De ellende van de Tweede Wereldoorlog is nog maar net voorbij als de Russen het oosten van Duitsland – met harde hand – verbouwen tot een communistische dictatuur. Wie niet luistert of zich verdacht gedraagt, belandt zonder pardon in een strafgevangenis. Eén van de meest angstaanjagende gevangenissen uit die tijd staat in het plaatsje Bautzen, niet ver van de grens met Tsjechië. Uitgerekend daar belanden drie jongens van amper achttien en twintig jaar oud. In Paradijs in de hel vertellen Bodo Skrobek, Siegfried Rau en Detlev Nahmmacher hun angstige verhaal over de arrestatie, nachtelijke verhoren en de door marteling verkregen ‘bekentenissen’. Alledrie krijgen 25 jaar, zogenaamd wegens spionage, deelname aan een illegale groep en een ‘anti-Sovjethetze’.

Kerkkoor

Samen met EO-documentairemaker Bert Vos gaan Skrobek en Rau terug naar de plek des onheil, waar honger en terreur aan de orde van de dag waren, maar waar ook een wonder gebeurde. Temidden van meedogenloze bewakers, hoge hekken, stervende medegevangenen en overvolle cellen krijgt de politiek correcte voorganger Pfarrer Mund toestemming een kerkkoor te beginnen. En zo kan midden in die hel een klein paradijs ontstaan, volstrekt tegen de eigen logica van het strikt atheïstische gevangenisregime in. Ook als in 1950 de Volkspolizei van de kersverse DDR de leiding over de gevangenis van de Russen overneemt, verandert dit niet.
En zo ontstaat er in Bautzen niet alleen een hecht koor van goedgeschoolde zangers, maar trekken de vaak emotionele kerkdiensten steeds meer gevangenen én bewakers! Het neemt zelfs zulke vormen aan dat de leden in een aparte geïsoleerde cel worden gestopt om verdere ‘christelijke besmetting’ te voorkomen. Maar een verbod op de diensten komt er gek genoeg niet – niet meteen. Ruim vijf jaar mag het koor geestelijke liederen, psalmen, cantates en motetten zingen in de gevangeniskerk, tot er in 1956 toch een verbod komt op de sterk evangeliserende activiteiten.

It is not often that you meet a person that fascinates you immediately. I met this young person on a flight home. We started to talk about the book he was reading. It was about an ancient Aztec, or was it Mayan, people that used hallucinogens for different purposes. We talked about his job, he does research on how medicins can be administered in a more effective and targeted way by using a different material for the capsules. I wanted to know why he was so interested in subject of hallucinogens. He told me that he saw them as a different way to ‘heal the mind’. For him the hallucinogens had proven to be more effective than psychotherapy in dealing with some psychological issues he had previously. He offered to send me a detailed account of one of his experiments with hallucinogenic mushrooms. I read it, and was amazed. Not ever having tried anything myself I found it highly interesting to learn what effect hallucinogens can have on a human brain. And how these effects can be positive as well as negative. It seemed like quite a rational and objective view on something that is a taboo in public speaking. I put this story here for all of you who have done experiments before, to compare your experiences with, but not in the least for those like myself, who like to know how it could possibly feel to do such a thing (and please note: this is by no means meant to encourage people to try, it is only meant to share experiences). And also note that these goods have a wide range of effects on different people, not all of them pleasant. It can even have different effects on the same people at different times, so IF you were planning on trying anything, please be very careful and don’t even try to do anything in an unknown environment, with people you do not know, or when you feel unstable. I’ll stop boring you to death and just share Pyro’s story with you:

***

“Regression

Few experiences in life have the raw strength to change your view on life, namely that of the perception of your inner workings. Many people look for understanding of the self, possibly as a way to cope with the turbidity of existence. As to summarize my intentions for these experiments, was the exploration of my unconscious mind and see whether it was possible to find out what the underlying motives are of my actions. A myriad of methods have been used as means to achieve this goal, such as psychotherapy, meditation, fasting, rhythmic drumming and inebriation by a whole variety of drugs. My quest led me quickly to psychedelic drugs, as the most intense, powerful and accessible method to learn more about myself.

In general, psychedelic compounds elicit stimulation of the cognitive system by changing neuronal firing frequency. This causes alteration in the perception of reality, the visual system, causes the ego to dissolve and unconscious material to surface into the conscious mind, which offers great potential for deep reflection of biographical material.

Ego dissolution is essential and probably the most important property caused, by psychedelic drug inebriation, for the surfacing of unconscious material. The perception of ego, gained by me through the experimentation with psychedelic drugs, is as follows: ego can be seen as a sort of filter with controlling properties, it filters the traffic of unconscious information into the conscious and has a tight grip on conscious mental processes.

