[Photo by VIOLINSOLDIER] THE TELEGRAPH: General Stanley McChrystal tried to contact his subordinates after a Nato strike killed 125 civilians, but too many had been “partying it up” and could not be raised. General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), has since put a stop to drinking, admonishing staff for not having “their heads in the right place” on Friday morning a few hours after the attack, the Times reports. The diktat means that the coffee shops and bars where commanders used to be able to enjoy a beer or three will now be dry. The Isaf headquarters […]
FRINGE REVIEW: The Hear Again Radio Project
BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Aspire Arts keeps it simple and sets the bar high with The Hear Again Radio Project. In this show, they take drama from before video killed the radio star and present it live, with a Foley artist onstage setting the scene with live sound effects. Seems pretty easy, right? Then, director Darin Dunston picks up this concept and takes it to the next level. The visual elements of The Hear Again Radio Project are as smooth and elegant as a silk robe slipping from the shoulders of Rita Hayworth. Michael Leon’s set comprised of Asian […]
NAKED CITY: 400 Bikers Go Lady Godiva
[Photo by WOJOPHOTO] INQUIRER: More than double the hoped-for 200 turned out to bike the four-mile course. One guy wore a hockey mask, another a birthday-party hat. It seemed like everybody had a tattoo or a piercing. As hundreds of cyclists gathered along the Schuylkill, the excitement built, people yelling impromptu cheers or ringing their bicycle bells. But as time dragged on, with people waiting for the scheduled 6:30 p.m. start, the energy seemed to sag. A booming cheer went up when the riders at the front of the queue began moving forward, onto a route that would take them […]
RAWK TAWK: Q&A With Chairlift’s Aaron Pfenning
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Time was when licensing your songs for commercials was the kiss of death credibility-wise. All that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, also known as the early ’90s. Then along came a series of stylish Volkswagen ads featuring choice cuts from the likes of Spiritualized and Nick Drake and suddenly the script was flipped. These days some of the best music can be heard in television commercials, artists get paid handsomely and their music spreads far and wide beyond the craggy walls of the indie ghetto, opening up further opportunities and vastly […]
FRINGE REVIEW: Zombie! The Musical
BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Some Fringe shows are just plain fun, and others make you think. Zombie the musical combines the best of both worlds. Gather up your friends, get yourself all hyped up on sugar, and head out to Plays and Players, the nearly hundred-year-old grand dame of Philadelphia’s theatres. Have a drink at Quig’s Pub on the third floor, and then settle in to the weathered and well-loved auditorium. It’s all part of the experience. Don’t mind the plastic sheets you might see in the first few rows; these are for your comfort and convenience, should you […]
FRINGE REVIEW: Felon Fiercely’s Open Mic Night
BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL FRINGE CORRESPONDENT If comedy and rock and roll are your drugs, this show is the hard stuff. As you enter the cozy venue upstairs at O’Neals, earplugs are available for your use, but you won’t need them. Though Felon Fiercely is backed with a full PA, using a Fender strat, a bass, a drum set, and the power of three vocalists, their musicianship and sound design are careful enough that you’ll be blown away by the content, not the volume. John Felon and Joe Fiercely are a couple of miscreant musicians who have been sentenced to the […]
TONITE: Get Naked
INQUIRER: Most bicyclists prefer skintight attire, but a group tomorrow is going to take it one step further. It’s planning a mass ride in the nude. Organizers said they expected at least 200 people in various states of undress to bike a four-mile course through Center City. The route is being kept under wraps. It won’t be divulged until Saturday night. And then, only cyclists who sign up at phillynakedbikeride.org will get the location of the gathering point by e-mail. “It’s kind of an experiment,” said Clifford Greer, 30, the lead organizer. “It’s really a totally amazing thing, and unlike […]
TUNES: Remastered Beatlemania Hits 9/09/09
[Painting by JON LANGFORD] CNN: On Wednesday — 9/9/09 — remastered versions of the Beatles catalogue will be released, giving listeners what the remaining members of “The Fab Four” say is the closest reproduction ever of how their music sounded in the studio. Research shows that more than 40 years after their last public performance, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s music remains as interesting to young people now as it ever was. A Pew Research survey released last month showed that 81 percent of respondents between ages 16-29 said they liked The Beatles. Eleven percent said […]
TONITE: Justice May Be Blind But She Is Not Deaf
The Gonzales Contata, a Philly Fringe show by composer Melissa Dunphy that will run this weekend, is a choral work with libretto taken directly from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Buzz about the show has gone viral with write ups in The Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post and earlier this week Rachel Maddow devoted an entire segment to the production on The Rachel Maddow Show. Kudos for making the show’s official website a dead-on parody of the Drudge Report. (Show times and venue info after the jump) [TRMS: La Cantata inspired by disgraced […]
SEPTA GIRL: Poppin’ Wheelies
BY PHILLYGRRL Wheelies. That’s what some people on my morning bus call folks in wheelchairs. Usually it’s said in a negative context. Like, “Damn them wheelies, if another one gets on the bus, I’m going to be late.” Because you see, in order for someone in a wheelchair to get from the sidewalk to the inside of the bus, the driver first has to lower the bus and then lower a platform a ramp. Once the person is in the bus, the driver must then flip up one of the chairs and strap the wheelchair in place. It can take […]
CINEMA: The Nutcracker
EXTRACT (2009, directed by Mike Judge, 91 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Something does indeed seem to have been extracted from satiric director Mike Judge: Was it his guts, his heart, his balls? Enough name calling: what’s really missing from this, the third of Judge’s American satires, is the anti-corporate stance that set apart his previous cult comedies, Office Space and Idiocracy. Office Space perfectly captured the happy business speak taught at management seminars to sociopathic bosses while Idiocracy looked at a corporate-controlled future society dumbed-down to neanderthal-levels by the crass equations of the mass media. Idiocracy took […]
THE DANGERS OF MAGICAL THINKING: Just Because There Is No Evidence That Glenn Beck Raped And Murdered A Girl In 1990 Doesn’t Prove He Didn’t
GLENNBECKRAPEDANDMURDEREDAYOUNGGIRLIN1990.COM: This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumour that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. We don’t claim to know the truth — only that the rumour floating around saying that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 should be discussed. So we’re going to do our part to try and help get to the bottom of this. Why won’t Glenn Beck deny these allegations? Notice: This site is parody/satire. We assume Glenn Beck did not rape and murder a young girl in 1990, although we haven’t yet seen […]
NEW LOW: Man Bites Off Another Man’s Finger At Health Care Rally, Socialist Doctors Sew It Back On
WASHINGTON POST: One of a national series of rallies for health-care reform took a violent turn Wednesday night when, according to authorities in Thousand Oaks, Calif., an unidentified man bit off the tip of another man’s pinky finger. The Thousand Oaks event attracted only about 100 people — a small group compared to the turnout at congressional town halls, which have drawn up to 1,500 people. But their passions were running high, and when a supporter of health-care reform wound up among a group of about 25 counter-protesters, an argument and fistfight broke out, Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Frank O’Hanlon […]