Laura Marling, Mercury Prize nominee and darling of the NME, is playing a show at JB’s along with Jack White’s pet phantom-blues band Smoke Fairies. Laura Marling is genius for several reasons. I could tell you about how gorgeous her melodies are, or her album’s excellent production, or her clear, crystalline British voice that reminds you of lakes and woods and flannel, or how good looking she is, or how in love with her I am, but honestly the best thing about Laura Marling is her lyrics. Confessional, poetic, wry, and most of all, they all feel true. She presents […]
Portrait Of The Graphic Artist As A Middle-Aged Man
MOTHER JONES: It’s not easy to stick a label on Daniel Clowes. In his 30-year-plus career, he’s gone from submitting cartoons to Cracked to drawing New Yorker covers. He’s illustrated a Ramones video and been nominated for an Academy Award for screenwriting. His comics have switched agilely between styles and genres, from the retro kitsch of Lloyd Llewellyn to the grotesque noir of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, from Pussey!‘s knowing send-up of comic nerddom to Ghost World‘s affecting portrait of teenage melancholy. Newsweek has hailed him as America’s “premier underground cartoonist,” yet that tag barely begins to […]
DEVELOPING: The British Zombie Invasion
DEADLINE: In the latest example of Hollywood alchemy that mixes real historical figures with flesh-eating zombies, Double Feature partners Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher have optioned Paul Is Undead, an Alan Goldsher novel that re-imagines the history of The Beatles–with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr re-cast as zombies. Written as oral history, the book details how Lennon, a zombie guitarist in Liverpool, kills and reanimates McCartney, then does the same with Harrison and Starr. They create hits and bloody mayhem across the world, pursued by England’s greatest zombie hunter, Mick Jagger. They also engage in a […]
CINEMA: Give ‘Till It Hurts
PLEASE GIVE (2010, directed by Nicole Holofcener, 90 minutes, U.S.) THE GOOD HEART (2009, directed by Dagur Kári, 95 minutes, U.S./Iceland) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The production company behind the new film from writer/director Nicole Holofcener is named “Feelin’ Guilty,” a less-enticing but more direct title for her latest look at neurotic New Yorkers. Of course the only guilt most American movies are comfortable with is the type that calls for punishment meted out by a cop or a super hero. The guilt Please Give traffics in is the type that privileged New Yorkers might feel quietly within themselves; […]
NEW CLUES: Like A 10% Tax Hike On The Truth
COPS RULE DEATH OF TWO NORTHEAST PHILLY KIDS SUICIDES Authorities in Philadelphia have ruled the deaths of two children, ages 9 and 11, suicide but say their deaths are unrelated. Police say the 11-year-old girl strangled herself with a scarf on May 4 and the 9-year-old boy hanged himself with a belt on May 7. Philadelphia police Capt. John McGinnis says neither child exhibited any warning signs before they killed themselves. Investigators say the two children were from different neighborhoods in Northeast Philadelphia and went to different schools. They do not appear to be connected in any way. McGinnis says […]
BUSTED: South Philly High Principal Resigns After Admitting She Doesn’t Have Teaching Credentials
INQURER: The beleaguered principal of South Philadelphia High resigned Thursday, abruptly ending her controversial tenure after it was revealed that her state certificate was inactive. School officials made the announcement in the afternoon, after The Inquirer asked about the status of LaGreta Brown’s certification to work as principal. The state Department of Education confirmed that the certificate, issued in 2000, was inactive because Brown had not fulfilled a requirement for continuing education. Brown’s resignation, on the day teachers were to take a vote of no confidence against her, ended a turbulent tenure at the 900-student school. On Dec. 3, the […]
BIG BLACK: Gulf Spill Like A Valdez Every Four Days
[via THE BIG PICTURE] NPR: NPR’s Richard Harris has learned that much more oil, 70,000 barrels a day or more than ten times the official estimate, is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon pipe, based on scientific analysis of the video released Wednesday. That’s the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker full every four days. Assuming the flow rate has been steady since the gusher started on April 20, the gulf spill surpassed the Exxon Valdez in the first four days. MORE NEW YORK TIMES: Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of […]
RAWK TAWK: Q&A With Toby Leaman of Dr. Dog
BY JONATHAN VALANIA There are few greater pleasures in this American life than watching a young, gifted rock band in the prime of its youth burn through its set before an adoring hometown crowd with the confidence of five young men who’ve come to realize that — after all the blood, the sweat and the tears that got them to this point — they are making their mark on the world. It’s even better when the young, gifted band is local, as will be the case when Dr. Dog takes the stage at the Electric Factory tonite in support of […]
POLL: Sestak Opens A 9 Point Lead Over Specter
SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY POLL: Congressman Joe Sestak (49 percent) leads incumbent Arlen Specter (40 percent) by 9 points in the race for U.S. Senate among likely Democratic Primary voters in Pennsylvania, according to a poll released today by the Suffolk University Political Research Center. Twelve percent of voters were undecided. The winner of the Democratic Primary will most likely face Republican Pat Toomey, who led Peg Luksik 60 percent to 9 percent in the Republican Primary for U.S. Senate. MORE USA TODAY: Sestak, who is 58 and has great hair, brags about his surge in the polls in his latest ad, […]
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 […]
Last 5 GOP Presidents Would Be Unelectable Today
NEWSWEEK: In the year and a half since Barack Obama was elected president, Republicans nationwide seem to have given up on the whole governing thing and chosen instead to play a long, rancorous game of “I’m More Conservative Than You Are.” They’ve been playing it in Utah, where incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett—lifetime American Conservative Union rating: 84—lost a primary battle this past weekend. They’ve been playing it in Florida, where moderate Gov. Charlie Crist was forced last week to abandon his bid for the Republican Senate nomination and run as an independent instead. And they’ve even been playing it on the […]
MOVE ON: Day That Will Live In Infamy
CLARK DELEON: The apocalyptic irony of May 13, 1985, is that everything the crazy people predicted came to be. MOVE said the authorities would try to annihilate them, and as a consequence there would be a fiery confrontation the likes of which Philadelphia had never seen. Let me describe May 13 in the shorthand I developed as a reporter and columnist watching the events unfold. A bunch of crazy people had taken five children hostage. (None of the six MOVE adults were the biological parents of the children inside 6221 Osage Ave.) The police tried freeing the children in the […]
SIDEWALKING: Time Has Come Today
Times Square, 40th & 7th Ave., 12:14 PM by JEFF FUSCO * WIKIPEDIA: Columbia president Clive Davis didn’t want them to record their song “Time” and said that they didn’t record that kind of stuff at Columbia. He also wanted to find a white group to record the song for them. The band said that this would never happen. When they broke the news to David Rubinson he was very heartbroken as he was really looking forward to producing “Time”. He found a solution to the problem. He told the brothers that he might lose his job for doing this […]