I have been experimenting with various psychedelic drugs for several years. The compounds tried have been various phytochemical tryptamines, synthetic tryptamines and synthetic phenetylamines. Of the compounds tried several have left lasting positive impressions on me, such as psilocybin, 2C-T7, 2C-P and 4-AcO-DIPT. Experimentation with these compounds has helped to shape my personality and perception of reality into what it is.

This particular experiment was planned to be a high dose experience with psilocybin, as in oral ingestion of 70 grams fresh Psilocybe Cubensis mushrooms of the Costa Rican strain.

The average dose of Psilocybe mushrooms is about 35 grams fresh, thus the amount to be ingested is double the average dose. The motivation to try the double dose has been inspired by the accounts of an intellectual mushroom researcher by the name of Terence Mckenna.

I have read many of his books and listened too many of his lectures on his theories of psilocybe inebriation. Based on his research he came to the conclusion that the best way to experiment with psilocybe mushrooms is to ingest a high dose, alone and in silent darkness.

His notion of high dose was 6 grams of dried mushrooms which he deliberately called a heroic dose, for few people will consciously consume such a quantity.

70 grams of dry Psilocybe mushrooms are the equivalent of 6 dry grams, thus this experiment follows the heroic dose “guideline”. The mushrooms were eaten on an empty stomach at 1900, which took about fifteen minutes to eat the whole amount. Before the trip started I wanted to go outside and get some fresh air. It was quite cold outside and already dark, I decided to go for a walk in a nearby park. Fifteen minutes into the walk I realized that I was seeing my surroundings very clear, like the innervation of leaves on shrubs meters away. It is known, from scientific study, that psilocybin causes better sight and edge detection in low doses and at the onset of the psychoactive effects in higher doses. I realized that it would be wise to hurry back home before the effects would hit me in full force. Caution is essential when experimenting with high doses, for the onset and intensity of the effects are hard to predict.

At 30 minutes following ingestion I came back home, went straight to my room, shut down the computer, dimmed the lights and put on a black face mask as to be in total darkness.

Geometrical hallucinations started within minutes after putting on the face mask and slowly gained in intensity. The passage of time was impossible to track, though usual the perception of time slows quite dramatically in psilocybin inebriation.

After some time, geometrical hallucinations became visions of abstract places and wild associations on various topics were circling my mind. The exact order of events after this point is hard to recall, even though the content is quite clear.

Regression into my past became the most pronounced aspect of the trip. At this point the experiences came in waves where at the top I was fully experiencing a part of my past, moving deeper with every succeeding wave. In between the waves I was sober enough to get a little breather and prepare for the next wave which was rising in intensity and amplitude.

In my regression into childhood I came across a younger me, as if looking in a mirror, at the age of 8. My face, well the mental image of the old me, had a face distorted with anger, and the whole emotional baggage left from that time came over me. I experienced that rage fully, and realized that that was the murderous rage which I feared for some reason for years.

The enraged me was a relic from a very nasty experience at about age 8, where some guy broke the glass in the front door with a metal pipe and screamed that he wanted to kill my father. I remember from that time that I wanted to throw boiling water over the guy at the door from the balcony but was not capable of doing so and thus called the cops instead.

When this wave was over its peak, slowly going down, the face of the child changed from a highly enraged to a natural expression.

The next wave led me to an even younger me at age 5 or 6, when I had an operation at the hospital. Now I experienced my past self in total primordial fear, even to the point which I could call maddening. I went through the experience step by step from the time when I was left in a hospital room by my father, then left to wait while crying and in panic. After the waiting period of several hours I was led into the operation room which looked very scary, everything was clean and shiny with the detestable smell of disinfectants. In my fear I was crying, screaming and kicking with my legs and arm, there were several people that had to hold me down on the operating table in order to give me the anaesthetic after which everything turned dark.

There was not much time between the last wave and the new one, in which I found myself floating in the air with a teddy bear. There was barbed wire slowly coming from below, engulfing my teddy bear and me. When the barbed wire was fully intertwined with my teddy and me it abruptly compressed with a twisting motion, which allowed me to experience my own death. I was cut into many pieces and felt that I was dispersed all over the place even though the removed parts were still somehow in contact. After a while of this, the cut pieces started to move together and I felt that I was molded into myself, with a very positive emotional state. This experience was more abstract then the others and it is not fully clear to me whether these are the real emotional leftovers from a childhood or perhaps an infant traumatic experience. There is the possibility that this is the perception of the experience of falling on the edge of a glass table, at age 2, resulting in a 4 cm cut on brow going toward my temple. I was rushed to the hospital to get stitched up and perhaps this whole experience was interpreted by my infantile mind as something wildly abstract.

