Alongside the Olympics, London is currently bursting with activity celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence. The all-star mega-big Respect Jamaica 50th Festival enters its second week at the nearby Indigo2, sporting a roster that includes everyone from Jimmy Cliff and U-Roy to Maxi Priest and Shaggy. (More…)
Calling Owen Hatherley’s A New Kind of Bleak a book about architecture is like saying Orwell’s Animal Farm is a book about a farm. Yes, it’s about Hatherley’s travels through the United Kingdom, in which he analyzes edifices ranging from the National Space Centre in Leicester, (affectionately called “The Maggot,”) to Preston’s bus station. However, it’s also about gathering the evidence necessary to indict British urban planning. (More…)
Israel’s “…presence in all of Judea and Samaria — not just in the so-called settlement blocs — is an irreversible fact. Trying to stop settlement expansion is futile, and neglecting this fact in diplomatic talks will not change the reality on the ground; it only makes the negotiations more likely to fail.” (More…)
I’ve spent years trying to convince the world of metal’s radical potential. I’ve followed the obscure byways of obscure extreme metal genres in search of the avant-grade potential of this most degraded form. My heart has swelled with satisfaction as – finally – The Wire, The Quietus and other bastions of elite musical opinion have begun to embrace the metallic dark side. (More…)
Israel is not just bedeviled by the occupation. It also struggles internally, with every manner of social problem. The two biggest winners of this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival could not do a better job of underlining this. Both films explore the insinuation of violence in Israeli society, by looking at the country’s Mizrahi and Bedouin communities. (More…)
Late in Dave Eggers‘ moving new novel A Hologram for the King, his protagonist Alan Clay, a onetime corporate sales manager for Schwinn who is now tenuously self-employed as a consultant, is lying on his belly in a Saudi Arabian operating room, trying to think of something other than the tumor inside him. “I sold capitalism to the communists,” he thinks. (More…)
Few European cities are as synonymous with drugs as Berlin. Second only to Amsterdam, in terms of Dionysian reputation, the German capitol tends to take on a more sinister hue due to its hipster association with heroin. Think back, for instance, to such rep theatre classics as Christiane F., Uli Edel’s 1981 film about a young girl, living in Neukölln, who goes from soft to hard drug use, and eventually, prostitution, all by the age of fourteen. (More…)
In the 1970s, older folks regarded punk as untalented, amateur, and above all, noise. Only a few years after its arrival, British artists affiliated with the punk and postpunk scenes co-opted the “noise” designation, turned it into a badge of pride, and pushed the sonic envelope further than many believed possible. (More…)
There are times that being a political commentator frustrates me. Today is an example. In the wake of the bombing attack in Bulgaria, which has thus far claimed the lives of 6 victims and, apparently, the bomber as well, I alternate between feelings of rage and sadness. Yet, cynics like Bibi Netanyahu feel compelled to capitalize on such tragedies in order to advance their war ambitions using the innocent victims of terror. He has no sense of decency, or remorse. (More…)
The focus on Arab countries takes some getting used to. Especially if you’re accustomed to encountering anti-Israeli occupation flyers, not anti-Assad or Tahrir Square-themed demo adverts. Indeed, the introduction of Arab Spring-themed street art, and political postering, throughout Europe, has signified a cultural change. The subject of popular debate now includes Middle Eastern states other than just Israel, and its conflict with the Palestinians. (More…)
Eighteen months ago, we flooded public squares across the Middle East. We sought to situate ourselves against the old order, en-nizaam – the regime. En-nizaam meant more than just Hosni Mubarak and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. It referred to an entire way of doing things, one that mired the region in dysfunction when the old empires finally collapsed. (More…)
It is obvious: the ruling order finds itself in a deep crisis. Everyone actually knows full well that it can’t go on this way. The political answer to the problem is the attack on society from above, fully in the sense of capital and profit: everything for the economy, nothing for people. (More…)