Amsterdam Weekly: Vol 5 Issue 6, 7-13 Feb 2008 by Amsterdam Weekly

Volume 5, Issue 6

7 - 13 FEBRUARY 2008 The voice of seasonal despair

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‘Tourist in own town’ issue

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Death museum comes The major alive tourist sights and their PLUS Pull out map

page 6

antidotes page 14-15

The city through children’s eyes page 7 The future of underground living page 4 Vrankrijk opens up page 4 / Mother Next Nature page 5 ART: The music of war, the war of music p. 10 / FILM: German director Fatih Akin talks about life and death p. 21

Short List . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 Music/Clubs . . . . . . . . . .11 Gay & Lesbian . . . . . . . .17 Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Dining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Classifieds/Comics . . . .24

7-13 February 2008

Amsterdam Weekly

ATTACHMENTS In this issue and... It’s always good to look at things with fresh eyes. To be a tourist in your own town—or mind. A reality shift certainly occurred last Sunday when pretty close to the whole adult population of the Netherlands sat down to watch Peter R de Vries’s TV show that broadcast Joran van der Sloot’s ‘confession’ of his role in the disappearance of 18-year-old American Natalee Holloway in Aruba three years ago. Set up by a ‘friend’ he was obviously trying to impress, Van der Sloot told his story while being documented from two different (hidden) camera angles. While the ‘truth’ was dramatic, the legality is vague. But one thing is official: media has become the arbritator of, well, everything.

On the cover TABLEAU MORT Photo by Denis Koval

Next week Travel. And we would like to involve YOU. Do you have a favourite vacation photograph? Please email it to us at holiday@amsterdamweekly.nl by Friday 8 February. Please include your name, the date and year the photo was taken, the location, and a few sentences on why it’s your fave holiday snap. The photograph should be JPG or TIF, and (ideally) not smaller than 240 dpi.

Letters Got an opinion? We want to hear it. inbox@amsterdamweekly.nl

Amsterdam Weekly BV De Ruyterkade 106, 1011 AB Amsterdam Tel: 020 522 5200 Fax: 020 620 1666 www.amsterdamweekly.nl General info: info@amsterdamweekly.nl Agenda listings: agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl Advertising: sales@amsterdamweekly.nl Classifieds: classifieds@amsterdamweekly.nl PUBLISHER Todd Savage EDITOR Steve Korver ASSISTANT EDITOR Nina Siegal AGENDA EDITOR Steven McCarron FILM EDITOR Julie Phillips COPY EDITOR Mark Wedin EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sarah Gehrke ART DIRECTOR Bas Morsch PRODUCTION MANAGER Karen Willey PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Mattijs Arts, Russell Joyce SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER Carolina Salazar ACCOUNT MANAGERS Florrie Beasley, Marc Devèze, Simone Klomp, Floortje Mennen OPERATIONS MANAGER Monique Gruter FINANCE ASSISTANT Simone Choi DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Patrick van der Klugt FINANCIAL ADVISER Kurt Schmidt (Veresis Consulting) PRINTER Corelio Printing Amsterdam Weekly is published every week on Wednesday and is available free at locations all over Amsterdam. Subscriptions are available for €60 per six months within the Netherlands and €90 per six months within Europe. Agenda submissions are welcome, at least two weeks in advance. New contributors are invited to visit Amsterdam Weekly’s website for contributor guidelines. Contents of Amsterdam Weekly (ISSN 1872-3268) are copyright 2008 Amsterdam Weekly BV. All rights reserved.

12 WOODEN SHOES by Arnoud Holleman

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008

AROUND TOWN

Dig the future An underground cosy space for cars and tourists. By Remco Andersen At an international congress organised by the Centre for Underground Construction in Amsterdam last week, Dutch construction company Stukton presented a daring plan to combat traffic congestion and air pollution and to improve the overall quality of life in Amsterdam. Their idea: build a city under the canals. The project is named Alternative MultiFunctional Underground Space Amsterdam (AMFORA) and consists of a layered system of subterranean spaces connected to the A10 beltway. Along with giant submerged parking lots, the company suggests the city also build cinemas, sporting facilities, and a network of cables and pipes. ‘Expanding into the depths of the earth is not futuristic, but a necessity in our time,’ reads the Strukton press release. The possibilities, the company says, are countless. Dutch science fiction writer Wim Stolk (who publishes under the pseudonym WJ Maryson), and JW Bosch, a professor of underground space technology at the Delft University of Technology, both looked at the preliminary schematics. Winner of the 2007 Paul Harland prize for best science fiction and fantasy short story, Stolk is an expert on limitless possibilities. Bosch, a more practical-minded scientist, knows the underground of Amsterdam intimately from his work as a construction manager on Amsterdam’s Noord-Zuid metro line. Stolk weighs in with a few fantastic ideas of his own about what might be included in the cavern world; Bosch tries to separate the science from the fiction. Here’s what they have to say: Stolk: While they’re down there digging, why not make tubes for unmanned cargo transportation? Using pressure to create a vacuum in the tube, cylinders could be transported at tremendous

speeds. Think about the old-fashioned tube system in buildings to quickly distribute mail in closed cylinders. Bosch: This might sound futuristic, but it really isn’t that far-fetched. We have done research on a system of unmanned underground cargo transport between the Aalsmeer flower auction and Schiphol. We already use pipes for oil and gas and we could do the same for cargo. The problem isn’t scientific, it’s commercial: all the companies involved have to work together and invest in the new system, while most of them are happy with the current system of surface transportation. Stolk: We could construct an underground drainage basin for when the major rivers in the Netherlands are overflowing. Such basins already exist to store excess water during heavy rains and an underground lake could double as a gigantic indoor water sports center. Bosch: The largest underground basins currently in operation in the Netherlands have a capacity of 15,000 to 20,000 meters squared. The Rhine has, on rare occasion, displaced well over 10,000 meters a second. It would require an extraordinary amount of energy to create an underground basin for such volumes, and then again to empty it once it’s full. The recreational benefits would hardly warrant the effort. Stolk: If we’re talking about reducing air pollution by building a city under the Amstel, why not construct an underground Schiphol to go with it? You’d only have to open the ceiling above the part of the runway where the plane comes through when flying in or out. The advantage is that you can completely control air pollution during take-off and landing, when it’s at its worst; install equipment to catch particulate matter and nitrogen oxide and then store it somewhere. Bosch: If the aim is to reduce air pollution, I think there are less dramatic ways to do it. One way would be by improving aircraft engines, for instance. Still, Mr Stolk does have a point. Controlling air conditions is already standard practice in most office buildings. Clean rooms—or research laboratories where the concentration of dust particles is controlled to an extreme degree—give you an idea of how much can be achieved by using existing technology. Sanitising the air of an under-

ground Amsterdam would require a significant increase in scale, but is not impossible. Research into underground storage of gases, for example in used-up oil fields or existing subterranean voids, is already being done with regard to carbon dioxide. Alternatively, I can even imagine trying to bind the molecules to other compounds in order to create something useful. I can even imagine trying to bind the molecules to other compounds in order to create something useful. Stolk: With such a clean environment, it might even be appealing to spend extended periods of time underground. A subterranean Vondelpark could be created to develop a pleasant atmosphere, and you could use mirrors that reflect daylight from above ground, or giant projectors and screens to reproduce it. Bosch: In the early 1990s, the Human Factors Research Lab, a part of the University of Minnesota, conducted an experiment with people living underground for extended periods of time. Even though they set up a number of things to make the experience less depressing, including an intricate system of mirrors to reflect daylight, most of the participants got claustrophobic after a while. Underground construction can potentially solve many problems we have on the surface, but I don’t think Amsterdam’s housing shortage is one of them.

New face on an old squat Vrankrijk celebrates its 25th birthday by reopening. By Marlous Veldt Did you ever wonder what goes on behind the blue facade of Spuistraat 216? The pop art with ‘BOOM’ in big letters splashed across the windows seems inviting enough, but for many Amsterdammers, Vrankrijk retains the sinister image of its early days, when squatters owned the streets of the city centre. If you are one of these Amsterdammers, maybe Vrankrijk’s publicfriendly make-over and re-launch party this Friday, 8 February will help ring the bell of this illustrious symbol of Amsterdam’s squat movement. A week before opening, someone with safety glasses is making impressive fireworks (and amazing amounts of noise) with an angle grinder, polishing the ledges of the bar. Surprising even themselves, the volunteer building brigade, made up of the bar crew and regular customers, has

SIMON WALD LASOWSKI

Parking is just the beginning...

Amsterdam Weekly

shown up almost every day from nine to five for the last four months. They’re now near to finishing the last stretch of a threeyear renovation, which kept Vrankrijk closed for the greater part of last year. Vrankrijk was squatted in November 1982 to protect it from demolition by land speculators. Occupants turned the abandoned carpentry workshop and later printing house into living spaces and a bar, which soon became known as the squat scene’s ‘cafeteria’. After a judge ordered eviction in 1992, the squatters bought the building with donations from supporters. The house was put in care of a foundation, while the bar remained officially squatted to ensure its political character. In 2001, new closure threats from the city council forced Vrankrijk to legalise the bar too, and with legalisation came new licensing rules requiring soundproofing and safety upgrades. But Vrankrijkers didn’t want to spend money simply to comply with government rules, so they made a few other improvements while they were at it. They have enlarged the stage area, painted the walls pink and blue, and taken the ‘revolutionary step’ of installing a front window. ‘Maybe a window will make it less scary for people to walk in,’ says Paul, a member of the bar crew. ‘We will always be political, but politics is broader than squatting and we want to show that a place with radical opinions, self-organised by volunteers, can exist even in the centre of Amsterdam.’ Never forgetting its primary motive, Vrankrijk has worked hard to maintain its function as a politically engaged social centre. Last year, it hosted a solidarity evening with speakers from SEGI, a Basque left-wing pro-independence youth organisation, which is classified by the European Union as a terrorist group. Wilders’ party, The Freedom Party, or PVV, asked the minister of internal affairs to ban the event. But the squat made the news, and the event took place anyway. Asked why Vrankrijk wants to become more public-friendly when its public seems to appreciate the bolted door, black walls, and political posters, Paul smiles. Tourists are part of the deal, since the former squat is right in the city centre, he says. ‘Through Vrankrijk, people often end up at much more underground places,’ he says, listing the ‘punk hole’ the Baarmoeder, squat kitchens, Joe’s Garage... ‘You’ll never find them if you just walked into town.’ A bonus of the new sound insulation is that city regulations now allow Vrankrijk to have live music every day, rather than just six nights a year, which was the situation since legalisation. Punk and hardcore will stay on the bill, but, says Saskia of the programming group, ‘there is a lot of energy to try different things than bands and a bar.’ New activities include a queer dance night called Cruise Control, imported from Utrecht; a regular film program;

Not quite ready for new visitors (our photographer wasn’t allowed inside).

and—as soon as the kitchen is finished—a cheap day cafe and restaurant. Paul would like to hold tapas gatherings for international aid groups and activist groups there. ‘Between five and nine, after work, and before everybody is drunk,’ he says. Does that sound to you like Vrankrijk is turning into a retirement home, as some voices whisper? Luckily for the demographic balance, a second generation of Vrankrijkers is already as enthusiastic about the bar and its politics as their parents were 25 years ago. Tom, a 16-year-old punk who fronts local band The Hangouts, recently spent many after-school hours demolishing walls and sweeping floors. It took him some time to get used to the place, he says, ‘with all these old people around’, but he is looking forward to having a permanent stage for DIY bands. ‘There are almost no stages for us to play in Amsterdam, and I think this one will be a big attraction to people my age,’ he says. Asked whether he has any tips for people who might be nervous about entering the Vrankrijk, Tom says the regulars are very friendly: ‘Newcomers will know everybody within a week.’ Opening party: February 8, 21.00, €3.50, Vrankrijk, Spuistraat 216.

Natural revolution Three tips for living in the next version of nature. By Sarah Gehrke There was a time when city-stricken humans went on Sunday outings to the woods, to have a nice walk in the fresh air and look at cute little rabbits playing under the trees. This was done, or so the general notion went, to re-establish a connection with nature. And it was all lies and self-deception, at least if you listen to the people behind the new website Next Nature. ‘If you define “nature” as a place that’s still how the world would be without humans—then you won’t find it anywhere. At least not in Holland,’ says Arnoud van den Heuvel, one of the website’s editors. Everything around us has been modified. But there is a way out. One of the ideas behind Next Nature is that because of the way technology has become totally pervasive, our perception of the world as a whole has changed so much that nowadays we perceive culture, basically man-made things and developments, as nature. Or rather: the next nature. ‘Next nature,’ says Koert Mensvoort, organiser of the project, ‘is the part of nature that was caused by human culture. Our vision is that next nature is now the

KOEN VAN MENSVOORT

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real nature: the nature of the twenty-first century.’ Confused? Well, here are three simple tips on how to enjoy this new kind of nature. Tip #1: Find pleasure in daily objects Right at the top of the Next Nature website stands a bold statement: ‘There may even come a moment, that our connection with an industrially manufactured coke bottle may be richer and more mythical than our relation with a genetically analysed and manipulated rabbit in the wood.’ ‘The image of a coca-cola bottle,’ says Van den Heuvel, ‘has become so wellknown all over the world, that for us it has become part of nature.’ So much so that we can establish a mythical connection with it, apparently. Is this about urban romance then? About looking at industrial landscapes and finding them more beautiful than the sights of nature? ‘No,’ says Van den Heuvel, ‘the idea of next nature goes further than that. It applies to everything in the world of today, products as well as landscapes.’ Mensvoort adds: ‘On the one hand we see that old nature is increasingly demystified by science (if you think of genetically produced crops and animals), but at the same time technological products become so complex that people start to relate to them as natural phenomena. For example, the relation people have with their iPods is almost mythical. They are products of next nature.’ Tip #2: Grow mushrooms on things Among the many articles and images featured on the Next Nature website are pictures of an installation by the artist Zeger Reyers, who sprayed spores of oyster mushrooms over several objects, including a fire hose, a record player, and some archive boxes. As a result, strangely beautiful, colourful mushrooms grew on the objects. They look like they are there for decoration. ‘Basically,’ says Van den Heuvel, ‘we are a platform for research about everything that is on the border between culture and nature. It is a blog, where people can post things that are related to

Getting away from it all.

the topic. But we also have yearly shows—the next one will be in LA—with lectures and debates. And we’re holding a design competition, Designing for Next Nature, which you can enter via the website. Sometimes new developments are already expressed in design, before we have actually understood them.’ A student in Eindhoven had the idea of growing mushrooms on trucks, so that they are fabricated and distributed at the same time. ‘This,’ says van den Heuvel, ‘is a very good example of next nature.’ Tip #3: Log on—the internet is alive Also to be found on the website is a map of the internet. It looks like a beautiful, multicoloured supernova or, alternatively, like one of the pictures they used to show you in biology class that were million-fold magnifications of something you didn’t really want to know about. The internet map, though, is hopelessly outdated since it was made in 2006, and few things change as quickly as the internet. It seems like it is a living organism that develops beyond our control. And this is the other idea behind the Next Nature project. ‘Culture has become nature in the sense that it is a power that we can’t stop anymore,’ says Van den Heuvel. ‘Through communication, the world has become smaller, and now we think we can control it. But in fact we can’t. We believe in technology so much, we can’t exist anymore without it.’ And this map, he continues, is a good example of what Next Nature tries to do: ‘When a structure like this is visualised, all of a sudden it comes alive. And we’re trying to make all these new developments in the fields of technology, architecture, art and so on comprehensible with the help of small examples.’ So, folks, welcome to the next nature. For a glance of old nature, you can still look up at the stars. But be careful—if the one you’re looking at is blinking, it may well be a satellite. www.nextnature.net

ven though the temperature inside a crematorium oven may be 1200 degrees Celsius, a body may not be completely consumed during incineration. Human bones, it turns out, are a tough nut to crack—an important point when considering the act of scattering of the ashes. It would be a nasty thing to hear grandpa rattle in his ash container, wouldn’t it? This is where a cremulator comes in handy. A cremulator is a bone-crusher. It looks pretty much like your spin-drier at home, except that it isn’t loaded with freshly washed undies, but rather with the detritus of a cremated person, along with steel balls that can reduce bones to fine dust. A cremulator is only one of the fascinating funerary objects at the Nederlands Uitvaart Museum ‘Tot Zover’, or Dutch Funerary Museum ‘Thus Far’, the newest jewel in Amsterdam’s crown of impressive cultural institutions. An initiative of the funerary sector, the Funerary Museum, which opened in December, is a response to rising interest among the general public in death and the rituals surrounding it, according to museum director, Guus Sluiter. ‘De dood leeft,’ says Sluiter as he sits in cafe Roosenburgh, a part of the museum. ‘Funerary fairs are very popular, and there are many publications and exhibitions around the theme.’ Indeed, the preoccupation with death is alive and well. The cafe is designed with lots of glass and chrome, all clean lines, but not ongezellig. A radio is playing soft pop music. Most visitors are dressed in black, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the museum is located on the property of the Nieuwe Oosterbegraafplaats cemetery in Watergraafsmeer. Sluiter, an art historian specialised in 17th-century painting, says that, in spite of its location, the museum is not meant to help people cope with bereavement. ‘We want to raise awareness with people, saying “death belongs to life.” We aim to inform,’ he says. ‘How hot is it inside the crematorium oven? How does embalming work? What are funerary rituals in other cultures like?’ In the future, he says, he’d like to organise art exhibitions in the museum. ‘Artists look at things differently. And that’s a good thing, because it will stimulate you, the visitor, to reflect on something in a different way.’

Sports shoes Although Tot Zover isn’t the first funerary museum in the world— there are other death museums in Vienna, Houston and Kassel—Sluiter says his museum is ‘unique in its museological presentation. Other museums have just placed some objects with accompanying texts.’ In Tot Zover the exhibition vitrines are arranged into four themes: Rituals, the Body, Mourning and Remembering, and Memento Mori. The accompanying texts are somewhat short, but an in-depth audio tour makes up for what they lack.

Amsterdam Weekly

Where did all the dead tourists go? A new funerary museum responds to the ‘popularity’ of death. BY FLORIS DOGTEROM PHOTO BY DENIS KOVAL

With the headset, it takes approximately an hour to explore the entire museum. The first room, before the actual exhibition starts, contains the installation ‘You and I’. Portraits of deceased people hang on strings from a round structure mounted in the ceiling. The images come from patrons to the website, www.totzoverjijenik.nl, where visitors can send in a portrait of loved ones who have cashed their chips, along

with a short description of a memory of the deceased. Under the portrait of a man it says, ‘Jacob Job Boelens, my silent family father. From Geert Boelens, your son.’ In the ‘Rituals’ portion of the display, viewers encounter seven whitewood coffins, each of them opened and exhibiting aspects of a particular religion’s funerary practise. Among the religions represented are Catholicism, Judaism,

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and Surinamese Hinduism. The Surinamese Chinese coffin contains sports shoes, a shirt (still in its packaging), and a blanket, since the Surinamese Chinese believe that after death the soul has to make a journey to paradise, which will lead through hot and cold hells. The recently deceased therefore needs a blanket and warm clothing for his or her post-mortem travels. Don’t touch my quiff The most unusual coffin in the bunch is one that isn’t connected to any religion, but is labeled ‘Personal Funeral’. It contains a letter from somebody called Merijn, with extensive instructions on how to behave around his dead body. ‘Make yourself at home,’ it reads. ‘Make some coffee. Check the fridge. Don’t touch my quiff, because it will be difficult to get it back in shape for the funeral.’ Sluiter says that most funerals today are still very traditional, since most people die in old age, though they’ve formed their opinions on such philosophical matters while they were young. But he mentions, by way of contrast, the funeral of Manfred Langer, former owner of the iT discotheque, who made his last earthly trip in a pink Chevrolet, followed by 20 white hearses and a procession of extravagantly dressed friends. ‘Funerals like that have helped pave the way for a more personal approach,’ he says. In the ‘Body’ section of the exhibition, the same showcase that displays the cremulator also contains a collection of surgical implants, such as artificial hips and other metal objects that survived the oven. On another shelf is a collection of spectacle frames made of titanium from the scrap metal that came out of corpses. Real body parts turn out to be eligible for recycling as well. Ever since the 17th century, hair of deceased loved ones was kept in jewellery like bracelets, medallions and earrings. The ‘Mourning and Remembering’ section shows a number of so-called hair paintings, including one made in 1871, depicting Cornelia Wullings. It is a framed photo with her real hair draped around it. That may seem like a slightly weird custom, but it’s not half as bizarre as mixing the ashes of your late husband with tattoo ink, and then using it to decorate yourself and your children. (Ask the widow of the late singer André Hazes for more details about that.) The exhibition closes with a collection of objects around the theme of ‘Memento mori’, Latin for ‘remember you must die’. With reference to 16th- and 17th-century vanitas paintings that depict skulls, bones and hourglasses that remind the viewer of his or her inescapable fate, the museum allows itself a little joke. In the vitrine is an old-fashioned computer terminal, with only two words running over the screen: Game over. Nederlands Uitvaart Museum Tot Zover, Kruislaan 124 (Tue-Sun 11.00-17.00), 694 0482, www.totzover.nl, €5.50.

