Anyone interested in playing Bridge or learning to play Bridge, that has not yet let us know, please speak with Alan or send a note, write a comment etc. We are thinking of starting up soon.

Wikipedia: Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depend on the variant played). It is played by four players who form two partnerships (sides); the partners sit opposite each other at a table. The game consists of the auction (often called bidding) and play, after which the hand is scored.

The bidding ends with a contract, which is a declaration by one partnership that their side shall take at least a stated number of tricks, with specified suit as trump or without trumps. The rules of play are similar to other trick-taking games, with addition of the feature that one player's hand is displayed face up on the table as the "dummy"."

How to play Bridge

The Bridge World

If anyone has a Bull Whip laying around their house could you please speak with Alan ASAP.

Tuesday 11 Sept. 9 pm

-Plan 9 From Outer Space (1970) -Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion (1992)

Often billed as the worst movie ever made, and not entirely undeserving of the title, this is a masterpiece of Ed Wood's making. Download your copy here!

The Ed Wood Guide The Ed Wood Appreciation page "Necromania" - The lost porn films of Ed Wood

Thursday 13 Sept. 9 pm STAMMTISCH & TV

Downstairs and the the Front Room Come over, bring a friend, play Backgammon, Chess or Risk with the champions or have a drink with those strange people we call "the regulars". Make a new friend or just ask all the questions about Berlin you been wanting to ask.

On the big Screen in the Back Room... Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! does Judy! Judy! Judy! (2007) TV Judy Garland was already a 'gay beacon' - as Rufus Wainwright puts it - before her death. But on the night of her wake in June 1969, when New York's Stonewall Inn was raided by police, some of the mourners rioted, kicking off the modern gay rights movement. Operatic and witty, the son of folk singers Loudon Wainwright (who played with Garland as a child) and Kate McGarrigle, Rufus has been open about his sexuality from the start of his career. But his friendship with Judy is more obviously located in Oz. He used to sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' at his own gigs. More recently he created more parallels by going off the rails on drugs, then staging a triumphal return with 2005's Want Two.

He recreated Judy's famous New York Carnegie Hall gig of 1961 in the same venue last year, and has now brought it to London's Palladium, scene of a number of Garland shows. Keane are here, as well as old school showbiz fans, and many 'friends of Judy'. In a sparkly yellow Viktor & Rolf suit for the first half, then a dove-grey one in the second, Wainwright croons and clowns his way through Judy's set, He tells great anecdotes. One is about dressing up in his mother's shoes and recreating the witch's melting scenes. All that collapsing into shoes might have had some bearing on his later fondness for drugs, he quips.

Wainwright forgets a few words of this marathon set and balances what could easily be grand folly with self-deprecation. Thank goodness: to do this two-hour set straight would be unbearable. Garland may have had a killer vibrato in her prime, but it was allied to some of the cheesiest guff in the American canon at Carnegie Hall. Tonight, you find yourself wondering whether Rufus will do anything from The Sound of Music, normally resident in the Palladium, and admire the ceiling a bit. But Wainwright - a tremendous performer, whatever his material - always brings you back. His crooning is infinitely more powerful than his belting, making songs like 'Do It Again' intimate billets doux. And 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' finds him wiping away tears, only half-joking.

review by Kitty Empire The Observer Sunday February 25 Oct

The IT Crowd (BBC-Sitcom, 2007) Season 2 - Episodes 2 &3 (The return of the Golden Child / Moss and the German)

Friday 14 Sept. Dinner 9pm Movie about 11pm

Ed Wood (1994) As one of the most overlooked films ever made, "Ed Wood" does for Tim Burton what "Malcolm X" did for Spike Lee and "JFK" did for Oliver Stone, it ruins any expectations one can have of Tim Burton, because he has set a standard here that he will never achieve again. An interest in the period in which it is set is essential, given the set decoration is the film's greatest triumph. It's not surprising that Burton's first "biopic" is about someone revered in the b-movie heyday of the 1950s - that spawned Burton himself. Burton must have felt he had to make this picture because without filmmakers like Ed Wood, Burton himself would have never existed. Set in seedy B-movie Hollywood in the mid 1950s - and wisely and beautifully shot in black-and-white, Johnny Depp plays the titular character; a young, talentless, but optimistic auteur who dreams of being a film director; going so far as to model himself after his idol, Orson Welles. Despite an over-reliance on stock footage, a tin ear for dialogue, and a fondness for wacky, exploitative horror and sci-fi fare, Wood wiggles his way into B-moviedom. Casting anyone willing to step before his camera, Wood cranks out a series of cheesy movies.

