NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Credit Suisse is pleased to announce that it will open a Private Banking USA office in Philadelphia to serve the wealth management needs of the growing number of high-net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals in the region. The office will be headed by Richard Jaff?, who joins Credit Suisse as a Managing Director. The office opening is another example of Credit Suisse?s strategy to expand its presence in major US wealth markets. […] Credit Suisse is one of the world’s leading private banks, with a 150 year history of serving the unique needs of wealthy individuals. Private […]
NO KIDDING: Councilman Wants Rubber Sidewalks And An Octopus’ Garden In The Sky
Philadelphia, PA (AHN) – A member of the Philadelphia City Council says he will be holding hearings on a number of environmentally friendly city projects, one of them being making sidewalks out of rubber. City Councilman at large Jim Kenney said the rubber sidewalks, which are made from recycled tires, do not crack and will last longer than sidewalks made out of concrete. However, the new sidewalks won’t enable people to bounce — rather than walk — down the street. He said they rubber will be very solid. “It’s a very solid material,” he said, according to AP. “Probably harder […]
STUPOR BOWL: Purple Reign! Purple Reign!
BY ED KING ROCK SNOB In a wet, sloppy Super Bowl game that featured perhaps the greatest mismatch in quarterbacks, the unlikeliest of factors in football’s orgasmic finale came through: the Halftime Show, featuring Prince drenched in real, live purple rain and withstanding artificial lightning. I don’t recall when the Halftime Show as Cross-Generational, Cross-Marketing Rock Extravaganza began, but it’s always been a reason to bear witness to the last desperate breaths of rock legends (McCartney, The Rolling Stones), hate foreigners trying to upstage our national holiday (U2 and Bono’s American flag-lined leather jacket), or fully understand the impulses that […]
EDITORIAL: No Matter What Rush Limbaugh Is Talking About — Iraq, Football, Yummy Oxycontin — It Always Seems To Come Down To ‘How Scary Black People Are’
“We’re concerned with death here. We’re concerned with body counts. We’re concerned with the breakdown of law and order. [inaudible] Insurgencies, gangs, whatever you want to call them. They’re out of control in major American cities, and Philadelphia is just one example, and where are the hearings on this? Oh, I know. Senator [Joseph R.] Biden [D-DE] and Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-CA] are too busy trying to weaken the commander-in-chief so we can’t win the war in Iraq. They are not only invested in defeat, they can’t allow victory. They simp — politically, they cannot allow it. Four-hundred-and-six Philadelphians murdered […]
VIET-NOW: These Are People Who Died
[Click Image To Enlarge] In January more than 1,900 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed in the insurgency in Iraq, up from 800 in January 2006. Many corpses showed signs of torture, meaning the victims were probably killed by religious and tribal death squads. [Source New York Times] HORSEFEATHERS: Rush Limabaugh Compares Philly Murder Rate To Baghdad, Wonders Where The Outrage Is, Almost Like He Cares, Almost [Audio]
SMILE: The BEE GEES Were Cool Once…No Really
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER To rock boys coming of age in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the brothers Gibb were known primarily as the fey, toothy, Members Only-jacketed target of the Disco Sucks backlash that greeted the blockbuster sales and grating ubiquity of their Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. But unbeknownst to many, the Bee Gees also had an amazing career in the ’60s, creating deathless psychedelic-pop singles and ambitious album-length statements that explored complex themes and experimented with all manner of instrumentation and orchestral arrangements. Even back then, it was their harmonizing – as rich and distinct […]
THE FIVE SPOT BURNED DOWN
A four-alarm fire destroyed a well-known city nightclub yesterday morning, filling several blocks of Old City with thick black smoke and shutting down traffic in parts of the busy neighborhood for much of the day. At least one wall collapsed at the Five Spot – a complex of four buildings on narrow Bank Street just south of Market Street – and emergency workers were preparing last night to demolish another that looked unstable. Firefighters needed two hours to control the blaze after it was reported at 9:31 a.m., but they were still dousing the smoky ruins well into the afternoon. […]
FILM: ERASERHEAD NOW 1977-2007
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC By now, after 10 feature films, assorted shorts and TV’s weirdest nighttime soap, we have mapped many of the dark recesses of the psyche of writer/director David Lynch. We know just what provocations push his buttons. We can relax into a comfort zone now while Lynch unleashes his expected tropes — the bugs twitching underground, the violent sex, the ironic old pop songs, the flashes of gore and morphing identities. Yet somehow, despite his mannerisms becoming ever more familiar, the years have done little to dull the effect of Lynch’s debut masterpiece, 1977’s sleepwalking vision […]
“Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.” — RICHARD NIXON
PREVIOUSLY: A Once Mighty Nation Afraid Of Lite Brite
OBAMA TO MEDIA: STOP HURTING AMERICA
Illinois Senator Barack Obama made a plea for a positive campaign, insisting that the “reality tv show” mentality fed by the 24-hour news cycle is “not why we are here.” Describing America as being in a “sobering place” Obama said this is “not a contest; it is a serious moment for America. The American people understand that. Every candidate will have something serious and valuable to offer. Campaigns should not be about making each other look bad but about how we can offer something good for this precious country of ours. Our rivals won’t be each other or the other […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
DAYDREAM HIBERNATION: Grizzly Bear, Johnny Brendas, February 1, 2007 [FLICKR] EVA SAYS: When Grizzly Bear took stage at Johnny Brenda?s, they had all odds working against them- their stupid band name, the pretentiously hip crowd (spotting a member of Man Man in the mass, my friend swooned over the time the two of them used to spend together at the Last Drop. GAG!), and most distractingly, the suffocating veil of hype generated from Pitchfork. But last night they faced an even greater challenge, otherwise known as The Dirty Projectors, who had just finished playing one of the best live sets […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR WITH TERRY GROSS Cultural historian Christopher Frayling is the author of Once Upon A Time in Italy: The Westerns of Sergio Leone, a large-format, beautifully illustrated book that chronicles the history of the spaghetti western. Frayling tells the story of the movie genre and the iconic director through researched text and interviews with Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and Eli Wallach. Frayling is rector at London’s Royal College of Art and a professor of cultural history. He is also chair of the Arts Council of England. He’s known for his broadcast work on the BBC and has written more […]