The Click Heard Round the World

My Amsterdam Food Tour

Amsterdam is not known as a foodie destination.  Which is a shame, since it has everything a gourmand might want. Most foreigners don't even know what Dutch cuisine is -- perhaps something involving raw herring on toast? 

Which is their loss really.  After spending a week in Amsterdam, I am happy to report that there is something delicious for every taste and budget.  Here are some of the best stuff that I ate while I was there.

"Opus Jazz": a ballet film with grit, sexiness and fun

My friend Mike sent me the info about a showing of the new dance film "Opus Jazz" last night at BAM.  I jumped at the chance to see this loving paean to legendary American ballet choreographer Jerome Robbins, which aired on PBS a couple of months ago. 

Told in five acts, the film re-creates Robbin's legendary choreography, originally performed in the 1950s, for a new audience.  But more than just a stage production on film, the production has these top rank ballerinas dancing in street garb in various gritty settings all around New York City, from the pre-renovation High Line, to the McCarren Pool, Coney Island, Red Hook, and Carroll Gardens (at the school of my friend Regina!).

A blend of ballet, modern and jazz movement, it's thrilling and unpredictable from beginning to end.  I love how the camera work serves to highlight the dancers in off-beat and evocative ways, shooting from above, very low, and sweeping in, but without any of the music video quick-cut techniques that have become standard for dance on film. All filmmakers who want to shoot dance should study this film (I'm looking at you, Jon Chu.)

My favorite piece is the second act, danced by the lovely Georgina Pazcoguin, along with some dynamic male dancers in a raw industrial space.  I love the mixture of male power and female allure and teasing in this piece.  But really they are all terrific in their own ways, showing a remarkable range of emotion and style, while being truly Robbins-esque to the core.

As a vernacular dancer, I have my own prejudices against "high" dance forms like ballet as sterile, stodgy and boring. "Opus Jazz" just tooks those preconceptions and bitchslapped them against the fence.  Jerome Robbins lives on.

KunstVlaai / ArtPie Exhibition in Amsterdam: Giant Mice, Fake Marketing, Robot Girls

I have been asking around to friends what are some of the cultural exhibits and shows that I should be sure and catch while I am in Amsterdam.  Catherine told me that I should go to the "Kunstvlaai" experimental art exhibition that is happening at Westerpark in northwestern Amsterdam.  Another friend Mark warned me against it, telling me that it was mostly a waste of time except for an exhibit on the "death of copyright."

Clearly the KunstVlaai elicits strong reactions from people, and was only seven euro for the whole exhibit, so I thought I should stop by.

Living the Quaker Values: Wrap-Up

So over the past week, I've re-examined some of the core values of Quakerism, trying to be honest about my own feelings and experiences with each of them.  I think I've a long way to go in fully integrating silence, worship, truth, simplicity, service and nonviolence into my daily life.  At best I have flashes and moments of inspiration or action on these, rather then long stretches being actively motivated by these principles.

At the core of this, is of course, the illusive state/ feeling/ ideal of Love.  Perhaps I should have started with love, which for many Quakers is the beginning and end of their experience. My friend Pauley at Brooklyn Meeting speaks often of the abiding love of God, and how it is the standard upon which everything we do stands or falls.

Living the Quaker Values: Nonviolence

One of the most emblematic and powerful values of the Quaker faith is nonviolence. From our earliest days in England, Quakers stance against physical violence as a means of solving disputes has put us in jeopardy and difficulties both with the local government and others in the community.

Quakers have at great personal inconvenience and risk have refused military service, even during times of forced conscription.  We've opted for imprisonment and difficult alternative service rather than take up arms.

More than simply refusing to fight, Quakers have historically sought to eliminate the cause of war.  Our activist and service arm in the States, the American Friends Service Committee, has worked in all manner of conflict situations at home and abroad to try and bring reconciliation to parties in conflict, teaching the principles of nonviolence, and supporting the foundations of human rights, economic development and community and promote peaceful coexistence.

