Emilia Brahm

Leisure

Under the Covers: Goldfinch soars beautifully

On Oct. 12, 1654, the munitions factory in Delft exploded. More than a quarter of the city was destroyed and there were countless victims, among them the painter Fabritius—Rembrandt’s student,... Read more

By February 6, 2014

Leisure

Iranian festival gives Persian films exposure they deserve

The Iranian Moral Police scan the crowds for inappropriate glimpses of skin or too much hair showing under a woman’s corruptingly colorful scarf. To elude their gaze, people wait until... Read more

By January 23, 2014

Leisure

Under the Covers: Narcoland prosecutes drug war

Early in January, 20 men dressed in uniforms of the Mexican Federal Police force and armed with AK-47s blocked off Anabel Hernández’s street in a quiet neighborhood of Mexico City.... Read more

By January 23, 2014

Leisure

Bridging the Gibraltar, Catch 15 hits DC

A sensational mix of Spanish and Moroccan, the Mediterranean wares of Catch 15 will hook the most elegant of tastes. You can find it just a block from the Farragut... Read more

By January 16, 2014

Leisure

Under the Covers: De la Pava in the buff

Just like all evocative art, really amazing books are impossible to describe. One of those novels is A Naked Singularity, the story of Casi, a 20-year old public defender who... Read more

By December 5, 2013

Leisure

Under the Covers: A View to Kill: Reading Bond

In a conversation about celebrity crushes this week, I guiltily admitted my lifelong infatuation with James Bond (Sean Connery being the pinnacle of all 007s, of course). While I’m a big fan of spy and political thriller movies, I hadn’t attempted the written versions of Bond’s glamorous trysts and travels. So I sat down with From Russia With Love, Ian Fleming’s seminal Bond classic. I expected a fun, quick read, but wasn’t expecting to get as swept up as I did. Just like the Bond films, the novel was fun, shallow, shiny and alluring, full of expensive alcohol, watches and cars, 60s misogyny and blatant sexuality, and scant political correctness—and, guiltily, I lapped it up.

By November 14, 2013

Leisure

Under the Covers: Giving voice to poetry

I attended a reading by prolific contemporary poets C.K. Williams and Stanley Plumly at the Folger Shakespeare Library this Monday, and I was scared. I know nothing about poetry, and, aside from the very little I read in high school English class, I have never branched into the genre. I, like some other nervous readers comfortable in their familiar prose, have avoided meter for far too long.

By October 31, 2013

Leisure

Nomadic brings Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to life

“Who are we when nobody is watching?” goes the director’s tagline for Nomadic Theater’s production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a post-absurdist play by Tom Stoppard. Director Kathleen Joyce (COL ‘15) notes that, “We live a fundamentally absurd existence with rules that don’t make sense. … Post-absurdism says ‘How can we live our lives under those assumptions? How can we be sane and happy given the chaotic universe that we live in?’”

By October 24, 2013

Leisure

Mask & Bauble plays with Woody Allen

Don’t Drink the Water, Woody Allen’s Cold War farce set in the American Embassy of an unnamed country behind the Iron Curtain, first hit stages in 1966. This midterm season, from Oct. 17 to 26, Mask & Bauble’s adaptation succeeds in bringing the script’s comic relief alive for harried students. Its madcap ensemble includes a magician priest, three tourists from New Jersey running from the communist police, and the fumbling son of a famous diplomat, protagonist Axel Magee. When Axel’s father puts him in charge of a short trip, chaos ensues—Woody Allen style.

By October 17, 2013

Leisure

Under the Covers: When coming out is a crime

Born in 1973, Abdellah Taia is the first openly-gay Moroccan author to address the gay scene in North Africa. During OUTober, a celebration of LGBTQ culture here at Georgetown, I saw a friend post on Facebook about Taia’s new movie Salvation Army, an adaptation of the eponymous novel featuring a young, gay Moroccan boy.

By October 17, 2013