This past week I had the pleasure of catching Alien on the big screen.  It was playing at the Music Box Theater in celebration of its 30th Anniversary.  The film is as fresh as ever, but in some ways it feels way older than that.

The sound design largely forgoes music, instead surrounding the audience with distant clanks and cavernous echoes.  As a result, watching the Nostromo crew (minus Ripley) slowly realize their fate as alien food, you, the viewer, feel quite trapped.  The tension builds steadily, and when the monsters are finally revealed, it’s terrifying and cathartic cinema.

Director Ridley Scott’s use of such measured pacing in the first half of Alien firmly sets this film into the category of Old Classic.*  Which brings me to my rant, i mean, mission statment:

Basically I think old movies are better than new movies.  Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing new movies.  Some of them are great.  But somewhere around 1980, those lasting, iconic films became more rare (or overlooked).  New movies, by and large, do not stand up to repeat reviewing or cult status like the films of 1880-1980 do (i think of Raging Bull as the last Old Classic). 

Some, very few, succeed to be as exciting, as multi-faceted, as those certified classics.  But they hide, these New Classics.  They hide amongst the art house, anime, oscar tear-porn, crime, B-, documentary, MOTW, grind-house, indie, festival, foreign, Action and Suspense.  They hide in Decalogues and game shows. 

Not to worry: we’ll watch it all.  No Biggie.

-Timothy Parfitt

*We here at IWA are working on a glossary of terms to aid us in our quest to adequately dissect the so-called hi-, middle and lo-brow movies that we feature here.  Old Classic and New Classic will be the first two to be defined.

Ebert:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031026/REVIEWS08/310260301/1023

Phillips:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/chi-tv-mov-talking-pictures-0910sep11,0,6720502.column

Bueno para despedirme esta semana como siempre fotografos y curvas, pero no de las que están acostumbrados. Las curvas volupruosas esta vez son mas turgentes y firmes que nunca y el fotografo mucho mas torpe. Esto es lo que vi en el Salón del Retromovil, un evento en el que destacó la calidad y variedad de coches clasicos y faltó un poco de espacio para tanto monumento rodante pero claro, supongo que la crisis es la crisis. Feliz puente a los madrileños y para los démas que les sea leve.
For say goodweekend I always use photographers and curves , but this time curves this time the turgescent and firm that never and the much more clumsy photographer. This is what I saw in the Hall the Retromovil, an event in which emphasized the quality and variety of classic cars and lacked a little space for as much rolling monument sure, I suppose that the crisis is the crisis. Happy bridge to the Madrilenians and for others that are to them slight.

link:classic cars

Impresionantes instalaciones artísticas las de este hombre. Para muestra esta réplica hinchable de un Bandit Trans Am.
Impressive artistic intallations those of this man. For sample this inflatable replic of a Bandit Trans AM.

link:web

Through Indian Eyes
by: John Shadowwolf
Choctaw

Who are we, What are we, and why do they lie? These are just some of the questions I will try to answer in this series of writings. What I write here will be the truth to the best of my knowledge.

We are called Indians- we are not Indians! We are called Native Americans- we are not Native Americans! Although, both terms are acceptable references to whom we are. I will explain the statements made; we are Indigenous people- meaning we were already here in this country before the coming of the white man. Christopher Columbus was sent to find a new trade route to the West Indies, that’s pretty much common knowledge- what isn’t common knowledge is that he failed…

read the rest and a lot more at The Brooklyn Voice

It’s about the time where there’s 200 miles left to go that you realise its going to be a long night. 200 miles ‘til either the sun comes up or the voice on the radio changes. But where do you go? Except forward. Forward, in a van, with an obsolete company name scratched off by speed, distance and time. The time is the propeller. No time to say hello. No time to say goodbye. But time to drive. Definitely time to drive.

3.20am, 95.8fm

The eager young science teacher of the 3am to 6am slot informs the insomniac and international audience of what I’ve known was going to happen for a good few hours. Not massive news to anyone, wherever they may be in their beds. The man in the van, already on his way ladies and gentlemen, no need to panic, no need to adjust your frequencies, the man in the van is already on his way. I look out ahead and realise the ticker tape parade is on hold, at least for now.

