Book Cemetery

The End of Books

Warsaw second-hand booksellers have raised the alarm that as many as a few hundred thousand books will soon be trashed. Help save them and take home as many as you can. On 30^th November the opening of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books (Cmentarzysko Zapomnianych Książek) will take place in the University of Warsaw Library. The Cemetery is actually a second-hand bookshop where you do not buy books but take them and give them a new home. The number of volumes exceeds 30,000. This extraordinary way of selling books is a response by Warsaw second-hand booksellers to poor readership and the situation on the ailing book market. “New titles and authors die everyday and we are witnessing this sad process,” says Waldemar Szatanek, the man behind the campaign.

There are thousands of books in second-hand bookshops which no one asks for and then there is the problem of what to do with them. “Neither customers nor libraries want them. Should we throw them out? Recycle? This is sacrilege for every bookseller and book lover,” explains Szatanek. The problem with unwanted books has been growing in the last few months. People leave whole collections of used books in second-hand bookshops “Surprisingly, the motivation behind this is not the money they get but simply the need to dispose of the books. Our customers tell us that they feel bad about throwing books away so they bring them here. Unfortunately we are the ones who have to do it because there is no room to store them. We are becoming undertakers,” says Grzegorz Cielecki, a second-hand bookseller from Warsaw. As the vast majority of booksellers in the capital experience the same problem, some of them decided to save a few hundred thousand books from being thrown out. Hence, an idea emerged to create the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. The books are for free but you have to pay to enter the Cemetery. Once you are there you will receive a bag, which you can fill with as many items as you want. There are 5 crypts in the Cemetery ranging from history and poetry to fiction and entertainment. For more information on opening times and entry fees click here.
tvnwarszawa.pl

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Super Beth Concert

Super Hero?

The only things missing during Saturday’s concert of American group Gossip at the Palladium Club were tickets. On the other hand, great music and a crowd of fans going crazy was clearly visible. It was without question one of the best Warsaw concerts of 2009. Clad in a black, tight-fitting outfit, with flame-red hair and a rainbow-flag cape tied around her neck which she received from one of the fans, Beth Ditto of Gossip looked like a super hero straight out of a comic book. Her energy was contagious. Just a few minutes into the concert a few hundred fans were dancing, singing, jumping and going into a frenzy – numerous beer-filled plastic cups shot up into the air after Ditto’s broken Polish “Na zdrowie!” The performance started with Dimestore Diamond, a simple song off Gossip’s latest album Music for Men, released in 2009. Other songs soon followed: the bass-filled Heavy Cross, Love Long Distance, and punk soul Men in Love. Fans of older hits such as Listen Up did not have to wait long to hear their favourites. Gossip exploded onto the music scene a few years ago on a mission to prove that a star performer does not have to be anorexic or look like a walking advertisement for a plastic surgery clinic. Gossip are long-time advocates for the rights of feminists and homosexuals and firmly believe that being natural is a quality their fans have come to respect and admire. Ditto is approachable and always keen either to jump into the crowd or invite fans to join her on the stage. And when she is not singing, she talks to fans and jokes with them wanting them to enjoy her show to the fullest. The concert ended with Queen’s We Are The Champions. Ditto waved and quickly disappeared… only to return a short while after singing with fans in front of the club’s entrance. Hardly typical behaviour for a star but then Beth Ditto is a super hero and can do whatever she pleases.
Gazeta Wyborcza

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Warsaw Citizens Like Halloween

Polish Tradition?

