NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane Wednesday, November 22nd Hour 1 Aside from Thomas Eakins’ painting “The Gross Clinic” at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, what other important works are in hospitals, schools, and non-museum institutions in Philadelphia? We talk with MICHAEL LEJA, Professor of American Art at the University of Pennsylvania and PENNY BALKIN BACH, Executive Director of the Fairmount Park Art Association. Hour 2 Being on your best behavior during the holidays. We talk manners with Johns Hopkins professor PM FORNI, author of “Choosing Civility: The 25 Rules of Considerate Conduct.” Then, New York Times ethicist RANDY COHEN helps us […]

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TRIBUTE: Nobody Will Love You Like Robert Altman Loved You

BY DAN BUSKIRK Last year I was teaching a summer film appreciation class to a bunch of middle-schoolers. You know what it\’s like if you?’re trying to pick out a film for any group, it’s impossible to come up with anything that somebody in the crowd isn’t going to roll their eyes at, but I’ve been doing this for a few years and I’ve come up with a batch of movies that really seem to work with kids. Still, I always want to try out something I haven’t shown before so last summer I decided to try out Robert Altman’s […]

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SGT. BYKO, INKY/DN Labor Mouthpiece, Responds To New Papers-Of-Record Owner’s Alleged Plans To Import Scab Labor Over The Internet; No Word Yet On Rumored Plans To Replace Newsroom With Cheap Migrant Labor Or Just The Standard 50 Monkeys With 50 Typewriters

VIA BYKO: If They Did It: Here’s How Philadelphia Media Holdings Would Hire Scabs Nov. 21, 2006 Contact: Stu Bykofsky Philadelphia Media Holdings, the company that cries poverty while demanding devastating cuts from Guild members, seems to be gearing up to spend a fortune on scabs to produce our papers and drive our trucks. The Philadelphia Weekly reported today that an ad seeking “replacement workers” (aka scabs) was recently posted on careerbuilder.com. The mystery company seeks scabs to come to an East Coast city to work as reporters, photographers, graphic artists, news assistants and truck drivers in the event of […]

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LAST CALL: Crowd Pleaser Nate Wiley Dead At 82, End Of ‘Longest Job Goin’

Nate Wiley and the Crowd Pleasers Bob and Barbara’s, 1509 South St. Last call. This is the house that Pabst Blue Ribbon built. The walls are covered floor to ceiling with Pabst memorabilia spanning several decades–from the corny caucasoid ’50s when Danny Kaye shilled for the brew, to the blaxsploitation ’70s when he was replaced with a Foxy Brown lookalike. The one constant in all those ads over the years is this catchphrase: “Now at Popular Prices.” That’s the asking price for Nate Wiley and the Crowd Pleasers, which has been cranking out no-cover-charge soul-powered organ jazz at Bob and […]

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“There’s a common loneliness that just sprawls from coast to coast. It’s like a common disjointed identity crisis. It’s the dark, warm narcotic American night I just hope I’m able to touch that feeling before I find myself one of these days parked on Easy Street.” –TOM WAITS, 1976

THE MAN WHO HOWLED WOLF TEXT BY JONATHAN VALANIA/PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN LANTRY The Astro is a broken-down, drunk motel located about an hour north of San Francisco in Santa Rosa, near the arid, wine-growing region of the Sonoma Valley. It’s Tom Waits country – he lives somewhere around here, although exactly where remains a closely guarded secret. MAGNET booked a room at the Astro because the price is right, but upon closer inspection, it’s the ideal setting to await an audience with the man who elevates the down and out in song. The bard of boardinghouse madrigals. The man who […]

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Junk Science: YOUR HOSTILE PROJECTILES ARE NO MATCH FOR MY INVISIBLE FORCE FIELD, or, Surviving Thanksgiving “Back Up Off Me”-Style