Read the rest at The Brooklyn Voice

A village hut. Early morning

The heavy downpour had been on ever since late last night. By now the sky looked clear white, but the rain persisted at the same constant rate. The leaves of trees seemed to sparkle a shade of green so pure it only seemed possible in paintings. Puddles had formed here and there, and one could see people running to and fro, having to work but eager not to get wet.  A stray dog lay curled up under a big tree, wet and shivering. A boy in his early teens sits by the window, looking longingly at the outside world of wild breeze and hard rain. Of course, he would much rather go out in the rain, for a game of football with the other kids. But no luck there! His parents had actually allowed him to skip school today, just so he would not have an excuse to go out in the rain. When parents let you miss school, you know things are serious! Sitting in his room, by the window, the boy sighed, longing for the day he would be old enough to decide when or when not to go out.

Read more at The Brooklyn Voice

Britain & The USA – A Comparative History

Part One: The City

Steve Newman

Although today we might consider Britain and the United States to be, in some ways, very similar we must remember that those same similarities are only skin deep, and not least urban growth. For instance, when we look at the pace at which London and New York grew in the 19th century there can be little doubt that these two particular conurbations were considered – on both sides of the Atlantic – to be cities. Yet, the definition of what could be called a city in Britain was very different to that in the United States.

Read the rest at brooklynvoice.com

The Noble Sage Art Gallery: 3rd – 28th September

The Noble Sage is proud to open ‘NEVER ALONE BUT TOGETHER’, the long-awaited exhibition of the sculptures and drawings of Gujarati artist, Ashok Patel.

Ashok Patel ‘s art returns us to the spiritual core of India. It leaves aside religion and concentrates on the enhancement of the soul. This exhibition demonstrates Ashok’s continuing fascination with drawing and the translation of these creations into a sculptural form.

Read more about the event in Brooklynvoice.com

1. Night glasses

In the night glasses the water stays, the surface shivers,
runs as the natural light touches the surface
and passes the water without touching it,
in the night glasses the water stays, it’s surface shivers,
something drives by as the movement forces us to the
same pace and somehow we can’t stand still,
in the night glasses the water stays, together they can’t stay,
touches the pure surface without a trace that
they are moved by the same thing as us by the same time.

Read the rest of the 9 poems at brooklynvoice.com

Steve Newman

Steve Newman is a freelance writer, actor, director, historian, playwright and publisher who lives and works in Shakespeare’s Stratford.

Walt Whitman – The Novel

Steve Newman

Chapter 1 – March 26th 1892

Walt Whitman had been afraid to go to sleep because when he did the young stranger came and started his damned idiotic chatter about times long gone, and people long dead, and places not seen for forty years or more, and about secrets Walt wanted kept secret; and anyways the room was too small for two people these days what with books and papers all over the floor, and plates of uneaten food – leastways uneaten by Walt but greedily consumed by the mice who were getting as big as rats but weren’t rats because the rats had enough to gorge themselves on down by the wharf.

So Walt sat by the open window sipping water and brandy and listening to the night noises: the distant barking of dogs, the occasional shot of a gun, and the less occasional fight outside in the street between a couple of drunks on their way home from one of a dozen saloons, bars and whorehouses. Walt loved their idiotic insults and ineffectual brawling, liked to listen because it was his sound, the sound of the streets; and the streets were where Walt had lived and worked and prospered and added his two-cents worth and had the odd fight or two himself. Where he’d once horse-whipped a cab driver for horse-whipping his weary old horse.

Read more at “The Brooklyn Voice”

The raindrops on the window panes of Kozmo Lounge, Dhanmondi, Dhaka had made the atmosphere cozier than the usual, on the eve of 11 August. The performance taking place on the stage of Kozmo Lounge was supposed to be “Brine Pickles featuring Ayaz Quadir”. The initial trial was to bring Brine Pickles’ creative writings in English and Ayaz’s jazz tunes together.