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ight,’ I ask Eight and Five, ‘What shall we do today? The market?’ ‘Noooo!’ they wail. They are right, of course, Eight and Five are quickly impatient while I ponder yet another vegetable/meat/fish stall. ‘Where then?’ I ask. ‘TunFun,’ Five says emphatically. I consider this. ‘Can we come back to that?’ I say. ‘How about things we can do together?’ ‘The Rijksmuseum,’ Eight declares. Amazingly, she’s correct. They have treasure trails where parents get to tag along as children stop by some of the most interesting items on display and, if they speak Dutch, sing along to a secret tune in front of Rembrandt’s Nightwatch. Then there’s the Van Gogh Museum. A delight for art-loving adults, a pleasure for treasure-trail children. Again there’s a great audio tour. Afterwards, we end up at the cafe or outside on Museumplein for ice-cream in summer, ice-skating in winter. Also fun is the Amsterdams Historisch Museum. In a former orphanage, it too has a trail (in Dutch) plus exhibitions—right now they’re into cesspits (you read that right!). Next door, for the adults, is the Begijnhof, one of Amsterdam’s prettiest enclosed courtyards. ‘Don’t forget the Tropenmuseum!’ Trails and exhibitions for children are here too, at Amsterdam’s ethnographic museum. On holidays there are creative activities—painting, drawing and claymodelling—to keep them occupied while you look around. More child-oriented is NEMO, the ‘science centre’. Definitely hands-on. In good weather, head for the roof-terrace with its cascading water-feature (summer only) and view. Next, clamber aboard the Amsterdam, the replica VOC (Dutch East-India Company) ship next door, where children are encouraged to explore and learn. Nearby is the noisily wonderful Klankspeeltuin, where they can learn about sound and music on instruments, computers and specially-designed noise making devices. ‘What about outdoors?’ I ask. ‘The Park!’ For them, The Park is Vondelpark. All life comes here, cyclists and rollerbladers swish by (you can rent blades yourself), iPods bounce past with joggers attached, families stroll, people picnic. If it’s too cold, step inside Het Groot Melkhuis cafe, which serves poffertjes with a snowfall dusting of sugar. In summer, go to the paddling pool, picnic while the children splash. ‘The Kinderkookkafe!’ This is next to Vondelpark, where the children get to top pizzas, bake biscuits, decorate cakes. You get to eat the results. ‘The Oeverlanden!’ On the edge of the city, best accessed by bicycle, you’ll find a strip of naturereserve that is home to birds, rabbits, Scottish Highland cattle and two small sand beaches with views across to the Bos and of boats in between. During the summer, people come out to swim and play. A short ferry ride from there gets you to... ‘The Amsterdamse Bos!’

‘R

Amsterdam Weekly

Steppin’out with my babies With school vacation coming up soon, it’s time to chart out a treasure trail of children’s activities.With the help of your children, of course. BY AMAL CHATTERJEE ILLUSTRATION BY CAROLYN RIDSDALE

This expanse of green and trees is great for walks and cycling, has a petting farm, a paddling pool, the Boerderij Meerzicht cafe with wonderful pancakes and an open-air theatre. End up at the cafe at the Nijenrodeweg end, watching the world go by. Or get around in summer on the Museumtram, a collection of lovingly-restored old trams that run through the Bos. Five loves them, he loves anything with wheels, especially if they rattle.

‘The Amstelpark!’ Two big playgrounds, a miniature train, a maze, a petting farm, cafes... ‘The windmill?’ Eight suggests. That’s the Molen van Sloten. You get to see how people used to live, how the vanes turn, watch barrels being made. ‘Rembrandt was here,’ Eight says archly. She’s not talking about graffiti. The OldMaster-to-be spent his early days here

apparently. ‘Go on,’ I urge. ‘Artis!’ they chorus. The zoo. An institution with history, a planetarium and, of course, animals. Don’t miss the zebra against the backdrop of a canal and an oh-soordinary Amsterdam street. Nearby, there’s the botanical gardens, Hortus Botanicus, with flowers and butterflies for Eight, tropical plants to make me feel at home. Five charges about irrepressibly. ‘Don’t step on anything!’ He’s impressed by the 300-year-old giant cycad. ‘That old?’ he asks, awed. ‘That old,’ I assure him. ‘Now, what about something in the centre?’ I ask, thinking that’s going to be harder. ‘Boat ride!’ they shout. Short tours, museum tours, pizza tours—our favourite is hop-on-hop-off: hop off to see, hop back on to sail to another must-see, the children sustained by pancakes and broodjes along the way. We haven’t done it yet, but I’m reliably assured that the pedalos or ‘Canal Bikes’ are a hit too. My team eye them longingly. ‘Can we?’ One day. Looking for a great view? Climb the tower of the Westerkerk, see the city laid out below you. Play spotting the landmark. ‘Cafes!’ they remind me. You can tell they’re Amsterdammers. There’s Cafe Rousseau just outside the Vondelpark. Board games and pictures to colour. There’s more colouring pictures and child-friendly menus at Cafe Restaurant Amsterdam, housed in a cavernous former water pump-station and, not far from it, the Westergasfabriek, with two little playgrounds, space to run around, more cafes, theatres, studios and a cinema. ‘TunFun!’ Five reminds me. Good place for a rainy day. Indoors, underground (almost), reminiscent of a post-nuclear-war bunker but stocked with climbing frames, brightly coloured balls to plunge into, go-kart things. It’s a question of age, really. Five’s five, I’m not. What did we end up doing? The Rijksmuseum, followed by poffertjes on Museumplein. Locations not mentioned on page 14: Cafe Restaurant Amsterdam Watertorenplein 6, 682 2666 Cafe Rousseau Amstelveenseweg 126, 671 9509 Canal Bikes various locations, 626 5574, www.canal.nl Hortus Botanicus Plantage Middenlaan 2A, 625 9021, www.dehortus.nl Kinderkookkafe Vondelpark 6b (Overtoom 325), 625 3257, www.kinderkookkafe.nl Klankspeeltuin Muziekgebouw, Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2000, www.klankspeeltuin.nl Molen van Sloten Akersluis 10, 669 0412, www.molenvansloten.nl Museumtram (April to October only) Haarlemmermeerstation, Amstelveenseweg 264, 673 7538, www.museumtram.nl NEMO Oosterdok 2, 531 3233, www.enemo.nl Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200, www.tropenmuseum.nl TunFun Mr Visserplein 7, www.tunfun.nl.

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008

SHORT LIST

Morton Feldman, Thursday, Muziekgebouw

Art fair: Art Rotterdam

THURSDAY 7 FEBRUARY Dance: Something Raw ‘How Do You Like My Landscape?’ humorously signals the start of Something Raw 2008, the seventh edition of the annual International Dance and Performance Festival. Unveiling radical short choreographies and performances, pioneering installations and film, and unpredictable debates and workshops, this Flemish/Dutch festival epitomises the artist’s eternal hunt for personal self-expression—using the body as the object. Take the treasure ‘Why We Love Action’, which covers a breadth of emotions as the performers scream, fight, kill, search buildings, avoid explosions and hang for dear life from cliffs. Not exactly uplifting, honey-oflife stuff but it will cast a spell over you and you’ll experience film-like sensations. An unexpected treat is ‘The 3 Duets’, a piece about manipulation, intimacy and violence where the limits of the body are extended and soberly confronted. In ‘Conversation’, a lecture/performance by a mother and her one-year-old daughter, they stand naked on stage, one self-conscious and the other not, and investigate our non-negotiable passage called Death. The secret of the festival’s success is the artists’ dedication, vigilance, adrenaline-pumping performances and their ability to create new illusions, all the while forcing the viewer to engage in some personally novel reality-checks. See www.brakkegrond.nl/SOMETHINGRAW2008.htm for the full schedule. (Monique Gruter) Various locations, times and prices. Until 9 February.

Books: Arabic Poetry Lounge In his book Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land, author Tim Mackintosh Smith notes that ‘Somebody once said that every Arabic word means itself, its opposite or a camel.’ And indeed, in classic Arabic poetry you’ll find lots of camel references. Whether this is still the case in modern Arabic poetry, you can find out for yourself at Perdu tonight. Johan Weststeijn of the Arabic department of Universiteit van Amsterdam talks about his PhD thesis on the role of dreams in Arabic poetry. The Iraqi poet Chalaan Charif will recite classical Arabic poems (‘subtitled’ in Dutch on a screen), while Arabist-cum-translator Achmed Khabbazeh reads from the work of 20th-century poets Nizar Qabbani and Badr Shakir al-Sayyaab. Krijn Peter Hesselink, winner of the Dutch Championships Poetry Slam in 2006, takes care of translating it into Dutch. Classical poems of famous love stories, like that of Layla and Majnun, tail the evening. Interspersed with the Syrian-Arabic and Turkish music of the Göksel Yimaz Ensemble. (Floris Dogterom) Perdu, 19.30, €5.

Last weekend, an MTV Cribs marathon was on. And in between some basketball player’s rides and the swimming pool from the most annoying one of Seventh Heaven, Pras of the Fugees popped up to show us his several homes. Turns out he owns a West Coast pad which has the sole function of housing his extensive modern art collection. But hey, we don’t need Pras of the Fugees to tell us that buying art is the thing to do these days—and while he goes on to show us the contents of his fridge, let’s switch off and turn to Rotterdam. Art Rotterdam is one of Europe’s most important art fairs, with this ninth edition playing host to more than 75 galleries from 10 countries. Special features around the fair include the announcement of the illy-Prize, the ﬁrst edition of Project(OR)—‘a platform for current art stages’—and lots of extra action at that funkiest of streets, the Witte-de-Withstraat. Eat your heart out Pras: We can do just as well as you. (Sarah Gehrke) Cruise Terminal Rotterdam, Thur, Fri 13.00-18.00; Sat, Sun 11.00-19.00, Rotterdam, €15. Until 10 February.

Music: Morton Feldman 4-daagse Feldman was one of the loudest, crudest personalities amongst 20th-century composers. The six-foot tall, 300-pound Queens, NY native always had something to say, and everyone in the room heard it. Yet his music, by contrast, has been described as being slower than glaciers and softer than snow. Once during a rehearsal, the players crept through Feldman’s piece as quietly and carefully as possible, only to have the composer bark, ‘It’s too fuckin’ loud and it’s too fuckin’ fast.’ Despite his coarseness, or maybe because of it, he was friends with all the major players of NYC’s abstract expressionist scene of the 1950s. Painters like Pollack, Rothko and Guston inﬂuenced him far more than the music of his contemporaries. He later wrote, ‘What was great about the ’50s is that for one brief moment—maybe, say, six weeks—nobody understood art.’ And in that moment, his eerie, atmospheric music came into full bloom, and continued on for several decades. Over the next four days, the Ives Ensemble explores Feldman’s music, which many say, is the sonic equivalent of some of the most celebrated paintings of the expressionistic movement. (Mark Wedin) Muziekgebouw, Various times, €20 per concert. Until 10 February.

FRIDAY 8 FEBRUARY Singer-songwriter: Io Perry The LA-based alternative power popist Io Perry admits that she is the ‘product of an unmarried hippy couple’. But she don’t reek of patchouli oil. After paying her dues as bassist in bands like Old Hickory, Project K and The Green and Yellow TV, and as hired

7-13 February 2008

Amsterdam Weekly

gun for Tito and Tarantula (those cult sensations that acted as hell’s house band in the ﬁlm From Dusk til Dawn), she turned to guitar to ﬁnd her inner song writer. The resulting songs from her two solo albums Greybay and Split Yourself in Two are catchy while also being wonderfully schizo as they dart between the seductively sentimental and the angrily bitter. Check out her tunes and full tour schedule, which has her returning a few times to Amsterdam in the next month, at www.myspace.com/ioperry. Tonight, she’s part of a whole rocking singer-songwriter package with Celia Carver, Merel Moistra, Steve Savage and Chinup. (Steve Korver) Meander, 20.00, €5.

Jazz: Speeq This superb ensemble started its life as a one-off assemblage for a Parisian jazz festival a couple of years ago, but we can be thankful that the success of that gig led Speeq to extend its life beyond that set. British free improv drummer Mark Sanders, Danish electric guitarist Hasse Poulsen, and former Ex bassist Luc Ex forge a dynamic mixture of push-pull aesthetics, balancing noisy scrabbling, calming textures, and propulsive thrashing. On the group’s fine debut album Or (Red Note) they were joined by the expansive Norwegian singer Sidsel Endresen, who forced Speeq to stretch its approach even more with her mixture of bracing, wordless improvisation and rustic, parched folk melodies. She’s not appearing here, but the presence of vocalist Phil Minton more than makes up for her absence, as he’s never met a context he couldn’t conquer. His sophisticated improv sensibility and a deep passel of vocal tricks guarantee plenty of high wire surprises. (Peter Margasak) Bimhuis, 21.00, €14.

SATURDAY 9 FEBRUARY Classical: Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest Even Olivier Messiaen’s detractors—if there are any left—concede that he was a monster of originality, a composer whose conceptions of form, color, harmony and momentum both startle and delight. Yet Messiaen had influences, most notably his quasi-mystical Catholicism and his affinity for natural sound (all that birdsong!). For a few years in the 1940s, the Frenchman got hooked on the myth of Tristan and Isolde, and tonight, the Nederlands Phil will favour us with that period’s summation work, the massive Turangalîla Symphony, along with the piece it was most directly responding to, Wagner’s ‘Prelude and Love-Death’ from Tristan und Isolde. Turangalîla (the title derives from Sanskrit) is a 10-movement, 80-minute rhapsody-cum-excavation of earthly love, scored for outsized orchestra, solo piano and ondes Martenot, the forever-weird early electronic instrument whose wails ended up decorating horror movies. Every (all-too rare) performance of this masterwork is a grand occasion; to hear it alongside its principal progenitor becomes grandness squared. (Steve Schneider) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €33.

Festival: Himalaya Film Festival Home to Shangri-La, the Yeti, and several eight-thousanders, the Himalayas have been a source of myths and fascination for millenia. And the inherent desire of humankind to reach higher and higher has cost countless adventurous mountaineers their lives—or at least a few of their limbs. Meanwhile down here in the lowlands, the whole spectacle can be observed in a safer manner: on the big screen. The Himalaya film festival will show around 45 feature films and documentaries (divided into two-hour sessions) that were first screened at its sister festival in Tokyo. In addition, there’ll be two lectures and a performance by Tibetan band JJ1 performing traditional as well as modern Tibetan music. The organisers promise a chance ‘to travel beyond the image of the region as it is presented in regular movies, and meet the intriguing diversity and uniqueness of the Himalayas.’ And maybe they’ll even be able to fill their programme without mentioning the Yeti. All films in English or with English subtitles. (Sarah Gehrke) Filmhuis Griffioen, Amstelveen, various times, €10 per session. Also on 10 February.

WEDNESDAY13 FEBRUARY Singer-songwriter: Vic Chesnutt Vic Chesnutt is a little crazy. But only in a good way. I’d heard stories of his antics long before ever hearing his music, and to this day, his songwriting peer Kristin Hersh still tells tales of his exploits and silliness, like dressing up in Robin Hood gear and going around with an inﬂatable sheep, nabbed from a theatre they played in. But musically, Chesnutt hasn’t always been fun, providing wicked tongued humour in one line, and replacing it with utter tragedy in the next—reﬂective of a tough life in which he was left wheelchair bound after a car crash, and also fighting drug and alcohol abuse. In fact, his body of work can be hard going, especially when left to its acoustically raw devices, but he’s a true craftsman when it comes to words and music, and a captivating live performer, too. And if somehow I’m making you more apprehensive about catching a Chesnutt show, have a listen to recent disc North Star Deserter. Featuring fellow Constellation artists A Silver Mt Zion—who’re backing tonight—members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, it’s not only his best record in years, but one of his best ever, melding those sparse acoustic moments with atmospheric rock and layer-upon-layer of soaring melodies. (Steven McCarron) Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €15.

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

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008 Vocalists explore the sediments behind war.

Artist duo Allora & Calzadilla fills the Stedelijk with music and monstrosity. A wake-up call.

THE TWISTED SOUNDTRACKS OF WAR ART Never Mind That Noise You Heard Stedelijk Museum CS, 8 February-4 May, 9 By Marinus de Ruiter

As Michael Moore noted in his documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11, American soldiers like to play the Bloodhound Gang’s binge-drinking-anthem ‘Fire Water Burn’ on their sound systems during search and destroy missions in Iraq. More than a decade before the start of the war on terror, the American army tried to blast Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega out of the Vatican embassy by blaring the Guns N’ Roses song, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. Mean-

while the trumpet signal originally used to launch battleﬁeld attacks is now often heard during sports events. War music has become recreational music, and, in a similarly ironic development, recreational music is being used in war. Artist duo Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla explore this twisted relationship in their ﬁrst solo exhibition, opening this weekend at Stedelijk Museum CS. The title of the show, Never Mind That Noise You Heard, comes from another hard rock tune used to scare the enemy during the first Gulf War, ‘Enter Sandman’ by Metallica. ‘Over the past few years we have been exploring how music and sound can be part of an artwork,’ says Allora, on the

phone from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she lives with Calzadilla. ‘When looking at the history of music we found that a lot of instruments, like drums, horns and flutes, were actually meant as signaling devices. They were created to effectively communicate orders to soldiers. It was only later on that their artistic potential became fully developed.’ Allora, who was born in the US, and Calzadilla, who hails from Cuba, have been working together since 1995. In 2007, they were awarded the Only Lyon Prize and in 2006 they were finalists for the Hugo Boss Prize, administered by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The central display in the Stedelijk exhibition is the light and sound installation ‘Wake Up’, which was ﬁrst exhibited in the Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago in 2007. A sound system, hidden behind a three-meter-high structure of white museum walls, plays variations on ‘Reveille’, the trumpet melody that has long been used as the military wake-up call. ‘The ﬁrst impression that we wanted to create was that of an empty space,’ says Allora. ‘We were interested in animating the bare white walls of the exhibition room. These empty walls are

sentiments

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haunted from within with this sonic dimension and this echo of some other meaning.’ Like Noriega and the Iraqi soldiers before them, visitors to the exhibition are besieged with a din from an unseen source. A dozen variations on ‘Reveille’, played back to back, were created by composers and trumpet players, who manipulated the melody into squeaking, grunting, echoing and whistling experimental sound. Trumpet player Paul Smoker, for example, recorded a free jazz deconstruction of the tune, and his colleague Stephen Burns has added sound bites from speeches by American President George W Bush to his sonic collage. Meanwhile, yellow lights, also positioned within the white wall structure, reflect the intensity of the sound, and vary depending on the musical composition. Fast rhythmic flashes of light or slowly-fading ﬁelds of light are projected onto the ceiling in time to the music. In some cases, the visual effects resemble bomb raids that remind viewers of what they witness on TV news reports from war zones. Allora & Calzadilla say that among the most challenging of the trumpet pieces in ‘Wake Up’ is the three-and-ahalf-minute contribution by Lebanese musician Mazen Kerbaj. Described by the artists as ‘an astounding trumpet assault’, the piece tests the audience’s tolerance to both cacophony and sheer loudness. ‘Kerbaj has effectively translated ‘Reveille’ into a radical call for attention to the pain experienced by those who suffer at the hands of militarism,’ say both the artists in a jointly-signed email statement following a phone interview. ‘We cannot help being reminded of the brutal and relentless destruction of Lebanon in 2006.’ The exhibition also stresses the importance of the spoken word as part of the monstrous ‘soundtrack of war’. Just like music, political speeches and media commentary justify and promote violence, the artists say. In ‘Sediments/Sentiments’, another installation, classically trained singers perform live opera versions of political utterances by political leaders such as Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama, George W Bush and Saddam Hussein, sometimes parodying them. The vocalists are lying inside a white mass of foam and plaster resembling geological rock formations. The setting seems to express the idea that, like natural sediments, political speeches can become landmarks that persist throughout history, often distorted, but with an undeniably physical impact.

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Amsterdam Weekly

Die Entführung aus dem Serail, see Thursday

MUSIC More listings at www.amsterdamweekly.nl. Send listing suggestions at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl.

