BY EVA LIAO The first thing you learn about seeing Jon Stewart tape “The Daily Show” is that you have to wait — in line, for three hours to be exact — but it’s worth every tedious, snail-paced minute you spend in the Comedy Central queue. The vendor outside is making a killing selling overpriced hotdogs at $2.50 apiece (my friend and I, showing foresight, came prepared with a fifth of whiskey and a joint). Surprisingly, the crowd was not nearly as overwhelmingly white and college-y as we’d expected — though there were four Penn students representing — but unsurprisingly […]
WELCOME TO THE HOTEL VINCENT FUMO: You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But You Can Never Leave
PHILADELPHIA. If you’re looking for a new house, State Sen. Vince Fumo is trying to sell his Fairmount-area mansion. He may be asking almost $7 million, but you’ll save a ton in taxes. Philadelphia’s Board of Revision of Taxes has valued Fumo’s 29-room home at $250,000 for the past six years, just a fraction of his $6,995,000 asking price. The BRT has required Fumo to pay just $6,611 in real estate taxes each year, which according to tax advocate Brett Mandel is the most vivid picture of the problems with the city’s assessment process. “Even though thousands of people in […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR In the book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, neurologist Oliver Sacks explores the relationship between music and the mind.Through a series of case studies ranging from songs stuck in one’s mind to a newfound passion for concert piano after being struck by lightning, the professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the NYU School of Medicine examines the complexity of human beings and the role music plays in our lives. PLUS, The brother-sister duo Fiery Furnaces make wildly experimental music that’s as playful as it is unpredictable. Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, on […]
GAYBO: I Am Melting!…Melting!…Oh What A World!
BY TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR OK, I’m not sure if my Ramon rollercoaster has finally reached its zenith, or if turning 39 last week triggered some sort of desperate mid-life crisis, but I totally earned my Oscar nomination this week, complete with hyperventilating, a crying jag, and other assorted acts of anxiety. It all started at my family’s birthday party, replete with yelling and arguing between my sister and her husband. My niece dropped her cell phone in a booth at an Appleby’s and World War III erupted. Of course, the LAST place I want to eat on my birthday […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
O BROTHER, HERE ART THOU: REID BOYS REUNITED AT LAST Garrett Reid joined his brother Britt at the Montgomery County jail last night after he missed a court-ordered drug test. The eldest son of Eagles coach Andy Reid “failed to appear for a drug test that the probation and parole office demanded,” said Kevin Harley, spokesman for the state Attorney General’s Office. The tests are random and Reid is not given advance notice, said Harley. “It was a miscommunication,” said Ross Weiss, one of Garrett Reid’s attorneys. Weiss said that because his client is not permitted to drive, he must […]
KILLADELPHIA: 3 More Dead Since U Went 2 Bed
INQUIRER: Warminster police are looking for three men believed to have taken part in the killing of two people and the wounding of another at an apartment complex. “This is not a whodunit, it’s a where-are-they?” said chief Michael Murphy after SWAT operations at two locations failed to snare the suspects. Shortly before midnight, a gunfire erupted at the apartment of Mendez Thomas, 22, in the Bucks Landing Apartment Complex in the 100 block of East Street Road. Thomas was pronounced dead at the scene. Lisa Diaz, 27, was taken to Abington Hospital, where she died. Both had been shot […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Collateral Damage
Hello – Last week there was an unfortunate incident outside of The Starlight Ballroom during a private birthday party (not an R5 event). After a group of people left the venue once it was closed — two individuals began to fight over a woman. The argument escalated and security directed the two men to leave the block. Once they were across the street and down the block (away from security and a stationed police officer) — an individual produced a handgun and shot at the man who he was arguing with. Sgt Wilkins from the Philadelphia Police department has made […]
MAILBAG: The Royal Dressing Down
DEAR PHAWKER, At what age are snarky, dismissive film critics for online publications required to find a new schtick? Or is it acceptable for you characters to continue following the same script: praising early esoteric efforts from young directors, and then criticizing them for the same esotericness after their films have become more popular, because their later efforts fails to fulfill some abstract and ad hoc social contract to which you, in your infinite if largely uncredentialed expertise, choose to hold up films? This is, ostensibly, a movie review. And yet I learned precious little about the movie, and far […]
THE WAY WE WERE: When We Were Kings
During the Centennial year of 1876, Philadelphia was host to a celebration of 100 years of American cultural and industrial progress. Officially known as the “International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine,” the Centennial Exhibition, the first major World’s Fair to be held in the United States, opened on May 10, 1876 on a 285-acre tract of Fairmount Park overlooking the Schuylkill River. The fairgrounds, designed almost exclusively by 27-year-old German immigrant Hermann J. Schwarzmann, were host to 37 nations and countless industrial exhibits occupying over 250 individual pavilions. The Exhibition was immensely popular, drawing […]
THE EARLY WORD: OCTOBERFIST V
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NPR 4 THE DEAF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR As host of the NPR news quiz Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, Peter Sagal spends a lot of time reading the newspaper. Lately, though, he’s also spent many an hour going to strip joints, a swingers club, a porn-movie set and casinos — among other dens of what some call iniquity. All research, of course, for his new project, The Book of Vice. He wanted to get a perspective on the indulgences of others, and report back to the rest of us. RADIO TIMES Hour 1 Is Afghanistan‘s government becoming paralyzed by corruption? We’ll talk with ANDREW WILDER […]
JUNK SCI: Offering A ‘Burning Man’ A Drink Of Water
BY ELIZABETH FIEND They burn a pony, not a man. The vibe is chill, not hot. I was trying to describe the difference between Burning Man, which by now every one knows about, and Playa del Fuego, which is still pretty much a secret, to my Burning Man campmates last year, who would be coming to PDF for the first time.) PDF is the mid-Atlantic regional “burn” – one of the many regional off-shoots of Burning Man. Playa del Fuego is nothing and everything like Burning Man. Held in not-so remote Odessa, Delaware, PDF is a four-day campout with a […]
LOU REED & JOHN CALE: Heroin
Heroin, Lou Reed & John Cale Add to My Profile | More Videos