Amsterdam Weekly: Vol 5 Issue 33: 28 Aug-3 Sept 2008 by Amsterdam Weekly

Volume 5, Issue 33

28 AUGUST - 3 SEPTEMBER 2008 Yes, we .... culture, too.

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Autumn cultural calendar

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AGENDA

FEATURE

REPORT

MUSIC

The ex-incarcerated just wanna have funâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;or at least a home and a love life.

A project that jailed artists ends with them getting locked in.

When it comes to loving, Jon Spencer likes something strong.

Uitmarkt tips, dikke full living statues Uitmarkt IJ sounds,

Page 5

Page 7

Page 15

Page 13 and onward...

programme

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

In this issue and...

City Second

By Peter Cleutjens

Welcome to the new cultural season. And this year it would seem that space is the place. The B-oost music festival is embracing the cosmos. The six-week design event DesignExperimenta is exploring ‘space and place: design for the urban landscape’. An exhibition of artist Cy Twombly’s photography reflects how his painterly eye takes in his environment, while a project starting at P/////AKT this week tackles ‘mental space’. And Eddy Terstall’s new film Vox Populi explores how the political arena has shrunken to a single point where political correctness and right wing populism take turns occupying it. What’s next? Will Joop van den Ende announce the production of a new musical for 2009 with astronaut Andre Kuipers as its star? Perhaps art is just imitating local life: the Mondriaan-like grid pattern of the landscape, the innate organisational skills required to keep the sea at bay, the almost constant spring-cleaning required to maintain a sense of space in this modestly proportioned land, the elegance of football players who open space to score and close space to defend... Whatever. Maybe it’s just about getting off the couch and doing something to fill the void. Just don’t call it culture.

Features Inbox: Subsidy stop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Nature Calls: Moles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 News: Prison breaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Amstergraph: EU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A Quick Bike Fix: Tandem. . . . . . . . 5 Street Fashion: Sunglasses . . . . . . . 7 Report: 13 Isolations (2). . . . . . . . . . . 7 The People Versus: Rubbish . . . . . . 7 Main feature: Coming up . . . . . . . . . 8 Cultural Calendar . . . . . . Centrefold Uitmarkt tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3 questions: Jon Spencer. . . . . . . . . 15

Agenda Short List 13 / Music 14 / Clubs 15 / Gay & Lesbian 16 / Stage 17 / Events 17 / Art 18 / Addresses 19 / Film 20 / Special Screenings 22 / Film Times 23

Plus The Mouth: Griekse Taverne . . . . . 24 Night in the Life: Buurvrouw . . . . 24 Classiﬁeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Eefje Wentelteefje . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

On the cover Illustration by Nicole Martens www.nicool.org

Next week Back to skool

Frederiksplein - 19/08/2008 - 16:56

Contact Amsterdam Weekly Publisher Yuval Sigler Director Todd Savage Editor Steve Korver Assistant Editor Steven McCarron Copy Editor Mark Wedin Film Editor Massimo Benvegnù Editorial Assistants Sarah Gehrke, Kate Hutchinson Art Director Bas Morsch Production Designers Mattijs Arts, Russell Joyce Account Managers Marc Devèze, Simone Klomp Classiﬁeds Kate Hutchinson Distribution Manager Patrick van der Klugt Finance Eugene Moriarty Printer Corelio Printing

Amsterdam Weekly is published every week on Wednesday and is available free at locations all over Amsterdam. Subscriptions are available for €60 per six months within the Netherlands and €90 per six months within Europe. Agenda submissions are welcome, at least two weeks in advance. New contributors are invited to visit Amsterdam Weekly’s website for contributor guidelines. Contents of Amsterdam Weekly (ISSN 1872-3268) are copyright 2008 Amsterdam Weekly BV. All rights reserved.

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Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AROUND TOWN

Inbox

Changing of the guards Submitted by: Jozef van Wissem, Function: composer/lutist (www.myspace.com/vanwissem) Date: 26 August Subject: subsidies It’s hanging time in Holland. Last year the Dutch Ministry of Culture decided to transfer the lower end of subsidised music ensembles to the Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts. This so-called ‘NFPK+’ organisation will now be doling out all of the grants for the experimental and classical music ensembles for the years 2009-2012. After the dust settled this past June and the involved musicians heard the decisions, it turned out that some 50 per cent of these music ensembles got either a lot less money or nothing at all. Among the ‘fleeced’ victims are the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, the Ives Ensemble, the Mondriaan Quartet, the Willem Breuker Kollektief and the Asko/Schönberg Ensemble. Many of these and other prestigious music ensembles that were kicked to the curb will most likely cease to exist, some of them after decades of funding by that same Ministry of Culture. A few up-and-coming young ensembles were awarded modest subsidies, however. Regardless, they will begin facing the same ordeal in four years. The monetary free-for-all has been thrown out with the bath water. Obviously, the funding committee is the one being blamed for all of this by the victims of these pennywise and pound foolish decisions. But the NFPK+ is nothing more than a patsy for the Dutch government, which, at this point, is edging ever closer to the right and their policies of ruthless fiscal expediency. The current administration decided long ago that it wanted to get rid of these highly subsidised musicians, composers with—in their eyes—overblown infrastructures. So they came up with what turned out to be an undermanned and incompetent funding committee that consisted mostly of Beethoven fans. Needless to say, most of these people now in a decision-making position have never attended a concert of the affected ensembles. And so they won’t be squeamish when it comes to further cuts out of the higher end of contemporary Dutch culture. From my personal experience as a touring experimental lutenist/composer, I have seen the same changes occurring in many other countries. The global model which basically follows the ‘not my tax money for this noise’ dictum is now being applied in the Netherlands as well. This, despite the fact that the last three years or so have seen the emergence of a new and interested vibrant young audience for innovative and adventurous music. It is a fresh audience that is quickly replacing the blasé audiences that frequent places like the Bimhuis. Initiatives like DNK Amsterdam, Smart Project Space and AUXXX at OT301 are increasingly popular because they are more interested in presenting truly adventurous events for new and classical music. These concerts are organised by fellow musicians or MySpace friends or via unofficial channels. Government monetary mingling is rarely involved at these venues. Corruption is thrown by the wayside. In true DIY style, CDs of the live acts are sold at concerts, not in record stores anymore. Not only is the power of corporate record companies gone, so is the infringement of the government. No elaborate marketing plan is needed. No bureaucratic paperwork is mandatory. Gone is the dabbling into the affairs of the artiste. Everything is open. A true free music is born. Roll over Beethoven! Got an opinion? We want to hear it. inbox@amsterdamweekly.nl

Nature calling By Mark Wedin

Photo by Anna Leeman

Under the pile lies luck If you’re going to be a pest, it’s wise to be cute, otherwise no one will put up with you. Take the mole. With their chubby, cylindrical bodies, big hands and small furry faces, they kind of resemble a muppet. An irresistible, nearly blind muppet. And that’s lucky for them, because they can be a serious pain in the bezooty. Active year round, day and night, moles burrow tunnels in continual pursuit of earthworms. Now, with relatively warm and wet weather, earthworms are just under the surface of the soil, and naturally, that’s where the moles are too, tearing up sports fields and gardens to their heart’s content. But the damage is unintentional. They’re just hungry. (If they don’t eat every few hours, they’ll die of starvation.) And when they poke their heads up through the soil, you’ll see their sweet little faces— which no doubt contributes to their legal protection. Only when a mole has proven to be a particular pest will the city issue a permit to get rid of them. (In some cases they’ve even hired men to catch and remove as many as possible from certain areas.) But the adorable mole wasn’t always protected. Espe-

cially when that other cute but difficult creature was concerned—babies. In the 1600s, word spread among the Dutch that if your baby was having trouble with teething, wearing a severed mole’s foot around your neck would help. Everyone had babies, so mole’s feet were high in demand. Unlucky for the moles, things got worse. While teething, a baby can also get fever, headache, earaches and various other ailments. People soon associated the mole’s foot as an amulet against all of these problems, for both babies and adults. Not a happy time for moles. Eventually, of course, the perceived luck of the mole’s hand ran out, the luck of their cute face won the day, and they’ve been digging—with both hands—throughout the city ever since. Special thanks to Paul van Dijk, author of Volksgeneeskunst. Got nature tips? naturecalls@amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

Prison life (1)

AROUND TOWN

By Rebecca Wilson

MY NAME IS NOT EARL, IT’S NICO... Prisoner welfare group Bonjo aren’t battling for karma, they’re just trying to make prison life more bearable. Sitting on a bench outside his favourite Zeedijk cafe, Nico Epskamp looks like a Dutch Tony Soprano: a big, burly man, gold chain around his neck, knobbly nose, smugly sipping a glass of wine. Though Epskamp has some bad in his past, these days any smugness derives from doing good. He works for Bonjo, a welfare organisation for prison inmates, helping them get what most of us take for granted ahead of their release: an income, a place to live and a love life. Bonjo (Belangenoverleg Niet-Justitiegebonden Organisaties) is an umbrella organisation for over 70 groups concerned with ‘building a bridge between prison and society’, be it visiting inmates or setting up recycling projects. Bonjo keeps these groups informed, stays in touch with the Ministry of Justice and,

‘Wonen, werken en wijven.’

thanks to Epskamp, has started a few projects of its own. Financed by the state, the future of this 20-odd-year-old society is now uncertain, due to the same lack of funds that has already starkly reduced the quality of prison life. Epskamp knows that when you’re in prison, there isn’t that much quality of life left to be reduced, having been incarcerated for three-and-a-half years for trading in illegal chemicals he thought were a base for perfume. The police disagreed, claiming it a base for Ecstasy (MDMA). ‘Nowadays prisoners only get out of their cells 18 hours per week. The prevailing spirit is: let’s crush these prisoners, let’s really punish them, so they’ll think twice next time.’ A former journalist, he started volunteering for Bonjo in prison and conceived

their quarterly newsletter for inmates: Bonjo Bajes Bulletin. Now, he’s a paid member of staff devoting more than his 12 hours a week to that slogan he dreamed up ‘at Christmas, while on the couch’: ‘Wonen, werken en wijven’. With only 182 social workers for 62 prisons and 35,000 inmates released yearly, there’s virtually no preparation for life on the outside, says Epskamp, before adding emotionally: ‘You get no help at all. People stand on the curb clutching their blue garbage bag.’ Reporting to your gemeente and the CWI (centre for work and income) is such a lengthy process that by the time they get offered social security or a job, many people have reverted to crime. Offering an alternative, the ‘Help, I’m outside!’ button on Bonjo’s website helps ex-prisoners, thematically listing useful organisations in their postal district. And recently the CWI has started going into prisons to start the process before a sentence ends. As for housing: many ex-inmates find themselves without a roof over their heads but with massive rental debts. ‘If your flat gets repossessed, you’re looking at an extra three to six thousand euros.’ The city of Amsterdam offers huisbewaring to inmates in social housing: they can legally sublet their flat for a maximum of two years. Great idea, but virtually impossible to arrange if you’re in prison. So Bonjo stepped in as intermediary, informing those inside of this possibility through posters in prison libraries, those outside via a website. ‘People are unrealistic, thinking they’ll get out sooner than they do,’ says Epskamp, so it takes some persuasion. Still, Bonjo has successfully placed 20 people. Epskamp’s most groundbreaking idea has excited media from Finland to Ireland. The Bonjo Contact Bureau: a dating agency for inmates. ‘Prison fucks up most relationships,’ he sighs, recommending Philippe Claudel’s recent movie Il y a longtemps que je t’aime as an insightful example. Right now, Bonjo’s website features more than 100 personal ads. The awkwardly phrased, ruefully told life stories and hopes for the future make for touching reading. Take ‘P van E’, an army veteran of 33, who describes his life spiralling out of control since returning from Bosnia. Or 35-year-old Marco, who writes: ‘I just need some love and support. I hope, this time around, everything will work out.’ Apparently, trustworthiness and honesty are qualities in a prospective partner most valued by many inmates. There’s a women’s wing of the Bureau too; the eight women members proving very popular. ‘They’re receiving all these letters and having the time of their lives,’ says Epskamp, who is currently discussing the possibility of a TV dating show with production companies. Yes, this all takes him way too much time, but it’s worth it: ‘I just want to make prison life a bit more bearable.’

More info: www.bonjo.nl www.huisbewaring.org

Google this...

‘hufterproof’ Amstergraph % of Dutch citizens against

European Union 1994 - 30% / 1998 - 33% / 2002 - 40% / 2006 - 55% Source: CBS

Graph by Nicole Martens

A quick bike ﬁx By Pete Jordan

Tandem ‘Let’s take a bike trip this weekend,’ I proposed to my wife. Amy Joy enthusiastically agreed. I figured we’d take two bikes: a twowheeled bakfiets (that could carry our three-year-old son and the necessary junk) and a racing bike. While one of us lugged the weight, the other could cruise. But then, the day before departure, Amy Joy proposed, ‘Let’s take a tandem bike!’ Though we’d never ridden one before, I was game. That afternoon, she bought a second-hand Sparta Twin (‘The Double Fun Bike’). That night in her bike shop, she expertly tuned it up and added a rear kid’s seat and bags. We set off by waving goodbye to our on-looking neighbours. Then we immediately wobbled to a stop. At the same time, we both indignantly asked, ‘What are you doing?’ Soon enough, Amy Joy and I carefully learned how to steer, balance and pedal in synch. Heading north from Amsterdam into the countryside, we loudly proclaimed, ‘Three Jordans on two wheels!’ We had a great weekend because: 1) For the first bike trip ever, Amy Joy could hear every word my soft voice uttered. 2) Sitting up front, I enjoyed controlling the navigation while, sitting in the rear, Amy Joy enjoyed concentrating on the passing scenery. 3) Numerous times Amy Joy wrapped her arms around my waist while the boy wrapped his arms around hers—a group hug on two wheels! Consider me a tandem convert. React: bikes@amsterdamweekly.nl

Free tickets!

Go to www.amsterdamweekly.nl to win tickets to one of these nightlife events. To advertise your club night or concert, contact Simone Klomp at 020 522 5200 or Simone@amsterdamweekly.nl.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AROUND TOWN

Street fashion

By Mo Veld

The people versus... By Floris Dogterom

Trends and tides Sunglasses are such a huge fashion topic. We cannot avoid taking a stance. Rain or no rain, they’re a practical habit so we stick with them until it’s autumn and the police have started hauling us off the street for neglecting to fix the lights on our bikes. And of course, besides being an excellent accessory to touch up your personal look, they’re also a great cash cow. Sunglasses have now surpassed lipsticks, perfumes and handbags when it comes to quick ’n’ dirty profit. Big business glamour brands like Chanel, Dior and their lot sell way more of these ‘accessible’ items than they do clothes. And we’re all falling for it. So there we are in our relatively cheap threads bling-ing up our fashion status with a pair of sunglasses loudly stating our luxury brand of choice. Golden monograms and rhinestone logos make sure our taste for the good life doesn’t go unnoticed. It was fun at first but unless you wear these bling brand shades with tons of humour you look like a nouveau riche wannabe. And who wants that? A couple of years back, the fashion forefront pack started wearing the exact opposite of loud bling glasses in the form of loud-coloured square-ish-shaped sunglasses. I call them ‘Playmobil’ glasses. Scooped at a flea market or somewhere else obscure, they looked like 1980s children’s sunglasses. They

were purposely odd, groovy at best, and were a clear statement against the money-sucking fashion trap. But anti-trend fun like this only lasts until the fashion business catches up. Which is fast these days. Of course, the Playmobil glasses have a source: the iconic Ray Ban Wayfarers, made famous by Hollywood stars ranging from Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s to Tom Cruise in Risky Business. The oddly un-elegant Wayfarer was also Andy Warhol’s favourite and by now everyone who’s anyone in acting or modelling wears one. Ray Ban hastily moved to bring them back in all sorts of groovy colours, pleasing the quick-to-follow trendy crowd as much as spoiling the fun for others. By now every brand has a faux Wayfarer in Playmobil colours in their collection and the trend is reaching saturation. The only good thing, fashion-wise, that Photo by Mo Veld came out of this anti-trend is that it should have loosened up our tastes enough so that as a crowd, we should be looking funnier by now. But I just got back from a stroll through Kalverstraat, and sadly this is not yet the case. React: inandout@amsterdamweekly.nl

Prison life (2)

By Sarah Gehrke

TURNS OUT THAT PRISON SUCKS Three weeks ago, we reported about 13 Isolations, an art project about freedom and the lack thereof. Thirteen artists were going to be locked up for a month in a former prison in Hoorn and make art. The mood amongst the artists was bright—surprising, since prison is not that appealing to most people. But artists worship spending quality time with themselves. Everybody was looking forward to working without distractions. No mobile phones. No housework. No annoying bureaucratic stuff like paying bills and doing administration. Bliss! But then things went wrong. Within the first three days of the project, seven artists left. Apparently the conditions in the building were poor. ‘Well,’ one might say, ‘wasn’t this project supposed to be about imprisonment? And if prisons were not like prisons, but more like hotel rooms, wouldn’t lots of people actually want to go to prison—you know, free food, no housework, no annoying bureaucratic stuff...’ But let’s silence the cynics for a while and hear out the witnesses. ‘There was no electricity or water,’ says Melanie de Graaf. She is what’s left of the 13 Iso-

lations organisation after its head, Anthony Murrell, had stopped answering his phone. According to De Graaf, the Gemeente Hoorn had promised to supply water and electricity, and had later, suddenly, taken back this promise. ‘Complete nonsense,’ says Jack van Es, wethouder of Gemeente Hoorn. ‘All we did was allow them use of the building, with the confidence that they would take care of the facilities and the necessary permits.’ (Read: the annoying bureaucratic stuff.) The lengthy altercation between 13 Isolations and Gemeente Hoorn then culminated in the remaining artists being locked up for real by the gemeente. ‘It was outrageous!’ says De Graaf. ‘Six artists, four volunteers and two small children were locked up for almost three hours!’ Van Es: ‘A small mistake, a miscommunication. We had to change the locks, and at a certain point you lose the overview of who actually has a key and who hasn’t.’ He then can’t resist mentioning that being locked up had been the original plan of the project. ‘And did they tell you how the artists nearly set fire to the place, when they ritually

burned the contract they had with 13 Isolations?’ Oh dear. Let’s leave it off there. The six remaining artists are still in Hoorn, living in a house arranged by the gemeente, and making art—which is possibly not about freedom or the lack thereof, but more about the sad fact that in this world, one always has to deal with annoying bureaucratic stuff. ___

Illustration by Tomas Schats

Talking rubbish about garbage [2] A few weeks ago this column (AW, Issue 29, 31 July-6 August) reported on a resident in Noord who said the underground garbage containers put in the neighbourhood by the stadsdeel caused more trouble than good, and that the previous in-house garbage collection had been much better. Now the same thing is set to happen in Slotervaart, if alderman for public space Paulus de Wilt gets his way. Save for a few nursing homes, the apartment buildings along Staalmeesterslaan and Nachtwachtlaan are the only streets in the stadsdeel who have an inhouse garbage collection system. Moana Hilfman, who has been living in Staalmeesterslaan for 33 years, is one of the many residents fiercely opposed to an underground garbage collection system on their doorstep. ‘We are very close to Rembrandtpark. The people recreating there tend to dump their garbage at the street side, which will attract birds and vermin. But what I oppose the most is Paulus de Wilt’s argument that we aren’t entitled to the luxury of our own garbage collection system—for which we pay in our rent— because other residents in Slotervaart don’t have it either. Nonsense, it’s a money issue. De Wilt aims at unifying the garbage collection system, so he can save money. De Wilt wants to reverse a decision the council took in 2005, to the effect that our streets could keep our own system.’ ‘Yes I intend to propose this to the council,’ said De Wilt in a reaction. ‘And Ms Hilfman is right in saying that I want to save money on the garbage collection system. Slotervaart will save eighteen thousand euros per year if we put the underground system in place in those streets. As to the unwanted situation of the garbage of Rembrandtpark visitors: I see that differently. In the park there are garbage cans everywhere, so visitors won’t carry it with them to dump it on the street side. The reason we see too much garbage at the street side today is because people know we collect oversized rubbish on a set day, so they dump it there. But that service will be cancelled.’ Hilfman accuses De Wilt, in so many words, of talking rubbish. Come October, the stadsdeel council will decide if they think he does, too. Something to report? thepeopleversus@amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

