NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: A young man took a fatal plunge from the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building on Tuesday night, crashing down on W. 34th St. and horrifying pedestrians, police said. The jumper managed to get past the 10-foot-high spiked fence ringing the observation deck and then disappeared below the outermost ledge around 6:15 p.m., police sources said. He landed with a sickening thud on a sidewalk along W.34th St., near a bank branch at the northeast entrance of the famed midtown skyscraper. “He came down in front of the Bank of America. Boom! It was […]
Old Media Praying That iPad Will Be A Gamechanger
REUTERS: Publishers are placing big bets that Apple Inc’s iPad will kick-start a commercially viable transition to digital magazines and newspapers — even though few executives have laid hands on the tablet ahead of launch. In fact, many publishers likely will not announce their iPad applications until after the tablet hits U.S. stores on Saturday, due to the many constraints that Apple has placed on allowing its partners access to the device. While media content is critical to the success of the iPad — a 9.7-inch tablet that looks like a large iPhone and aims to bridge the gap between […]
Mega Suit Targets 20,000 Bit Torrent Pirates
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: In what may be a sign of things to come, more than 20,000 individual movie torrent downloaders have been sued in the past few weeks in Washington D.C. federal court for copyright infringement. A handful of cases have already settled, and those that haven’t are creating some havoc for major ISPs. The lawsuits were filed by an enterprising D.C.-based venture, the US Copyright Group, on behalf of an ad hoc coalition of independent film producers and with the encouragement of the Independent Film & Television Alliance. So far, five lawsuits have been filed against tens of thousands of […]
HOT RATS: Wire-Chewing Rodents Caused Explosion
INQUIRER: Rats chewing on an electrical cable triggered an explosion that blew off a half dozen manhole covers on Market Street in West Philadelphia, officials says. No one was injured in the blast about 10:35 p.m. but at least three cars were damaged by the heavy metal manhole covers on the 5600 block of Market Street. The chewing rats caused a short on a cable that feeds power to SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Elevated line and that in turn ignited a buildup of gas in the underground utility tunnel, officials said. MORE UPDATE: [Another] explosion sent a manhole cover flying into the […]
ERYKAH BADU: Window Seat
WARNING: Some nudity & JFK assassination references [via DALLAS MORNING NEWS] Q: To start, what can you tell me about the thought process behind the video for “Window Seat”? EB: The song “Window Seat” is about liberating yourself from layers and layers of skin or demons that are a hindrance to your growth or freedom, or evolution. I wanted to do something that said just that, so I started to think about shedding, nudity, taking things off in a very artful way. I am from the theater, and this is just a part of expression to us, a part of […]
TONITE: Stealing The Past
Thieves of Baghdad Evening Lecture and Annual Loren Eiseley Society Dinner Wednesday March 31, 2010, 6:00 pm In 2003, following the pillaging of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the United States dispatched a highly specialized multi-agency task force to the site to determine what happened and how to recover as many stolen artifacts as possible. U.S. Marine Colonel and New York Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, who holds a master’s degree in Classics from Columbia University, volunteered to lead that investigation. Colonel Bogdanos describes his team’s recovery of thousands of history’s most priceless antiquities, details the ongoing efforts of the […]
CINEMA: The Incredibly Strange World Of Marwencol
LA WEEKLY: I came to the SXSW Film Festival this year at the invitation of the film festival, to serve on its Documentary Feature jury. At tonight’s awards ceremony, I was proud to present our Grand Jury Prize to Marwencol, Jeff Malmberg’s documentary on Mark Hogencamp, an artist/alcoholic left with brain damage after a bar brawl, who deals with his disability by creating and photographing a 1/6th scale WWII-era Belgian town in his backyard, populated by Barbie-doll surrogates for himself and other members of his real world. Marwencol stood out from the competition pack for a number of reasons, but […]
THIS JUST IN: Broken Bells At The E-Factory 6/6
NASTY LITTLE MAN: In the wake of their new band’s self titled Columbia Records debut charting at #7 and selling just shy of 50,000 in its first week (and reaching as high as #1 on iTunes), James Mercer and Brian Burton a/k/a Danger Mouse have confirmed Broken Bells first ever tour. In addition to being the year’s highest charting debut album by an alternative/rock band, Broken Bells’ has met with an insanely and unanimously positive critical receptionThe mere handful of shows the band has played to date have fared likewise, selling out as quickly as tickets could be processed, and […]
Don’t Eat The Brown Acid Or The Crab Cakes At WCL
Last night Dumpstaphunk from New Orleans played at the World Cafe. Rebirth Brass Band opened the show and were finished playing at 8:30. There was an hour and fifteen minute wait before Dumpstaphunk came on. The reason? Drummer Raymond Weber apparently ate a crab cake at the World Cafe for dinner and became violently ill. He played a few songs and left the stage in the middle of one number which became a labored jam. A replacement drummer was brought out for a few uninspired songs. Weber returned for the remainder of the show. — MATTHEW LOWE RELATED: Dumpstaphunk has really grown […]
ORDINARY PEOPLE: Even He-Man Puts His Codpiece On One Leg At A Time, Just Like Everybody Else
YOU FAIL: I’ve been ridiculously excited about this ever since I was invited to participate months ago.. Opening on January 8th, Gallery 1988 LA presents their 4th annual tribute show, this time honoring He-Man and the Masters of the Universe!! Being a super-ultra-mega fan from 1983-85, followed by a brief few months in ‘86, where I thought I might actually be She-Ra, you can imagine the fun I had painting these. This is how I envision He-Man and Skeletor spending their days off; trimming the bowl cut and getting a root canal.. a very evil one. MORE
DRILL, BABY, DRILL: Obama To End Longstanding Ban On Offshore Domestic Oil Drilling
[Artwork by FREAKING NEWS] NEW YORK TIMES: The Obama administration is proposing to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time, officials said Tuesday. The proposal — a compromise that will please oil companies and domestic drilling advocates but anger some residents of affected states and many environmental organizations — would end a longstanding moratorium on oil exploration along the East Coast from the northern tip of Delaware to the central coast of Florida, covering […]
Everything You Know About Flash Mobs Is WRONG
[Photos by AL IN PHILADELPHIA] BY JEFF DEENEY So late last week the flash mob story broke national, and the middle class is freaking out about poor black teens using new technologies to organize riots that threaten white business districts, even though now it seems there was never a flash mob to begin with. You’ve heard all kinds of commentary from a thousand white journalists who have never spoken to black teenagers in the neighborhoods except maybe when taking statements in court for a story, and seen bloggers who are equally distanced from urban poverty jumping in front of cameras […]