Thursday 7 February Pop/Rock: Emergenza It’s that time of year— again—when the bands must battle, and battle hard they will. Who is worthy of the prize? Does it really matter? At least family and friends will be impressed. Winston Kingdom, 19.00, €10 Opera: Die Entführung aus dem Serail Mozart keeping it real (for once) in the 18th century. Here his characters are people of ﬂesh and blood and not simply puppets obeying the will of fate. Libretto by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner. Het Muziektheater, 20.00, €15-€80 Pop/Rock: Nemesea, Cubworld, Francis Rodino Band Three melodic bands from the Sellaband plant. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.00, €10 + membership Classical: Psophos Quartet French bunch knocking out tunes by Mozart, Bartók and Schubert. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €29 Contemporary: Morton Feldman 4-daagse Celebrating the life and music of American composer Morton Feldman, right through till Sunday. A master of aleatoric and indeterminate music, his work is presented on each day alongside pieces by contemporaries. Performed by the Ives Ensemble. See www.muziekgebouw.nl and Short List. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €20 Rock: (Post)rocknacht With bands Powerplant and Semistero. Volta, 21.00, €5 Latin/Jazz: Renato Borghetti Quarteto The roots of this quartet lie in the gauchos of Rio Grande do Sul, in southernmost Brazil, on the border of Argentina. Bandleader Borghetti plays the gaita ponto, a kind of button accordion, that sounds fuller and deeper than a standard accordion. He makes his own unique blend of traditional styles such as milonga, chacarera and chamame, with elements from pop, jazz, fado and tango. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 Pop/Rock: Silkstone Bland-by-numbers guitar pop from Haarlem. In fact, they could be described in some territories as utter mince. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 21.00, €12 + membership Soul: Sherry Dyanne New jazz. Old soul. Badcuyp, Noordpool, 21.30, €8 Pop/Rock: Club 3voor12 Live radio and TV session featuring sets from Blaxtar, Zeus and Infa. Desmet Studios, 22.00, free, tickets: www.3voor12.nl

Friday 8 February Hiphop/R&B: Large Record release party from MO Brakko. Comedy Theater, 01.00, €12.50 Singer-songwriter: Scott Matthew Pop folk-ability from the acclaimed Australian songwriter. A contributor to numerous anime films and TV shows, most recently he supplied the soundtrack to the dark comedy Shortbus. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 18.30, €6 + membership Pop/Rock: Emergenza (See Thursday) Winston Kingdom, 19.00, €10

Rock: Jimmy Eat World Slick emo pop from this wellmeaning Arizona bunch. Masters of sharp riffs and delicate melodies, only a complete bastard would turn against them just for sounding more polished on every album. Sure, they peaked in 1999, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to suffer a ﬁery crash into the Atlantic. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 19.30, €17 + membership Contemporary: Friday Night Players from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam present Growing Still, a programme about tension, discharge and serenity. Van Gogh Museum, 20.00, museum entry cost Classical: Despite and Still Diverse songs performed by warbler Ingrid Kappelle and tinkler Jeroen Liedorp. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €24 Contemporary: Morton Feldman 4-daagse (See Thursday) Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €20 Jazz: Speeq European improv quartet, fronted—for the moment—by singer Phil Minton, and driven by guitarist Hasse Poulsen, bassist Luc Ex and drummer Mark Sanders. See Short List. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 Rock: The Ocean is an International Compilation Magazine and CD presentation. But have your earplugs at the ready, for there shall be fairly noisy sets from Living Ornaments, Razorblade Jr, Suidical Birds and Uw Hypotheek Advies. OCCII, 21.00, €5 Rock: Rhumba Kings Rockabilly. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5 Rock: Sonic Syndicate ’80s thrash meets melodic naughties metal. But this is what you get after all those long winter nights in Sweden. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.00, €7 + membership Pop/Rock: Jaap Boots & De Natte Honden Originally known for his 3voor12 broadcasts, these days Boots loves nothing more than tapping into the roots rock ’n’ roll and country rock. Patronaat, Haarlem, 23.00, free

Saturday 9 February Contemporary: Morton Feldman 4-daagse (See Thursday) Muziekgebouw, 14.00, 20.30, €20 Classical: Radio Kamer Filharmonie Going all Italian with works by Donizetti, Bellini and Verdi. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 14.15, €23.50/€28 World: Trio C tot de Derde A musical journey through India, the Balkans, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. All in 62 minutes. Badcuyp, Noordpool, 15.30, free Pop/Rock: Emergenza (See Thursday) Winston Kingdom, 19.00, €10 Rock: 30 Seconds To Mars You’ll be 30 seconds closer to death by the end of this listing, so don’t bother wasting any time listening to this Hollywood bunch fronted by actor Jared Leto. Is it time to bring back Keanu Reeves’ Dogstar? As bad as they were, it seems lessons still need to be learned. Heineken Music Hall, 20.00, sold out Heavy: iCore Hardcore, you know the score. Rotting ﬂesh supreme sets from When All Life Ends, Docile, Divine Sins and Nog Eentje. Zaal 100, 20.00, €5 Pop/Rock: Okkervil River Specialising in indie rock mixed with a rich dose of Americana, these Texans have just entered their 10th year and are ﬁnally getting the attention they deserve. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.00, sold out Pop/Rock: Subbacultcha! Yes, Amsterdam’s indie gutters have been trawled once more. Local guitar poppers Scram C Baby have yet another album of songs to promote, hence the need for the party. Along the way, somehow Hallo Venray (Russian polka kings), the Hospital Bombers (traditional snake charmers), The Moi Non Plus (Canadian war veterans’ brass

Amsterdam Weekly band), Bettie Serveert (techno/house), Maarten Kooimans (part-time zookeeper), Oh Johnny (Chinese jazz fusion), The Ik Jan Cremers (anthemic Celtic rock) and The Lo-Fi Terrorist (Van Halen tribute) have been invited to play tribute. Or maybe they were all just guitar playin’ street urchins found busking on De Dam. Bitterzoet, 20.00, €7 Classical: Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest Getting Messiaen-ic with the Frenchman’s Turangalîla Symphony. Also featuring Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde; conducted by Yakov Kreizberg. See Short List. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €33 Classical: Xavier Phillips The Parisian cellist aims to bow folks away with works by Enescu, Bartók and Rachmaninov. Backing from pianist Philippe Bianconi. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €31 Rock: Claw Boys Claw Old school Amsterdam psychedelic rock ’n’ roll. P60, Amstelveen, 21.00, €12.50 Contemporary: Nosferatu—A Symphony of Horror In 2001, the Danish film composer Helle Solberg wrote a new score for Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), the first cinematic version of Dracula. Solberg’s music for cello and classical accordion is tonight performed live with the film by Swedish cellist Mattias Rodrick and the Norwegian accordionist Geir Draugsvoll. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 Rock: Hex! Featuring post punk from two French bands: The Dreams and Scorpion Violente. OCCII, 22.00, €6

Sunday 10 February Opera: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (See Thursday) Het Muziektheater, 13.30, €15-€80 World: Putumayo World Music Series Featuring Eneida Marta, an up-and-coming diva from Guinea-Bissau. Her band plays lively music with touches of gumbe and tina, Afrobeat, Latin and jazz. DJs, VJs and a surprise act follow. KIT Tropentheater, 15.00, €20 Classical: Roel Stern, Daniël Kramer Flute and piano works by Dutillex, Prokofiev, Poulenc and Nielsen. English Reformed Church, 15.15, €12.50 Contemporary: Morton Feldman 4-daagse (See Thursday) Muziekgebouw, 15.30, 20.30, €20 Jazz: The Houdini’s Dutch jazz icons get busy for a weird and wonderful double bill. During the afternoon session they’ll be performing a live soundtrack to the 1927 Buster Keaton classic The General. Falling off stage would be an added treat. The evening performance is more of a celebration of the band, touching on highlights from their 20-year history, with the bonus of electronics from DJ Phil Martin. Bimhuis, 16.30, 20.00, €12 World: La Nuit du Maghreb Majestic Moroccan goodies from Mustapha Bourgogne, Kasba and Latifa Raafat. Paradiso, 18.50, €19.50 + membership Country: Trigger Local country sensations will do some stompin’ and hurtin’. Diep, 19.00-21.00, free

7-13 February 2008 Pop/Rock: Subbacultcha! With sweet-hearted Rotterdammers The Cuties bringing their orgasmic new album Ah Ah Aah to Noord-Holland. Also with Swedish experimental poppers Talking to Teapots. Patronaat, Haarlem, 21.30, free

Monday 11 February Rock: Trumans Water Indie jazz punk from the longrunning American outﬁt inspired by Beefheart and wild improvs. Support from The Bugs. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.00, €7 + membership Classical: Longa Nahawand Featuring works by Riad Abdel Gawad, Simon Gokkes, Reza Vali and others. Uilenburger Synagogue, 20.15, €15 Classical: Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest (See Saturday) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €33 Contemporary: Nieuw Ensemble Tackling a programme titled Chinese Silent, the ensemble take inspiration from the Far East, including a piece by acclaimed Chinese composer Tan Dun. A handful of guest Chinese soloists will help make the occasion that bit more authentic. Conducted by Ed Spanjaard. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €20 Big band: Konrad Koselleck Big Band Jazz pop dance fusion—big band style. Joining Koselleck tonight is singer and dancer Ken Ard. Sugar Factory, 21.00, €9 Experimental: DNK-Amsterdam Weekly concert series for new live electronic and acoustic music. This time it’s Radu Malfatti and the N Ensemble. OT301, 21.30, €5

Tuesday 12 February Pop/Rock: Advanced Style Band Night Is it the Kids From Fame or the Kids from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam? Probably the latter, but certainly in a more poppy vein than usual. Cafe Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 20.00, €5 Fado: Celeste Rodrigues Authentic fado from this 84-year-old Portuguese singing legend, who was the sister of late singer and actress Amália Rodrigues. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €28.50 Classical: St Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra Featuring Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons; Pachelbel’s Canon in D; and Albinoni Adagio. Conducted by Fuat Mansurov. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €44.50 Singer-songwriter: Joe Henry Diverse tunes from a real storyteller. Initially setting himself up in the Americana ﬁeld, Madonna’s brother-in-law is now at home with blues, jazz, folk and pop. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €12.50 + membership Contemporary: The Karnatic Lab A concert series devoted to exploring elements of Karnatic music from southern India and fusing them with jazz styles. Led by Ned McGowan and Gijs Levelt. Badcuyp, Noordpool, 20.30, free

Wednesday 13 February Classical: Lunch Concert With Trio Lumaka. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 12.30, free Pop/Rock: Advanced Style Band Night (See Tuesday) Cafe Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 20.00, €5 Opera: Die Entführung aus dem Serail (See Thursday) Het Muziektheater, 20.00, €15-€80 Folk: Murder Atmospheric acoustic folk from Denmark. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.00, €7.50 + membership Singer-songwriter: Vic Chesnutt Best known as a solo acoustic performer, but tonight the wheelchairbound Chestnutt has some stunning musical backing from A Silver Mount Zion. See Short List. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €15 World: Jam Session For raï, funk and rock. Volta, 21.00, free

Kaki King Singer-songwriter: Kaki King A star guest on the last Foo Fighters album, this guitar virtuoso is now getting the plaudits for her own work. As gentle and folky as her singing voice is, she attacks her acoustic guitar from all angles, with spare ﬁngers seemingly emerging from her hands. Bitterzoet, 21.00, €8 Pop/Rock: Metroschifter Thunderous American rock featuring former members of Chamberlain and Falling Forward. Indie pop support from My Favourite Confession and Jack Beauregard. Winston Kingdom, 21.30, €7 Jazz: Ready for Freddy Fat grooves from Jos de Haas (New Cool Collective), Stefan Schmidt (Zuco103), Alex Oele (Yinka), Stefan Kruger (Zuco103) and special guests. Badcuyp, Noordpool, 21.30, €5

World: Simphiwe Dana One of South Africa’s biggest new stars, Dana’s debut album The One Love Movement On Bantu Biko Street has recently won practically every South African music award available. Bimhuis, 21.00, €16 Rock: The Von Bondies Indie garage rock ’n’ roll from Detroit. They first made an international impact around 2004 with the release of Pawn Shoppe Heart. Connections with Jack White of The White Stripes were an added bonus, and a brawl between White and Bondies singer Jason Stollsteimer even stole them tabloid column inches. Four years on, the new product to shift is Love, Hate And Then There’s You, and this time it might just be about the music. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 21.00, €13 Pop/Rock: SixNationState Jaunty Britpop. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.00, €6 + membership

Be a Tourist in Your Own Town

Vouchers

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008

BE A TOURIST IN YOUR OWN T THE MAJOR SIGHTS AND THEIR ANTIDOTES

â&#x20AC;&#x2122;Tis the season to see those tourist-dense spots that you would never dream of visiting du But then again, in some cases you might want to go straight for the antid BY STEVE KORVER. ILLUSTRATION BY MAARTEN VAN MAANEN

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Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008

1 Amsterdam Historical Museum Kalverstraat 92, 523 1822, www.ahm.nl

TOWN

Antidote Enough city. Go to Tropenmuseum (Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200, www.tropenmuseum.nl). 1

Anne Frank Huis Prinsengracht 267, 556 7105, www.annefrank.nl 2

ring the rest of year. dote.

2 Antidote Need some cheap laughs for balance? Cafe Chris (Bloemstraat 42, 624 5942) has a washroom so small that the flusher is outside the door. Wait for your friends to settle in and flush away. Da’s pas lachen. 3 Artis Plantage Kerklaan 38-40, 523 3400, www.artis.nl 3 Antidote Dine on crocodile at the African restaurant Kilimanjaro (Rapenburgerplein 6, 622 3485). Order it rare.

Bible Museum Herengracht 366-368 Amsterdam 624 2436 www.bijbelsmuseum.nl 4

4 Antidote The ‘House with the blood stains’, at Amstel 216, allegedly has the city’s oldest graffiti that was scratched into its stone facade by and with the blood of former burgemeester Coenraad van Beuningen (1622-93) after he was plagued by apocalyptic visions of fireballs and fluorescent coffins. 5 Canal Cruises around Centraal Station and up Damrak and Rokin

5 Antidote The free 15-minute ferry ride from behind CS to arty and apocalyptic wonderland that is NDSM (www.ndsm.nl). 6 Cat Cabinet Herengracht 497, 626 5378, www.kattenkabinet.nl

6 Antidote Indulge in a kroket at Van Dobben (Korte Reguliersdwarsstraat 5-9, 624 4200) where you can witness typical Amsterdammers—and their pitbulls. Or the place on Tom Schreursweg by Nieuwe Meer where they train police dogs. 7 Flower Market Singel between Koningsplein and Vijzelstraat

Antidote Pick crocuses in Slotervaart. 7

22 3

Heineken Experience www.heinekenexperience.com 8

No antidote required Closed until summer 2008. But no matter, you can buy some Grolsch beugeltjes at Dirk van den Broek on Marie Heinekenplein. Much classier. 8

9 Antidote The founder of the original Hermitage in St Petersburg, Peter the Great spent a lot of time in Amsterdam during which he allegedly trashed the interiors of Herengracht 527 in a fit of proto-rock ’n’ roll frenzy. Bless his Slavic soul at Moskow Diskow at Sugar Factory on 15 February.

Jordaan

11 Antidote De Baarsjes. No wait, Nieuw West. 12

years. Oh, and he probably hung out around the corner at Cafe Chris (see antidote, Anne Frank Huis). 21

Leidseplein

Antidote After all that action, do something relatively carbon neutral. Yes, be a carbon neutral tourist in your own town. It’s very in. Knit a scarf on a park bench. Lie whimpering under your bed. Sign the petition against the shortening of drinking hours at www.vrij-uitgaan.nl. 12

Madame Tussaud’s Scenerama Dam 20, 523 0623, www.madame-tussauds.nl 13

13 Antidote With a renewed respect for the functional use of wax, buy religious candles at Abdijwinkel van Egmond (Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 361, 623 5911).

Rembrandtsplein

21 Antidote Go to the bars of the arising business, banking and finance centre Zuidas. It’s a higher class of meat market. Money meat. 22 Resistance Museum Plantage Kerklaan 61, 620 2535, www.verzetsmuseum.org 22 Antidote Ponder the much more prevalent idea of collaboration at the monument of former deportation point Hollandse Schouwburg (Plantage Middenlaan 24, 531 0340, www.hollandscheschouwburg.nl). Then spark an animated conversation on the subject at Cafe Eik en Linde (Plantage Middenlaan 22, 622 5716).

14 Museum ‘Our Lord in the Attic’ Amstelkring Oudezijds Voorburgbal 40, 624 6604, www.museumamstelkring.nl

23 Rijksmuseum Jan Luykenstraat 1, 674 7000, www.rijksmuseum.nl

Antidote Feeling holy and introspective? No worries. You are conveniently close to the Pillenbrug where you can score some bad drugs. Ask for Henkie— his are the baddest.

23 Antidote After all those classics of antiquity, admire the hi-tech-ery of Museumplein’s Cobra Cafe’s see-through washroom doors that milk over when you close them. Open. Close. Open. Close.

15 Netherlands Maritime Museum www.scheepvaartmuseum.nl

No antidote required Closed until 2010. 15

Nieuwe Kerk www.nieuwekerk.nl 16

Dam,

638

6909

16 Antidote For more of a ‘new church’, head to the 1710-built Buiksloterkerk (Buiksloterkerkpad 10, www.buiksloterkerk.nl) in Noord. They’ve been known to book Santo Daime church ceremonies that use the hallucinogenic ayahuasca plant to get participants to cuddle up closer to godhead. But they also host bluegrass and salsa concerts. 17

Oostelijk Havengebied

Antidote Amsterdam has become a Mecca for modern architecture tourists. But it also has some dark secrets such as the Byzantium, an early work by superstar architect Rem Koolhaas situated to the right of the main entrance of Vondelpark. Yes, the one with the space ship on top and so ugly it’s actually kind of cool. 17

18 Oude Kerk Oudekerksplein 1 , 625 8284, www.oudekerk.nl 18 Antidote It is in fact surrounded by one big antidote. 19

Hermitage Amsterdam Nieuwe Herengracht 14 Amsterdam 530 8751 www.hermitage.nl 9

Red Light District

19 Antidote More insights into voyeurism can be had by visiting the crime scene photographer Weegee exhibition at FOAM (Keizersgracht 609, 551 6500, www.foam.nl). Or get a broader view of the city at the new City Archive (Vijzelstraat 32, 251 1511, www.stadsarchief.amsterdam.nl). Or just buy some batteries for your fishing boat.

Royal Palace www.koninklijkhuis.nl

24 No antidote required Closed until 2009. 25 Stedelijk Museum CS Oosterdokskade 5 Amsterdam 573 2911 www.stedelijk.nl 25 Antidote Check out some actually relevant modern art in the ground floor hallways that lead to the elevators that go to Club 11. Or rush to see Arno Coenen’s ‘Oud West Thuis Best’ mosaic of kick boxers and William of Orange’s head plastered over Job Cohen’s, at the corner of Nicolaas Beetsstraat and Kinkerstraat, before they take it down on 7 February. 26 Torture Museum Singel 449, 320 6642, www.torturemuseum.nl 26

No antidote Go to hell (see p. 6).

27 Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200, www.vangoghmuseum.nl 27 Antidote Vincent was just one guy. But master forger Geert Jan Jansen was several: ‘Before breakfast, I’d do a couple of Chagall drawings, during the morning a couple of hefty Appels and during the afternoon a couple of Picassos. Only then would I feel satisfied.’ Visit his new gallery (Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 61, www.geertjanjansen.nl). 28

Vondelpark

28 Antidote Westerpark. Beatrixpark. Rembrandtpark. Any park. 29

Waterlooplein

29 Antidote What else? The Monday morning flea market at Noordermarkt.

30 Westerkerk Prinsengracht 277-279, 624 7766, wwww.westerkerk.nl

Rembrandthuis Jodenbreestraat 4 Amsterdam 520 0400 www.rembrandthuis.nl

10 Antidote Arabic Poetry Lounge. See Short List, p. 8.

20 Antidote Thank god it’s not 2006, the ‘Year of Rembrandt’. That was a long one. Then gaze at the plaque at Rozengracht 184, where he lived during his washed up

30 Antidote The XXX on its tower stands for ‘Valiant, Resolute, Merciful’. Search for more of that. Or just hit Cafe Chris (see antidote, Anne Frank Huis), which originally opened as a local for the builders of this church.

Jewish Historical Museum Jonas Daniel Meijerplein 2-4, 531 0310 www.jhm.nl

Vouchers

Be a Tourist in Your Own Town

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008

CLUBS Thursday 7 February Club Bangkok A weekly shot of indie electro pop for music junkies. Club 8, 22.00-03.00, €5 Huiskamerhits Electro, rock and indie danceﬂoor hits. Bitterzoet, 22.00-03.00, €5 Riot! Aural disobedience with Willie Wartaal, Aka Junkies, Seymour Bits, Hitmeister D and Melly Mel. Studio 80, 23.00-04.00, €5 Poptrash Three decades’ worth of rock, electro and hiphop with The Punchout DJs and guests. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 23.00-05.00, €5 Wildvreemd Swiss chaos from Michal Ho. Whether he’s just going to yodel, we don’t know. In case it all goes horribly wrong, Sandrien and Richard Parker have a big hook ready to pull him off stage and take control. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €10

Friday 8 February Fuq le Funq Minimal, techno, electro and stuff. Club 8, 22.00-04.00, €5

Sunday 10 February

Wednesday 13 February

Sundaymorning Special One for the early risers, but remember not to bust a move with the cops. Club Latido, 06.00-12.00, €15

Club: F*cking Pop Queers Popmuzik! Electro! Madonna! Indie! Urban! Yep,we love the tunes they spin here. If you fancy a break, head for the second room where the crew from Art Launch have created Art Launch Cafe. Studio 80, 22.00-late, €7,50

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

Monday 11 February Cheeky Monday True skool jungle and drum & bass, featuring players from the local and international scenes. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €6

Tuesday 12 February Les & More Electro and minimal live electronic performances. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €5

Wednesday 13 February Freakin’ Ill Old school hiphop, funk and soul. Bitterzoet, 21.00-late, €5 K-Mon Wednesday Midweek alternative grooves. Studio 80, 21.30-01.00, free

Freitag It’s the Hertz_ edition, so watch out for unwanted frequencies. Flex Bar, 23.00-05.00, €10 We Love Sushi But surely not to boogie with, as it’ll go bad under the hot lights. Escape, 23.00-05.00, €15 ADHD Sessions With a two-hour set from Heiko Laux (Berlin) and a rowdy bunch of other tech-heads. If seven hours isn’t quite enough for you, the afterparty kicks off at 7am. Studio 80, 23.00-06.00, €10 klinch: Inmotion met D’Julz Featuring the progressive techno sounds of D’Julz, AKA Julien Veniel. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 23.00-late, €13 + membership klinch: Rauw Rockin’ raw beats from Tommie Sunshine, Christopher Just, Mel Merio and resident tech maestro Joost van Bellen. Melkweg, The Max, 23.00late, €15 + membership Boss With DJs Manga, Edson and Mr Wix. Upstairs it’s DJ Melly Mel and friends, and if you crawl downstairs, you’ll even ﬁnd the birthday bash of DJ Gomes. Paradiso, 23.59-05.00, €12

Saturday 9 February Gonzo Costumes and drinking. Fun and games. Music and Vulcan mind melds. Club 8, 22.00-04.00, €10 Another Nice Mess DJ Marcelle keeps it as eclectic as always. OT301, 22.00-late Fragile Breaks Breaks so taut they could fracture at any point. With Kiki Toao, Rombout, Dikkie D, Philippo, Arrow and Hepcat. Cafe Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 22.00late, €5

GAY& LESBIAN Edited by Willem de Blaauw.