COMING UP

SHORT LIST: MUSIC 10 Jaar Trytone Jubileum Festival, 1420 September, various locations Trytone, that music label and organisation for all things improv and new jazz, turns 10, and hence their annual festival is doing something special. The focus will be on the many individuals and groups that graced their records and the famous Wednesday night shows at Zaal 100. Lineup includes Celano-Baggiani Group, Bite the Gnatze, Agog, Jorrit Dijkstra/John Hollenbeck and many more razor sharp jazz minded folk. (Mark Wedin) Afrovibes Festival, 26 September-6 October, various locations in Amsterdam and Den Haag Combining established names with new talent, the Afrovibes Festival puts theatre and arts from South Africa into the spotlight. This year’s theme: ‘eroticism’. The biggest names invited are Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom, who’ll present his adaptation of Schnitzler’s Reigen—transferring the setting to a violent and erotic South African environment—and choreographer Gregory Maqoma. (Sarah Gehrke) Amsterdam Cello Biennial, 17-25 October, Muzikgebouw aan ’t IJ Call it what you will: a cello festival, a cello orgy, a cello Woodstock—all descriptions qualify for this weeklong super-smorgasbord (hey, there’s another one). In competitions, master classes and concerts—up to six per day—cellists and small ensembles will regale you with works ranging from Bach to cabaret to Elliott Carter. Bow on! (Steve Schneider) Amsterdam Dance Event, 22-25 October, various locations Once again, the town will be flooded with people who take dancing very seriously. But not in the wrong, arms-whirling serious-face taking-over-the-whole-dance-floor free dancing way. There’ll be conferences, seminars, workshops and whatnot. But while the importance of the business is acknowledged, so is the fun factor, with millions of parties and the best DJs around. (Or, at least the biggest names.) (Sarah Gehrke) Al Green, 31 October, Paradiso Put a little love in your heart and celebrate Halloween with the Reverend Al Green. Alongside new album Lay it Down and a long, long list of hits (‘Let’s Stay Together’, ‘I’m Still in Love with You’) he’s simply one of the greatest soul singers ever—and, he knows God. Guaranteed good for your soul. (Nanci Tangeman)

SPACING OUT ON VIBRATIONS B-Oost festival embraces space. Musician Jimi Tenor relates what that is—and is not. By Steve Korver

After taking on spaghetti western sounds of Ennio Morricone in 2007, B-oost festival will embrace outer space as this year's theme: covering the spectrum between the space jazz of Sun Ra to the space funk of George Clinton's Mothership Connection. A highlight will undoubtedly be the collaboration between Finnish multi-instrumentalist and composer Jimi Tenor and the Metropole Orkest. Tenor has enjoyed a 20 year career that has embraced industrial, easy listening, jazz, psychedelic soul and African funk, and has worked with everyone from Fela Kuti musicians to symphony orchestras. Throw in a mutant sense of glamour and a marked silly streak, it can be said that he's earned his stripes as a Sun Ra of sorts for the 21st century. Regardless, he's been all over the place and hence the perfect cadet to talk about space being the place. How do you define space? I was raving last night how you can see the stars in the sky and how there’s absolutely nothing between a star and us. At the same time you can’t even see your neighbour’s house because there’s a tree between. So I guess I would define space as quite empty. How do you define space music? Normally people connect space with delay sounds and reverb. Music with enough space to hear the effects. I don’t agree with that, although delay might sound great. Space is vibrations and is full and uniform. Has Finland’s sense of space influenced you? No, I don’t think so. The Finnish thing in my music is the spartan quality—if there is any of that in my music. Actually, down-to-earthness is very Finnish. What’s your attraction to Sun Ra? I like his music and his recordings. I like the community vibe and feeling of being there. That music is not a product. And how about the ‘space rock’ of Hawkwind? I like Hawkwind a lot. They are very different from Sun Ra. Both are great. It’s hardly important to say in words why they’re different. Pointless.

Yes, pointless like endless space... Can you make a connection between your twin fascinations for space and kitsch? I don’t agree with these Central European ideas about kitsch. To say that something is kitsch is colonialism or old money attitude. Full of shit. A nice piece of art is nice even if it’s cheap and available to all. Space on the other hand is here. We are in space and it’s nearer than Berlin for example. You are also busy with photography, ﬁlm, clothes and showmanship? What’s the space in that? Because we are in space travelling faster than any spaceship. Actually my photography is heavily influenced by old colour photography, so I’m not sure about any space in that. Did you notice any spacey aspects in Amsterdam on previous visits? I don’t know. It’s just tourists and bars. Not so spiritual in my opinion. Our drummer did take some spacecake and was in a bad state, but it was more of a disturbance than an inspiration. What can we expect from your collaboration with the Metropole Orkest? Endless Moog solos. Inspired sax solos. Confusion. Mayhem. Any space news to add? Oh yeah, I’ve been reading about this Soviet cosmonaut who disappeared in space with a dog. He was later removed from Soviet space history, the story is quite complicated... B-oost 26-27 September, various locations www.b-oost.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

COMING UP

COME OUT TO PLAY

SHORT LIST: EVENTS/ STAGE

How to make space on earth our own.

Streetlab, 10-13 September, beside NS Station Bijlmer ArenA As part of the four-week FreeDesigndom event, street art and fashion collective Streetlab are setting up shop in a special container village beside the Zuidoost train station. Workshops, parties, pop-up stores and performances will rule the roost. See www.streetlab.nl for the rollercoaster of a programme.

By Liz Farsaci

If you have a space, public or private, how do you make it your own? How do you contribute to the places and people around you? How do you create urban areas which encourage people to be spontaneous, creative and sociable? These are just some of the ideas explored in ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam 2008, a six-week design event starting on 18 September. Established in Lisbon in 1999, Amsterdam is hosting it for the first time. ‘ExperimentaDesign is about what’s happening in the field of design, where the boundaries blur and meet,’ explains Wendel ten Arve, executive director of ExperimentaDesign Amsterdam. ‘It’s also about what’s happening in architecture, urban planning, fashion and graphic design, and the issues that designers are dealing with now.’ This year’s theme is Space and Place: Design for the Urban Landscape. ‘For us, doing this here is perfect,’ says Ten Arve, ‘because you can take Amsterdam literally as a location, but also as a case study.’ To do so, they’ll employ three main projects to explore their ideas: Droog Event 2: Urban Play looks at creative ways in which people can make public spaces their own; the Sunday Adventure Club examines the longing many people have in our rigid society to seek adventure; while Come To My Place considers how people express their cultural identity in their private space. The 13 Urban Play projects will be based along Het IJ, all of them inviting people to be social and do something—they are not complete without the public’s participation. They range from a neighbourhood hotel to a stone sculpture everyone can work on, to a moving garden, a sandbox and a people-powered musical lamppost. Dutch designer Jan Konings is heading the project Hotel Experimenta, which consists of a room, made of foam and plastic, with a bed in it. However, if guests want to do anything, they have to go out, knock on doors and meet people. (Guests are told which residents are participating in this project). The hotel is not fully booked, so if you would like to spend a night there, check the Experimenta website. ‘It is important that you can live and think and design things yourself,’ says Jan. ‘It is important to

have some spaces where people can make connections.’ Another project, put together by Amsterdambased NL Architects, is the Boombench. For this, the architects have transformed a regular bench into a sound system, which people can play. ‘Young kids don’t just listen to music these days, they want to share it—and their personalities,’ explains a spokesman from NL Architects. (Of course, older people are also welcome to use it.) Stefan Sagmeister is looking for volunteers for his project, Obsessions Make My Life Worse And My Work Better. For this, Stefan needs people to help him write out a sentence with 300,000 euro cent coins, which will be laid out on a 20 x 42 metre square. The Sunday Adventure Club celebrates urban pioneers—people who want to fight a city’s boredom through play and creativity, who participate in gorilla gardening, pool parties and other ‘unauthorised’ events. The project’s curators combed Amsterdam’s city centre to find spots that were neglected or overdesigned. With the help of local residents, these plots will host events such as a Friday night fish restaurant, an outdoor beauty parlour and a pet exercise track. Reflecting on all of the projects, Wendel says, ‘They speak out for trying to approach things on a different level; giving each other more trust and taking more risks.’ ExperimentaDesign 18 September - 2 November, various locations www.experimentadesign.nl droog@sagmeister.com (to volunteer for Sagmeister project)

PICNIC’08, 24-26 September, Westergasfabriek The 3rd annual celebration of cross media convergence explores its theme ‘Collaborative Creativity’ in its many guises. Speakers including hot authors Clay Shirkey (Here Comes Everybody) and Charles Leadbeater (We Think) will take attendees from the global brain to crowdsourced design, connected cities to connected souls. The organisers promise a ‘ground-breaking exploration of the future’. At €1500 for three days, it had better be pretty freakin’ ground breaking. See www.picnicnetwork.org. (Jules Marshall) Marco Polo, 7-28 November, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ Before writing music for films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero—and becoming principal composer for the 2008 Olympics—Tan Dun scribed this postmodernist retelling of Marco Polo’s journey to the East, in which multiple idioms, multiple personalities and multiple frames of reference add up to a sea-storm of multiculturalism. It’s The Nederlandse Opera’s big do this fall, with Pierre Audi directing and Tan Dun himself conducting. All aboard. (Steve Schneider) India Festival, 12-30 November, various locations If you are interested or have a love for anything Indian, then here is a festival that you shouldn’t miss and it will include music, dancing, film, theatre, exhibitions and multimedia—a sheer overload of Indian arts. (Shyama Daryanani) Sankai Juku: Butoh, 12, 14 and 15 November, Muziektheater Absence characterises the modern dance form of Butoh, which evolved in post-war Japan. Absence of colour, gender, speed and narrative. In ‘Kagemi’, a production for seven dancers set in a fantasy landscape, choreographer-cum-director Ushio Amagatsu ushers his audience into a magic world of transformation and reflection. (Terri J Kester)

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

COMING UP

SHORT LIST: ART Hack Your Ikea, 7-29 September, Platform 21 A little FYI: hacking is the new pimping. Anybody can slam shiny paint on things, but actually changing an object’s function is a bit different. With Ikea products, hacking so far has mostly been done involuntarily—when you just couldn’t figure out where that darn screw had to go. But this project has called for more elaborate hacking, and the best designs will be exhibited here. (Sarah Gehrke)

A MASTER’S OTHER VIEW Cy Twombly’s paintings show his intense creativity. His photos show how he sees. By Terri J Kester

Niemand kan het, 17 September-26 October, De Brakke Grond Hans Aarsman has lived and worked in Belgium, a fact that made Flemish cultural center Brakke Grond seize the opportunity to invite the Amsterdam photographerturned-writer for a theatre play and an accompanying photo exhibition. ‘Niemand kan het’ is about the impossibility of capturing reality through vision, a frequent theme in Aarsman’s work. The theatrical monologue is performed by actress Carly Wijs. (Marinus de Ruiter) Stedelijk in the City, from 1 October, various locations It’s heartbreaking to see the Netherlands top contemporary art museum homeless: on September 30 the temporary Stedelijk Museum CS closes, while renovations of the official Stedelijk continue until December 2009. During the hiatus, the Stedelijk will pop up on several locations throughout the city, beginning with the presentation of the mobile Construction Cabin on Oosterdokseiland, where exhibitions and projects will take place. (Marinus de Ruiter) CoBrA 60, 18 October-25 January 2009, CoBrA Museum ‘Smudgers, daubers, swindlers’ is the subtitle of the 60th anniversary exhibition of CoBrA, the notorious collective of artists from Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam. Meant as a radical gesture against the spineless state of art after WWII, their purposely child-like and crude paintings received even cruder criticism. Sixty years later these paintings adorn the houses of Holland’s richest. So it goes... (Marinus de Ruiter) In the Street: Helen Levitt, 24 October-22 January 2009, Foam ‘In the Street’ is not only the title of this exhibition but also the subject. For seven decades, the streets of New York inspired Helen Levitt (95) to capture daily life in images of humour and drama. With her Leica, she roamed New York’s poor neighbourhoods in the 1930s. After switching to colour, she reached a new creative peak around 1960, when she revisited the areas of her early development. (Terri J Kester)

It would be hard to find an artist who shuns publicity as much as Cy Twombly—throughout his career he consistently kept the media at bay. But that didn’t stop London’s Tate Modern from staging a major retrospective of his work in the year of his 80th birthday. Nor did it stop Els Barents, the director of Huis Marseille on Keizersgracht, from devoting an exhibition to Twombly’s photography, in itself a little-known part of his work. Like many modern artists, Twombly has always taken photographs, sometimes to use as reference for his paintings and sculptures. But it wasn’t until the mid-1990s, after he started experimenting with pigments in a photocopying machine, that he created a form that made his Polaroids suitable for exhibition. The ‘dry print’ technique he perfected imbues the pictures with a velvety and somewhat grainy quality. Reminiscent of pictorialist fin de siecle photography, they show that Twombly, as photographer, can be playful, witty and sophisticated. Barents came across Twombly’s photographs at a small show in Munich. She was impressed with the quality and liked the idea of presenting a different aspect of the artist’s work. ‘I don’t want to suggest a link with the exhibition at the Tate,’ she says. ‘There’s no doubt that Twombly’s paintings and sculptures are on a different level—that’s where he invested most of his creativity. What makes our show interesting is that it reveals how an artist of his calibre views the world. It’s easy to see that he is not a trained photographer; he has a painterly eye. He plays, as it were, with different ways of looking at his subjects, hovering above them like a helicopter.’ Huis Marseille is devoting five rooms to the 154 thematically clustered pictures it is putting on display. Many of the images are reproduced in a book published by Schirmer/Mosel, which also runs the gallery in Munich. Twombly’s favourite subjects include self

portraits, interiors, still-lifes and seascapes. In some pictures the atmosphere of Italy, his country of residence since the late 1950s, is almost tangible. Huis Marseille also presents material that has never before been exhibited, like images of the studio of Willem de Kooning in New York. Barents considered the possibility of showing some of Twombly’s other art alongside the photographs, but she decided against this. ‘The photography is worth presenting by itself. It shows a focus on the tone and the atmosphere of his art. His willingness to take a radical approach and his fascination with light set Twombly apart from other photographers.’ In arranging the exhibition, Barents found an ally in renowned photographer Sally Mann who was not only a good friend to Twombly, but also geographically very close (the artists’ studios in Lexington, Virginia, are next door to each other). Sally Mann will be in Amsterdam in September to open the exhibition, which fits in with Huis Marseille’s eagerness to explore the boundaries of photography. Barents: ‘Like Twombly, we have a keen interest in pioneering.’ Cy Twombly, Photographs 1951-2007 6 September-23 November, Huis Marseille

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

COMING UP

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS Eddy Terstall finishes his trilogy with the voice of the people. By Laura Groeneveld

SHORT LIST: FILM Klik!, 12-14 September, Kriterion The relatively new animation festival Klik! seems to have already come of age with a programme of animated shorts and features from all over the world. The opening film is the delicious Sita Sings the Blues, a jazzed-up interpretation of the Indian epic of Ramayana by American animator Nina Paley. (Massimo Benvegnù) Nederlands Film Festival, 24 September-3 October, Utrecht The cream of the crop of the Dutch film world will spill out onto narrow red carpets rolled over cobblestones between the canals in Utrecht. Mainstream adaptations from popular child lectures stand side by side with the new political drama by Eddy Terstall. Quite simply, ground zero for Dutch Cinema. (Luuk van Huët) Hunger, opens 2 October Making shockwaves at Cannes this year was a film about the last days of the fatal hunger strike of IRA activist Bobby Sands. Steve McQueen, primarily known as a visual artist, successfully made the transition to director using stark black-and-white to create a very physical and confrontational experience. (Marinus de Ruiter)

As a student Eddy Terstall enrolled in social and political sciences at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, and quit when he got bitten by the film bug. But in recent years, the celebrated film-maker has shown that his old interest in politics never really faded. He’s either busy raising issues within the PvdA, the political party he supports and is said to be very influential towards, or in his films, which carry clear, yet often light-hearted messages about the ways in which Dutch society is transforming. Terstall’s latest work, Vox Populi, seems the ultimate proof of his love for both film and politics. Vox Populi, Latin for ‘the voice of the people’, premieres at the Netherlands Film Festival (NFF) this September, and is a parody of the current Dutch political climate. It’s the third part of Terstall’s trilogy and an often hilarious portrayal of contemporary Dutch society. With the first part, Simon (2004), the born and bred Jordanees stirred the debate on same sex marriage and euthanasia. The film was awarded four Golden Calves and was nominated as the Dutch entry for the Oscars in 2005. In Sextet (2007), Terstall covered sexuality and glorified the virtues of the sexual revolution. With Vox Populi, Terstall reveals his notso-hidden political side. The film tells the story of Jos, an experienced politician who suffers from a midlife crisis. ‘Jos is the elder statesman-type,’ says Terstall while sitting in his favourite cafe Kat in de Wijngaert, which he seems to use as both a second living room and an office. ‘He’s charming, spoiled and very politically correct. He uses fancy words when he talks about the multicultural society, but freaks out when someone confronts him directly on a topic like Islam.’ But that’s all about to change when Jos is introduced to his new in-laws whose world views are less intellectual and who ‘just tell it like it is’. By copying their opinions, Jos gets in

touch with the man-in-the-street side of himself, which has a far-reaching effect on both his political and personal life. ‘To me the film is about the way in which we’ve been slapped around the head with political correctness on one hand and right-wing populism on the other,’ says Terstall. ‘The political parties that are more in the middle have just completely lost track and go along with every hype.’ In the Dutch film world, Terstall is the odd one out, being the only living film director that’s so passionate about politics. But according to the director, it’s the non-political film climate in Holland that’s the international exception. ‘In most film schools around the world, students get offered classes in social and political sciences and thus become engaged. We don’t have that here, and I don’t think it’s for the better.’ On the whole, Terstall feels that Dutch films lack a certain ‘streetwise-ness’. ‘It would be so much more interesting if Dutch film-makers focused less on copying Hollywood and more on what’s going on in their own neighbourhood,’ he says. ‘I mean, I’m sure there are interesting things going on in the streets of Friesland and it’d be great to see a film about that.’ One Dutch film Terstall is looking forward to is the opening film of NFF, Het Echte Leven by one of his closest friends, Robert Jan Westdijk. ‘It’s a complicated story, but very touching,’ he says. As for his own work, Terstall already has plenty of ideas for his next film. ‘I think it’s going to be about real estate promoters and how criminal methods are adopted by a legitimate business.’ A light hearted film about real estate crime? Just leave it up to Terstall to deliver the goods. Vox Populi Opens 24 September.