The reliving of these three traumatic experiences released massive amounts of pent up energy and in a way was very relieving even though a very hard and emotionally disturbing. At this point still somewhat in shock after the death\rebirth experience I felt an incredible force pulling me out of my body. It was frightening, I never experienced something of this sort in any of my psychedelic experiments and in my fear I quickly checked my pulse and found out that it was beating with what at the time seemed as normal bpm. Quickly thereafter another jolt of energy came and pulled me out of my body into a full out of body experience. I saw some claw like things take my (for lack of a better word)”soul”, out of my body into this gargantuan place which was bathed in some sort of radiant yellow light. There was a sense of ecstasy and total inner peace, while moving to a brightly burning white light source.

This last experience is the most abstract of things experienced that night and perhaps impossible to tell whether or not this has something to do with the regression into childhood or something else. I just realized that this could be a possible reliving of the birth trauma as argued by a psychiatrist called Stanislav Grof. I was born with the umbilical cord twisted around my throat. Perhaps the moment of birth was perceived by the baby me as something which I experienced in this trip.

The experimentation with high dose psychedelic compounds is really intense and definitely not for people who are mentally unstable or fear the upwelling of unpleasant biographical material. I take the experience as a process which needs completion and therefore I try not to interfere with the flow of material. This is probably why I have reached the state of death rebirth and possibly even the birth trauma experience with relative ease. It is maybe a bit quick to fully interpret the content of this intense trip, though I definitely feel that I have resolved many of my personal demons. The pent up energy has been released and now I can integrate the experience into my conscious understanding. I now know that I am a person with deep emotional scars, but with the knowledge gained by this experiment I can slowly work on myself to resolve all psychological traumas which must be still alive within me.

07- pyro

***

More information:

http://www.dancesafe.org/documents/druginfo/mushrooms.php

http://www.drugs-plaza.com/

http://www.thegooddrugsguide.com/mushrooms/index.htm

http://www.drugabusehelp.com/drugs/mushrooms/

http://searching4alpha.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/medical-mojo/

Relaxed, Swedish sugar-pop, a bit alternative, indie sound, from the album ‘Youth Novels’ (released this year), nice! Produced by Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John and Lasse Mårtén. The video is made by Mattias Montero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykke_Li

I’m good, I’m gone (original)

I’m good, I’m gone (accoustic version)

‘Zomergasten’ (summerguests), a Dutch TV programm in which one Dutch prominent guests gets to show us his or her favourite TV/film footage. Some three weeks ago the summer guest was Ronald Plasterk, the Dutch minister of Culture.

Plasterk selected movie and TV footage that impressed him. Some were related to his earlier career as a biologist (he is a price-winning molecular geneticist, see wikipedia), like a scene about the discovery of the double DNA string (‘The race for the double helix’). Others to his current position as the Dutch minister of culture, like this little English scene from ‘Yes Minister’ that mocks the English cultural policy makers and that questions whether Opera, culture for the elite, should be subsidized, amusing and to the point. After these scenes Plasterk moved on to art, politics and his personal life as well as his fathers. He selected the documentary by Jeroen Berkvens about the child prodigy, guitar playing virtuous, whose life got troubled, ‘Jimmy Rosenberg: The Father, the son, the talent’ (see review earlier in this blog), and the opening film of the IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) about personal stories from Iraq veterans, ‘Operation homecoming’. A discussion between presenter Bas Heijne (excellent interview by the way) about war-veterans in general and politics followed. Veterans are forgotten in politics and do not catch the public eye, nobody seems to know how to deal with these people who fought in the name of their country, who seem to have experienced the unthinkable, and some of whom seem unable to ever adapt to society again. A very sensitive and intriguing topic. The movie of choice was ‘Betrayal’ (1983) based on a Pinter play, that got an oscar nomination for this script. All in all the footage chosen provided us with a highly interesting evening. The warrior is looking forward to seeing today’s broadcast with sociologist Willem Schinkel. Next week theatre producer Joop van den Ende will be the last ‘Zomergast’ of the season.

More information on this program: Check the VPRO-website (in Dutch)

From the Kezerdrix investigating team:

Pizza fraud

Zeitgeist, the Movie

Written by and published with the permission of Kezerdrix: 18 August 2008 

—————————

paranoia

1 : a psychosis characterized by systematized delusions of persecution or grandeur usually without hallucinations

2 : a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others

conspiracy theory

: a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/

——————————– 

Have you ever wondered what Jesus had in common with Horus, Attis, Krishna and Mythra? Did you ever ponder why dinosaurs never found their way to the Ark? Why God always needs more money?

Part 1 of Zeitgeist the Movie, a 2007 documentary film produced by Peter Joseph, delves into the character of Jesus Christ, comparing his attributes, as described in the Bible to the attributes of other prophets/deities of the pre-christian (pagan) era. Quite „surprisingly“, these are to be found identical, being metaphores for astrological phenomena, such as equinoxes and solstices.