Born in Bangladesh and brought up in Philadelphia is a performance pianist, music composer and arranger based in Montreal, Ayaz is currently completing his bachelors in music from McGill University’ prestigious jazz performance program under the tutelage of Montreal jazz masters Jeff Johnston, Wray Dawnes, and Andre` White. He is two times consecutive winner of Cavalcade Soloist award at regional American Jazz competitions.
In a small chitchat with Ayaz, he mentioned that this was his first visit to Bangladesh and he was overwhelmed to see such bunch of young people of Brine Pickles working together only for the sake of art. Ayaz’s field of jazz music keeps him busy with working with people senior to him and also who are career oriented. He was amazed by the friendliness and natural spontaneity of the Pickles and recently worked on a demo of their songs. Ayaz was moved by the friendliness of Bangladeshi people and he says, “I definitely need to come back here”. He has not known much about his country and he has been inspired to know more about while reading Rabindranath Tagore’s own translation of Gitanjali.

Read the rest at The brooklyn Voice

Picture: Ayaz

By Asheka Troberg.

Summer in a coral house!! This I thought would make a great title for a novel. I had been ruminating over whether the plot should be a romantic or detective. I basically like comedy the most. So why would comedy be ruled out? This was a major thing to mull over. And I got stuck right there. Yesterday I felt a cool breeze of August suggesting summer is nearing it’s end. I was sad I had not written a single line of my summer novel. I know good novelists pack their baggage to go to a new location, even live in an anaconda infested rain forest just to be able to write a novel. I am just about that adventurous. At least in my mind. So when we moved to this Coral house I became optimistic thinking I would write something and finish it this summer in the Coral house. Well the location might be right here in Kensignton and the water might be some 10 miles away from us, it still is a coral house. Moreover, now I don’t need to be in little Italy and sit under their outside marquee with an Irish coffee to observe people walk past me with my best people observing pal Patty. Now I observe people (pedestrians) from the veranda of the coral house in the comfort of my home. I am usually quiet and posses a very innocent face, so people don’t mind me staring. I have cautiously and lovingly put aside my thought on writing a novel in the iron safe of my mind. Someday I plan to take that thought out. It may not happen in a Coral house but maybe by the great pyramids or on the top of Machu Pichu or maybe by a slum of Agra from where I will observe the Great Taj. But I know for sure it will happen.  And then when the time is right I will think of the title the last.

Read the rest at The Brooklyn Voice

I can hear them in the fields, the swish of their clothes against the opium stalks. The hum of their language, against the grate of the Afghani guide screaming at me in Dari, “Come now, you little shit, come!”
His voice then gentles down to a murmur of seller-talk to the others. I try not to move with noise, my clothes are but little. I know the fields well, my family from Jalalabad… and long ago they worked the wheat fields, when the wheat was prosperous to us. This was before the opium, before my grandfather went blind from the bomb some years ago. This bomb blast, that left shards in his eyes, his mouth still half open in talk with his good friend, Alam.
I can see that time, Grandfather and Alam, resting outside our home, sitting on a corner of rug. They were making like their own chaikhana outside our home, and the sun was blazon red. Then I ran to the window after the blast, it came from nowhere.
This is how it seems, a blast and a racing jeep, my grandfather’s eyes bits of shard in them. And we run with him, to the tent-clinic.

“Mahmud!” the Afghani guide screams at me, and he is closer, closer to me in the fields.
“Come now, you are promised to these American doctors.”