Holland Animation Film Festival, 5-9 November, Utrecht The international Holland Animation Film Festival presents a varied programme of animation films, covering everything from art films to music videos, from commercials to student films. The programme also includes exhibitions, lectures, workshops, talk shows and a gaming section—so put down your Wii sticks and head over to Utrecht. (Massimo Benvegnù) IDFA, 20-30 November, various locations Well, it’s only the biggest documentary film festival on the planet. The IDFA crams enough documentaries, lectures, discussions, and film-maker Q&A’s to ensure that you stand a real chance of experiencing extreme information overload. Good thing there are plenty of opportunities to wind down that neo-cortex at borrels and parties. (Luuk van Huët)

AGENDA

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AGENDA

SHORT LIST

Jaws, West Beach Film Festival, Friday, Sloterpas.

FRIDAY 29 AUGUST Film: West Beach Film Festival Summer isn’t over yet: West Beach Film Festival at Sloterplas is showing films every weekend for the next month. Lean back in a lazy beach chair with a drink and a bite at the water and enjoy oldies like Jaws (1975) or make a culturally correct choice like the Morrocan Les Bandits (2003), or go for genuine Dutch cinema like Dunya & Desie (2008). The festival is an initiative of the local council (Geuzenveld-Slotermeer) and the Dutch Film Academy, which is why exam films of this years’ film academy graduates will also be shown. If the weather is disappointing, the fest moves indoors. See www.westbeachfilmfestival.nl. (Isabel Serval) Sloterplas, 20.30, free. Until 20 September.

Sound art: Klanken aan ‘t IJ An orchestra of marching shoes and an ensemble of kitchen utensils played by dripping water; that’s what the new sound art festival Klanken aan ’t IJ has in store. As a sideshow to the International Gaudeamus Music Week (see below) several locations near the IJ will exhibit installations by international artists. The Muziekgebouw offers free entry to sonic artworks by Ray Lee (UK) and Arno Fabre (F). Pakhuis De Zwijger presents Mendel Hardeman (NL) and two performances by Lee. Visitors can have a drink and play with bottles at the OBA, in the Audio Bar of Danish artist Mogens Jacobsen. See www.klankenaanhetij.nl. (Marinus de Ruiter) Various locations and times, free. Until 7 September.

SATURDAY 30 AUGUST Event: World Statues Festival This weekend, the world’s metropolises will change. Their centres, a yawning void. A few disoriented tourists helplessly looking around, not knowing what to do. Why? All the Living Statues will be gone! All those glittery, spray-painted people that stand on pedestals and claim money for the simple fact that they’re not moving—gone. The reason: they’ll all travel to Arnhem, to meet others of their kind, and stand still for the entire weekend. Should be fun to watch! Or you could just stay here and check out what the Dam looks like when there’s no one on it. See www.worldstatues.nl. (Sarah Gehrke) Arnhem, free. Until 31 August

Club: Club 8 Kick Off While elsewhere the new cultural season breaks loose with a mad amount of festivals, performances and arty things to behold, Club 8 would like to remind us that the new dancing season needs to be kicked off, too. And they do so with a bang—and a bargain. Within one night, you can experience all their club nights, DJs and themes included! Magic? Perhaps. Fun? Certainly! (Sarah Gehrke) Club 8, 22.00, €7.50.

MONDAY1 SEPTEMBER Festival: Gaudeamus Music Week Gaudeamus supports new music by contemporary composers, mostly with an academic background. They come from all over the world, most of them were born around 1980 and many of them use unorthodox line-ups and technologies. Over a week, their work will be performed by a range of open minded ensembles like Asko, MAE, Oryx and Cantus. Aside from the main location, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ, there are shows at Bimhuis, Paradiso and the new Conservatory building. On the Sunday before, from 11.00, the Muziekgebouw hosts a free prelude to the festival, called Toonzetters, featuring performances of the best works of the previous year. See www.gaudeamus.nl. (Marinus de Ruiter) Various locations, times and prices. Until 7 September.

TUESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER Funk: George Clinton Parliament / Funkadelic Man, it must be hard work being an inspired musical freak for decades in a row. One really needs the funk in the ass to keep the groove moving. And George Clinton—perhaps the second most sampled man on the planet after James Brown—has been nonstop grooving and funking (and toking…) under various seminal monikers such as Funkadelic, Parliament and P-Funk and with various seminal musicians like Bernie Worell and Bootsie Collins for a long long time now without any loss of energy. As the man himself says: ‘There’s lots o’ p-goodiez to discover and uncover, so hit it, or quit it. Get wit it, or get gone’. Indeed: get a ticket for this extra show, put on your boogie shoes and expect to get grooved for more than a mere couple of hours. (Steve Korver) Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 21.00, €30 + membership.

Send details and images for listing consideration at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AGENDA: MUSIC

Tips:

Uitmarkt 29-31 August, Fri 20.00-23.00, Sat 11.00-00.00, Sun 11.00-22.00 Yes, we hate culture too! But if you put it on a plate, we’ll have a taste. Het Culturele Seizoen Breekt Los say the posters, and while we spent four hours in the office last week debating what culture actually is and whether we still like it, this doesn’t change the fact that Uitmarkt is here again, officially getting us all in gear for the coming ten months of cultural activity. For the second year in a row, attention falls on the Oostelijk Havengebied, which is proving itself to be the hippest, most creative and most upcoming environment in town. While the old Museumplein location ponders its coming facelift, the Eastern Harbour is thriving, ready for its influx of performers and visitors in new venues, old venues, makeshift stages, sea containers and just random cool spaces prepared to open their doors to the public. As always, there are hundreds of events to choose from; a potion for every love and a poison for every enemy. Music, theatre, comedy, art, books, discussions, presentations, dance and family performances are all represented. Where to start? What to see? What to miss? Read on. Informatiemarkt The starting point for any Uitmarkt weekend is the information market, stretching along Piet Heinkade from Muziekgebouw to Pakhuis de Zwijger. For tickets and additional info, there’ll be an Uitburo office here, plus on Java-eiland. The main market is home to around 180 stalls, each representing Amsterdam’s main cultural players (plus a few outside invaders). You’ll even find Amsterdam Weekly staff represented at the English info stand, if looking for some friendly advice or just wanting to give us a good rollicking for a bad agenda tip. And stretch your muscles beforehand, because soon you’ll be carrying bags of

MUSIC

programmes, leaflets, promo freebies and all sorts of printed tips to help plan your nights out this year—just remember to bag share; there’s no need to bin 30 plastic bags when you get home. An official English programme of events can be found in this newspaper, while a Dutch version can be picked up on site. The Terrain If you tackled Uitmarkt in 2007, this year’s layout is an evolution: similar, but bigger and better. If you missed last year, head east along the IJ from Centraal Station and you can’t miss it. All of the area’s multi-purpose venues are staging events, which means you can wander in and out of Muziekgebouw, Bimhuis, NEMO, Pakhuis de Zwijger, Lloyd Hotel, OBA and many more. Plus there’s the usual outdoor stages: most are on Java-eiland, with the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Live off Piet Heinkade. Theater op het Leidseplein Away from the main terrain, Leidseplein continues the tradition of its own Uitmarkt celebration to kick-off the new theatre season. Hosted in Stadsschouwburg, Theater Bellevue and Melkweg, you can sample full shows (in Dutch), with a free stage also on Leidseplein. Tickets (€2.50) from the Leidseplein ticket office. Amsterdamse Boekenmarkt This year the book market can be found along the eastern stretch of Piet Heinkade, following on from the information market. Open on Saturday (12.00-18.00) and Sunday (13.00-18.00), more than 80 sellers will line the street. KunstXpo Celebrating Oostelijk Havengebied’s reputation as a nursery for artistic talents, this year features a complete art showcase, plus presentations about Amsterdam projects. Info points for this are on Java-eiland and outside Muziekgebouw. And architectural talks can be found in PTA. Highlights A tough question to answer when there’s so much on

spective of an Australian beach. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €6 Latin: Patchamama Latin American special with a live set from Orlando & Surmentizo. Badcuyp, Noordpool, 21.30, €8

Thursday 28 August Jazz: Dvora Davis Trio Dinner concert featuring the jazz and blues singer. Badcuyp, Zuidpool, 20.00, €4/€9 Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Performing Messiaen’s Hymne au Saint Sacrement, Poulenc’s Organ Concerto in G, and Bruckner’s Symphony No.3; conducted by Mariss Jansons. Following the concert, Jansons will be interviewed in the Koorzaal. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €31/€36.50 Pop/Rock: Best of Grote Prijs Previous winners and successful participants of the Grote Prijs van Nederland join forces for this special show. Participants include Silence Is Sexy, Roosbeef, A Silent Express and The Kevin Costners. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 20.30, €12 + membership Singer-songwriter: MaRain Acoustic pop with elements of country, folk and sultry jazzy vocals. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.30, €7.50 + membership Latin/Jazz: Sierra Maestra Traditional dance music by one of Cuba’s most important and popular groups. These musicians promote pure acoustic son, the infamous Cuban style, as performed in the ’20s and ’30s. Bimhuis, 20.30, €18 Pop: De Dijk Classic Nederpop stylings as Huub van der Lubbe and the boys launch new album Brussel. Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, €22 + membership Pop/Rock: Rob Sawyer Band A raw, organic blend of punk folk and hillbilly reggae, from the comfy per-

offer, but for serious music and nothing but the music, Bimhuis, Muziekgebouw and the new Conservatorium are showcasing the best of Dutch jazz, classical and contemporary music all weekend. The Remix area on Java-eiland doesn’t feel as fresh and youthful as when it was first introduced a few years ago, but good slices of hiphop and dance jazz can still be found throughout the weekend (mainly on the Grolsch Podium). And don’t forget the five talented youngsters from Nowhere, who’ll perform and set their own paths through Uitmarkt, too (see roadstoremix.blogspot.com). For more relaxing guitar music, KHL and Cafe Pakhuis Wilhelmina rule the roost. Finally, while it isn’t cool to grab random kids off the street, Uitmarkt Junior (around NEMO) offers surprisingly creative workshops inspired by the local museums. Maybe just stand near a busy family, pretending to be an aunt or uncle… Oh, and what to miss? Try skipping the musical sing-a-longs at the UPC Podium on Sunday. You’ll be glad you did

Punk: JJ Pearson & His Weapons of Ass Destruction Punky rock ’n’ roll from the former member of Tonic Reasons. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €6

Friday 29 August Jazz: Michal Vanoucek Trio Double bill from the pianist who won the Deloitte Jazz Award 2008. Concertgebouw, Koorzaal, 19.00, 21.00, €13.50 Rock: Subbacultcha! Drummers catch flies in this Subbacultcha! party to end all parties. Shooting to bring down Mojo in the concert scene, the little guys now take on the publishing world with the official launch party for Issue One of Subbacultcha! magazine. Of course there’s special guests and DJs too. Indie-tacular. De Nieuwe Anita, 20.00, €5 Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Performing Messiaen’s Hymne au Saint Sacrement, Debussy’s La mer, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; conducted by Mariss Jansons. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €31, €36.50 Pop/Rock: 3xLive Varied guitar rock and pop sets from Circus Casino, Taking Tiger Mountain (UK) and Sarah. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €6 World: Mdungu Sounds from around the world. The basis is African music, but the ensemble also embrace rock, jazz, funk and surf. Badcuyp, Noordpool, 23.00, €8

Saturday 30 August Pop: Ali Campbell The great battle of UB40 is over.

If you enjoyed Jaws on Friday, then sing-a-long with Shark Week on Saturday.

Unfortunately, like a starfish, you pull them apart and they grow into two separate—yet very similar—entities, intent on haunting us with their Anglo pop reggae. Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, €27.50 + membership Rock: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Greased-up wrecked Elvis noise blues. Forget about The White Stripes and even The Black Keys. For the best blues rock fix, Spencer is back on the scene with his most cutting crew. See 3 Questions, p.15. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 21.00, €16 + membership Rock: Shark Week A Canadian rock ’n’ roll anomaly. Not a cover band, nor do they play originals. No, it’s live karaoke! Dust off your mullet and stretch those vocal chords before heading out tonight. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €6 Rock: Louis XIV Californian post-punk revivalists. The quartet have a rip-roaring live reputation and are still flaunting the rock ’n’ roll wares of latest album Slick Dogs and Ponies. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.00, €10 + membership Rock: The Bellhops Dutch rockabilly night. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5 Festival: Happy Weekender Two nights of beach entertainment, with food, drinks and lots of music. Acts include the likes of Def P & Bl3nder, Shiva Sounds (Barcelona), K-oZ Collective, Rob Sawyer (Australia), SunFireSouls, Rob Klerkx and Sherry Diane. Late on Saturday night there’s an Etnisch Hysterisch world party. Blijburg

Sunday 31 August Contemporary: Toonzetters Successful premieres from the 2007-2008 season, plus announcements of several prizes. Hooray! Prize giving. Muziekgebouw, 11.00, free (daytime only) Opera: Don Giovanni A night at the opera with Mozart, Het Gelders Orkest and Kamerkoor Mnemosyne. Here

ends the Robeco summer season. Next week, the classical big guns are in town. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 19.30, €31/€36.50 Hiphop: Mind the Gap Open mic night for MCs, singer-songwriters, spoken word artists and anyone sniffing for beer. Special guest is Blaxtar. Studio K, 20.00, free Flamenco: Flamenco en Movimiento Fiery ﬂamenco from singer Rafael Jiménez Falo, guitarist Juan Antonio Suarez Cano, dancer Silvia de Paz and percussionist Udo Demandt. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €17.50 + membership Festival: Happy Weekender See Saturday. Blijburg

Monday 1 September Opera: Die Frau ohne Schatten An opera by Richard Strauss, with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Opening the season at Muziektheater, expect an elaborate performance by De Nederlandse Opera. Het Muziektheater, 19.00, €15€105 Punk: Goldﬁnger Ska-ish, punk-ish rock from the US. Despite major label support, they didn’t catch the same waves that peers like Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake managed. Still, they’re energetic and do have a few decent tunes, if you’re into the genre. Melkweg, The Max, 20.30, €15 + membership Jazz: Mark Murphy & Trio Rob van Bavel With his apparently casual but brilliant improvisations, singer Mark Murphy keeps surprising new generations of listeners. Since his 1956 debut recording he has received six Grammy nominations and topped the Downbeat Readers’ Poll in the category Best Male Vocalist of the Year for numerous times. Tonight, pianist Rob van Bavel’s trio provide musical backing. Bimhuis, 20.30, €18 Rock: Dan Sartain Rock ’n’ roller from Alabama.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AGENDA: MUSIC/CLUBS

3 questions:

Jon Spencer Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Saturday, Melkweg ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Blooooozzz Explosion, baby!’ An explosion of all that is dark, sweaty, liquor-soaked and overthe-top in an Elvis from Hell sort of way. In the 1990s, these three wilfully scuzzy New Yorkers put blues punk on the map with half a dozen CDs and collaborations with Mississippi bluesman RL Burnside and soul pervo Andre Williams—inspiring the likes of The White Stripes and The Black Keys in the process. After a few years break, when Spencer busied himself with deconstructing more rockabilly sounds with Heavy Trash, he has now reunited with guitarist Judah Bauer and drummer Russell Simins to gets things all hot and bothered again. Time to explode Music for rocking? ‘The new Charlie Feathers, Rare and Unissued recording series on Norton. Charlie was the greatest Rock A Billy of all time and these new releases contain so much mind-blowing rhythm I can hardly stand it. The man had a way with a song like no other. Truly inspired and unique.’ Music for mellowing? ‘The great hill country bluesman, Mississippi Fred McDowell. The man that taught RL Burnside. Still sends me to another world. Fantastic hypnotic blues and spirituals. Fred played no rock ’n’ roll.’ Music for loving? ‘Michael Gira’s legendary NYC posteverything band, SWANS. The early heavy period. I need something strong.’

Website: thejonspencerbluesexplosion.com

Sometimes it’s high-charged, matching the pace and energy of peers like The Hives, who he toured with last year. Sometimes the tunes are looser and more bluesy. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 21.00, €7.50 + membership

Wednesday 3 September

Festival: Internationale Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2008 Kick-ass contemporary classics. This festival is an international institution, presenting some of the best young musicians and composers. Alongside the challenging classical music, the performers build bridges with other genres, with next week’s Night of the Unexpected at Paradiso being a particular highlight. See Short List and www.muziekweek.nl. Until 7 September. Various locations, times and prices

Rock: Stray Cats Last week they played to a sold out Paradiso. Now Brian Setzer’s swinging rockabilly crew bid farewell to the Netherlands, ofﬁcially calling it a day, 30 years after forming. Heineken Music Hall, 20.00, sold out

Tuesday 2 September Pop: Madonna Mad, Maddy and madder. A lot’s been made of the fact that this show didn’t sell out in three seconds, as per usual. It’s not actually got anything to do with the cost, nor the 50-year-old thighs—of which there’s plenty already on display around De Wallen. Nah, it’s just that the Queen of Pop is in a bit of a musical lull, and after years of rare live appearances, suddenly she’s almost common. But she’ll find her way again. She always does. Amsterdam ArenA, 18.00, €59-€108 Singer-songwriter: Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band The latest project from the oldest wunderkind in the indie scene. This time the Bright Eyes frontman teams up with Nik Freitas and Jason Boesel. Melkweg, The Max, 20.00, €16 + membership Funk: George Clinton Parliament / Funkadelic He may be edging towards 70 but this funk legend ain’t ready to rest on his laurels just yet. While tonight is mainly about celebrating his P-Funk legacy of the ’70s and ’80s, along with his old keyboardist Bernie Worrell, Clinton releases a new album in a couple of weeks: George Clinton and Some Gangsters of Love. Though it’s a disc of covers, it features guests like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sly Stone, El DeBarge and RZA. See Short List. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 21.00, €30 + membership Reggae: Don Carlos and Dub Vision The former Black Uhuru singer does his spectacular roots reggae thing. Jamaican legends can rock until they drop. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 21.15, €18 + membership Festival: Internationale Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2008 See Monday. Various locations, times and prices

Folk: Neva Dinova American indie folk rockers from the Saddle Creek roster. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.00, €7.50 + membership

Amstereo Galaxy A 55DSL special with Lil Vic, Beesmunt Soundsystem and Bloody Beat Roots. Flex Bar, 23.00-05.00, €8 Stop Zinloos Geluid Minimal, Detroit and standard techno from DJs Dan Curtin (US), Marco Passarani (Italy) and loads more. Studio 80, 23.00-late, €14.50 Ghettoblaster Soundsystem With DJs Beatmologic and Rednas_Audio. De Duivel, 23.59-03.00, free

Funk: George Clinton Parliament / Funkadelic See Tuesday. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 21.00, sold out

Saturday 30 August

Hiphop: Microphone Mathematics Old school hiphop night with sets from Adonis and LG. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €7

Paradise Park Yet another outdoors all-dayer. The basis of this party is psytrance, techno, acid, minimal and chill-out, with an overall spiritual feel. In theory, something for all lovers of dancing in fields and (organic) chemicals. See www.paradisepark.nl. Spaarnwoude Houtrak, 11.00-23.00, €35

Jazz: New Ways of Jazz A TryTone in Zaal100 special, with challenging contemporary jazz sets from VHsUhf and O. Zaal 100, 21.00, €5 Festival: Internationale Gaudeamus Muziekweek 2008 See Monday. Various locations, various times, various prices

CLUBS

Voltt Loves Summer Electronic bitches smashing up the peace on the IJ. Big name guests include the likes of Pole, Carl Craig, Alex Under and Adam Beyer. See www.voltt.com. NDSM-werf, 11.00-23.00, €26.75 Ketacore Neck breaking hardcore, breakbeats, lo-ﬁ electronics and drum & bass. OCCII, 22.00-04.00, €5 Voltt Loves Summer Afterparty All the fun of the main event, except it’s indoors. So there’s no need to dance all day and get all mucky. Paradiso, 23.0005.00, €17.50 After Like an afterparty for an afterparty, Voltt partygoers can rock the ﬂoor till it’s time for church. Flex Bar, 23.00-09.00, €8

Thursday 28 August WKND Weekly bargain house party that’s never in your house. Studio 80, 23.00-late, €5 Blue Note Trip Weekly jazz and dance fusion featuring DJ Maestro and special guests. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 23.30-late, €8 Wildvreemd 2.0 Special guest tonight is Dave Vega, plus tag-teaming from Berend Kirch & Jeroen Kok and Robert Johnson & Carlos Valdes. As always, there’s weird extras aplenty. Sugar Factory, 23.59-05.00, €10

Friday 29 August Monsoon Refreshing electronic beats from around the globe. Studio K, 22.00-late, €10

Finest rockabilly punk from Alabama: Dan Sartain on Monday.