Ghosts, vampires and skeletons were having fun all over the city. A few years ago Halloween evoked extreme opinions – the advocates of the Polish tradition perceived it as profanation of All Saints Day. Today it is popular and night parties do not interfere with celebrating the Polish tradition. “These two holidays do not rule out each other,” says Filip, an artist who went to a Saturday party in Warsaw. Halloween costumes were not obligatory but those who dressed up, got a discount at the entrance. Although it is cheap to buy a werewolf mask, Joanna prepared her own zombie make-up, which took her two hours to make. Some people decided not to dress up. “I have a great Halloween Red Riding Hood costume, but I did not put it on tonight. I thought that not many people would be dressed up,” said Bianca from London, whose eye was bleeding. The next day, those same club-goers went to visit cemeteries in their casual clothes. “I do not have any family members buried in Warsaw, but I want to visit my favourite writer’s grave. I do it every year,” says Jacek Meler, who also partied on Saturday. Warsaw citizens treat Halloween as a fancy-dress ball. However, the trick-or-treat tradition has not caught on in Poland. American children walk around their neighbourhoods collecting sweets; Polish children stay in bed. “I did not prepare any sweets and nobody knocked at my door anyway,” says Helena. “My children and I celebrate the traditional Polish holiday, not some monsters. It has always been like this and we will stick to it.”
Gazeta Wyborcza

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Doda Dumped

Doda the Antichrist?

Polish National Television (TVP) has decided to cut short its contract with controversial singer Doda. According to the TV station, Doda (real name Dorota Rabczewska) may have hurt the feelings of Christians with her comments about the Bible. Doda recently claimed that “it is difficult to believe something (the Bible: editor’s note) written by someone drunk on wine and high on weed”. TVP released a statement saying that “due to the fact that we are a public station we are obliged by law to undertake such action that helps promote respect between people of different faiths”. Wojciech Bosak of the TVP board claims, “It is impossible for people who insult Christians to appear on TVP”. Doda will therefore not be appearing in Bydgoszcz on the 23rd August as part of TVP’s “Hity na czasie” concert.
Wirtualna Polska

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Top Gear – Top Gaffe

Not Helping

The Polish Embassy in London has taken action against a spoof TV commercial aired on the BBC programme Top Gear. The advert caused quite a stir when the host, Jeremy Clarkson, presented his spoof of a German Volkswagen ad. The showman ridiculed the German invasion of Poland. The Polish Embassy, however, did not approve of this ‘joke’. Yesterday the Embassy submitted a letter to the BBC, though no reply has yet been given. “We do understand the convention of this show in which different nations are laughed at but this time the context of the spot, the Nazi German invasion of Poland, is not an appropriate way of entertaining the audience,” stated Robert Szaniawski from the Embassy. The commercial took the form of a TV news piece. It shows panic-stricken Polish people thronging into trains and fleeing the country because of the Nazi invasion. At the end of the advert we see the VW and the slogan “Berlin to Warsaw in one tank”.
Dziennik

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Jazzy Warsaw

Warsaw Jazz

Warsaw Summer Jazz Days (from 30 June to 8 July 2009) began with the performances of the legendary Art Ensemble Of Chicago, the Wadady Leo Smith Quartet and the World Saxophone Quartet. There is  more to come. We will have the chance to listen to exquisite singers such as Dianne Reeves, Angelique Kidjo, Lizz Wright and Liza Celeste Stroud singing Nina Simone’s compositions. This year, Mariusz Adamiak’s Concert Agency have organised three big events in the Congress Hall in Warsaw. After Wednesday evening with  African-American stage veterans from Chicago, jazz fans will have the opportunity to take part in a gala concert on Thursday and on Friday John Zorna, the New York saxophonist, will perform with Anthony Braxton and Bill Laswell. Some smaller concerts will also take place in Powiększenie and Królikarnia. On July 8, Tymon Tymański and the trumpet player Dave Douglas will give a concert. Randy Brecker and the Symphony Orchestra of the Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra in Białystok are to perform Włodek Pawlik’s jazz suite. As Mariusz Adamiak said on Wednesday about the Afro-American performance, “the concert was not a commercial success but it was most certainly a musical one”.
Dziennik

