[Click form to activate Internets] NEW YORK TIMES: Stocks fell sharply and oil prices suddenly spiked on Monday as investors anxiously waited for Washington lawmakers to hash out the details of the biggest government bailout in history — a politically fraught process that will create a new slate of winners and losers on Wall Street. That uncertainty, about a shaken financial system still in flux, appeared to spook investors away from assets tied directly to the health of the American government. The dollar dropped sharply against the euro, and oil prices jumped, closing up more than $16 a barrel. The […]
CANCELLED: Interview With A Vampire
CANCELED: Anne Rice Due to illness, Anne Rice has canceled her upcoming book tour, including a stop at the Free Library that was scheduled for Friday, October 10 at 7:30 p.m. If you have already purchased tickets for this event, please note that we are currently processing refunds for the face value of your tickets, less the handling fee. Thank you for your understanding and patience throughout this process. Email or call with questions. Contact 215-567-4341 authorevents@freelibrary.org RELATED: PHILADELPHIA – More than a century after its first publication in 1897, Dracula remains the ultimate horror story, with countless film adaptations and […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR On Sept. 21, the AMC series Mad Men became the first basic cable program to win an Emmy Award for outstanding drama. Executive producer Matthew Weiner and actors Jon Hamm and John Slattery discuss the madness of Madison Avenue circa 1960. Weiner is a former writer and producer for HBO’s The Sopranos. RADIO TIMES Last week’s events on Wall Street forced the candidates to focus on the the issues, their proposals for tacking complex problems and and how their approaches might differ. Today on Radio Times we talk about presidential election politics with MATTHEW CONTINETTI who writes for […]
ROCK THIS VOTE: Because Reality Has A Liberal Bias
[Click to vote] MY BARACK BLOG: PBS is running a poll which asks if Palin is qualified to be VP. The right wing has organized a “yes” campaign and at the moment, “yes” is winning. Please consider doing this. It’s important. It takes 30 seconds. RNC FORM LETTER ‘ALLEGEDLY TYPICAL’ PBS VIEWER: “I am once again aghast and stunned that the PBS would be so involved in politics that they actually circulated the “is Sarah Palin qualified to be Vice President” poll. How dare you use federally subsidized taxpayer platform for your own political ambitions: have you know shame? You code of […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
FLOWER CHILD: Give Festival, Liberty Lands, Saturday The annual Give Festival, a neo-hippie-esque jamboree bringing together local artists and musicians, celebrated its fourth year in Northern Liberties yesterday. The festival, put together by Brian Nadav, brought together families and friends for a full day (it ran from noon to 10 pm) of eating, drinking and dancing. All day, people filled their cups and opened their ears to local bands, like Audible Eyes, Spinning Leaves and King Britt’s Back to Basics Band, though there was a whole line up of bands that provided a wide variety of music that ranged from […]
WORD: A Beautiful Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
[Illustration by SARAHATLEE] A.O. SCOTT: What’s true of writers’ lives is also, surely, true of their deaths. The temptation to regard Mr. Wallace’s suicide last weekend as anything other than a private tragedy must be resisted. But the strength of the temptation should nonetheless be acknowledged. […] The moods that Mr. Wallace distilled so vividly on the page — the gradations of sadness and madness embedded in the obsessive, recursive, exhausting prose style that characterized both his journalism and his fiction — crystallized an unhappy collective consciousness. And it came through most vividly in his voice. Hyperarticulate, plaintive, self-mocking, diffident, […]
HOT DOC: How Dems Abort Every Spine They Grow
EDITOR’S NOTE: Via OPEN LEFT comes this devastating missive from an anonymous Dem lawmaker on how, when and why the Democrats in Congress will cave on attaching meaningful oversight and or consumer mortgage relief to any Fed bailout of Wall Street: Here’s the industry’s play: progressives will approach Nancy with ideas for reform, and she’ll agree to push for their proposals, and she’ll really mean it. Then industry lobbyists will go to Dennis Moore, Melissa Bean and a few other Democrats, and tell them how dire the consequences of the proposals would be, and that the members who understand how […]
REVIEW: Mars Volta At The E-Factory — The Lessness
BY MICHAEL DONOVAN There’s a reason that anyone who has spent an evening with the Mars Volta will experience a sort of “Volta Flashback” when asked to recount the band’s live performance. There’s a reason that the Mars Volta rarely stops touring (usually only to record). There’s a reason that the Wikipedia entry on the Mars Volta makes reference to the band’s “wild, energetic, and improvised live shows” by line three. The reason? The Mars Volta as a live band is nothing short of jaw dropping. As a two-time veteran of the band’s live act, I can attest: seeing the […]
We Know It’s Only Spoken Word But We Like It
YOU’VE GOT NAIL: Nail Me, Megawords Salon, No Libs, Last Night BY TIFFANY YOON LIVING ARTS EDITOR The girls of Sweatheart, Amanda Blank (who also moonlights with Spank Rock) and Rose Luardo, performed at the Megawords Storefront over the weekend, but their show wasn’t what fans expected. Rosie and Amanda weren’t rapping or singing, they weren’t even dancing, but they were watching 90210, gossiping and drinking diet coke. The Megawords storefront was created out of an abandoned space on 11th and Arch, and its function for its month long installation is to bring people together. “Where does that happen? It […]
LOST DECADE: Winning The Race To The Bottom
[Photo by RICHARD DREW] ESQUIRE: In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity’s divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, […]
GET YOUR WAR ON: Sarah Sells Rape Kits
RELATED: Despite denials by the Palin campaign, new evidence proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence. Palin’s role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online. Under Sarah Palin’s administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee “does not believe, nor […]
KILLADELPHIA: Three Teens 5 Gunned Down
INQUIRER: When gunfire punctured the night in West Philadelphia, three teens sitting on a rowhouse porch started to run. All three were shot, and two managed to take refuge inside a rowhouse in the 200 block of South Ithan Street. The third – the oldest in the group at 18 – fell to the ground with multiple wounds, including a shot to the head. Hakim Griffin remained in critical condition yesterday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania while his friends, ages 14 and 17, were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. MORE UPDATE: Shooting victims are piling up in Philadelphia, […]
DOCTOR IS IN: Howard Dean Could’ve Gone Anywhere
[Photo by TIFFANY YOON] SCREAM, BABY, SCREAM: Dr. Howard Dean, DNC Chairman, Temple, 12:34 pm BY TIFFANY YOON LIVING ARTS EDITOR Howard Dean came to Temple University earlier today to support Barack Obama and stress the importance of registering to vote. October 6th is the last day to register to vote in Pennsylvania, that leaves just 14 days to get on the rolls. As eager students and faculty waited for the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and one time contender for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, The Who’s “Baba O’Riley blasted out of the public address system — “the […]