Friday 8 February Club: Galore When two of the most creative party organisers, UNK and ArtLaunch, join hands you get Galore! Expect local and international DJs, performances, acts and a diverse and mixed crowd. Music ranges from minimal to techno and from electro to disco. Sugar Factory, 23.00-00.500, €8/10

Saturday 9 February Party: (Z)onderbroek Drop your pants, dance and prance around at this popular men-only afternoon dance & cruise party, with different DJs. This time wicked DJs Lupe (UNK) and Lava (ArtLaunch) spin the decks. Dresscode is underwear (oh, really???) If you want to stand out from the crowd, don’t sport any of the hip brands. Club La, 16.00-20.00, €8

Gemengd Zwemmen Two rooms of swimmingly diverse noise. In The Max, it’s ’80s and ’90s bastard hits; in the Oude Zaal, there’s alternative dance, pop, rock and indie hits, plus a token live noise set from Ninja Tune-r The Death Set. Melkweg, 23.59-late, €9

Theatre: Catch 22 A ‘wait-and-see’ visual epic starring Erik van Welzen of Theatergroep Spic & Span. Melkweg Theater, (Thur-Sat 20.30), €9 Dance: Urban Dance Concours A dance contest where you’re judged on style, choreography and improvisation ability. The press release doesn’t mention haircuts, but that’s what the public are there to see. Pakhuis de Zwijger, (Sat 19.00), €3 Performance: Blind Date Another lively but unusual evening where almost anything goes. The theme this time is ‘Lust’, with actors, poets, writers, musicians, politicians, journalists, DJs and even therapists involved. With the whole theatre becoming a centre of lust, you’re encouraged to wander, eye things up and throw yourself into interviews, films, massage and indulge in the chocolate fountain. Stadsschouwburg, (Sat 20.15), €15 Comedy: Wat De Pot Schaft One presenter, a house band and two known guests to ﬂaunt their talents on a Sunday afternoon. With Huub Stapel, Monique Klemann and Sanne Wallis de Vries. In Dutch. Comedy Theater, (Sun 16.00), €20 Performance: Uit het Raam Staren Scientific audio-visual theatre with a couple of genuine scientists and the players of theatre group Hotel Modern. In Dutch. Gasthuis, (Mon 20.00), €4.50 Theatre: Omdat het Niet Anders Kan Words of love, inspired by Chilean poet and Novel Prize Winner Pablo Neruda, who wrote his Cien sonetos de amor for Matilde Urrutia, the woman he was secretly seeing and who would eventually become his third wife. In Dutch. De Brakke Grond, (Tues, Wed 20.30), €12

Music/Theatre: Vernon God Little A musical from Huis aan de Amstel satirising trailer park residents, the media, and most of all, those who believe that life in the US is just like what they see on the TV news. Based on DBC Pierre’s Booker Prize winning novel about a teenager in Texas whose friend kills six bullying peers and himself. In Dutch. Rozentheater, (Thur 20.00), €12.50

GirlsLoveDJ’s And men love... DJs, too. Keep your mind out of the gutter please. Hotel Arena, 23.0004.00, €15

Zoetzaligheid With Benny Rodrigues, Sidney Samson, Graphix and D-Rashid. The Powerzone, 23.00-05.00, €12.50

Music/Dance: Talk to Me / Listen to Me A couple of aural and visual performances. OT301, (Thur 21.30), €6

Comedy: Comedy Explosion New and used standup comics doing their thing. In Dutch. Comedy Theater, (Thur-Sat 20.30), €12.50

DJBroadcast presents Mood Music Featuring Sasse (Mood Music, Berlin), Dave K (Mood Music, Berlin) and Eric B Young. 11, 22.30-04.00, €12

Go Gogo? Sleazy-peasy happening with O’Boogie and Tom Trago. Flex Bar, 23.00-05.00, €9

Music/Theatre: Faust Lithuanian group Meno Fortas’ take on Goethe’s Faust, the hybrid epic play/poem about mythical character Faust’s quest for the true essence of life, for which he strikes a deal with the devil. Directed by Marius Nekrosius with music by Faustas Latenas. Stadsschouwburg, (Thur 19.00), €12-€23

Ongoing

Välkommen till Kågedalen Swedes for the Swedes with Pär Strömberg, Magnus Monfeldt, Jim Trauma and DJ Lonely. Cocktails, cocktails, cocktails. Jet Lounge, 22.00-late, free

Girlesque Girls, girls and more girls doing their thing. From DJs like Bettie and Billie to the riotous punk of Ella Bandita (and a whole lot more), these femmes are pretty bloody fatal. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €12.50

Opening

Music/Theatre: State of Emergency A modern comedic musical by Toneelgroep Nooduitgang about twenty-somethings. In Dutch. Rozentheater, (Thur-Sat 22.00), €12.50

Voltt Vibratory beats with Chilean-German DJ/producer Ricardo Villalobos going it alone for six hours in the main room. Upstairs there’s live stuff from Rauwkost and Buurtvaders, and a bunch more DJs. Paradiso, 22.00-late, €22

Le Soule Featuring diverse dance tunes from guys who show up with their record collection. Cineac, 23.0004.00, €12

STAGE

Girlesque Club: Girlesque Finally, after the first Girlesque night in March 2007, there’s a follow-up to this fab party for women in Amsterdam and beyond. DJs Bettie and Billy’s Beatboutique and Twisted Disco Nymphs spin dirty house, plus performances by The Atomic Bombshells (US) and saucy local gal, Elle Bandita. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €12,50

Sunday 10 February Sex club: S.O.S. Organised by these naughty boys from GALA (who also brought us (Z)onderbroek). You don’t need much clothing here either as S.O.S. is not about that Abba song, but all about Sex on Sundays. Nude or underwear, it doesn’t matter. Anything goes (quite literally)... The Eagle, 16.00-20.00, €8

Comedy: Placebo Improv theatre. Pray for funnies. In Dutch. CREA Theater, (Fri 20.30), €6 Comedy: easyLaughs Comedy improv in English. Two knee-slapping shows every Friday night. CREA Muziekzaal, (Fri 20.30, 22.30), €8, €5 (late night) Comedy: Now&Lauw: Urban Improv Comedy Weekly ha-ha with Wilko Terwijn and Nabil Aoulad Ayad. In Dutch. Comedy Theater, (Fri 23.30), €10 + membership Performance: Tease-à-GoGo Amsterdam’s Burlesque entertainment night. Expect a diverse mix of comedy, varieté and live music, all with a ’50s rock ’n’ roll nightclub atmosphere. Comedy Theater, (Sat 23.59), €10/€12.50 Music/Dance: Wonderland Improvised dance and music performance for the whole family. OT301, (Sun 16.00), free

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008 Weegee An exhibition of work by the legendary photographer Weegee, regarded as the prototypical modern photojournalist and one of the most important photographers of the 20th century. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 5 March Rehab! The main theme of this exhibition is the world wide media coverage on Britney, Paris, Pete and their colleagues. Ben Laloua and Didier Pascal show an after image of media violence with textile objects, a poster project and drawings, and offers a literally softening surrounding. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), until 10 March Karel Du Jardin Italian landscapes and aristocratic portraits by the 17th century painter. Rijksmuseum (Daily 09.00-18.00), until 16 March Gastarbeider Dating A project about identity, feeling at home, being foreign and meeting each other. And the start of a new dating site for the Netherlands. Immigrant Dating features 10 artists from seven different countries who’ll each stay for one week and bring in their friends to help explore their national and personal cultures. Mediamatic (Wed-Sun 16.00-20.00), until 16 March Taryn Simon—An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar In her second of two shows at Foam, award-winning photographer Simon assumes the dual role of shrewd informant and collector of curiosities, compiling an inventory of what lies hidden and out-ofview within the borders of the US. She examines a culture through careful documentation of diverse subjects from the realms of science, government, medicine, entertainment, nature, security and religion. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 6 April

Josine van Dalsum, see Opening

ART More listings at www.amsterdamweekly.nl.

Opening Josine van Dalsum Paintings and drawings by the Breda artist. Jan van der Togt Museum (ThurSun 13.00 -17.00), Amstelveen, opens Thursday, until 16 March Mello Six fait le mur Comic drawing improv inspired by visitors and the passing public of De Baarsjes. De Stoker (Fri, Sat 11.00 -17.00), opens Thursday, until 1 March

Sitting Duck A group show about nomadism. OT301 (Fri-Sun 15.00 -19.00), opens Friday, until 29 February David Powell A solo installation featuring wee paintings the Irishman made between 2004 and 2007. Van Zijll Langhout (Mon-Fri 11.00 -17.00), opens Saturday, until 30 March De Koers van de Stad Helping to visualise the growth and future transitions planned for Amsterdam and the surrounding region. ARCAM (Tues-Sat 13.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 12 April Designing Leisure Landscapes Student designs for leisure themes in Amsterdam. Maybe the Red Light District will stay red after all. Zuiderkerk (Mon 11.00 -16.00, Tues-Fri 09.00 -16.00, Sat 12.00 16.00), opens Saturday, until 14 March

Karel Appel—Jazz 1958-1962 Karel Appel—Jazz 1958-1962 One of the nation’s most famous post-war artists, this collection comprises some 23 large-scale works—20 paintings from the early ’60s and the rest from a series of canvases made at Groeneveld Castle in 1961, during the shooting of the Jan Vrijman documentary De werkelijkheid van Karel Appel. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 1 June

MAGNUM Photos 60 years Since 1947, the MAGNUM photographic agency has been providing images of landmark events like the Russian army’s invasion of Prague in 1968 and the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in Beijing in 1989. This collection uses photographs, books and texts to illustrate the history of MAGNUM year by year, giving visitors the opportunity to view work by 83 photographers, such as Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Carl de Keyzer. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), opens Friday, until 12 May

Modern Masterworks from Moscow Paintings and drawings made by Russian-Jews living under the rule of Stalin, displayed for the first time in the Netherlands. Joods Historisch Museum (Daily 11.00-17.00), closing Sunday Rembrandt, the Etcher Around 100 portraits, landscapes, figure studies and bible scenes showcasing the famous etching techniques of the old master. Rembrandthuis (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), closing Sunday Jacqueline Hassink: The Power Show A retrospective from this New York-based Dutch photographer in which power is the predominant theme. Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 24 February Document Nederland: Fans The tenth annual Document Nederland photography exhibition. The title of this year’s exhibition is Fans, and looks at the enthusiasm for a range of subjects, not only for famous singing stars, but also for Ajax, the Royal family, TV show Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden and saucy gothic culture. With photos by Raimond Wouda. Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00 -18.00), until 24 February

Allora & Calzadilla—Never Mind That Noise You Heard An opportunity to see and hear recent installations and videos that consider the continuum between noise and music as a productive measure and potentially rich tool through which cultural, social and political relationships can be gauged and challenged. Many works in the exhibition are the outcome of the Puerto Rican duo’s investigations into militarism, war and the inscriptions of power encoded in and through sound. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), opens Friday, until 4 May

MAGNUM Photos 60 years

Museums

Katsutoshi Yuasa Monumental woodcuts based on the Japanese artist’s own photographs. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 30 March Vertigo Daan Brinkmann’s latest sound installation, which investigates the spatial experience of sound. Surrounded by a circle of 32 loudspeakers, the visitor is challenged to explore the boundaries of their auditive perception. Montevideo/Time Based Arts (Tues-Sat 13.00 -18.00), opens Saturday, closing Friday Palestine: The History of Art Showing works from Palestinian artists such as Mahmoud Darwish, Michel Khleifi and Mona Hatoum. De Levante (Wed-Sun 13.00 -17.30), opens Monday, until 24 February

Ulla von Brandenburg—La Maison A Docking Station event featuring a labyrinthine three-dimensional structure composed of textile-clad panels, the colours of which are inspired by the colour schemes of the Bauhaus and the Lüscher Colour Test. At the heart of the labyrinth is a new 16mm film called 8 (2007) which leads the viewer through a different kind of maze: an endless series of rooms. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00 -18.00), until 24 February Aap, vis, boek. Linnaeus in Amsterdam Celebrating the 300th birthday of the renowned botanist in style, by displaying extremely rare books and other treasures of the period Linnaeus spent in Amsterdam. UvA: Special Collections Library (Mon-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 25 February Well-Cast: 5000 Years of Bronze Archaeological exhibition highlighting the origins and use of bronze over the ages. Allard Pierson Museum (Tues-Fri 10.00 -17.00, Sat, Sun 13.00 -17.00), until 2 March Giotto in Amsterdam Giotto’s cycle of frescoes in the Arena chapel in Padua reproduced in a scale model. Bijbels Museum (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 2 March Traces of War—Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways Portrait photos of twenty four men who worked as forced labourers on railways near the Burmese-Thai border and in Sumatra during WWII. Verzetsmuseum (Tues-Fri 10.00 -17.00, Sat-Mon 12.00-17.00), until 3 March Get Rid of the BlaBla Richard Jansen and Ties Jan de Blij invite the public to separate the real from the virtual. Centrale Bibliotheek (Daily), until 3 March

Bisj Poles—Sculptures From the Rainforest An exhibition of 58 bisj poles from New Guinea, brought to life in a thrilling combination of light, sound and film. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 13 April Hidden Afghanistan A deluxe exhibition presenting a ‘not war-torn’ vision of this nation at the crossroads of civilisations in central Asia. At its core, 250 archaeological objects will be displayed, most of which were ‘rediscovered’ in 2004 in the vaults of the Central Bank in Kabul. Nieuwe Kerk (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur 10.00-22.00), until 20 April The Splendor of Anatolia: The Unknown Turkey Displaying the various aspects of the slowly disappearing nomadic life in Anatolia through their various wares, including rare kelims (hand woven rugs), fully furnished nomadic tents, and traditional camel harnesses. Kunsthal (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.0017.00), Rotterdam, until 1 May Art Nouveau The best of French and Russian art nouveau. Hermitage Amsterdam (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 5 May Eyes Wide Open The Stedelijk Museum presents a selection of recently acquired paintings, photographs, examples of film and video art, sculptures and graphic works by artists working in the Netherlands or elsewhere. These acquisitions represent the realisation of the museum’s plans to expand the collection, in particular in the field of narrative painting, paintings that reflect on the medium, and contemporary photography and film. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 1 June

Galleries Az I mojat kufar (Me and My Suitcase) Examining the relationship between Bulgarian arts & crafts and contemporary European design. Lloyd Hotel (Daily) Henri Plaat Featuring 25 collages on paper by the Amsterdam artist. Galerie Roger Katwijk (Wed-Sat 12.00-18.00), closing Saturday Cevdet Erek Video and sound installation. Akinci (TuesSat 13.00-18.00), closing Saturday Is The World Flat? A multimedia group exhibition tackling internationalisation, art marketing and modern technologies. Arti et Amicitiae (Tues-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday Marielle van Uitert: De Krakersbeweging Breda Photos and texts. IISG (Mon-Fri 09.00-17.00), until 15 February Thomas Struth: Family Portraits Literally family portraits by acclaimed German photographer Struth. Galerie Paul Andriesse (Tues-Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 14.0018.00), until 16 February Exploring ’08 Looking forward into 2008 with diverse paintings by gallery favourites Arjan Brentjes, Aquil Copier and Anneke Wilbrink. AYAC’S (Fri, Sat 13.0017.30), until 16 February Tell Me A group exhibition with works by Pedro Bakker, Daniele Buetti, David Kramer, Enrique Marty, Lalla Essaydi, John Isaacs and Michael Scoggins. Witzenhausen Gallery 2 (Thur-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 16 February

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008 Nieuw Group show. Lumen Travo (Wed-Sat 13.0018.00), until 16 February Bloody Beautiful (Part 2) A curious and exotic group show tackling our real relationship with animals: in one hand, we’re devastated when a family pet dies, in the other, we’re happy to consume vast quantities of meat. Ronmandos (Wed-Sat 12.30-17.30), until 16 February Ketra: Skinky A collection of sumptuous PVC corset panels and fetish art dolls, realised by this Italian artist who’s always toying with seduction and dark humour. Red Stamp Art Gallery (Tue-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 16 February Winterlicht Diverse works by Dineke Blom, Jacqueline van den Bos, Chris de Bueger, Pieter Holstein, Els ter Horst, Sipke Huismans, Rosa Lachenmeier, Jaring Lokhorst and others. AdK Actuele Kunst (Wed-Sat 12.3017.30), until 17 February Aboriginal Art Colourful and spectacular works by aboriginal artists such as Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Minnie Pwerle and Barbara Weir. Feel Gallery (Thur, Fri 12.00-19.00, Sat 11.00-19.00, Sun 12.00-18.00), until 17 February Op zoek naar het Noordgevoel Capturing and presenting the essence of the Van der Pekbuurt in Amsterdam-Noord via interviews, photography and films. Anemoonstraat 27 (Wed-Sun 14.00-18.00), until 17 February Tijdloos Naakt Nude, nuder and nudist. De Kunstfabriek (Tues-Fri 12.00-18.00, Sat, Sun 12.00-17.00), until 20 February Beacons Vivid oil paintings by American artist Justin McAllister. Torch Gallery (Thur-Sat 14.00-18.00), until 23 February Marco Gasparri: Simpelweg Mooi Realist oil paintings. Galerie Ei (Sat 12.00-17.00), until 23 February The Art of Fashion Including works by Alexander Fielden, Mathilde Cabral, Berber Soepboer and street artist Snar. ArtOlive (Mon-Fri 11.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), until 24 February Frank Ammerlaan & Michael Agacki The award-winning Dutch and Polish painters team up for the first time in this duo show. Horse Move Project Space (Fri-Sun 14.00-20.00), until 24 February Ramallah Underground Part of the Palestine: the Art of Survival series, musical group Ramallah Underground culled together various Palestinian artists whose work attempts personal expression while living in a violent, occupied land. ABC Treehouse (Thur-Sun 13.00-18.00), until 24 February Tomas Hillebrand: A mon seul Désir Glass objects. Galerie Smits (Wed-Sat 13.30-17.30), until 27 February Nieuw in De Bijlmer Brigette Mulders spent the last year in De Bijlmer profiling newcomers. See article p.5. CBK Zuidoost Tues, Wed, Fri 11.00-17.00; Thur 11.0021.00, Sat 10.00-17.00, until 28 February Dominique Goblet Drawings and paintings by the Belgian artist. Galerie Knap (Tues-Sun 12.00-18.00), until 29 February I Know the World Group exhibition exploring how the production of art can be influenced by experiences abroad. Featuring Tamar Guimarães, J&K, Søren Lose, Tanja Nellemann Poulsen & Grete Aagaard and Daniëlle van Zuijlen; curated by Lise Nellemann. SMART Project Space (Tues-Sat 12.00-17.00), until 1 March voiceoverhead An audio project by Achim Lengerer and Dani Gal which is rooted in a record collection of approximately 350 records, including footage documenting political speeches and language orientated radio programmes. SMART Project Space (Tues-Sat 12.00-17.00), until 1 March I Spend My Evenings Sitting by the Fireside Hunting Tigers A solo installation by the English artist Tim Braden, which attempts to emulate, through visual language, the mechanics of the process of reading. Galerie Juliette Jongma (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 1 March Ghetto Fabuluous New images from artist Marcel van den Berg. Studio K, until 1 March Discriminatie gestript Fifteen Dutch and Flemish comic strip artists display works around the theme of discrimination. Galerie Lambiek (Mon-Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 11.00-17.00, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 1 March POPview Photos of musicians from the seven finalists hoping for the Lex van Rossen-Award: Tom Verbruggen (BE), Bertrand Bosredon (FR), Emma Svensson (SE), Dennis Duijnhouwer (NL), Annie Hoogendoorn (NL), Matthias Popp (DE) and Ben van Alboom & Wouter van Varenberg (BE). Melkweg Galerie (Wed-Sun 13.0020.00), until 2 March Mr Deeds goes to town Drawing its title from the 1936 Frank Capra film of the same name, a group exhibition around the concept of doodling in various mediums. W139 (Sun-Thur 11.00-20.00, Fri, Sat 11.00-22.00), until 2 March

Annette Huizing, Wieke Ververs Objects and paintings. Ververs Gallery (Thur-Sat 12.00 -17.30), until 8 March My Name is Z Mechanised sculptures and installations serving as self-portraits by the young Korean artist Wang Zi Won. Yoshiko Matsumoto Gallery (TuesFri 13.30-18.30, Sat 12.00 - 18.00), until 8 March The Day I Got Lost French artist Mijn Schatje, AKA Marie Blanco Hendrickx, creates bizarre and beautiful landscapes labeled as digital pop surrealism. But you might just call them dreamy and delicious. KochxBos Gallery (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 3 October 2009