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Extra Issue of Wprost

New Face

According to information obtained by Rzeczpospolita, the publisher of Wprost, the weekly magazine, is working on a ‘lighter’ version of a second edition. The magazine, to be named Wprost lajt would come out on Thursdays and its role would be to reduce the number of pages in the main weekly which appears in the news-stands every Monday. According to preliminary plans, the new magazine will make its début at the end of May. “It will focus on life style, but it will not be a tabloid,” assures one of the managers of the publishing company. Katarzyna Kozłowska, deputy editor-in-chief of Wprost, who is responsible for the latest changes in the weekly magazine did not want to comment on this news. Also Stanisław Janecki, the editor-in-chief of Wprost, neither confirms nor denies this. “We are working on various projects most of which are planned for the autumn-winter period such as supplements, collections, special editions and the such like. However, no decisions have yet been made with regard to any of these propositions,” says Amadeusz Król, chairman of the AWR Wprost. According to the Polish Association of the Control of Press Distribution (ZKDP), in February the average sale of Wprost, the so-called total paid circulation, amounted to 111,900 copies, which means 1.7% more than the previous year. The competition, such as Polityka in February sold the same amount as the year before, that is 150,700 copies, whilst Newsweek Polska sold 102,800 copies, which is 15.2% less than last year.
Rzeczpospolita

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Polański’s Case to Continue?

Polański Problems

Roman Polański is not going to appear in court in Los Angeles, although his appearance was the condition imposed by an American judge for the reconsideration of the abrogation of legal proceedings against him. In 1977, Polański was accused of raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer, prior to which he allegedly plied the girl with alcohol and drugs. The director admitted to having sex with the girl but claimed that everything happened with her consent. Polański was released from jail after having paid bail. He left the US in order to avoid a trial. In December 2008, Polański’s lawyers prepared a petition for the dismissal of the charges. They argued that the trial in 1977 was marked by negligence. Los Angeles judge Peter Espinoza decided the Polish director has to appear in front of the American court in order for the petition to be considered. Polański does not intend to appear in the US, as can be concluded from the documents enclosed by his lawyer Chad Hummel, who claims that Polański’s presence is not necessary for establishing whether the trial in 1977 was conducted with due respect to the constitutional rights of the director or not. He also noted that by refusing to abrogate the proceedings, the American judge acts against the will of the victim who already admitted that everything that happened, happened with her consent. Samantha Geimer has asked the court on numerous occasions to exonerate the director, but to no avail. The most recent documentary on Polański’s life entitled “Roman Polański: Wanted and Desired” disclosed new details concerning the case. It seems that the then judge leading the case, Laurence J. Rittenband (who died in 1993) intended to sentence the director in order to gain publicity.
tvn24.pl

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Boruc – a Party Guy

Clowing Around

Artur Boruc is not letting the public forget about him. He is attracting people’s attention with his unbelievable behaviour. Celtic’s goalkeeper threw a party in his luxury mansion and invited plenty of friends but instead of partying with them he spent all night in the company of a half naked woman. What’s more the mysterious woman was not Sara Mannei, Boruc’s beloved. It seems that Mannei was not invited to the party as she was not present among the guests. The whole party started at the casino, where Boruc met Nicole Cochrane. To begin with Boruc was flirting with the girl but after a while he invited her and the rest of her friends to his 7-million-pound mansion. When the guests arrived at Boruc’s house all of them had to give the bodyguard their mobiles after which they were “given a tour” of the mansion. Artur showed his guests the private cinema and the female guests were able to admire Boruc’s lover’s clothes and jewellery. Later, Boruc appeared wearing only trousers and his new girlfriend was wearing his Celtic T-shirt only. However, Cochrane ensures the public that Sara Mannei has nothing to worry about because nothing happened between her and the Polish goalkeeper.
Dziennik

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Bruce Willis – New Face of Polish Vodka

Vodka Face

Bruce Willis, the American action movie actor, will advertise Polish vodka for a mere $16 m. Willis tested the alcoholic beverage in person before signing the contract. “I choose products with which I want to be associated very carefully,” said Willis. The high quality and the reasonable price of Polish vodka made a very good impression on the actor. Bruce  Willis will take part not only in advertisements of vodka but also in a promotional campaign in Europe and China. “We are very pleased that we will be working with Bruce Willis,” said Krzysztof Tryliński, head of Belvedere Group, in an interview with bankier.pl. “When we thought about who would be the best icon of Sobieski vodka, we at once chose Bruce Willis. He has achieved exceptional success and at the same time he is an original and unique actor with a real personality.” Willis’s co-operation with Belvedere Group, the owner of the Sobieski brand, will last four years.
Dziennik

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