Bla Bla Bla and blah tunes from D’Julz (F), Lauhaus and loads more. Studio 80, 23.00-late, €15 Rex...Electronation Top quality electro with a live vibe. Special guest is Simon Weiss, with back-up from residents Dax & Clockwork and H.O.S.H. Sugar Factory, 23.59-05.00, €15 Gemengd Zwemmen Two rooms of swimmingly diverse noise. In The Max, it’s all about classic jungle; in the Oude Zaal, there’s alternative dance, pop, rock and indie hits. Melkweg, 23.59-late, €9

Sunday 31 August Wicked Jazz Sounds Jazz, hiphop, broken beats, nujazz, funk and Afro sounds, as classic vinyl collides with live musicians. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €9.50

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

A G E N D A : C L U B S / G AY & L E S B I A N Must See: Rock

Meshuggah Melkweg, Oude Zaal, Wednesday 3 September If you aren’t already into technical metal, nothing written here will be good enough to tempt you out for an evening of noise terror. But after more than 20 years of thrashing, this Swedish crew remain at the pinnacle of the genre. Forget about the upcoming Metallica CD, Meshuggah are where it’s at. 20.30, €16 + membership.

Monday 1 September Cheeky Monday True skool jungle and drum & bass, featuring players from the local and international scenes. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €7

Tuesday 2 September Funky Junkie DJ Koldun spins everything he considers to be smelling of funk, which can include acid jazz, breakbeat, hiphop, drum & bass and, yeah well, funk. Live musicians will improvise over his mixes. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €5

Wednesday 3 September 3 Jaar Vreemd Dekmantel Dekmantel meets Vreemd as the birthday celebrations kick off midweek. DJs include Jan van Kampen, Thomas Martojo and Casper Tielrooij. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €8

GAY&LESBIAN

drink and there’s even a tiny smoking lounge for those desperate to suck on something else. Church, 20.0000.00, €10 Party: Sterrengala Open-air party along the Amstel, roughly opposite the Amstel 54 bar. It’s a Gay Pride Thank You deal, organised by gay bars around the Rembrandtplein, for all the support. Acts include the usual gay camp faves like Bonnie St Claire, Justine Pamela, José Hoebee, Annie Schilder and Patty Brard. Amstel 54, 22.30, free

Saturday 30 August Party: Ladz Dance night for lads, scallies, skaters, gabbers, sneaker- and sportswearboys. A bit like being at the gym, but with alcohol and without the equipment. Church, 22.00-04.00, €10

Sunday 31 August Party: Zonde Paradiso’s gay/mixed Sunday nighter to ﬁnish off the weekend. Attracts a slightly young crowd. Paradiso, 23.30-05.00, €7.50

Monday 1 September Edited by Willem de Blaauw.

Happy hour: Cheap Monday Broke after the weekend? Then head to this funky bar with great staff and whoopie tunes, and spend your last dosh on cheap beer at €1 a glass. PRIK, 16.00-01.00, free

Thursday 28 August Party: Mr B Heaven New fetish (FF/SM) night at this cool new club, in collaboration with Mr B (that great fetish/sex shop). Admission includes a free drink. Church, 20.00-00.00, €10 Party: Lezzie Chill Out The name says it all. Chat, chill, dance and/or ﬂirt. And sip sexy cocktails. Cafe Sappho, 21.00, free

Friday 29 August Party: D & C Dance & Cruise Party at this new cool cruise club. Shirts are optional. Dance, ﬂirt and do all kinds of other un-holy stuff. Admission includes one

Tuesday 2 September Party: Madonna Afterparty Those who never get enough of Maddy go straight to this party after her gig. Featuring DJ Ben Liebrand and others. Heineken Music Hall, 23.00-04.00, €15/€20

Wednesday 3 September Film: Gay Classic Movies: Before Night Falls Director Julian Schnabel’s movie about the life of Cuban writer and poet Reinaldo Arenas, played by Javier Bardem who was nominated for an Oscar for this role. Pathé De Munt, 20.30, €7

Midweek partying: Vreemd’s third birthday party starts but doesn’t end.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

A G E N D A : S TA G E / E V E N T S

STAGE

EVENTS

Opening

Dining: National Restaurant Week That special time for greedy gluttons is upon us once more. For the summer edition of the National Restaurant Week, hoards of restaurants in the Amsterdam region are taking part, offering three-course lunches and dinners at ‘bargain’ prices. Find out what’s on offer at www.restaurantweek.nl. Various locations, (ThurSun), €20-€25

Music/Dance: Katie Duck Improvised dance from Duck, with music by experimentalists Cor Fuhler, Nora Mulder and Willem Tanke. Orgelpark, (Thur 20.15), €12.50 Dance: Tanjore Quartet Short dance performance with choreography rooted in the traditional temple dance of Bharata Narayam. Don’t be late, or you’ll miss half the show. Really. Lloyd Hotel, 16.00 16.15, free Comedy: Theo Maassen & Ronald Goedemondt The two funnymen premiere their new solo shows, Zonder Pardon and Dedication. In Dutch. Toomler, (Mon, Tue 20.30), €15 Music/Theatre: Hartfalen Five staged readings by writer Daniël Samkalden and singer-songwriter Peter van de Witte that revolve around the question, ‘How can you expect a man to be ready to die on a weeknight from a heart attack?’ The performance is said to be so highly exciting, patrons with cardiac problems might do well to consider staying home. Or at least bring their medication. In Dutch. Theater Bellevue, (Mon-Wed 20.30), €12.50

Ongoing Comedy: Boom Chicago There’s no summer stop on Leidseplein. See www.boomchicago.nl and take your pick from climate change comedy Last One to Leave the Planet, Turn Off the Lights! or Best of Boom 2008. And in the whole of August, you can even get €5 off the ticket price by saying—sincerely—‘I love George Bush.’ So you’ll have to practice very hard. Boom Chicago, (Daily), €20/€24 Performance: The Great Flying Circus North Korea Though sadly not related to any Monty Pythons, these North Koreans still put on one hell of a circus show, which has won them the ‘Golden Clown’ at Monte Carlo’s circus festival eight times in a row. Clearly, they’re more than mere limber communists. Carré, (Thur-Sat 20.00, Sun 19.00, Sat, Sun also 14.00), €15-€49 Theatre: Na ons... de Zondvloed [After us... the Deluge] A theatre event about the end of the world, which in this production comes about—quite obviously—in the form of environmental catastrophes. The cast consists of amateurs who were trained by professional actors, and the performance takes place in spectacular surroundings: an open air stage bordering a nature reserve near Alkmaar. No worries though, the audience will be protected by a roof from eventual real environmental catastrophes, like pesky rain or thunderstorms. Actually, isn’t that a bit of a cop-out? Geestmerambacht, Alkmaar, (Thur-Sun 21.15), €15

Festival: Klanken aan ’t IJ The south bank of the IJ is about to get a bit noisier this week. International artists will combine visual arts and technology to create extraordinary sound installations. Each day, utensils such as bottles, pans and shoes will be converted into amazing works of art. See Short List and www.muziekcentrumnederland.nl. Until 7 September. Various locations, (Fri-Wed), free Performance: Artis ZOOmeravond Your last chance of the summer to enjoy Artis in the evening. Tonight’s special guests are La Ocasion and DuaCappella. As always, animal experts will be on hand to chat about their specialist topics and offer tours. Artis, (Sat 19.00), zoo entry cost Festival: Kampvuur Festival A night of entertainment, campﬁres and barbecuing. Acts include Spinvis & Simon Vinkenoog, Maurits Westerik (Gem), Ralph Mulder (Alamo Race Track), Helge Slikker (Storybox), Hit Me TV, DJs 100% Vooraan and Gayblade Axion Team. Any time left to hit the beach is running out. Timboektoe, Wijk aan Zee, (Sat 19.00), €5 Market: Art Market Local artists and craftmakers attempt to shift their wares opposite Cafe Bax. Expect art, jewellery, photography, books and other handmade creations. Ten Katestraat, (Sat), free Film festival: World Statues Festival It’s already been established that you needn’t leave town this weekend. Everything’s going down in Amsterdam. But—and it’s a big but—if you want a piece of Eurotrash city-break culture, just head for Arnhem and watch people in costumes working very hard at not moving. See Short List. Various locations, (Sat, Sun), free Discussion: Paradisodebat The subsidy system is changing, but how will it affect the modern cultural climate? Journalists and politicians from around the country convene in this debate to attack and defend the system. In Dutch. Paradiso, (Sun 16.30), free Fashion: Catwalk Training A fun workshop that’s part of Mediamatic’s MeMeME. Ex-model Kim Vos leads the way, but it’s nothing too serious or formal. As the event’s tag reads, it’s ‘not just for models’. Space is limited, however, so sign-up at www.mediamatic.net/ikikik. Mediamatic, (Wed 16.00), €25 Discussion: Dizkuzz Everything you need to know about the music industry but were too arrogant to ask. Experts will try to set you right. In Dutch. Paradiso,

Must see: Event

Club Goodbye Dollar De Balie, (Sat 20.30-04.00), €10 Another institution gets back into the flow of things with their favourite concept: debates and lectures followed by a groovy party. As you may gather from the title, the theme is the dollar’s fall from grace as the world’s favourite currency.

Cheap(er) eats: Only a few days of National Restaurant Week remain.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AGENDA: ART

ART

Art: Opening

The Best Designed Books 2007 This year 33 books have been selected out of all those published in the Netherlands in 2007. As in previous years, the museum is supplementing the selection on show with a separate category: this time, children’s books of exceptionally good design. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 30 September De Kabbala—Graven van Safed Photos of the cemetery in the Israeli city of Safed. Nederlands Uitvaart Museum Tot Zover (Mon-Fri 13.00-17.00), until 12 October

Opening Between Dark and White First part of a trilogy of exhibitions by Erica van Loon, Erik Olofsen and Anami Schrijvers. Featured are works inspired by the theme ‘Mental Space’. For each installment, one of the trio will take the lead. P/////AKT (Thur-Sun 14.00-18.00), opens Saturday, until 21 September

‘Druksel prints’ by Werkman A presentation by the Stedelijk Museum dedicated to the ‘druksel prints’ of Hendrik Werkman, who, in the ’20s, developed the technique of printing parts of a print one at a time to compile the total image on a page. Van Gogh Museum (Mon-Thur, Sat, Sun 10.00-18.00, Fri 10.00-22.00), until 12 October

Een Juweel van Een Tas Cool jewels and bags in a retrospective celebrating Hester van Eeghen’s 20 years of design. There’s also 24 new bags designed for this exhibition. Tassenmuseum Hendrikje (Daily 10.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 6 November

Malick Sidibé Malian photographer (b. 1935, Soloba) who, from the early ’60s on, snapped portraits and various engagements of local society, from football matches to weddings and Christmas Eve celebrations, which now offer insight into the people’s lives shortly after winning their independence. Sidibé was one of the ﬁrst African photographers to gain recognition in the West. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.0021.00), until 15 October

Stad uit de School Designs by former students of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. ARCAM (TuesSat 13.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 25 October

Museums Amsterdam and the House of Orange An exhibition surveying the ties which have bound Amsterdam and the House of Orange over the centuries. Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Mon-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.00), closing Sunday Amsterdamse School Straatmeubilair Uitgelicht Celebrating the street furniture and objects created by architects and designers of the Amsterdam School. Museum Het Schip (Wed-Sun 13.00-17.00), closing Sunday Wim van der Linden Photography of Amsterdam from the ’60s. Stadsarchief Amsterdam (Tues-Sat 10.0017.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), closing Sunday Hans Scholten: Urban future ‘The future of the city’ is the theme raised by Amsterdam artist Scholten (1952) in this photographic project. For a number of years he has been photographing the urban landscapes of huge cities in Asia and the Middle East. There he captures scenes of rapidly growing neighbourhoods, in which chaos and anarchy seem to arise due to a lack of organised city planning. Is this the future that awaits cities in the Western world as well? Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), closing Sunday So Blue, So Blue—Edges of the Mediterranean Dutch photographer Ad van Denderen presents photos which look at the political, social, economic and ecological changes occurring around the Mediterranean. Nederlands Fotomuseum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, closing Sunday Domingo Milella: Paesaggi The past six years, Milella has concentrated on an ongoing project, which takes as it’s central focus the postmodern landscape, from dwellings to urban periphery. His perspectives offers us a fresh interpretation of the changing face of our surroundings. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), closing Sunday Gilian Schrofer: Models of Concern Models and designs by Schrofer, who’s to design the interiors of the four refreshment areas of the renovated Stedelijk Museum. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), closing Sunday Lectori Salutem Delving into the history of books, with original objects, beautiful manuscripts and books from Dutch collections, photographs and texts. Allard Pierson Museum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 7 September Marc Camille Chaimowicz: ...In The Cherished Company of Others... One hundred works by Chaimowicz, including drawings, decorative and functional objects, wallpapers, maquettes, sculptures, paintings and a revisited installation. These sit alongside architectural models, bookplates and artworks by other international artists with whom the artist feels empathy with. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 7 September Beyond Paradise Group exhibition which highlights the interaction between tourism and contemporary art. This includes travel brochures, postcards, advertisements, ﬁlms and so on. Artists include Bik van der Pol, Patricia Esquives, Arnout Killian and more. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), until 7 September Resistance in Belgium 1940-1945 Contemporary portraits of Belgian resistance ﬁghters by French photographer Jean-Marc Gourdon. Verzetsmuseum

Montevideo/Time Based Arts (Tues-Sat 13.00-18.00), opens Saturday, until 2 November

Black is Beautiful A journey of discovery though the history of art, which for the ﬁrst time aims to highlight the attractiveness of the black person in the art of the Lowlands. It turns out, many great masters have portrayed black people. Their fascination will be illustrated in 135 paintings, drawings and manuscripts from collections here and abroad, including artists like Rembrandt, Breitner, Sluijters, Appel and Dumas. Nieuwe Kerk (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur 10.00-22.00), until 26 October

Audio artist Nathalie Bruys co-curates this exhibition, showing a personal selection from very diverse approaches, each making use of sound and music. The works have been created by young artists with highly varied backgrounds, all with a sincere love of music, audio and art in common.

Inside Out Personal portraits in word and image show how youths deal with religion and the part it plays in their daily lives. Bijbels Museum (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 2 November

Sonic Voices, Rocking Hard

(Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 14 September Kors van Bennekom—Kors’s Choice An exhibition celebrating the 75th birthday of the Amsterdam photographer Kor van Bennekom, the street photographer, theatre photographer and family photographer, whose remarkable oeuvre reflects the history of the Netherlands in the second half of the 20th century. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 14 September Me! Me! Me! An interactive exhibition that touches on self representation on the internet and fashion, on the far reaching consequences of modern communication and on our self image and the way we experience the world around us. The exhibition also highlights our own cultural potential with a minimal ecological footprint. In the process, art and fashion activists Andrea Crews will transform Mediamatic’s new location into a world fashion centre. Mediamatic Tues-Sat 11.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00, until 14 September Gewoon Anders! Exhibition revolving around alternative sexual lifestyles which, during the turn of the 21st century, spawned a wealth of images. With over 100 pieces by some 35 artists, including Gilbert & George, Nan Goldin, Marlene Dumas, Wolfgang Tillmans, Marlene McCarty, Rachid Ben Ali and a nine-metre high monumental statue of David, in bright pink and canary yellow, by Hans-Peter Feldmann. CoBrA Museum (TuesSun 11.00-17.00), until 21 September

Snap Judgments—New Positions in Contemporary African Photography An exhibition of work by 35 contemporary African artists and photographers with unique perspectives on their own continent. It reveals how artists are using photography to respond artistically to the enormous changes currently taking place in African economic, social and cultural life, but the artists also break away from lingering stereotypical images of their cultures, histories and countries. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 30 September

24-hour Indonesia Glimpse the daily life of contemporary Indonesia. Eight different crews across Indonesia ﬁlmed during a 24-hour period. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 16 November Art of the State Photographs and video works by sixteen artists from Israel. Through their works they reﬂect upon their country: the community in which they live, the numerous cultural and religious differences among Israel’s population and the current political situation. Joods Historisch Museum (Daily 11.00-17.00), until 30 November Hendrik Werkman: The Blue Barge Exhibition containing Werkman’s preparatory studies for the suites of

Art: Opening

Stefan à Wengen—Nightology Witzenhausen Gallery, opens Saturday, until 4 October Paintings by the Swiss artist. Thur-Sat 12.00-18.00

Rogier Verkade: Recht in Beeld Triptych photo sets; two of the photos are Creative Commons licensed images from sites like Flickr, with Verkade creating a third image to complete the trio. Centrale Bibliotheek (Daily), until 28 September Deep Screen—Art in Digital Culture Contemporary multidisciplinary works of art which are all in some way marked by today’s digital culture. The jury, chaired by guest curator Andreas Broeckmann, has selected 18 artists out of the 200-plus submissions. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 30 September Presence of Mind—A Choice from the Collection by Wolfgang Tillmans The Stedelijk Museum regularly invites artists to select from the collection, coloured only by their own artistic perspective. This time, the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans (1968) offers a fresh perspective amidst the context of his own oeuvre. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 30 September

No more Euro 2008. No more Olympics. Now it’s time for Amsterdam’s House of Orange to depart, too.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

prints he made as an act of resistance for The Blue Barge during WWII. The most famous of these is Chassidische Legenden. Joods Historisch Museum (Daily 11.00-17.00), until 30 November Drie Meiden in Verzet—Hannie Schaft en de Zusjes Oversteegen Exhibition about Hannie Schaft—’the girl with the red hair’—and Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, the girls she collaborated with in the resistance movement, and the difﬁcult choices forced upon them in WWII. Verzetsmuseum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat-Mon 11.00-17.00), until 7 December Palestine 1948 On 14 May 2008 it will be exactly 60 years ago that the State of Israel was founded. This long term presentation shows how this event affected the lives of individual Palestinians. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 4 January 2009