The movie constantly draws from one’s Well of Paranoia (yes, we all have one). Based on the presentation of arguments and facts, it is not difficult to believe that Catholic Church (as an organization) is running it’s own show, armed with a Book written by Romans three hundred years after Christ’s demise.

Christianity is considered a „spiritual fraud“ on mankind, and religion in general a „slavery“. In general, it is used as a tool to control societies and generate cash.

Part 2 introduces the so-called „9/11 Myth“ which works on the premise that 9/11 was an insider job. In other words, 9/11 was organized by hidden elements in the US Government in order to pursue their own agenda, which is to boost US defense industry and, more importantly, start-up the never ending War on Terror which will ensure constant cash inflows for the interested parties.

Evidence presented is once again cohesive, well-structured and persuasive. This topic is perhaps the closest to the observer of all presented conspiracy theories – it works with the well-known and still recent events that have significantly affected the Western civilization.

Viewing this will at least make you think– is jet fuel so hot that it can physically evaporate a whole plane? Can a plane hitting a building make it collapse in a way that would be a perfect example of controlled demolition? Is it really not important who provided the finance for the whole operation? Make your own judgement…

Part 3 elaborates on the „International Bankers“ conspiracy. This thesis explains that the Federal Reserve Bank is about as federal as Federal Express. In fact, it is controlled by a consortium of banking families, including none other (lo and behold!) than the Rothschilds, Morgans and Warburgs. This would mean that monetary policy of the United States of America (which includes control over interest rates as well as money supply) is in the private hands of a privileged group of men (and, perhaps, also women).

These „men behind the curtain“, as they are called, are according to Zeitgeist responsible for all major military conflicts engaging USA in the twenieth century – once again, to generate cash-flows.

Conclusion

I can definitely say I enjoyed watching every minute of this movie. It is not presented in the form of a paranoid babble – rather, logic, arguments and evidence is used to persuade the spectator. This movie must tap the Well of Paranoia of even the most sceptical viewers amongst us.

There is indeed one big drawback of this document – the other side gets nothing to say to its defence. But as one of my friends has remarked – they had the chance to express themselves for the past 2,000 years…

“Through the personal stories of several men, women and children whose lives are impacted by the stolen-child black market in China, China’s Stolen Children brings viewers face-to-face with a crisis brought on by the controversial one-child policy, implemented in 1979 to slow the country’s explosive population growth. As narrator Ben Kingsley explains, “The Chinese government doesn’t want the outside world to know about the crisis facing China’s children, so this film had to be made entirely undercover. The film crew posed as tourists, moved hotels every three days, and changed SIM cards after every phone call.” Remarkably, the subjects all agreed to appear on-camera, although several interviews are held in darkened cars or out-of-the-way locations to avoid detection. The result is a harrowing look at an illegal but largely uncontrollable practice that has reached epidemic proportions.” (excerpt from HBO site)

Dutch television broadcaster VPRO showed this documentary today, obviously in the light of the current Olympics. It is shocking and insightful to see some of the effects from the current extraordinary demographic disequilibrium in China, inevitably following the decades of one-child policy. 

This documentary follows the story from different angles, the buyers, the sellers, the people whose child is missing, and the middle men.  

Interesting is the full cooperation of one child-trader, who really feels he is doing the community a big favour. He compares himself to an adoption agency, it is simply a matter of supply and demand. We would almost forget that it is not always clear if the children were ‘obtained’ voluntarily, bought, from the parents. The documentary reports about child abduction, also girls now, as they are finally in relatively high demand.

Also very interesting is one tenacious detective, who tries to track down and rescue missing children. One of his successful rescuing operations is filmed. Very emotional and captivating television, as one can expect.

The other ’smaller’ stories are equally moving though. For instance, the moving depiction of a father and mother telling about their missing son making it to the second ‘missing children’ card deck, the special tool to facilitate the searching process for the children. So many children are missing, that the usual postering brings no results.

Watch it if you get the chance…

link to synopsis of this documentary on the HBO site

http://aaronivey.wordpress.com/foto/

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/office-toys/index.html

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a sweet little movie, although some might say that the story is as thin as non-fat milk, which we will get back to later. In short the whole thing evolves around Peter (played by Jason Segel who also has written) who is dumped by his über-cute girlfriend Sarah (Kirsten Bell). Sarah plays the lead in some thirteen-on-the-dozen, but yet very popular, crime TV-show called Crime Scene (which, worth mentioning, includes William Baldwin as the male lead, in what probably is the most fun he has done in years), and thus haunts Peter not only on said TV-show but also showing up on talk shows and what not after the break-up. A break-up that by the way includes full frontal nudity by said Segel. To forget Sarah Peter goes to Hawaii, where he, keep in mind the thin story here, of course not only runs in to, but also shares hotels with, Sarah and her new boyfriend, the British rock singer Aldous Snow, played to the point of perfection, bordering lust-mord on his own character, by Russell Brand. Peter gets even more depressed, but also begins to take on to the sweet, but at the same time cool and independent, receptionist at the hotel, Rachel (Mila Kunis). And from there on it’s mostly pure fun to be honest.

