[Click image to enlarge] THE CHICAGOIST: Chicago-based comic-book artist Chris Ware (who we are big fans of) was commissioned by Fortune magazine to create a cover for their May issue. The end result, though, was rejected. It seems a few of the images on the cover – including Guantanamo Bay prisoners, Mexican factory workers, and a few potshots at business execs and money-grubbing politicians – were too much for the kids at Fortune. MORE FISHBOWLNY: Chris Ware, the brilliant comic-book artist behind the Acme Novelty Library, designed a May cover for capitalist-cheerleader magazine Fortune, only to see it killed. We […]
CINEMA: Metaphysical Graffiti
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010, directed by Banksy, 87 minutes, U.S.) THE SQUARE (2008, directed by Nash Edgerton, 105 minutes, Australia) THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (2009, directed by André Téchiné, 96 minutes, France) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The new documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop. starts off as a seemingly slight, self-promotional look at the guerrilla Street Art movement, then takes a surprisingly complex turn to look at the nature of art itself. The movement, in which stickers, stencils, spray paint and markers interact with public spaces, mixes Warhol, graffiti and anarchist ideas in ways that can […]
THE EARLY WORD: It’s A Psychobilly Freakout!
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Super Devil’s features Brendan Skwire, of Brendan Calling fame, on the upright bass. Brendan has, um, strong opinions about a lot of things, and earlier this week he took Mann Music Center president Catherine Cahill to task for the pianist they booked for a July 27th performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto In D Minor. BRENDAN CALLING: Dear Mann Music Center President Catherine Cahill: Congratulations on this year’s upcoming concert series! Like many Philadelphians, I relish the summer season, when my family and I can enjoy a few evenings of classical music under the stars at Fairmount Park. […]
CINEMA: Please Don’t Eat The Banksy
NEW YORK TIMES: “Exit” is billed as “a Banksy film,” but Banksy, the notoriously reclusive British street artist, appears only rarely, face hooded and voice distorted. Even so, it is Banksy whom audiences will come hoping to see, stimulated by the canopy of hype that this artist has carefully erected, in interviews and on the festival circuit. What they will find is, like Banksy’s best work, a trompe l’oeil: a film that looks like a documentary but feels like a monumental con. Spanning almost a decade and several continents, “Exit” tells of Mr. Guetta’s infiltration of the secretive world of […]
BOOKS: Still Kinda Blue
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BALTIMORE CITY PAPER: “Lovers give each other Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, even though its mood offers no consolation, let alone ecstasy,” veteran British sportswriter and music critic Richard Williams writes near the top of The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music (Norton), his thoughtful look at what went into, and came out of, Davis’s 1959 album. “But those who give it want to share its richness of spirit, its awareness of the infinite, and its extraordinary quality of constantly revealing more to those who know it best. Sometimes […]
SEC Dowloaded Porn While Wall Street Burned
[“The Great Masturbator” by SALVADOR DALI] ASSOCIATED PRESS: The memo was written by SEC Inspector General David Kotz in response to a request from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa. It summarizes past inspector general probes and reports some shocking findings: _ A senior attorney at the SEC’s Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office. He agreed to resign, an earlier watchdog report said. _ An accountant was blocked more than […]
OUT RAGE: Tea Party Says Lindsey Graham Too Gay; Babette Josephs Says Her Challenger Not Gay Enough
INQUIRER: Veteran Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) last Thursday accused her primary opponent, Gregg Kravitz, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters, a powerful bloc in the district. “I outed him as a straight person,” Josephs said during a fund-raiser at the Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, as some in the audience gasped or laughed, “and now he goes around telling people, quote, ‘I swing both ways.’ That’s quite a respectful way to talk about sexuality. This guy’s a gem.” Kravitz, 29, said that he is sexually attracted to both men […]
SIDEWALKING: The Valley Of The Shadow
15th & Market, 8:42 AM by JEFF FUSCO
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
BREAKING: Jeff Tweedy, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Taj Mahal, Richard Thompson To Headline Philly Folk Fest
The organizers of the PHILADELPHIA FOLK FESTIVAL unveiled the impressive line-up for their momentous 49th edition unfolding August 20-22 at the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township, near Schwenksville, PA. This year’s event brings together the traditional festival fare as well as in-demand contemporary artists who will join together for this three-day extravaganza of traditional and contemporary music, dance, crafts, camping, and children’s activities. Among the top attractions at the 49th annual PHILADELPHIA FOLK FESTIVAL are Susan Werner (joined by Natalia Zukerman and Trina Hamlin), vocal group Sonos, Vienna Teng, Gandalph Murphy & The Slambovian Circus of Dreams, A.A. […]
Fireman & Son Charged In Fatal Road Rage Beatdown
INQUIRER: The District Attorney’s Office is deciding whether a city firefighter and his son will face murder or manslaughter charges in the beating death of a 54-year-old Northeast Philadelphia man this month in what police called a “road rage” fight. Gerard M. Shaffer, 47, and his 21-year-old son, also Gerard [NOT pictured, above], were arrested Monday on charges of aggravated assault and related offenses in connection with the fight that left Mark Wallace in a coma. Wallace died Tuesday after relatives had him removed from life support. The elder Shaffer, a 23-year veteran of the department, was a member of […]
WORTH REPEATING: American Exceptionalism?
[via PROSEBEFOREHOS] WIKIPEDIA: American exceptionalism is the theory that the United States occupies a special niche among the nations of the world in terms of its national credo, historical evolution, political and religious institutions and unique origins. The roots of the belief are attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville, who claimed that the then-50-year-old United States held a special place among nations, because it was a country of immigrants and the first modern democracy. The theory of American exceptionalism has a number of opponents, especially from the Left, who argue that the belief is “self-serving and jingoistic” (see slavery, civil rights […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: Special Pulitzer Prize Edition
A.P. Ticker interviews Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker, recipients of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize or investigative journalism.