DRUMS WITHIN AN IVORY TOWER © KJS 2005

The place in Africa where I live for six months every year as a "permanent resident" is called Harare, this is the capital of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is the main showground for my thriller "DRUMS WITHIN AN IVORY TOWER", published in German language as a book ("TROMMELN IM ELFENBEINTURM") and as an interactive project on Internet & on CD-Rom. It tells the ficticious story of two young women, one a disillusioned former communist from Germany, the other one a disowned daughter of a Tonga-chief in the Zambezi-Valley. Both met by chance in early 1980, shortly after independence in Salisbury, re-named Harare a couple of weeks later. In the wake of indepenence, both were clever enough to engineer for themselves a training as press-photographers in Europe. When they meet again, nine years later, both get sucked into an international conspiracy, spreading from Zimbabwe to Europe, to the Middle East and to Russia & China. The action limits itself to three months in 1989, the year when walls between ideological blocs tumbled down and the promise of the "Red Church" for liberation movements in Africa failed completely.

The story is also about the contradiction between different modes of communication, traditional drums of African origin on the one hand and digital signals of global computer-networks on the other.

If someone in your organisation is capable to read German, please visit: www.radiobridge.net/index2.html It would be possible to provide a password to access the complete novel on the web, including the mp3-download-facility of a professional audio-recording of all chapters.

For Internet & CD-Rom, the book’s chapters were edited into 91 illustrated episodes, each containing links to relevant web-sources. 91 questions can be answered by browsing online through such additional web-sources. Participation in this online-thriller-quiz is providing a chance for winners to visit me in Africa in order to realize an own research together with me.

And, there is an additional multimedia-approach to this project — "ANCHOR & HOPE" — the English Portal on Internet & CD-Rom to participate in the online-transformation of real events and of their protagonists into the plot of another fiction-thriller, check at: www.radiobridge.net/www/intro.html

ANCHOR & HOPE © KJS 2005

Exposé for another fiction-thriller on Internet

— featuring Gertrud Steiner & Lainet Musora
— protagonists of "Drums within an Ivory Tower"

Location: London
Time: 180 days, 23 hrs, 54 mins, 19 secs to election of the 2012 host city of the Olympic Games

BACKGROUND OF THE PLOT:

Having survived the African adventures in 1989, Gertrud Steiner has settled as a lecturer for photographic studies at a college in her German home-town Bremen. Her friend and co-adventurer, Zimbabwean Lainet Musora, remained in her country’s capital Harare — alas, without being able to work as a press photographer anymore. The tumble of domestic politics and economy in Zimbabwe, accelerating in the year 2000 — two decades after independence — combined with drastic actions by agents of Mugabe’s spin-doctors against the media, made it suicidal to continue in this field. Instead, Lainet and her brother Paul, a former ZBC-broadcaster, ventured into IT-business, setting up and maintaining websites as a networking tools for regional NGO’s, thereby helping to empower civic society in Africa.
Both women had turned 25 when they had met in Zimbabwe in 1980, both at that time somehow clue-less with regard to their personal future, but finally tapping into funds of a development agency which allowed both of them to establish a professional career by studying press photography in Germany. Both had turned almost 35 when they met again on the mighty Zambezi-River for an excursion which was supposed to become a leisure trip but sucked them into a conspiracy whose international implications did cast shadows from Africa to Europe, further to the Middle East, to Russia and to China, and then back to Zimbabwe.
Both women are close to 50 now. They remained unmarried; however, Lainet had adopted Burombo, the little boy who had helped her to escape from the "Village of Doom" in the Zambezi-Valley, and Gertrud had been only too keen not to fail as a second step-mother of this foster-child ... (in Shona "Burombo" means: "child born in poverty")

Introduction to the story is in German as well, and this is the background for marketing of the idea:

— an opportunity to practice English with fun
— a chance to explore the abyss of world-history
— join the WEB THRILL-CLUB as owner of the members' CD-Rom

What is the concept of a fiction-thriller on Internet as presented by KJS? The author is developing a plot for suggested protagonists by surfing through the virtual world of the Internet. His findings are then shuffled around, twisted and lined up until real events in history and presence appear as bits and pieces for a story not known before. And surfers worldwide will have a chance to participate in the development of each story. The unfolding plot will create a new virtual reality, allowing — as it is hoped — insight into the meaning of our doing.

Whilst this approach is still very much dependent on virtual participation and co-operation, my latest project will provide a more classical approach for interested participants:

I am inviting private travellers & travel agencies to join me in an unusual journey: www.radiobridge.net/travele.html
Travellers would experience African reality along the TAZARA-line, and — at the same time — would be invited to come to know the development of the story of the "TAZARA"-novel as presented by the author.