EVENTS Poetry/Music: Arabic Poetry Lounge Contemporary poetry from Nizar Qabbani (Syria) and Badr Shakir alSayyaab (Iraq), with music performed by the Göksel Yimaz Ensemble. See Short List. Perdu, (Thur 19.30), €5 Talk: Afghanistan & erfgoed in nood Jolyon Leslie of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Kabuland and Ole Bouwman of the Nederlands Architectuur Instituut talk about both the destruction and protection of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage. In English. Nieuwe Kerk, (Thur 20.00), museum entry cost Art/Talk: Believing in a Better World An Agentur in Transit event, with Dutch-German artist Tilmann Meyer-Faye presenting a number of his ‘utopian illusions’ which have appeared in his projects. In Dutch. Voormalig Volkskrantgebouw, (Thur 20.00), free Art Fair: Art Rotterdam There’s art and it’s in Rotterdam, but amazingly, visitors still flock to this nice-but-blowy location on the Maas. For this ninth edition, 75 galleries from 10 countries will be represented, so there’s plenty of fresh talent on display. And if you need some extra motivation to make the journey, you can always pop into the Nederlands Fotomuseum across the road. Until 10 February. See Short List. Cruise Terminal Rotterdam, Rotterdam (Thur, Fri 13.00-18.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-19.00), €15 Festival: Something Raw International dance festival overflowing with short choreographies, performances, installations, film, debates and workshops all encompassing the idea of radical and pioneering choices in dance. See Short List. Until 9 February. Various locations, times, (Thur-Sat) and prices Art/Music: Salon390 Featuring percussive works by John Cage, Louis Andriessen, Milko Kolarov and Vítˇezslava Kaprálová, plus paintings by Eugenie van Roessel and other artists. Herengracht 390, (Sat 16.00-18.00), €23 JC Bloem With Bernard Kruithof interviewing biographer Bart Slijper about the poet and book Van alle dingen los. Het leven van JC Bloem. In Dutch. De Burcht van Berlage, (Sun 14.00), €7 Film/Music: Sound and Vision #2 Documentaries about the audio and visual arts. OT301, (Sun 20.30), €4 Discussion: Women Inc Weekly talk show highlighting specific female issues. This edition is the New Girls Networks. In Dutch. Pakhuis de Zwijger, (Mon 20.00), free Debate: The Globalised Crystal Ball Discussing the growth of the EU and Russian political pressure with international guests Pieter van Os, Wilbur Perlot, Wawrzyniec Smoczyński, Lord David Howell and Andrei Piontkovsky. In English. De Balie, (Tues 20.00), €8 Lecture: Christopher Hitchens This British-American author and critic usually has plenty to say, be it laying into Hillary Clinton or your God of choice. For the latter, he produced the book God Is Not Great, so bring on the fire and brimstone chat. In English. Aula UvA, (Wed 20.00), €18.50

ADDRESSES

11 Oosterdokskade 3-5, 625 5999 ABC Treehouse Voetboogstraat 11, 423 0967 AdK Actuele Kunst Prinsengracht 534, 320 9242 Akhnaton Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, 624 3396 Akinci Lijnbaansgracht 317, 638 0480 Allard Pierson Museum Oude Turfmarkt 127, 525 2556 ARCAM Prins Hendrikkade 600, 620 4878 Arti et Amicitiae Rokin 112, 624 5134 ArtOlive Polonceaukade 17, 675 8504 Aula UvA Singel 411, 525 4791 AYAC'S Keizersgracht 166, 638 5240 Badcuyp 1e Sweelinckstraat 10, 675 9669 De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Bijbels Museum Herengracht 366-368, 624 2436 Bimhuis Piet Heinkade 3, 788 2150 Bitterzoet Spuistraat 2, 521 3001 De Brakke Grond Nes 45, 626 6866

De Burcht van Berlage Henri Polaklaan 9, 624 1166 Cafe Meander Voetboogstraat 3, 625 8430 Cafe Pakhuis Wilhelmina Veemkade 576, 419 3368 Cafe Sappho Vijzelstraat 103, 423 1509 CBK Zuidoost Bijlmerdreef 119, 691 1322 Centrale Bibliotheek Oosterdokskade 143, 523 0900 Cineac Reguliersbreestraat 31-33 Club 8 Admiraal de Ruyterweg 56B, 685 1703 Club La Kerkstraat 50-52 Club Latido Buikslotermeerplein 7, 632 0096 CoBrA Museum Sandbergplein 1-3, Amstelveen, 547 5050 Cockring Warmoesstraat 96, 623 9604 Comedy Theater Nes 110 Concertgebouw Concertgebouwplein 2-6, 671 8345 Consortium Veemkade 570, 06 2611 8950 CREA Muziekzaal Turfdraagsterpad 17, 525 1400 CREA Theater Turfdraagsterpad 17, 525 1400 Cruise Terminal Rotterdam Wilhelminakade 699, Rotterdam, 010 202 5007 Desmet Studios Plantage Middenlaan 4A, 521 7100 Diep Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 256, 420 2020 English Reformed Church Begijnhof 48, 624 9665 Escape Rembrandtplein 11, 622 1111 Feel Gallery Frans Halsstraat 40 Flex Bar Pazzanistraat 1, 486 2123 Foam Keizersgracht 609, 551 6546 Galerie Ei Admiraal de Ruijterweg 154, 616 3961 Galerie Juliette Jongma Gerard Douplein 23, 463 6904 Galerie Knap Huidenstraat 21 Galerie Lambiek Kerkstraat 132, 626 7543 Galerie Paul Andriesse Withoedenveem 8, 623 6237 Galerie Roger Katwijk Lange Leidsedwarsstraat 198-200, 627 3808 Galerie Smits Fokke Simonszstraat 29, 06 43001833 Gasthuis Marius van Bouwdijk Bastiaansestraat 54, 683 8494 Heineken Music Hall ArenA Boulevard 590, 0900 300 1250 Hermitage Amsterdam Nieuwe Herengracht 14, 530 8751 Horse Move Project Space Oosterdokskade 5 Post CS Hotel Arena ’s-Gravesandestraat 51, 850 2400 Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401, 531 8989 IISG Cruquiusweg 31, 668 5866 Jan van der Togt Museum Dorpsstraat 50, Amstelveen, 641 5754 Jet Lounge Westermarkt 25 Joods Historisch Museum Jonas Daniel Meijerplein 2-4, 531 0310 KIT Tropentheater Mauritskade 63, 568 8711 KochxBos Gallery 1e Anjeliersdwarsstraat 3-5, 681 4567 De Kunstfabriek Polonceaukade 20 (Westergasfabriekterrein), 488 9430 Kunsthal Museumpark, Westzeedijk 341, Rotterdam, 010 440 0301 De Levante Hobbemastraat 28, 671 5485 Lloyd Hotel Oostelijke Handelskade 34, 419 1840 Lumen Travo Lijnbaansgracht 314, 627 0883 Maloe Melo Lijnbaansgracht 163, 420 4592 Het Marnix Marnixplein 1, 5246000 Mediamatic Post CS, Oosterdokskade 5, 638 9901 Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 531 8181 Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409, 531 8181 Montevideo/Time Based Arts Keizersgracht 264, 623 7101 More Rozengracht 133, 528 7459 Muziekgebouw Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2010 Het Muziektheater Amstel 3, 625 5455 Nieuwe Kerk entrance on the Dam, 638 6909 OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 671 7778 OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913 P60 Stadsplein 100A, Amstelveen, 023 345 3445 Pakhuis de Zwijger Piet Heinkade 179-181, 788 4444 Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521 Paradiso, Kelder Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521 Patronaat Zijlsingel 2, Haarlem, 023 517 5858 Perdu Kloveniersburgwal 86, 627 6295 The Powerzone Spaklerweg, 681 8866 PRIK Spuistraat 109, 06 4544 2321 Red Stamp Art Gallery Rusland 22, 420 8684 Rembrandthuis Jodenbreestraat 4, 520 0400 Rijksmuseum Jan Luykenstraat 1, 674 7000 Ronmandos Prinsengracht 282, 320 7036 Rozentheater Rozengracht 117, 620 7953 SMART Project Space Arie Biemondstraat 107-113, 427 5953 Stadsschouwburg Leidseplein 26, 624 2311 Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam Rozenstraat 59, 422 0471 Stedelijk Museum CS Oosterdokskade 5, 573 2911 De Stoker Witte de Withstraat 124, 612 3293 Studio 80 Rembrandtplein 70, 521 8333 Studio K Timorplein 62, 692 0422 Sugar Factory Lijnbaansgracht 238, 627 0008 The Eagle Warmoesstraat 90, 627 8634 Torch Gallery Lauriergracht 94, 626 0284 Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200 Uilenburger Synagogue Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 91, 427 8347 Under the Grand Chapiteau Next to ArenA, 621 1288 UvA: Special Collections Library Oude Turfmarkt 129, 525 2141 Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200 Van Zijll Langhout Brouwersgracht 161, 06 2825 9620 Ververs Gallery Hazenstraat 54 Verzetsmuseum Plantage Kerklaan 61, 620 2535 Volta Houtmankade 334-336, 628 6429 Voormalig Volkskrantgebouw Wibautstraat 150 W139 Warmoesstraat 139, 622 9434 Winston Kingdom Warmoesstraat 129, 623 1380 Witzenhausen Gallery 2 Elandsstraat 145, 644 9898 Yoshiko Matsumoto Gallery Weteringschans 37, 06 1437 0995 Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100, 688 0127 Zuiderkerk Zuiderkerkhof 72, 552 7987

Amsterdam Weekly

My kind of tuin Cafe de Tuin, 2e Tuindwarsstraat 13, 624 4559 Open: Sun-Thur 10.00-01.00, Fri-Sat 10.00-02.00 Cash Did you make it to the Rotterdam Film Festival? Me neither. My intentions were good but in the end my actions resembled the movement of mountains. But when I found myself outside Cafe de Tuin the other morning, weak from having suffered without breakfast, I sprung into a very visible action without a single thought. I desperatelty needed something to get me through to lunch. Cafe de Tuin is known for its sandwiches and has been a local haven for an army of regulars for 25 years now. But all I saw when I entered was the skylight towards the back which acted as a natural magnet, drawing me towards one of the tables there. ‘Coffee, please!’ I croaked, plucking up the menu with my last fading strength. Meanwhile, the cafe began to fill with people, greeting each other, taking off their layers of winter ware. ‘Do you have soup?’ I asked hopefully. My waitress smiled and shook her head. ‘No.’ ‘Then one of those lovely BLTCs please.’ She disappeared to the back, while I gratefully slurped my coffee and soaked up its warmth. I looked around at all the lamps and the rosepetaled wallpaper. Nothing has likely changed here for yonks. But after becoming the comfortable extension of one’s living room, why change? My treat arrived, neatly cut into two pieces, on a red plate. It resembled a great Spanish bread galleon severed in half with two great masts stick-

THE UNDERCOVER GLUTTON My pleasure to eat this jaw-stretching snack was enormous. I closed my eyes in pure detached-from-world bliss, the flavours and textures orbiting my tongue. ing out. The thick slices of dark multigrain bread were slathered with mustard, mayonnaise and plenty of curly edged lettuce placed on as a base. Then there was the very generous, thick layer of

moist, thinly sliced smoked chicken, with tomato slices as big as cartwheels, and some crunchy crisp pieces of bacon. For on the side nibbling, the plate was garnished with potato crisps.

7-13 February 2008

I picked up one half and wolfishly sank my teeth into it. My pleasure to eat this jaw-stretching snack was enormous. I closed my eyes in pure detached-from-world bliss, the flavours and textures orbiting my tongue. (What a delight it is to eat. And probably the biggest shame about death is that you can’t.) The cafe was now filling up for the lunchtime rush. The ladies were in top gear, bringing orders, clearing tables, making smoothies and frothing up hot milk. It was a hive of activity in De Tuin. I sat around feeling a warm glow run through me. I fell into an easy conversation with two ladies seated at the next table. The one related a great holiday experience: meeting a whale shark whilst scuba diving in Indonesia. She relived the experience as she told it and her pleasure engulfed us. Her detailed description took us underwater, with great excited air bubbles trailing to the surface. She broke off when her bol arrived. Business is business. And I took this as my moment to bid farewell but not before appreciating why Cafe de Tuin has lasted all these years. It’s a relaxed local stam cafe where strangers can briefly meet for conversation— the essence of home away from home. As I swept on my street coat, I accidentally knocked a sugar bottle onto the floor. It exploded loudly in a sweet white swath mixed with broken glass. I apologised to my fellow customers for startling them and started to pick up shards before the waitress told me not to bother. I asked the assembly if the action would result in seven years of good or bad luck—hoping that sugar worked in reverse to the salt superstition. ‘Seven years of good fortune,’ said a pretty lady. What a relief! Cafe de Tuin has a new fan. See you under the apple tree.

7-13 February 2008

Amsterdam Weekly

21 When someone you know dies, ‘the world stops moving for a while.’

German director Fatih Akin talks about Hamburg, Turkey, love and mourning the dead.

TWO LANDS,TWO LANGUAGES,TWO COFFINS FILM Auf der anderen Seite Opens Thursday at Rialto. By Sarah Gehrke

‘Death,’ says Fatih Akin, ‘brings them together.’ Sitting in the offices of his production company in Hamburg, the director is talking about his new film, Auf der anderen Seite [‘The Edge of Heaven’]. He explains that it’s the second part of a ‘Love, Death and Devil’ trilogy. Part one, about love, was the much-lauded Gegen

die Wand [‘Head On’, 2005], a film that tells the story of Sibel, a young GermanTurkish girl, and Cahit, an older man whom she meets in a clinic after both of them have attempted suicide. They enter into a mock marriage so she can escape the pressure of her traditional family. Then they fall in love. Despite the lack of a Hollywood-style happy ending, the film shows how this love—and the end of it— saves them both. And now it’s time for death. Death comes suddenly in Auf der anderen Seite, and illogically—just as it often does

in real life. ‘Many deaths I’ve known,’ says Akin, ‘have been so pointless.’ But the two deaths that occur in the film dramatically change the lives of those left behind. Two of them move to another country, one reconciles with his father, one finds a new family, one learns forgiveness. In that sense, death in Auf der anderen Seite has the same redemptive function that love had in Gegen die Wand. However, Akin is careful in his film not to overemphasise the symbolic aspects of death. ‘It brings the people together, yes, but I’m not trying to make it a sort of therapeutic experience. It’s just about understanding that life goes on, that it has to go on, whether you want it to or not. That was one of the first things I realised when someone died who was really close to me. I was in mourning, and shocked, and I was sitting in a restaurant. Nobody knows that someone you know has just died, and they all happily dine and chat away. For them, the world doesn’t stand still, but for us it has just stopped moving for a while.’ Like Gegen die Wand, Auf der

anderen Seite is set both in Germany and in Turkey. Its dead are transported between the two countries: one coffin arrives at the Istanbul airport as another one leaves. And its living, too, are in a constant state of transition: between places, cultures, languages, mindsets. Akin, who was born in Hamburg to Turkish parents, deals in most of his films with growing up between two cultures, or rather, three: a German one, a Turkish one, and a German-Turkish one. The characters illustrate this by constantly switching languages. Nejat, in Auf der anderen Seite, teaches German literature, and when he speaks with his Turkish father, they use a mixture of German and Turkish: ‘Nejat,’ says Akin, ‘is more German than Turkish.’ Akin himself speaks in the broadest Hamburg slang imaginable, and says that only after he began shooting films in Turkey could he start making himself understood exclusively in Turkish when talking to his parents. In Akin’s films, the multicultural reality of our time is stated so matter-of-factly that it could make Geert Wilders’ wig fall off. And in encountering the country of his parents, Akin uses this reality to his own advantage: two worlds are better than one. In 2006, he made a documentary about Istanbul’s music scene, Crossing the Bridge, which revealed, among many things, that behind the cameras there was a big-eyed director who had just fallen in love with a newly discovered city. Love, death, three cultures and a big heart for his cities: it’s what’s essential to all of Fatih Akin’s films. ‘You know, I sort of miss doing something with Hamburg, to be honest,’ he says. ‘I’d really like to make a film again that’s really, you know, about this city.’ Then he smiles: ‘Because, after all, it’s my Heimat.’

Five-Word Movie Review

FILM Edited by Julie Phillips.This week’s films reviewed by Lisa Alspector (LA),Massimo Benvegnù (MB), Angela Dress (AD),Don Druker (DD),Sarah Gehrke (SG),Luuk van Huët (LvH),JR Jones (JJ), Dave Kehr (DK),Peter Margasak (PM),MarieClaire Melzer (MM),Mike Peek (MP),Bart Plantenga (BP),Gusta Reijnders (GR),Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR),Marinus de Ruiter (MdR) and Bregtje Schudel (BS).All films are screened in English with Dutch subtitles unless otherwise noted. Amsterdam Weekly recommends.

New this week Auf der anderen Seite Two coffins pass through

the Istanbul airport; for the people left behind, life takes unexpected turns. Fatih Akin’s new film tells the story of six people in Germany and Turkey whose lives are connected by two deaths: the widower Ali and his son Nejat; a woman named Yeter, her daughter Ayten, who meets a girl called Lotte; and Lotte’s mother (Hanna Schygulla). After a sad film about love, Gegen die Wand, Akin has made an optimistic film about mortality, families and forgiveness. The film seems heavily edited—it’s clear the director had a lot more material—but the episodic character of the film saves it from appearing pieced-together. Akin’s screenplay won top honours at Cannes. See interview above. In German with Dutch subtitles. (SG) 122 min. Rialto The Mist Forget the two Stephen King adaptations that gave Frank Darabont his Oscar nominations: the

STUFFING DEAD PEOPLE IN PIE Sweeney Todd The Movies, Pathé De Mun, PathéTuschinski

Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

humanitarian touch displayed in The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile has become a sucker punch in the gut in the gloriously misanthropic The Mist. When a supermarket in a small rural town becomes enveloped by a mysterious fog, the bargain hunters soon fall prey to mysterious tentacled critters and other assorted nasty pieces of otherworldly fauna. Even more trouble brews when the local Christian fundamentalist starts preaching the Apocalypse. The ending is a bit glib, but the rest is full of nail-biting suspense. (LvH) 127 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Pathfinder A Viking grows up with a Native American tribe and helps defend them in a war against the Norsemen. Marcus Nispel directed this gimpy action flick. With Karl Urban (Eomer in Lord of the Rings) and Russell Means. Pathé Tuschinski Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street If musicals aren’t your slice of pie, then Tim Burton’s reverential adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s show about a barber out for revenge won’t tantalise your taste buds, but the gorgeously Gothic production values are yum-

my eye candy all the same. The film is leached of all colour except for frequent gushes of crimson, evoking the Grand Guignol theatrical tradition using state-of-theart techniques. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter aren’t the most accomplished of singers, but they hold their own and look the part, though Sascha Baron Cohen once again steals the show in a supporting role. With Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall. (LvH) 116 min. The Movies, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski Things We Lost in the Fire In this first American feature from Danish director Susanne Bier (After the Wedding, Brothers), a recent widow (Halle Berry) invites her late husband’s heroin-addicted friend (Benicio del Toro) to live with her and her two children. Gradually, a friendship develops between these two damaged people. Though there are some intimate and touching scenes, Bier regularly veers into melodrama. Her Dogma 95derived handheld camera and extreme close-ups, especially those of sad eyeballs, feel manufactured. And Allan Loeb’s screenplay fails to provide enough depth for what could have been an interesting Ameri-

can (arthouse?) project with a European touch. If it weren’t for the first-rate performances by Berry and especially the hypnotically watchable Del Toro, Things We Lost in the Fire would be just another TV movie. (GR) 113 min. Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski, De Uitkijk

Still playing 12 Angry Men Watching 12 sweaty guys arguing for

an hour and a half might not sound like much fun, but if you can pierce the datedness that envelops this 1957 classic, now settling in for a long run at the Filmmuseum, you’ll find a gem underneath. In this quintessential courtroom drama, Sidney Lumet crafted a potent tale of bigotry, class struggle and justice, thereby proving that you don’t need funky locations or gargantuan explosions to tell a good story. The powerful performances by Henry Fonda and Lee J Cobb may be the most memorable, but the entire cast is an assembly of outstanding actors rarely matched to this day. If you haven’t seen it yet, treat yourself. (LvH) 96 min. Filmmuseum 2 Days in Paris New York sweethearts Marion (Julie Delpy) and Jack (Adam Goldberg) are on holiday in Europe, and by the time they reach Paris to visit Mari-

Amsterdam Weekly

Caramel on’s parents, the culture clash is overwhelming. Every man in the city seems to have had an affair with Marion, and her family’s sense of humour is driving Jack crazy. 2 Days in Paris is the exact opposite of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, the bittersweet films that brought Delpy modest fame. She wrote and directed this movie herself, showing the other side of love and relationships: the side that hurts, annoys and drives people apart even if they seem destined for each other. Laugh-out-loud funny and, in a surprisingly tender finale, very touching as well. (MP) 96 min. De Uitkijk 4 maanden, 3 weken en 2 dagen Romanian cinema seems to have found a niche for sober, socially committed dramas. After The Death of Mr Lazarescu (the failing health care system) and 12:08 East of Bucharest (the revolution of 1989), Cristian Mungiu’s 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days focuses on the ban on abortion under Ceaucescu. Student Otilia agrees to help her roommate Gabita with the preparations for an illegal termination of her pregnancy. But to see 4, 3, 2 only as an anti-abortion film would be to miss the point. Their act is merely the tool with which the two women’s friendship is tested and proven. The film won this year’s Palme d’Or in Cannes. In Romanian with Dutch subtitles. (BS) Rialto

Aliens vs Predator 2 Aliens vs Predator 2 A sequel to a craptastically derivative film that underwhelmed audiences a couple of years back? One that was made with the sole purpose of slurping money out of the wallets of impressionable teenagers? That can’t amount to anything, can it? Well, it’s no Dostoyevsky, but if you feel like watching two familiar monstrosities duking it out with each other while reducing a throwaway cast of unknowns to bits and kibble, this is the film for you. AVP 2 pulls very few punches, showers everything with buckets o’ gore and is smart enough to know how dumb it has to be. (LvH) 94 min. Pathé ArenA

Alles is liefde Alles is liefde (‘Love Is All’) doesn’t

even try to hide the fact that it copied its structure directly from that other affection-obsessed ensemble piece, Love Actually. But in this case, it’s actually an improvement. Again people are lovelorn during the holiday season (with as Dutch flavour Sinterklaas instead of Christmas). Screenwriter Kim van Kooten and director Joram Lürsen (In Oranje) actually manage to make the story tight and focused, sentimental but not overly melodramatic. The film boasts a nice ensemble cast (Carice van Houten, Anneke Blok, Thomas Acda), with the real show-stopper Michiel ‘Jiskefet’ Romeyn as a gruff substitute Sint. In Dutch. (BS) 110 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé Tuschinski, Studio K

