Amsterdam Weekly: Vol 5 Issue 48, 11-17 Dec 2008 by Amsterdam Weekly

Volume 5, Issue 48

11-17 DECEMBER 2008 Squirreling away the nuts

‘...locked in a jar for posterity.’ Page 9

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www.amsterdamweekly.nl

Nesting

Interiors Pages 7-9

FEATURE

FASHION

FILM

AGENDA

What if Queen Beatrix and her orange hordes took over Schiphol?

Hats are both handy and a perfect way to display your gentle manners.

Sure it’s Religulous but it can still break your freaking funny bone.

Master Drummers of Burundi, Pink Days and White Panther John Sinclair...

Page 5

Page 6

Page 17

Page 10 and onward...

grows fond of her when he discovers she sends money home to Turkey for her daughter. After Yeter’s sudden death Nejat travels to Istanbul to search for Yeter’s daughter Ayten. Political activist Ayten has fled the Turkish police and is already in Germany. She is befriended by a young woman, Lotte, who invites rebellious Ayten to stay in her home.

Sun. 14.12. Filmhuis Cavia 20.00 France 2007, 108 min, Jacques Nolot French, Dutch subtitles Although 60-year old ex-gigolo Pierre’s days are made up of routine, much of his time is actually spent in the company of other aging gay men, complaining about his languishing days past his prime.

bomb attack in the very heart of Madrid to prove Iñaki and ETA that he is worthy to join the band.

Thur. 18.12. De Uitkijk 19.30 Italy/Morocco 2007, 85 min, Kiff Kosoof Italian, English subtitles This interesting road movie is the story of two people with a Moroccan background living in Turin. He, Shakira, is a transsexual and tailor (woman), making the best dresses; She, Zina, is a young self-confident woman, who has to get married in a couple of weeks, but isn’t a virgin anymore.

Wed. 17.12. De Uitkijk 19.30 uur Taiwan 2007, 96 min, Zero Chou Mandarin, English subtitles The drifting flowers are three Taiwanese women: a child, a young girl and an old woman are seeking their true identity and their stories are artistically interwoven in a poetic narrative.

Sat. 13.12. Cinema de Balie 20.00 Fri. 19.12. Cinema de Balie 22.00 Thailand 2007, 110 min, Poj Arnon Thai, English subtitles

Sat. 13.12. De Uitkijk 19.30 Sat. 20.12. De Uitkijk 21.30 Spain 2005, 90 min, Chus Gutiérrez Spanish, English subtitles Madrid’s El Calentito is a hot spot where gays, lesbians, bisexuals, straights and everything in between enjoy the freedom of a freshly democratic Spain. That pansexual vibe and the punk rock bands appeal to teenager Sara who sees the nightclub as a refuge from her mother. One day lesbian Carmen and free-spirited Leo ask her to join their all-girl group Las Sioux.

From December 12 to 20 the twelfth edition of the Pink Film Days will take place in Cinema de Balie, the Public Library (OBA), Filmhuis Cavia and Filmtheater de Uitkijk, all in Amsterdam The Pink Film Days offer a special selection of features, shorts and documentaries for the entire community. All in all, the programme will be as diverse as our community is, so you should be able to find something to your liking... more programme information www.rozefilmdagen.nl

From the seedy underbelly of Bangkok comes this romantic crime action drama. Mhek is an assassin, a hired gunman for the mob. But something inside him stops him from killing police informer Ith, much to the chagrin of his bosses. The two men must flee, and a passionate love affair ensues.

USA 2006, 92 min, Tony Piccirillo English, Dutch subtitles Unfortunately, 24 days ago, Tom discovered that he is HIV positive, which he believes was contracted through his encounter with Dan. Dan swears that he has repeatedly tested negative, but this leads to an exciting but brutal game of cat-and-mouse that plays out in Tom’s apartment.

Sat. 13.12. Cinema de Balie 22.00 Fri.19.12. Filmhuis Cavia 20.00 English or with English subtitles, 86 min Butch, femme, drag, online dating, sex lessons and secret meetings are included in this collection of seducing shorts about finding the love of your life or a date from hell...

Fri. 19.12 Cinema de Balie 22.00

Sat. 13.12. OBA 19.30 Thur.18.12. OBA 19.30

USA 2005, 127 min, Thom Fitzgerald English, no subtitles In Montreal, a porn actor schemes to pass his mandatory blood test; a young nun makes a personal sacrifice for the benefit of a South African village; in rural China, a black market operative posing as a government-sanctioned blood drawer jeopardizes an entire village’s safety.

UK 2008, 94 min, Tim Fywell English, Dutch subtitles This delicious period piece, based on Sarah Waters’ 1999 novel of the same name, is a women-in-prison movie with a gothic Victorian twist. Margaret goes to Millbank Prison as a ‘Lady Visitor’. Nothing is what it seems as Margaret becomes smitten with Selina, an attractive young convict.

Canada 2007, 90 min, Laurie Lynd English, no subtitles This heartwarming movie tells the story of Sam en Ed who are in a long-term relationship. Sam is a former ice-hockey player whose career as a sports presenter is threatened by the sudden appearance of Ed’s sissy nephew. Scot is a very flamboyant boy with his own style in clothing and his preference for musicals above sport is a challenge in this macho household.

France/Canada 2006, 105 min, Dai Sijie Mandarin, Dutch subtitles! Against the backdrop of lush greenery and steam coming off the river, An and Min discover their passion for each other. Because lesbian love is forbidden in China, the young women try to hide their love and concoct a plan in the hope that they can continue to live together in the garden.

Wed. 17. 12. Cinema de Balie 20.00 Sat. 20.12. Cinema de Balie 20.00 Spain 2007, 93 min, Juan Flahn Spanish, English subtitles Victor is a real estate agent in the quickly gentrifying neighborhood of Chueca in Madrid. But he hides a terrible secret; his apartments become available for sale when he murders the elderly women owners and disguises them as ‘suicides’. The latest victim’s apartment is next door to gay couple Ray and Leo. Soon the neighborhood of Chueca is brimming with comic mishaps, sexy seductions and more murders!

Sun.14.12. OBA 19.30 Fri. 19.12. Cinema de Balie 20.00

Thur. 18.12. De Uitkijk 21.30

English or with English subtitles, 86 min A collection of hot shorts about one night stands, cruising, fetishism, exhibitionism, dating zombies, unavailable lovers, steamy widows, out door sex and so much more...

Germany/Turkey 2007, 122 min, Fatih Akin German, Turkish and English, Dutch subtitles! Nejat seems disapproving about his widower father Ali’s choice of prostitute Yeter for a live-in girlfriend. But he

Spain 2006, 98 min, Juan Carlos Claver Spanish, English subtitles

Mon. 15.12. OBA 19.30 Thur. 18.12.Cinema de Balie 22.00

Mon. 15.12 De Uitkijk 19.30 Fri. 19.12. De Uitkijk 21.30

Sat. 13.12. Filmhuis Cavia 20.00

Sat. 13. 12. Cinema de Balie 20.00

Spain 2007, 80 min, Antonio Hens Spanish, English subtitles Three teenagers break out of a juvenile detention center. Their cute and charismatic leader, Xabi, tries to find his mentor and lover Iñaki, a mid-age ETA terrorist. But Iñaki is missing. Xabi decides to hold on to his dream. He plans a

Powerful and moving drama set in Franco’s Spain of the early 1970s, two female teachers, Pilar and Elvira, fall deeply in love. Pilar’s parents blame Elvira and try to separate the two lovers. They have Pilar forcibly committed and agreeing to electroshock therapy to ‘cure’ her condition.

Tue. 26.12. Cinema de Balie 22.00 Germany 2007, 100 min, Ingo Rasper German, Dutch subtitled The Zenkers look like the perfect small town family. But things go downhill as father Wolfgang, a travelling fashion salesman, loses his driving license and forces his son Karsten to drive him around the German countryside. More peril comes from the big city when young hotshot Steven starts selling his much more modern fashion on father’s turf. To top it all off Karsten falls madly in love with Steven...

Thur.18.12. Filmhuis Cavia 22.00 USA 2007, 106 min, Jaymes Thompson English, no subtitles You know you’re in trouble when the owner of a gay-friendly B&B is secretly an evangelical Republican, with a shrine to Karl Rove and a big butcher knife… Add to this an assorted bag of guests ranging from a retiring Mr. Leather and his drag diva boyfriend to artsy coffee-house dykes, and you’re in for a very campy slasher-movie. Who will survive?

Mon. 15.12. Cinema de Balie 22.00 English or with English subtitles, 103 min

FRIDAY 12 DECEMBER

SATURDAY 13 DECEMBER

SUNDAY 14 DECEMBER

MONDAY 15 DECEMBER

TUESDAY 16 DECEMBER

19.30 Were The World Mine

19.30 Affinity

19:30 Clandestinos

19:30 Breakfast with Scot

19:30 Picture of Dorian Gray

BALIE 1

20.00 Bangkok Love Story 22:00 Schooljongens 1 – Boys will be Boys

20.00 Made in Holland: The Dykes Edition 22:00 The Weird and the Wonderful

BALIE 2

20:00 Electroshock 22:00 Adventures in Dating: Women

20:00 Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon 22:00 The World Unseen

20:00 Solos 22:00 Global Men

20:00 Thriller Night 22:00 Triple X Selects: Best of Lezploitation

UITKIJK

19:30 El Calentito 21:30 Infamous

19:30 XXY

19:30 The Chinese Botanist’s Daughter

19:30 Love my life

CAVIA

20:00 24th Day 22:00 Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in all the World

20:00 Avant Que J’Oublie 22:00 Pansy Division

OBA

OBA - CENTRALE BIBLIOTHEEK ODE

Theater van ’t Woord (7th floor) Oosterdokskade 143

1011 DL Amsterdam 020-5230801

www.oba.nl

CINEMA DE BALIE

20.00 Pot-pourri Populaire 22:00 Fashion Victims

Kleine Gartmanplantsoen 10 (Leidseplein)

1017 RR Amsterdam 020 5535100

www.debalie.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

In this issue and...

European Newspaper Awards 2008

Welcome to our nesting&interiors issue where we mash up design wunderkind Marcel Wanders with cuddle junkie Dikke Dennis. So what do they have in common? Nothing. Though they are both based in the Jordaan. And while Dikke Dennis ﬁts in nice with Amsterdam’s past as a diverse and funky town, Marcel Wanders will probably clean up during the continued polishing of the Wallen—his tight designs go very well with sushi thank you very much.

Features Inbox Soya is murder . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Nature Calls Big trees . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 News Bangkok/Schiphol. . . . . . . . . . . 5 Amstergraph Moroccans . . . . . . . . . 5 A Quick Bike Fix Swarming . . . . . . 5 Street Fashion Hats . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Report Cardboard bed . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The People Versus Da Costa . . . . . . 6 Main features Nesting&interiors. . . 7 3 Questions The Sultans of Ping . . 13 Film Review Religulous . . . . . . . . . . 17

Agenda Short List 10 / Music 11 / Clubs 12 / Gay & Lesbian 13 / Stage 14 / Events 14 / Art 15 / Addresses 16 / Film 17 / Film Times 19

Plus The Mouth Cristophè. . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Night in the Life Katoen. . . . . . . . . 20 Classiﬁeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Lamelos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Fokke & Sukke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

On the cover Photos by Regina Kelaita www.reginakelaita.com

Next week Looking back, looking forward.

Amsterdam Weekly won three European Newspaper Awards 2008: two for four covers (Volume 5, Issues 8, 11, 26 and 30) and one for the concept ‘Unf*ck us’/‘For Sale’ (as represented by the full issues Volume 5, 13 and 15). Yippee!

Contact Amsterdam Weekly Publisher Yuval Sigler Director Todd Savage Editor Steve Korver Assistant Editor Steven McCarron Copy Editors Mark Wedin, Corbin Collins Film Editor Massimo Benvegnù Editorial Assistants Sarah Gehrke, Colin Delaney, Jessica Hartman Editorial Intern Kim de Jong . Art Department Mattijs Arts, Russell Joyce, Karen Willey, Art Director Kallen Yan Design Interns Floor Bijkersma, Renata Sifrar

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

Account Managers Randy Abels, Maikel Bouricius, Ulrica Carlsson, Marc Devèze, Kate Hutchinson, Azam Malik Sales Intern Eva van Gerven

least two weeks in advance. New contributors are

Distribution Manager Patrick van der Klugt Distribution Intern Coby Babani Finance Eugene Moriarty

tributor guidelines. Contents of Amsterdam Weekly

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’s-Gravenhekje 1A, 1011 TG Amsterdam 020 522 5200 020 620 1666 General info: info@amsterdamweekly.nl Agenda: agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl Advertising: sales@amsterdamweekly.nl www.amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

AROUND TOWN

Inbox

Goodluck NL Submitted by: Romano Dos Date: Zaterdag 29 November 2008 21.25 Subject: Thieves in AMS

Nature calling By Mark Wedin

I will never ever visit your country again. I got robbed of all my documents at the airport, while wearing my pilot uniform. It took me 15 days to get documents to re-enter the US again. The surveillance cameras at the train ticket station do not work. This all happened 10 metres from the airport police station. Meanwhile the line of people reporting robberies in front of a very rude ofﬁcer was longer than one to any tourist attraction. I have been in Nigeria and never felt as threatened as in Amsterdam.

‘Culture’ vs ‘Nature’

I felt compelled to respond to Floris Dogterom’s column about the so-called ‘uncivilised’ practice of human omnivorism. The meat industry is certainly not without its extremely troubling elements, and indeed a diet heavy in meat is neither necessary for health, nor sustainable. And let us not forget fish, many species of which are rapidly being consumed to extinction. I also agree with him about the hypocrisy of meat being divorced from its origins and presented sanitised and shrink wrapped. However, the real beef I had with Dogterom’s argument is his moralist tone. Meat consumption is not inherently ‘uncivilised’. I do not think that it is ‘illogical’ to be an animal lover and an omnivore. To use a clichéd example, look at the indigenous communities of the US, often considered the archetypal conservationists. Before European settlement, they coexisted harmoniously with their environment, and with great respect for animals, yet they ate them too. Were they immoral hypocrites? It is true that with the state of the global meat industry, anyone who is at all informed must adopt a ﬂexible attitude in order to participate in such a system. Eating meat is not wrong per se, but our attitudes do need to change. Meat should be considered a luxury, and priced accordingly. It should be produced humanely, on a smaller, more local scale. Eating ‘less meat’ (as it was phrased in the key quote in Dogterom’s article, not ‘no meat’) is unquestionably better for the environment—just consider how much grain it takes to feed one pig in its lifetime, then consider how many people could be fed by that grain compared to the number fed by that one pig. The imbalance in the equation is clear. With conditions as they are now, I have much respect for people opting out of such a system. But this brings me to soy, and the tagline ‘Save the planet. Eat Tofu’. Catchy it may be, but it’s misleading. Soy production to supply the growing trend for vegetarian ‘health food’ in the West is leading to serious environmental and social problems in many of the poorer (and most bio-diverse) parts of the world, including the Amazon rainforest. For information on the trouble with soy, check out www.aseed.net. The ‘separate worlds’—as Dogterom puts it—of animals and people is, to my thinking, a false dichotomy. It was in thinking that humans—‘culture’, ‘civilisation’— are so separate from ‘nature’ that led to the disconnection and exploitation of the planet that has brought us to where we are today. Let’s not repeat the same mistake in our attempts to rectify the problem. Got an opinion? We want to hear it. inbox@amsterdamweekly.nl

Illustration by Kelly Young

Submitted by: Zoe Goldstein Date: Maandag 8 December 2008 15.57 Subject: Save the planet, yes. But with tofu?

