BLOOMBERG: The U.S. government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after the biggest surge in mortgage defaults in at least three decades threatened to topple the companies making up almost half the U.S. home-loan market. “It is necessary to take action,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who engineered the takeover along with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart, said in Washington today. “Our economy and our markets will not recover until the bulk of this housing correction is behind us. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are critical to turning the corner.”The FHFA will take over Fannie and Freddie […]
FRINGE INSTA-REVIEW: Stuporwoman
BY AARON STELLA FRINGE CORRESPONDENT In Stuporwoman, the audience is equipped with a hypersensitive stethoscope, and is asked to press it against the bosom of a mother and to listen closely. Together with an interdisciplinary troupe of performers, director and choreographer Tania Isaac renders the over-scheduled soul of a mother beleaguered by relentless cooking, cleaning, baby raising, and the unsatisfied want of a full night’s rest. The choreography riffs on the household duties of motherhood (one particularly memorable gesture was an exaggerated scrubbing motion; another was this slow-motion gait that was seductive, but pinched ). An eclectic score evokes a […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
POST-MILLENNIAL TENSION: Tricky, Trocadero, Last Night BY DAVE ALLEN Last night at the Troc, British artist Tricky forever banished the notion of trip-hop – the influential jazz-meets-electronic genre he helped forge in the mid ’90s – as a precious, made-for-headphones-listening style. His backing band turned the bristling, haunted soundscapes found on his albums into booming, kaleidoscopic arena-rock, while the Bristol-born MC showed, through his tightly-coiled swagger and distinctively gruff vocals, that American hip-hop acts like Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy owe him a thing or two. His band took the stage to the sounds of Phil Collins’ “In the Air […]
AC/DC: Highway To Hell
[Dir. by SCOTT COLAN]
Mainline Dentist Is NJ Shore Medical Waste Dumper
DAILY NEWS: New Jersey officials say McFarland, 59, took his Boston Whaler fishing boat into Townsends Inlet, near Avalon, on the night of Aug. 22 and dumped about 300 dental needles, along with 180 cotton swabs and other waste from the Wynnewood home that houses his practice. McFarland, who owns a vacation home on the water in the Avalon Manor section of Middle Township, Cape May County, has been charged with unlawful discharge of a pollutant and unlawful disposal of regulated medical waste. He could face at least $125,000 in fines and five years in jail. McFarland’s medical waste first […]
McCain Teams Moves To Quash Palin Troopergate Investigation, Wants Dem Senator In Charge Removed
[Photo by TACOMA URBANIST] NEWSWEEK: Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin‘s firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called “October surprise” that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election. In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska’s bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called “troopergate” investigation. Coghill […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Tricky Knowle West Boy
Now playing on Phawker Radio! Tricky plays the Trocadero tonite. BY ED KING ROCK EXPERT Had my music-listening and drug-taking behaviors not been well established before the advent of Massive Attack and the subsequent solo career of Tricky, my initial thoughts on listening to Tricky’s new album, Knowle West Boy, might run deeper than recalling episodes of cheesy cable spy and con game shows, like USA’s ’90s knockoff, La Femme Nikita, and the more recent AMC series Hustle. Of course the use of trip-hop soundtracks on such shows is an outgrowth of the music’s use in stylish, gritty action films, like Face/Off […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
FLEX TIME: Devil Girl, R. Crumb’s Underground Opening, ICA, Last Night [Photo by TIFFANY YOON] PREVIOUSLY: How Devil Girl Became Mrs. Natural BY JONATHAN VALANIA Almost everyone knows R. Crumb’s work whether they realize it or not. Keep On Truckin‘? You’re soaking in it. Cheap Thrills? You betcha. Big butts? He invented them. Devil doll glamazons offering piggyback rides to nebbishy four-eyed horn dogs? Sweet Jesus! Giddyup! (If none of this rings a bell, you would do well by renting Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary, CRUMB.) Aline Kominsky-Crumb, his wife of 35 years, is not quite the household word her husband […]
WORTH REPEATING: Sarah, The Founding Fathers Were ‘Community Organizers,’ Look It Up, Get A Clue
[via BRENDAN CALLING] “I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.” — Sarah Palin, denigrating me and all of my neighbors. Here are some other community organizers, people that Sarah Palin feels don’t do anything for their communities. This useless fellow is Ben Franklin. A community organizer in Philadelphia, Franklin helped fight the American Revolution. He also established the first fire department, the first library?, and the fire insurance company. In 1747, he organized our first militia. In many ways, he conceived the American nation. As such, he was utterly […]
FOX NEWS: Swiftboating From The Broadcast Booth
[FOX Attacks Obama Like Kerry • FOX ATTACKS • Season 1 – Part 2] Tune in November 4th and see why 2008 won’t be like 1984 2004.
FRINGE PICKS: Lemme Hear Your Body Talk
bodies in urban spaces Cie. Willi Dorner Vienna-based choreographer Willi Dorner makes his Festival debut with bodies in urban spaces, a free outdoor dance event that will travel through Philadelphia’s business district. Meet at LOVE Park and follow the dancers as they stack their bodies in and around Center City newsstands, fire escapes, and office buildings, creating a colorful trail of live human sculpture. Philly’s architectural landscape will never look the same again. Get your walking shoes on and be prepared to stand and walk during this performance. (9/5 at 12:30 & 7pm, 9/6 at 1pm, Begins at John F. […]
VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: No Prayer For The City
BY JEFF DEENEY My interest in Chester’s gang problem that resulted in this week’s City Paper article “Home Turf” began a couple months back when I stopped to gas up a rented U-haul at the Sunoco station on 9th and Kerlin Street on the city’s Westside. I had just moved some stuff into a storage facility off I-95 in nearby Chester Township and was on my way to return the truck. I pulled up to the pump and went to pay cash at the register. In the two minutes that I was gone some punk came along and spray painted […]
FRINGE REVIEW: Sweet By-And-By
BY AARON STELLA Unlikely rebel rabble-rouser Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant and union songwriter of the early 20th century union strikes, takes center stage in the sepia spotlight of Dan Rothenberg’s Sweet By-and-By. False promises pervade Hill’s life: in his dealings with God, that he will always provide for and reward the righteous; the American dream, that the sweat of man’s brow is solely his, and cannot be cheated; and that all the working class needs do, according to land and factory owners, is to work harder and hustle longer (even if wages are cut) to alleviate their economic misery. […]