When he has a chance encounter with horror film legend Bela Lugosi, now a 74 year-old, foul-mouthed morphine addict wrecked by his lost fame, Ed sees his meal-ticket. Quick for his next fix, Lugosi doesn't seem to mind that Wood is also an out-and-proud transvestite with a particular fondness for Angora sweaters, and soon begins starring in Wood's features. Lugosi, played by Martin Landau, gives the story its biggest jolts of energy. Landau is hysterical in scene after scene utilizing the "dirty old man" routine. Remember, there is nothing funnier on earth than an old man who likes profanity. A gentle - albeit somewhat fictionalized - bond forms between Wood and Lugosi. Depp does a spectacular job of fleshing out Wood's quirky innocence and unbridled passion for moviemaking. This may also be the only Johnny Depp film where you actually see him smile!

What ultimately makes this film so stellar is the impeccable production and costume design and the crisp B&W cinematography; it literally transports you back to the clean-cut, wide-eyed days of the 1950s. I cannot recommend this film enough if you have an interest in the world of 1950s B-movies that produced titles like "Teenagers From Outer Space" and "Project Moonbase". This film functions quite well as a time warp. I liken "Ed Wood" to epics like "JFK" because like those films, this movie doesn't seem to be about what happens as much as how it FEELS to be there; and that's what draws me to the film every time I see it. With "Ed Wood", I'm not always interested in following the story, but I'm totally fascinated with being inside that world. Tim Burton did the best job that anyone could in taking you there.

reviewed by JawsOfJosh from IMDB

Tuesday 18 Sept. 9 pm Black Orpheus (1959) From the moment of its first appearance, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959—where it won the Palme d'Or—it was clear that Black Orpheus was a very special film. Taking the ancient Greek myth of a youth who travels to the land of the dead to bring back the woman he loves, and transporting it to the slums of modern day Rio de Janeiro, this bittersweet romantic tragedy has charmed audiences the world over with its beauty, color, and—above all—its music. In fact, so important is Black Orpheus' musical dimension that you might say the film's roots aren't in images but in sounds.

The first shot shows an ancient frieze of the lovers, Orpheus and Eurydice. But what grabs your attention as it hits the screen is the sound of the music playing underneath it—a guitar softly strumming the chords of the film's main musical theme. A mood of quiet reverie is created only to be shattered almost immediately as the frieze explodes before our eyes, only to be replaced by a series of fast-moving shots of dancers preparing for Carnival. But even these colorful sights are undercut by a sound that, beginning here, runs through the length of the film—the eruptive, convulsive, infectious beat of the Latin American pop sound known as "bossa nova."

Though bossa nova had been the cornerstone of Latin American music for many years, it's safe to say that prior to the release of Black Orpheus the world at large had never really heard it before. The film changed the world of music overnight. Its composers, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá, became international stars. The film's main themes, "Manha de Carnival" and "O Nossa Amor," permeated the public consciousness in a way that hadn't been seen since Anton Karas' unforgettable zither theme for The Third Man. But make no mistake, none of these musical glories would have been possible without the film that holds them all together—Black Orpheus.

The Orpheus of myth was the son of the god Apollo and Calliope, a muse. His singing tamed wild beasts and quieted raging rivers. The Orpheus of the film is a lowly streetcar conductor whose singing makes him a favorite of the slum neighborhood where he lives. The original Eurydice was likewise high-born when compared to the film's heroine—a simple country girl visiting the big city of Rio for the first time in her life. Ordinarily saddling such everyday characters with mythological barnacles would make for dramatic awkwardness. But thanks to the context of Carnival it all works perfectly. A once-a-year blowout where rich and poor alike can masquerade in whatever identities they choose, Carnival is the ideal setting for sliding a mythical mask over commonplace reality. And director Marcel Camus proves to be quite adept at juggling this balancing act between the fantastic and the real.