Yes, the story is thin and the events unfolding are a bit sketchy and actually sometimes come out of nowhere with not so much to build on. But what the movie does brilliantly is that it’s aware of this and it doesn’t try to be something it’s not. Instead of trying to create explanations to a story that doesn’t care if it’s thin anyway, it just gallops along with hilarious (and often sweet, mind you) conversations, situations and jokes. Some might say that the level of humour is low and fixated on sex, and therefore too juvenile to take seriously and would only attract the, when it comes to sex, the double moral US audience who hasn’t moved beyond college movies. Saying this would be putting oneself on too high horses though, and looking for something that film is not meant to be. And the jokes are almost all the time weighed up by a sweet touch built in making you liking the characters for some of their ways of being, although they obviously all have their flaws.

The clever thing of making a somewhat thin story and a bit inconsistent characters, and knowing it, is also that you can create extremely funny jokes as you go along without really caring so much why they are made and who delivers them. One fantastic example of this is a weird, unwanted, double date dinner that the two new couples, i.e. Peter and Rachel, and Sarah and Aldous, end up on. Throughout the dinner allegiances change over the table and both support and cutthroat-comments shift, making it a marvellous discussion-mayhem, but all the time within the boundaries of this sweet and likable touch to it. Not least the part where Peter and Aldous finds common ground is a bit heart warming, although there actually hasn’t been that much building up to why they would quite suddenly bond.

As so often when Judd Apatow is involved (he’s producing this one as everyone probably knows) one must not forget some of the funny sidekicks, also so very easy and useful thanks to the way of unfolding a simple story where you just can put in a funny guy (because it is most often the guys that are carrying the stories in Judd Apatows’) without it really having to take the story forward. All the way from Peter’s half brother and his wife trying to give advise via the laptop and Matthew the waiter (played by Judd-favourite Jonah Hill) who is in total awe over Aldous Snow, to the very sweet newly weds with problems in bed and the permanently half-stoned surf instructor and the helpful big-boned Hawaiian waiter.

Segel does good with his average likeable guy, Peter, and the ladies do an alright job with what they have to work with. Not least adding to the fact that they manage to show that they are all both victims and perpetrators in brake-ups and when it comes to finding new loved ones. But the one who steals the show is Brand’s Aldous Snow who evolves from, what you think, plain stupid and self centred, to loveable go-with-the-flow guy that just cracks you up and puts a let’s-just-enjoy-life glow over the whole thing.

To refer to the above mentioned on the guys carrying the story, this might be my only objection. The ladies could have done with some more of the jokes. Especially Bell as Sarah comes out kinda flat in the being funny area. Kunis’ Rachel is given more attitude and some in your face comments that makes you like her even more (if that’s possible since you just have to glance at her to love her, but that’s another story). But all in all there are some scenes that open up for the leading ladies to explore the jokes even more, but without really using that. Or maybe it’s just that you are so busy laughing at Aldous philosophize over this or that, or at Matthew the waiter not really being able to handle that his biggest idol is staying at the hotel, that you don’t notice that there are also other characters being funny at the same time.

How the film ends and how it reaches the end isn’t that important (and even less difficult to guess). This is simply a sweet and very very funny 112 minutes of entertainment. And if you take it as that it’s a 4 out of 5 if you ask me. If you want to judge it from a perspective that it isn’t at all trying to accomplish, maybe you will think it’s juvenile or under your standards. But if that’s what you’re after you probably haven’t laughed or been to a simple, but likeable, comedy in the last ten years anyway, so you probably won’t bother to go to this one either…

/ The Superjudge

By: Eva Schlink

Amsterdam, 1 April 2008 

Day 1

Holy Mother Mary Hospital

Her face is smiling. Even in her deep sleep she shows her warmth, and, both brows suddenly arched, her strength. Damn. Why did she have to give us this big scare? It seems that she feels it her task to keep on teaching us lessons. It’s her mission. Well, it seems it will be her last now.

My grandmother just had a stroke. Quite a severe one actually. She is not conscious. And she will not be for a while, so the doctors told me.

Sitting next to her hospital bed, I nervously pluck the embroidered sheets. She is the only one I have left. My father left me and my mother before I was even born, and my mother shortly thereafter died a broken heart. I have no memories of her. But the way my grandmother talks about her she must have been one hell of a woman.

My grandfather she never talked about. And I dare not ask anymore. Maria always seems to know how to avoid answering these questions and slowly I stopped asking.

The door opens and a gentleman peeks inside. Did I see him before? He’s old. A lot older than my grandmother. But he too has a smiling face. Marked by life, but smiling. He nods a greeting to me. And is clearly hesitating to come in. Now I see he pulls a dialising machine with him. He must have kidney problems. Does he know my grandmother? Or is he just looking for a quiet room to do his dialysis?