Not so plain trees No one can say exactly when, but around 1865 the fattest trees in town were first planted in Leidse Bosje. Of course, back then, being mere saplings, they didn’t boast much girth. But their roots were strong and they held firmly to their spot in the ground. Until about 60 years later, in 1925, when officials decided that the bridge at Leidseplein had to be widened. With a set of ropes and a lot of muscle power, the young sexagenarians were pulled, fully upright, with their roots and a large clump of earth intact, a few metres south, where they remain today. You might expect this small grouping of platanus trees (AKA plane trees, plataan or sycamore), the two largest being roughly six and a half metres in circumference, to be highly sought after eye candy among the city’s scenery. Yet, housed in a relatively tiny section of green, and with noisy Leidseplein on one side, and trams and traffic whizzing by on the other, it’s surprisingly easy to pass them by without giving a second glance. Surprising because the only trees in town that come close to their size—there’s another old plane tree in Oosterpark, and the black poplars (zwarte populieren) around Vondelpark are almost as large—are located in properly spacious parks. The plane trees at Leidse Bosje, however, win the prize for widest love handles and do so in one of the smallest so-called parks. They may not be as old as many of the buildings or bridges around town, but they’re truly a living piece of Amsterdam’s history—a piece that,

even without the aid of formerly (sob!) legal mushrooms, seems to swell with life before your eyes. At least that’s how they appeared to me the other night, walking past them during one of the light snowfalls we’ve had of late. At this particular time of night, with a soft coating of snow on the city turning all the volume levels down, these large trees stood magnificent. It was maybe the best time to take in their massive presence. In the past, I had often been distracted by a ‘bilboard’ selling women’s thongs, or charmed by the little sculpted figure standing on one of the platanus’s sturdy branches, sawing for eternity the very same branch he’s standing on; or on Queen’s day, I was easily entertained by the egg-throw-in-the-face contest, just in front of the largest of the plane trees. But at this moment, the trees seemed to beam with a silent intensity, without extra frame or filler, while snow melted in streams down their trunks, reminiscent of younger years when their bark would peel off in magical jagged patterns. They’ll be like this for a couple more months, dormant and bare of leaves, but very alive. Special thanks to Hans Kaljee, bomenconsulent. Got nature tips? naturecalls@amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

International travel

AROUND TOWN

By Miles Roston

WHAT IF SCHIPHOL WERE TAKEN? How to take over an international airport non-violently. A report from Bangkok. On Tuesday, 26 November, this Amsterdammer became one of over 300,000 travellers in Thailand caught in the nonviolent crossfire when anti-government protestors seized Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Hundreds of thousands of men and women marched on the airport, under the banner of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) —an ironic name since the party advocates more power for the monarchy. Wearing the royal yellow shirts of their king, they quickly set up camp, took over the control tower, stopping all ﬂights, and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat. Before the siege, it would have been inconceivable to imagine orange-clad Dutch royalists taking over Schiphol Airport in the name of Queen Beatrix, halting not only tourism to the Netherlands but also international air traffic. But that was what happened in Thailand, where King Bhumibol, the longest-reigning monarch in the world, and the wealthiest, according to Forbes Magazine, turned 81 on 5 December. His picture can be seen everywhere in Thailand, on every road and in the majority of Too good to be true.

homes. But the PAD claimed he was not revered enough by the previous populist Thaksin government, which was overthrown in a military coup in 2006. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was found guilty of corruption this year, yet his party was still re-elected. When even more corruption was found in the party, Thaksin’s brother-inlaw Somchai Wongsawat was appointed the new head of state, attracting further ire from the royalists. In August, they stormed Government House and held it for four months. The ‘ﬁnal battle’ was to be the taking of the airport. Once it was seized, they quickly moved in cooking supplies and tents on buses, meeting virtually no resistance. They also erected yellow signs proclaiming ‘We are sorry for any inconvenience’. But such apologies aside, who could afford to camp out at Government House for four months and the airport for a week? Who could afford to let the tourism industry, which is a major part of Thailand’s economy, be damaged by their political passions? Could it really be the urban middle class, as was widely reported? The many Thais I spoke to disagreed

Illustration by Kelly Young

with this. They claimed that some, if not many, of the protestors were paid 500 baht (€13) a day to be there. My source at the public broadcaster NBT claimed that some were indeed paid, as did several eyewitnesses who saw them at Government House. I myself saw workers dressed in yellow driving by motorbike to the capital; young people who were certainly not the urban elite. So who could afford to stage such a protest? The leader of the PAD is Sondhi Limthongkhul, a media mogul who owns television station ASTV and the Manager Daily newspaper, which he also uses as a political platform. A former supporter of Thaksin, Sondhi allegedly received loan forgiveness from his allies in the government when he was bankrupt, Sondhi is now claiming to be the protector of the monarchy. ‘We are the musketeers of the king and the queen’, he has said. While the king is revered, discussion of him is also feared, as any insult is punishable by 20 years in prison. Still, the official at NBT told me that it’s understood that the royal family was behind the PAD movement, and that it may even indicate a split between the king and queen, as the big issue is the king’s successor. It is rumoured the queen is pushing that agenda. At the moment, it is the rather unpopular prince, thought to be somewhat violent, as opposed to his calm and thoughtful father. On 2 December, the Constitutional Court accomplished what the protestors couldn’t, even after a week at both international and domestic Bangkok airports: it ruled that there had been voter fraud and ordered the prime minister to step down. This opened the way for the PAD to ﬁnally leave the airports. But what is the price of this airport party? For an economy already in trouble, it is additional strain. It’s estimated that damage to the tourism and related industries will be in the region of 100 billion baht (€2.5 million), and over a million jobs will be lost; Thai Airways is suing the PAD for billions of baht in lost revenue; and millions will have to be spent restoring the airport and Government House. Although there were reports that the airports would be fully operational by 5 December, travellers are still stranded. I was able to leave by booking a ticket (at my Thai agent’s suggestion) through a Malaysian agent and checking in at a convention centre which the resourceful Thais had adapted to deal with the crisis. From there, I was bussed to the military airport, with the police escort’s siren shrieking ahead of us. But even here, I saw few flights take off; and in Kuala Lumpur, Doha and London, ﬂights to Bangkok were still being cancelled. Will tourists return? I certainly will. Over the 20 years I’ve been visiting this beautiful, friendly country, there have been many coups. But a country that cannot secure its own airport from unarmed protestors may make quite a few Amsterdammers and travellers from other countries think twice. If only the PAD and their backers had thought twice before inflicting what the Asian Human Rights Commission call their ‘fascist qualities’ on the rest of the people of the ___ Land of Smiles.

Google this...

‘“Grote schoonmaak” Wallen hot news in buitenland.’ Amstergraph % of Amsterdamers with a negative image of

Dutch-Moroccans 2006 - 45% / 2007 - 41% / 2008 - 32% Source: De Amsterdamse Burgermonitor 2008

Graph by Nicole Martens

A quick bike ﬁx By Pete Jordan

Swarming Recently, on the Saturday afternoon before pakjesavond, I suggested to my three-yearold that we visit Sinterklaas at De Bijenkorf. The boy wasn’t enthused but, knowing this little adventure would entail eating peper-noten, he consented. Initially, I tried to leave my bike on the Dam. But it was too crowded. In 1954, an Amsterdam civil servant, complaining that a fietsenstalling was going unused in the centre, grumbled, ‘People much prefer to set their bikes on the Dam in immense numbers.’ He could have just as well been talking about this day. Except when I tried to dump my bike at the Beursplein fietsenstalling, the sign read ‘VOL’. So I wheeled my bike back to the Dam where I found a small clearing to park it. Inside the department store, madness reigned. We couldn’t even get near Sint. With all the jostling, I got claustrophobic and panicked. ‘Wanna get out of here?’ I asked the boy. ‘First,’ he replied, ‘pepernoten.’ He found a Zwarte Piet who willingly filled his coat pockets with cookies. Outside, the little clearing where my bike stood was no longer clear. I had to move aside half a dozen other bikes just to reach my own. But by the time I got the boy situated on his seat, we were walled in. And worse, more bikes—swarming like bees in front of the beehive building—continued to arrive. We were trapped and I was dumbfounded. Then my boy held his hand out to me. ‘Pepernoten?’ he offered. I took a few, popped one in my mouth and accepted our fate. React: bikes@amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

AROUND TOWN

The people versus...

Street fashion

By Floris Dogterom

By Mo Veld

It’s all on the head

Grousing as a lifestyle Willem Frederik Hermans, one of the biggest names in post-war Dutch literature, who died in 1995, famously said: ‘I grew up in a neighbourhood where the streets were named after rightly forgotten 19th-century writers.’ In the 1930s Hermans lived in OudWest, on Eerste Helmersstraat. Indeed, today hardly anyone can be bothered to read the sentimental domineespoëzie (minister’s poetry) of Jan Frederik Helmers, Jan Pieter Heye or Jan Jakob Lodewijk ten Kate. In the case of Isaäc da Costa that’s a bit of a shame. The Amsterdam poet and historian, who managed to have a street, a quay and a square named after him, ﬁts quite well in the ranks of those who usually inhabit this column, in that he complained a lot. In his most famous pamphlet Bezwaren tegen de geest der Eeuw (Objections against the spirit of the century), from 1823, Da Costa doesn’t so much rise up in arms against planned roads through parks or noise pollution in residential areas (like modern-day Amsterdammers do in ‘The people versus...’), as he does against society as a whole. That makes for an amusing read. Amusing, because if Da Costa’s booklet proves one thing, it must be that everythingused-to-be-better-in-the-old-days yammering is of all times. Based on the assumption that the country is going to the dogs because reason, under the unholy inﬂuence of the Enlightment philosophers, has taken the place of the fear of God, Da Costa discusses the state of social phenomena like religion, morality, art, science and education. ‘What happened to the education of the youth?’ he sighs. Later, he’s sorry to say that the modern-day teaching methods will have destructive and catastrophic consequences for Dutch society. Read contemporary letters to the editor about the state of our school system (usually by bitter retired teachers) and you’ll have to conclude that Da Costa is, in fact, sooo 21st century. Or that the letter-to-the-editor writers are very 19th century, for that matter. Isaäc da Costa may have been a famous poet who was born to a well-to-do bankers’ family. But to me he’s just a representative of that ineradicable race of people, the infamous Amsterdam kankeraars. This city wouldn’t be the same without their grousing. And in my book, that is deserving of at least a street, a quay and a square. Something to report? thepeopleversus@amsterdamweekly.nl

It happens all the time. In the rush of getting around this city by bike, I spot some character with a headturning look. I always feel rather frustrated because I want to be stopped in my tracks, but traffic just ushers me on. While the subject lingers in my mind like a freeze frame, I have to decide within seconds whether I’ll hit the brakes to make that risky U-turn. Such was the case with this gentleman, who was strolling along as I crossed a busy street. It was the perfect artist-bohemian ensemble of the heavily used ‘vintage worker blue’ suit matched with those extra layers, loafers and that stylish Humphrey Bogart hat. The particular shade of blue is another chapter, but the hat really turned me on this time. Once we parted by exchanging business cards, my style catch turned out to be a music composer which made perfect fashion sense to me but also added that little extra something to the occasion. Women in hats are great, but when men wear a good hat, there’s no way to get around them. They literally leave no open end. Their package is sealed, they’re topped off head to toe. A hat simply pulls a man together. Yet, and despite our climate and the wide array of smart hats in secondhand or specialty stores, the hat is barely part of our dress culture. Why?

Keeping the body temperature nicely ‘under the hat’, and wind and rain out of the eyes, hats are the perfect answer to our weather. Maybe it’s because men are secretly worried about the effect of hats on their hairdos, or maybe—and this seems more likely—a hat makes them feel overdressed. After all, it doesn’t take much to feel overdressed in this town. Yet hats come in plenty of casual styles. It doesn’t have to be a fancy wide-rimmed moleskin Borsalino. There are wonderful Harris Tweed driver caps and walking hats with that unshakeable English countryside feel, or endless varieties of the classic fedora if you’re more of a downtown cat. Above all, the hat is a perfect way to display your gentle manners, since it has this whole protocol on when and how to take it off, and better yet, tipping it upon meeting a woman. After some queries I concluded Photo by Mo Veld that the main reason we decide to leave the hat at home is that same damn bike that keeps us from having true encounters with our city’s more unexpected delights. Style tip: take a walk! React: inandout@amsterdamweekly.nl

Exterior interiors

By Isabel Serval

Ever wonder what it feels like to sleep under a cardboard box but never had the urge to curl up beside one of the homeless by Centraal Station? Well, Le Clochard looks like cardboard, but keeps you warm and, even better, helps homeless youth escape the cold winter nights. Forty per cent of the price of Le Clochard bedclothes goes to Stichting Zwerfjongeren Nederland (Homeless Youth Netherlands), a foundation that provides aid to needy youngsters between 13 and 25-years-old. Under the name of SNURK Beddengoed and after ﬁnding a ‘good cardboard box to photograph’, Peggy van Neer and Erik van Loo launched their bedclothes line a year and a half ago and have since sold over 5000. Van Loo says most people are not aware of the great number of homeless youths in this country. The government recently confirmed that, according to their research, there are at least 6000 homeless youths in the Netherlands. ‘This is an invisible societal problem and government aid isn’t sufﬁcient,’ says Van Loo. ‘Only one out of ten young homeless get shelter, and I haven’t even started about mental support and debt relief.’ For Van Loo and designer and partner Van Neer, Le Clochard is a way to raise awareness as well as directly help

young people off the streets. So far they have raised €30,000 for young Dutch homeless. ‘In the beginning we invested directly in small projects. We just rang and asked what they needed,’ says Van Loo. They bought bicycles for a youth centre in Groningen because bus passes were too expensive, got computers for projects in Haarlem and Os, and even fully furnished a home for teenage mothers in Enschede. Le Clochard is sold in 20 shops nationally as well as in Spain and Belgium. Van Loon and Van Neer would gladly expand further. ‘We’ll be in The New York Times this month and it would be great if that led us to help New York kids as well.’ This March, SNURK will launch a new design: sheets printed with street tiles. ‘We’re looking for a good set of tiles in Amsterdam now—they’re not all suitable, you know.’ The Pakistani manufacturers have guaranteed child labour- free working conditions, so SNURK says: snuggle up between our cardboard boxes and tiles and keep needy youth off the streets. Good night and sleep sweet.

A REALLY GOOD BLANKET WITH STREET CRED

More info: www.leclochard.com

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

F E AT U R E

tien Valentijn. ‘It’s good for Amsarcel Wanders is a smart terdam and its designers to have man. While I was cycling a place like Westerhuis which to Westerhuis, his new serves as a meeting point for the creative hub on Westerstraat, creative industry.’ large, sharp snowflakes blowing While those inside the Westinto my face no matter which way erhuis are happy to be there, I turned, he was swanning around most of the locals outside of the Miami, having just opened the building also seem to be pleased Mondrian South Beach Hotel, with the new tenants. Mare Bohwhich he designed, to internationlander, from the Art District al acclaim. gallery, located on the MarnixHeading to sunny Florida in straat side of Westerstraat, says the dead of winter, however, is By Liz Farsaci that having the Westerhuis on not the only bright idea Wanders her end of the street means a lot has had recently. Buying the to her, as many people don’t travWesterhuis and renting it out to el far enough to reach her gallery. other creative types wasn’t such The Westerhuis, however, will a bad one either. bring arty types down her way, The 5500 square metre Westshe hopes, and Wanders will erhuis, built in 1867, and bought bring a touch of class to the area. last year by Wanders and Aedes Arno Schurfeld, who estabReal Estate, used to be a school lished his design and vintage until it was closed down five interior shop Anno on the Westyears ago. Stadsdeel Centrum laterstraat more than 12 years ago, er put the building up for public also believes that the Westerhuis tender, and 13 organisations will be good for him and the expressed their interest. The street. ‘The Westerhuis will make stadsdeel eventually chose Wanthis area even more famous,’ he ders, believing that his project says, ‘and, by extension, it will be would enhance the creativity for good for my shop, and maybe for which the Jordaan is already Amsterdam as a whole. I’m posifamous. tive of it. For the street, it’s good The award-winning designer to have such a landmark as the Wanders wants Westerhuis to be Westerhuis—it will make the a ‘flagship for art and cultural area come alive and will give it enterprise and a great impulse more atmosphere. The Jordaan is for the creative industry in the famous for its creativity, and I inner city.’ He promises that ‘the hope that the Westerhuis will building will be buzzing with creattract even more creative peoativity’. ple here. Perhaps the designers Wanders called on creative there will eventually look for types to join him at the Westerbuildings on this street or in the huis, and the building officially neighbourhood to rent as galre-opened two weeks ago. Now, 16 leries or shops.’ people and organisations—includAnnelien Sinke, who works ing designers, marketing, adverat Cafe ’t Monumentje just along tising and photography agencies, from the Westerhuis, says Wanthe Vondelpark Openlucht Theders’ project will fit in well with ater, Anouk’s management team the neighbourhood, because of and others—call it home, along the nearby galleries. However, with Wanders, who has his studio having lots of new people workthere. Moooi, the label that Waning there will not affect the bar ders established in 2000, has a too much, she says, as most of large showcase room on the the customers there are reguground ﬂoor. lars—she guesses that the chic Furniture designer Roel-Jan people whom the Westerhuis will Elsinga is one of the people who attract will probably head to a answered Wanders’ call. ‘Being Photo by Regina Kelaita more stylish bar up the road. part of a prestigious project like Erhan Turan, from De Zagerij this gives me extra motivation to across from the Westerhuis, says do my utmost, and make myself it has created business for the and my relations proud,’ he says, bar, with people now working adding that being at the Westerthere crossing the road to eat huis, alongside organisations and drink. CJP, one of the new from the design world and other tenants, even hosted a party at creative industries, helps him to the bar a couple of months ago. network and make important However, Turan says that connections. while he knows what’s going on ‘At Westerhuis, I’m not hidin the Westerhuis now, many of the people who live in the area don’t exactly know den in a warehouse at the edge of the city, but I am in the centre of a city, where what’s happening inside the building and feel there’s been a lack of communication. creativity is also needed,’ he adds. ‘Designers and creatives in general have to be a Turan suggests that perhaps Wanders could make some flyers explaining what is part of society, as they design and create for society. Westerhuis is a creative going on and distribute them throughout the neighbourhood. presence, making professional creatives and everyone else aware that the creative So, Wanders may need to communicate a bit more with his neighbours—and he industry is driving, and in a way leading, part of Amsterdam and Dutch culture.’ may not be able to bring the tropical Miami weather back to Amsterdam—but he just The fact that a world-class designer like Marcel Wanders likes to base himself in the might be able to bring a bit more creativity, business and style to Westerstraat. Jordaan solidifies the special cultural significance of this central neighbourhood.’ Colorline also has a studio in Westerhuis, where they installed and showcase more than 1200 square metres of the breath-taking, colourful carpets from their World More info: Westerhuis, Westerstraat 187 Carpets line, which Wanders designed. www.westerhuisamsterdam.nl ‘For us, [being in the Westerhuis] is a great opportunity to show interior architects www.marcelwanders.com and other interested people the possibilities of design carpets,’ says Colorline’s Mar-

OPENING DOORS TO CREATIVITY Westerhuis: a new cultural hub in the Jordaan.

‘At Westerhuis, I’m not hidden in a warehouse at the edge of the city, but I am in the centre of a city, where creativity is also needed.’

