ASSOCIATED PRESS: Vines creep across Tomioka’s empty streets, its prim gardens overgrown with waist-high weeds and meadow flowers. Dead cows rot where they were left to starve in their pens. Chicken coops writhe with maggots, a sickening stench hanging in the air. This once-thriving community of 16,000 people now has a population of one. In this nuclear no-man’s land poisoned by radiation from a disaster-battered power plant, rice farmer Naoto Matsumura refuses to leave despite government orders. He says he has thought about the possibility of getting cancer but prefers to stay – with a skinny dog named Aki his […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See TVOTR At The Mann
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Raise your hand if you want to go see TV On The Radio and Broken Social Scene at The Mann next Friday? OK, put ’em down, we can’t see you, that’s not how this blog thingee works — not yet anyway. Presumaby there were millions of you raising your hands a moment ago, and now feeling a little stupid for doing so, as you should, but cheer up because we can help at least four of you. That’s right we have two pairs of tickets for TVOTR at The Mann Music Center on Friday September 9th […]
WTF: Jack White + Insane Clown Posse = For Real?
This just came in over the transom from Nasty Little Man, Jack White’s publicity firm, so presumably it’s true in a truth is stranger than fiction kind of way, but…well, you decide: In the grand tradition of peanut butter meeting Iggy’s chest or Bing Crosby getting down with David Bowie, Third Man Records is ecstatic to present the latest in a long-line of unexpected musical pairings…Insane Clown Posse and Mozart. Back in ’82, ahem, 1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a piece that’s been left out of the spotlight ever since. The title of the piece is “Leck Mich Im Arsch” […]
MUST SEE: Incredible Photos From Battle Of Tripoly
TIME: In Libya, the fall of a dictator came faster than anyone expected. After six months of fighting along what were often stagnated front lines, the rebels succeeded last week in overwhelming the forces of Col. Muammar Gaddafi to take control of the Libyan capital. The sudden assault sent the enigmatic 69-year-old Libyan leader and his family into hiding; his forces scattering. And throughout Tripoli, TIME contract photographer Yuri Kozyrev and I have watched over the past week as a population celebrates its victory over a tyrant. As security improves with each night, more and more families flock into the city’s iconic Green Square—now renamed Martyrs’ Square—where Gaddafi once […]
The History Of Global Economics In 4 Minutes
Via The Daily Beast.
Q&A With Rolling Stone Photographer Baron Wolman
BY ALEX POTTER Baron Wolman was the chief photographer for Rolling Stone magazine for the first three years of its existence. He just published a book of his iconic work for the magazine called Every Picture Tells a Story…The Rolling Stone Years. Equipped with nothing more than a Nikon and a warm demeanor that made his subjects feel unusually comfortable, Wolman got up close and personal with just about every 60’s rock god you can think of, and then some. In the words of former Rolling Stone Art Director Tony Lane, Wolman’s oeuvre “is heroic; it is a Greek God […]
WILLIE NELSON: The Scientist
YUMSUGAR: Chipotle’s furthering its quest to create a more sustainable fast food system. Today the quickservice chain unveiled its new nonprofit organization, the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation, to help support sustainable food practices. It’s also debuted a short animated film, which will air prior to feature films in theaters nationwide. The spot, titled “Back to the Start,” is about a fictional farmer’s venture into industrial farming practices and his eventual return to a more sustainable way of life. For the short, Chipotle commissioned Willie Nelson to sing Coldplay’s “The Scientist.” The cover song is available for download on iTunes, with proceeds […]
THE LONG GOODBYE: What’s $400K Spent On Spin When You’re Getting Paid $1 Million To Quit?
CITY PAPER: Two knowledgeable sources tell City Paper that former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman ran a School District communications team dedicated to promoting and defending her personally, and which coordinated and assisted public rallies in her favor, communicated regularly with private supporters, and spent taxpayer time and money on various kinds of “propaganda,” including protest signs and a farewell tribute video. Since Ackerman’s departure after negotiating a nearly $1 million buy-out of her contract, one source says the same team continues to manage Ackerman’s antagonistic public relations campaign against Mayor Michael Nutter and others. The three Communications staffers who allegedly orchestrated […]
THE DECEMBERISTS: The Calamity Song
NEW YORK TIMES: The video, which made its online debut on Monday, depicts the playing of Eschaton, a game invented by Wallace that he describes about 325 pages into “Infinite Jest.” Adolescents from a New England tennis academy are seen ritualistically serving balls on a court onto which a map of the world has been superimposed. The balls, which represent five-megaton nuclear warheads, are aimed at objects labeled as military targets — power plants, missile installations — while a lone child oversees the game from a nearby computer terminal. All in all, it ain’t exactly Battleship. Wallace himself wrote that […]
CIVICS: How Social Security Is SO Not A Ponzi Scheme
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Texas Gov. Rick Perry is at it again, expressing himself pungently on a hot-button issue. This past weekend, it was Social Security. The front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination called the retirement program for seniors a “monstrous lie” and “a Ponzi scheme for … young people.” Add that to Governor Perry’s comments on man-made global warming: “a scientific theory that has not been proven.” On evolution: “just a theory” with “gaps.” And on the Federal Reserve’s practice of printing more money to boost the economy: doing so again would be “almost treasonous.” Many conservatives applaud Perry, even […]
SIDEWALKING: Goodnight Irene
Lancaster, 9:01 AM Sunday by JEFF FUSCO
Phawker Editor Kills Cowbell With A Single Stephen Malkmus Cover Story; Magnet Back From Dead
That’s a joke, but the truth of the matter is the Cowbell issue with the Stephen Malkmus cover story, penned by yours truly, will be its penultimate, and the forthcoming issue with Beirut will be it’s last. Just heard from Cowbell editor Brian Howard that the magazine will discontinue service in favor of a new partnership with Eric T. Miller to revive Magnet as a print property. Miller will helm the new project and Howard is, reportedly, moving on to whatever comes next. Stay tuned. BRIAN HOWARD: Cowbell, the gritty little indie mag we’ve all come to love so well […]
URBANISM: A Park Grows In The Reading Viaduct?
DAILY NEWS: High above the shadowy streets of Callowhill and Chinatown North, a lush green wilderness of weeds, thick grasses and purple flowering bushes thrives amid the rusted railroad tracks of the old Reading Viaduct. From atop the viaduct, the city’s modern skyline of towering glass and steel shimmers to the south, but one can also get a close-up glimpse into the city’s industrial past: the area’s brick former factory buildings that once made textiles or bicycles or held printing presses. “We have all these beautiful urban views, and yet you feel like you’re in a country meadow,” said Hamilton […]