Screw the Smalltalk VOKU for No Border Kitchen Lesvos

Monday 12 February 2024, Screw the Smalltalk VOKU for No Border Kitchen Lesvos. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

Our friends at No Border Kitchen Lesvos need our support! With cold weather, ever-continuing pushbacks and little support, we need to stand in solidarity more than ever.

“No Border Kitchen Lesvos is a self-organised group of independent individuals who maintain a solidarity structure on the Greek Island of Lesvos. The main purpose of the collective is to support travellers who cannot progress with their journey due to European migratory policies. Through a praxis based on mutual aid and solidarity, we take a stand against border policies and the suffering they are causing.

Alongside providing basic needs, we are trying to offer a viable alternative to the way travellers are treated by mainstream NGO’s, governments, and local authorities, which is often characterised by condescension, coupled with a dehumanising and infantilising attitude. We also monitor and publish information about the ever-changing situation on Lesvos, to put the situation back into focus and to be able to maintain a flexible and responsive organisational structure.”

Alongside serving food, we will also play a game called screw the smalltalk, in which we doodle together. Bring a pen and paper if you want to participate!

your chickens and nightingales from ZZW Rafelrand

Find ZZW Rafelrand events on Radar https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/zzw-rafelrand […Lees verder]

Radical Sunday School: Mapping Anarchism in China, the Netherlands, and Elsewhere

Sunday 11 February 2024, Radical Sunday School: Mapping Anarchism in China, the Netherlands, and Elsewhere. Earlier than our usual time, not at 18:00 but at 15:30.

In this session, a Chinese organizer/artist will invite participants to make a collective mapping of past and ongoing anarchist practices and events in places that are familiar, in order to find threads of cooperation and possibilities. In addition, they will bring self-published books and zines from his community in Southern China to Radical Sunday School. Through collective learning, the community they are from discovered a forgotten anarchist history in 20th century China, including collaborative actions across borders. These self-published books come from their collective writing based on these stories as well as their own practices. To make the session more convivial, they will invite participants to practice “energy waving collective” together, a game of listening to each other’s body that is modified from Tuishou (Pushing Hands), an internal Chinese martial art practice. […Lees verder]

Voku for a Comrade’s Medical Costs

Monday 5 February 2024, Voku for a Comrade’s Medical Costs. Food served from 7pm, no reservation.

A wonderful and wonderfully queer comrade had an accident and is now in need of life supporting care. Please, come to eat with us and help cover some of their medical expenditures. […Lees verder]

Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: Changing Skins (Andreas Dresen, 1997)

Sunday 4 February 2024, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinema: RAUS AUS DER HAUT * 1997 * (Changing Skins) * Directed by Andreas Dresen * 90 minutes * In German with English subtitles * free screening * doors open at 8pm * intro & film start at 8.30

The setting is mid 1970s East Germany, and our story revolves around two high school students, Anna and Marcus, who are inspired by news reports coming from West Germany. What are they excited by? Some new product on the western market, or a Hollywood film? No, they are captivated by the real-life terrorists Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof who were robbing banks and kidnapping corporate executives. When their teacher threatens to demote them, which would prevent them from entering university because of their unruly behavior, they decide to drug their teacher, kidnap him, and keep him hostage in a cellar until after they graduate. This little gem is a ‘feel-good’ terrorist film by the East German director Andreas Dresen. It is a romance, but with a sharp wit and sense of humor. Personally, I adore this little gem, and it’s totally unknown.

After the fall of the Berlin wall, few directors from the former East bloc were able to make films in the new ‘united’ Germany. They were mostly run out of the industry, and thrown into unemployment. They were treated as if they had been contaminated by the plague. Andreas Dresen is one of the few voices in cinema that can accurately portray the life and dreams of his former East bloc GDR. And he does this with magic and charm…. and in the process he dispels many of the myths people in the West have about East Germany.

This is a mind-opening flick, with a series of wild twists and turns, but also a down-to-earth sense of humanity that was typical of the GDR. Here there is no trace of the arrogance of big-budget American movies that seem fueled by cocaine and cash. This is a low budget flick with a beautiful sensibility. Even within Germany this film is extremely difficult to see, and outside Germany it is utterly unknown. That makes this an extremely rare screening of this discreet masterpiece.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

February 2024 at Joe’s Garage

Radical Sunday School: Learning about the Vrije Bond

Sunday 28 january 2024, Radical Sunday School: Learning about the Vrije Bond, from 18:00 till 20:00.