Atonement Based on the novel by Ian McEwan, adapted by Christopher Hampton and directed by Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice), Atonement tells the story of a single tragic lie with horrendous consequences. This genre-melding film opens in 1935, when 13-yearold fledgling writer Briony Tallis accuses her older sister’s boyfriend of a crime he didn’t commit. Five years later, at the start of the Second World War, the young man is released from prison on the condition he join the army. In 1999, Briony as a dying novelist still feels she has to atone for bearing false witness. Starring Keira Knightley, James McAvoy and Vanessa Redgrave, Atonement is one beautiful film. (GR) Cinecenter, Pathé De Munt, Studio K Away from Her “Not another Alzheimer movie!” you

might say. Yes, another loving husband is going to check his wife of many years into a nursing home, then try to piece their memories together through the cracks of her illness. Yes, he’ll bring flowers. Yes, he’ll read to her. Yes, there will be flashbacks. But Away from Her, the directorial debut of actress Sarah Polley (based on a short story by Alice Munro), is that rare thing, a gripping, powerful drama filled with fabulous performances. Julie

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Investigation Christie hasn’t had a role to shine in like this in ages; her piercing blue eyes let us in on Fiona’s troubled soul, but also give us one more glimpse into her timeless beauty. (MB) 110 min. Cinecenter, Pathé Tuschinski El Baño del Papa Smuggling, usually by bicycle, is a way of life in the Uruguayan village of Melo, on the Brazilian border—until the Pope chooses the sleepy town for an upcoming visit. The excited villagers start coming up with creative ideas for making money off the visiting crowds. One man, Beto, decides to build a real flush toilet (baño) in front of his house and charge the pilgrims money to use it. César Charlone, the cinematographer on Cidade de Deus and The Constant Gardener, wrote and directed this heart-warmer together with Enrique Fernández. Rialto

Caramel Layale’s beauty salon in Beirut is a shabby affair: the water regularly gets shut off, the power goes out, and hot caramel is used as a primitive form of waxing. Meanwhile, five women connected to the shop struggle with various social pressures surrounding their love affairs. Extramarital affairs, lesbian relationships, dominant mothers, sex before marriage and sex after menopause are difficult barriers to overcome in a religious hot zone like Beirut. Director Nadine Labaki, who also plays Layale, portrays her love/hate affair with the war-struck city in a highly entertaining way, with lots of meaning hidden under the cosmetic surface. In Arabic/French with Dutch subtitles. (MdR) 95 min. Rialto Charlie Wilson’s War Mike Nichols works his mojo on the supposedly true story of a swaggering Democratic Texan congressman (Tom Hanks), a born-again, boozing socialite (Julia Roberts) and a tough-as-nails spy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who supported the mujahedeen uprising against the mighty Russian army. This culminated in the Communist defeat, the end of the Cold War and, eventually, the rise of Al Qaida. The tone is just a bit breezier than it might have been in our historical hindsight, but Hanks and Roberts break out of their cookie-cutter stereotypes and deliver great portrayals, even managing to keep up with another boisterous performance by Hoffman. (LvH) 96 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski Cloverfield Expectations were monumental after an unprecedented viral campaign that made fanboys froth at the mouth. Luckily, golden child du jour JJ Abrams, who produced this, doesn’t disappoint… too much. While a giant beastie rampages through New York, a small group of yuppie Yankees go on a quest to save a trapped girlfriend, as captured on a digital camera. While the found-footage gimmick is fresh and effective, and there are a couple of neat tricks, the film requires a bit more suspension of disbelief to rise above the level of escapist entertainment. Not as good as The Host, but at least it’s no Godzilla. (LvH) 90 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Still Playing

Control In this biopic on singer/songwriter Ian Curtis,

photographer and video director Anton Corbijn dares to be critical: Ian isn’t a tragic hero, but a bit of a wimp who uses his band as an escape from his own incompetence as a husband and father. The film is beautifully shot in black-and-white, though the stark contrasts and grey hues serve mainly to underline the desolation of the Manchester suburbs, and of Ian himself. (BS) 119 min. Cinema Amstelveen, Melkweg Cinema Earth This full-length documentary version of the British TV series Planet Earth follows a polar bear family, a herd of elephants and two humpback whales in their daily struggle for survival. Directed by Alastair Fothergill (Deep Blue) and Mark Linfield. 96 min. Pathé Tuschinski, De Uitkijk

Eastern Promises Superficially, this latest endeav-

our by Canadian cult favourite David Cronenberg is a

supremely made gangster flick with great performances and ditto production values. But underneath the surface, the director explores his familiar obsessions: identity, violence and the human body. When nurse Anna (Naomi Watts) starts investigating the life of a young Russian prostitute who died giving birth, she soon attracts unwanted attention from local mob boss Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), his mercurial son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and his mysterious driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). While the cast is top-notch, Mortensen is stellar, baring body and soul for the part. (LvH) 100 min. Kriterion Enchanted Disney tries to kill two birds with one stone with this good-hearted story about an animated princess who suddenly finds herself in unfriendly New York, where nobody lives happily ever after. The movie desperately wants to be both a mild parody and a sincere fairy tale. Director Kevin Lima (who did the Disney Tarzan) has some fun with this Snow White with a twist: when princess Giselle (Amy Adams) cleans up a New York apartment she enlists the help of local vermin. But despite all its efforts it works mostly as a fairy tale, rather than as a clever hybrid à la Rob Reiner’s Princess Bride. With the voices of Julie Andrews, Susan Sarandon and Timothy Spall. (BS) 107 min. Pathé De Munt

Enchanted The Flock Uninspired thriller about two US agents (Richard Gere and Claire Danes) tracking down a sex offender. Directed by Wai-keung Lau; with Avril Lavigne. 101 min. Pathé De Munt The Golden Compass Philip Pullman’s story concerns Lyra Belacqua, a young orphan living at Jordan College in Oxford, who goes on a quest to save her best friend from a shadowy group of kidnappers known as Gobblers. On the way she enlists the help of the barge-dwelling Gyptians, a Texan aeronaut, flying witches and an armoured polar bear. The Golden Compass dazzles with its elaborate production design and special effects: the computer-generated dæmons are almost all full of life, and the panserbjørne are impressive in a riveting fight scene. The performances—from Nicole Kidman, Sam Elliot and newcomer Dakota Blue Richards—are top-notch as well. Yet while the makers clearly hold the source material in high regard, the film feels rushed and ultimately lacks spark. (LvH) Pathé De Munt

Gone Baby Gone Adapted from a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), this powerful mystery centres on the disappearance of a four-year-old girl whose life has already been sadly defined by her vile single mother and grim working-class Boston neighbourhood. The girl’s aunt hires a pair of private detectives (Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan) to assist the police, and as they get closer to the truth, even the child’s rescue begins to seem like a tragic fate. Ben Affleck directed; his biggest gamble was casting his irksome little brother as a pistol-whipping tough guy, but the picture is so superbly executed in every other respect that Casey seems more quirky than miscast. With Amy Ryan, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman. (JJ) 104 min. Kriterion, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Heimatklänge Stefan Schwietert’s documentary opens with the Swiss musical cliché: man on a mountaintop, exuberantly yodeling. This enduring ‘Heidiland’ image keeps coming back to haunt this film about three performers whose work couldn’t be less like the stereotype. Avant-garde vocalists Erika Stucky, Noldi Alder and Christian Zehnder have all in their own way managed to take back yodeling for art and soul. Schwietert has a talent for letting artists explain how and where they find inspiration; he follows the three musicians to key sites, where they reflect on their lives and their art. A highly watchable music documentary, gorgeous and engaging. In German with Dutch subtitles. (BP) 82 min. Filmmuseum

I Am Legend Will Smith plays an army scientist and survivor of a human-caused pandemic that has turned most of the world’s population into zombies. Living in a ruined New York City with only his dog as company, he tries to come up with a vaccine that could save the human (and canine) race. This third cinematic adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic 1954 science fiction novel (the earlier two were The Last Man on Earth and The Omega Man) gets the Dumb Hollywood Blockbuster treatment—CGI and a right-wing political agenda erase most of the ethical, philosophical and logistical questions that arose from its pages. As good as Smith is, Vincent Price must be rolling in his grave. Avoid this like the plague. (MB) 100 min. Pathé De Munt In the Valley of Elah Paul Haggis critiques the Iraq War; Tommy Lee Jones delivers. 120 min. Kriterion, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Investigation A psychological thriller, set in Sofia, about the battle of wills between a police detective and her suspect. Directed by Iglika Triffonova, who also made the Bulgarian road movie Letter to America. In Bulgarian with Dutch subtitles. 105 min. Filmmuseum

Juno Juno (Ellen Page) is 16. Juno is full of life and sarcasm. Juno is pregnant. Oops. She gives up the thought of abortion after hearing that her baby has already developed fingernails and instead starts looking for adoptive parents. She finds the perfect couple in Mark and Vanessa. They’re wealthy, nice and Mark might even qualify as cool, since he shares Juno’s taste in music and splatter movies. Ellen Page is beyond perfect as the wisecracking but friendly Juno, who’s bright, yet young and naïve enough to think that there is no harm in spending time with the adoptive father of her unborn child. Add the best soundtrack in ages and a script that’s all about letting people be whoever they want to be and there you have it: this year’s independent American masterpiece. Directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking). (MP) 92 min. Cinecenter, Kriterion, The Movies, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt The Kite Runner After his poignant Monster’s Ball, his pensive Finding Neverland and the daringly different Stranger than Fiction—unreleased here—director Marc Foster offers us a solid and visually arresting but emotionally drained adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. One of the obstacles is the protagonist, Afghanborn Amir (played by Scottish-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla), who, in his sullen grownup version, doesn’t evoke much sympathy—or any other emotion. When he was young, he shared a close friendship with servant boy Hassan, the kite runner of the title, but later fell out with him. Still heavily conflicted about his misconduct as a youth, the adult Amir returns to Afghanistan to ‘be good again’. In English/Dari/Pashtu/Urdu/Russian with Dutch subtitles. (BS) 128 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski, Studio K

The Kite Runner

Lady Chatterley In the hands of Pascale Ferran, and in French, D. H. Lawrence’s classic novel becomes an almost spiritual film about the transforming power of love and sex. The first time Constance Chatterley (Marina Hands) and her gamekeeper Parkin (Jean-Louis Coullo’ch) do it, things are a bit clumsy—and they both remain fully clothed. Their growing intimacy is shown by their increasing lack of garments, until, by the end of the film, we see them not only completely naked but dancing around in the rain, and feel we have gotten to know them. In Hands’s brilliantly natural, César-winning performance, Lady Chatterley is both funny and moving: you can’t help feeling for her. Hands has moved Lawrence’s novel past the pornographic and the feminist to the human level. (MM) The Movies, Rialto

Das Leben der Anderen This Oscar winner by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck mostly deserves all the

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008

Special screenings Adam’s Rib George Cukor’s gracious 1949 comedy about a lawyer (Katharine Hepburn) married to a district attorney (Spencer Tracy) and what happens when they find themselves on opposite sides of a shooting trial. The film is a classic, and deservedly so: Tracy & Hepburn defined ‘chemistry’ in the movies. (DK) 100 min. Filmmuseum

azine script by Wong and Lawrence Block. (MdR) 111 min. Rialto, Studio K

The Barefoot Contessa Joseph L Mankiewicz’s 1956 Cinderella story, with Ava Gardner as a peasant waif elevated to international star status by producer Humphrey Bogart. It’s overlong and talky, but these are familiar Mankiewicz failings. He shines in his deft verbal wit and novelistic propensity for detail, backlit by a highly personal blend of romance and cynicism. An imperfect film, but its excesses are as suggestive as its subtleties. (DK) 128 min. Rialto

The Nanny Diaries In this pseudoethnographic exercise, a New Jersey girl (Scarlett Johansson) is hired as a nanny by rich New York monsters (Laura Linney and Paul Giamatti). The characters are instantly reversible—the bratty kid turns out to be a sweetie pie, the mother just needs to be told off. Only Giamatti, as the clichéd businessman husband, is irredeemable, and he’s offset by the heroine’s dreamy beau (Chris Evans), who lives in the same building. Formulaic. Written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (American Splendor). (JR) 106 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

China’s Fourth Generation Straight from the Rotterdam film festival, a series of features by Chinese directors from the ‘fourth generation’. These film-makers came of age in the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, and were not able to work until government restrictions began to lift in the 1970s. By that time, they had already been bypassed by fifth-generation directors like Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. The films made between 1978 and 1989 by the fourth generation have seldom been seen outside China; they are often experimental, but almost always emphasise human values and emotions. Filmmuseum

National Treasure: Book of Secrets This sequel, like the first National Treasure, is a Disney romp with several stars (Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel from the first movie, plus Ed Harris and Helen Mirren) appearing in and around various international monuments as they pursue a centuries-old treasure with arcane clues and sliding panels. Leave it to co-producer Jerry Bruckheimer to revive the Indiana Jones cycle without the period setting, the camp elements or Spielberg’s efficiency. Instead, director Jon Turteltaub just plods along. (JR) 124 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Crossing the Bridge This lively 2005 documentary by Fatih Akin follows bassist Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten through the streets of Istanbul to present a dynamic and wide-ranging portrait of the city’s musical riches. The intimate performance footage ranges from more traditional sounds to Turkish iterations of global styles like rock, hiphop and electronica, delivering commentary on the nation’s conflicted status as a bridge between Europe and Asia. Among the featured artists are rock pioneer Erkin Koray, the powerful Kurdish singer Aynur, polyglot DJ Mercan Dede, and arabesk legend Orhan Gencebay. In English/German/Turkish with Dutch subtitles. (PM) 92 min. Rialto

Mio fratello è figlio unico praise and admiration it has received. A study in the dehumanising effects of state surveillance, it focuses on two men living in East Germany in 1984: a playwright (Sebastian Koch) who attracts the interest of the state and a Stasi officer (Ulrich Mühe) whose loyalty to the socialist cause is starting to erode. Predictable and slightly distant, but also disturbing and effective. In German with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 137 min. Rialto Lust, Caution Ang Lee’s latest has been compared to Zwartboek, but it’s actually more akin to the first time you visit a new girlfriend’s parents. Everybody is on their best behaviour, the pleasantries seem to go on forever, you’re forced to watch an endless amount of vacation slides, and it’s only partly made up for by the screwing. Or, to ditch this forced metaphor: solid acting by Tony Leung and debutante Tang Wei, beautiful cinematography and incredible sex scenes can’t compensate for the clunky flashback structure, plodding narrative and absurd length. Could someone get Mr Lee a new editor, please? (LvH) 156 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski

Lust, Caution Mala Noche Before his Hollywood breakthrough, Drugstore Cowboy, director Gus Van Sant debuted with this low-budget, black-and-white gay buddy movie. Shot in Van Sant’s hometown, Portland, Oregon, Mala Noche (1985) sets a scene in which the white, male protagonist reports in diary style about young Mexican immigrants trying to make a living. As he develops a crush on one of them, he starts to realise that he will never understand their world of poverty and that the relationship is bound to fail. Van Sant paints a bittersweet portrait of city life in this gritty, realistic cult classic. (MdR) 78 min. Filmmuseum

Mio fratello è figlio unico Accio Benassi (Elio Ger-

mano) feels like the least valued member of his family. Perhaps correctly: Accio isn’t his real name, but a nickname meaning ‘pain in the ass’. So Accio does everything possible to live up to his name. He leaves the seminary and instead becomes a member of the Fascist party. Luckily the viewer realises—even if Accio himself does not—that his actions are driven not by idealism but provocation. He is no more a serious fascist than his socialist brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio) is a saint. Mio fratello è figlio unico (‘My Brother Is an Only Child’) is a lighter, less portentous version of La Meglio gioventù—also focusing on two brothers in turbulent Italy. The writers of LMG even co-wrote Mio fratello. Daniele Luchetti directed. In Italian with Dutch subtitles. (BS) 118 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Rialto Moordwijven At least one thing is constant: in the 12 years since Dick Maas (De Lift, Amsterdamned) made his last Dutch-language feature his sense of humour hasn’t changed. Unfortunately for him, our appreciation has. In Moordwijven we find the same lewdness and political incorrectness he already—and more successfully—employed in Flodder (1986). The story: three rich-brat housewives plan to assassinate one of their adulterous husbands. The film does have some funny moments (especially one concerning a pool boy one of the gals picks up at a refugee centre) but overall Moordwijven is a relic, a memento of more shabby days, when a pair of bare breasts were considered nice assets. (BS) 100 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt My Blueberry Nights Wong Kar Wai’s films have always depended on subtle communication, both spoken and unspoken. In his Hollywood debut, My Blueberry Nights, it’s clear that he’s underestimated the problems of translating those subtleties into English. The singer Norah Jones stars as a New Yorker on a soul-searching journey through America. Excellent performances by Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn (as an alcoholic couple) and Natalie Portman (as a Las Vegas poker addict) can’t make up for Jones’s blankness, or for the uninspired, glossy-mag-

P.S. I Love You Yet another movie about a live woman (Hilary Swank) in love with a dead man (Gerard Butler). What is Hollywood trying to tell us? Directed by Richard LaGravenese (Freedom Writers); with Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon and Kathy Bates. 120 min. Cinema Amstelveen, Pathé ArenA, Pathé Tuschinski Saw IV Jigsaw reaches from beyond the grave in this third sequel to James Wan’s 2004 horror movie. Darren Lynn Bousman directed; with Tobin Bell and Donnie Wahlberg. Pathé ArenA

Sicko In order to speak more credibly on the Amer-

ican health care system, Michael Moore decided to drop a few pounds himself. While he was at it, he also got rid of many of his cheap editing tricks, throwing out most of his manipulative voice-overs and goofy montages and replacing them with poignant personal drama. Both the leaner look and the calmer style were excellent choices, resulting in a much tighter documentary than any he’s made previously, and probably also his best. (MB) 123 min. Kriterion TBS A convicted murderer escapes from a psychiatric ward and kidnaps a 13-year-old girl in this thriller by Pieter Kuijpers (Van God Los, Dennis P.). A great performance by Theo Maassen isn’t quite enough to save the film, but it might still make it worth watching. In Dutch. 88 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

TBS Unfinished Sky In this Australian remake of the 1998 Dutch film De Poolse Bruid, Monic Hendrickx reprises her role as a traumatised sex worker who finds solace on an isolated farm, even though she and the farmer can’t speak each other’s language. Directed by Peter Duncan. 100 min. Pathé De Munt We Own the Night One of Hollywood’s mouldy oldies—brothers on opposite sides of the law—gets yet another spin in this lead-footed crime drama by James Gray (Little Odessa,The Yards). Robert Duvall is a venerable deputy chief of police for the NYPD, Mark Wahlberg is his locked-and-loaded cop son, and Joaquin Phoenix is the leather-clad black sheep of the family, who sleeps with a Puerto Rican dish (Eva Mendes) and works at a Russian-owned nightclub that fronts for a sinister drug lord (Alex Veadov). The story takes place in 1988 in the Brighton Beach neighbourhood of Brooklyn, but why? With its pitiless gangsters and virtuous boys in blue, it could have been set anywhere. (JJ) 117 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

El Custódio Ruben (Julio Chávez) works as bodyguard for the Minister of National Planning (Osmar Núñez). His life consists mostly of waiting for the Minister, and the unequal relationship between them is a clear metaphor for Argentina’s corrupt society. Doors are literally shut in the face of Ruben, who has no access to the places the Minister goes, nor, for that matter, control over his own life. Meanwhile, the Minister doesn’t seem too concerned with his country, as he entertains guests on his ranch and visits his mistress. This could be the recipe for a powerful film, filled with tension, but Ruben’s life is shown in long, static cameras shots— tedious. Still, there are occasional brilliant visuals, such as when he is dismissed by the Minister and literally fades away. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (MM) 95 min. KIT Tropentheater, Kleine Zaal Day Break Under Iranian law a murder victim’s family is responsible for executing the culprit, a tradition that serves as the premise for this stark philosophical drama (2005) by Hamid Rahmanian. The main character, a workingman who killed his boss with a brick, has walked the last mile three times already, but each time the family fails to show up—though whether they’re acting out of mercy or sadism isn’t clear. Meanwhile his father, mother and wife are stuck in limbo with him, awaiting a punishment that never comes. Rahmanian nimbly intercuts the murderer’s dank prison life with the daylight, open spaces and sense of possibility he’s left behind. (JJ) 82 min. Kriterion Hana-Bi In this complex flashback narrative that fuses danger, sorrow and loveliness, detective Nishi (writerdirector Takeshi Kitano) is a quiet yet volatile man who takes a road trip with his dying wife, while his partner Horibe (Ren Osugi) trains himself as an artist after being paralysed on the job. Intercutting between the lonely, productive Horibe and Nishi, whose time with his wife is periodically interrupted by violent face-offs with organised criminals, this 1997 movie (aka Fireworks) is as full of shocking, staccato brutality as meditative calm. In Japanese with Dutch subtitles. (LA) 103 min. Cavia The Happiness of the Katakuris Celebrated by his fans for such violent horror thrillers as Audition (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001), Takashi Miike takes a welcome break from that fare with this camp musical-comedy hoot. It comes on like an outrageous episode of The Simpsons or South Park, milking humour from a happy-smiley family’s attempts to turn a country estate into a guest house. As their new life spins out of control, murders and apparitions do nothing to halt the flow of songs, dances and sickening pastel imagery. The film throws in a bit of everything— scatological jokes, movie pastiches, animation, satire

of national manners—as it whips up an infectious energy. In Japanese with English subtitles. 113 min. De Nieuwe Anita Hemel boven Holland Rolf van Eijk based his final project for film school, Hemel boven Holland (‘Heaven Above Holland’) on the life of Mohammed Bouyeri, the killer of Theo van Gogh. The story is filmed backwards with long hand-held shots, beginning with the sound of an ambulance and ending months (or even years?) earlier with Mohammed playing an innocent game of football. The long shots are reminiscent of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, but an even stronger similarity lies in its lack of explication. We are witness to some major influences in Mohammed’s life—the death of his mother, the constant frustration of his well-meant plans—but in the end (or beginning) we still don’t know what made a social worker into a Muslim extremist. In Dutch. (BS) 40 min. De Balie Jesus Camp Profoundly disturbing documentary, directed by Heidi Ewing, about evangelical Christian summer camps for children in the US. There is no voiceover or any other form of editorial comment—the footage speaks for itself, revealing a vile, ideologically incoherent mess of religious fundamentalism and rightwing politics. (AD) 84 min. Filmhuis Griffioen The Killers Robert Siodmak’s atmospheric 1946 rendition of Ernest Hemingway’s classic short story proved a success for the young Burt Lancaster, playing an ex-fighter who double-crosses the fixers and ends up the target of reprisal. Siodmak evokes an atmosphere of impending disaster, and as an insurance investigator (Edmond O’Brien) pieces together the story of the fighter’s rise and fall from grace with the mob, the movie becomes an example of film noir at its most expressive. (DD) 105 min. De Roode Bioscoop Marie-Antoinette Sofia Coppola’s ‘anti-period’ biopic eschews authenticity in favour of the emotional and visceral experiences of the last, tragically misunderstood queen of France. Eye-popping visuals and an anachronistic soundtrack further underline that here we have a woman not of this time, though the connection we do make with Kirsten Dunst’s Marie-Antoinette at the beginning of the movie gets lost when the lustre of Versailles begins to work its spell, and the heroine’s intrigue pales in comparison. (BS) 125 min. Kriterion Pursuit of Happyness Failure is one of the most potent American subjects, largely because of the drama implicit in Americans’ denial of it. This inspirational movie tells the true story of an unsuccessful salesman in San Francisco (Will Smith) who assumes custody of his young son and contrives to switch professions. Smith is resourceful in the role, though the story stretches one’s credulity about his character’s resourcefulness. Gabrielle Muccino directed; with Thandie Newton and Jaden Smith (the star’s son). (JR) 117 min. Pathé Tuschinski Romanoff and Juliet Peter Ustinov directed and stars in this 1961 Cold War parody. Akim Tamiroff plays Romanoff, Sandra Dee is Juliet. 100 min. Pathé Tuschinski