Galleries El blanco perfecto Paintings and installations that explore Dominican artist Miguel Rivas’s relationship with femininity. CEDLA (Mon-Fri 10.00-17.00) Videozomer Diverse works by video artists, which can be viewed from outside of the project space. A new artist is screened each week until 29 August. For schedule see www.petersburgprojectspace.org. Petersburg Project Space (Daily, evenings till 01.00), closing Friday Ata & Eva An overview exhibition of the oeuvre of Hungarian photographers Ata Kandó (1913) and Eva Besnyö (1910-2003). Hup Gallery (Tues, Thur, Fri 10.00-17.00), closing Saturday Dutch Nudes Dutch photography, encouraging models to get their kit off. Blow Up Gallery (Thur-Sat13.00-18.00), closing Saturday Arabic Graphics Exhibition showcasing the graphic and typographic design works of Lebanese-Dutch designer Tarek Atrissi, who has developed commercial and non-commercial projects around the world. De Levante (Wed-Sun 13.00-17.30), closing Sunday Summer in the City Photo exhibition from four established snappers: Anne Marie Trovato, Reinier Gerritsen, Martijn de Jonge and Alex ten Napel. Melkweg Galerie (Tues-Sat 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday I Pity Inanimate Objects Freaky sculptures and installations by Jaap de Vries. Planetart (see www.planetart.nl), closing Sunday On the Surface Photo exhibition by Paul Nolan Miralles and Lauro Govoni, depicting—as you do—the surface of things. But obviously they’re actually after what’s beneath it (underlying meanings and all). Meneer de Wit (Wed-Sun 14.00-18.00), closing Sunday Happy to Be A group exhibition by ten gay and lesbian artists, featuring photography, paintings and sculptures. ABC Treehouse (Thur-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday Frans Westers Oil paintings with themes such as human nature, mother & child and young children as fairy tale ﬁgures. Maybe if you ask, you can see all the artist’s darker, more cynical works round the back of the gallery. Galerie Jos Art (Wed-Sun 11.00-17.30, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.30), closing Wednesday Art from the Bar Psychotic alcohol-fuelled drawings made on beer coasters by visitors of this cafe/gallery between 1993 and 2000. Plus photos by Deborah Hempel. De Duivel (Sun-Thur 20.00-03.00, Fri, Sat 20.00-04.00), until 4 September Walking in Rome with Bernini, Michelangelo and Leonardo Retrospective of Italian artist Mario Padovan’s work in Rome from 1963-1997. Paule Carre (Mon 13.00-18.00; Tue, Wed, Fri 10.00-18.00; Thur 10.00-20.00; Sat 10.00-17.00), until 10 September Aerosol Symphonies Part II After the success of last summer’s collaborations, this concept, which sees classical music and street art collide, is back for a sequel. Participants include Laser 3.14, Two Things, Maoma, Modderfokker, The London Police, SIT, Juice, Peter Pontiac, Def P, Hugo Kaagman, Blade, Quik, Weazel, Wayne Horse and quite a few more. Yes, it’s hip to be square. GO Gallery (Wed-Sat 12.00-18.00, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 16 September Group Exhibition Featuring Joris Woertman (installations) and photographers Emmy Beenken and Bas van Tol. Galerie Bart (Thur, Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 12.0017.00), until 27 September The Photo Academy Award 2008 Starring the shortlisted works. Among the prizes: an exhibition in Foam and publication in de Volkskrant and Elle. Fotogram (Mon-Thur 09.30-21.00, Fri, Sat 09.30-17.00), until 17 October

AGENDA: ART/ADDRESSES

ADDRESSES 11 Oosterdokskade 3-5, 625 5999 ABC Treehouse Voetboogstraat 11, 423 0967 Allard Pierson Museum Oude Turfmarkt 127, 525 2556 Amstel 54 Amstel 54, 623 4254 Amsterdam ArenA ArenA Boulevard 1, 311 1333 Amsterdams Historisch Museum Kalverstraat 92, 523 1822 De Appel Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10, 625 5651 ARCAM Prins Hendrikkade 600, 620 4878 Artis Plantage Kerklaan 38-40, 523 3400 Badcuyp 1e Sweelinckstraat 10, 675 9669 De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Bijbels Museum Herengracht 366-368, 624 2436 Bimhuis Piet Heinkade 3, 788 2150 Blijburg Bert Haanstrakade 2004, 416 0330 Blow Up Gallery Hazenstraat 67, 665 3435 Boom Chicago Leidseplein 12, 530 7300 Cafe Sappho Vijzelstraat 103, 423 1509 Carré Amstel 115-125, 524 9452 CEDLA Keizersgracht 395-397, 525 3498 Centrale Bibliotheek Oosterdokskade 143, 523 0900 Church Kerkstraat 50-52 CoBrA Museum Sandbergplein 1-3, Amstelveen, 547 5050 Concertgebouw Concertgebouwplein 2-6, 671 8345 Consortium Veemkade 570, 06 2611 8950 De Duivel Reguliersdwarstr 87, 626 6184 Flex Bar Pazzanistraat 1, 486 2123 Foam Keizersgracht 609, 551 6546 Fotogram Korte Prinsengracht 33, 624 9994 Galerie Bart Bloemgracht 2, 320 6208 Galerie Jos Art KSNM-laan 291, 418 7003 Gemeentemuseum Stadhouderslaan 41, Den Haag, 070 338 1111 GO Gallery Prinsengracht 64, 422 9580 Heineken Music Hall ArenA Boulevard 590, 0900 300 1250 Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401, 531 8989 Hup Gallery Tesselschadestraat 15, 515 8589 Joods Historisch Museum Jonas Daniel Meijerplein 2-4, 531 0310 De Levante Hobbemastraat 28, 671 5485 Lloyd Hotel Oostelijke Handelskade 34, 419 1840 Maloe Melo Lijnbaansgracht 163, 420 4592 Mediamatic Vijzelstraat 68, 638 9901 Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 531 8181 Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409, 531 8181 Meneer de Wit Postjesweg 2, 616 3680 Montevideo/Time Based Arts Keizersgracht 264, 623 7101 Museum Het Schip Spaarndammerplantsoen 140, 418 2885 Muziekgebouw Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2010 Het Muziektheater Amstel 3, 625 5455 NDSM-werf TT Neveritaweg 15, 330 5480 Nederlands Architectuurinstituut Museumpark 25, Rotterdam, 010 440 1200 Nederlands Fotomuseum Wilhelminakade 332, Rotterdam, 010 213 2011 Nederlands Uitvaart Museum Tot Zover Kruislaan 124, 694 0482 De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512 Nieuwe Kerk entrance on the Dam, 638 6909 OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 671 7778 Orgelpark Orgelpark, 51 58111 P/////AKT Zeeburgerpad 53, 06 5427 0879 Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521 Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Paule Carre Cornelis Schuytstraat 44, 675 6800 Petersburg Project Space Frans de Wollantstraat 84 Planetart Weteringschans 179 PRIK Spuistraat 109, 06 4544 2321 Rijksmuseum Jan Luykenstraat 1, 674 7000 Stadsarchief Amsterdam Vijzelstraat 32 Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam Rozenstraat 59, 422 0471 Stedelijk Museum CS Oosterdokskade 5, 573 2911 Studio 80 Rembrandtplein 17, 521 8333 Studio K Timorplein 62, 692 0422 Sugar Factory Lijnbaansgracht 238, 627 0008 Tassenmuseum Hendrikje Herengracht 573, 524 6452 Theater Bellevue Leidsekade 90, 530 5301 Toomler Breitnerstraat 2, 670 7400 Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200 UvA: Special Collections Library Oude Turfmarkt 129, 525 2141 Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200 Van Zijll Langhout Brouwersgracht 161, 06 2825 9620 Verzetsmuseum Plantage Kerklaan 61, 620 2535 Walls Gallery Prinsengracht 737 Westergasfabriek Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 586 0710 Winston Kingdom Warmoesstraat 129, 623 1380 Witzenhausen Gallery (Hazenstraat) Hazenstraat 60 Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100, 688 0127

Lo-fi: Beer fuelled beer coaster art at De Duivel.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AGENDA: FILM

Film review

By Linawati Sidarto

De Schattenberg Opens Thursday at the Filmmuseum.

‘THEY DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT’ Monique Verhoeckx attempts a glimpse at her parents’ troubled refugee past. Chunks of Hertha Verhoeckx-Vogel’s youth go by on-screen. There are shots of daily life in Indonesia during the colonial era; then images from Japanese camps, where most European nationals living in the Dutch East Indies were interned during World War II. Then we see footage

FILM

from the country’s 1945-49 war of independence. These scenes alternate with shots from former Nazi camp Westerbork in rural Drenthe. In 1950, the camp, with its barracks and barbed wire still intact, was renamed ‘Schattenberg’ [‘Treasure Moun-

ers and director Blake Edwards came up with most of the film’s jokes by improvising on the set. After 40 years, they still work. (MB) 99 min. Uitmarkt Open Air West Beach Film Festival New and old movies at the beach. See Short List. Sloterplas

Open air Across the Universe This marvelous musical set

to the Beatles’ songbook deserves a better life than it’s had, and maybe an award or two. It’s the 1960s, and Jude (Jim Sturgess) is a Liverpool ship welder who decides to move to New York. There he befriends Max (Joe Anderson) and falls in love with his sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). They all live together in a bohemian flat in the Greenwich Village until the Vietnam War takes Max away and Revolution knocks at their door. Director Julie Taymor (Frida) choreographs some amazing numbers to the sounds of the Fab Four, and guest singers include Bono, Joe Cocker and Eddie Izzard. (MB) 133 min. Uitmarkt Open Air Indigènes French/Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb set his new film in 1943, when the cheerful young North Africans Saïd, Yassir, Messaoud and Abdelkader enlist in the French army to fight for their country. Instead, they find themselves caught between the horrors of the battlefield and the prejudice of their fellow soldiers. The four leads, as a group, won last year’s Best Actor award at Cannes; after the film came out in France, President Chirac promised the surviving colonial veterans—who never received full benefits—compensation. In French/Arabic with Dutch subtitles. 128 min. Africa in the Picture Open Air, Kwakersplein

The

Party This 1968 movie is one of the most famous slapstick comedies ever made. Peter Sellers is at his best as inept Indian background actor Hrundi V Bakshi, who, after inadvertently destroying a very expensive movie set, gets invited by mistake to a posh Hollywood party, where he meets and falls for a beautiful starlet, but mostly turns the event into one chaotic, extremely funny mess. Legend has it that Sell-

New this week Caos Calmo Pietro (Nanni Moretti), while enjoying a day out at the beach with his brother Carlo (Alessandro Gassman), saves a woman from drowning. When they head home, he finds out his wife died unexpectedly. His grief takes him from his TV executive desk to a bench, where he sits every morning waiting for his tenyear-old daughter to finish classes. Life circles around him, and Pietro starts observing all the little bits of action happening in the square, trying to find a new meaning to his existence. Look out for a cameo by Roman Polanski. Based on the award-winning novel by Sandro Veronesi. In Italian with Dutch subtitles. 105 min. The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski, Rialto Elegy Adapted from Philip Roth’s novella The Dying Animal, this film charts the older man/younger woman dynamic. After work, sixtyish, self-centred and hedonistic professor of literature David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) has three things on his mind: sex, sex and more sex. When he meets dazzling young student Consuela (Penélope Cruz) he starts rhapsodising about her breasts, but Consuela wants a true relationship. Kepesh, mesmerised by her and acutely aware of his age, veers between possessiveness and his desire not to get emotionally involved. Elegy has classy performances and is nicely shot, but is also quite gloomy and prone to philosophical platitudes. Roth’s humour is sorely missed. Written by Roth and Nicholas Meyer and directed by Isabel Coixet, with Patricia Clarkson, Dennis Hopper and Deborah Harry. 107min. (GR) 107 min. Cinecenter, Pathé ArenA, Pathé Tuschinski The Forbidden Kingdom When a white, kung-fu obsessed geek is entrusted with a magical weapon by his mortally wounded pawn-shop owner, he suddenly finds himself in ancient China on a mission, involving

Racking up more cash for McCartney: Across The Universe.

tain’] and became the first Dutch home for refugees fleeing a newly independent Indonesia. A certain elusiveness sets the tone of De Schattenberg, apparently not unlike the feeling documentary-maker and visual artist Monique Verhoeckx, 45, had when she was growing up. ‘My parents hardly spoke of their past,’ she said recently. ‘I knew it was there, and that it had a great influence on them. But they didn’t want to talk about it.’ Verhoeckx says she purposely used an indirect approach. ‘I was afraid that if I did it in a more straightforward way, then they [her family and friends, the subjects of the film] would just shut down. It was not meant to be confrontational.’ The names of those interviewed, for one thing, are listed only in the credits which leads viewers to concentrate on what the speakers say rather than who is saying it. It also further emphasises the vagueness of their responses to tough questions. One former Schattenberg resident, an ex-Marine, was asked whether it was difficult to be in the camp right after fighting a war. ‘No. There was a soup kitchen there, so that was good. For the rest, I don’t remember much.’ Slowly a picture emerges of idyllic childhoods shattered, first by war, then by migration to the ‘fatherland’—a foreign country where people didn’t understand them despite a common language. ‘A schoolmate’s father, who was a teacher, asked me whether I learned to speak Dutch on the ship to Holland,’ one woman recalls. The fact that Schattenberg was the

former Camp Westerbork, where nearly 100,000 Dutch Jews were transported to death camps during WWII, gives an added dimension. Talking at the site with a Westerbork survivor, a former Schattenberg occupant says, ‘The big difference between the Nazi and Japanese camps is that the former were meant for liquidation.’ Yet what follows that statement is one of the more revealing comments in the film. ‘Women and children had to stand in line for a roll call every day at the Japanese camps. Everybody had to bow, and my mother wouldn’t bow deep enough, so she would get slapped in the face. Every time I think of this I get emotional.’ Verhoeckx tries to merge the past with the present by way of images. In one scene, the group rides on a bus in the Netherlands, while through the windows we see footage of colonial Indonesia. In another scene, they watch a pre-war documentary on the Javanese city of Surabaya, where some of them were born. Their faces light up as they ﬁll in the on-screen depictions with lively memories of their youth. This scene underlines the melancholy of a past to which they can no longer return. ‘The mixed [colonial] culture, their culture, no longer exists,’ says Verhoeckx. In the 1960s, radio telescopes for astronomical research were built on the Schattenberg terrain. Verhoeckx comments, ‘I thought it was a good metaphor to incorporate in the ﬁlm. Like the telescopes, I was also trying to capture invisible signals.’

the first ever smackdown between Jet Li and Jackie Chan! Even if both stars are past their prime, their fighting scenes, using acrobatics and wire works, with only a little help from CGI instead of just depending on it, are still a joy to behold. And while the film is clearly aimed at a teen audience, older ‘chop sockey’ fans will probably get a kick out of it as well. (LvH) 113 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

black comedy, which he deﬁned as ‘a Romanian Magnolia’. In Romanian with English subtitles. 105 min. Filmmuseum

Grace Is Gone Stanley Philipps (John Cusack) is a

Superhero Movie There are now two distinct camps cranking out Movie parodies: Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedburg, who wrote the original Scary Movie (2000), have since directed the abysmal Date Movie and Epic Movie and the 300 parody Meet the Spartans. David Zucker, whose Airplane! (1980) more or less launched the genre, directed the last two Scary Movie entries and produced this feature-length goof on Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. The gags are consistently weak, though actor Miles Fisher turns in a hair-raising impression of Tom Cruise. Craig Mazin directed. (JJ) 85 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

taciturn store manager and an emotionally distant father to his two young daughters. When his wife dies during her tour of duty in Iraq, he is unable to break the news and instead takes his girls on a road trip to postpone the inevitable. John Cusack is phenomenal in the lead, expressing intense pain and grief through a quick stare or nervous twitch, and the two child actresses are equally amazing. With no obvious politics in play, the emotions in the ﬁlm go straight to the heart and tear duct. (LvH) 85 min. The Movies Occident This 2002 first feature film from Cristian Mungiu, the Romanian ﬁlm-maker who triumphed at Cannes last year with 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, gets a limited run in the Filmmuseum’s Previously Unreleased series. In post-Ceausescu Romania, Luci (Alexandru Papadopol) and Sorina (Anca-Ioana Androne) have been kicked out of their apartment. He wants to leave the country and move West, she wants to stay. Mungiu mixes Kieslowski with Kusturica in this

Webtip:

‘Culture is NOT your friend’ www.youtube.com/ watch?v=eOy3H4yyocQ

De Schattenberg Elusiveness sets the tone of this documentary about Dutch Indonesians ‘repatriated’ to a country they had never seen. See review above. Filmmuseum

Still playing Comandante The first film of a projected trilogy on doctrinaire political leaders, Oliver Stone’s documentary about Fidel Castro was culled from a series of interviews that Stone did over three days with the Cuban dictator. It’s most effective as a meditation on personality, revealing the men’s common obsessions,

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

and least effective as a look at Castro’s totalitarian politics. Photographed in part by the excellent Rodrigo Prieto (25th Hour), the movie also includes a gracefully melancholy portrait of contemporary Havana. In English and subtitled Spanish. 93 min. Kriterion Cordero de Dios The debut of Argentinean director Lucía Cedrón tells the story of a family torn apart by the military regime of dictator Videla. Its central figure is Guillerma, whose father died during the junta, after which she and her mother fled to Paris. The film opens with the kidnapping of Guillerma’s grandfather in 2002; gradually, Guillerma learns what really happened. The glamorous-looking cast and soft-focus lighting are somewhat out of step with the grim events, yet the film has its moving moments, especially when dealing with Guillerma’s childhood memories. And it is praiseworthy that Cedrón dared to tackle the painful subject of the junta in all its moral complexity. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (MM) 91 min. Rialto

The

Dark Knight There is nothing camp about Christopher Nolan’s second (and vastly superior) outing in the Batman franchise—although Christian Bale’s slightly ridiculous, husky voice as Batman could still use some ﬁne tuning. Gone are the days of Burtonesque villains and nippled crusaders. This is as grim and realistic as it gets. In Nolan’s Gotham City there are no superheroes or supercrooks, just very disturbed people—notably Batman’s nemesis the Joker, who, in the late Heath Ledger’s incarnation, has never been more deranged nor more menacing. (His inventive pencil-disappearing-trick probably won’t ﬁnd its way to children’s parties anytime soon.) A haunting (and haunted) masterpiece. (BS) 152 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski

Dialogue avec mon jardinier This film could just as well have been called ‘Zen and the art of gardening’. Separated from his wife, a crisp-looking, middle-aged Parisian painter (Daniel Auteuil) retreats to the house he grew up in, in rural France. His gardener there (Jean-Pierre Darrousin) turns out to be his partner in mischief from their schooldays. While one paints and the other grows vegetables, they comment on the world in front of them. ‘Don’t you look at the sunset, the stars, the fog?’ asks the painter. ‘I don’t usually see much of anything in a fog,’ replies the gardener. What is art to one is garbage to the other, and vice versa. Director Jean Becker has kept the material down-to-earth, and steers away from possible sentimentality with a couple of good laughs. In French with Dutch subtitles. (KE) 109 min. The Movies Le Fils de l’épicier A road movie of sorts, with a very French twist. The story is a bit flimsy: a young man (the grocer’s son of the title) helps his parents when they’re in trouble and sorts himself out along the way. The film’s strength is in its humane view of its characters and painterly eye for the landscape. As Antoine (Nicolas Cazalé) grudgingly drives his dad’s delivery van around, his brusqueness doing little for his sales or relations with the old clientele, we’re treated to breathtaking wide-angle shots of Provence. Close friend Claire (Clotilde Hesme), former femme fatale Lucienne (Liliane Rovère) and increasingly senile father Clément (Paul Crauchet) play crucial, and sometimes very funny, roles while Antoine adjusts to his new life. Eric Guirado directed this feel-good film with an eye for the individual. In French with Dutch subtitles. (KE) 96 min. Cinecenter La Graine et le mulet Sixty-year-old Slimane Beiji has just been fired from his dockworker’s job in Sète, in southern France. He has been living in a shabby hotel ever since his divorce, but does his very best to keep in touch with his children. At the same time, he is having