The figure of Death that pursues Eurydice through the streets of Rio could be the literal personification of fate—or the sort of everyday maniac found on the streets of any major city. Likewise, Eurydice's death from a streetcar cable is a neat transposition of the original legend in which she died from a serpent's bite on her leg. Best of all is the film's climax, in which Orpheus visits the underworld—here represented by Rio's Bureau of Missing Persons—and a Macumba ceremony in which he tries to make contact with his dead love. As in the legend, the story of the film ends on an unhappy note. Still this nominally sad conclusion is undercut by the spirit of the largely unprofessional cast (Breno Mello was a champion soccer player, Marpessa Dawn a dancer from Pittsburgh); director Camus' obvious love for Rio and its people; and the joyous, rapturous, unforgettable musical score.

by David Ehrenstein for the Criterion Collection David Ehrenstein has been writing about film, the arts, and politics since 1965, for such publications as Film Culture, Cahiers du cinéma, Positif, and the Advocate. He is the author of Film: The Front Line—1984, The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of Martin Scorsese, and Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928–2000. Born in New York, he lives in Los Angeles.

The Bob Dylan Message Generator

Check it out in the comments!

Give the page a moment to load!

Tulip Enterprises about "Wallywoods": "Impressions from the new Wallywoods location in Berlin Weissensee. The travelling art space/atelier/home of British artist Paul Woods has landed in a derelict GDR "Kulturhaus" located deep into an unfashionable and slightly scary Eastern part of town. Woods works with a pool of some 150 maladjusted unrecognized talents, his taste in musical performers is superb."

Go to that page! There is a lovely video starring those whacky "Ugly Americans"

"In 1974, Martin Scorsese interviewed his parents on film, prompting them to discuss their life together as well as their Sicilian ancestry. The resultant documentary was entitled Italianamerican. "

Metafilter has the links

The new film by Michael Moore: Watch it over here!!

TV Links until you have to see a doctor, as the germans would say....

A whole lot of shows available for streaming in divx-quality. Check it out, DSL-kids!

Thanks for Tom from N.Z. (...the country where they shot "Lord of the Rings", you know!?)

Here are the first two episodes of that funny show about a second hand bookshop:

Part 2 & 3:

Black Books - S1E01 - Cooking the Books [2/3] Black Books - S1E01 - Cooking the Books [3/3]

This one is my favourite: Black Books - S1E02 - Manny's First Day [1/3] Black Books - S1E02 - Manny's First Day [2/3] Black Books - S1E02 - Manny's First Day [3/3]

All episodes in divx-quality on tv-links: www.tv-links.co.uk

Wikipedia: "In December 1982, an eight-year-old boy named Jeffrey R. Yee received a letter from U.S. President Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a worldwide record of 6,131,940 points, a score only possible if the player has passed the Split-Screen Level.[18] Whether or not this event happened as described has remained in heated debate amongst video game circles since its supposed occurrence."

Link: Pac Man at the International Arcade Museum

ANOTHER COUNTRY ARCADE:

Play "Asteroids"!

Type in a word below to find its rhymes, synonyms, definitions, and more...

Works for songwriters too!

Struggling Musicians' Tool Kit

Some interesting links for writers on readwriteweb.com.

Nice! A video channel for bookworms!

4th to 16th September 2007.

Check out the English Website

The main venue is the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Tickets for the events are currently available on: tel. 00 49 30 254 89100 or at www.berlinerfestspiele.de or www.ticketonline.de

For further information and enquiries contact the ilb press department at presse@literaturfestival.com or on tel. 00 49 30 27 87 86 45

From "Newsletter III - 2007" : "David Grossman will open this year’s festival with his speech “Writing in a Disaster Zone”. At over 200 events in 13 days, audiences will have the chance to get to know internationally renowned authors, in addition to discovering new voices from contemporary literature.

Pulitzer Prize-winners Paul Muldoon (GB) and Jorie Graham (USA), celebrated French novelist Jean Rouaud and best-selling Canadian writer Jane Urquhart are among the 22 authors nominated by the Literatures of the World jury.