Another idea, closely linked to my railway-research, can be viewed at: www.radiobridge.net/railtravel.html
I present the idea for a new mode of travelling by train to be realised, step by step, through collaboration of interested parties in North and South:

TOURISM ALONG RAIL-LINES IN AFRICA — TRAIN-UNITS FOR HIRE

And all this has been turned, as bricks & mortar, into a multimedia-construction-site from which I present — from time to time and for changing audiences of German speaking communities — live-shows with readings, pictures, video- & audio-snippets from 40 years of living & working on 4 continents:

— STORIES FROM THE GLOBAL VILLAGE — OR: HOW TO COME TO TERMS WITH ALIEN WORLDS —
— GESCHICHTEN IM GLOBALEN DORF — ODER VERSUCHE, DIE FREMDE ZU VERSTEHEN —
check at: www.radiobridge.net/showdetails.html

I would very much appreciate your comments and hints how to come to a joint venture.

Best regards,
Klaus Juergen Schmidt

WHERE YOU CAME FROM — WOHER SIE KAMEN

LOOKING FOR AN AGENT

AGENTUR GESUCHT!

Hi,

This is Klaus Juergen Schmidt living partly in Europe, partly in Africa.
I started to work there some 26 years ago. After more than 40 years of work as a broadcaster and media-consultant in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa I have completed my active engagement with international organisations, enjoying now my involvement as a story-teller and multimedia-consultant / performer.
To get an idea about my professional background, please visit the following site of my web-project: www.radiobridge.net/kjs.html

I take the liberty to introduce to you an opportunity for co-operation
in a multifaceted project, starting with:

TAZARA ... a journey by rail through world history © KJS 2009

TAZARA is the name of the famous East African rail-express connecting the copper-mines of Zambia with Tanzania’s port of Dar-es-Salaam. For passengers, it is a journey of almost three days and two nights made possible by Chinese engineers and workers some 30 years ago.

"TAZARA" is the name of my latest novel already existing in a German language-version on DVD and on Internet; and 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.

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 30 of the 88 chapters are finished at my pace; the first 160 pages or so 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.

The plot sees the emergence of ordinary and famous passengers in a fictitious meeting on this train, debating history and future of life and of foreign interference in Africa, but not only there. One of the ordinary passengers we come to know is 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. One of the first "VIPs" emerging from the railway’s tunnels is the ghost of Dag Hammarskjöld who was the UN’s Secretary General when foreign powers decided that he was inconvenient to their interests in Congo, that he should be eliminated ... His plane came down in Ndola, north of TAZARA’s Zambian terminal, in Kapiri Mposhi ...

I would like you to have a look at this recent project, which may need advice,
but which certainly will have some potential:
www.radiobridge.net/tazaraintro.html

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).

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 ...

I would very much appreciate a working relationship that will provide guidance and steam for the litera-tour of my TAZARA-express...

... and there is much more:

Hallo,

mein Name ist Klaus Jürgen Schmidt, und ich suche eine kreative und zuverlässige Agentur für Organisation & Vermarktung meiner vielfältigen Multimedia-Aktivitäten.

Nach 40 Jahren als Journalist und internationaler Medienberater lebe und arbeite ich als Geschichtenerzähler in Deutschland und in Afrika.

Meine "Geschichten im Globalen Dorf oder Versuche, die Fremde zu verstehen" präsentiere ich in einer Bühnenschau, die z.B. veranstaltende Hotels der gehobenen Klasse mit Kulinarischem verbinden. Ich lese aber auch vor Kirchengemeinden oder in kommunalen Kultureinrichtungen aus meinen Sachbüchern über Afrika und Asien, aber auch aus meinem Mitmach-Thriller "TROMMELN IM ELFENBEINTURM", der fiktiven Geschichte einer internationalen Verschwörung.

Und es geht um mein neues multimediales Projekt, das die virtuelle Begegnung von Menschen verschiedener Kulturen & Epochen in einem ostafrikanischen Eisenbahn-Express erzählt und als DVD sowie als Internet-Projekt in deutscher Sprache bereits vollständig zugänglich ist:
"TAZARA — mit der Eisenbahn durch die Weltgeschichte".
Zurzeit arbeite ich an einer englischsprachigen Version des 560-Seiten-Skriptes, für deren Publizierung ich ebenfalls eine kooperierende Agentur suche. Reiseveranstaltern und/oder Privatreisenden schlage ich vor, dabei zu sein wenn ich im realen TAZARA-Express aus meinen Büchern vorlese. Während authentisches afrikanisches Leben an ihnen vorüberzieht, können die Reisenden zusammen mit mir meine Geschichten weiterentwickeln ...

Ich würde Sie gerne einladen, sich die weite Palette der Projekte hier im Internet anzusehen. Vielleicht bekommen Sie Lust, sich mit mir einzulassen? Über eine Rückmeldung würde ich mich freuen.

KJS