Do you want to read more at Brooklyn Voice.com

By Absar Akbar

China’s dream of one hundred years came true through    the grand opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic games. That was held on the national stadium named “The nest” in Beijing. All the busy streets in China were quiet during that ceremony cause people were fixed with that amusing ceremony all over the country. All the big screens around the central cities in China were off during that ceremony for the safety and security purpose. “8″ is the lucky number in China. That’s why the opening ceremony began at 8:08 p.m. It began with the Olympic symbol made of magnificent lights flying over the national stadium. Then, the children of 56 minorities of China carried the national flag through the field while a cute little girl was singing the happy song of China. Right after then, all the Chinese people stood up with their national anthem and it ended with fireworks all around the stadium. Afterwards, the background speaker announced the beautiful Olympic by describing the invention of the paper and Chinese paintings. Some excellent artists drew pictures with their body wonderfully after that with the music of xylophone. Then, the great picture flew over the stadium. Next, 3000 thousand fellowships of Confucious came out to the field to give the audience superficial idea of the history of Chinese character and people with blocks made 和 (He) that means harmony to reveal the united harmony of this world and they made up the Great wall with the blocks immediately after that. Then, the people with traditional dress came up with the puppet show of the historical Beijing soap opera.

Read more at: “The Brooklyn Voice”

Cricket, Communism, Consumerism and Krishna…

By Manosh Chowdhury

The last time I visited Kolkata, the most interesting thing I had found was a series of billboards, particularly at bus stops, by the Bangla daily Bartaman,. Very brave, the words in scarlet red were: “[Bartaman] doesn’t frighten anyone except Bhagaban.” Since the Kolkata newspaper readership is a captive of Anandabazar, and the only recognizable challenger from the left is Aajkaal, those billboards were loud enough to get my attention. This time, and I don’t know whether this is because of downward publicity of Bartaman, or my observation faculty got dull, I found much less of Bhagaban. Ringku and Tapash, my sister and brother-in-law, informed me that they had been taught a very good lesson. Ganashakti, the official spokes-paper of ruling CPI[M], had written in their publicity posters, in black instead of red: “Only the cowards are frightened by Bhagaban.” So Ganashakti maintains the bravery! I was indeed dying to read a copy of the newspaper, which I couldn’t get for first few days. My appetite was strong because I could only get Aajkaal at my sister’s place for the first three days.

Read more at “The Brooklyn Voice”

By Mel Neuhaus

Midsummer offers up a pair of worthy DVDs, courtesy of our favorite home vid company du jour, Legend Films.  Their first batch of reviewed titles did remarkably well – and we’re proud to state that the following duo, licensed from the hefty Paramount library is equally impressive (I had a short, informative discussion with Maria Mason, Legend’s Vice President of Marketing; the results can be found in the sidebar addendum to this piece)

The season itself suggests family outings, and I found two rare obscure items of note that both grown-ups and kids can enjoy for years to come.

Read more at The Brooklyn Voice

The Olympic torch has been passed through Xi’an with great excitement this morning. People of all levels made crowds along the way of the Olympic torch relay.

Most of the students went to the spots the night before and waited patiently for more than twelve hours to just have a glance at Olympic torch. Millions of Chinese people along the Olympic torch relay were shouting one slogan: “Go China”.

read more and see the pictures in The Brooklyn Voice

Christopher McMahon is 33-years-old. He’s woken up by his sister every morning at 8:30AM, pulls off his sleep mask with a grunt, and gets ready to leave. He’s not a morning person. At 10AM, a white van beeps the horn and he leaves his house to go to Hudson Milestones, an organization for the betterment of adults with developmental disabilities. McMahon, who lives in Jersey City, NJ, has Down Syndrome.

Down Syndrome is a chromosomal disorder that results when a person “inherits all or part of an extra copy of chromosome 21,” according to Encarta. The defect causes mental retardation. For McMahon, it greatly affects his mental capacity and his speech; he has a bad stuttering problem that many times affects his ability to express himself…

Read more at “The Brooklyn Voice”

You asked me for some info on Bay Ridge and its people. Where to begin? I guess I’d start off by saying most people from Bay Ridge would tell you they’re from Brooklyn rather than New York City, which is more commonly associated with the glitter and glamour and trendiness which characterize neighbouring Manhattan. There are parts of Brooklyn which are quite trendy as well, but they tend to be just across the river from Manhattan, with a view of its breathtaking skyline. Bay Ridge is a working class neighbourhood, one of many that make up the Borough of Brooklyn, which considers itself quite independent from nearby Manhattan…

Read more at The Brooklyn Voice

I humbly apologize to those readers familiar with international – or more precisely – Japanese cinema when I sacrilegiously ask the question, “Have you ever heard of Tatsuya Nakadai?”  Most Yankee readers probably haven’t, and that’s a damn crime, as he is unquestionably the greatest actor in the world today.