Rushmore In this 1998 film by Wes Anderson (The Life Aquatic by Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums), Jason Schwartzman plays an ambitious working-class pupil who’s flunking out of a private high school—the Rushmore of the title—because he’s too engrossed in extracurricular activities. To make matters worse, he develops a crush on a young widow (Olivia Williams) who’s a grammar-school teacher there. His two best friends are a schoolmate who’s much younger and a disaffected millionaire alumnus (Bill Murray) who’s much older, and part of the lift of this movie is that it creates a utopian democracy among different age groups. Things come to a crisis when the millionaire becomes the hero’s romantic rival. Stylistically fresh and full of sweetness that never cloys, this is contemporary Hollywood film-making at its near best. (JR) 93 min. Kriterion Sans Soleil Chris Marker’s 1982 masterpiece is one of the key nonfiction films of our time—a personal philosophical essay that concentrates mainly on contemporary Tokyo but also includes footage shot in Iceland, Guinea-Bissau, and San Francisco (where the film-maker tracks down all the locations from Hitchcock’s Vertigo). A film about subjectivity, death, photography, social custom and consciousness itself. Showing with another classic documentary, Welles’s F for Fake (1973), whose main subjects are art forger Elmyr de Hory, Clifford Irving, Howard Hughes, Pablo Picasso, Welles himself, and the practice and meaning of deception. (JR) OT301 Satellite Queens Dutch film-maker Bregtje van der Haak’s IDFA hit goes behind the scenes at the popular Arabic television show ‘Sweet Talk’. On the show, four women address such issues as sex, homosexuality and divorce, in the hope of creating more open discussion in the Arab world. Debate follows between the director and the ‘Meiden van Halal’. In Arabic/English with Dutch subtitles. Rialto

FILM TIMES Thursday 7 February until Wednesday 13 February. Times are provided by cinemas and are subject to last-minute changes. Film times also at www.amsterdamweekly.nl. De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Hemel boven Holland Fri, Sat 20.30. Cavia Van Hallstraat 52-I, 681 1419 Hana-Bi Thur, Fri 20.30. Cinecenter Lijnbaansgracht 236, 623 6615 Atonement daily 16.15, 19.15, 22.00, Sun also 11.00, 13.30 Away from Her daily 19.15, Sun also 13.45 Juno daily 19.30, 21.45, Sun also 11.15, 13.45 The Kite Runner daily 15.45, 18.45, 21.45, Sun also 11.15 Lust, Caution daily 16.00 Mio fratello è figlio unico daily 16.15, 21.45, Sun also 11.00. Cinema Amstelveen Plein 1960 2, Amstelveen, 547 5175 Control Sun 16.30, Tues, Wed 20.30 The Golden Compass (NL) Sat, Wed 15.30, Sun 14.00 Kapitein Rob Sat, Wed 13.30 Losse Filmlezingen over de Filmtheorie Tues 19.00 P.S. I Love You Thur-Sat 20.30 De Wonderwinkel van Mr Magorium Sun 12.00. Filmhuis Griffioen Uilenstede 106, Amstelveen, 444 5100 Jesus Camp Thur, Tues 19.30. Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 12 Angry Men daily 19.15, Sun also 16.00, Mon-Wed also 17.15 Adam's Rib Sat, Tues, Wed 21.15 At the Beach Sat 19.30 Black Snow Fri 19.30 China's Fourth Generation Thur-Sun Desmond en het Moerasmonster Sun, Wed 13.45 Heimatklänge Thur-Sat, Tues, Wed 17.30, Sun 15.45 In the Wild Mountains Thur 19.30 Inherit the Wind Fri, Mon 21.15 Investigation Thur-Sun 21.30, Mon 17.30, Tues, Wed 19.30 Mala Noche Thur-Sat 17.15, Tues, Wed 21.30 Sacrificed Youth Sun 19.30 Sven en zijn rat en het Ufomysterie Sun, Wed 14.00 To Kill a Mockingbird Thur, Sun also 21.15. Het Ketelhuis Haarlemmerweg, 8-10, 684 0090 For times see: www.ketelhuis.nl KIT Tropentheater, Kleine Zaal Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8500 El Custódio Tues, Wed 20.30. Kriterion Roetersstraat 170, 623 1708 Bee Movie (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 15.15, Sun also 13.15 Day Break Sun 15.00 Eastern Promises daily 21.45, Fri, Sat also 23.45 Gone Baby Gone daily 19.15, Thur-Tues also 17.00 In the Valley of Elah daily 19.30, Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed also 22.00 Juno daily 18.00, 20.00, 22.00, Thur-Mon, Wed also 22.15, Fri, Sat also 0.00 Lorange & Co Sun 11.00, Wed 15.00 Marie-Antoinette Wed 17.00 Rushmore Mon 22.00 Sicko daily 16.45, Sat, Wed also 14.00 De Wonderwinkel van Mr Magorium Sat, Sun 15.00, Sun also 13.00. Melkweg Cinema Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 624 1777 Alien:The Director's Cut Thur-Sat 19.00 Aliens Mon-Wed 19.00 Control Thur, Sat 21.15, Sun 19.00 Invaded by Aliens daily 19.00. The Movies Haarlemmerdijk 159-165, 638 6016 Bee Movie (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 14.45 Juno daily 19.30, 21.45, Fri, Sat also 23.30, Sat, Sun, Wed also 14.00, Sun also 12.00 The Kite Runner daily 16.30, 19.00, 21.30, Sun, Wed also 14.00 Lady Chatterley daily 15.45 Lust, Caution daily 21.15 Mio fratello è figlio unico daily 16.45, 19.00, Fri, Sat also 0.15, Sat, Sun, Wed also 14.00, Sun also 11.45 No Country for Old Men Fri, Sat 0.10 Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street daily 17.00, 19.15, 21.30, Fri, Sat also 23.45, Sun also 12.30. De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512, The Happiness of the Katakuris Mon 20.30. OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913 F for Fake Tues 20.30 Sans Soleil Tues 20.30. Pathé ArenA ArenA Boulevard 600, 0900 1458 Aliens vs Predator 2 daily 19.30 Alles is liefde Sun 18.20 Alvin en de Chipmunks daily 14.50, Thur-Mon, Wed also 13.30, 15.45, Fri-Sun, Wed also 12.40, 17.10, Sat, Sun also 10.20, Sat also 11.20, Tues also 12.00, 14.30 Bee Movie (NL) Sat, Sun, Wed 12.00, 12.55, Sat, Sun also 10.00, 10.45 Charlie Wilson's War daily 12.20, 14.30, 16.50, 19.20, 21.50, Sat, Sun also 10.05, Sat also 0.10 Cloverfield daily 18.00, 20.00, 22.00, Thur-Mon, Wed also 21.10, Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed also 17.00, 19.10, Thur-Sat, Mon, Wed also 12.50, 15.00, Sat als 10.50, 23.20, Sun, Tues also 14.00, 16.00, Sun also 10.00, 12.00, Tues also 11.50 Enchanted (NL) Fri-Sun, Wed 16.00, Sat, Sun, Wed also 13.25, Sat, Sun also 11.00 Gone Baby Gone daily 21.45, Sat also 0.15 I Am Legend (Imax) daily 19.30, 21.50, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.30, 17.10

Amsterdam Weekly In the Valley of Elah daily 14.40, 17.45, 20.20, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.00, Sat also 23.00 Juno daily 12.10, 14.20, 16.40, 19.00, 21.20, Sat, Sun also 10.00, Sat also 23.40 K3 en de Kattenprins Fri-Sun, Wed 12.45, Sat, Sun also 10.30 The Kite Runnerdaily 15.10, 17.50, 20.40, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.30 Maskeli Besler - Cyprus daily 15.15, 17.30, 19.40, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.45 The Mist daily 13.00, 15.50, 18.40, 21.30, Sat also 10.10, 0.10 Moordwijven daily 21.00, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.45, Thur, Mon, Tues also 16.00 The Nanny Diaries daily 16.20 National Treasure: Book of Secrets daily 13.10, 18.50, 21.40, Sat, Sun also 10.20 P.S. I Love You daily 18.20 Saw IV daily 22.15 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Step Up 2 Tues 11.00 TBS daily 13.20, 15.30, 17.40, 19.50, 22.10, Sat, Sun also 11.10, Sat also 0.15 Underdog (NL) daily 12.40, 14.50, 17.20, Sat, Sun also 10.40 We Own the Night daily 18.15, 20.50, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.45, Thur, Sat-Wed also 15.20 De Wonderwinkel van Mr Magorium Fri 15.20, Sat, Sun, Wed 12.45, Sat, Sun also 10.15. Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Alvin en de Chipmunks Fri, Sun, Wed 13.10, Sun also 11.00, Sat 10.15, 12.30, 14.45 Atonement Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.15, Sat 20.45 Bee Movie (NL) Sat 10.25, 12.50, Sun, Wed 12.40, Sun also 10.20 Blood Diamond Sun 10.30 Charlie Wilson's War Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.10, 14.30, 17.00, 19.30, 21.50, Sat 10.20, 12.45, 15.15, 17.45, 20.15, 22.45 Cloverfield Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.30, 16.00, 18.15, 20.45, Fri, Sun also 19.40, 21.50, Sat 12.15, 14.30, 16.45, 17.30, 19.00, 19.45, 21.15, 22.10, 23.30 Enchanted Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.20, Sat 17.15 Enchanted (NL) Sat 11.20, 14.00, Sun, Wed 13.15, Sun also 10.40 The Flock Thur, Mon, Wed 19.15, Thur, Mon also 16.30, Tues 16.10, 18.35 The Golden Compass Sat 15.20, Sun, Wed 15.10 Gone Baby Gone Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 16.15, 18.40, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.45, Wed also 12.00, Sat 16.20, 19.10 I Am Legend Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 22.00, Sat 22.50 In the Valley of Elah Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.40, 18.20, 21.15, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed als 12.50, Sat 15.45, 18.50, 21.45 Juno Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.00, 14.20, 16.40, 19.00, Thur, Sat 21.30, Fri, Sun-Wed also 21.20, Sat also 11.30, 13.45, 16.15, 18.45 K3 en de Kattenprins Sat 10.15, 12.10, 14.10, Sun, Wed 14.30, Sun also 10.45, 12.35 The Kite Runner Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.45, 20.30, Thur, Fri, MonWed also 12.30, Sun also 12.40, Sat 11.15, 14.15, 19.50, 22.40 The Mist Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.30, 18.30, Thur, Mon, Tues also 12.45, Thur also 21.20, Fri, Sun-Wed also 21.30, Sat 17.00, 20.00, 23.00 Moordwijven Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.15, 19.45, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 14.00, Sun, Wed also 14.50, Sat 15.30, 18.00, 20.30 The Nanny Diaries Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.40, Sat 18.15 NationalTreasure:Book of Secrets Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 21.10, Sat 21.40 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Thur, Fri, SunWed 12.15, 15.00, 18.00, 21.00, Sat 10.30, 13.30, 16.30, 19.30, 22.30 TBS Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 13.00, 15.15, 17.30, 20.00, 22.10, Sun also 10.50, Sat 11.00, 13.15, 16.00, 18.30, 21.00, 23.15 Things We Lost in the Fire Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.50, 18.45, 21.40, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.15, Sat 16.20, 19.15, 22.00 Underdog (NL) Fri, Sun, Wed 15.20, 17.20, Fri, Wed also 13.10, Sun also 13.25, Sat 10.50, 13.00, 15.00 Unfinished Sky Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues 12.40, 15.10, Sat 11.10, 13.20, Sun 10.25, 12.50 We Own the Night Thur, Mon, Tues 13.20, Thur, Mon, Wed 21.50 De Wonderwinkel van Mr Magorium Sat 10.40, 13.10, Sun, Wed 12.35, Sun also 10.15. Pathé Tuschinski Reguliersbreestraat 34, 0900 1458 Alles is liefde Thur 18.20, Fri-Sun, Tues, Wed 18.00 Away from Her Thur 16.00, Fri-Sun, Tues, Wed 12.40, 15.20, Mon 13.00 Bee Movie (NL) Sat, Sun 12.00, Wed 12.20 Charlie Wilson's War daily 12.10, 14.40, 17.10, 19.40, 22.10 Earth Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 14.30, 16.50, 19.10, Thur, Fri, Tues also 12.10, Mon 13.20, 15.50 The Kite Runnerdaily 12.00, 15.00, Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed also 18.00, 21.00 Lust, Caution Thur 21.10, Fri-Sun, Tues, Wed 20.50 P.S. I Love You Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 21.40 Pathfinder daily 15.10, Thur-Mon also 18.50, Tues, Wed also 18.40 Pursuit of Happyness Thur 13.30 Romanoff and Juliet Sun 10.30 Sweeney Todd:The Demon Barber of Fleet Street daily 15.30, 18.30, 21.30, Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed also 12.30, Sun also 12.50 Things We Lost in the Fire daily 12.20, 21.40. Rialto Ceintuurbaan 338, 676 8700 4 maanden, 3 weken en 2 dagen Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.30 Auf der anderen Seite Thur-Mon, Wed 18.45, 21.15, Fri-Sun, Wed also 15.30, Tues 21.30 El Baño del Papa daily 11.30 The Barefoot Contessa Sun 11.00, Wed 15.00 Caramel daily 17.00, 19.00 Crossing the Bridge Fri, Sat 23.30 Lady Chatterley daily 21.00, Sat, Sun also 13.45 Das Leben der Anderen Sat, Sun 12.30 Mio fratello è figlio unico daily 19.45, 22.00, Fri, Sun also 15.15 My Blueberry Nights Sat, Sun 13.15 Satellite Queens Sat 16.00. De Roode Bioscoop Haarlemmerplein 7H, 625 7500, The Killers Sun 20.30. Studio K Timorplein 62, 692 0422, Alles is liefde Sat, Sun 16.15, Mon-Wed 19.00 Atonement Thur-Sun 19.00 Beyaz Melek Thur-Sat 21.45 The Kite Runner daily 18.45, 21.30, Sun also 16.00 My Blueberry Nights Sun-Wed 21.45 Ratatouille (NL) Sat, Sun 13.30, Sat, Wed 16.00. De Uitkijk Prinsengracht 452, 623 7460 2 Days in Paris Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.00, Sun 15.00 Desmond en het Moerasmonster Sat, Wed 15.30, Sun 13.30 Earth Sun 17.00 Things We Lost in the Fire daily 19.00, Fri-Wed also 21.30.

7-13 February 2008

WEEKLY CLASSIFIEDS Ads are free, space permitting. They will be posted both to the paper and online. Guaranteed placement is available for a small fee; see our website for details. Ads may be published in English, het Nederlands or whatever language is best for you to communicate your message. How to submit an ad: via our website at www.amsterdamweekly.nl, by fax at 020 620 1666 or post to Amsterdam Weekly, De Ruyterkade 106, 1011 AB Amsterdam. Deadline: Monday at 12.00, the week of publication. AD OF THE WEEK THROW UP ON DEMAND? Operation Reflux. Cutting Edge Performance Art. Seeking adventurous artists for a 4-piece public installation. All cutting edge people welcomed. Puke Art! operationreflux@gmail.com.

JOBS

ingandinnovativeA’dam-based company.Ifyouwantajobwith lots of excitement and challenges,andcanoffer2yearssupport experience I would love to hear from you. Send your CV to davidgibbons@adamsrecruitment.com.

LOOKINGFORNANNYFamily seeking experienced nanny or sitter to care for our children ages 8,7 and 5 on Wed and Sat. Must have references, be organized, creative, strict and caring. It is HR ASSISTANTSfor many f/t a plus if you have your own and p/t opportunities in A’dam automobile. €15/hr. rosy@rijk& Amstelveen. If you have a shemelvaart.com. minimum of 1 year HR expeWANTED ARTISTS! Call- rience, can speak good level ing all talented artists and Dutch and are immediately designers. Can you draw my available please send your CV ideas? Specializing in Rock- to davidgibbons@adamsreabilly and Comic strip images. cruitment.com. Commission paid! Email me UNDUTCHABLES A'DAM some examples of your work Credit Control & Collections to Pilotina4@web.de. Representative, fluent English HOUSECLEANINGLooking (+ Dutch would be a plus); for someone to clean your Benelux Customer Service; house? Who’s hard working Accountant French/English; and no-nonsense and above Accounts Payable all lanall discrete? Give me a call: guages; IT Technical Support; 06 3024 6635. IT Testers, Perl, C++, Software IRISH PUB A'DAM We are developers, Windows, UNIX seeking an experienced, hard administrators. driana.anguworking chef, and an expe- lo@undutchables.nl. rienced bar person with Sociale Hygiene Certificate, both for f/t work. If you fit the bill, please send your CV/resume to irishamsterdam@gmail.com. RECEPTIONIST for European Organisation in the Hague. English fluent and other European Languages required. Dutch is desired but not required. 2 years professional experience. Good level of MS Office applications. Good organizational skills, flexible, helpful and friendly. CV’s to Serrana@adamsrecruitment.com. GERMAN ACCT MGR in Rotterdam. English and German fluency. HBO level or MBO with 2 years experience in Business Development and Account Management. Enthusiastic, strong communication skills and customer focus/driven. CV’s to Serrana@adamsrecruitment.com.

UNDUTCHABLES Recruitment Agency Amstelveen are lookingforSecretaryspeaking Japanese&English;TempExecutive Assistant; Customer Service Representative speaking Italian; Logistic Coordinator English or Italian or German speaking; Technical Support speakingSwedish.Pleasemail amstelveen@undutchables.nl. MASHUA OFFERS JOBS Restaurant Mashua is looking for kitchen staff and table attendants. Experience & good communication skills required. Must be Dutch & English speaking. Wide & varied range of activities in modern, stylish restaurant. Remuneration according to Dutch standards. Contact 06 5371 8057 or info@mashua.nl. WAREHOUSE MGR/ ASSTANTFast-growing plant nutrient distributor needs an accurate,detail-orientedwarehouse mgr/assistant to the director. Varied tasks include receiving, confirming, inputing, packing/palletizing customer orders, inventory control. MS office & English & Dutch required, FR, SP, Ger a+. info@an-europe.com.

JNR P/T GRAPHIC DESIGNERfor a great company in the centre of A’dam! Creative, motivated and available for 3 days a week? Send your CV through to maria@adamsrecruitment.com. GERMAN/FRENCH Small PAYROLL ADMINISTRA- office in A’dam looking for TORSCalling all experienced German & French customer payroll administrators! Sev- service/mail processing peoeral opportunities with inter- ple. Duties include opening national organizations in and mail, reading customer seraround A’dam. Send your CV vice letters, and using through to maria@adamsre- database for orders and customer service letters. Intercruitment.com. ested? Send email with CV to SALES/MARKETINGFrench amsterdamjob@gmail.com. sales/marketingsupportassisWork to start immediately. tant for international company in A’dam. Excellent admin NATIVE SPEAKERS wantskills needed for this super ed for freelance training proopportunity. Start immediate- jects at The Language Acadely?MustbefluentFrenchspeak- my (Universiteit van AmserwithexcellentEnglish.Send terdam). VAR-WUO is a plus. your CV to davidgibbons@ Email jobs@thelanguageacademy.nl for details. adamsrecruitment.com.

ti-lingual, bi-lingual and English language employment in NL. Check out our website for more than 300 available vacancies across many languages and industries. Twenty years experience in Recruitment, Contracting and Executive Search. WWW.BLUELYNX.COM.

al neighbourhood. Near center/Jordaan. For 1 person/couple. April–Oct or longer. €1250 all incl. ikoorn@xs4all.nl.

