FRESH AIR Singer-songwriter Anna McGarrigle says it took her a long time before she was able to listen to recordings of her performing with her sister Kate (ex-wife of Loudon Wainwright; mother of Rufus Wainwright), who died of cancer last year. She was 63. “It took me a few months,” McGarrigle tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And then I had to do a lot of listening to things and I thought, ‘I’m just going to grit my teeth and do this.’ But every now and then, I heard her sing something and sometimes it would be so unexpected … […]
THE DONALD: Turns Out He’s A Big Gov. Bloodsucker
LOS ANGELES TIMES: Donald Trump, the developer and would-be presidential candidate, portrays himself as a swashbuckling entrepreneur, shrewder and tougher than any politician, who would use his billionaire’s skills to restore discipline to the federal government. In his disdain of big government, however, Trump glances over an expensive irony: He built his empire in part through government largesse and connections. From his first high-profile project in New York City in the 1970s to his recent campaigns to reduce taxes on property he owns around the country, Trump has displayed a consistent pattern. He courted public officials, sought their backing for […]
TONIGHT: Palace Brothers
BY MATTHEW HENGEVELD Digable Planets’ Ishmael Butler, aka Butterfly, may have spent the better part of the last decade on on the “whatever happened to…” list, but he’s back in black with his new project, the altogether mind-blowing Shabazz Palaces, which plays Kung Fu Necktie tonight. Late next month, Shabazz Palaces will drop the most def Black Up, the first hip hop album to be released on Sub Pop records in the Seattle label’s two decade-plus history. It might have taken them a while to get started, but as a rap label Sub Pop is already batting a thousand. Black […]
TONITE: You Got Your Mahler In My Schoenberg!
BY DAVE ALLEN In classical music, it’s common to observe the anniversaries of long-ago births of the all-time greats with year-round performances of their works. They seem to crop up all the time; last year marked the bicentennials of two Romantic heavyweights, Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann. These observances can lead to some transcendent moments: I remember hearing a broadcast of bells ringing in Salzburg, Austria, in honor of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in early 2006, and then performing his Requiem, left unfinished at his death, later that year. The death of a composer, though, seems like a […]
WORTH REPEATING: Why I Voted For Nutter
Because Michael Nutter has got game: he speaks in complete paragraphs, with subsections A., B., and C. and attendant footnotes, which also have their own subsections A., B., and C. He has run a campaign of ideas — smart, principled, and aspirational — for solving just about every problem this city faces, while his opponents have offered the usual empty sloganeering, racial semaphore and coded entreaties to their respective bases. If that makes you a wonk or a nerd — well, you can call me Potsie. Because Michael Nutter is the only Democrat running for mayor whose child attends a […]
EARLY WORD: The Least Trusted Name In News
Two long-time editors from the award-winning satirical news organization The Onion, Chad Nackers and Joe Garden, will be at Drexel tomorrow night to deliver a multimedia presentation on pop culture, politics and today’s media landscape. Chad is a senior writer who joined the Onion staff in 1997. A native of Appleton, Wisconsin, Chad moved to New York with the Onion in 2001, fulfilling his dream of living in a city covered in the world’s finest grime. Joe was born in Chicago and raised in rural Wisconsin. He started at the Onion in Madison, WI in 1993, and created the recurring […]
FIRE & RAIN: New Peer-Reviewed Study Definitively Links Fracking To Flammable Drinking Water
PRO PUBLICA: For the first time, a scientific study has linked natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing with a pattern of drinking water contamination so severe that some faucets can be lit on fire. The peer-reviewed study [1], published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate [2] over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks. The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas […]
DEENEY: How I Got Blackballed From Radio Times
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JEFF DEENEY On Thursday May 19th, WHYY’s Radio Times was going to air a segment featuring me and a local psychiatrist talking about the alarming rise of PCP in Philly’s black and Latin communities and the massive social costs associated with a drug that can prove ruinous to chronic users’ mental health. You would have heard first hand accounts from the inpatient director of Einstein Medical Center about the steady stream of PCP-related involuntary commitments to the hospital’s psych unit, and the difficulties associated working with patients suffering from severe, acute episodes of profound drug […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In March 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt approached politician James M. Cox to offer him what should have been a cushy gig: the ambassadorship to Germany. But Cox turned down the job. Germany was unstable and violent — and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s paramilitary army had started to attack and jail thousands of its own citizens. The job remained open for months as candidates were summarily rejected. In early June 1933, Roosevelt’s commerce secretary suggested an alternative: William Dodd, a professor at the University of Chicago who spoke German and received his graduate degree in Germany. Roosevelt offered Dodd […]
THE EARLY WORD: Iraq & Roll
Baghdad metallurgists ACRASSICAUDA have survived Baathist dead-enders, al Qaeda goons and assorted jihadist jerks — but can they survive Fish Town? Find out Thursday when they rock Johnny Brendas, along with all-girl Metallica tribute band Misstallica.
REVIEW: Beastie Boys Hot Sauce Committee II
BY MATTHEW HENGEVELD Albums like Paul’s Boutique make men out of Boys, and in the process change the game. Coming on the heels of the critically acclaimed/commercially successful Licensed To Ill, Paul’s Boutique didn’t much impress Capitol Records, their label at the time, or for that matter anyone at the RIAA. Paul’s Boutique literally was the holy-baloney “I can’t believe you sampled Johnny Cash” mother lode debacle of the music-sampling century. It eventually established a harsh precedent for all future sampling, requiring artists to acquire permission, and invariably pay through the nose, before sampling anything. This arguably compromised the art […]
THIS JUST IN: R. Kelly Is Coming To The Mann
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] Just announced: R. Kelly at the Mann July 3rd with Keyshia Cole & Marsha Ambrosius. Tickets go on sale Friday at noon. PREVIOUSLY: Platinum Until Proven Guilty PREVIOUSLY: The Last Tempation Of R. Kelly?
Spielberg In Town To Honor Comcast For Doing Something Nice And Un-Evil For A Change
[Photograph by RAY SKWIRE] ASSOCIATED PRESS: Spielberg was inspired by his 1993 Holocaust epic “Schindler’s List” to establish the Shoah Foundation, which gathers video testimonials from Holocaust survivors and eyewitnesses to use as teaching tools for current and future generations. Shoah is the Hebrew word for Holocaust. Today, the foundation’s Visual History Archive is one of the world’s largest video libraries, with nearly 52,000 testimonials from 56 countries and in 32 languages. Its goal is to provide the videos to scholars and educators as a way of educating young people about the suffering caused by xenophobia around the world. Roberts, […]