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

F E AT U R E

facilities, including soon to be here’s a building on developed indoor parking space— Herengracht where, until facilities you pay extra for when recently, grachtengordel you use them. To compare: a 2007 paupers stood in the dole report done by Amsterdam’s ecoqueue. Now it’s creative and comnomic department on the city’s mercial companies doing both the small business spaces says the then queuing and the doling out of monaverage price of €183 per m2 is ey to enter the building, vying to be worryingly high. Still, Spaces’ part of a new office concept called emphasis on communality does Spaces. The freelancers’ desks that help limit the size and thus price of are an integral part of the basic the individual offices on the first to ‘there’s room for everyone’ idea By Rebecca Wilson fourth floor. somehow prove to be less popular, Those not in advertising may however, with more than half still still be able to afford the indepenavailable. But still the grand foyer is dent spaces on the much quieter a definite selling point. fifth floor. For €350/month you get The ground floor of Spaces is a desk and a locker for three days one big open area. Anyone who each week—€450 for five. Keuning rents an office or a desk in the says she has so far rented out building gets to hang out in this about ten of the 20-odd desks avail‘social area’ or hold business able, but no freelancers appear meetings. The interior is stylish during this visit. The empty waste yet accessible, combining light paper baskets, magazine racks and wood with orange, design classics notice boards certainly don’t indiand multicoloured cacti. The seatcate any recent occupation. The ing options range from secluded view of the west of the city, framed booths to cafe-style tables, to a by Wester- and Noorderkerk, can’t pillowed zitkuil. But the feature be the problem. Maybe it’s the that blows people away is the desks. Surrounded by ‘fun’ picnic glass roof. London-based interior tables, potted plants, sofas and the designer Sevil Peach has raised unavoidable cacti, they’re still just the roof beam to the very top of plain white desks in a rigid set up, the building, flooding this indoor looking slightly out of place. patio with natural light. In contrast, downstairs, Peter ‘The design should appeal to Wijtvliet (29) and Matthijs Wink (29) everyone,’ says Frederique Keunhave set up their laptops in the busiing, who founded Spaces with ness area, happily working on their Martijn Roordink. Many people web design. Well, web application should feel at home in the social really. Why aren’t they renting a area, says Keuning who aims for a desk upstairs? Because they’re busy vibe. She believes people ‘members’. This gives them unlimitthrive in dynamic, pleasant sured access to the whole downstairs roundings; it’s the energy brought area for just €100/month. on by a great variety of Spaces ‘We prefer to sit down here,’ inhabitants interacting that is supexplains Wijtvliet. ‘We like to interposed to set Spaces apart from act a lot, with each other and with other office concepts. The more others. You can’t really do that traditional Regus for example, or upstairs.’ It looks like they’ve found the recently opened Westerhuis a loophole in the Spaces concept. [see feature, p.9], aimed more at ‘The only drawback is we spend too creatives. much on coffee.’ But speedy access ‘I don’t want just creatives, I to the expensive but excellent cofbelieve in crossbreeding,’ Keuning fee shop is another advantage the says. ‘That’s why we’ve selected difground floor has over the fifth. ferent kinds of companies for the Another member who’s using offices—we don’t want it to be all the social area as an office is Martiadvertising and web designers. jn Meeuwsen (22), who’s starting There’s telecommunications and a out as an interior designer. Design sound studio, too.’ Photo by Regina Kelaita wise, he’s all for Spaces’ ScandinaAnd real estate, represented vian vibe. ‘I’m not the type to sit by 27-year-old Gershon of D&R behind a desk,’ he says. ‘I like to be Invest, who is perusing the Teleamong people.’ Martijn likes disgraaf at the reading table, cussing private work-related issues preferring not to give his last on the phone among people as name. His company has been here well, it later transpires. since the opening in August, with Maybe if you’re a freelancer the commercial real estate positively inclined towards futurisinvestor moving for the location. tic office concepts, you want to go ‘The builders were still all over all the way. Why pay for a white desk far away from the social hub, where you can’t eat and the place, but it’s much better than our former place in Zuidoost.’ He enjoys being have to keep quiet, when for less than a third of the price you can have coffee, gezelligheid around the people in Spaces, too, though, ‘most here are in advertising or web design.’ and inventive seating arrangements? It’s a quiet day. The only crossbreeding to be done is with Jitta Beijlsmit (32), who Rembrandt Smids is one of the elusive freelancers. His business card is one of the only works for a company specialising in interactive banners. Yes, a combination of advertwo stuck on a locker upstairs. He owns a young company, Brandwebbing. Guess what two tising and web design. She loves the location, the overall atmosphere and the social disciplines it combines. So can he think of any advantages of the desks for hire? ‘Well,’ he aspect of the place. There’s only thing she can think of that might improve Spaces: ‘A says on the phone, ‘they’re quite good if you plan on actually getting some work done.’ smoking area would be nice.’ Beijlsmit probably isn’t responsible for paying the monthly rent—it starts at a hefty More info at: €235 per m2 per month. For this you get a communal receptionist and access to variwww.officespaces.nl ous meeting rooms, in-house catering, in-house climate neutral printing and other

SPACES TO LET

A new ofﬁce concept on Herengracht is built upon the idea of interaction. But where are the freelancers?

He enjoys being around the people in Spaces, too, though, ‘most here are in advertising or web design.’

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

F E AT U R E

‘This is my home. For now. f you don’t remember him, Sure I would like a normal house you haven’t met him. Dikke again at some point, but that’s not Dennis’ presence is undenieasy. I was born in Amsterdam able, and not only because of but can’t get a place. Yeah, for fifhis formidable and entirely tattooed teen hundred euros a month I belly. His sprawling personality could live right around the corner, expands to fill any space. but I’m not spending that kind of He’s a tattoo artist. But he money. I can’t buy anything, also tours the country as guest because I don’t own anything. All singer and general mascot/guru this is my ex-wife’s. I don’t even for Peter Pan Speedrock, the officially get paid. When I need Great Dutch Hope of dirty ass money I just take some.’ By Jaro Renout rock ‘n’ roll. And, as a bekende Yes, Dennis has ambivalent Nederlander of sorts, Dennis has feelings towards modern society. developed a sideline of starring ‘You know, I want no part of it. In as himself in commercials. fact I don’t really exist. I tried to His 18-year-old shop in De Jorget my passport renewed, but daan is legendary. There’s always they wouldn’t give me one unless I something going on, and it doesn’t explained my whereabouts for the always have to do with tattoos. last five years. “Right here,” I told Let’s just say the place attracts them. But on what income? I said: some of the more colourful protag“Nothing. I’m a drug addict and onists of the great urban circus we I’m fed by my mum.” They didn’t call Amsterdam. In fact, this small believe me. Shit, I even told them: tattoo parlour boasts more stories “Hey, what do you know? You than the Great Pyramid and, for don’t know my mum.”’ better or worse, they’re all true. However, Dennis’ parents Located on a street that has been don’t really understand his renamed with a fake board reading lifestyle. ‘They were very young ‘Dikke Dennisstraat’, the shop is when I was born and their generaeasy to recognise since it’s the only tion was all about working and one that doesn’t sell itself in any rebuilding the country after the way—despite having a unique sellwar. I don’t know where my sense ing point, who sits inside, dressed of humour derives from, but it in a pair of comfy sport trousers sure as shit didn’t come from and nothing else, playing a dice them. My mum’s name is Rietje game on the computer. There’s a [which besides being a girl’s name look of contempt on his face. also means ‘a straw’ in Dutch], so I ‘I bought this thing only six once told her: “Funny name, Rietmonths ago. My first ever. I really je. You can fuck it, drink through it don’t want all that crap, but it’s and snort through it.” Swear to getting harder to order stuff withGod, she didn’t even think that out the internet. But I plan to keep was funny.’ away from all that communication When it all boils down, life bullshit for as long as I can. Don’t ain’t too bad for the wicked have a mobile phone and don’t though. ‘I just need to get away want one. I’m not that mobile. I’m from the whole charade once in a here if you need me. Telephone’s while. And that Peter Pan right there.’ Speedrock thing propelled me Dennis lives in the shop, into another world, in a way. You which is filled with artifacts makknow, when you’re young and you ing Dr Caligari’s cabinet of see those bands in Paradiso? horrors seem like small potatoes: That’s what you want! And when I snakes and embryos in formaldewas on stage, like at the Lowlands hyde, plastic tattooed arms, a festival, I was Mick fucking Jagsmall bottle of Hitler beer, and his ger. But you know, in the morning, prized collection of personal you’re just another Keith Richards cocaine boogers, locked in a jar Photos by Regina Kelaita in desperate need of drugs.’ for posterity. Looking at the seemFor a moment the philosophiingly hard brown mouldy content cal side of Dikke Dennis gets the it’s hard to imagine that it ever better of him: ‘I’ve been thinking came out of anybody’s interior. of moving to Eindhoven. No seri‘That stuff just falls out of my nose ously, people in the south are for sometimes,’ Dennis says cheerfulreal. Here, you have a shitload of ly. ‘I’ve been saving it up for a bluffers and bullshitters. Everywhile now.’ Mad scientists everybody’s got a big mouth, but when where must be extremely jealous. it comes down to it...’ He pauses He sleeps in a kind of upgradbefore saying, ‘You wouldn’t ed crawlspace right under the believe how much money people floorboards. It’s kind of cosy, and owe me. the hustle and bustle upstairs ‘On the other hand, this is my city. I belong here. Once the police came to me for a doesn’t seem to disturb him when he’s sleeping in. friendly neighbourhood chat until after a while I asked them to leave because my dealer ‘The water would have to reach my lips before I wake up. I’m a tight sleeper. Been was getting nervous, driving his car up and down the street.’ He smiles and snorts a lusliving here for eight years now. I used to have a regular house but they kicked me out. cious line. ‘They left. Only in Amsterdam, my friend.’ That was so weird. I was three months behind in rent, so they sent me a letter with a trial date. I immediately paid the whole damn thing but then one day they showed up on my doorstep: “Hello, we’ve come to evict you.” I was flabbergasted and asked if I More info at: owed them any money. “No, but you didn’t go to the trial, so the judge annulled your www.dikkedennis.nl rent contract.” So I just gave them the keys. Fuck that.

THE NEST OF DIKKE DENNIS

Tattoo artist and big-bellied icon takes us down into his lair of horrors.

Dennis lives in the shop, which is ﬁlled with artifacts making Dr Caligari’s cabinet of horrors seem like small potatoes: snakes and embryos in formaldehyde, plastic tattooed arms...

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

AGENDA

SHORT LIST

Simon Gay Zombie, Roze Filmdagen, from Friday, various locations.

THURSDAY11 DECEMBER Art: Kustaa Saksi’s ‘The Heroes’ This month heroics are taken to epic psychedelia in the form of Kustaa Saksi’s ‘The Heroes’. On show at Maxalot Gallery’s new Amsterdam HQ (until recently home to the sadly departed CD shop Boudisque) are Saksi’s series of wartime heroes— computer-generated 3D busts that could well be Lewis Carroll’s Matrixian offspring—brand-new laser-cut landscapes and a preview of the artist’s retrospective book. The sweetly audacious sand bottle-like illustrations are likely to resonate. Saksi’s work has appeared in Wallpaper, Playboy, The New York Times, Husky Rescue album artwork, and his roster of clients includes Issey Miyake, Comme des Garçons and JLo. The odyssey seems to have just begun for this young 30ish Fin who cites Jell-O mouse cartons as his earliest inspiration. Visit the opening this evening. (Karina Hof) Boudisque, 18.00-22.00.

Books: John Sinclair He’s a grey-bearded granddaddy now, but the trip goes on for Amsterdam’s John Sinclair. Before poetry slams, gonzo journalism, Change, Keep Hope Alive and all the rest, there was Sinclair—-a ’60s Midwest revolutionary poet, journalist and serious thorn in the ass—-kicking out a radical vision for a different, better America. He led the White Panther movement (change, ‘by any means necessary’), managed Detroit’s ‘rock and revolution’ band the MC-5, published books of ‘get off your fanny and change the world’ poems; wrote lovingly about jazz and blues for outfits like OffBeat and Playboy. He’s survived jail (weed), FBI harassment, fame, house fire and wanderlust. Need a Gospel Hummingbirds, Coltrane or Sonny Boy fix? Sinclair, for a long, beautiful ride in the ’90s, was New Orleans’s most beloved DJ, but is now a part of the Radio Free Amsterdam family, podcasting world radio from here, his adopted home. There’s all of this and more in the 2007 documentary: TWENTY TO LIFE: The Life and Times of John Sinclair, or you can catch the man himself tonight reading from his two new books, HEADPRESS 28 and IT’S ALL GOOD: A John Sinclair Reader. (Michael Martin) Waterstones, 19.30, free.

FRIDAY12 DECEMBER World: Master Drummers of Burundi I don’t know if the Master Drummers of Burundi are the ur-source for all those drumming circles that form whenever enough groovies and dreadlocks congregate in parks and beaches and such, but they are certainly among the tradition’s most febrile expressions. With origins deep in the royal history of their African homeland, the 12-man troupe—ofﬁcially ‘Les Maîtres Tambours du Burundi’-–combine thunderous percussion, singing and hyperacrobatic dance to forge theatrical rituals of irresistible power. Raucous and joyous, this will make the Western show Stomp seem like a game of paddy-cake. (Steve Schneider) Tropentheater, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €23.

Gay & Lesbian: Roze Filmdagen You can’t have missed the intriguing promo posters for this year’s Roze Filmadagen, depicting table legs and plant pots. Yep, poten and potten, Dutch slang for gays and lesbians. Also make sure not to miss this year’s edition, as it’s choc-a-bloc with fun, dramatic and sexy flicks. The festival kicks off with Were the World Mine, about a young Timothy suffering from his homophobic classmates until his role in the school’s adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream turns nearly the entire town gay, with unexpected consequences. Then there’s ‘Mine’, a short movie from Amsterdam-based director Aneta Lesnikovska, part of Made in Holland: The Dykes Edition. Also interesting is Wrangler, which follows the remarkable career and life story of Jack Wrangler, from gay porn star to stage director and songwriter. For full listings and locations, see www.rozefilmdagen.nl. (Willem de Blaauw) Various times and locations, €5-€8. Until 20 December.

SUNDAY14 DECEMBER Event: Forum Amsterdam Yeah yeah, things are bad. We got it. The ﬁnancial crisis and the environment and everything going to hell. Insensible people might get bored hearing about it all weren’t it so terrible. On top of it all, immigration and integration and non-integration problems have been ruminated even more. Time to look on the bright side. Forum Amsterdam means a day of highlighting the economical advantages of a city which has people of 176 different nationalities living inside it. Subtitled ‘The secret of…’, the event gives several Amsterdam bigshots from all corners a platform to talk about their success, and the city’s. There’s Ajax team leader David Endt, architect Jan Benthem, Red Cross director Liselotte de Koning, Diversion founder Kai Pattipiholy and many other people who have done well, plus some music, plus some One Minutes. Oh joy! (Sarah Gehrke) Felix Meritis, 15.00, €5; register at receptie@felix.meritis.nl.

MONDAY15 DECEMBER Rock: The Dirtbombs Detroit Rock City. The former car manufacturing capital has been home to many musical things: Motown, Iggy and the Stooges, MC-5 (see John Sinclair Short List to the left), The White Stripes… And while soulful garage-rocking Dirtbombs describe their influences as Wire, Pere Ubu, Mission of Burma, The Swell Maps and ‘with a big nod to glam rock’, they are more like channelers of their city’s musical forbears. Regardless, if you want grit and spirit, search no further. Hell, they even have two drummers and two bassists. And unlike Detroit’s car manufacturers, they’re fiercely independent: they’ll be bailing themselves out of the credit crisis. (Steve Korver) Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.00, €10 + membership.

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

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

MUSIC

AGENDA: MUSIC Must see: Contemporary Music

Thursday 11 December Electro rock: Glass Candy This week at Noodlanding, Portland’s Glass Candy land in the main hall with their ’80s-heavy electro-pop: cheesy keyboards, breathy female singer, fashionable fanbase. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 0.30, €10 Electronica/Jazz: Red Snapper Blending jazz, rock, drum & bass, trip-hop and more, Red Snapper drew critical acclaim and comparisons to Massive Attack in the ’90s. Playing Melkweg for the second time this year they’ve returned with mini album A Pale Blue Dot. A ticket to Red Snapper will also get you into Blue Note Trip at 23.30. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 01.00, €8 Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Performing the Dutch premiere of both Salonen’s Piano Concerto and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, with Esa-Pekka Salonen himself conducting and Yefim Bronfman on piano. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €20/€40 Singer-songwriter: Ben Kweller Swaying between idiosyncratic indie-folk tunes and alt-country numbers Ben Kweller’s character allows him to make something catchy from nothing in particular. Support by Carrick. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 20.30, €12 + membership Jazz: Dutch Jazz Meeting The first of a three day celebration/showcase of the best the Netherlands has to offer from every corner of the jazz world. Tonight catch Starvinsky Orkestar, Paulien van Schaik, Michael Moore’s Fragile and Wouter Hamel. Bimhuis, 20.30, €16 Classical: Nieuw Ensemble Celebrating the contributions to music by American composer, and as of today centenarian, Elliott Carter—still alive and composing—day one of a three-day festival sees the Nieuw Ensemble play his work along side pieces by Holliger, Kurtág and Platz. One hundred, that’s a lot of candles. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €25 Rock: The Black Angels Dark psychedelic rockers from Texas, The Black Angels summon the spirit of Charles Manson on peyote. They might be disappointed arriving in town just after the mushie ban. Still, it’s a heavy trip, man. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.30, sold out Latin/Jazz: The Mighty Sparrow The Calypso King of the World, The Mighty Sparrow has been making hips shake since he was 14, back in 1949. Still pushing on, the singer/guitarist born Slinger Francisco (what, that wasn’t a cool enough name?) grew up in Trinidad and now resides in New York but will bring the Caribbean and some warmth to town. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €17 + membership Hiphop: The Game When he’s not feuding with every other rapper on the planet or getting arrested, The Game makes a mean hiphop record. This year’s L.A.X is no different with the likes of Kanye West, Ice Cube, Common, Nas, Lil Wayne, Ludacris and more coming to help out. The Game says it’s his last. We’ve heard that before. Support by Clyde Carson and NJD. Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, €32 + membership World: Popcast live Don’t be frightened by the tag ‘world’ music. This week at Popcast live Bernie’s Lounge blends Afrolatin, Balkan, Brazilian and straight up funk. It’s about getting the dance-floor moving and the crowd sweaty. Sugar Factory, 21.30, €7.50 Electro rock: Northern Lite German electro-rock outfit conjuring moments of Depeche Mode and The Faint, just with a deeper voice. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.30, €8 + membership