In this Sunday’s session, we’ll be talking with a comrade from the Vrije Bond (https://www.vrijebond.org/groepen/vrije-bond-amsterdam/) about anarchist federations, the work that VB does for local movements, how they help spread anarchist practices, and how mutual aid is essential to building the kind of world we want! This isn’t a lecture – we want to open a dialogue, so come with questions, with experiences you want to share, and with your proposals for actions we can take together!

From the Vrije Bond website: “De Vrije Bond is a collection of people who strive for a different society. A society without hierarchies, without oppression and exploitation of people and animals and without depletion of the environment. An anarchist society, in which people deal with each other on the basis of equality. The people within the Free Union are in their own way, in their own city, neighborhood, work or action group, bringing such a society closer: through direct actions, organizing or conducting discussions, writing articles or providing information. The Vrije Bond serves as a platform to meet, exchange experiences, develop theory, devise strategies, but also to set up or support activities together.”

The formal education system affects us all. Not only are we forced to attend schools growing up, but academic research shapes our governments, our news, and how we view the world around us. As much as many of us want to believe in the promise of institutional education, the sad fact is that our schools and universities are undemocratic and elitist. They perpetuate inequalities instead of giving people the tools to fight them. This world is fucked.

Here at Radical Sunday School, though, we know that another world is possible. Everyone should be able to direct their own learning, to grow together with their communities, and to live as though they’re already free. There are countless examples of movements already putting these ideas into practice. This collective is trying to follow in their footsteps, organizing to explore new ways of learning based on principles of autonomy, mutual aid, and egalitarianism.

This is not intended to be a course that you would have to follow all the way through. Jump in and out whenever you like. Sessions will be held every Sunday, except for every second Sunday of the month (when Joe’s Garage is having an open assembly)

Radical Sunday School
radicalsundayschool [at] riseup [dot] net
https://radar.squat.net/en/amsterdam/radical-sunday-school
https://radicalsundayschool.noblogs.org/

Cinema Italia: Pasqualino Settebellezze (Lina Wertmüller, 1975)

Sunday 28 January 2024, Seven Beauties [Pasqualino Settebellezze] (1975) * Directed by Lina Wertmüller * 115min * In Italian with English subtitles * doors open at 20:00, film starts at 20:30. After the film, please engage in sharing comments, ideas, and inspiration with the host(s) of the evening!

Pasqualino Frafuso, know as Settebellezze (Seven Beauties) navigates and survives life adversities thanks to his charisma. The film spans from the 1930 till the end of WWII, goes back and forth through time, and the protagonist’s choices and relative consequences show how life events (both on a small and a bigger scale) could change one’s life and core beliefs in order to survive, but at what cost?
Jumping from drama to comedy, and back again at the first one passing by the grotesque as a genre, this film shows how someone’s life pillars might shake and then shutter just to keep going and stay alive, especially regarding the theme of self-respect.
The film is a historical drama in a highly dense timeframe, but we are aware of what’s going on just from what touches directly our protagonist’s life, which invites drawing a parallelism with us today and with what we perceive, what we are aware of that’s happening in “our” countries and around the world and how those events directly affect us.

Film night at Joe’s Garage, cozy cinema! Free entrance. You want to screen a movie, let us know: joe [at] lists [dot] squat [dot] net

Aman molli: Concert with Rebetiko Trio (Vangelis Hatzigiannis, Mirsini Athitaki, Eirini Zogali)

Saturday 27 January 2023, Aman molli: Concert with Rebetiko Trio (Vangelis Hatzigiannis, Mirsini Athitaki, Eirini Zogali). The doors will open at 8pm, and music will start at 9 pm.

Aman molli and Joe’s Garage are hosting a music concert. Music Concert: From Athens to Corinth to Thessaloniki, from jam sessions to concerts to recitals, Mirsini, Eirini, and Vangelis come together as a trio, exploring the world of Rebetiko. Their performance features their favorite compositions from the pre-war and post-war eras, with the aim of resurrecting stories, sounds, and music from the Greek gramophone of the 20th century.

Vangelis Hatzigiannis: guitar, vocals
Mirsini Athitaki: vocals
Eirini Zogali: bouzouki, vocals