INQUIRER: [W]ith the opening on Friday of “R. Crumb’s Underground” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Philadelphia-born artist’s obsessions — collecting old-time blues and country 78s, riding piggy-back on powerfully built women, and forever depicting, as he has put it, “the seamy side of America’s subconscious” — will be on full display in the ICA gallery at the University of Pennsylvania through Dec. 7. The exhibition, which originated at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in 2007, is the largest ever mounted in the United States on the 65-year-old Crumb, who created the 1960s counterculture […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Citizen Mom Gets A Job
Hey folks, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always felt like the year really starts in September. My school days are far behind me, but this time of year always feels like the beginning of something. To that end, I want to let you know about my new venture, a column for the Philadelphia City Paper. It debuts with the Sept. 4 issue (that’s Thursday, for any of you suffering Monday-holiday discombobulation) so please pick up a copy or look for it on www.citypaper.net . The plan is for the column to run weekly, and not many subjects will […]
FRINGE REVIEWS: Store; Waiting For the Show
BY AARON STELLA FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Two men gussied up in tweed suits and hard-soled shoes manage the day long showcasing of The Store. As you enter The Store, you are handed a menu — much like what you would be given at a restaurant — complete with specials and other various delicacies. But instead of food, art is today’s special. Michikuza Matsune and David Subal, creators of The Store, will be your “servers”, and they are capable of accommodating a diversity of artistic tastes. When you want to “order” something, you settle up the bill first (ranging between $0.75-5.00) and […]
VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: Town Without Pity II
BY JEFF DEENEY The memorial standing at the intersection of Green Street and McIlvain on Chester’s Eastside was erected to commemorate the anniversary of 19 year old John Strand’s death. Strand was shot in the chest after a street corner confrontation in the early evening of August the 7th, 2007 and died on the sidewalk as paramedics attempted to resuscitate him. I found Strand’s memorial while en route to the site of another homicide that just happened two blocks away. A piece of white poster board including loving messages from Strand’s mother, brother and other friends and family was propped […]
FRINGE PICKS: European Sons
9/2: The European Lesson Fake anthropologists, real Slovaks, serious drama: The European Lesson is dance, theater, and adultery at its finest. The Live Arts Festival presents a world premiere by internationally acclaimed Norwegian director/choreographer Jo Strømgren (The Convent, Live Arts 2006), created in residency with five acclaimed Philadelphia actors. The European Lesson features Strømgren’s comedic, pseudo-realistic, and highly physical style of theater in a mock anthropological lecture that examines the ocean of misunderstanding that separates Europe and the Americas. MORE Beyond the Pale/Soundwalk Philadelphia Let an audio track usurp your every day consciousness as it guides you through heaven […]
GOP: Is It OK To Be Dicks Again?
KEYSTONE PACHYDERM: Pennsylvania Delegation, RNC, Chicago, 1912 THE CAUCUS: It took resources, coordination and lots of volunteers, but the McCain campaign managed to push back the dreaded split-screen between St. Paul and Hurricane Gustav and save the Republican convention from a flood of bad Katrina memories. Organizers turned the political event into a pageant of penance and patriotic redemption, a chance to don sackcloth and ashes and get the disaster relief effort right this time. Viewers did not see Republican fat cats in limos or delegates in funny hats knocking back shots. In a convention hall so solemnly lighted it […]
FREE THE PRESS: Democracy Now! Host Amy Goodman Arrested By Stormtroopers At RNC
WHITE RIOT: Battle-ready Minneapolis Police jealously guard toy store. [Photo via NEWSHOUR] ST. PAUL, MN — Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen [below]. Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfully detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s […]
RIP: Edwin Guthman, Ex-Inquirer Editor, Bobby Kennedy Press Sec. & Nixon ‘Enemy’, Dead At 89
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Edwin O. Guthman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who was on the infamous “enemies list” prepared by aides of President Richard Nixon and who served as press secretary to Robert F. Kennedy, has died at 89. Guthman was the Los Angeles Times’ national editor from 1965 to 1977, then served for a decade as editorial page editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 1950 for his stories in The Seattle Times on the Washington Legislature’s Un-American Activities Committee. His reporting cleared a University of Washington professor of allegations that he was […]
BIG TENT: The Knocked Up Teens Of Pro-Life Mothers
REUTERS: The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child. Bristol Palin, one of Alaska Gov. Palin’s five children with her husband, Todd, is about five months pregnant and is going to keep the child and marry the father, the Palins said in a statement released by the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Bristol Palin made the decision on her own to keep the baby, McCain aides said. […]
RETURN OF THE EVIL EMPIRE: Anti-Kremlin Blogger Gets Bullet In The Head From Russian Police
WASHINGTON POST: MOSCOW, Aug. 31 — A leading opposition figure in Russia’s volatile Ingushetia province was shot and killed Sunday after being detained by police, authorities said. His colleagues issued a call for protests in response, and human rights groups demanded an investigation. Magomed Yevloyev [pictured, right], a businessman and the owner of a Web site that angered Kremlin-backed local leaders with its coverage of official corruption and police abuse, suffered a gunshot wound to his head while in a police car taking him to a station for interrogation, a spokesman for the Russian prosecutor’s office told the Interfax news […]
All This Happened While You Were Sleeping
WITH APOLOGIES TO ANDY WARHOL: Live Forever, The Barbary Last Night [Photos by TIFFANY YOON]