Friday 12 December Classical: Angela Brownridge A child prodigy, pianist Angela Brownridge has been performing on the concert platform since she was 14. Tonight she performs a range of classics; Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy and Scriabin. Concertgebouw, Koorzaal, 20.15, €29.50 World: Marmoucha Offerfeest The sounds of Morroco come to Paradiso with Adbderrahim Souiri, Haj Abdelmoghit and Karima Skalli. The first part of the programme will be seated, but for the second part, feel free to get up and shake it. Dress code: evening dress. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €20/€23

Photo by Philippe Gontier

Arditti Quartet Muziekgebouw, Saturday 13 December In the third day of ‘Carterpalooza’, Muziekgebouw’s celebrations of American composer Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday, this internationally renowned contemporary quartet, who’ve had a long relationship with Carter, will perform three of his ﬁnest string quartets along with Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet. 20.30, €23

Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Salonen and Stravinsky. See Thursday. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €20/€40

Oliver Zwarg, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest performs Mexican composer Mauricio Kagel’s Sankt-Bach-Passion. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 14.15, €25/€29.50

Classical: AskolSchönberg Continuing the birthday celebrations for American composer Elliott Carter, conducted by Emilio Pomárico, expect Birthday Flourish (conveniently), Asko Concerto and Reﬂections plus Blue Cliffs by Lopez. Muziekgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €25

Rock: Golden Earring Showing a stubbornness to not let up, The Hague’s Golden Earring roll on 47 years after they formed, rivaling the Stones or Beach Boys for longevity. But why should they stop if they can ﬁll HMH? Heineken Music Hall, 20.00, €27.50

Jazz: Dutch Jazz Meeting Day two of the Dutch Jazz Meeting hears sets from Mark Lotz, Fidan, Stricat, Wolfert Brederode, Bernie’s Lounge and more. Bimhuis, 20.30, €16 Classical: Amsterdams Kamermuziek Ensemble Crowd-pleasers in the Amvest Hall by Mozart, Brahms, Bartók and Piazzolla are the ﬂavour of the night. Beurs van Berlage, 20.15, €16

Saturday 13 December Jazz: Dutch Jazz Meeting Fringe Taking a more experimental look at the jazz scene, this event recognises the acts that have been given recognition and funding by the government but weren’t in the ‘cool group’ to be invited to the real deal. Zaal 100, 12.00, €4 Singer-songwriter: Grote Prijs van Nederlands— singer-songwriter The grand ﬁnale of the Grote Prijs music competition is shared between the stages of Melkweg and Paradiso in the categories of singer-songwriter, rock, hiphop and dance. Beginning early the singer-songwriters will feature Fabiana Dammers, Miss.Ippi, The Woodwards, Florian Wolff, Robin Block, Long Conversations & The Closet Orchestra, with guest act and last year’s winner Leine. Paradiso, 13.00, €12 Classical: Amsterdams Bach Consort Considered to be one of his most ‘Italian’ works, Bach’s Magniﬁcat in D demonstrates the great composer’s admiration for Vivaldi. Tonight Amsterdams Bach Consort conducted by Erik van Nevel will perform the piece alongside works by Dutch composer Daan Manneke. Noorderkerk, 14.00, €12 Classical: Radio Filharmonisch Orkest Accompanied by mezzo-soprano Lani Poulson and baritone

Rock: Grote Prijs van Nederlands—rock The Grote Prijs band competition holds their rock finals tonight with Two Way Radio, Greyline, Blue Velvet, Sheriff of Hong Kong, Silver and Wallnoize all up for the big prize. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 20.00, sold out Classical: Nederlands Kamerorkest The national chamber orchestra performs Mendelssohn’s Symphony for Strings No.10, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5, Mahler’s Piano Quartet and Schubert’s Symphony No.4 Tragische. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €32/€37.50 Classical: The Singing Heart of Igor S. Performing Stravinsky is soprano Marijje van Stralen, supported by pianist Reinild Mees and cellist Larissa Groeneveld. Concertgebouw, Koorzaal, 20.15, €32.50 Jazz: Dutch Jazz Meeting The final night of the party, so catch sets from Bert van den Brink, Mona Lisa Overdive, Paul Berner Band, Rik Mol Group, Jeroen van Vliet Trio and Michiel Borstlap’s Eldorado. Bimhuis, 20.30, €16 Hiphop: Grote Prijs van Nederlands—hiphop Finalists in the hiphop division of the Grote Prijs go head to head. Catch Audio Elixer, Concrete, M.O. & Brakko, Manu, Surya & Robian and theFringe checking themselves before they’re wrecking themselves for the big prize. Guest act: Keine Jay & Cartes. Paradiso, 21.30, €13 Electronica: Grote Prijs van Nederlands— Dance/producer Dance producers get their shot at the Grote Prijs too with acts Tom Trago, Fokko Versloot & Koen Lebens, Applescal, Jap Jap, Shock Royal and Space Pirates hoping to take home the big prize. Then join the finalists of all musical genres as they either celebrate or commiserate at the afterparty with DJs SP & Cream, MC Fit & Shockwave and VJ Nintando. Melkweg, The Max, 23.00, €12

Making all the girls swoon and see little pink stars, Ben Kweller goes power pop.

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

AGENDA: MUSIC/CLUBS Sunday 14 December Classical: Nederlands Kamerorkest See Saturday. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 14.15, €32/€37.50

CLUBS

Classical: Amsterdams Bach Consort For those that couldn’t make Saturday’s performance at Noorderkerk, consider this the main event. Bach’s Magniﬁcat in D and Manneke’s Sound the Trumpet. De Duif, 15.15, €20 Classical: Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra Performing works by Franck and Wagner, with Alexander Vakoulsky wielding the baton. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €19.50 World: Gotan Project Thrashed on chill-out and cafe mixes the world over, experience the romantic Parisians with a beer in hand for a change. Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, sold out Experimental: Holy Mountain on Board Two bands from the experimental Holy Mountain label. Dutch trio The Julie Mittens opens for Americans The Shining Path. Stubnitz, 21.00, €8

Monday 15 December Classical: Cecilia Bartoli Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli belts ’em out like the magniﬁcent opera singer she is. Accompanied by pianist Sergio Ciomei, Bartoli presents classic arias by Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Expensive but worth it. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €106/€125 Classical: Opera Per Tutti Tonight is the last Monday night in a concert series full of ‘best ofs’ from the opera and musical world, with the likes of Phantom of the Opera, Cossi Fan Tutte, Hansel and Gretel and more. Vondelkerk, 20.15, €20 Funk: Chris Potter’s Underground One of the ﬁnest saxophonists of his generation, Potter explores rock and funk, backed by a tight band Underground, who move from original compositions to unique covers of Radiohead and Dylan. Bimhuis, 20.30, €22 Hiphop: Public Enemy Bursting out of New York in the ’80s with a strong political voice, Public Enemy are one of the most important rap groups of all time. Sure Flava Flav has made some terrible, MTV-related career moves since, but Chuck D is still on point—don't be a hater. Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, €32.50 + membership

Thursday 11 December Exodus The Beesmunt Soundsystem regularly cause a massive Intodus (boom ting!) to Bitterzoet with their Baltimore club, house, electro, favela funk and classic ’80s. Bitterzoet, 22.00-03.00, €5 Siksmiks Thursday is koop- and technoavond at Flex Bar, with Joris Voorn, Edwin Oosterwal, Steve Rachmad, Kabale und Liebe, Warren Fellow and Secret Cinema. Flex Bar, 23.00-05.00, €10 WKND Not quite the weekend yet, actually—which might explain why the vowels are missing. House with Brad Tipp and Timstr. Studio 80, 23.00-late, €5 Studio Soulrock Label party with Stefﬁ, San Proper and Steven de Peven, all of whom play sets all over town so often that one wonders if they ever get to see the dark of night. Sugar Factory, 23.30-05.00, €9.50 Blue Note Trip Weekly jazz and dance fusion featuring DJ Maestro and guests, tonight with a live performance by Red Snapper. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 23.30-late, €8

Friday 12 December Burlesque Dance Event By this time of the year, we think it’s safe to say that burlesque is the new Balkan Beats. This party heaves the classy and sassy Bombshelly’s up on the bandwagon. Sugar Factory, 22.00-05.00, €14 Best of Habbekrats Popular spectacle at Amsterdam’s premier locale for all things hip and hop. Bitterzoet, 23.00-04.00, €7.5 Monsters! Fear not, The Hey Kids (including DJs Kid Reve, Bum Hey and Salvador) are actually quite nice creatures, and they’re prepared to give you electro, house and baile funk. Club 8, 23.0004.00, €6

Experimental: Sonology In Concert #4 Students from the the Conservatory of the Hague’s Sonology Department perform their latest experimental pieces using all sorts of different wizz-bang instruments and recording devices. SMART Project Space, 21.30, €5

WADADA Soundsystem ... and probably some Yededeh as well, hopefully even some Ladida, though sadly no Shalala—after all, this is roots rock and reggae. OCCII, 23.00-04.00, €6

Funk: The Groove Collectors Fitting 12 dudes onto the Sugar Factory stage, The Groove Collectors play brassy funk and deep grooves. Sugar Factory, 21.30, €7.50

Stop Zinloos Geluid Sensible sounds from Orlando, Chymera, Jobez, Daphne Darretta vs Angela Brown, Recovery Sounds and Sam Vester. Flex Bar, 23.00-05.00, €14

Rock: The Dirtbombs It’s fair to say Detroit city rockers The Dirtbombs have a scuzzy distorted crush on hometown heroes MC5 (sans politics). They’re all about the classic loose, garage rock. See Short List. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.00, €10 + membership

Saturday 13 December

Tuesday 16 December Classical: Choir of King’s College Conducted by Stephen Cleobury, it’s more festive cheer with Christmas carols and choral classics. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €49.50/€58 Hiphop: D12, Obie Trice, Royce da 5’9” All are friends with Eminem but don’t expect the old blondie to pop out, this is strictly a cool-by-association gig. Melkweg, The Max, 20.30, €22 + membership Pop/Rock: The Storys Welsh guitar-pop act The Storys (spelling, gentlemen) ﬁnd comfort in the ’70s West Coast easy listening of The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Crosby Stills & Nash, but struggle to match their mentors. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 21.00, €8.50 + membership

Wednesday 17 December Classical: Lunch Concert Let the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra help your digestion with a free performance; conducted by Iván Fischer. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 12.30, free Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra For those that couldn’t make the free lunch-time concert, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Iván Fischer, no doubt have a couple of aces up their sleeves to wow with. Bartók’s impressive ‘Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste’ and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4, for example. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €20/€55

Betty & Billie’s Beat Boutique Bringing us a ‘cheesy XXXmas’ special. (Please play Mariah Carey’s ‘All I want for Christmas’. Please.) Club 8, 22.00-04.00, €6 Ultravioleta Jerry Bouthier, Delfos, Cleo and Yuki shall brighten up the night. Flex Bar, 23.00-05.00, €8.50 Redevice invites... A Guy Called Gerald! Didn’t know he was still around. Studio 80, 23.00-06.00, €12.99

Sunday 14 December Winter in Saint-Tropez The famous French soirée goes with the seasons—but that doesn’t matter cause the sun always shines in Saint-Tropez! Starring the funky Francophiles DJ Guuzbourg and DJ Natashka. De Nieuwe Anita, 20.00, €6 Second Chance Sunday Friday night, Saturday night, weekend over? Ah come on, might as well make it a hat-trick with this electro and Britpop night. Winston Kingdom, 23.00-03.00, €5 Wicked Jazz Sounds Jazz you can dance to. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €9.50 Zonde! Paradiso’s naughty Sunday night party is no longer new, but it’s still fresh. And tonight it’s time to burn baby burn: it’s the Disco Inferno edition! Paradiso, 23.30-05.00, €7.50

Monday 15 December Cheeky Monday True skool jungle and drum & bass, featuring players from the local and international scenes. Winston Kingdom, 21.00-03.00, €7

Public Enemy bring some old and new noise on Monday.

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

A G E N D A : G AY & L E S B I A N

3 questions:

The Sultans of Ping OT301, 13 December, 20.30, €10 The Sultans of Ping, from Cork, Ireland, could easily be seen as a one-hit wonder thanks to ‘Where’s Me Jumper?’ (1992). But actually they were just ‘Five Years Ahead of My Time’, as another one of their ditties goes. They’d fit in just fine in today’s charts with the likes of The White Stripes, QOTSA, Arcade Fire, Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand. So they are back to try it again—20 years after originally forming. Lead singer Niall O’Flaherty weighs in on some of his faves. Favourite music for rocking? ‘The Ramones’ album Leave Home. My next-door neighbour said that ‘they got no talent’, but I knew my life had changed forever. It has Joey’s best vocals, and every tune is a masterpiece.’ Favourite music for mellowing? ‘Anything by Leonard Cohen adds sweetness to the melancholy of Sunday mornings. Saw his show last month, and the old devil sent shivers down my spine for three hours.’ Favourite music for loving? ‘It’s good to keep it simple with Françoise Hardy’s earlier stuff: ‘C’est à l’amour auquel je pense’, ‘J’suis d’accord’, ‘Le temps de l’amour’ and ‘Tous les garçons et les filles’...’ Website: www.sultansofping.com

Saturday 13 December

GAY&LESBIAN Friday 12 December Party: Roze Filmdagen Premiere Party Chill at this funky hang-out, with a free drink for those handing in the voucher found in this issue. Proost! Getto, 22.00, free Party: Women’s Night DJ Dennis Hupla mixes ’70s and ’80s sounds, combined with minimal electro for a fun female crowd. Dudes are welcome if accopmanied by a female friend. Cafe Sappho, 22.00-02.00, free Party: (Z)onderbroek This popular afternoon dance party is now held in the evening. It’s also known as boners in briefs, as it’s all about dancing and fooling around wearing sexy jock-straps, Y-fronts or boxers. Church, 22.00-04.00, €5

Party: Vintage Dance night hosted by MayDay, with DJs Jerry Black and MCB, plus special performance by Tara McDonald, vocalist of tunes by David Guetta, Todd Terry, Axwell & Armand van Helden. Exit, 02.00-05.00, €15 DJ night: Twisted RiTS Tunes RiTS (Le club le plus Queer) has landed at Prik. DJs Dirt! & Roac’s eclectic mix includes sounds of the underground, ﬂoorﬁllers, alternative tunes and anything that sounds good and dirty. PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free Party: Girlesque Get your glad rags on ladies and enjoy the sounds and sights of Wannabeastar, Eva Maria, Miss Beattz & Coco, VJ Zanne and Natumi Scarlett. Sugar Factory, 22.00-04.00, €12.50 Party: Military Action Time to act out your favourite boot camp fantasies at this men-only military fetish party. Church, 23.00-04.00, €10/€12.50

Sunday 14 December Sex club: S.O.S. Still not about that Abba song, but all about Sex on Sundays. Nude or underwear. Anything goes (quite literally). Church, 16.00-20.00, €8

Ever encountered a pink Santa? Maybe at Roze Filmdagen.

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

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

STAGE

Opening Theatre: Touched This play asks the question ‘how close is too close?’ as two men try to break down the walls they’ve built around themselves by love and sexual abuse. Gay theater by John Roman Baker. Pleintheater, (Fri 20.30), €10 Theatre: Het Licht A confronting play by theatre collective a.k.a Johnny, in which the lines between acting and reality get blurred. It’s about a farmer who goes out to seek the woman of his dreams, ﬁnds a pregnant rabbit instead, and dies on the same day. This must be what they call absurd theatre. Language no problem; most of the play is without speech. Frascati, (Fri, Sat 20.30), €14 Dance: Double dance bill: Lost...Found Two modern dance pieces; a trio performance called ‘Lost... Found’ that is about regaining roots, and a new solo by Vincent Verburg which is about madness and normality. De IJsbreker Theater, (Sat 20.30), €10 Theatre: Night Bright Days—Shakespearience II With music and imagery, Hanneke de Jong and Jonas Witte explore the quite old, but always prevailing question of being and non-being. In Dutch. Theater Bellevue, (Mon 20.30), €13.50 Theatre: Pax Islamica IV: Sawm The fourth in a series of five humorous and philosophical performances inspired by the Five Pillars of Islam. This one’s about fasting and, incidentally, about the 12th-century Persian poet and philosopher Omar Khayyám, about the joys and terrors of mixed marriages, and about Kentucky Fried Chicken. In Dutch. Frascati, (Mon-Wed 20.30), €14 Theatre: Amateurs Inspired by Krysztof Kieslowski’s ﬁlm Amator, this is a play about a couple who used to

want to change the world with their art, but never exceeded amateurism. Thus the new world never came, their dreams grew old, and so did their love. De Brakke Grond, (Mon-Wed 21.00), €14 Performance: Roll With It Roll With It is a project consisting of performances, a band, a website, a tour, and this ever-changing theatre show about ‘Club Roll With It’: ﬁve men who are regularly coming together looking for themselves and each other. Gasthuis, (Thur 21.00, Wed 20.00), €14 Theatre: Alles is Goed There are two people left on earth. A ﬂock of deer are trying to protect them—but in denial, the people hide the deer in their fur coats. An absurdist and amusing performance asking the question of how are we, as humans, doing? Are we dying out, or are we just getting started? Theater Bellevue, (Tues-Thur 20.30), €16

the outskirts of Amsterdam, is about the Austrian romantic poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who believed he needed suffering in order to write. The bizarre course of his life has been made eternal in this play, to much acclaim from the critics. Boerenschuur, Zunderdorp, (Thur-Sun 20.30, Sat, Sun also 15.00), €14 Theatre: Het Temmen van de Feeks Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew has been around for a while now but is still being performed due to popularity. With Hans Kesting as Petruchio and Halina Reijn as Katharina. Stadsschouwburg, (Thurs-Sat, Tue-Wed 20.30), €10-€27.50

