Christina Bahrt and Jawhara Edwards, who make up the multi-talented duo Eye of Isis, entertained its New Deal Café audience on Sunday with a blend of Middle Eastern dance, folk music, world beat, early opera, and some intriguing covers of familiar pop tunes. An eclectic time was had by all.

Generally I celebrate living in a community planned for moderate-income workers, that is characterized by efficient living and walkability and promotes independence and sustainability. But just as physicists contemplate the nature of antimatter, I wonder about Greenbelt’s diametric opposite. "Downton Abbey," created by the devious and witty Julian Fellowes, who wrote the script for the 2001 Robert Altman whodunit, "Gosford Park," is part social history lesson and part high-class soap opera, with a dash of acerbic bon mots, delivered by the incomparable Dame Maggie Smith as Dowager Countess …

For those who don’t celebrate or aren’t “dashing through the snow” to visit family on Christmas Day, there is always the old standby of Chinese food—or Indian food—and a movie. You can always brave the movie theaters — the American version of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" opens Christmas week — but if you’d rather hunker down with takeout and Netflix, and still keep a little of the seasonal spirit (don’t expect much of that from "Dragon Tattoo"), there are so many holiday movies to choose from. The problem with so many of the classics though is that while they are feel-good movies, they can …

A random bunch of Wraggle Taggle gypsies-O singers, musicians, and people seeking fun gathered at the New Deal Café recently, practiced a carol or two for the regulars, and set out to share holiday cheer—or anarchic caroling—with friends and neighbors. This band hardly resembled the prim little clusters of holiday carolers depicted on Christmas cards and album covers. Rather they brought the motley, joyful spirit of medieval revelers and minstrels—complete with a Lord of Misrule decked with lights and bells—to Greenbelt. The group danced and pranced and jingle-belled its way across most of …

I have the highest admiration for those prolific holiday bakers who can turn out batch after batch of tasty cookies. But for those who don't fit the mold, there's the cookie swap. The mother of a former boss used to supply our entire office with numerous tins of magical, marvelous cookies that she would start baking over the Thanksgiving weekend. The tins would sit on a file cabinet outside my boss’s office, and people would find excuses to stop by all day long, help themselves, and converse. It was a nice holiday tradition, and it brought the office together in those early December days, …

It’s easy to get lost in the holiday abundance — parties, gift exchanges, trees and homes festooned with glittering lights, and shops overflowing with goods! The Greenbelt Museum marks the season as well, with an opportunity to time-travel to a different sort of holiday—when the home front mobilized to support the nation’s war effort. Unlike our current conflicts, the Second World War directly affected civilians with the rationing of food and manufactured goods. Today’s holiday excess simply wasn’t possible then. The Greenbelt Museum exhibit — a 1940s home during the holidays — shows this …

Crablike creatures — menacing, yet oddly endearing — scuttle across a devastated wasteland, clicking their prehensile wire pincers and waving their television aerial antennae. Plastic-bodied pterodactyls with goose-necked desk lamp heads and wings of wooden slats streak across the ceiling in startled flight. Three-dimensional landscapes — evoking vast industrial complexes seen from an airplane window — of motherboards and computer innards are stitched together with leather and suede to make giant uncozy quilts. These scenes are not the dystopian vision of a science-fiction writer or a …

Once again, the holiday shopping frenzy approaches. This year, avoid crowded parking lots, Black Friday crack-of-dawn queues, and big box retailers hawking cheap goods made in China! Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping preaches avoidance of overconsumption and consumer debt. But if you don’t feel like giving up giving tokens of affection during the holidays, there are some environmentally lower impact and spiritually more satisfying ways to do so: Make it yourself: While veteran crafters probably have been working steadily since Labor Day, there’s still time to make a few special gifts…

Why is a raven like a writing desk? "Alice in Wonderland," playing at the Greenbelt Arts Center, conceived by Andre Gregory’s Manhattan Project and directed by Betsy Marks Delaney, teases, tantalizes and poses—but doesn’t answer—this and other eternal riddles. This Alice is one for the grownups—and maybe older children and teenagers. The cute Disney creatures and the wacky, soulful human dolls of Tim Burton’s recent reinvention have given way to a cadre of somewhat menacing and ever-so-slightly-scruffy countercultural street performers, who wring double entendres and political commentary out …

Now in its seventh year, the Utopia Film Festival is broadening its reach, while still retaining its intimate vision, Chris Haley, festival director, said. Haley took a moment out of his schedule during the festival this weekend to talk with Patch at the New Deal Cafe. In his sixth year directing Utopia, he credits the all-volunteer festival’s appeal to its offering a venue where film buffs, filmmakers and community members can view independent films and talk with the directors and producers. Mark Stenson, who submitted a film to last year’s festival and writes movie reviews for Patch, …

A glamorous gathering in a New York-style warehouse loft, cat-fighting reality show contestants, and “sneak peaks” at original dance theater pieces aren’t usually events associated with Greenbelt, Maryland. But they are when you are talking about alight dance theater's October preview party for their new work, "Truth Be Told," premiering in DC and Greenbelt in early 2012. And what a party! The Union Avenue warehouse, now converted into a loft, with its exposed structural fixtures, white painted walls, and quirky art installations, seemed more suited to Tribeca than Baltimore’s Hampden-…

Brian Choper, percussionist and manager of the New Klezmer Quintet, opened their concert at Greenbelt’s Mishkan Torah synagogue pledging that the audience would take a “roller coaster ride.” The ensemble made good on that promise! This rollercoaster was capable of time travel—with a program that originated in Eastern Europe’s shtetls, crossed the ocean with immigrants, and landed in early twentieth-century New York. It then picked up some 1920s jazz and, before the evening was over, made stops in Appalachia, an Israeli kibbutz, and a 1960s rock festival. Such was the group’s mastery of genres…

Paul Klee, the famous Swiss-German expressionist painter, once described drawing as “taking a line for a walk.” This aptly describes the art of another Paul—local artist Paul Downs. Only the lines that Downs works with are formed from branches and sticks, and he literally takes a walk to gather his “palette” from Greenbelt’s woodlands and gardens. Downs takes forgotten, ignored, or mundane natural materials and creates images that are both whimsical and stunning. Sticks, moss and grasses are transformed into a miniature landscape of a train crossing a bridge, with a plume of curly wisteria …

There’s no better end to a long work week than a Friday night spent with Cold Hard Cash — the men in black who sing Johnny Cash and other country hits. These local favorites were back on the New Deal stage after a triumphant performance at the 2011 Greenbelt Labor Day Festival. The Johnny Cash tribute band opened with “Folsom Prison Blues,” its background bass line sounding like a chugging train. This was quickly followed by another Cash rockabilly hit, “Get Rhythm.” Lead singer Rob Petrie introduced the next song with, “One Piece at a Time,” an amusing story about a man from Kentucky, …