Living the Quaker Values: Simplicity

The Quaker value of Simplicity is probably the one that I struggle with the most.  Traditionally, Quakers have sought to live simple lives of devotion to God in everything that they do.  This manifests in a number of outward forms, from Quakers former distrust of the arts for "exciting the senses" to the "Plain Dress" of Friends that is most seen nowadays on the Quaker Oats boxes.  The Quaker Oats Man is a caricature of how Friends traditionally sought to set themselves apart from others by wearing black or grey suits for the men and very simple dresses for the women.

Quakers are not ascetics or opposed to modern technology like the Amish.  A Quaker family will often own a car, a computer, cell phones and a television… or not. Most Quakers however will not own multiple homes, a yacht, and the latest sports car.  Every Friend tries to live by the standard of simplicity in the way that their heart directs them.

Quaker simplicity is often shown through our frugality.  But Quakers don't reject being successful in business, as long as it does not distract from devotion to the Spirit. Indeed, some of the most successful businesses in the UK in the 1800s were started by Quakers, including the Cadbury company.

Living the Quaker Values: Service (video)

Here's a video post that's part of my ongoing series ruminating about the different Quaker values and how I've integrated them into my life.  This one focuses on Service.  I hope you like it.

Tango Series in 2010 World Press Photo Winners

Yesterday I got to see a beautiful exhibit of the winners of the 2010 World Press Photos competition, showing at the old church in central Amsterdam. The annual contest highlights the best news photography from around the world in various categories.

I was astounded and moved by so many of the winning photos, which are shocking, sublime, enraging, hilarious and heart-breaking. But this series by Karla Gachet about a tango dancer in Buenos Aires was particularly memorable. I love the rawness and passion of this young woman's devotion to dance that really comes out through these photos.  As a dancer, I found these images so inspiring, the story of someone trying to live her dreams.

See all of the winners over at the World Press Photo website.

Living the Quaker Values: Truth

Today I am considering the all-important Quaker value of Truth.

Speaking Truth is one of the bedrock principles of Quakerism that undergirds much of our actions in the world.  Quakers have traditionally refused to take oaths, even when required by law, because we believe that swearing upon a Bible pre-supposes two different standards for telling the truth. Our business meetings are focused on letting a deeper truth emerge from our deliberations, rather than just the will of one person or even the majority.

We aren't tactless and blunt though. Quakers more precisely seek to speaking the truth... with love.  We are striving to balance the need to be truthful with the need to be sensitive to the perspectives and feelings of others.  If someone gives me a gift, I don't mention that I hate the color or that I already have it.  I thank the person for the kind gesture and accept the gift as an expression of caring and thought.

(Re-)visiting the Anne Frank House Museum

This morning, I popped over the Anne Frank House museum, which I haven't visited for a long time.  In the intervening years, the curators have built a whole new multimedia wing of the museum and just recently acquired from another Dutch archive the actual physical diaries of Anne Frank.  So I was looking forward to going back.

It's still a powerful experience walking through the actual storefront, the entrance to the Frank family's hideaway behind a bookshelf (the "Secret Annex"), their cramped living quarters, and Anne Frank's bedroom itself.  The passageways and rooms are contextualized with videos from witnesses and survivors, quotes from Anne's diary, and photos from the era.  I can't imagine what it must have been like to be trapped in there for two years with little hope of escape.

The new wing provides much more background information on what happened to the family after they were discovered in 1944, Anne's father's efforts to get the diary published, and the ongoing legacy of the museum.  An interesting interactive exhibit shows various real life scenarios of intolerance and bigotry and asks you what you would do.  Throughout this room are "yes" and "no" buttons that let you register your opinion, the results of which are displayed at the end of every scenario.

What is so brilliant about the Anne Frank house and diary is that it boils down a world-changing, incomprehensible act of intolerance into a simple story of one girl.  From a narrative perspective, it teaches me a lot about how to educate others about gigantic, overwhelming global issues, from climate change to child soldiers.