EVENTS

Cabaret: Underdog Jochen Otten might be the underdog, but that doesn’t matter because a) he has a cunning plan he will share with us in his show and b) he’s damn funny. Theater Bellevue, (Tues-Wed 20.30), €13

Ongoing Theatre: Prinsessendrama’s Dood Paard adapt three parts of Elfriede Jelinek’s ﬁve-part series Der Tod und das Mädchen—Prinzessinnendramen. Frascati, (Thur 20.30), €10 Theatre: Sneeuwwitje van Oranje A Sneeuwwitje parody in which the evil witch is suspiciously similar to Queen Beatrix, the faraway land is prosperous, all families have two cars, and there are things like political polls. A fairytale with ‘songs, midgets, and a man in a dress.’ Theater Bellevue, (Thur-Fri, Sun, Tues-Wed 12.30), €14 Dance: Do You Have a Cigarette? And Other Ways to Approach A piece about clubbing, escapism, loneliness and hope, created by Pere Faura. Let’s hope it’ll contain better dancing than what can usually be seen on a 4am danceﬂoor. Gasthuis, (Thur-Sat 21.00), €10 Theatre: Rainer Maria Theatre on location: this play, performed in a shed in a village called Zunderdorp on

Lecture/Debate: Talk of the Town A number of different politicians/public ﬁgures discuss the future of Amsterdam: what will be built, what will be rebuilt? Pakhuis de Zwijger, (Thur 18.00), free Lifestyle: Millionaire Fair If you’re really rich or you’d like to pretend you are, you can come here and buy/look at really blingy items, like diamondencrusted dog collars and such. RAI, (Thur-Mon, various times), €35 Demonstration: Anti-Millionaire Fair Protest And if you’re not really rich and think all those millionaires should bail us out of the ﬁnancial crisis instead of buying diamond-encrusted dog collars, you can also come here and make some noise. RAI, (Thur 19.30), free Lecture: Now is the Time—A New Canon Another edition in the lecture series about art and art theory in the 21st century; tonight about the question of the cultural canon—is it still needed in globalised times, and what would be the best approach for renewing it? With art historian Robert Nelson and Ruth Noack, co-curator of Documenta XII. In English. Oude Lutherse Kerk, (Thur 20.00), €7.50

Conference: Political Correctness Subtitled ‘A call for tolerance or self-censorship?’, this public conference explores the relatively recent social phenomenon that is political correctness from several national and disciplinary perspectives, looking specifically at what transformations have taken place in recent times. In Dutch and English. Goethe-Institut Amsterdam, (Thur, Fri), free; register at goethe.nl/amsterdam Social: Katie’s Cozy Crafts Corner Arts ’n’ crafts ’n’ yummy cocktails! De Nieuwe Anita, (Thur 20.00), free Lecture: Wereldkunst—24e Globaliseringslezing met Okwui Enwezor How long will it take for us to stop seeing non-Western art as ‘ethnographic’? That’s the question asked tonight. Okwui Enwezor, Nigerian curator, poet, writer, critic, and promoter of African art, gives a lecture (followed by a debate) on how Africanrooted artists relate to their backgrounds, and how their work is judged. Felix Meritis, (Fri 19.00), €12.50 Literature: Poetry Slam The seventh national championship poetry slam features ten hopeful poets competing for the ‘Golden Albatross’, handed out by Simon Vinkenoog. World champion ‘slampion’ Danny Sherrard will be present and the band Skip Intro provide the music for the night. Tivoli, Utrecht, (Fri 20.00), €10 Lecture: ICCO Activist Jyotsna Maskay is fighting for the rights of women in Nepal, and will tell her stories and beliefs. The night will also feature performances and the chance to talk to several professionals and experts. Pakhuis de Zwijger, (Sat 20.00), free (register in advance) Market: X-mas Sunday Market Amsterdam Avoid the busy city and go to Westergasfabriek for your Christmas shopping. A funky Christmas market with Glühwein and items from different artists and designers. Westergasfabriek, (Sun 10.00-17.00), free Debate/Music: Forum Amsterdam Lectures, workshops, videos and more about cultural and economic success stories from and in Amsterdam. See Short List. Felix Meritis, (Sun 14.00), €5 Debate: Versus: Geert Mak & Bernhard Schlink Writers Geert Mak and Bernhard Schlink get talking about fiction, literature, and history; led by Christoph Buchwald. Felix Meritis, (Wed 20.00), €6

Who wants to be a millionaire? Who doesn’t? Well there’s something for everyone around the Millionaire Fair at RAI this week.

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

ART

AGENDA: ART and spirituality in modern art’. Nieuwe Kerk (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur 10.00-22.00), opens Saturday, until 19 April 2009

Museums Opening Michiel Schierbeek: Logistics Aquarelles, photos and wall installations. Wetering Galerie, opens Thursday Monika Bielskyte: A place to wash the heart An installation by the Lithuanian artist Monika Bielskyte; projections of images from Cambodia, China, Vietnam and Laos with accompanying text. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), opens Thursday, until 18 January 2009 Kusta Saaksi: The Heroes A series of 3D computergenerated busts of ‘war heroes’, plus a number of landscape prints. See Short List. Boudisque (Tues, Wed, Fri-Sun 12.00-20.00, Thur 12.00-21.00), opens Friday Life-Size Utopia Presenting a project by Lucy and Jore Orta, who brought 50 brightly coloured dome tents to Antarctica earlier this year, and a maquette and drawings of a ship called the ‘Blob’ by Louis de Cordier. Motive Gallery (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), opens Friday Bubblegum Poetry A duo/trio exhibition by Rotterdam’s Sauerkids and the Amsterdam-based illustrator Leendert Masselink. Colourful and sweet, but also a bit scary. KochxBos Gallery (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), opens Saturday Hollandse Nieuwe Work from the 24 recent graduates of the Foto Academie Amsterdam. Loods 6 (Sat-Tues 12.00-20.00), opens Saturday, closing Tuesday Philip Akkerman More self-portraits from this Dutch painter, who’s been using himself as subject matter for almost three decades. Torch Gallery (Thur-Sat 14.00-18.00), opens Saturday, until 17 January 2009 Welcoming the Stedelijk Museum: Sacred Fire Presenting around 100 highlights from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum under the theme ‘religion

NL28 Olympic Fire An exhibition in which scale models, ﬁlm, debate and theatre help visitors to imagine that the Netherlands is organising the Olympic Games in 2028, a century after the Games in Amsterdam. Zuiderkerk (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), closing Saturday Bollywoodaffiches Classic Bollywood film posters. Filmmuseum (Daily), closing Sunday Damien Hirst: For the Love of God It’s Indiana Jones and the diamond-encrusted skull. Or something. With this Amsterdam premiere of Hirst’s latest attentiongrabber, it’s a good time to ponder whether, like Indy, Hirst’s past his best. Still, this is as cutting edge as the Rijksmuseum gets. To accompany the exhibition, he’s also chosen a personal selection from the museum’s collection of 17th-century art. Rijksmuseum (Daily 09.00-18.00), closing Monday Stefan Zweig, weerbaar tegen fanatisme An international travelling exhibition designed by Austrian artists to help you discover the literary skills and philosophies of Austrian writer Stefan Zweig, who committed suicide with his wife in 1942, despairing at the future of war-torn Europe. OBA (Daily 10.0022.00), until 5 January 2009 New Leipzig School A younger generation of painters at Leipzig has created their own artistic vocabulary with tremendous craftsmanship which at the moment is driving the world crazy—in a good way. This is the ﬁrst Dutch exhibition of the new movement, with particular focus on major trend-setters Neo Rauch and Matthias Weischer. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.0017.00), until 11 January 2009 De wereld van Christiaan Andriessen A chance to view a hundred pages from the sketch diaries of Dutch artist Andriessen, originating from 1805 to 1808. Stadsarchief Amsterdam (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 11 January 2009

Caspar David Friedrich and the German Romantic Landscape For the first time ever, all the works by Caspar David Friedrich from the collection of the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg will be loaned for a special exhibition focusing on this renowned German artist. His paintings and drawings are at the centre of the exhibition, but they are surrounded by works by contemporaries, predecessors and followers. Hermitage Amsterdam (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 18 January 2009 125 Favourites The Rembrandt Association celebrates its 125th anniversary with a five-part exhibition: key purchases from its history; returned Dutch artworks; old (non-Dutch) masters; comparatively modern works (Chagall, Matisse and De Kooning); and acquisitions from the last ten years. Van Gogh Museum (Mon-Thur, Sat, Sun 10.00-18.00, Fri 10.00-22.00), until 18 January 2009 Helen Levitt: In the Street A retrospective of work by the renowned American street photographer Helen Levitt, famed for portraying the dynamics of New York street life from 1930 onwards, paying special attention to the innocent and adventurous world of children at play. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 18 January 2009 Kees Scherer: Photographic Explorations A selection of vintage prints from Scherer’s extensive oeuvre. As a photojournalist, in the ’50s and ’60s he published numerous reports of his global travels in Dutch newspapers and magazines, belonging to a generation of photographers that opened up photographic reporting to the wider public. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 18 January 2009 Viviane Sassen: Flamboya This collection of photos by Sassen explores the memories of her youth in Africa, and poses questions on the constraints of the photographic medium and the regular Western stereotypes about Africa. It features both old and new work, including the images for which Sassen won the 2007 Prix de Rome. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.0018.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 18 January 2009 Building India An exhibition presenting the architecture and urbanism of contemporary India, as

It’s the Stedelijk but not. So seek out the religion and spirituality of modern art at Nieuwe Kerk.

seen through the eyes of five young Indian architects. ARCAM (Tues-Sat 13.00-17.00), until 24 January 2009 Herman Brood Museum Jan van der Togt, Erven Brood and Brood’s former manager Koos van Dijk have worked together to compile an exhibition of the rocker/artist’s most important works, including some never before seen pieces. It features paintings, drawings, graphics and special items, such as the originals from the children’s book Biggetje Bennie, items of clothing, musical instruments and the cactus given to Brood by Bono. Jan van der Togt Museum (Wed-Sun 13.00-17.00), Amstelveen, until 25 January 2009 Jacob Backer: Rembrandt’s Opposite The Amsterdam artist Jacob Adriaensz. Backer (1608/9-1651) was one of the most successful painters of the Golden Age. Four hundred years after his birth he is now being honoured with a major retrospective of his ﬁnest works. The exhibition makes clear why this virtuoso painter was so highly regarded by his contemporaries: his vivid use of colour and accurate touch gave his paintings an unprecedented allure. Rembrandthuis (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.0017.00), until 22 February 2009 Water in Photography Marnix Goossens has been granted the distinguished documentary assignment Document Nederland, portraying the tendency of the Dutch to keep on seeking new relationships with ever-rising water, as well as earthly problems caused by climate change and rising sea levels. As a counterpoint and supplement to this exhibition, a small retrospective of water-related photography from the past has been compiled from the Rijksmuseum’s rich photo collections, offering photographs by Balthasar Burkhard, Naoya Hatakeyama, Roni Horn, Asako Narahashi and Syoin Kajii. Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 1 March 2009 Vodou A grand exhibition about voodoo on Haiti, featuring more than 250 spectacular objects from one of the most important collections in the country: the Lehmann collection. The exhibition aims to show how these objects and their accompanying rituals are a part of the daily life. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 10 May 2009

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

AGENDA: ART/ADDRESSES

Galleries

and an installation. Beeldend Gesproken (Wed, Thurs 13.30-18.30, Sat 14.00-17.00), until 20 December

Nina Rave: Wasteland New paintings, inspired by the terrain around her and the development of the Westermoskee. Meneer de Wit (Thur 14.00-21.00, Fri, Sat, Wed 14.00-18.00), closing Saturday

Bart van Leeuwen Marking forty years of distinctive and atmospheric fashion photography by the Dutch artist (b.1950). Blow Up Gallery (Thur, Fri 14.00-18.00, Sat 13.00-18.00), until 27 December

ARCAM Prins Hendrikkade 600, 620 4878

La Fiesta De Los Muertos Works by Mexican artists Emilio Sánchez Diaz, Alejandra Nettel, Anna Kurtycz and Verónica Elizondo. Galerie Wies Willemsen (FriSun 10.00-18.00), closing Sunday

Peter Pontiac’s Gaga Satan Presenting Peter Pontiac’s comic work: called Gaga Satan, the exhibition mainly features drawings of devils that he has made through the years. The opening is combined with a party, from 20.00 until 04.00. De Duivel, until 30 December

Beeldend Gesproken Borgerstraat 102, 612 1847

Kalki, Tokarski and Hildebrandt The ﬁrst exhibition in the Netherlands of the work of three acclaimed German artists: Michael Kalki, Wawrzyniec Tokarski and Gregor Hildebrandt. Grimm Fine Art (Tues-Sat 12.0018.00), until 3 January 2009

Boerenschuur, Zunderdorp Zunderdorpergauw 29

Steampunk Time Machine: Futuristic Impressions of the Past Works by a group of renowned and upcoming artists who have taken the world of art, technique and retro-futurism as a source of inspiration. Expect nostalgic reinterpretations of Victorian romance novels, Imperialist adventures and Voyages Extraordinaires. artKitchen (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday Nicky Hoberman: Girls Series Big-headed, large-eyed gals populate the paintings of this English artist, who presents her first solo show in the Netherlands. Galerie Hof & Huyser (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 19 December Nisja Architectural paintings by a young Polish artist. Radar Gallery (Fri-Sun 13.00-17.00), until 20 December Helgi Thorsson: Garry and Berry Go Ga-Ga Icelandic artist Thorsson presents a solo exhibition of life-sized gnomes (he calls them ‘elvur’), monsters and figurines from a forgotten pop world. Fantastical music, video, drawings and paintings are also on show. Galerie van Gelder (Tues-Sat 13.00-17.30), until 20 December Stephan J Englisch This German artist specialises in night photography, with this aesthetically pleasing series focussing on Amsterdam at night. Galerie Bart (Thur, Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 12.00-17.00), until 20 December Myra de Vries: Changing Landscapes In this new series of paintings, De Vries combines landscapes and figurative elements from her immediate surroundings with grim fairytale-like fantasy realms. AYACS (Fri, Sat 13.00-17.30), until 20 December Roos van Lierop Artist and poet Roos van Lierop uses paper, fabric and old newspaper to make collages, inspired by humans, or humanesque forms. This exhibition presents recent paintings, drawings, collages

GUP 3 year birthday bash The Amsterdam-based photography magazine Gup celebrate their 3-year anniversary with an exhibition that will display an overview of the photography the magazine has featured over the last three years of their existence, including work by photographers Morad Bouchakour, Daido Moriyama, Desiree Dolron, Danielle van Ark, Audrey Corregan and many others. SMART Project Space, until 4 January 2009 Up Close & Personal Twenty artists present new works. Walls Gallery (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.00), until 9 January 2009 Alias The Melkweg gallery closes off the year with this exhibition by Fjodor C Buis: a series about the big guys in sports—and their nicknames. The fact that prominent sportsmen and -women are awarded a nickname when they’re famous enough to evoke national pride is explored in a number of portraits and with a touch of humour. Melkweg Galerie (Wed-Sun 13.00-20.00), until 11 January 2009 No Reference Last year, Christophe Coppens was the ﬁrst winner of the H+F Fashion Award. The Belgian designer received a €20,000 cash prize to realise a special project. This project encompasses an accessories collection, a forthcoming book and this exhibition, all tracking and revealing his unique process of creation. Platform 21 (Thur-Sun 12.00-18.00), until 18 January 2009

More listings online at www.amsterdamweekly.nl/art.

ADDRESSES artKitchen Joris van den Berghweg 101, 622 3422 AYACS Keizersgracht 166, 622 8579 De Baarsjes Filips van Amondestraat 12 Beurs van Berlage Damrak 277, 530 4141 Bimhuis Piet Heinkade 3, 788 2150 Bitterzoet Spuistraat 2, 521 3001 Blow Up Gallery Hazenstraat 67, 665 3435 Boudisque Haringpakkerssteeg 10-18, 020 6232603

Jan van der Togt Museum Dorpsstraat 50, Amstelveen, 641 5754 Joods Historisch Museum Jonas Daniel Meijerplein 2-4, 531 0310 Loods 6 KNSM Laan 143, 418 2020 Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409, 531 8181 Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234a Meneer de Wit Postjesweg 2, 616 3680 Muziekgebouw Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2010 De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512 Nieuwe Kerk entrance on the Dam, 638 6909 Noorderkerk Noordermarkt 44, 626 6436 OBA Oosterdokskade 143, 0900-2425468 OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 671 7778

De Brakke Grond Nes 45, 626 6866

Oude Lutherse Kerk Singel 411, 623 1572

Cafe Sappho Vijzelstraat 103, 423 1509

Pakhuis de Zwijger Piet Heinkade 179-181, 788 4444

Church Kerkstraat 50-52

Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521

Club 8 Admiraal de Ruyterweg 56B, 685 1703

Platform 21 Prinses Irenestraat 19, 344 9449

CoBrA Museum Sandbergplein 1-3, Amstelveen, 547 5050

Pleintheater Sajetplein 39, 665 4568

Concertgebouw Concertgebouwplein 2-6, 671 8345

PRIK Spuistraat 109, 06 4544 2321

Consortium Veemkade 570, 06 2611 8950

Radar Gallery Eerste Rozendwarsstraat 17-H, 06 2416 3300

De Ysbreker Theater Weesperzijde 23

RAI Europaplein 22, 549 1212

De Duif Prinsengracht 756

Rembrandthuis Jodenbreestraat 4, 520 0400

De Duivel Reguliersdwarstr 87, 626 6184

Rijksmuseum Jan Luykenstraat 1, 674 7000

Exit Reguliersdwarsstraat 42, 625 8788

Rush Hour Records Spuistraat 98

Felix Meritis Keizersgracht 324, 626 2321

SMART Project Space Arie Biemondstraat 105-113, 427 5953

Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400

Stadsarchief Amsterdam Vijzelstraat 32

Flex Bar Pazzanistraat 1, 486 2123

Stadsschouwburg Leidseplein 26, 624 2311

Foam Keizersgracht 609, 551 6546

Stubnitz Odinakade, NDSM-werf

Frascati Nes 63, 626 6866

Studio 80 Rembrandtplein 17, 521 8333

Galerie Bart Bloemgracht 2, 320 6208

Sugar Factory Lijnbaansgracht 238, 627 0008

Galerie Hof & Huyser Bloemgracht 135, 420 1995

Theater Bellevue Leidsekade 90, 530 5301

Galerie van Gelder Planciusstraat 9A, 627 7419

Tivoli, Oudegracht 245, Utrecht, 030 231 1491

Galerie Wies Willemsen Ruysdaelkade 25, 470 1073

Torch Gallery Lauriergracht 94, 626 0284

Gasthuis Marius van Bouwdijk Bastiaansestraat 54, 683 8494

Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200

Getto Warmoesstraat 51

Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200

Goethe-Institut Amsterdam Herengracht 470

Vondelkerk Vondelstraat 120

Grimm Fine Art Hazenstraat 24, 422 7227

Walls Gallery Prinsengracht 737

Heineken Music Hall ArenA Boulevard 590, 0900 300 1250

Westergasfabriek Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 586 0710

Hermitage Amsterdam Nieuwe Herengracht 14, 530 8751

Winston Kingdom Warmoesstraat 129, 623 1380

Hotel Arena ’s-Gravesandestraat 51, 850 2400

Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100, 688 0127

Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401, 531 8989

Zuiderkerk Zuiderkerkhof 72, 552 7987

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

Film review

AGENDA: FILM By Luuk van Huët

Religulous Opens Thursday at Kriterion

I’LL BE DAMNED FUNNY A hilarious cinematic jihad against religion (provided you’re an atheist). American comic Bill Maher is no stranger to (religious) controversy: in 2001 his talk show was cancelled after a shitstorm of intense magnitude was unleashed when Maher contended that 9/11 hijackers were anything but cowards. So in the new com-

FILM Amsterdam Weekly recommends.

