days and two nights made possible by China’s first
attempt to involve her in a massive development project on the African
continent. <BR> <BR>In April 2007, a TAZARA-Express is heading from East to
West into Africa. It passes points seemingly without control, changing its
direction time and again — almost like a runaway train. However, control rests
with a mysterious stage-manager who is able to direct action through handy men
within the train’s coaches. Steered as if by ghostly hands, the train is being
manoeuvred through time and space, even travelling on far away rail-networks,
thereby touching stations where raw products and goods are waiting — as well as
ideologies and claims to power — to be loaded or unloaded by iron horses of
their time.<BR> <BR>Whilst driving through tunnels, an ominous saloon-coach
of this spooky train receives as visitors personalities of universal history who
— sometimes heckled by co-travellers of the TAZARA — are made to involve
themselves in a debate of their conduct as actors in business or politics,
having coined in one way or another the fate of people in Africa and beyond in
the past or in the future.<BR> <BR>Among co-travellers occupying
TAZARA-compartments of the first class there are:<BR>— four Zambian
businesswomen returning from a shopping spree in Dubai, their goods rolling with
them in a TAZARA-container<BR>— a travelling tailor from Hong Kong who used to
fit African politicians with affordable diplomatic suits, now scouting for
African opportunities on behalf of a Mr. Moon<BR>— a messenger on his way with
valuable vintage-watches to launder money for dealers in drugs and weapons<BR>—
a German entrepreneur who is convinced that he will construct another railway
line through Africa<BR> <BR>None of them has a clue that the mysterious
stage-manager has already determined at what type of rail siding their journey
will come to an end.<BR> <BR>The Pointsman, Harare, 15. February 2009
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">CONTACT: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">Klaus Jürgen Schmidt<BR></FONT><A
href="mailto:radiobridge@aol.com"><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">radiobridge@aol.com</FONT></A><BR><A
href="http://www.radiobridge.net"><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman">www.radiobridge.net</FONT></A><FONT size=3
face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">ADDRESS in AFRICA (November -
April)<BR>98 Ridgeway North<BR>Borrowdale<BR>Harare / Zimbabwe<BR>phone:
+263-4-882483 </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3 face="Times New Roman">ADRESSE in EUROPA (May -
October)<BR>Alter Schulweg 5<BR>31609 Balge<BR>Deutschland<BR>Tel.:
+49-(0)5022-943150 </FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>