AGENDA: FILM an affair with his landlady and has grown fond of her daughter, Rym. It is Rym who helps him realise his last dream: to run a couscous restaurant. Tunisian-French director Abdel Kechiche wants to paint a complete family picture. He succeeds, but at a cost: estrangement from Beiji. It’s not until two hours in that we really begin to understand his pain and appreciate his friendship with Rym—just in time for a beautiful ﬁnale. In French with Dutch subtitles. (MP) 151 min. Rialto

tormented lead, but he is helped by two equally excellent supporting actresses, Amy Ryan (the lousy mother in Gone Baby Gone) and Abigail Breslin, who play a woman and her 7-year-old daughter living in the same shabby hotel. The scenes between Keane and the little girl are the beating heart of the ﬁlm, ﬁlled with love and sadness—not for who Keane is, but for who he could have been. Directed by Lodge Kerrigan. (BS) 100 min. Filmmuseum

Happy-Go-Lucky Poppy (Sally Hawkins) teaches

Mataharis Three women work at a seedy detective

kindergarten in North London, lives in a flatshare with her best friend and fellow teacher Zoe, goes clubbing on Friday nights, and is the kind of person who, in the words of Eric Idle, always looks on the bright side of life. For example, she regards the fact that her bike has been stolen as motivation to improve her skills and decides to take driving lessons instead. That’s how she ends up meeting Scott (Eddie Marsan), who’s basically her opposite. Not much happens in Mike Leigh’s latest film, but Hawkins’s Poppy is one of the great characters of the current cinematic year. (MB) 118 min. Kriterion, Studio K, De Uitkijk Hellboy II: The Golden Army The second outing of the grumpy but good-hearted demon commonly known as ‘Red’ focuses on the bonds between him and his supernatural companions, the amphibious Abe Sapien, human firecracker Liz Sherman and the new ectoplasmic addition Johann Krauss. Their occasionally rocky relationship is disrupted by vengeful Elf prince Nuada, who plans to awaken the mythical Golden Army to wage war on humanity. Director Guillermo del Toro delivers a film filled with visually stunning flights of fancy, brought to life by a combination of old-school special effects and newfangled computer wizardry. But the film belongs to Ron Perlman’s cranky yet lovable Hellboy. (LvH) 120 min. Kriterion, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Into the Wild Moving, if somewhat overlong, account of the life of Christopher McCandless, with a bravura performance from Emile Hirsch. At the age of 22, McCandless left his wealthy, dysfunctional family, gave his college cash to Oxfam and took off into the breathtaking beauty of the American wilderness. What starts as a run-of-the-mill road movie twists into an American Odyssey as, after two years away from it all, McCandless meets an untimely death in the wilds of Alaska. The usual Characters Met Along the Way include Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook. McCandless won’t stick with any of them, and gradually begins to unravel in his determined solitude. The film becomes a meditation on the human need for human company, framed against some of the most glorious scenery the world has to offer. A triumph for Sean Penn as a director, backed by a custom soundtrack from Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder. (AD) 140 min. Kriterion, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski Julia The title character of this new film by Eric Zonca and Camille Natta resembles Gloria, the Gena Rowlands character in the 1980 John Cassavetes film of the same name. Like Gloria, Julia (a superb and brazenly unglamorous Tilda Swinton) harbours little maternal instinct beneath her tough exterior. But where Rowlands slowly turns into a grudging heroine, cold-hearted, scheming Julia, who kidnaps a rich man’s grandson for ransom, stubbornly sticks to her plan—until the inevitable redeeming final act, that is. It’s a shame Zonca (director of the award-winning La Vie rêvée des anges) and Natta didn’t dare go all the way. (BS) 138 min. Kriterion

Keane This sobering drama about a schizophrenic

man desperately trying to be normal is ﬁnally, after four years, getting a Dutch release. Damian Lewis (Dreamcatcher, Friends & Crocodiles) is superb as the

agency in this lively, likable film by Icíar Bollaín (Take My Eyes). Each of the female detectives has her own charm, but all of them are real women—overbites, underbites, bumpy noses and all. Will they sell out? Will a comatose marriage be revived with the help of lovers and lingerie? The empowering choices they eventually make inspire a hearty ‘good for you, girl’. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (KE) 100 min. Het Ketelhuis Midnight Meat Train This grim and sick adaptation of a story by Clive Barker suffered from a prolonged stay in distribution hell, and the only thing that prevented it from becoming a straight-to-DVD title was a flaming legion of horror fans. They will get what they expected and then some, as director Ryuhei Kitamura assaults your senses like Sam Raimi on acid. The titular subway line is haunted by a Frankensteinian brute (a truly menacing Vinnie Jones) and when a nosy photographer (Bradley Cooper) goes investigating, the situation quickly turns crimson. If you’re looking for the goriest film this year, look no further. (LvH) 85 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Mongol At last, here’s proof that a bold, big-budget epic from the Eastern steppes can compete with the classics from Hollywood and New Zealand. This German/Russian/Kazakh coproduction is the first of a planned series of biopics on the life of the legendary Genghis Khan, and the bloody battles, excellent cinematography and sprawling locations are very impressive. However, the first act of the film suffers from repetition and Asano Tadanobu’s practically saintly Genghis is a little hard to take. The utter anticlimax of an ending also makes Mongol hard to recommend. In Mongolian with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 120 min. The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski La Noche de los girasoles If you had plans to visit the lovely Spanish countryside for your summer holidays, you might reconsider after watching this grim and downbeat Hitchcockian Spanish art house thriller. A rape and murder in a rural town set up the Rashomonlike structure in which six characters are followed in six seperate chapters, with each chapter cleverly expanding the audience’s knowledge and deftly expanding our point of view. The depravity and dark view of human nature might be too much to stomach for the faint of heart, as every ounce of innocence is squeezed from the film throughout the two hours of running time. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 118 min. Kriterion

Paris This Altmanesque tale, written and directed by Cédric Klapisch (Chacun cherche son chat), is centred around a male dancer (Romain Duris) who needs a heart transplant and has to come to terms with his fear of death. But he’s the least interesting of the characters who drop by in this interwoven, matter-of-fact assortment of stories—one that, among other things, attempts to elevate ordinary street market workers to sex gods capable of reeling in the supermodels. The dreaded French cliché pops up time and time again, but a fairly uninteresting main character is about all that plagues this appealing Parisian slice of life. Juliette Binoche leads an excellent ensemble cast. In French with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 130 min. De Uitkijk

5 word movie review

Don’t Fuck With Uncle Joe Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, Melkweg Cinema

Savage Grace Julianne Moore is the perfect fit in yet another portrayal of a woman on the verge of a mental breakdown. In this tale based on real events in the lives of Brooks and Barbara Baekeland, director Tom Kalin specifically decided to focus on Barbara’s unhealthy relationship with her son. Moore immerses herself in her portrayal of beautiful Babs, who, having married far above her social and intellectual level, has turned into an affected, needy woman. The film could have done without the end titles informing us of the fate of Barbara’s equally twisted son, which underline the exploitative nature of the story and undermine the potency of the final shot. (BS) 96 min. Cinecenter, The Movies This Is England In Meantime (1983), Mike Leigh explored what might produce a skinhead in London’s East End. Harking back to the same year on the north coast of England, writer-director Shane Meadows builds on his own memories of what turned him into a skinhead, making his hero (Thomas Turgoose) a lonely outcast who’s recently lost his father in the Falklands war. The way this 12-year-old on summer holiday falls under the protective influence of first a relatively gentle gang leader (Joe Gilgun), then an ex-con more prone to rapid mood swings and racial hatred (Stephen Graham), is masterfully charted and acted, as are the boy’s early forays into sex. This 2006 film falters only when it drifts too predictably into a coming-of-age moral fable. (JR) 102 min. Studio K You Don’t Mess With the Zohan A battle-fatigued Israeli commando gives himself a makeover, assuming a new identity as a New York hairstylist. That’s more high-concept than most Adam Sandler comedies, with the star creating a distinctive character amid all the meshugas. Though a bunch of the jokes are milked too thin, there are some absurdly goofy sight gags—like a hacky sack game enlisting a family pet—and a lineup of fun, silly cameos by guests from Chris Rock to Mariah Carey. John Turturro and Rob Schneider play the hero’s inept Arab nemeses, but skinheads and greedy tycoons are the ones who really get bashed in this lightweight amiable parody. Sandler cowrote the screenplay with Robert Smigel and Judd Apatow, and Dennis Dugan directed. (AG) 113 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Edited by Massimo Benvegnù. This week’s films reviewed by Massimo Benvegnù (MB), Shyama Daryanani (SD), Angela Dress (AD), Kate Eaton (KE), Andrea Gronvall (AG), Luuk van Huët (LvH), JR Jones (JJ), Dave Kehr (DK), Iris Maher (IM), Marie-Claire Melzer (MM), Mike Peek (MP), Reece Pendleton (RP), Julie Phillips (JP), Gusta Reijnders (GR), Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR) and Bregtje Schudel (BS). All films are screened in English with Dutch subtitles unless otherwise noted. Amsterdam Weekly recommends.

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

AGENDA: FILM

ter, a brisk if anonymous talent, directed; Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas also star. Scripted by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama from the Eric Hodgins novel of the same name. 94 min. Filmmuseum

Special screenings As It Is in Heaven This Swedish import, directed by Kay Pollak, is a character study about shifting gears. Busy, well-known conductor Daniel Daréus (Michael Nyqvist) suffers a heart attack and decides to return to the slow-paced village where he grew up in northern Sweden. It isn’t long, however, before his quiet is disturbed and he becomes thoroughly immersed in questions of life and love. In Swedish with Dutch subtitles. 132 min. De Uitkijk

Nina’s Heavenly Delights Predictable piffle about Nina (Shelley Conn), a young Scotswoman of Indian descent who returns home for her father’s funeral and winds up in the middle of a ﬂap over the family restaurant. She finds romance, people break into spontaneous song and dance, valuable lessons about tolerance are learned, and the ﬁlm wallows in just about every cinematic cliché about ethnic food and passion. Directed by Pratibha Parmar; showing in the Gay & Lesbian Summer Tour. (RP) 96 min. Rialto

Before Night Falls Julian Schnabel directed this

2000 biopic about the gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas. Though the script answers only a fraction of the questions it raises, this is still an impressive piece of ﬁlm-making, with lively and suggestive depictions of pre- and postrevolutionary Cuba (shot in Mexico). Javier Bardem is truly exceptional as Arenas, and other actors make their marks as well, including Sean Penn, ﬁlm director Hector Babenco and Johnny Depp in an impressive double cameo. (JR) 125 min. Pathé De Munt

Charade A terriﬁcally entertaining 1963 comedy-

thriller by Stanley Donen. Audrey Hepburn, freshly and not unhappily widowed, is pursued by a gang of her late husband’s war buddies, who think she now possesses the money they stole in combat. Cary Grant appears to be her only ally, until he starts doing strange things, too—such as taking a shower with his clothes on. There’s a marvellous use of Paris locations, as you’d expect from the director of Funny Face. (DK) 113 min. Filmmuseum

Dutch Cocaine Factory There was a time (let’s

say, the 1920s) when this country took pride in having the best (legal) cocaine factory in the world. What happened? Who decided to ban the commerce of that deliciously hip cocaine wine? (Easy answer: think US of A.) And what happens now, when cocaine addicts are not only victims of acute paranoia, but have a few actual reasons to complain about how their lives are followed too closely by the government? This 2007 documentary by performance artist Jeanette Groenendaal received its world premiere at IDFA last year. In Dutch with English subtitles. 55 min. Het Ketelhuis

Faust In this 1994 version of the story of the man who sold his soul to the devil, Faust gets a hallucinatory treatment courtesy of Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, whose bizarre claymation puppets already populated a similar wild take on Alice in Wonderland. Here, Svankmajer mixes bits of Goethe, Marlowe and 19th-century German writer Christian Dietrich Grabbe with his own unique approach to the matter, which combines live action, animation and puppetry. The ﬁnal result is eye-popping, to say the least. In Czech with English subtitles. 97 min. De Nieuwe Anita

Die Fälscher Before you say ‘Life Is Beautiful’,

take a look at this gritty Holocaust comedy/drama (bizarrely enough, a genre with many entries), which

Must see:

Dutch Cocaine Factory Het Ketelhuis, Thursday-Sunday, Tuesday

just won best film at the Ghent Film Festival. The amazing Austrian character actor Karl Markovics shines as Salomon Sorowitsch, the leader of a pack of Jewish counterfeiters who get ‘hired’ by the Nazis to run a concentration camp devoted to printing foreign currency. The Germans’ plan is to destroy the world economy; the con men’s is merely to find a way to survive (and maybe get rich, too). Austrian writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky nails the perfect tone in adapting the book by Adolf Burger, based on real-life events, and gets away with a gem. In German with Dutch subtitles. (MB) 98 min. Pathé Tuschinski Giorni e nuvole Elsa (Margherita Buy) and Michele (Antonio Albanese) are a middle-aged couple with a beautiful house, a 20-year-old daughter and good friends. Elsa gently restores an ancient fresco and long-hidden angels appear. Out of the blue, Michele tells her that he has lost his job, whereupon the couple’s situation rapidly worsens. They have to sell their apartment; they start quarrelling about money. Director Silvio Soldini (Pane e Tulipani) shows us a strong woman again: after the first shock, Elsa makes the best of it while Michele lets himself go. But despite fine performances and a nice rhythm, this sober drama stays flat and unsurprising. In Italian with Dutch subtitles. (GR) 115 min. Pathé ArenA

His Girl Friday Rosalind Russell is a hard-headed

newspaper reporter, Cary Grant her unscrupulous boss in Howard Hawks’ 1939 ﬁlm. It’s more Russell’s picture than Grant’s, but nothing’s wrong with that. It’s got the classic screwball comedy formula—tough female lead, snappy dialogue—and it’s one of the greats. (JP) 92 min. Filmmuseum

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten Julien Temple directs this straightforward look at Joe Strummer’s life, from his unusual childhood growing up as the son of a British diplomatic family in Turkey, to his early music interests and later success as leader of seminal punk band The Clash. Celebrity fans lining up to tell their Clash tales in front of Temple’s camera include Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Matt Dillon, Johnny Depp, John Cusack and Steve Buscemi. Lots of previously unreleased footage (including some early band rehearsals with quite embarrassing musical results) will make fans happy. 123 min. Melkweg Cinema Let’s Get Lost During roughly the last year of jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker’s life, fashion and art photographer Bruce Weber, a passionate fan, followed Baker and his entourage with a film crew, interviewed some of his former wives and lovers, and came up with a black-and-white documentary (1989) that’s much more attentive to Baker as an emblem and icon—from a pretty boy of the early ’50s to a wasted junkie in the ’80s—than to his music, which is almost never heard except as dreamy background. A gripping and affecting film with a striking noirish look (well photographed by Jeff Preiss), but also a rather dumb one that’s both enhanced and limited by Weber’s pie-eyed adoration of his subject. (JR) 119 min. OT301 Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House Cary Grant’s power to redeem the thinnest material is amply demonstrated in this slight situation comedy about a city couple’s determination to build a suburban retreat, against all of the expected rural odds. HC Pot-

Come out, come out, wherever you are! Even Morgan Spurlock can’t find Osama. Or is it Obama?

Once Upon a Honeymoon Leo McCarey’s astonishing attempt to blend screwball comedy and wartime propaganda—even more astonishing because, by and large, it works. Ginger Rogers is an American gold digger who marries Nazi Walter Slezak on the eve of the war; it’s the job of radio correspondent Cary Grant to get her working for our side. Despite some windy passages, the film’s equation of true love and the US democratic ideal (when it still believed in one) is irresistible, quintessential McCarey. 117 min. Filmmuseum Once Upon a Time in the West Sergio Leone, famous for his spaghetti westerns shot in Spain, dared to invade John Ford’s own Monument Valley for this 1969 epic. He brought back a masterpiece, a film that expands his baroque, cartoonish style into genuine grandeur, weaving dozens of thematic variations and narrative arabesques around a classical western foundation myth. With Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson and Claudia Cardinale, and a timeless score by Ennio Morricone. (DK) 165 min. Kriterion Plata quemada (Burnt Money) Three Argentinean killers, two of them lovers (Eduardo Noriega and Leonardo Sbaraglia), hide out in Uruguay after a bank heist with a heavy body count and wait for false passports. Under the strain, things start to come apart. Marcelo Piñeyro’s slick, homoerotic 2000 thriller, set in 1965, aims to be as hot as possible; some might feel it succeeds, while others may be reminded of commercials for cologne. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (JR) 125 min. Rialto Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? Morgan Spurlock’s long-awaited follow-up to Super Size Me purports to be a search for Bin Laden, but in fact it’s just a jocular fact-finding tour of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The director travels around the world, seeks out worthwhile subjects, and puts himself at some risk to pose fairly dim questions, his effort culminating in a Pepsi Generation wrap-up that insists we all want the same things. The narrative emphasizes how much danger Spurlock is in and how noble he is to embark on all this while his wife is back in the US expecting their first child; it’s a little insulting to all the real reporters who’ve died in the field looking for hard information, not weak indie comedy. (JJ) 93 min. De Balie