Festivals IndieLisboa A touring festival of the latest independent films from Portugal. Titles include A Zona (2008) by Sandro Aguilar and Via de acesso (2008) by Nathalie Mansoux. A selection of recent short films will also be shown, and on Saturday night there will be an IndieLisboa Party with DJ Toby Paul. Rialto Lech Majewski The SMART cinema is showing five titles from the filmography of this Polish-American film and theatre director, writer, poet, and painter with a unique visual style and idiosyncratic obsessions. Selection includes his latest Glass Lips (2007), born out of an installation Majewski did for the MOMA in New York. SMART Cinema Roze Filmdagen Check the pulse of queer cinema at the Roze Filmdagen, a comprehensive look at worldwide productions with over 100 films from more than 30 different countries. See insert and Short List. De Balie, Cavia, OBA, De Uitkijk

New this week Australia Seven years after Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann returns with this frothy historical romance set in his native land during the run-up to World War II. The story is a shameless knockoff of The African Queen, with Nicole Kidman, as white and perfect as a porcelain doll, arriving from the UK to take over her late husband’s ranch and Hugh Jackman, his mighty pecs glistening with sweat, helping her drive 1,500 head of cattle to market. Onto this narrative Luhrmann has grafted two interesting chapters from Australian history: the government’s mass relocation of mixedrace children to white families in the ’30s and Japan’s aerial bombardment of the Northern Territory in the days after Pearl Harbor. In keeping with the nationalistic good feeling, the cast includes such iconic

ic documentary Religulous, Maher travels the globe to question, cajole and often openly mock the faithful of the major monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam, with a little swipe at Mormons on the side.

Australian actors as David Gulpilil and Bryan Brown. (JJ) 165 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé Tuschinski Un Conte de Noël French director Arnaud Desplechin sets this overstuffed drama in the northern provincial town of Roubaix, his birthplace, which he also considered in his 2007 documentary L’Aimee. A dysfunctional clan gathers there for the holidays, arguing over a compatible bone-marrow donor for the leukemia-stricken mother (Catherine Deneuve); hovering like a ghost is the memory of the firstborn son, whose death has polarised his sister (Anne Consigny) and black-sheep brother (Mathieu Amalric). Characters occasionally address the camera, which helps disentangle the competing story lines of madness, adultery, and betrayal. With Emmanuelle Devos and Chiara Mastroianni. In French with Dutch subtitles. (AG) 150 min. Cinecenter, Het Ketelhuis The Day the Earth Stood Still A remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic, based on the short story ‘Farewell to the Master’ by Harry Bates. A robot lands in Washington DC, controlled by a powerful alien, apparently willing to destroy the planet. In the 2008 remake you’ll get plenty of special effects, Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. 103 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt High School Musical: Senior Year (OV) The third and presumably last instalment in the Disney franchise—this time young lovers Zac Efron and Vanessa Anne Hudgens are seniors getting ready for college and putting on one last show. Released in the Netherlands in both dubbed and subtitled versions. 112 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Leonera Julia (Martina Gusman) wakes up in her Buenos Aires apartment. She’s covered in blood and two male bodies are lying on the floor. She goes to work in a trance state, then on the way back she finally realises what happened and asks for help. Accused of murder and sent to jail, Julia finds out that she’s pregnant, and she decides to give birth and raise her son in prison anyway. Directed by Pablo Trapero (Crane World, El Bonaerense). In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. 110 min. Kriterion, Rialto Religulous Isn’t it the perfect time of the year to mock religion? Comedian Bill Maher and director Larry Charles (Borat) think so. See review above. 101 min. Kriterion Vicky Cristina Barcelona Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), fall for an aggressive

Maher is often direct to the point of bluntness. For instance, when he meets an ex-gay minister who heads a church claiming to ‘cure’ homosexuality, while still looking like a Cockring punter, Maher can’t stop laughing and pointing out how butch the guy looks. Or when he meets up with the Amsterdam-based Gay Muslim group Habibi Ana, only to find that just two men have shown up, he notes: ‘Well, I hope you two like one another, because otherwise...’ Much like in Borat, the previous film by director Larry Clark, a lot of the humour in Religulous is built on rudeness and the breaking of taboos. Whether or not you will actually enjoy the film depends largely on your tolerance for this particular brand of funny and on your own belief system—or lack thereof. Other reviewers have called Maher out on the easy targets he picks, the manipulative editing and the slapdash nature of the film. While those are valid points to make, I can’t join in with the chorus of curmudgeonly critics, mainly because I laughed so much during the film that I might’ve broken my funny bone. Christianity gets the brunt of Maher’s assault, and the parts concerning it are the most hilarious, while the Islam bits feel a bit lacking in the fun factor, mainly because Muslim spokespeople seem to have become quite used to deflecting criticism. As an avid atheist myself, I relished

Latin lover (Javier Bardem) in Barcelona. The new Woody Allen moves on to the continent after three features set in the UK. But how is it? Well, it’s worse than Match Point, but better than Cassandra’s Dream. Chaster than Mighty Aphrodite but sexier than Small Time Crooks. Lighter than Crimes and Misdemeanours but heavier than The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Longer than Sweet and Lowdown and shorter than Hollywood Ending. It’s no Annie Hall or Manhattan, yet it’s pretty much Woody Allen. Anything Else? (Massimo Benvegnù) 96 min. Cinecenter, Pathé Tuschinski Wit Licht Eduard Zuiderwijk (Marco Borsato) lives in Uganda, where he runs his own restaurant business. A personal drama and the political turmoil in the country will abruptly change his status. Dutch singer Borsato picks a string of heavy subjects (war, child soldiers, etc) for his acting debut. Written and directed by Jean van de Velde. 120 min. Het Ketelhuis, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski

Still playing Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex Uli Edel vividly por-

trays the development of the most radical and aggressive left-wing movement in post-war West Germany: the Red Army Faction (RAF). Unfortunately, Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu), Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) and Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek) are just too likeable to be taken very seriously as bloodthirsty terrorists. Although the ﬁlm paints a realistic picture of what it was like to be young and anti-establishment in the ’70s—music and all—it fails to answer questions that arise naturally. What was the ideology of the RAF? Why is it that violence seems to become an end in itself? And why, after the arrest of the initial leaders, is the second generation even more aggressive than the ﬁrst? Still, the devastation caused by desperation within and the decline of the RAF is all there, in explicit and sweeping action scenes. In German with Dutch subtitles. (KE) 150 min. Cinecenter, Kriterion, The Movies, Pathé De Munt Blindness A mysterious disease spreads through the population of the Earth, causing blindness in an alarming rate. While the government hastily quarantines the affected in makeshift camps, one woman (Julianne Moore) retains her vision and sticks by her husband and a group of victims. The worst aspects of humanity surface while the circumstances worsen in

Australia? Where’s Crocodile Dundee? And what about New Zealand? Oh right, they had Lord of the Rings.

Maher’s unrelenting acerbic attacks on organised religion as a cathartic experience. He might not be nice, respectful or evenhanded, but his claim that religion is a side-effect of our addled brains struck a nerve. After years and years of having to look at smug mugs of religiously motivated politicians like Balkenende and Dubya or the cave-dwelling Al Qaida nutcases, it’s very refreshing to see someone pointing out all the batshit insane fairy tales that billions of people swallow each and every day. In polite society, we respect the right of everyone to believe in anything that floats your boat if it helps you sleep at night, so a visit to Religulous feels a bit like a guilty pleasure at ﬁrst. As much as I enjoyed Maher’s clashes with religious zealots, I’m not advocating his approach on waging spiritual warfare on religion in the vein of Richard Dawkins or our own Ayaan. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could be a proud heathen again? The only truly sour note in the documentary is Maher’s visit to blonde bloated bombshell Geert Wilders, a prime target for a whittling down. Instead, the noble defender of our Judeo-Christian values and hatemonger against the Saracen hordes gets a surprisingly cushy treatment by Maher. If only he had shown the gusto with which he grills our Amsterdam council member Fatima Elatik over the murder of Theo van Gogh. Next time, do your research, Bill. ___

5 word movie review

Only Borsato Can Save Us Wit Licht, Het Ketelhuis, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt and Pathé Tuschinski the camps in what could have been an inspired mix of art house and post-apocalyptic horror, but besides an engaging second act and the fabulous Mrs. Moore, the ﬁlm lacks an engaging narrative structure due to its slavish devotion to the award-winning book it’s based on. (LvH) 90 min. Pathé De Munt Bride Flight To escape personal drama and the suffocating environment of post-WWII Netherlands, three young families decide to emigrate to New Zealand. The husbands leave ﬁrst to look for work and accomodation, and their brides meet on a fateful 1953 trip from London to Christchurch. Directed by Ben Sombogaart from a script by Marieke van der Pol, with Karina Smulders, Anna Drijver and Elise Schaap as the three young women, and a special appearance by Rutger Hauer. 130 min. The Movies, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski, Studio K

Burn After Reading The latest offering of the Coen

brothers is many things at once: it’s a spy ﬁlm spoof, a comedy of errors, a great metaphor for the paranoia brought about by the war on terror and a clever deconstruction of narrative film-making itself. But it’s the stellar cast including Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Frances McDormand, who all get to behave like knuckleheaded dumbasses, pompous nerds and slick sleazeballs, that will probably draw the bulk of the crowd, and rightfully so. If you don’t mind being subjected to a little cinematic horseplay by those rascally Coens, you’re in for a treat. (LvH) 96 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé De Munt, Studio K Cargo 200 How the hell Aleksei Balabanov manages to get away with such a bleak, damning portrait of contemporary Russia while giving Putin the ﬁnger without

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

AGENDA: FILM

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg Jacques Demy’s

Special screenings

1964 ‘ﬁlm opera’, with music by Michel Legrand, has a reputation for sappiness it doesn’t deserve. The chief feature of Demy’s direction is his deft avoidance of the past, the obvious, and the sentimental, which is no mean feat when you’re dealing with material as self-consciously simple as this. Catherine Deneuve loses her fiance to the draft; he’s wounded and doesn’t write, so she reluctantly marries someone else. In French with Dutch subtitles. (DK) 91 min. Filmmuseum

À ma soeur Catherine Breillat directed this 2001 meditation on adolescent female sexuality, investigating the relationship between two sisters on holiday with their parents. Elena, a beautiful 15-year-old, is hot to trot, while Anaïs, a pudgy 12-year-old, watches her pick up a handsome Italian at a cafe, then sneak him into their shared bedroom for the inevitable, heartbreaking seduction. Their self-involved parents are oblivious, and Anaïs takes refuge in banana splits and ﬂoating in the crystal blue pool while making up sardonic songs. When Elena’s little romance collapses, there’s a nightmarish drive back home on a highway dense with speeding trucks—a prelude to the nightmares ahead. In French/Italian with English subtitles. (Meredith Brody) 95 min. De Nieuwe Anita Angelus Lech Majewski’s dazzling visual talents are on full display in this absurdist comedy (2000) set in a rural Silesian mining town during the ’40s and ’50s, where seven miners—followers of a 300-year-old Rosicrucian holy man—attempt to prevent the apocalypse prophesied by their dubious spiritual leader. Though their plans hit a major snag when they run afoul of the communist government, the miners are more often derailed by the constant clash of their own goofy eccentricities. Told through a series of tableaulike vignettes and drawing on everything from the Old Testament to Disney, the movie is leavened by Majewski’s deadpan sense of humor—none of this is profound, but it’s great fun to watch. In Polish with English subtitles. (RP) 108 min. SMART Cinema Avant que j’oublie In this elegant and witty film, director Jacques Nolot stars as an aging, HIV-positive gigolo seeking a new purpose in life. In French with Dutch subtitles. 108 min. Cavia

The Battleship Potemkin The film records the

birth of revolutionary consciousness among the crew members of the Potemkin, anchored at Odessa in 1905. Its appearance in 1925 shook the ﬁlm world, and many ﬁlm-makers still haven’t recovered. With live accompainment from Matt Darriau’s Paradox Trio from New York—Matt Darriau (clarinet, saxophone), Brad Shepik (guitar), Rufus Cappadocia (cello), Seido Salifoski (percussion). With Russian intertitles. (DD) 65 min. Filmmuseum

Brief Encounter This is the film that established David Lean’s reputation, before he went on to such bombastic exercises as Lawrence of Arabia and Ryan’s Daughter and shifted from being—as Lindsay Anderson well put it—England’s white hope to England’s white elephant. Though based on a short play (and screenplay) by Noel Coward that rarely rises above the level of the old women’s magazines, this 1945 tale of the chance meeting and almost affair of a bored suburban housewife (Celia Johnson) and a married doctor (Trevor Howard) in a provincial railway buffet does manage to zero in on some of the more depressing aspects of English middle-class life. The film thus survives more as a social document than a genuinely compelling drama. With Cyril Raymond and Stanley Holloway. (DD) 85 min. Filmmuseum The Garden of Earthly Delights New York-based filmmaker Lech Majewski is no stranger to the art world—he cowrote and coproduced Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat—and his digital English-language feature Garden of Earthly Delights, adapted from his

receiving a polonium enema is a mystery to me. His Putin-esque depraved, impotent police officer has to investigate the murder he committed and the kidnapping of a girl he shackled to a filthy radiator, while her fiancé returns in a body bag from Afghanistan as the titular Cargo 200. It might be a potent, well-made metaphor for the last spasms of the Communist regime, but it’s a thoroughly dark and depressing film to say the least. In Russian with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 89 min. Filmmuseum Carmen Meets Borat Director Mercedes Stalenhof follows the life of 17-year-old Carmen, who lives in Glod, a gypsy village in Romania, and dreams of escaping to a better life in Spain. But one day, an American film crew, led by a dubious British comedian sporting a mustache, arrives in her village and exploits its inhabitants in any possible way. After Borat gets worldwide success, villagers decide to sue Hollywood and the town falls into chaos. But what is left of Carmen’s dreams of a better life away from Glod? There’s so much in this documentary and not everything works, but still, most parts are irresistible. (Massimo Benvegnù) 85 min. Het Ketelhuis, Kriterion

Changeling Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) lives alone with her 9-year-old son, in Los Angeles in

Must see:

The Battleship Potemkin Filmmuseum, Sunday

novel Metaphysics, is a luminous, highly erotic treatise on art, love, and death. To complete her doctorate on Hieronymus Bosch, a beautiful dying woman (Claudine Spiteri) enlists her filmmaker boyfriend (Chris Nightingale) to shoot a documentary. The sumptuous details of the title painting are mirrored by his desire to record every moment of their remaining time together in Venice. (AG) 103 min. SMART Cinema Glass Lips Polish surrealist Lech Majewski is a real problem, a filmmaker of extraordinary visual talent whose thematic material seems confined to the sort of Catholic sexual hang-ups Martin Scorsese worked through in his student films. This wordless 2006 feature, adapted from Majewksi’s installations at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and originally titled after Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet, centres on a young man in a mental institution and his awful reveries of childhood and his parents’ perverse marriage. Stigmata, breast milk, pig carcasses, and forced meals of canned dog food are the dominant motifs, rendered with such compositional flair that you may actually forget how trite they are. (JJ) 99 min. SMART Cinema The Gospel According to Harry Biblical imagery dominates this 1992 feature by Polish surrealist Lech Majewski, but the solemnity is balanced by daffy non sequiturs reminiscent of Burns and Allen, whose ’50s TV sitcom the director lovingly references. Jennifer Rubin and Viggo Mortensen play an unhappily married couple whose low-rent apartment, like all the film’s other settings, consists of furniture in the middle of the desert. Their personal problems are augmented by a visiting IRS auditor with a Geiger counter, a US president whose press conference is disrupted by a Molotov cocktail, and a gaggle of reporters trailing Elizabeth Taylor across the white sands. Majewski was bankrolled partly by David Lynch, which may explain the movie’s goofy tone; in retrospect it may seem like a heavy-handed critique of American arrogance and ennui, but in the moment it’s pretty amusing. (JJ) 88 min. SMART Cinema

the late 1920s. One day, her son is missing. When, five months after the disappearance, a child by the same name is found in the Midwest, the L.A. police, desperate to look good in the eyes of the public opinion, rounds up the fanfare, the press and Mrs. Collins, for a triumphant re-union of Mother and Son. With the only problem that the boy is not the right one... Much like in Million Dollar Baby and Mystic River, Clint Eastwood here shapes another extremely complex narrative on a very disturbing subject. Those willing to be exposed to such a gut-wrenching tale will be rewarded with one of the year’s finest films. (Massimo Benvegnù) 141 min. The Movies, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski Cloud 9 This German entry at the latest Cannes Film Festival presents the classic love triangle we’ve seen so often in other films, only this time we get to see old folks get down and dirty. Dressmaker Inge (Ursula Werner) has been married with Werner (Horst Rehberg) for more than 30 years. However, she falls for Karl (Horst Westphal), a 76-year-old customer. It’s a very touching and realistic portrayal of love and sex, that can apparently take you to ‘Cloud Nine’, no matter the age. It can also make a good double-header companion with recent docu-

