INQUIRER: In the tight rowhouse streets of North Philadelphia, people share walls and worries. Few outsiders see, know or feel the cycle of want and chaos that a week of privation creates. To show what life north of Spring Garden Street looks like to some of the people who live there, Mariana Chilton, a professor and anthropologist at Drexel University’s School of Public Health, gave digital cameras to 40 women. Out of a simple idea, complex images and narratives emerge. An exhibit of the photos, called Witnesses to Hunger, will open to the public Dec. 11 at Drexel’s Bossone Center. […]
WORTH REPEATING: To Live And Die In Mumbai
BY SUKETU MEHTA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness. Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim […]
KILLADELPHIA: 1 More Dead Since You Went To Bed
INQUIRER: Police found the body of an unidentified man inside a parked car North Philadelphia shortly after 12 a.m. today. The man, who was shot in the left chest area and the arm, was discovered in the 4600 block of North 16th Street, police said. He was pronounced dead at Einstein Medical Center. The investigation is continuing and no other details were available. MORE ALSO: A man who was carjacked in Hunting Parkon Friday remained in Temple University Hospital in serious condition today with a single gunshot wound to his buttocks, according to city police information officer Christine O’Brien. The […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
I’M RICK JAMES, BITCH: : King Khan & The BBQ, Johnny Brendas, Last Night BY TIFFANY YOON I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Love City, the opener for Johnny Brenda’s Black Friday show, but unfortunately, I missed their set, which is supposed to pull influences from psychedelic 70’s punk, 90’s grunge and 80’s new wave. I did catch some words with the bass player Patrick outside, and he said they had some technical difficulties anyways. He seemed pretty upset, and to top it off Jamie, the lead of Love City, walked by looking miserable and fairly wasted […]
BOOKS: Death Of A Salesman
INQUIRER: Robin’s Book Store, a favorite haunt of the Philadelphia’s literati, announced last week that this will be its last holiday season. It will be closing up shop at the end of January. Early this afternoon there were a handful of customers at the store. The customers appeared surprised at the store’s demise. The city’s oldest independent book seller, Robin’s has long hosted poetry readings and autograph signings at 108 S. 13th Street. “Operating a books store was always a better hoppy than a way to make a living, but now it’s impossible” writes Larry Robin in a news release. […]
GUNCRAZY: Woman Shot In Old City Bar
INQUIRER: A 26-year old woman was shot in the leg inside an Old City nightclub this morning, police said. At 1:20 a.m., police responded to a shooting inside CEBU in the 100 block of Chestnut Street, police said. The victim had been shot in the lower right shin. The woman was taken to Jefferson University Hospital where she was listed in stable condition. No arrests were reported. MORE
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
The White Album Listening Party DAVID SREBNIK: “The White Album Listening Party: Revisiting The Beatles’ Top-Seller” celebrates the 40th anniversary (Nov. 22, 1968) of the release of the Beatles scary-new, scary-wonderful, scary-ambitious new recording. The “Listening Party” puts the Beatles White Album in the center of a circle of non celebrity, smart, non-fanatic, well-spoken and knowledgeable Beatles experts, who share their memories, opinions and stories behind the stories and the recording. The discussion proceeds by track order, usually two tracks at a time, followed by both songs. Almost each segue from discussion to music generates both a musical “AHA” moment.It […]
INDIA 9/11: Murder & Mayhem In Mumbai, Gunmen Kill 172, 370 Wounded, Americans And Brits Targeted
UPDATE: A team of FBI agents was ordered to fly to India to investigate the militants who killed four Americans and injured at least two others during a wave of assaults that ripped through a commercial center of Mumbai. The investigators aim to learn more about the origins of the militants who carried out the lethal strikes on luxury hotels, a train station and an Orthodox Jewish center where a New York rabbi and his wife were among five hostages slain. An American and his teenage daughter traveling with a Virginia-based spiritual group were also among the 150 people killed […]
ABATTOIR BLUES: A Thanksgiving Story
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Every Thanksgiving for the last 50 years, the Jaindl family turkey farm has been putting the bird on the dinner table at the White House. A Jaindl bird also goes to George Clooney, Michael Jordan, J. Lo, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks and Arnold Schwarzenegger courtesy of Warner Bros. Studios, which has a standing annual order with Jaindl for 500 turkeys to be doled out to its sundry stars and VIPs. Meanwhile, some 350,000 families from Maine to Florida and as far west as the Mississippi — flyover country, as it were — will sit down today to […]
OUR REASON TO GIVE THANKS: Peace & Quiet
PREVIOUSLY: Ann Coulter Defanged? LOS ANGELES TIMES: I know, I know. If the report is true, it’s almost as if our prayers have been answered. MORE [Illustration by ALEX FINE]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff helped pioneer the sound of Philadelphia soul. Their renowned record label, Philadelphia International, produced the hits “Love Train,” “Backstabbers” and “The Love I Lost.” Together, Gamble and Huff were responsible for 15 gold singles and 22 gold albums, eight of which went platinum; they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. “We wanted to take social themes and translate them to commercial recordings,” Kenny Gamble said in 1988. “Philadelphia International was about spreading love.” Gamble and Huff have a new box set called Love Train. RADIO TIMES […]
CYBER BULLY: MySpace Mom Guilty On 3 Counts
LOS ANGELES TIMES: A Los Angeles federal jury today convicted a Missouri mother of misdemeanor charges in the nationally watched MySpace cyber-bullying case involving the suicide of a 13-year-old girl. But the jury rejected more serious felony charges against Lori Drew. Drew, 49, was accused of violating federal computer statutes and one count of conspiracy for creating the MySpace account in the name of a fictitious 16-year-old boy and using it to engage in an online relationship with 13-year-old Megan Meier. Meier, of Dardenne Prairie, Mo., hanged herself Oct. 16, 2006, after the fictitious boy, “Josh Evans,” told her the […]
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: Stranger Than Fiction
[Photo by JOHN DONGES]