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

FILM TIMES Thursday 28 August until Wednesday 3 September. Times are provided by cinemas and are subject to lastminute changes. Africa in the Picture Open Air, various locations see www.africainthepicture.nl Indigènes Thur 20.15 Zaïna, Cavalière De L'Atlas Sat 20.15. De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? Tues 19.30. Cinecenter Lijnbaansgracht 236, 623 6615 Elegy daily 16.15, 19.15, 21.45, Sun also 11.00, 13.30 Le Fils de l'épicier daily 16.30, 19.15, Sun also 14.00 Il y a longtemps que je t'aime daily 16.15, 19.00, 21.45, Sun also 11.00, 13.30 In Bruges daily 21.45, Sun also 11.00 Savage Grace daily 16.30, 19.30, 22.00, Sun also 11.15, 14.00. Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 Abeltje Sun, Wed 14.00 Alice in Cartoonland Sun, Wed 13.45 Charade Thur, Tues 19.30 El cielo, la tierra y la lluvia Sat 15.00, Sun 16.30, Mon 17.00 His Girl Friday Fri, Wed 19.30 Keane daily 21.30, Thur, Sat, Mon-Wed also 17.15 Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House Sat 19.30 North by Northwest Thur-Sun, Wed 16.45, Sat 14.15 Occident daily 21.45 Once Upon a Honeymoon Sun 19.30 De Schattenberg daily 19.15, Fri also 17.15 Suspicion Mon 19.30. Het Ketelhuis Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 684 0090 De Avonturen van het Molletje Sat, Sun, Wed 13.00 De brief voor de koning Thur 19.15, Fri-Tues 16.30, Sat, Sun, Wed 14.15 Dutch Cocaine Factory Thur-Sun, Tues 20.30 Hoe overleef ik mezelf Sat, Sun, Wed 13.15, 15.15 Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Thur-Tues 16.45, 21.30 Kung Fu Panda (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 12.45, 15.00 Mataharis Thur-Tues 17.15, 19.30, 21.45 De Staat van ontkenning Thur-Sun, Tues 19.00 Le Voyage du ballon rouge Fri-Sun, Tues 21.45. Kriterion Roetersstraat 170, 623 1708 Comandante daily 17.15 The Darjeeling Limited daily 19.30 Happy-Go-Lucky daily 17.00 Hellboy II: The Golden Army daily 17.30, 20.00, 22.15, Fri also 0.30 Into the Wild Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 22.00, Sat, Sun, Wed also 14.30 Julia daily 19.15 Lang leve de koningin Sat, Sun, Wed 14.45, Sun also 12.30 La Noche de los girasoles daily 21.45, Fri, Sat also 0.00 Once Upon a Time in the West Mon 22.00 Sneak Preview Tues 22.15 Wall-E (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 15.00, Sun also 13.00. Melkweg Cinema Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 624 1777 Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten Wed 19.00. The Movies Haarlemmerdijk 159-165, 638 6016 For ﬁlm times see www.themovies.nl De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512 Faust Mon 20.30. OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913 Let's Get Lost Tues 20.30. Pathé ArenA ArenA Boulevard 600, 0900 1458 The Accidental Husband Sat 22.45 Bangkok Dangerous daily 12.20, 14.40, 16.50, 19.10, 21.40, Sat also 23.55 De brief voor de koning Fri-Sun, Wed 11.30, 13.50 The Dark Knight (Imax) Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 11.20, 14.30, 17.40, 20.50, Sat 10.40, 13.50, 17.00, 20.20, 23.30 The Dark Knight daily 19.50, Thur, Mon, Tues also 13.30, 16.40, Sat also 23.00 Elegy daily 16.15, 21.10, Sat also 23.30 The Forbidden Kingdom daily 11.30, 16.20, 18.50, 21.20, Sat also 23.50 Get Smart daily 11.50, 14.15, 16.45, 19.20, Thur-Mon, Wed also 21.50, Sat also 0.15 Giorni e nuvole Tues 13.30 Hancock daily 14.00 Hellboy II: The Golden Army daily 11.40, 14.05, 16.30, 19.00, 21.30, Sat also 0.00 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull daily 15.20 Kung Fu Panda (NL) Fri-Sun, Wed 13.10, 15.30, Sat, Sun also 10.45 Mamma Mia! The Movie daily 17.50, 20.20, Thur, Mon, Tues also 13.10, 15.30 Meet Dave daily 12.00, 14.10, 16.10, 18.15, 20.15, 22.15, Sat, Sun also 10.00, Sat also 0.20 Midnight Meat Train daily 22.10, Sat also 0.05 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor daily 18.20, 21.00, Thur, Mon, Tues also 13.00, 15.40, Sat also 23.30 Nim's Eiland Sat, Sun, Wed 11.45, 14.05 Singh is Kinng daily 16.25, Thur, Mon, Tues also 13.15 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Star Wars: The Clone Wars Thur, Fri, Mon 11.45, 14.05, 18.40, Sat, Sun, Tues, Wed 18.55 Star Wars: The Clone Wars (NL) Fri-Sun, Wed 12.50, 15.10, 17.30, Sat, Sun also 10.30 The Strangers daily 21.45, Sat also 23.45 Superhero Movie daily 11.25, 13.20, 18.00, 20.00, 22.00, Sat also 0.10 Wall-E daily 13.40, 18.30, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 11.35, Sat, Sun also 11.20

AGENDA: FILM Wall-E (NL) Fri-Sun, Wed 13.45, 16.00, Fri, Wed also 11.30, Sat, Sun also 11.00 Wild Child daily 12.40, 15.00, 17.20, 19.40, Sat, Sun also 10.20 The X-Files: I Want to Believe daily 19.30 You Don't Mess With the Zohan daily 15.50, 20.40, Sat also 23.10. Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 21: Las Vegas Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.20, Sat also 19.40 The Accidental Husband Sat 23.00 Bangkok Dangerous daily 14.30, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 12.10, 19.30, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 17.00, Thur also 21.50, Fri, SunWed also 22.00, Sat also 12.00, 17.15, 20.00, 22.45 Before Night Falls Wed 21.00 De brief voor de koning Fri, Sun, Wed 12.40, Sun also 10.15, Sat 11.15, 13.45 The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Sat 13.00, Sun, Wed 13.20, Sun also 10.25 The Dark Knight Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 16.30, 20.00, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 21.00, Thur, Mon, Tues also 13.00, Sat 17.20, 20.45, 22.00 The Forbidden Kingdom Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.50, 15.45, 21.20, Sun also 10.20, Sat 11.30, 14.00, 16.50, 22.30 Get Smart Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.15, 21.15, Thur, Sun, Mon, Tues also 15.30, Thur, Mon, Tues 12.45, Sat 17.30, 20.15 Hancock Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.05, 16.50, 22.10, Sat 10.40, 12.50, 21.10, 23.35 Hellboy II: The Golden Army Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.15, 16.00, 18.45, Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon, Wed also 21.30, Tues also 21.45, Sat 12.15, 15.00, 17.45, 20.30, 23.15 Hoe overleef ik mezelf Sat 11.00, Sun, Wed 12.00 Kung Fu Panda Thur, Mon, Tues 15.00, Fri, Wed 17.40, Sat 18.00, 23.20, Sun 18.10 Kung Fu Panda (NL) Fri, Wed 15.00, Sat 10.15, 15.30, Sun 10.40, 13.10, 15.40 Mamma Mia! The Movie Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.15, 18.00, 20.45, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.30, Sat 16.30, 19.45, 22.15 Meet Dave Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 14.00, 16.15, 18.30, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 12.00, Sun also 11.45, Sat 10.15, 12.30, 14.45, 17.00, 19.30 Midnight Meat Train Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.10, 22.15, Sat 21.15, 23.30 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor Thur, Fri, SunWed 14.15, 19.20, Sat 15.20, 18.15 Sex and the City: The Movie Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.30, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 12.00, Thur, Mon, Tues also 17.15, Sat 12.20, 20.10 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Star Wars: The Clone Wars Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 14.20, Sat 13.30 Star Wars: The Clone Wars (NL) Fri, Sun, Wed 12.00, 14.10, Sat 10.20, 12.35, 14.50 Superhero Movie Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.30, 15.40, 17.45, Sun also 11.15, Sat 11.45, 14.15, 16.45, 19.00 Wall-E Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 16.40, 19.10, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.00, Sat 16.15, 19.15 Wall-E (NL) Fri, Wed 12.30, 15.30, Sat 10.30, 12.45, 15.10, Sun 10.40, 13.00 Wild Child Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 14.45, 17.30, 19.45, 22.05, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 12.20, Sun also 10.15, 12.30, Sat 10.45, 13.15, 15.45, 18.30, 21.00, 23.35 The X-Files: I Want to Believe daily 21.40 You Don't Mess With the Zohan Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 16.20, 19.00, Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon, Wed also 21.45, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.45, Sat 10.15, 16.00, 18.45, 21.30. Pathé Tuschinski Reguliersbreestraat 34, 0900 1458 De brief voor de koning Sat, Sun, Wed 13.00 Caos Calmo daily 16.15, 19.15 The Dark Knight Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 20.30, Thur-Sun, Tues also 16.30, Fri, Sat, Sun also 12.15, Mon also 13.30 Elegy daily 13.45, 21.45 Factory Girl daily 13.15, 21.30 Fireﬂies in the Garden daily 12.45 Die Fälscher Thur, Tues 13.30 Into the Wild Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 21.00 Mamma Mia! The Movie daily 15.30, Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed also 18.00, 20.45 Mongol daily 15.45, 18.30, 21.15, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.00 Sex and the City: The Movie daily 18.15 Then She Found Me daily 15.45 Vliegen naar de maan (3D) Wed 12.00, 15.30 Wall-E Thur-Sat, Mon, Tues 15.00, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.30, Fri-Sun, Tues, Wed 17.30 Wall-E (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 12.30, Sun, Wed also 15.00. Rialto Ceintuurbaan 338, 676 8700 Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens daily 21.30, Sat, Sun also 15.15 Caos Calmo daily 19.45, 22.00, Thur, Sat-Wed also 17.30 Cordero de Dios daily 21.00, Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 19.00 La Graine et le mulet Sat 16.00 Lemon Tree daily 17.00, 19.15 Nina's Heavenly Delights Fri 23.00, Sun 16.00 Plata quemada (Burnt Money) Sat 23.00, Sun 18.45. Studio K Timorplein 62, 692 0422 De brief voor de koning Fri-Mon, Wed 17.30, Sat, Sun, Wed 14.15 Finding Nemo (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 14.30 Happy-Go-Lucky Fri-Wed 19.45 In Bruges Fri-Wed 22.00 Mamma Mia! The Movie daily 17.45, 20.00 This Is England daily 22.15. De Uitkijk Prinsengracht 452, 623 7460 As It Is in Heaven Thur 20.00, Fri-Sun 21.30 Happy-Go-Lucky Fri-Wed 19.00 Paris Sun 14.30, Mon-Wed 21.30 Wall-E daily 17.00. Uitmarkt Open Air Lloyd Hotel Across the Universe Sat 21.45 The Party Fri 22.00.

Find all our listings online too. www.amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

FOOD / DRINK The Mouth

By Nanci Tangeman

A vacation De Griekse Taverna Hobbemakade 64-65, 671 7923 Open Tues-Thur, Sun 17.00-01.00, Fri-Sat 17.00-02.00 Cash, PIN I’m sulking. My pals are headed to a Greek Island in the morning. Partnerin-all-things-sunburned and I are headed to Rotterdam. Not that there’s anything wrong with Rotterdam; there’s just a lot less wrong with a Greek Island. Any Greek island. So, just for tonight, before we get on the train, we’ll fool ourselves into thinking we’re headed to black sands and azure waters. We bicycle straight to De Griekse Taverna. Technically, the location on Hobbemekade, across from a canal, could be beachfront. Just squint. And plug your ears. And ignore the temperature outside. As a matter of fact, the small tables in front of the restaurant are quite pleasant, but we head inside for a background of Greek music and the friendly attention of PiPi, the orange taverna cat. The ﬁrst thing we need to get into our mock vacation mood is a bottle of something. We order the Makedonikos rosé (€19). It’s cool and fresh and dry. Perfect for our pseudo beach holiday. Our waiter squeezes the squatty bottle into the iced cooling sleeve. I don’t know it yet, but I’m going to feel a lot like that bottle by the time we ﬁnish our meal. The reason: a tempting array of Greek mezedes, or appetizers, looming on the bar. Fifteen small plates are stacked on a giant tray (€4.80 per plate): dolmades (grape leaves stuffed with

rice); several dips such as hummus (chick peas) and tzatziki (yogurt, garlic and cucumber); artichokes; olives; calamari; Greek cheeses and pasta dishes... Thank God for imitation holidays—no worries about looking good in a genuine bikini the next morning. (As if I could.) Even so, Partner and I manage to restrain ourselves with the mezedes. First, we order a single plate with halfportions of two different spreads: the melitzanosalata (garlicky aubergine) and silvanasalata (mildly spicy red pepper and walnut). We tear through the soft, white bread and completely clean our plates. We order spanikopites (phyllo triangles filled with spinach and cheese). When they arrive, fresh from the oven, we bite straight into them, scalding our mouths. Flakes of pastry rain down onto our laps. You know how you always eat too much on holiday? Faux holidays are no exception. We could probably be happy just ordering mezedes, but instead we forge on to the main courses. I order the unpronounceable tsipoura sti schara, dorado with dill and lemon (€15.50). My whole dorado arrives, smiling up at me. He’s flaky, meaty and just the slightest bit salty. Perfect. No additional seasoning necessary. Partner’s aznaki ziganato, lamb with lemon and oregano, (€15.50) falls right off the bone. The gravy has a subtle, lemon taste. Well, at least our stomachs are officially on holiday—full, gurgling and happy. I look around. It’s just past nine and customers are beginning to fill up the small taverna. Everyone’s on Greek time. I’m thinking we should stick around until closing at 2am. Then, tomorrow, we’ll worry about catching that train to Rotterdam—and reality. ___

When they arrive, fresh from the oven, we bite into them, scalding our mouths. Flakes of pastry rain down onto our laps.

A night in the life...

By Sarah Gehrke

Vodka and subgenres De Buurvrouw Sint Pieterspoortsteeg 29 Open Sun-Thur 21.30-03.00, Fri-Sat 21.30-04.00 Cash only

It’s a Tuesday night, 9pm, and two girls are sitting at the end of the bar at De Buurvrouw. Otherwise the place is empty. They’re wearing jeans and hoodies, and big bags filled with books sit at their feet. They are talking about their studies. ‘So the Spanish teacher said that as a bachelor student, I was not allowed to bring my own conclusions into the paper.’ The two shake their heads in sad silence. They ﬁnish their beer, and then decide to move on to vodka. ‘Zubrowka and apple juice,’ says one of them. ‘It’s just a perfect match.’ The room is long, dark and narrow, with a pool table at the end and toilets behind it. On a shelf above the toilet doors there stands a plastic mannequin head, which is attached onto a record player and slowly turns around its own axis. This mannequin head sports a blonde bob—with little devil’s horns. The floor is sprinkled with sand. Above the front door,

Beer price: €2 for a vaasje (Grolsch). Emergency food: An assortment of nootjes. Special interior feature: On DJ nights, he stands on a little platform two metres high, so you can only see his legs and feet. Predominant shoe type: Fucked-up trainers. And fucked-up other sorts of shoes. Typically ordered drink: Vodka, in all its varieties. And beer, of course. Smoking situation: They have a smoking booth at one end of the bar. It fits up to six people and is pretty wellventilated. Tune of the night: Several, as this is a good-music kind of bar. Tune 1: ‘Debaser’ by the Pixies; tune 2: ‘Country Girl’ by Primal Scream; tune 3: ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’ by The Velvet Underground. Mingling factor: Depends on the time of night. State of toilets near closing time: Dark, red, filled with scribbled poetry and chlorine smell.

there’s a huge bust of a very angry woman made of painted papermaché—the buurvrouw, surely? The place is rapidly filling up. It’s getting louder and, it seems, darker as time passes. The girls are still on the vodka. ‘Apple juice?’ I hear someone say. A very tall, broad man has walked in and is now standing next to the vodka girls. He’s got a grey beard and is wearing a leather vest and a heavy metal t-shirt. On his head is a cap with the name of another metal band emblazoned on the front. ‘Apple juice? Are you serious?’ He then orders five vodka shots. ‘Two for you.’ He puts them in front of the girls. The other three shots are his. After a few more rounds of this, their conversation stalls—so one of the girls asks him: ‘So, what kind of music do you listen to?’ He ponders this. After a very long phase of consideration, he says: ‘metal.’ Then he goes to the toilet. The girls laugh. ‘Why the hell did it take him so long to answer that?’ says one. ‘I don’t know,’ says the other. ‘Probably he was going through all the subgenres in his head. Speed metal, melodic metal, thrash metal, death metal...’ ‘Yeah,’ says the first girl. ‘But then he didn’t consider us worthy enough to know them. What a shame.’ Then she turns to the barman and orders another five shots of vodka. ___

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

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TOMTOM CHERCHE DES FRANÇAIS! You have technical affinity and like to give customers remote support. You have excellent English communication skills and are committed for at least a year! Interested? Call 06-46190252 or immediately e-mail us your updated CV and cover letter: tomtom@asauitzendbureau.nl

national company? Please have a look at our website www.adamsrecruitment.com or send your CV to gabriela@adamsrecruitment.com

tunities for all levels of professionals seeking employment in: Finance, IT, CSR, Sales, Logistics, MarCom and HR in The Netherlands. Don’t wait – Apply now www.blueADAMS RECRUITMENT lynx.com Looking for a job in Customer GERMAN NATIVE Are you Service in an international a German native? Are you environment, with good looking for a fun job at a fun salary and benefits? Do you company in the centre of also speak fluent Swedish, Amsterdam? Do you have a Danish, Dutch, or the com- few hours per day, a few days binations (Spanish + Por- per week available? Then tuguese), (German + Ital- GUIDION might be able to ian) or (Spanish + Italian)? offer you the right job - €8 per Please send your CV to: hour. Interested? Send an gabriela@adamsrecruitemail to bmartens@guidment.com ion.nl (Barbara)

EXPERIENCED RUBBER ADAMS RECRUITMENT MAKER RoB Amsterdam is International company based currently seeking an Expein Lijnden is looking for rienced Rubber Maker to join Multilingual Sales Support our production team in AmsAdministrator (Dutch + terdam. Company informaEnglish are a must). Great tion can be found at career opportunities. Please www.rob.eu. Please send TOMTOM WANTS NATIVE send your CV to: details / CV to Martin via GERMAN SPEAKERS!You have technical affinity and like gabriela@adamsrecruitworkshop@rob.nl providing customer support. ment.com BOOKING.COM IS LOOK- You have excellent English ING FOR YOU!Join Europe’s communication and are avail- ADAMS RECRUITMENT International company in #1 Online Hotel Reservations able for at least a year! Inter- Amsterdam looking for qualCompany! Now Hiring for Sr. ested? Call Joost or Alessan- ified and experienced SpanGerman Credit Controller for our Local Amsterdam office. dra at 06-46190252 or asap e- ish translators. Interested? Previous Financial experi- mail us you CV + cover letter: Please send your CV to: gabriela@adamsrecruitence a +. Visit our website: tomtom@asauitzendbument.com Booking.com/jobs OR send reau.nl your CV to: work@Book- ADMIN ASSISTANT TEMP LOOKING FOR YOUR PA? ing.com Trompenaars Hampden- PA ONLINE BV recruits mulDO YOU ENJOY WRITING Turner, an international Man- tilingual PA's and Top SecreABOUT TOURISM? Book- agement Consultancy are taries in order to facilitate ing.com is looking for talent- urgently looking for a tem- you in your job and career. ed Native Romanian & Czech porary administrative assis- Please contact PA ONLINE Translators to work in our tant in our IT department. If BV at 0255 500048, info@paonAmsterdam office! Visit our you enjoy working in a small line.nl, www.paonline.nl website: Booking.com/jobs team, have good general IT OR send your CV to: and admin skills, please email ... YOUR NEW PA ??Our Perwork@Booking.com your CV in English to sonal Assistants are looking for you! PA Online recruits JUST LANDED? NO DUTCH jobs@thtconsulting.com very experienced multi linNEEDED! Join Europe’s ENGLISH SPEAKER I am market leader in Hotel Reser- looking for an english speak- gual Executive Assistants for vations. Italian, German, er to check/improve language both national and internaFrench, Turkish, Spanish of my master’s thesis. Will tional companies; short or Natives for Customer Service pay 10 EUR/hour. Please write long term contract. PA & Reservations Dept, Evening to michal.fraczek@hot- Online BV, www.paonline.nl, info@paonline.nl, +31 255 & Day Shift Available, Salary mail.com 500048. + 12% Monthly Bonus, Shift Premium Pay. Visit our web- UNDUTCHABLES AMS- BLUE LYNX – EMPLOYsite: Booking.com/jobs OR TERDAM Support Renewal MENT BY LANGUAGEYour send your CV to: work@Book- Administrators German, Sales Order Processing Com- established professional ing.com. missions Licensee Royalty recruitment partner for WANTED: DANISH NATIVE Treasury Business Accoun- English, Bi-lingual & multiSPEAKERS FOR TOMTOM! tants; Client & Progress Man- lingual employment opporWith technical affinity and ager; Austrian Native Speak- tunities. Let us get straight experience in customer er; CSR Native French and to work for your next excitsupport you are the person Dutch speaker Amster- ing opportunity! Register we look for. Good English dam@undutchables.nl or online now: www.bluelcommunication skills check www.undutchables.nl ynx.com and availability for at least a year are a must! Interested? ADAMS RECRUITMENT BLUE LYNX – EMPLOYCall 06-46190252/e-mail us The summer holidays are MENT BY LANGUAGE your updated CV: tom- over, are you looking for a English, Bi-lingual & multitom@asauitzendbureau.nl challenging job in an inter- lingual employment oppor-