La Haine A black-and-white 1994 French film by writerdirector Mathieu Kassovitz (Cafe au Lait) about racism in the Paris suburbs. It focuses on three alienated youths—one black (Hubert Kounde), one North African (Said Taghmaoui), and one a working-class Jew (Vincent Cassel)—who go on an all-night spree after a race riot sparked by police brutality. Though some of this might seem a bit old after the recent banlieues crisis, Kassovitz has some things of his own to say—and he says them with nuance, feeling, and authority. In French with Dutch subtitles. (JR) 96 min. Kriterion Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien Dominik Moll’s sly thriller is almost too clever for its own good. At its centre is Michel, a nice-guy husband and father who finds—given a heat wave, three querulous little girls, a broken-down car, an even more broken-down country house—that a vacation can be far more stressful than any kind of work. Enter Harry, a forgotten schoolmate from 20 years before, who believes that every problem has a solution. He also believes, fervently and inexplicably, in Michel, whose adolescent poetry he can recite verbatim and whose high school sci-fi epic, ‘Flying Monkeys’, he yearns to see completed. So he sets about making Michel’s familial problems ‘disappear’. We’re in twisty Highsmith, Strangers on a Train territory. In French with Dutch subtitles. 117 min. Rialto Palindromes Todd Solondz’s patented shock and awe style of filmmaking is revved up a notch on the ‘offensive scale’ with this film. Aviva, a sensitive teenager with an impatient womb flees parental suburbia to join up with overzealous anti-abortionists. During the film, her character is played by seven different persons which, coupled with the narrative shifts and Solondz’s proclivity for vicarious shame turned into comedy, makes for either an unhinged and either highly uncomfortable or extremely hilarious viewing experience. When watching Palindromes, you’ll have to start laughing to stop yourself from walking out or crying. In English/Hebrew with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 100 min. Melkweg Cinema

mentary release Young@Heart. In German with Dutch subtitles. 98 min. De Uitkijk Eat For This Is My Body Michelange Quay’s live action feature debut is an absorbing, dreamlike descent into the deep heart of Haiti. Storylines follow three members of a local family, three women at different stages in their lives. But what is more important here is the startling imagery used by Quay to render Haiti’s mystical atmosphere. In French with English subtitles. 105 min. SMART Cinema Entre Les Murs François Marin (François Bégaudeau) is a French teacher in a Parisian high school. At the beginning we see him as he approaches both old and new colleagues as the school year starts, but from that moment on, we’ll only see him inside the classroom, facing the everyday problems of being a teacher in a multicultural environment. This year’s Palme d’Or winner from Laurent Cantet is a clever adaptation of the autobiographical book by François Bégaudeau, who basically plays himself in the movie, thus giving it a documentary touch. In French with Dutch subtitles. 128 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Rialto The Mourning Forest This 2007 Japanese film directed by Naomi Kawase won the Grand Prix of

Palindromes: 1) May a moody baby doom a yam. 2) Lag not, Eno! No gong! Get up! Put eggnog on one-ton gal!

Pather Panchali In 1955, the year Satyajit Ray’s beautiful first feature won the Grand Prix at Cannes, no less a humanist than Francois Truffaut walked out of a screening, declaring, ‘I don’t want to see a film about Indian peasants.’ Time and critical opinion have been much kinder to this family melodrama— derived, like its successors in the Apu trilogy, from a ’30s novel by Bibhutibhusan Banerjee—than to Truffaut’s remark. Yet there’s no question that Ray’s contemplative treatment of a poor Brahman family in a Bengali village, made on a small budget and accompanied by the mesmerising music of Ravi Shankar, is a triumph of mood and character rather than an exercise in brisk Western storytelling. In Bengali with Dutch subtitles. (JR) 115 min. Filmmuseum The Robber Symphony A young Italian musician discovers stolen money in his piano and goes on the lam, pursued by both the police and the musical thieves, in this odd 1936 British surrealist film in which music (played by the London Symphony Orchestra) rather than dialogue is used to convey the action. A tremendous cult hit in the Netherlands, The Robber Symphony played at the Uitkijk well into the 1960s. 136 min. Filmhuis Griffioen Storytelling Hearing in advance about the formal experimentation by independent writer-director Todd Solondz in this 2001 feature raised my hopes, but I was disappointed to find that Solondz is now reduced to treating his characters like puppets. His lack of regard for them fits in fairly well with his division of the universe between sadistic predators and hapless victims, but not with the viewer’s desire to consider the fates of actual people. In the first and better episode, ‘Fiction’, sexual intrigues interface with a creativewriting class, and Solondz tweaks various PC reflexes about race and disability. The second, ‘Non-Fiction’, which is roughly twice as long and three times as loose, involves a disgruntled documentary filmmaker taking on a dysfunctional suburban family with a maid from El Salvador. (JR) 88 min. Melkweg Cinema Wojaczek Lech Majewski trains his absurdist gaze on the last days of Polish poet Rafal Wojaczek in this visually arresting but often frustrating 1999 biopic. Wojaczek, who committed suicide in 1971, is portrayed as an almost spectral figure who morosely wanders the streets in search of companionship, booze and death. His various encounters, often presented in a comically deadpan manner, serve mostly as a platform for Majewski’s caustic take on the artistic and political landscape in Poland during the communist era. The opening and closing sequences are terrific, but everything else comes off as a stylistic collision between Jim Jarmusch and Bela Tarr without the charm or depth such an encounter might hold. The striking black-andwhite cinematography is by Adam Sikora. In Polish with English subtitles. (RP) 89 min. SMART Cinema

Jury at the Cannes Film Festival last year. A nurse (Machiko Ono), grieving for the death of her young son, grows close to an elderly man (Shigeki Uda), one of her patients who suffers from dementia, and who takes her on a mystical quest into the forest in the mountainous region west of Nara. In Japanese with Dutch subtitles. 97 min. Filmmuseum Het Nieuwe Rijksmuseum Is it right to make fun of the on-going restoration problems of the Rijksmuseum? This humorous documentary by Oeke Hoogendijk, which has just been screened at IDFA, takes us behind the close gates of the construction site, and introduces us to an extremely interesting gallery of characters who now grace the corridors of the Rijksmuseum, including architects, concierges, politicians and demonstrators. 110 min. Het Ketelhuis El Olvido New documentary by director Heddy Honigmann (The Underground Orchestra, Forever) focuses on old waiters and bartenders working in Peru, telling stories from their lives and their country. We all know bartenders know a lot of jokes, but they are also masters in the art of surviving with style, dignity and poetry in a world which is out of control. Honigmann makes them talk about the gigantic inﬂation in Peru, the fall

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

of the middle class, the corruption, the violence of Shining Path and that of the local Army. You’ll deﬁnitely feel like having a cocktail afterwards. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. 92 min. Rialto, De Uitkijk

Oorlogswinter Michiel is a fourteen-year-old boy

in a small town in The Netherlands in 1945. The Germans are still occupying the country. He has an uncle in the Resistance, Ben (Yorick van Wageningen) whom he considers his hero. Meanwhile, he looks down on his father (Raymond Thiry), the mayor of the town, who chooses not to take sides. Michiel is considered too young to join the Resistance, but then one day he gets a chance to help a wounded RAF-pilot (Jamie Campbell Bower). By redefining heroism, the new Martin Koolhoven film fits in a tradition of Dutch war films questioning strict boundaries between ‘good’and ‘bad’, which started with the 1977 classic film Soldaat van Oranje. (MM) 103 min. Het Ketelhuis, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski Planet B-Boy Set in the International world of B-Boying, the urban dance more commonly known as “breakdancing”, this documentary by Benson Lee follows three separate storylines: an American dancer in Vegas looks for his big break, a Korean son seeks his father’s approval, a twelve-year-old boy in France confronts his family’s racism. All the b-boys’ lives collide in Germany where their skills are put to the ultimate test, the “Battle of the Year” finals, where representatives from 18 nations fight for the title of World Champion. 95 min. SMART Cinema Pride and Glory Like so many movies about police, this chest-thumping cop opera seems less concerned with their actual lives than with how we want to feel about them: for law-and-order conservatives, there’s the usual huffing about the thin blue line, topped off

FILM TIMES Thursday 11 December until Wednesday 17 December. Times are provided by cinemas and are subject to last-minute changes. De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Adventures in dating - women Sat 22.00 Bangkok love story Sat 20.00 Chuecatown Wed 20.00 Electroshock Sat 20.00 Fashion Victims Tues 22.00 Global men Mon 22.00 Made in Holland: The dykes edition Sun 20.00 Potpourri Populaire Tues 20.00 Roze Filmdagen Schooljongens 1: Boys will be boys Sat 22.00 Schooljongens 2: Boys Boys Boys! Wed 22.00 Senza Fine Wed 22.00 Solos Mon 20.00 Thriller Night Tues 20.00 Tied Hands Wed 20.00 Triple X Selects: The best of Lezploitation Tues 22.00 The weird and the wonderful Sun 22.00 The world unseen Sun 22.00 Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon Sun 20.00. Cavia Van Hallstraat 52-I, 681 1419 The 24th Day Sat 20.00 Avant que j'oublie Sun 20.00 Pansy Division Sun 22.00 Rick & Steve Sat 22.00 Roze Filmdagen . Cinecenter Lijnbaansgracht 236, 623 6615 Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex daily 15.30 Burn After Reading daily 19.15, 22.00, Sun also 11.00, 13.15 Un Conte de Noël Thur, Sun-Wed 16.00, 19.45, Fri, Sat, 15.15, 18.30, 21.45, Sun also 12.30 Entre Les Murs daily 16.00, 19.00, 21.45, Sun also 11.15 Vicky Cristina Barcelona daily 16.30, 21.45, Thur-Mon, Wed also 19.15, Sun also 11.15, 14.00. Cinema Amstelveen Plein 1960 2, Amstelveen, 547 5175 Aanrijding in Moscou Tues, Wed 20.30 Het kleine spookje Laban Sun 11.30 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 13.30 Radeloos Sat, Sun, Wed 15.30 Vox Populi Thur, Fri, Sat 20.30. Filmhuis Grifﬁoen Uilenstede 106, Amstelveen, 444 5100 Mamma Mia! The Movie Thur, Sat, Tues 19.30 The Robber Symphony Fri 19.30. Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 Asterix en de knallende ketel Sun, Wed 14.00 The Battleship Potemkin Sun 16.15 Brief Encounter Tues 19.30 Cargo 200 Thur-Mon, Wed 21.30, Tues 21.50 De Drie Rovers Sun, Wed 13.45 Hunger daily 21.45, Thur, Sat also 19.45 Jagdhunde Thur-Sat, Mon, Wed 17.30, 19.30, Sun 19.30, Tues 17.30 The Mourning Forest Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.00, Sun 19.45 Les Parapluies de Cherbourg Fri 19.15 Pather Panchali Sun 16.00, Mon-Wed 19.15. Het Ketelhuis Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 684 0090 De Boer Die Zou Emigreren Sun 11.15 Carmen Meets Borat Sat, Sun, Wed 13.00

AGENDA: FILM by the obligatory funeral with bagpipes; for bleedingheart liberals, there’s a righteous cop (Edward Norton) making a lonely and principled stand against corruption in the department. Director Gavin O’Connor (Miracle) intended this as an homage to his father, a New York City police detective, but the finished product, amped up by macho screenwriter Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin’ Aces), is the sort of brutal, lumbering, and cliched thriller that only widens the divide between police and those they protect. (JJ) 125 min. Kriterion, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Shotgun Stories Jeff Nichols’s feature debut is a brooding, laconic drama that concerns three unnamed brothers whose drunkard father abandoned them and their embittered mother years ago. After subsequently sobering up, he discovers religion and starts a second family that the trio awkwardly meets for the first time at his funeral. There’s also an undercurrent of biblical revenge that lends the narrative a sense of violent menace and an almost continuous tension. At the center of the film is a keenly understated performance by Michael Shannon as the eldest of the cast-off sons. (JK) 92 min. SMART Cinema

Sita Sings the Blues Nina Paley’s animated ﬁlm

won the award of Best Feature at the prestigious Annecy Animation Festival and was the opening ﬁlm at the KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival. A sort of autobiographical tale inspired by the director’s real life break-up with her husband, her reading of The Ramayana, the famous epic Hindu poem about the doomed love of King Rama and Sita, and a mix of old jazz songs and cartoons. It’s a highly entertaining ﬁlm. 82 min. SMART Cinema

follows in the steps of Persepolis with its use of animation to deal with adult, political and contemporary themes—in this case the 1982 Lebanon war. Director Ari Folman attempts to share his personal experience of the war by interviewing friends and witnesses, whom he turns into animated figures, thus creating a visual hybrid of documentary and fiction. In Hebrew and German with Dutch subtitles. 90 min. The Movies, Rialto The Women Diane English, the creator of Murphy Brown, gathers a ‘who’s who’ cast with high female star wattage for a sappy, contemporary remake of George Cukor’s 1939 classic. More fodder for those ‘Girls’ Night Out’ at the movies that apparently work out pretty well at the box office. 114 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Young @ Heart This documentary by British director Stephen Walker about a Massachusetts rock choir where the choristers’ average age is 81 could easily

have become tacky and sappy, but instead Young@Heart is surprisingly humane and upbeat. Songs such as Should I Stay or Should I Go, Forever Young and Fix You take on new meaning when sung by people on the brink of death. The choristers’ humour, lust for life and determination are infectious, and the standing ovations at each show well deserved. Perhaps it’s not so bad, being old. (KE) 109 min. Rialto Edited by Massimo Benvegnù. This week's films reviewed by Massimo Benvegnù, Meredith Brody, Angela Dress (AD), Don Druker (DD), Kate Eaton (KE), Andrea Gronvall (AG), Luuk van Huët (LvH), JR Jones (JJ), Joshua Katzman (JK), Dave Kehr (DK), MarieClaire Melzer (MM), Robert Neugarten (RN), Reece Pendleton (RP), Gusta Reijnders (GR), Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR) and Bregtje Schudel (BS). All ﬁlms are screened in English with Dutch subtitles unless otherwise noted.

Web tip:

VW Camper Van interiors www.youtube.com/watch? v=ngDbt_PFyzU

Waltz With Bashir The opening ﬁlm of the Holland Animation Film Festival in Utrecht, Waltz With Bashir

Un Conte de Noël Thur-Tues 21.15, Fri-Wed 16.00, Sun also 10.45 De Drie Rovers Sat, Sun, Wed 12.45, 14.30 Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Sun 13.45 Meine Schöne Bescherung Tues 19.30 Het Nieuwe Rijksmuseum Sun 10.30 Niko en de Vliegende Brigade 12.30, 14.30 Oorlogswinter Fr-Wed 17.00, 19.15, 21.30, Thur 19.15, 21.30, Sat, Sun, Wed also 14.45 Ver van familie Sat 13.15 Vox Populi Fri-Wed 19.15 Wit Licht Thur-Mon, Wed 16.15, 19.00, 21.45, Tues 16.15, 21.45. Kriterion Roetersstraat 170, 623 1708 Anubis en het pad der 7 zonden Sat, Sun, Wed 15.15, Sun also 13.15 Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 21.15 Carmen Meets Borat daily 17.30 The Darjeeling Limited daily 17.15, Fri also 22.45 De Drie Rovers Sat, Sun, Wed 15.00 La Haine Mon 22.00 Into the Wild Thur-Sat 17.15, Sun 14.15 Leonera daily 19.45, Thur, Sat-Mon, Wed 22.00 Pride and Glory daily 22.15 Religulous Thur, Sat-Wed 20.00, Fri 20.30, Sun-Wed also 17.45, Sat also 0.00 Sneak Preview Tues 22.15 Vox Populi daily 19.15 Wall-E (NL) Sat, Wed 14.45, Sun 12.15. Melkweg Cinema Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 624 1777 Control Tues 19.00 Kuifje en de Zonnetempel Sun 15.00 Palindromes Fri, Sat 19.00 Storytelling Thur, Mon 19.00. The Movies Haarlemmerdijk 159-165, 638 6016 See www.themovies.nl for schedule De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512 À ma soeur Mon 20.30. OBA Oosterdokskade 143, 0900-2425468, Roze Filmdagen . Pathé ArenA ArenA Boulevard 600, 0900 1458 A.R.O.G. daily 12.40, 15.30, 18.20, 21.10, Sat, Sun also 10.00, Sat also 0.10 Anubis en het pad der 7 zonden Sat, Sun, Wed 13.30, 15.45, Sat Sun also 11.10 Australia Wed 20.30 Body Of Lies daily 21.40 Changeling daily 17.50, 20.50, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 11.50, 14.45, Sat also 23.50 The Day the Earth Stood Still daily 12.00, 14.30, 17.00, 19.30, 22.00, Sat, Sun also 9.40, Sat also 0.25 High School Musical 3: Senior Year (NL) Fri-Sun, Wed 12.50, 15.20, Sat, Sun also 10.30 High School Musical: Senior Year (OV) daily 11.45, 14.00, 16.10, 18.30 The Kite Runner Tues 13.30 Kurtlar Vadisi daily 12.20, 14.50, 17.20, 19.45, 22.10, Sat also 0.30 Madagascar (NL) daily 13.40, 15.50, 18.10, Fri-Sun, Wed also 12.45, 14.55, 17.05, Sat, Sun also 10.40, 11.20 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Thur-Tues 20.10, Thur-Sat, Mon, Tues also 22.20, Sat also 0.30 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (IMAX) daily 12.30, 14.40, 16.50, Sat, Sun also 10.20, Sun also 22.20 Niko en de Vliegende Brigade Wed 12.10, 14.10, 16.05 Oorlogswinter Thur-Mon, Wed 18.00, 20.20, Thur-Mon also

Film times at www.amsterdamweekly.nl too.