Day 1 Lager X

By the time the doors were opened many of us had died already. Unlike some of us I was not panicking. I was only thinking of how to keep my two small children from suffocating in this tiny compartment. The ones that screamed at first seemed to have lost the lust for that quite soon. Or maybe they just spent all their energy and where the first ones to have died. I could not tell. It was dark and, as I said, my mind was busy with other things. My children, Bram and Deborah, bless them, usually notoriously keen on manipulating me into getting whatever they wanted, sweets, toys, or visits to the playgrounds, were dead silent. Impressed by the unfamiliar sounds and smells. They had never heard grown-ups cry. They had never smelled the smell of fear. They were confused when I did not get mad at them for peeing in their pants. They were only 3 and 5. They will be in my heart forever.

Her heart was pounding, adrenaline pumped through her veins, the good guys were feintheartedly smiling their goody grin, the bad guys were laughing out loud lusting in their power and the powerlessness of those on the other side. The self-imposed powerlessness we might add. Like a nightmare. What to do? Doing something would be breaking the pact, breaking the law. Doing nothing would be doing nothing. Would be condoning evil to win. Rights to be shattered. Hearts to be broken. Desperados to be born. Evil finally creating evil. Fire finally being treated with fire. Chaos encouraged.

Would it possibly be an option, in this war against humanity, to have a few trusted warriors break the pact. Run the risk of scourn. Run the risk of being political incorrectness.

Would it be an option to break the pact and just to offer our sincerest apologies. 

An option to break the pact and just suffer the consequences.

What to do in this world where the others act at their convenience, and watch our despair, our hopes seeping slowly out of our hearts. Can and should we allow for this to happen? Or should we cherish the believe that in the end the light win. Eventually. Maybe in another life time…

[...]

Sworn to virginity and living as men in Albania
By Dan Bilefsky International Herald Tribune
Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Pashe Keqi recalls the day nearly sixty years ago when she decided to
become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress
for her father’s baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and
vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex.

Had she been born in Albania today, says the 78-year-old sworn virgin,
who made an oath of celibacy in return for the right to live and rule
her family as a man,  she would choose womanhood.

“Back then, it was better to be a man because, before, a woman and an
animal were considered the same thing,” says Keqi, who has a bellowing
baritone voice, sits with her legs open wide like a man and relishes
downing shots of Raki and smoking cigarettes. “Now, Albanian women have
equal rights with men and are even more powerful, and I think today it
would be fun to be a woman.”

Sworn virgins became the patriarchs of their families, with all the
trappings of male authority, by swearing to remain virgins for the rest
of their lives.

The ritual was a form of self-empowerment for rural women living in a
desperately poor and macho country that was cut off from mainstream
Europe for decades under a Stalinist dictatorship. But in  Albania
today, with  Internet dating and MTV, the custom is all but
disappearing. Girls no longer want to become boys.

The tradition of the sworn virgin can be traced to the Kanun of Leke
Dukagjini, a code of conduct that has been passed on orally among the
clans of northern Albania for more than five centuries. Under the Kanun,
the role of women is severely circumscribed: Take care of children and
maintain the home. While a woman’s life is worth half that of a man, a
virgin’s value is the same  -  12 oxen.

The sworn virgin was born of social necessity in an agrarian region
plagued by war and death. If the patriarch of the family died with no
male heirs, unmarried women in the family could find themselves alone
and powerless. By taking an oath of virginity, women could take on the
role of men as head of the family, carry a weapon, own property and move
freely.

They dress like men, adopt a male swagger and spend their lives in the
company of other men.

Some also took the vow as a means to avoid an arranged marriage. Still
others became sworn virgins to express their autonomy. Some who
regretted the sacrifice transformed themselves back into women and
married later in life.

“Stripping off their sexuality by pledging to remain virgins was a way
for these women in a male-dominated, segregated society to engage in
public life,” says Linda Gusia, a professor of gender studies at the
University of Pristina in Kosovo. “It was about surviving in a world
where men rule.”

Taking an oath to become a sworn virgin should not, sociologists say, be
equated with homosexuality,  which has long been taboo in rural Albania.
Nor do the women have sex changes. In the northern Albanian countryside,
about 40 sworn virgins remain, according to researchers studying the
custom.

Known in her household as the “Pasha,” Keqi says she decided to become
the man of the house at age 20 when her father was murdered in a blood
feud. Her remaining four brothers opposed the communist regime of Enver
Hoxha, who ruled Albania for 40 years until his death in 1985, and they
were either imprisoned or killed. Becoming a man, she said, was the only
way to support her mother, her four sisters-in-law and their five
children.