Jobs Wanted

Housing Wanted

S.O.S. 1ST SEPTEMBER 2 people looking for a 2ble room or apartment or 2 rooms for rent on the same house. We need it from the 1st Sep to the 2nd October, but we are QUALIFIED NANNY Kind flexible. Pls contact Luisa on and responsible (Dutch) luisa.gonzalez.villalba@gmail student available all even- .com or 0642827542 ings and weekends to take FAMILY NEEDS A PLACE the best care of your We are a port/Germ.couple child(ren)E10, hourly. For with 5 year old son Elias more information, please call searching for 2-3 room apartment for max.850Euro inclu0624877895 WEEKEND ONLY Experi- sive.Please don’t hesitate and enced bookkeeper/text/legal offer; thanks a lot for your and finance, admin, PR offer- hints! KNOW CORAL DRAW? ing to work weekends or jennymaria1@gmail.com Familiar with Coral Draw to evenings. etc. Open and pos- ROOM WANTEDI’m looking finish a product label pro- itive. Call: 0655767491 or e- for a room near Rietveld Academie or in the center ject? This consists of adding mail for CV. text to existing templates JOBS WANTED Two Irish from 14th of September or and doing some formating to girls (mid-twenties), recent earlier. 06-57694601 maintain consistency with college grads seeking employ- STUDIO WANTED Looking the completed labels. Esti- ment. Responsible & hard- for a light room or an affordmate 20-30 hours to com- working. Can start ASAP. able studio in Amsterdam plete. ad@advancednutri- bigredspoon@gmail.com inside the ring. 33 and archients.eu ADMIN AND ITLooking for tect(max price for the studio AMERICAN APPAREL working in Amsterdam or 450EUR. Registration should AMSTERDAM is looking for surrounding area. Experi- be possible. Smaller renovafulltime sales associates enced in Admin and IT - Sarah tions to do are o.k. 0649272022 scherzer@gmail.com (38hrs). If you are passion- - 0681703464 ate about American Appar4 LOST SOULS IN ADAM 4 el and you feel that your perVU students desperatelly Housing for sonal style and customer serlooking for an apartment with Rent vice skills are perfect for our 3 bedrooms. Could pay up to retail environment, then we CENTRAL A'DAM.Jordaan. 1800 euro incl. No parents in would love to hear from you. Great Flatshare! Dble bdrm NL, no permanent work conMotivation and resume to for 1 person in a great 2 bed, tract, no home. All serious Jin@americanapparel.net 2 floor apt, sharing with me, and perfectly reliable. Will INTERNET RESEARCHER mid 30’s very easy going expat be getting scholarships and We are a global professional guy. Modern, fully furnished, working part time. Could live services firm looking for a w/less internet. Will suit anywhere in or around Aresearcher to perform inter- working, tidy, responsible dam. 0613097361 net business research on the person. €675 p/m incl. pls STUDENT NEEDS ROOM Middle East region. Fluen- send details about yourself Fine arts Rietveld student cy in English required, Knowl- ASAP to: jordaan1@hot- actually looking for a room edge of Arabic helpful. Please mail.co.uk (max 300Euro/m) (in flatsend CVs to skim@spencer- 3 ROOM FLAT FOR RENT share). Anywhere in Amsstuart.com. Very big apartment for rent terdam. Sixpack german beer HOTELS IN AMSTERDAM for 6 month from 28 septem- as reward! 0616651517 or Several vacancies in Ams- ber. Also possible to stay antiorgan@gmail.com terdam hotels. Reception- longer. 2 bedroom with FURNISHED STUDIOLookists, housekeeping, managers, balkony, big livingroom, ing for a furnished studio or front office supervisors...If kitchen. Near Centrum. Com- a small apartment for 6 you have some experience in pletly furnished for 1100 euro months, starting in Septemworking in hotels we might per month plus deposite. Only ber. I am a 24-year-old female have something for you. Dutch for couples. Call 06-30863286 student, non-smoker, calm is not always required, but it 6 BDR APT. IN A'DAMAvailis easier to find a job if you able 1st Oct 220sqm 3 floors speak Dutch. www.marza- furnished apt. Duivendrecht bal.dds.nl/recolo free parking near Ams AmsBABY SITTER We are looking for an English speaking babysitter for a 4.5 month old baby for a minimum of 2 days a week starting on September 22nd. If you are interested, please contact us on 06 21 42 1223.

More classifieds on www.amsterdamweekly.nl/classifieds

TILER I am a ceramic wall/floor tiler looking for work in Holland, specialise in bathrooms/kitchens etc. Call for a free quote - 0681703464 or daniel0679@hotmail.com

tel St. 1st flr 2bdrm apt. 105sqm; 2nd flr 3bdrm appt 71sqm & attic studio 44sqm. Ideal for family or sharing. Monthly 1890 excl bills 580,incl cleaning.For more info call 020-6994662 or email info@noahsark.nl

and reliable. Please contact (this is if you find us someme at aaleht@gmail.com. thing) pavelvanhouten@hotROOM WANTED 23yrs old mail.com German girl. I am going to stay here in Amsterdam for an internship till 31-01-2008. Nice, clean and friendly person. If you are thinking about me as your new flatmate, would be cool hearing from you! a-n-i-n-a@web.de 2 STUDENTEN ZOEKEN Wij zijn twee oostenrijkse studenten (vrouwen) en zoeken DRINGEND samen een woonplats in Amsterdam voor 6 manden (dit semester). Als je iets weet, alsjeblieft bel ons op, wij verheugen ons ook op tips! 0644805201 HOME AT LAST?Gay 33 year old Dutch guy. Looking for an apartment/studio to rent.I am in fulltime employment and am clean-honest and reliable. I can pay up to 650 euros (inclusive). Please contact me via e mail or telephone if you have or know of anything. johan.netten@hotmail.com 06 26262102 WANTED 1 BD FLATFemale professional, non-smoker, quiet and tidy, seeks 1 BD apartment (not a single room) in Amsterdam. Preferably close to AmsCS or in Centrum, Oost, de Pijp, Zuid. Long term (min. 1 year) from September, registration. Spreekt een beetje Nederlands. Contact at eeebbr@yahoo.com or 06 22 52 59 50. HOUSING WANTED Scottish couple looking for a room/apartment in the Amsterdam or surrounding area. Please contact Daniel/Sarah 0681703464 DRINGEND Austrian student (22 yrs), who wants to improve her Dutch, is looking for a room until Jan 08. Pls call 0644805201

STUDIO/DOUBLE ROOM Reliable mature working lady is seeking studio or double room to rent. Can pay maximo E450,00. Please contact 0634003351. SHORT TERM ROOM Furnished short term room needed for the month of September! I am a half Dutch half Filipina girl looking for a room of about 15 msq for a maximum of 600 euros per month. I am clean, international, social and respectful. Preferably in the centre of amsterdam. e-mail: s.duifhuizen@gmail.com

Shared Housing ROOM Moderne room with shower, tv and kitchen in moderne appartement 5 minuten from CS voor weekend or schort stay 0611246402 for info CENTRAL A'DAM.Jordaan. Great Flatshare! Dble bdrm for 1 person in a great 2 bed, 2 floor apt, sharing with me, mid 30’s very easy going expat guy. Modern, fully furnished, w/less internet. Will suit working, tidy, responsible person. €675 p/m incl. pls send details about yourself ASAP to: jordaan1@hotmail.co.uk

Other Spaces PHOTO STUDIO For amateur and professional photographers. Can also be used as meeting or gathering space. 100m2, €150/day. Possible to rent photo equipment. High ceilings, good, natural light and located on WG Plein, adjacent to Overtoom. For appointment and more info contact D.Ingel: 0628834224.

3 ROOM APARTMENT 2 For sale Young working students in SEX TOYS FOR BOYSLearn immediate search for 3 room apartment asap in Amster- all about the sex toys that do dam!!! REWARD: 150 Euro! it for the Boys! Gain expert

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Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

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WEEKLY CLASSIFIEDS knowledge and browse exclusive discounts while enjoying a cup of tea. WHEN? 11 september. From 11am till 7pm. WHERE? All-day event at the stylish MAIL & FEMALE Shop. Nw Vijzelstraat 2/ 0206233916 WWW.MAILFEMALE.COM

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on the topic, or get a life demonstration. WHEN? 25 September WHERE? An all day event at Mail & Female. Nwe Vijzelstraat 2/ 0206233916 WWW.MAILFEMALE.COM

Services

REMOVALS/TRANSPORT White van man offers the best service for any removals (big or small), deliveries and collections at affordable rates throughout Holland but also any other EU destination. Friendly,efficient and reliable. For more info check www.whitevanman.nl. Or call on: 0623882184. BUSINESS ADVICEAre you thinking about starting your own business? Do you have a company but administration and papers are not your thing? Do you need labour, to buy real estate or to move abroad? Call Tulipany on 0610218271 or check www.tulipany.nl. EROTIC MASSAGE INFO Improve your massage techniques by learning some erotic skills. Come and enjoy a free cup of tea and browse our specialised books and films

er Tongues (www.mothertongues.net) is looking for native speakers of English who translate from all languages to English. We do text translations, subtitling, copywriting, and editing work. If you have experience and are a native speaker of English, please respond to info@mothertongues.net.

ARE YOU RENOVATING? At Harlington House we manage the design, renovation and decoration of your home or office. We manage the project from the beginning and deal with all suppliers to make the process as smooth as possible and all in plain ENGLISH! For more details & contact info check www.harlingtonhouse.com

REMOVALS/TRANSPORT White Van Man offers the best service for any removals (big or small), deliveries and collections at affordable rates throughout Holland but also any other EU destination. Friendly, efficient and reliable. For more info check TOP HAIRCOLORIST Top www.whitevanman.nl or call haircolorist with more then 15 years of experience, now on: 0623882184 in a salon in the Pijp. HighNEED TO MOVE?VrachtVerlights, tints, creative color, huizer for fast removal, transcolorchanges. If i can’t do it, port & delivery. English /Dutch nobody can do it.I also do /German speaking. Also in the haircuts, and make-up. Please evening hours and weekends. get in contact with Daniel Service alreday from 35 Euro!! 0624137392 Call today and get removed the same day if needed. Health & 0615149164/www.vrachtverWellness huizer.nl

TAX & FINANCE Trying to get quality advice and save money at the same time? We are specialized in bookkeeping and taxes, and guide our relations through the entire business process. We work through a countrywide network with professionals who can help on each issue. Call us for RAAD! 06912217.

lessons & on-line & intensive KR Amsterdam. And browse courses all through the year. on-line at www.thievingNATIVE SPEAKER? Moth- magpie.nl.

PSYCHIC CONSULTANT Stop walking around in circles. The difficulties that you are experiencing are in reality your life’s lessons. Learn how to take positive advantage out of them! Interested? Learn more at www.martin-van-der-velde.nl

06-282 440 88 or email enced web designer builds info@rjnuiscounseling.com professional, unique sites for THE PATHWAYS with LAU- very reasonable prices. (FlyRA CATHERINE MARKS. er, poster and other print Transformational Sacred Psy- design available as well) chology, Holistic Wellness & Online links to past projects Detox, Integrative Healing, available. Contact Jordan: Supportive Counselling, 0630341238 Reflective Art Therapy, COMPUTER PROBLEMS? Sacred Circle, Living-Life Computer upgrade, hardRetreats, Dynamic Work- ware/software installation, shops. Individuals & Groups virus/spyware removal, data Welcome. Call 061.005.7806 recovery, network/wireless www.freewebs.com/thepsetup. No job too small, no athways repair no charge. Contact Michael 0614530493 EXPATRIATECOUNSELING offers professional Coaching, Counseling and Courses Therapy in English, Dutch, LEARN FRENCH AT MAIGerman, Spanish and Japanese. Longer hours, SON DESCARTES!Open day weekends and the best ser- of the French Institute on vice. For more information sept.6 from 11am to 7pm: free please visit www.expatriate- language tests and thematcounseling.com call 06-282 ic courses, exhibitions, new 440 88 or email info@expa- movie club, animations at triatecounseling.com Have the library, French buffet, guided tour…Complete proa wonderful day! gram on www.maisondescartes.com/020 531 9501.

INTERACTIVE TAROTcard readings for Inner Wellbeing. Spiritual insight on practical matters by Bhasha. Available for private sessions & events. Bhasha also gives readings in various restauHome rants - visit her there for a Improvement shorter version of her private readings. Check HOUSE PAINTER Do you www.tarotandyou.com or call need any painting doing? I do 0204000260 or 0641485880. walls, ceilings, doors, frames, radiators, pipes etc. No job HEALING TAO is a system too big or small! Flexible anyof exercises & meditations that can help you to enhance time to suit you. Call Mike your overall health & vitali- 0624229282 ty. Certified teacher offers basic course in English, Mon. evenings from Sept. 15 at Aurora Centrum, Amsterdam. Open lessons Sept. 4 & 8. Phone: 06-28625424. Email: info@ronfox.nl Web-site: www.ronfox.nl FACE YOUR FEARS NOW! How in charge do you feel of your life? Spend a weekend discovering new ways to feel effective, positive and in flow. For more information go to www.hibma-coaching.howi-became-me-again.com call

ACADEMIC ART CLASSES Drawing and painting classes for students wishing to improve their skills and portfolios, group(5 max), or individual. International Artist Bridget Busutil, PhD in Art History. 020 6162763. 0643576925 www.absolutearts.com/busutil

Computers

raphy such as composition, lighting, angle of view as well as how to work with different appertures and shutter speeds. Lessons (6x) take place at the ABC Treehouse, in the center of Amsterdam. First lesson: September 18th. More information: patricia@patriciaribas.com

ECSTASY OF THE HEART When Tantric techniques of meditation & awareness are woven into our experience of lovemaking we open our heart to a realm of intimacy that manifests as spiritual ecstasy. We discover that our sexMusic uality is a doorway to awakening. Oct 10-12 . A’dam . PIANO LESSONI offer piano www.chandrabindutantrainWRITER'S WORKSHOPS! lessons for any age! I’m a masstitute.com . 020-320 9585 The Master Class Series – ter’s degree piano stuworkshops designed to help BELLY DANCE CLASSES dent(Den Haag),winner of Beginners & Intermediate: you master your craft in ficinternational piano competion, publishing, poetry, nov- developing arm,shoulders,hips titions,previously studied in el, screenwriting, & more! & waist techniques & Isola- Salzburg and Paris...would Free open days: Aug 16 & 30 tions.Giving attention to find- love to inspire anyone, so at The English Bookshop. ing your centre,expression,& please do contact me if you Info: www.wordsinhere.com channelling your physical are interested! Anja impulses & energy. Using dif- (0681653462) TANTRA EXPERIENCEYou ferent Oriental rhythms & are invited to join Dawn dance phrases. Starting 05 PIANO LESSONSDoctorate Cartwright for an intimate Sep’08, please call 0642746470, in Music; Experienced with evening of conversation & all levels, all ages(6+)and linita90@hotmail.com direct experience as we most genres. Can travel. Reaexplore the dynamic spirisonable rates. References Languages tual path of Tantra. Sept 9th provided. Previously taught . 8 pm . De Roos Centrum WWW.LEARNDUTCH.COM in Chicago and New York. Voor Creatieve & Spirituele ! ! ! Dutch the natural way. Allan Segall. 020 698 0267; Groei . A’dam . www.chanOnline exercises. Interactive, 0628858484; AllanSegall@ drabindutantrainstitute.com. practical and hands on !!! infor- chello.nl; www.myspace.com 020-320 9585 /allansegall mation@learndutch.com. INTRO TO TANTRA You’re IMPROVE YOUR DUTCH! invited to join us for an expeThe Arts Private classes, small groups, rience that will change your intensive courses, conversa- THIEVING MAGPIE BOOKrelationship to sex & spirit tion, all levels, starting every STORE ‘Some books are forever. You will learn dynamweek, professional approach, undeservedly forgotten; none ic Tantric techniques which Vijzelgracht 53C, linktaal- are undeservedly rememmay be used to open your studio@gmail.com, call Anja bered.’—W. H. Auden, THE body & heart to the natural for more info 0641339323 DYER’S HAND. The Thievflow of sexual energy. Sept 1314 . A’dam . www.chandra- DUTCH COURSES New ing Magpie Bookstore, Eerste bindutantrainstitute.com . evening courses starting in Bloemdwarsstraat 15, 1016 020-320 9585 Sep., Centre of A’dam. € 200TANTRA EXPERIENCEYou 250 for 20 hrs. Visit www.merare invited to join Dawn cuurtaal.nl or call 693 4250.

DRAWING AND PAINTING Summer workshops by professional artist, various techniques, all styles, from scratch to painting with oils. Contact Cartwright for an intimate joneiselin@hetnet.nl. evening of conversation & WWW.LEARNDUTCH.COM direct experience as we ! ! ! Dutch the natural way. explore the dynamic spiriOnline exercises. Interactual path of Tantra. October tive, practical and hands on 7th . 8 pm . De Roos Centrum !!! information@learnVoor Creatieve & Spirituele dutch.com. UNIQUE WEB DESIGN Groei . A’dam . www.chanNeed a stunning website? PHOTOGRAPHY COURSE drabindutantrainstitute.com Have a low budget? Experi- Learn the basics of photog- . 020-320 9585 PC HOUSE DOCTOR PC HOUSE DOCTOR Specialise in virus/spyware removal, h/w, s/w repair, data recovery, wireless, cable/ADSL installation and computer lessons from friendly and experienced Microsoft professional for reasonable price. Contact Mario: 06 1644 8230.

Find what you are looking for: www.amsterdamweekly.nl

GEK OP TAAL(Crazy about Language) offers you a Dutchin-10-weeks-course. Drama, humour and music/songs combined Classes (small groups) start in September at VU University, Amsterdam (near WTC) www.gekoptaal.com or call Hans to apply or for more info 020-7757709 or 06-44664254

EXCELLENT DUTCH Proficiency in conversation with solid base of pronunciation, grammar & spelling/ BEGIN.GROUP Fri.3 Oct, 19.00-21.00,€12 ph/ INTERM.GROUP 12 Aug, Tues.19:00-21:00,€12 ph/small groups/www.excellentdutch.nl/ Also private

Groups & Clubs PARTY WITH THE BEST! Join the fun at www.DemocratsAbroad.nl the 51st state of the Democratic Party, with pub nights, issues, voting and more. REGISTER TO VOTE NOW! In person: Thursdays from 79pm at the American Book Center, Amsterdam Online: www.VoteFromAbroad.org More info: www.DemocratsAbroad.nl BABIES AND TODDLERS Bring your bored babies and toddlers (up to 4 years) to Robbeburg Playgroup, Jekerstraat 84, any weekday morning from 10 until 12. Sessions from 5 euros. www.robbeburg.com Space also available for children’s parties.

Personals NYLON FUNA tights/pantyhose/stockings wearing male (35) who would like to meet like minded men and women (21-40) for fun times and enjoyment. Genuine replies only please: amsterdam. nylons@gmail.com

Notices YOGA FESTIVAL BANGKOK Kundalini Yoga Festival Asia - Thailand. 18-23 Nov ’08 Level 2 Teacher Training KY-astaught-by Yogi Bhajan. 25-30 Nov ’08 Yoga Festival. Contacts: event-coordinator@ kundaliniyogathailand.org. www.kundaliniyogathailand.org, Call: 0623-737-442 (A’dam till 12 Sept’08) WHAT IS AN ESOTERIC SCHOOL? Human development: Is real change possible? Starting in September on Tuesday evenings at 8PM. Call: 0655583061 www.phoenixdynamics.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_28 August-3 September 2008

S E RV I C E