TIP OF THE ICEBERG: Northeastern detail, CLICK HERE to see full map. FROM the 1880s to the 1960s, at least 4,700 men and women were lynched in this country. The noose remains a terrifying symbol, and continues to be used by racists to intimidate African-Americans (who made up more than 70 percent of lynching victims). In the past decade or so, only about a dozen noose incidents a year came to the attention of civil rights groups. But since the huge Sept. 20 rally in Jena, La., where tens of thousands protested what they saw as racism in the prosecution […]
QUESTION THE PARKING AUTHORITY: GOP Got Paid
INQUIRER: Though the Philadelphia Parking Authority has fallen short in its promised funding for city schools, it certainly has been a boon for the Philadelphia Republican Party. Authority employees and consultants have contributed at least $214,000 to the Republican City Committee since 2001, according to an Inquirer analysis of campaign finance data. The contributions this year have reached at least $33,210, or more than 14 percent of the party’s total. Those figures don’t include money that those same employees and contractors have given to top Republican ward leaders, who happen to run the Parking Authority. MORE
KILLADELPHIA: 3 More Dead Since U Went To Bed
University of Pennsylvania police early Monday morning shot and killed a man accused of shooting a disc jockey at a strip club near the Penn campus, according to Philadelphia police. A campus police officer shot the alleged gunman after the DJ was shot inside Club Wizzards located below Chili’s restaurant at 38th and Chestnut Street, a homicide detective said. Campus police shot the alleged gunman in the chest at about 12:14 a.m. outside of Chili’s as he ran away. Authorities say University of Pennsylvania police were called to a report of a fight at the strip club. As police arrived […]
WE KNOW IT’S ONLY ROCK N’ ROLL BUT WE LIKE IT
GOD + WEEN + SATAN = THE ONENESS: Ween, Tower Theater, Last Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER They say actors are the ultimate existential heroes because they get to live multiple lives, while the rest of us have to settle for just one. Similarly, there is something heroic about Ween’s 23-year quest for the ultimate buzz, musical or otherwise, and their Zelig-like ability to utterly inhabit any genre they choose — shit-kicker country, dirtball metal, gold chain disco, hobbit-hole psychedelia, even fern-bar kool jazz — while simultaneously satirizing it for your protection. The new La Cucaracha, the 11th […]
MEDIA: When Is A Hamster Just A Hamster?
Last Monday, we called foul on PW’s Holiday Guide cover depicting vermin dressed up as an orthodox Jew. PAPERBOY EXTRA: Separated At Birth? Bad ideas have a way of making friends in low places, but shit like this shoulda never made it up the ladder. The image on the right is easy enough to find, just Google “rats” and “Jews”; the image on the left is the cover of this week’s PW. Frankly, we think it should have been the euthanized before it got beyond “Hey, what if we…” stage. Given the long and well-documented history of vicious anti-Semites — […]
BRIDGE TO NOWHERE: The Ben Takes Two Sisters
BY DAVE DAVIES OF THE DAILY NEWS Two women who were killed in a four-vehicle crash that forced the shutdown of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge late Thanksgiving night were identified yesterday as elderly sisters who lived on opposite sides of the bridge. Seven others were hurt in the accident, which occurred in the eastbound lanes at about 10:40 p.m. according to Danelle Hunter, spokeswoman for the Delaware River Port Authority which operates the bridge. Traffic was closed in the eastbound lanes until 1:45 a.m. and in the westbound lanes for close to an hour, Hunter said. Neighbors identified the two […]
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: Reads “The Raven”
By Edgar Allan Poe.
HEAR YE: Tegan & Sara The Con
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO 5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TEGAN & SARA AT THE C.B.A.C. 1. The Commerce Bank Arts Center is actually a really rich-looking high school with a fancy auditorium in Sewell, New Jersey — run entirely by soccer moms who have trouble calculating seat numbers with their rows. 2. Tegan and Sara do not really have the same hair cut and even though they are lesbians identical twins, they don’t really look that lesbian alike, or for that matter, like they are trying to look lesbian alike. And while we’re still on hair, if you […]
CINEMA: The Mystery Tramp
I’M NOT THERE (2007, directed by Todd Haynes, 135 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I’m Not There feel like a masters’ thesis on the themes that director Todd Haynes has been exploring for the last 20 years: the symbiotic relationship of image and identity, celebrity and anonymity; the porous borderlands of gender and sexuality and extending the outer limits of cinema’s artistic reach. With 1987’s Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story Haynes treated the bland exteriors of The Carpenters’ muzak-y cheese as a blank canvas and with 1998’s Velvet Goldmine he re-cast London in the Glam Rock 70s as […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR The Graduate turns 40. Terry interviews Dustin Hoffman, director Mike Nichols, Buck Henry, and Anne Bancroft. Like so many other students, Benjamin Braddock can often be found in the library. He’s been there since 1963, in the Fiction section, filed under ‘W.’ That year, Charles Webb published the novel that Hollywood producer Lawrence Turman would read about in The New York Times. Turman found a copy of The Graduate, and thought highly enough of the story that he made a movie he considered to be 90-percent faithful to the book. But Turman and director Mike Nichols made one […]