BY BRANDON LAFVING  FRINGE CORRESPONDENT “Welcome to the Jet Propulsion Laboratories 2011 Rover Driver Conference,” said the nice lady manning what looked like a conference registration table scattered with name tags. “Oh, I must be in the wrong place; where is the theater showing Red Rovers?” I said. “You’re in the right place, believe me,” she said with a smile. “Name tags are on the table.” Huh? The table was lined with name tags; each had a name in NASA font, and not one of them belonged to me. “Excuse me; there must be a mistake. My name isn’t here.” […]

[Illustration by ALEX FINE]

BY ZIVIT SHLANK Stanley Clarke. Jymie Merrit. Derrick Hodge. Mike Boone. What do these cats have in common? They all play bass and all have roots in our City of Brotherly Love — and we all know Philadelphia and jazz have become practically synonymous. North Carolina native Madison Rast has steadily become one of the most in-demand sidemen in the 215 since making Philly home over 10 years ago. Tonight he will lead his own quartet for the very first time tonight at Moonstone Arts Center, aka the legendary Robbins Books in Center City, as part of Matthew Feldman’s monthly […]

[Click to enlarge] FYI, tickets go on sale at 10 AM today for Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds at The Academy Of Music on November 11th. The rest of this article is HERE.

[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] BY COLONEL TOM SHEEHY Since its construction in 1857, The Academy of Music has been known as “The Grand Old Lady of Broad Street.” In 1872, it hosted the Republican Convention which renominated President Ulysses S. Grant and believe it or not, in 1889, a special wooden floor was installed for the first indoor football game in Philadelphia between University of Pennsylvania and Princeton. These days it enjoys a reputation as the most prestigious and acoustically-perfect room in the city to hear a live musical performance. Before the opening of the Kimmel Center, the Academy of […]

Downtown Wilkes-Barre in the aftermath of Hurricane Agnes in 1972 ASSOCIATED PRESS: Nearly 100,000 people were ordered to flee the rising Susquehanna River on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee dumped more rain across the Northeast, socking areas still recovering from Hurricane Irene and closing major highways at the morning rush. At Binghamton, N.Y., the wide river broke a flood record and flowed over retaining walls downtown. Interstate 88 was closed and emergency responders scrambled to evacuate holdouts who didn’t heed warnings to leave neighborhoods. About 80 miles downstream in Wilkes-Barre, the river was projected to crest later […]

WILL BUNCH: I watched all of last night’s rather predictable and not particularly game changing GOP presidential last night. As the dust settles, I honestly couldn’t tell you who the “winner” was. I can tell you who lost, though: Basic human decency. Not to mention America’s reputation as a nation built on virtues like justice and fairness. This shocking new low came near the end of the debate when moderator Brian Williams of NBC News asked Texas Gov. Rick Perry to defend his record of executions — 234, more than any other governor in modern history — during his tenure […]

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: The Industrial Age was largely about making those jobs as menial and unskilled as possible. Technologies such as the assembly line were less important for making production faster than for making it cheaper, and laborers more replaceable. Now that we’re in the digital age, we’re using technology the same way: to increase efficiency, lay off more people, and increase corporate profits. While this is certainly bad for workers and unions, I have to wonder just how truly bad is it for people. Isn’t this what all this technology was for in the first place? The question we have […]

PW: It started on a dare. A totally absurd-sounding dare. “Henry IV: The Musical,” he said to me. “Uh, sure,” I replied, assuming that the idea would disappear within minutes. I’d heard a lot of Ben Kamine’s harebrained schemes years earlier when we were undergrads together at Penn—the kind related from a college freshman at 3 in the morning, the hour when college freshmen believe they have all their most brilliant ideas. “I’ll direct it,” Kamine said. “You’ll write the music. We’ll do it in the Philly Fringe. It’ll be amazing.” The idea was preposterous for any number of reasons: […]

Convention Center, 1:20 PM by Jacques-Jean Tiziou RELATED: GASLANDIA: Q&A w/ Fracked Author Seamus McGraw PREVIOUSLY: THE FRACKING SONG: My Water’s On Fire Tonight PREVIOUSLY: GASLAND: Who Died & Made Grover Norquist Elvis? PREVIOUSLY: FIRE & RAIN: New Peer-Reviewed Study Definitively Links Fracking To Flammable Drinking Water

REUTERS: Sunoco’s decision to put its East Coast Philadelphia and Marcus Hook refineries up for sale has probably condemned both to closure. In a world where seaborne light sweet oils are much more expensive than landlocked U.S. crude and heavier and sourer imports, Philadelphia and Marcus Hook are the two worst refineries to own in the United States. Both will struggle to find buyers, unless someone can be found willing to invest large sums of money to upgrade their desulphurisation and coking capacity, enabling them to improve margins by processing cheaper heavier and sourer crudes. With so much pressure on […]

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