Writers who will read from their works in the Kaleidoscope section of the festival include Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka (Nigeria/USA), the winner of the 2007 Büchner-Prize, Martin Mosebach (Germany), the author of the best-selling Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk (USA), along with Roberto Saviano (Italy), António Lobo Antunes (Portugal), Isabel Allende (Chile/USA), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), Aharon Appelfeld (Israel), Wladimir Kaminer (Germany), Elif Shafak (Turkey), Julia Franck (Germany), A.L. Kennedy (GB), Michael Ondaatje (Canada) and Nicholas Shakespeare (GB).

(...)

Reflections will concentrate on the difficulties faced by the West in understanding Islamic culture. Ian Buruma (The Netherlands/GB), Fatema Mernissi (Morocco), Azar Nafisi (Iran/USA) and Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland) are among the writers who will be discussing this theme.

The organisation “Mothers of Srebrenica” will present its lawsuit from 4 June 2007, which was filed against the Netherlands and the UN because of their failure to render assistance in the massacre of July 1995.

The Focus of this year’s festival is Latin America and has a specific part of the programme dedicated to it. The ilb is especially keen to offer not only established authors but also young writers the opportunity to discuss and exchange ideas.

(...)

In conjunction with the festival, a Worldwide Reading against the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe will take place in Berlin, as well as in other international settings."

Interesting story by Josef Hoffmann about Ludwig Wittgenstein. The great philosopher loved western and hard-boiled crime fiction.

Over at Mysteryfile. They also have a good blog.

Come over, bring a friend, play Backgammon, Chess or Risk with the champions or have a drink with those strange people we call "the regulars". It's supposed to be a social evening!

I will bring tons of shit to choose from for the TV-nerds in the backroom (Hey, only four months until the next episode of "Lost"!).

Besides "Whenever the music died" we will have Episode 1 of Season 2 of the BBCs latest hit "The IT-Crowd". that's the gay episode, kids! There will also be a very special episode from the ultra-rare and totally hard to get "Muppets Tonight Show". More cameo-appearances than the "Spice Girls Movie" in 20 minutes!

Still playing around with the navigation and the various elements in the columns on the left and on the right. Too many widgets... I'm working on it...

But I guess we're not serving the classic 56k-dial-up-modem anymore. Most people get here via some sort of DSL.

The old modems wont get you all that YouTube, but that's what we've been doing for quite some time now anyway.

Nonetheless, too many videos on one page slow things down. From now on, my favourites can be found here: ALL VIDEOS.

And the latest ones appear in the window on the right. But why not add your favourites to that stream yourself?

Since we have so many YouTube-customers with good taste out there, why don't you all start your own list of favourites and we can combine all of those favourites and then we have one videoblog with automatic updates that everyone can subscribe to. Sort of an "Another Country TV Channel"....

All you need is a YouTube-account. You mark your favourites and let us know your user-identity, we do the rest.

In case you are a member of that nice new social network already : Dave started a group on FACEBOOK and you can all become officers in the mighty "Another Country Army".

Fucking MyMurdochSpace! I hate that site by now! It's just incredibly boring and full of spam. Everyone please move over to the "not yet selling out" independent network they call FACEBOOK. More comfortable, lots of jingle jangle for everyone and way less spam. It's much more exclusive and has way more features. MySpace isn't moving one bit. They didn't even come up with simple updates like a mute-button or "stop auto-start of songs". Facebook has millions of what they call widgets nowadays.

Widgets combined with RSS-Feeds and API changed the way we use the internet big time. The simple "Copy & paste"-method of embedded codes for Videos or pictures is easy to understand and it gets more advanced with sites like Widgetbox.com. Every kid can put together a widget with the latest news, links and videos about a favourite tv-show or whatever subject. Our Berlin-Newsfeed on the right is a good example.

YouTube opened up all the way today. Now you can subscribe to videos, blogs, news, links, audio-files etc. via keywords or someones playlist or favourites via RSS with Google-Reader, tumblr.com or feedraider.com. Combine various streams (like "Country" & "Western" & "Polka" & "Berlin" & "Boheme" !) until you have one big RSS-newsfeed based on your personal interests in the end. Internet 2.0 is all about simple toys that help you putting your own thing together. It's about usability and productivity, not about looking fancy.

Check out those nice toys over at widgetbox.com and put 'em on your Facebook, IGoogle, Blog etc.