ELIZABETH FIEND REPORTS: This is my Thanksgiving column. As a vegetarian, you probably expect me to write an article on the horrors of eating turkey — antibiotics, hormones, inhumane factory farming. As an anarchist you may think I’m going to rail against the hypocrisy behind the meaning of the day — the slaughter of Native Americans by the white man, the taking over of someone else’s land. Or perhaps you’re hoping for some vegetarian recipes. In that case, you shoulda tuned into my NPR Vegetarian Thanksgiving interview last year. Instead, I’m going to talk about how to use the science […]

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ESPERANTO: Yo La Tengo For Joey Vento

In a bold and arguably pointless move, we just hired a new indie-rock critic right off the boat from Sicily. Please give a warm 215 HELLO to Simone Secci. Honestly, it never occurred to us to ask if he could write in, like, English. Oh well, this one goes out to all our goombahs in Sout’ Phiwwy. Abbondanza! YO LA TENGO INTERVISTA di SIMONE SECCI Incontrare gli Yo La Tengo ? un’esperienza che si rivela ancor pi? piacevole del previsto. Se difatti la semplicit? e la spontaneit? comunicata dalla loro musica e dalla loro immagine pubblica, lasciano pensare a tre […]

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BREAKING: Robert Altman, AMERICAN MASTER, Dead At 81

“THE DEATH OF AN OLD MAN IS NOT A TRAGEDY.” –ROBERT ALTMAN, 1925-2006 FROM THE SF CHRONICLE: Garrison Keillor, who starred in Altman’s last movie — this year’s “A Prairie Home Companion” — said Tuesday that love of film clearly came through on the set. “Mr. Altman loved making movies. He loved the chaos of shooting and the sociability of the crew and actors — he adored actors — and he loved the editing room and he especially loved sitting in a screening room and watching the thing over and over with other people,” Keillor said in a statement e-mailed […]

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PEEPLE: Brit To Post Sex Vid On MySpace? That’s The Scuttlebutt ’round The Ol’ Burger Basket Where They Would Actually Know The Truth About Such Things

Sources close to Spears report she is “seriously thinking about” giving away a digitally re-mastered copy of the four-hour long sex video. During a visit to Burger Basket with her two sons, Sean Preston and Jayen James Spears said she may just post a clip of the video on MySpace. “Brit figures she’ll beat that sucker to the punch, just like she did by giving away pictures of Jayden James,” said Spears family friend Nyla Price, 55, the owner of Nyla’s Burger Basket. “Half of nuthin’ is nuthin’, and that’s what her lying skunk of a husband will get if […]

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NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

On Fresh Air today….actress PARKER POSEY. She’s currently co-starring in her fourth Christopher Guest comedy “For Your Consideration.” From NEW YORK magazine: What looks like wackiness to the untrained eye is actually, in the estimation of a certifiable comic genius like Christopher Guest, the spontaneity that is crucial to the success of his improvised films?the mark of the perfect supporting player, who knows when to yield a scene to other actors and who can just as easily elicit laughs without saying anything at all. “When someone acts like they’re listening and isn’t really listening, that’s what it looks like: ‘Look, […]

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IN MEMORIAM: Andre Waters 1962-2006

Waters, 44, died early yesterday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He took with him the answer to the only question — Why, Andre, why? — worth asking. He may have given at least part of an answer in that nearly three-hour phone conversation in April. He wasn’t just frustrated and bitter about his inability to find a job with an NFL team. He was personally hurt by a system he believed used players up and spit them back out. But then, everything was personal with Waters. That seems surprising, since he was the most violent and reckless […]

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THE DARK SIDE OF BLACK HORSE PIKE: Four Women Found Dead In Ditch Behind Welfare Motel

By Jacqueline L. Urgo and Kera Ritter Inquirer Staff Writers MAYS LANDING, N.J. – The bodies of four women were found in a drainage ditch yesterday behind a string of motels on the Black Horse Pike, according to Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blitz. The victims were found face down in several inches of water behind the Golden Key Motel, Fortune Inn, and Star Motel. Two women walking along a dirt access road off the westbound lane of the Black Horse Pike discovered one body about 3 p.m. Egg Harbor Township police investigating that death found the other bodies. The […]

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