Lording it over her large family in her modest house in Tirana, where
her nieces served her brandy while she barked out orders, Keqi said
living as a man had allowed her freedom denied other women. She could
work construction jobs and pray at the mosque alongside other men. Even
today, her nephews and nieces said, they would not dare marry without
their “uncle’s” permission.

“I was totally free as a man because no one knew I was a woman,” Keqi
said. “I could go wherever I wanted to and no one would dare swear at me
because I could beat them up. I was only with men. I don’t know how to
do women’s talk. I am never scared.” When she was recently hospitalized
for an operation, she recalled, the other woman in her room was
horrified to find herself sharing close quarters with a man and
requested a move.

Keqi said that being a woman made her a more compassionate man. “If the
other men were disrespecting a woman, I would tell them to stop.” She
said being deprived of a life of sexual intimacy was a necessary
sacrifice. She did not miss having children, she added, because she was
surrounded by her nieces and nephews. “Once I made up my mind 100
percent, I had the strength to never turn back.”

Being the man of the house also made her responsible for  avenging her
father’s death, she said, including the Kanun’s edict that spilled blood
must be met with spilled blood. When her father’s killer was released
from prison five years ago, by then a man of 80, Keqi said she ordered
her 15 year-old nephew to shoot him. Then the family of the man took
revenge and killed her nephew.

“I always dreamed of avenging my father’s death. My brothers tried to,
but did not succeed. Of course, I have regrets my nephew was killed. But
if you kill me, I have to kill you.” In Albania, a majority Muslim
country, the Kanun is adhered to by both Muslims and Christians, though
the Ottoman Turks and successive governments have all tried to limit its
influence.

Albanian cultural historians said the cleaving to medieval customs long
discarded elsewhere was a byproduct of the country’s previous isolation.
But they stressed that today, the traditional role of the Albanian woman
was changing.

“The Albanian woman today is a sort of minister of economics, a minister
of affection and a minister of interior who controls who does what,”
said Ilir Yzeiri, a critic who writes about Albanian folklore. “Today
women in Albania are behind everything.”

Some sworn virgins bemoan this female liberation. Diana Rakipi, 54, a
security guard in the seaside city of Durres, in west Albania, who
became a sworn virgin to take care of her nine sisters, said she looked
back with nostalgia to the Hoxha era. During communist times, she served
as a senior army officer, training women soldiers in combat. Now, she
lamented, women did not know their place.

“Today women go out half naked to the disco and do not know their
limits,” said Rakipi, who has cropped hair and wears a military beret.
“I was always treated my whole life as a man, always with respect. I
can’t clean, I can’t iron, I can’t cook. That is a woman’s work.”

But even in the remote mountains of Kruje, about 50 kilometers, or 30
miles, north of Tirana, where long dirt roads snake through olive
groves, locals say the Kanun’s influence on gender roles is
disappearing. They said erosion of the traditional family, in which
everyone once lived under the same roof, had altered women’s position in
society.

“Women and men are now almost the same,” says Caca Fiqiri, whose aunt
Qamile Stema, age 88, is the last sworn virgin remaining in her village.
“We respect sworn virgins very much and consider them as men because of
their great sacrifice. But there is no longer a stigma not to have a man
of the house.”

Yet there is no doubt who wears the trousers in the family’s one-room
stone house in Barganesh, their ancestral village. There, on a recent
day, “uncle” Qamile was surrounded by her clan, dressed in a qeleshe,
the traditional white cap of an Albanian man. Her only concession to
femininity were pink flip-flops.

Pointing to an old black and white photo hanging in the entrance  -
showing a handsome young man in his prime  -  Stema said she took an
oath of virginity at age 20, after her father died, and she was left the
eldest of nine sisters.

After becoming a man, Stema said she could leave the house and chop wood
with the other men. She carried a gun. At wedding parties, she sat with
the men. When she talked to women, she recalled, they recoiled in
shyness.

Stema said becoming a sworn virgin was a necessity, and a sacrifice.
“The truth is I feel lonely sometimes. All my sisters have died, and I
live alone. But I never wanted to marry. Some in my family tried to get
me to change my clothes and wear dresses, but when they saw I had become
a man, they left me alone.”

Stema said she would die a virgin. Had she married, she joked, it would
have been to a traditional Albanian woman. “I guess you could say I was
partly a woman and partly a man, but of course I never did everything a
man does,” she said. “I liked my life as a man. I have no regrets.”

Go to iht.com/europe to listen to commentary from Dan Bilefsky and view
additional photographs of the sworn virgins who live in Albania.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/23/europe/virgins.php

EODM are absolutely very sexy indeed!!! And lots of fun. And great performers not to forget…

The Melkweg was completely full with a raving audience. A crowd of glam rock lovers completely went wild, yelling their lungs out and shaking their hips and asses like crazy…Male stage divers were smoothly and professionally escorted back into the audience, while the sexy young scantilly dressed girlies were confidently lured back-stage to be prepared for after the show. Interesting!

