This just in: Bob Dylan, Wilco, My Morning Jacket and Ryan Bingham @ Susquehanna Center on July 28th! Tickets go on sale Saturday at 10 AM. RELATED: Zimmerman, Robert: Aka Bob Dylan, aka the Mystery Tramp, aka Napoleon in Rags. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Bob Dylan was the all-seeing eye atop the pyramid of rock–a razor-thin, tousle-haired visionary speaking in stoned parables and meth-riddles about the nature of transcendental consciousness from behind impenetrable black shades. His status as generational oracle was earned by a triumvirate of hallucinatory folk-rock albums–1965’s Bringing It All Back Home […]
RIP: Richie Havens (1941-2013)
Amen, brother. ASSOCIATED PRESS: His performance at the three-day 1969 Woodstock Festival, where headliners included Jimi Hendrix, was a turning point in his career. He was the first act to hit the stage, performing for nearly three hours. His performance of “Freedom” — based from the spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” — became an anthem. Woodstock remains one of the events that continues to define the 1960s in the popular imagination. Performers included The Who, Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and dozens of others, and the trippy anarchy of Woodstock has become legendary. There was […]
It Was The Drugs, Not The Dead Baby Feet In Jars That Brought The Cops To Gosnell’s Clinic
THE ATLANTIC: His run as a pusher, as detailed by the prosecution, ended spectacularly. Gosnell was scribbling out as many as 200 narcotic prescriptions a night. It’s an irony of America’s continued war against drugs that while Gosnell apparently could have been busted for murder years before had various medical oversight agencies been more vigilant, he only got arrested when he messed with the DEA. The grand jury report in the murder trial, with its horrific descriptions of babies’ feet preserved in jars in a back room, has gotten more press. But the indictment handed down in his drug […]
WORTH REPEATING: Being Amy Schumer
NEW YORK TIMES: Ms. Schumer has been darkly joking about sex since long before she had any. At 10 she was eating dinner with her 6-year-old sister when their mother went to the bathroom. She picked up a French fry and a stick of butter and told her sibling one was a penis and the other a vagina. She dipped and said, “Any questions?” When her sister, Kim Caramele — now a married clinical school psychologist in suburban Chicago — reminded her of this story at her Chelsea apartment, Ms. Schumer laughed. “Sorry about that,” she said as she […]
BEING THERE: The Deadliest Catch
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in David Henneberry’s boat, Watertown, MA, 8:01 pm. Thermal imaging photo by Massachussetts State Police.
CROWD SOURCING THE TRUTH: How I Almost Became Part Of The Problem With Twitter
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILLY POST Like many of you, I was up most of the night following the jaw-dropping events in Boston to the best of Twitter’s ability. Between midnight and sunrise, it was a foregone conclusion on Twitter that the Boston Marathon bombing suspect in the White Hat (who remains at large, and is considered armed and very dangerous) was Sunil Tripathi, who was born in Bryn Mawr, graduated from Radnor High School, and up until a few weeks ago when he mysteriously disappeared, was a philosophy major at Brown. As the editor of Phawker.com, a […]
CINEMA: The Ends Of The Earth
OBLIVION (2013, directed by Joseph Kosinski, 124 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The hype seemed a little underwhelming in trumpeting the release of the epic sci-fi flick Oblivion. Arriving pre-blockbuster season and directed by the newcomer behind the underwhelming Tron: The Legacy, I’d be kidding if I said optimism was in bloom. Yet with spring, all possibilities are possible: Oblivion is a minor triumph of lowered expectations, sporting a fairly fresh premise and gorgeous production design, while serving as a somewhat sturdy vehicle for its middle-aged star to fire laser guns and fly space cruisers like a […]
SIDEWALKING: Physical Graffiti
Electric Factory, 10:31 pm, photo by PETE TROSHAK, image by GET UP
BOOKS: Between The Bars
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Perhaps you’ve seen Stewart Ebersole [PICTURED BELOW, RIGHT] bike messenger-ing around town over the years. He no longer lives in Philadelphia but for many years he cut a pretty dashing profile, a tall drink of water with the gift of gab and miles of style, always changing up his look, sometimes a mod, sometimes a rocker, sometimes shaggy-haired, bearded and Rapsutin-like, but always a punk. Always. Black Flag is his brand, having cut his punk rock teeth back in the early ’80s as a mohawked college radio DJ, and he’s a lifer. He’s got the Black […]
VIDEO: Footage Of Boston Bombing Suspects
If you recognize either of these men, contact the FBI immediately at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
EARLY WORD: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
This originally posted the day after Rufus Wainright’s 2009 performance at the Kimmel Center TOP 5 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT RUFUS WAINRIGHT @ THE KIMMEL 1. He’s Got Miles And Miles of Style Dressed in clingy cranberry trousers, brown sparkly shoes tied up in bows and a cream blazer with a ruby flower broach on the lapel, his flopsy bangs shorn to Hugh-Grant-in- Four-Weddings-And-A-Funeral-length, Rufus looked hale and healthy and so happy together. Noting the balcony crowd bearing down upon him from all sides, he declared: “I feel like I’m on trial…and I’m winning the case.” The jury of […]
Almost To The Day In 1947, A Massive Ammonium Nitrate Explosion In Texas Killed 581
HISTORY.COM: A giant explosion occured during the loading of fertilizer onto the freighter Grandcamp at a pier in Texas City, Texas, on this day in 1947. Nearly 600 people lost their lives and thousands were injured when the ship was literally blown to bits. Ammonium nitrate was used as an explosive by the U.S. Army in World War II and, after the war ended, production of the chemical continued as its use as a fertilizer became accepted. However, the precautions used in its transport became far more lax in the post-war years. On April 16, the Grandcamp was being […]
BOOKS: Helter Skelter
“Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself” — Charles Manson BY JESSICA DURKIN Author and noted misanthrope Jim Knipfel re-invents the fairy tale for modern times with this wonderfully bizarre and twisted collection of short stories. He takes the supernatural elements of fairy tales and places them into an urban, modern-day setting. He amuses, confuses, and ultimately delights in this book of brutal satire that tightrope walks the borderline between fantasy and reality. Knipfel , who got his start back […]