13.20, 15.40, Sat, Sun also 11.00, Tues 16.30, 18.50, 21.15, Sat also 22.40 Piet Piraat & het Zwaard van Zilvertand Wed 12.05, 14.00, 15.55, 17.50 Pride and Glory daily 21.00, Sat also 23.45 Quantum of Solace Thur-Tues 11.55, 14.20, 16.40, 19.20, 21.50, Thur-Sun, Tues also 18.15, Thur-Sun also 20.40, Thur, Mon, Tues 12.50, 15.20, Wed 18.50, 20.40, Sat also 23.15, 0.15 Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.50, 17.15, 20.45, Sat 9.40, 13.00, 16.20, 19.45, 23.20, Sun also 10.15 Sneak Preview Tues 21.00 The Day the Earth Stood Still (IMAX) daily 19.00, 21.30, Sat also 0.00 Twilight daily 12.15, 15.00, 17.40, 20.30, Sat, Sun also 9.45, Sat also 23.10 Wit Licht Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.15, 16.00, 18.40, 21.20, Sat 10.00, 12.40, 15.20, 18.00, 20.40, 23.20, Sun also 10.15 The Women daily 19.10, Thur, Mon, Tues 11.50, 14.10, 16.30, Sat also 0.25. Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Anywhere But Home Sat 23.40 Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex Mon, Tues 20.40, Wed 20.00 Blindness Thur, Fri, Sun, Wed 16.15, Mon, Tues 15.00, Sat 18.15 Body Of Lies Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.00, 21.15, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.10, 15.00, Sat 18.30, 21.30 Bride Flight Thur, Fri, Sun, Wed 13.20, Sat, Mon, Tues 12.10, Sat also 15.00, Sun 10.20 Burn After Reading Thur, Fri, Sun, Tues, Wed 19.00, Thur, Fri, Sun, Wed also 21.40, Sat also 17.45, 20.20, 22.50 Changeling daily 17.15, 20.30, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 13.45, Sat also 10.40, 13.50, Sun also 10.45 The Day the Earth Stood Still daily 15.15, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 18.15, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 12.15, Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon, Wed also 21.00, Sat 12.30, 18.00, 20.45, 23.30, Tues also 21.40 High School Musical 3: Senior Year (NL) Fri, Wed 12.20, 15.00, Sat 10.45, 13.15, 16.00, Sun 10.50, 13.10, 15.40 High School Musical: Senior Year (OV) daily 16.45, 19.15, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 12.00, 14.20, Sat also 11.45, 14.15 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 14.10, 16.30, 17.30, 19.45, 22.15, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 12.00, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.40, 14.45, Sat 10.20, 12.45, 15.30, 18.45, 21.00, 23.15, Sun also 10.15, 11.45 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (NL) Fri, Sun, Wed 12.20, 13.20, 14.50, 15.40, Sat 10.50, 12.00, 13.00, 14.30, 15.45, Sun also 11.00 Niko en de Vliegende Brigade Wed 12.00, 13.50 Oorlogswinter Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.10, 14.30, 17.00, 19.30, 22.00, Sat 11.15, 13.45, 16.15, 19.00, 21,45 Piet Piraat & het Zwaard van Zilvertand Wed 12.45, 14.50 Pride and Glory Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.45, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.00, 14.50, 17.45, Fri, Sun, Wed also 17.50, Sat 16.50, 19.45, 22.45 Quantum of Solace Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.10, 20.50, 21.50, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 12.40, 15.20, Fri also 20.00, Sat 12.15, 14.45, 17.30, 20.15, 21.15, 22.00, 23.10, Sun also 10.15, Wed also 15.45 Rocknrolla Thur, Sun 20.00 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Twilight Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.50, 18.45, 21.45, Thur, Fri, MonWed also 13.00, Sat 13.10, 14.00, 17.00, 20.00, 23.00, Sun also 13.10 Wit Licht Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.30, 15.30, 18.30, 21.30, Sat 10.30, 13.30, 16.30, 19.30, 22.30 The Women Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.45, 15.10, 17.40, 20.15, Sat 11.10, 13.40, 16.40, 19.20, 22.15, Sun also 10.20. Pathé Tuschinski Reguliersbreestraat 34, 0900 1458 Australia Wed 20.45

Bride Flight Thur 20.30, Fri-Sun, Tues 17.15 Changeling daily 21.00, Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon also 12.45, 16.00, Tues, Wed also 12.15, 15.30, Sat also 14.40, 17.45 Cherry Blossoms Thur-Mon 15.30, Wed 18.30 Elisabeth: The Golden Age Thur, Tues 13.30 Madagascar (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 12.15, 14.45, Wed also 17.30 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Fri-Sun, Tues 20.45, Fri, Tues also 12.15, 14.45, Mon 12.15, 14.45 Oorlogswinter daily 12.30, 15.30, 18.30, Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed also 21.15 Quantum of Solace Thur-Mon, Wed 12.30, Thur-Mon also 18.30, Thur-Sun, Wed also 21.15, Tues 18.30, Wed also 15.30 Vicky Cristina Barcelona daily 16.30, 19.00, 21.30, Fri-Wed also 13.00 Wit Licht daily 12.00, 15.00, Fri-Wed also 21.15, Fri-Sun, Tues, Wed also 18.30, Thur 18.15. Rialto Ceintuurbaan 338, 676 8700 A Zona Sun 17.00 Cherry Blossoms Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 19.30, Sat 18.20, Fri, Sat, Wed also 16.00 Entre Les Murs daily 19.00, 21.30, Fri-Sun, Wed also 16.15, Say, Sun also 13.45, Sun also 11.15 Harry, un ami qui vous veut du bien Sun 11.00, Wed 19.30 IndieLisboa Sat 21.15 IndieLisboa Shorts Sat 23.15, 0.30 Leonera Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.15, 21.45, Sat 21.00, Fri-Sun, Wed also 14.45 El Olvido Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 19.45, Sat 12.45, 19.15, Sun also 11.45 Via de acesso Sun 15.00 Waltz With Bashir Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 22.00 Young@Heart Sat, Sun 13.15. SMART Cinema Eerste Constantijn Huijgensstraat 20, 427 5951 Angelus Sat 20.15 Eat For This Is My Body Thur, Tues, Wed 22.00, Sun 22.15 The Garden of Earthly Delights Fri 22.15 Glass Lips Sun 20.15, Tues, Wed 22.15 The Gospel According to Harry Fri 20.15 Lech Majewski Planet B-Boy Fri, Sat, Sun 20.00 Shotgun Stories Fri, Sat, Mon 22.00, Tues, Wed 20.15 Sita Sings the Blues Thur, Sun, Mon-Wed 20.00 Wojaczek Sat 22.15. Studio K Timorplein 62, 692 0422 Anubis en het pad der 7 zonden Sat, Sun, Wed 15.00 Bienvenue Chez les Ch’tis daily 17.00, Thur, Sun-Wed 22.15 Bride Flight Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 19.45 Burn After Reading Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.00, 22.00 Caos calmo Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.15 Wall-E (NL) Sat, Wed 15.00. De Uitkijk Prinsengracht 452, 623 7460 Anubis en het pad der 7 zonden Sat 15.15 El Calentito Sat 19.30 The Chinese Botanist's Daughter Mon 19.30 Cloud 9 daily 17.15 De Drie Rovers Sun 13.45, Wed 15.45 Drifting Flowers Wed 19.30 Il y a longtemps que je t'aime Thur, Fri 19.15, Sun 21.30 Infamous Sat 21.30 Love My Life Tues 19.30 El Olvido Thur, Fri, Tues, Wed 21.30, Mon 21.45 Roze Filmdagen Wall-E (NL) Sun 15.15 XXY Sun 19.30.

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

FOOD & DRINK The Mouth

By Alec Shuldiner

A hearth of celebration Restaurant Christophe’ Leliegracht 46 Tue-Sat 18.30-22.30 Cash, major credit cards It has been some years since I last ate at Christophe’. I have always had a marvelous time there, but my dining budget is not unlimited and this is one of the city’s more expensive menus. Fortunately I had a special occasion on hand: 7.30 please, a party of six. I was curious to see if the departure of Christophe himself (he sold the restaurant to its head chef and sommelier in 2006) would be detectable. Certainly so in terms of decor: the former rather subdued interior has been given a modish makeover—Murano chandeliers, lots of black—though not to the point of distraction. But in other respects, namely the still-excellent service and the outstanding food, I am happy to report it remains true to its roots, and especially so in this most crucial regard: Christophe’ is still a hearth of celebration. The menu is a good read with an intriguing but not overwhelming range of options. However half our table, myself included, opted for a special chocolate menu. I, at least, harboured secret fears—chocolate is at least as often a substitute for inspiration as evidence of it—but these proved to be almost entirely misplaced. Ironically, the one ﬂaw in the menu was the dessert, which, as you might imagine, was seen as entirely too

much of a good thing by the time it arrived. If only I’d had the good sense to ask for the cheese cart instead, a magnificently overloaded trolley that had already floated by our table several times and which, in the end, I was simply too full to beckon back. The three courses preceding dessert were each memorable in their own way. The duck liver was wonderfully sweet, and while entirely satisfactory without the chocolate ganache that accompanied it, I enjoyed the novelty of the combination. This was followed by a seared scallop (something I will only order in restaurants I really trust as it is almost impossible to improve on this shellfish in its uncooked state) which arrived on a heated plate, over which the waiter then grated some hard chocolate—the aroma as the tiny flakes melted was heavenly. Hard acts to follow, but the main course succeeded. A tenderloin of fawn—I know, I know—in a poivrade sauce enriched (as if it needed it) with cocoa. I followed the flavour and was lost. The wine pairings—we placed the entire table in the hands of the sommelier—were uniformly excellent. More than once one or another of us took a sip of a glass that had arrived in advance of its partner dish and was initially dismayed only to find that in company with the food it was exactly the right thing. Well done. This was the meal and it was an excellent one. Oddly, the various amuse and the bread on the table were of an altogether lower quality than the menu itself, and this is a flaw that deserves attention. It should not, however, stop you from finding your own reason to celebrate at Christophe’. ___

The waiter then grated some chocolate—the aroma as the ﬂakes melted was heavenly.

A night in the life...

By Sarah Gehrke

Three’s a crowd Cafe Katoen Nieuwe Doelenstraat 1 Open Mon-Thur 09.00-01.00, Fri, Sat 09.00-03.00, Sun 11.00-01.00 Cash, PIN ‘...’ says the guy next to us. ‘...’ answers his girlfriend. On the table to our other side, a girl leans over to the guy she’s here with and says ‘...’. No, it’s not because the music played here is too loud (thankfully, seeing the music played here is a circa2003 R&B compilation). The reason why we can’t hear what anyone’s saying is that everyone’s talking rather softly. The reason for that being that the people who are talking are quite close to each other. The reason for that being that they’re all couples. It’s taken us a while to realise this. We sat down, we had a chat, we had a glass. And then we looked around us and saw that every single table was occupied by a pair. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think there’s anything wrong with couples. It’s just that a night spent in a bar exclusively populated by them is usually less fun than one spent in a bar with a more diverse ethnographic composition. For want of external stimuli, we resort to making up names for ﬁctive R&B compilations. Fun for a while,

Beer price: €2.10 for a vaasje (Jupiler). Emergency food: Borrelhapjes till 22.00. Special interior feature: A huge poster on the wall with a photograph of a very cool lady with an afro, a pregnant belly and a badge saying ‘Nixon’s the one’. Predominant shoe type: Converse (uni is close by). Also: lady-boots-with-jeans-tucked-in. Typically ordered drink: One white wine and one beer, please. Smoking situation: Stand outside and make ‘funny’ faces to try and make the Hotel de l’Europe porter across the road laugh. Tune of the night: Janet Jackson, ‘Again’. Yes. Really. Mingling factor: Very, very, very low. State of toilets near closing time: Hey, Queen Beatrix is up on the ladies’ door—all must be good.

but after we’ve arrived at Hot Candlelight & Sweet Honey Lovin’, there’s a little silence. At this point, I would like to stress that Cafe Katoen is actually a cool place, something I might have failed to convey so far. It’s a cosy, small, square room, equipped with all the Dutchcafe necessities. They have nice food, friendly waiters, a great location and the music has also been okay on other occasions. It’s a fantastic place for afternoon coffees or Sunday-night leisure drinks. However, if it’s peoplewatching or badger-baiting you’re after, I advise you to look elsewhere. However, all of a sudden our little silence is interupted. ‘A la vida,’ proclaims one of the three guys who have just sat next to us. But alas! we’re not in the mood anymore for mingling, and from now on my currently non-smoking friend forbids me to leave every time I want to go for a cigarette. Great. The music gets louder, though by no means better. Well, at least it provides another external stimulus—one my friend immediately catches up on. ‘You know,’ she says ponderingly, ‘I have now heard from several people already that Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas is actually a dude.’ ‘...,’ I answer. ‘...!’ she says. The reason for us not hearing each other being that we’re quite drunk by now. Time to leave. All the couples went long before us. ___

Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

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WEEKLY CLASSIFIEDS colours.I’m also doing haircuts and makeup.Email:danielsmeets@yah oo.com Mobil:0624137392

Ad of the week

DOG STYLIST

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JOBS

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SALES OPPORTUNITY We are currently seeking salesperson for an established English-language magazine in Amsterdam. Experience preferable, not essential. Candidates must have knowledge of English. Attractive conditions, flexible hours. c.divito@chello.nl

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HOUSING FOR RENT

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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.

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SHARED HOUSING

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OTHER SPACES

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TRANSPORT

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Amsterdam Weekly_11-17 December 2008

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COURSES

LEARN DUTCH IN 6 WKS Intensive course Dutch for beginners starts Jan 12. mofri 10.00-12.00, six weeks. Price: 720,- See www.nedles.nl - NedLes, Dutch for professionals - for more information

DRAWING AND PAINTING Weekend workshops by professional and experienced artist, various techniques, all styles, from scratch to paintHOME ing with oils. Reasonable IMPROVEMENT rates. Contact MONTESSORI UNDER 3 PAINTING Professional joneiselin@hetnet.nl. New courses for toddlers and Painting and Plastering,25 BLOW YOUR MIND! Award babies begin in mid-January. years experience for esti- WinningAmsterdambasedglass Qualified Montessori teachmates and advice please call blower will teach you the art of er. Small groups. Oud-Zuid. 06 232 459 57 glassblowing, Flameworking, Classes in English and Dutch. or bead making. Small class We recommend registering COMPUTERS size Catch a Fire! Info@stu- now for 2009 courses and PC HOUSE DOCTOR PC diotermini.com.06-29-289-453 contacting us for a free tri-

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PIANO LESSONS Pianostudio Groenburgwal offers professional piano teaching in the center. Openings are daytime for adults and afterschool for children. All levels and backgrounds welcome. Husband and wife team new Wine Course Program and a Language Diploma. with 10+ years expat expeon a Basic and an Advanced First meeting is for free. Call rience. Lessons available in Level! Join the fun! Location: 06-25256811 - english and dutch. La Cuisine Francaise Heren- andreataeg@yahoo.it l.willems@scarlet.nl gracht 314 in the Center of EXCELLENT DUTCH Amsterdam. Prices from GROUP & PRIVATE THE ARTS 299 More info on: LESSONS A’DAM:proficienMAGPIE www.lacuisinefrancaise.nl cy in conversation with sol- THIEVING BOOKSTORE ‘When I was 020 6278725 id base of a little boy, they called me pronunciation,spelling&gra LANGUAGES a liar, but now that I am mmar/Beginnergroup grown up, they call me a writLEARN ITALIAN! Italian Mon/Tues/Thurs/19:00native-speaker gives indi- 21.00/start 12-01-09/ 12,00 er.’-Isaac Bashevis Singer vidual lessons either to adults ph,/Also private:from 16 The Thieving Magpie Bookor children. Flexible hours. p.h.,Also private intensive store 1e Bloemdwarsstraat The teacher is experienced. courses and on-line( audio- 15 1016 KR Amsterdam He has a University Degree visual) 06-36122870/ www. www.thievingmagpie.nl

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LOOKING FOR UGLY OBJECTS? Anyone living or working in/close to Red Light Districts is invited to submit an ugly handheld object to be ‘beautified’ by an artist. If you own an ugly object but have not had the heart to throw it away, BRING it to OUDEKERKSPLEIN 4 on December 1415, 10-20:00. More info at UGLYOBJECTS.COM

GROUPS & CLUBS PRESIDENT OBAMA!Join the best party in town at www.DemocratsAbroad.nl the 51st state of the Democratic Party, with monthly DemsFun Drinks and more. FLY TO BE BETTERFreshly arrived in the Netherlands and interested to broaden your horizon? Willing to travel without having to pack again ? Fly with us with Junior Chamber International. Come on board of JCI Airlines and discover our four destinations to ‘be Better’. For more info: www.jciai.nl/flyingJCIAirlines

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