Terschellings Oerol Festival is an annual location-specific theatre festival held on the Dutch island Terschelling in mid-June. Location-specific theatre, theatre in barns, sheds and on the streets, modern dance, opera, visual art, music and the various cross-overs are the ingredients of a festival that uses the whole island as its stage. Over the past 25 years, the festival has grown from a small-scale street festival into an internationally recognised, multi-disciplinary festival. 

This year Terschellings Oerol Festival took place from 13 through 22 June. The theme of the festival had everything to do with ‘time’.

Our bold warrior visited the following performances:

- Beumer en Drost: ‘Dick Bos’: 7.5 out of 10

Very well created and executed. At times quite funny. Especially the interaction with the old neighbour-lady. Entertaining. But a bit simple. The main character was convincing and quite facetted, but the story line very one dimensional and predictable. A beautiful show for younger people.  

For an interview and a video with some scenes from the performance (in Dutch), check out: http://weblogs.nrc.nl/weblog/cultuurblog/2008/06/15/oerol-2008-dick-bos-video/

- De Jongens: ‘Under Construction’: 5 out of 10

Fragmented, long and pointless. The high energy and enthusiasm of the actors kept the warrior from falling asleep the first twenty minutes. Unfortunately there were 40 minutes more. In which NL-FA had started. Not good.

- Boogaerdt / Van der Schoot ‘Tsjechov bij de bushalte’ [Tsjechov at the bus stop]: 5.5 out of 10

Interesting location and concept. Solid acting. Rather uninteresting play-writing. Infinite use of the ‘weapon’ of repetition. Yeah…we get it by now. And…oh…how funny…a high-heeled woman falls into a creek, and yes…she’s stuck. Can we please move on? When is that damn bus coming!!!!!

p.s. Thanks Marjan and Rick for giving the late comers their two minutes of fame:   ;-)

For a different take on this performance check out: theater centraal

- Laura van Dolron : ‘Laura en Lars‘: 8 out of 10

Laura van Dolron shows she is a solid and highly entertaining performer. Her style is daring and disarming, the content of this specific performance a tad superficial though. Van Dolron starts by briefly laying down the theme of the performance, her love for Lars von Trier, but mainly by talking about her main theme, herself and her love for standing in the spotlight. During this slow start she remarkably quickly succeeds in creating rapport with the audience, making us feel we are her friends. Though the friendship got quickly tested when Van Dolron shot some seemingly out of character quick-shot remarks like ‘Can you imagine what it would be like to be a smart character in a Heleen van Rooyen book? [ed.]‘, that apparently hit the target for the (in our view notoriously overenthusiastic) Oerol crowd, but seem a bit too easy and stand-uppish for this high-potential performer.

Though Van Dolron was able to keep us interested for more than an hour straight with her captivating stories and to the point observations, especially about the black and white depiction of women in movies and literature (saints or whores), she never dove under the surface of the first sketches of her theme. Her observations were entertaining, but mostly safe and thus less relevant (except for the odd sharp remark like the one about the feminists (‘whores in denial’) , quite daring considering the suspicion that this group seems to be very well (even rather over-) represented in the Oerol audience). Hardly any subject was touched upon deeply enough to leave a lasting impression, apart from the ‘theme’ that was Van Dolron herself. But where Lars came in, and the actual relevance of that theme for her or for us remained unclear. Her convincing authenticity and flow of positivity compensated for this, letting the audience leave with a good feeling, but not with an overkill of food for thought. 

All in all Van Dolron shows to be a gutsy and talented lady. Definitely worth checking out…

For a review by Vincent Kouters (in Dutch) 

- Volkstheater: ‘Zeeuwse Nachten III’: {5 out of 10]

(review to be inserted later)

- Artemis: Priemgeval

Have not been able to get tickets for this one…But we’ve been told by many that it was a great performance.

We might have lost from the mighty Guus H., but we will go on and stand strong…  ;-) (some wishful thinking cannot hurt here)

South Africa here we come!! 10/9/2008 is the first preliminary for the World Championships against Macedonia FYR. Our warrior is very curious to see how our Dutch guys will play then, after this EC roller coaster…

p.s. Rob, Jacqueline, Anneke, Paul, Sascha, Pieter, thanks for being such fabulous hosts!! (and big kudos to J&R for ad hoc hosting the NL-FA match during the power outage on the hill and for A&P for bringing the big suitcase full of drinks and snacks that came in very handy , and to the two Italian guys gracefully taking their loss at the NL-IT match), and thanks to Dana for the lovely orange hawaii skirts, excellent!! All in all, it was a short, but exhilarating experience.

Mesmerizing!

More information

http://www.hollandfestival.nl/#festival/voorstelling/9489