Since the 1950s, he has galvanized cinema audiences the world over (albeit in this country relegated to art houses and, ironically, grind houses) with his powerful brooding performances – transcending the language barrier with his trademark penetrating glare.  Truth be told, those magnificent eyes can literally stare you to death…

Read more at “The Brooklyn Voice”

Do you know you can take such a trip without leaving New York? Where? At the American Museum of Natural History, the Hall of Biodiversity. There you will see a life-size replica of the Dzanga-Sangha rainforest in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.). The World Wildlife Fund helps to maintain it…

Read the rest at “The Brooklyn Voice”

Few days back, while I felt a dire need of a spiritual asylum to feed my soul for a fervent hunk of Peace or may be, to get rid of this maddening urban busy lifestyle, I’ve started doing a bit of spiritual window shopping by browsing different websites related to Yoga and other form of meditation techniques. And surprisingly, Rafi Hosain called me, the country representative (Course Teacher) of Art of Living in Bangladesh.

Poverty and Urban stress are the common attributes of a cosmopolitan city life. May be these dilemmas have different parameters, notions concerning the civilized society and the L.D.C.s. We may never really understand the daily reality of those, whose lives are shaped by these conditions, but we can readily understand that their numbers have grown and that we are all affected by this symptom of the growing disparity of wealth in today’s world.

Today, with 21^st century’s countless scientific & technological innovations, with some buzz words like free market economy and it’s voracious mass impact on people’s life specially in developing countries & the crazy mustang of consumerism, an urban individual grows up for the coming rat race of career hunt. We envision of a global community that is socially and economically livable and sustainable by all her citizens but what we oversee or ignore are the frictions, career rat races, unfaith, discriminations & deprivations in it’s myriad forms resulting in to stress disorder and other forms of physical ailment.

The reality is you cannot remove these barriers overnight, what we can do; make ourselves well equipped to fight back an individual’s emotional tantrums with the quick changing unpredictable urban-cosmopolitan consequences which may result to urban stress disorders.

“Art of Living Foundation” is dedicated to serving society by strengthening the individual. The Organization serves this by offering programs that eliminate stress, create a sense of belonging, restore human values, love, and compassion and encourage people from all backgrounds, religions, and cultural traditions to come together in celebration and service. In short the goal is to put the smile back on every face. This can be an ideal approach to enlighten every individual of mother earth, by holding firmly the hands of Yoga (meditation) – the magical divine path of mind & body control techniques…..

Read whole the story: http://www.brooklynvoice.com

When 23-year-old Elizabeth Bowman leaves her house on Virginia Avenue in Jersey City, NJ, her skin color is one that is accepted by those that live around her area. She’s very pretty, ladylike and wears business attire as she gets ready for a day of work and school. When she opens her mouth to speak, every word is very well thought out, intelligent and proper. It is clear she is well educated. Unfortunately, everything other than her skin color is not something that is fully understood or accepted by her peers. Bowman who is a black woman, constantly hears, “You’re acting white. You can’t act white.”

Do you want to read whole the story?

Visit The Brooklyn Voice.com

A real good restaurant on Cortelyou road in Brooklyn have a look at http://www.brooklynvoice.com

A perfect place to order food with a fast delivery in the neighborhood.

Well let’s see there no doubt that all of us want to live healthy, but the real question is “what are we doing for it?”
Is it really that hard to live a simple and healthy life? Does living healthy always mean that you need to hit the gym on a regular basis? Or does it mean that you need to avoid everything you like to eat? These are common questions most people have but the answers are really simple. We all just need to remember a few basic things and living healthy won’t be that hard anymore….

Read more at: The Brooklyn Voice