ENGLISH-SPEAKING JOB We have all the Englishspeaking and other foreignlanguage jobs from all major employment agencies and employers in NL on one website. www.xpatjobs.com.

1-2BDRMAPTIamanEnglish professional, 33 y.o. looking for anaptclosetothecentreofA’dam. Fully furnished and bills incl, max €900/mth. Please contact via mail, suzannedawes @hotmail.com.Thankyouinadvance.

BIKETAXIDRIVERSWANTEDWe’re in business 365 days a year! Are you service-oriented, independent, responsible, flexible & unafraid of Dutch weather? Climb on the bandwagon this winter & get priority for best summer shifts. We offer weekly introduction sessions. Contact 06 3882 2683/info@wielertaxi.nl/www. wielertaxi.nl.

ROOM WANTEDMe and my boyfriend want a room in A’dam centre or west. Max €300. Please email me asap. catherinenamuddu@yahoo.c om. Thank you.

HOUSING FOR RENT SHORT-TERMFLATsubletto 2 Mar. Furnished flat Z.O. No registration. No pets. Big hall, bthrm, WC, bdrm, dble bed, lounge, spare bed, separate kitchen, parking, garage. 4th top floor, light, trees, shops, bus, metro, train nearby. TV, printer, 2 bikes, IT & tel. €850 inclbills.elcdnl@yahoo.com,06 3309 7464.

100'S OF APTS available in A’dam immediately. From €450/mth. See www.xpatrentals.com/offers.

HOUSING WANTED

APT 2 girls, students, looking for a place to live. Preferably 2-room apt, max €700 For any information contact nic.sireka@lycos.com. ROOM/FLAT WANTED 20 y.o. student looking for a place, preferably semi-furnished in A’dam centrum or Oud Zuid. Can pay max €450. Call 06 4274 5814.

FLAT/ROOM 33 y.o. artist from Sweden looking for a new living space from the 1 Mar in A’dam as my current contract is up. Without furniture would be appreciated. Can pay max €350. Any help WEEKLY SHORT-TERM would be appreciated. Please RENTALS Luxury, fully fur- don’t hesitate to contact me. nished 1-bdrm apt in the very Charlott: 06 1746 4171. center of A’dam. Ideal for SHARED HOUSING business people and tourists. Great location, great view, 10 MIN FROM CS Housing few minutes from the best for share in A’dam. 10 min that A’dam offers. Contact from CS for €350 plus 1 month essiz@hotmail.com. deposit. Phone 06 2534 7770. ROOM APRIL-JULY Cool student room from 1 April until 1 July for rent. Close to the VU. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, 15m2, €320 everything incl. Call Hannes: 06 2603 9353. NICE FLAT Nice 50m2 flat 7 min walk from CS A’dam (Jordaan) for 3 months (+ or -), near shops and public tranportation, €900/mth all incl, max 2 persons. More info? Email inghuis@yahoo.com. 50M2 FURNISHED APT Nice furnished apt for rent for 3 months, Mar-May in A’dam West, near Jan van Galenstraat, 5 min from the Jordaan. 50m2 on ground floor with garden. €800 all incl per month. Interested? Send us an email: linde78@ hotmail.com. FOR RENT ON CURACAO Nice holiday house for rent on Curacao (Normandie 3). Living room, kitchen, 3 bdrms, bathroom, carport. Includes TV, washing machine, rental car. Close to public transport, centrally located, close to shops & police station, quiet neighbourhood. Call 06 1021 8271 or email info@tulipany.nl for info.

GREAT PLACE FOR RENT Nice furnished apt in A’dam Westerpark. Bedroom, big livSALES SUPPORT French/ MULTI-LINGUAL JOBSBlue ing room, kitchen, bathroom, Dutch sales support for excit- Lynx - The specialists in mul- little balcony. Popular, cultur-

ROOM FOR RENTin shared apt. Period: ASAP - Mar. Location: close to Vondelpark. Price: €250 all incl. balisto88@hotmail.com. ROOM AVAILABLE Room availableasfrom1MarinA’dam noord (5 min from CS) in huge house, €485/mth incl all bills, internet and digital TV. Please email for further info: robinotoole@hotmail.com.

OTHER SPACES PHOTO STUDIO For amateur and professional photographers. Can also be used as meeting or gathering space. 100m2, €150/day. Possible to rent photo equipment. High ceilings, good, natural light and located on WG Plein, adjacent to Overtoom. For appointment and more info contact D. Ingel: 06 2883 4224. STUDIO SPACE TO RENT by the hour. Suitable for dance classes etc. A’dam south location. Tel 06 4194 2207. WATERSIDE WORK SPACE Join the Allies, 8 freelance writers and media pros in a 2-storey studio on Nieuwendammerhaven marina, across the IJ just 10 mins from CS. The €300/mth rent includes desk, phone and internet connections, coffee and more. Call/mail Frank van Wijck: 06 2461 2396, frank@evatekst.nl.

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 February 2008 DESK/WORKSPACE FOR RENT for rent within creative collective in heart of A’dam. We are looking for people to share office space with our film production company. 1 desk available. Shared kitchen. Building offers reception service, bike garage + cleaning. €250/mth ex BTW. info@godmotherfilms.com.

and receive friendly, helpful advice. info@helenolney.com /www.helenolney.com.

LANGUAGE DATING The best way to learn Dutch is by dating a Dutch speaking person! Start dating on www.mediamatic.net/dating. A free dating site as part of the exhibition Gastarbeider Dating at Mediamatic. Or try your language skills during our opening hours: Wed-Sun, 16.00-20.00.

BABYSITTERExperienced Irish babysitter! Hi, I am an Irish girl with former au-pair and childcare experience. I am a recent university graduate, TEFL qualified and I speak a good level of Spanish. If you are interested DANCE-THEATRE STUDIO please email curransuzy@ bij de Nieuwe Meer in A’dam hotmail.com. (CV and referte huur per dagdeel of per ences available on request.) dag(en). Vanaf €15 eper PHOTOGRAPHYIm specialdagdeel, korting bij afname ized in portrait, fashion, archivast dagdeel. info@senseof- tecture, music. Portfolio space.org of 06 1479 8155. shoots. See work at OFFICE FOR RENT Location: Prinsengracht 397, 25m2, exclusive toilet, kitchen and general space (around 20m2). When: 1 April. Costs: €530 incl btw, excl gas, heat, water, internet & phone (can be shared). Information: wterra@idebate.org.

FOR SALE BROOKLYN LOOK Top designer T-shirts, hoodies, jackets, caps direct from Brooklyn to A’dam. Art gallery features work from internationally known artists. Visit WOLF AND PACK. Spuistraat 232. Conveniently located between Rozengracht and Spuiplein. 13.00-19.00, SunSat, 427 0786. www.wolfandpack.com. BIKE FOR SALE A nice female bike with one flat tyre for sale. €30 incl 1 lock. If interested email andniv@yahoo.com. AMERICAN FOODS!Get all your favorite American foods mailed direct to your door! Take advantage of the cheap dollar! Cereals, drinks, candy, baking goods and more. www.eatusonline.com.

FREE STUFF

www.andresphotography.co REIKIDo you wish to give up m contact me for more info smoking? Reiki therapy natat andresinbox@gmail.com. urally helps you feel more relaxed & keep those cravFREELANCER Freelance ings at bay! Reiki Prices: 45 communications specialist mins €25/90 mins €45 First (with fundraising experi- session 25% discount. For ence). Reasonable hourly more info please visit rates. For more info and con- www.jaraart.com/reiki.html tact details: www.annager- or email becky@jaraart.com. rard.blogspot.com. PERSONAL TRAINING DOG LOVERIf you don’t have Experienced certified Perenough time to walk your sonal Trainer looking for limdogs, I can do it for you! Just ited clients. Transform your give me a call! 06 4545 7883. body, feel better and acheive HOUSE CLEANING If you your goals faster. Email are stressed about the mess, hady4pt@yahoo.com. give me a call and I will clean ACUPUNCTURE Certified your home. You’ll be 100% American acupuncturist satisfied. Say bye to your mess! treats both men and women 06 4545 7883. for a wide range of ailments STUNNING WEBSITES at two locations in A’dam. Experienced designer builds Coverage offered by many professional, unique sites, health insurance companies. starting at €300. www.off- Call 06 2739 9789, email minor.com/stunning_design.h info@acupunctuurnoordholtm. Contact Jordan: jordan- land.nl or visit www.acupuncgcz@yahoo.com, 06 3034 1238. tuurnoordholland.nl. NEED TO MOVE? Door-todoor moving for only €35. We have 3 vans available with experienced drivers + extra removers. Also the perfect solution for delivering your new bought furniture. Book online on www.vrachtverhuizer.nl or call 06 1514 9164.

XPAT PAGES Looking for YARN HELP! Who has English-speaking plumber, woolen yarn leftovers from dentist, lawyer, etc? www.xpatyour last knitting actions? pages.com. Preferably 805 or 100% wool! All colors are fine! Please BUDGET TAXI for tailormail me on phylenele- made private day tours and mans@hotmail.com and I other long distance taxi serwill come and pick it up! vices with reservation (>50 kms; in NL or to/from abroad). Thanks in advance! Spacious, no-nonsense taxi (airco/GPS) for 1-4 passenSERVICES gers and lots of luggage. Dutch TAX & FINANCE Trying to driver speaks English, Gerget quality advice and save man some French. Tel 613 money at the same time? We 8048 or check www.dagtoerare specialized in bookkeep- taxi.nl. ing, taxes and guide our relations through the entire busiHEALTH & WELLNESS ness process. We work TIRED OF BEING STUCK? through a countrywide network with professionals who Heighten your quality of life. can help on each issue. Call Improve your relationships, with the help of native us for RAAD! 691 2217. English-speaking therapist. ENGLISH MAN WITH VAN My 20 years of professional Can help with removals, big experience and understandor small, in or outside of the ing can help you better cope country. Reasonable rates, with feelings and sort through quick service. Contact Lee stressful thoughts. Call Sagar on 06 2388 2184 or white- on 06 4626 5412. van@whitevanman.nl or see FEEL BEAUTIFUL Facial www.whitevanman.nl. care and chackra balancing LOW-COST WEBSITES by Nike. In your home facial Stylish websites for small cleancing chakra treatment. businesses and individuals. Contact nike for appt: Contact us now for a free quo- nike.dejeu@raketnet.nl. tation, to discuss your needs Until 22.00 if you call.

THERAPY/COACHING Registred at www.ngvh.nl, www. nap.nl. Many (supplementary) health insurance policies will cover the costs of integrative psychotherapy.(Dutch/English) www.corakoorn-praktijk.nl or 06 1488 1350. EXPATRIATE COUNSELINGoffers professional coaching, counseling and therapy in English, Dutch, Spanish and Japanese. Longer hours, weekends and the best service. For more information please visit www.expatriatecounseling.com or call 06 2824 4088 or email info@expatriatecounseling.com. URBAN ANGELS Life path readings. Psychic readings. Accurate and stress-free. By appointment. 06 5080 5589. In A’dam. PHYSIOTHERAPYTherapy for pain, injuries, rehabilitation, relaxation techniques... Fluent in English and Spanish. Covered by most insurances. Located in heart of A’dam. Call or email us for a fast appt in flexible hours. 06 1672 3827/expatphysio@hotmail.com.

MASSAGE IL CIELO STUDIO We offer different treatments such as craniosacral, dorn breuss massage, holistic, ayurvedic and foot massage. The treatments are reimbursed by many health insurances. Info: www.ilcielo.org, Unmani, 06 3004 9738.

TANTRA MASSAGESacred sensual massage created to arouse, circulate & increase energy throughout the body. Moving energy not only enhances awareness and the capacity for pleasure, it can also be a powerful healing experience. Tantra A’dam & London. Info: www.erostrance.com, Shanti@erostrance.com, 06 4277 3290.

ting up programs, MS Word, QuarkXpress, etc. Help with purchasing the right MAC. Contact Sagar at 06 4626 5412.

COURSES

read more at www.ilcielo.org, or call Unmani on 06 3004 9738. SHIATSUCOURSELearn how to give a simple but efficient treatment. Introduction to the basic principles of shiatsu by Monika Forster at the ‘Zen Shiatsu Opleiding.’ 10 Wednesdays from 9.30 to 11.45. Start 6 Feb. Info: www.zenshiatsu.nl or monikaforster@dds.nl or 693 7808.

BELLY DANCE COURSE weekly at 19.00 on Thursdays. Studio in A’dam West. Visit www.zerzura.info or tel 681 0072. This timeless woman’s dance is lots of fun and creates a positive body image, regardHOME IMPROVEMENT less of age or shape. Why not ONE WEEK DUTCH Een week intensief Nederlands PAINTER - DECORATOR come along and find out? Fully qualified painter, deco- CLOWN AWAKENING 8, 9 spreken. GLOSSA helps you rator. High-grade quality work. March/Overtoom 301. Inten- to strengthen your confidence Guaranteed timeline. Free sive workshop, €70,00 for all. in speaking Dutch. Are you estimates. Call 06 1120 8026. Email cirkusworldwild@ interested in practising your Dutch in a 1-week course? Mail jacobdecorator@hot- yahoo.com. Focus on words and phrases mail.com. MODERN DANCE CLASES of everyday use. Have a look WWW.STUCDESIGN.NET BY Manuela Tessi in Over- at www.glossa.nl or call 06 Stuc €9 the meter with matetoom 301, every Thur 18.30- 1471 5372. rial, painting, carpentry, 20.00. Combination of diffrent LANGUAGES azuleijos. The best work with modern/contemporary dance experiencia. 06 4258 2006. styles. Class will consist of DUTCH LESSONS A'DAM RENOVATIONPainting, plas- floor work & a series of stand- Improve conversation/profestering, basic carpentary and ing exercises & combinations sional purpose/studies/NT2. general interior and exteri- that move through space. Also online. Min indiv rate or renovation. Very experi- Info: lunamatisse@yahoo.it. €15/hr. Adults & children. Monenced. For estimates please Sat, 10.00-21.00. Also intenYOGA'DAM NEW Announccall 330 2634. sive courses. Min intensive: ing2newyogaclassesatYogAm15 hrs=€215,55. www.excelCONTRACTOR/RENOsterdam.nl. Yoga with an IndiVATERLicensed (KvK), reg- an teacher on Thur 18.30-20.00 lentdutch.nl. New: Superistered & insured. Get it done & Fri 10.00-12.00 at Borgerstr intensive summer course. Info: right the first time. Plumb- 224, A’dam. For more info call excellentdutch@hotmail.com, ing, electrical, complete 06 4390 2470 or log onto 06 3612 2870. PRACTICE remodels, repairs of all sizes www.YogAmsterdam.nl. Free ENGLISH English Practice Group meets & more. High standards & trial! Limited spaces! weekly with focus on gramexcellent quality. Visit AFRAID IN THE DARK? mar, vocabulary, pronunciawww.ssrhino.com, Dealing with aggression tion & fluency. Discussion, andy@ssrhino.com EMERcourse for women. Learn exercises & presentations GENCY SERVICES/24 hr callouts available & reasonable techniques and how to get designed around your learnmore confident. Introduc- ing needs. Led by experienced rates! 06 2510 6271. tion course combat sports, UPHOLSTERYFor re-uphol- both starting at the students EFL Instructor & all levels stering of all kinds of furni- sports centre USC, 6 Feb. Stu- welcome. Inexpensive, international & in centrum. Info: ture, modern and antique, dents tariff €25,50/€20,50. jehrlichnl@hotmail.com. boat and caravan cushions www.usc.uva.nl. ENGLISH LESSONS! Want to recovered or made to measure, also curtains made to DRAWING AND PAINTING improve your English? I offer measure, all styles catered for, workshops by professional friendly English lessons to build wide selection of fabrics to artist, various techniques, all your confidence. Conversation choose from in all price class- styles, from scratch to paint- classes with an experienced (4 es. Contact Sophie Filangi ing with oils. Contact yearsteachingEnglish),CELTA qualified teacher. Learn in a 06 4154 7557/www.alabon- joneiselin@hetnet.nl. nechaise.nl. UPHOLSTERY WORKSHOP group or by yourself, it’s up to in Westerpark! Recover you. Contact Andy at adredCOMPUTERS and/or repair your own fur- wood@gmail.com or 06 2414 6144. PC HOUSE DOCTOR Spe- niture with the professional cialised in virus/spyware advice of Sophie Filangi. LANGUAGE EXCHANGE removal, h/w, s/w repair, data Every Tues and Thur 19.00- Native tongue Italian seeking recovery, wireless, cable/ADSL 22.00 (by appt only). Includ- native tongue Dutch for coninstallation and computer ing use of tools, excluding versation/grammar exchange lessons from friendly and expe- materials. €30 per session. during evenings and weekrienced Microsoft profession- Call for information on 06 ends. Please contact 06 1113 7077 if interested. al for reasonable price. Con- 4154 7557. tact Mario 06 1644 8230. MASSAGE COURSESIl Cielo DUTCHCRASHCOURSENeed NEED HELP WITH YOUR MAC? MAC-lover helps you with basic setups, minor troubleshooting, install, networking, basic MAC lessons, set-

offer the all year courses for beginners about holistic massage, craniosacral,footreflex and meditation. Starting from Jan and Feb for the all year,

INTENSIVE DUTCH courses at Joost Weet Het! Classes 4 times per week during 4 hours. Good teachers, fun classes and energetic atmosphere. Small groups, Personal approach with Emphasis on conversation. 2, 3, 4 and 8-week courses. Price: €8/hr. Visit www.joostweethet.nl. Email info@joostweethet.nl. Tel 420 8146.

Nu-Jazz eats in a major scale.Sneak peek ill-ass flow and fusion! Witness the birth of Ear Candy Nu-Jazz. STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! Music with meaning: www.myspace.com/ jahofyork. SPANISH GUITAR lessons beg-int-adv levels. Classical, flamenco, pop, etc. Diplomated by the Conservatorium van Valencia, Spain. More than 10 years in teaching experience. robcasmar@hotmail.com.

LOOKING FOR

A YOUNG MAN is looking for painting, ironing, gardening and general house cleaning work. References available. Please email bigabossey@hotmail.com or call IMPROVE YOUR DUTCH! A 06 2377 0134. fresh Dutch start in 2008? Pri- TATTOO ARTISTS I want to vateclasses,smallstudygroups, tattoo, and I’m looking for an conversation, intensive, etc at experienced tatooist to apprenLink Taal Studio, Vijzelgracht tice with. Email Samantha at 53, professional approach. Call verminscumsin@yahoo.co.uk. Anja 06 4133 9323, linktaalstudio@gmail.com. GROUPS & CLUBS DUTCH COURSES New evening courses starting in Jan and Feb, centre of A’dam. €200250 for 20 hrs. Visit www.mercuurtaal.nl or call 693 4250.

LESBIAN EXPAT GROUP We are setting up a social group for expat lesbians and bisexual women. If you would like to join in drop us a line at lbexDUTCH CONVERSATION patamsterdam@hotmail.com. Conversatieweek Nederlands. LESBIAN EXPAT GROUP Kom een weekje Nederlands We are setting up a social spreken bij GLOSSA. One group for expat lesbians and week intensive fluency will bisexual women. If you would make your Dutch boost. More like to join in drop us a line information and other train- at lbexpatamsterdam@amsing options www.glossa.nl or terdam.com. call 06 1471 5372. HEY! YOU AMERICAN?Join MUSIC thefunwithlike-mindedAmericans at Democrats Abroad. ELECTRIC BASE LESSON WithmonthlyDemsFunDrinks, I am looking for someone who discussions, issue groups, and can give me lessons in elecother activities. You don’t even tric bass, preferrably a prohave to be a Dem to join! Go to fessional musician/teacher www.democratsabroad.nl for or an experienced student more info. from the conservatory. Interested? Send an email with PERSONALS your background to baselesANGELR: Even though we’ve son@gmail.com. been through hell and back... SINGING LESSONSProfes- You’re still my angel. J. sional opera singer with interNOTICES national performing and teaching experience offer- HAVE A FAVOURITE HOLing lessons to singers of all IDAY PHOTO?Please email levels and ages. Reasonable to holiday@amsterdamweekrates, flexible schedule. Close ly.nl by Fri 8 Feb. Please to the Oosterpark, easy access include your name, the date by metro. For more info please and year the photo was takcall Maria at 421 1837 or email en, the location, and a few senmackowan@gmail.com. tences on why it’s your fave COMPUTER MUSIC Learn how to make music with your computer, all levels. Software, hardware, midi, audio, Windows, Apple, composition, recording, live performance, recording,digitalizationofyour old tapes or records, podcasts, setting up an affordable computer system for music. Email computermusic@xs4all.nl.

vacation snap. It should be JPG or RGB, and (ideally) not smaller then 240 dpi.

LEARN GUITAR!Take a free trial lesson! Acoustic or electric guitar, beginner to advanced, various styles. See my website www.wenkomillaardgitaarles.nl for details (in Dutch) or simply call 06 tolearnDutchinahurry?Inten4216 2234 (Wenko). sive and individual course will give you the basics and more in EAR CANDY NU-JAZZTired just 2 weeks. For info: 06 3037 of bland covers? Love 8484/hvrmeer@gmail.com. Jazz/Soul/HipPop? Ear Candy

MURAL PAINTER Do you have a children’s room or nursery that needs something special to make it unique? I can paint children’s dreams on their walls and decorate a play room with imagination. Any theme, any style. Contact Anna to discus the possibilities: anna@annagreaves.com or 06 1811 5098.

A'DAM FLICKR GROUP Share your photos of A’dam with other Weekly readers. Join Amsterdam Weekly’s new Flickr Group! Go to flickr.com, search for Amsterdam Weekly under Groups, and start loading your favourite images.

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