FRESH AIR The man behind the most popular female comic book hero of all time, Wonder Woman, had a secret past: Creator William Moulton Marston had a wife — and a mistress. He fathered children with both of them, and they all secretly lived together in Rye, N.Y. And the best part? Marston was also the creator of the lie detector. Harvard professor and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore reveals this and other surprising details about Marston in the new book The Secret History of Wonder Woman. “I got fascinated by this story because I’m a political historian and […]
EARLY WORD: Super Furry Animal House
Gruff Rhys plays the Boot N’ Saddle on November 6th.
BEING THERE: Weezer @ The Trocadero
By DYLAN LONG We can all agree that Weezer needs no introduction, nor did they get one this past Saturday night at the Trocadero. Instead, after almost an hour and a half of fans trickling in to fill the joint to capacity, Weezer mainman Rivers Cuomo meekly appeared on the lip of the dimly-lit stage in front of the curtain and kicked off an acoustic set that mixed deep cuts (“You Gave Your Love To Me Gently,” “Why Bother”) with the classics (“El Scorcho,” “The Good Life” and of course “Buddy Holly”). Each song seemed to lure another Weezer member […]
SMUTGATE: Seamus McCaffery, At Last Showing Good Judgement, Resigns From PA Supreme Court
DAILY NEWS: Seamus McCaffery, a former Philadelphia police officer elected in 2007 to the state’s highest court, is retiring today, one week after four of his fellow justices voted to suspend him from the bench. The Supreme Court, in an order lifting McCaffery’s suspension, confirmed his resignation. McCaffery, 64, has been in a long and rancorous feud with fellow Philadelphian, Chief Justice Ron Castille, who must step down on Dec. 31 because he has reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. Castille was one of the four votes to suspend McCaffery last Monday after another justice, J. Michael Eakin […]
BEING THERE: Thurston Moore @ Boot & Saddle
Photo by DAN LONG The Boot & Saddle is a 125-person capacity South Philly venue with a long Country and Western history that was shuttered years ago and recently revived with punk rock charm. I knew right away this was going to be the smallest and most intimate venue I’d get to see Thurston and company play. Last night, the Thurston Moore Band — My Bloody Valentine bassist Debbie Googe, experimental guitarist James Sedwards and ex-Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley — kicked off their set with “Forever Love” and then segued into “Speak to the Wild” for a trifecta of […]
DEEP THROAT: Q&A With Harry Shearer
Illustration by EVERYBODY’S GOT TO BE IN A GANG Harry Shearer — aka the voice of Mr. Burns, Mr. Smithers, Ned Flanders, Otto The Bus Driver and Moe the Bar Tender, aka Spinal Tap bassist Derek Smalls, aka the voice of reason on NPR’s Le Show, director of the muckraking Katrina documentary The Big Uneasy that dared to speak the truth about the actual cause of the flood of New Orleans — is a man of many hats, and the voices that go with those hats. His latest project, ‘Nixon’s The One,’ finds him donning the face and voice of […]
CINEMA: The Jazz Nazi
WHIPLASH (2014, Damien Chazelle, 109 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK Whiplash is a skilled filmization of a preposterous argument. Set in the cutthroat world of a music school jazz band writer/director Damien Chazelle’s breakout feature follows a drummer as he locks horns with an unhinged drill instructor of a music professor. Whiplash occasionally thrills with some expertly-edited big band performances but I never got so whipped up that I shook the horror I felt at the film’s attitudes toward jazz music, education and humanity in general. As a jazz fan I knew we were in trouble when it revealed […]
BETWEEN TWO FERNS: Brad Pitt & Louis CK
Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Brad Pitt from Zach Galifianakis Do you really need to know anymore?
Weed Doesn’t Cause Low IQ, Shoddy Science Does
Artwork via DOPE MAGAZINE & THE WEED BLOG WASHINGTON POST: Now, a new study out from the University College of London provides even stronger evidence that the Duke [study’s] findings [that marijuana causes low IQs] were flawed. The study draws on a considerably larger sample of adolescents than the Duke research – 2,612 children born in the Bristol area of the U.K. in 1991 and 1992. Researchers examined children’s IQ scores at age 8 and again at age 15, and found “no relationship between cannabis use and lower IQ at age 15,” when confounding factors – alcohol use, cigarette use, maternal education, […]
GIRL TALK & FREEWAY: Suicide (feat. A$AP Ferg)
Girl Talk and Freeway’s collaborative EP, “Broken Ankles” featuring Waka Flocka Flame, Jadakiss and Young Chris, was released this past spring via Datpiff. Following Allen Cordell’s outstanding and over-the-top video for the EP’s debut single, “Tolerated,” artist Lisa Ramsey has now created an equally awesome and extreme “Simpsons”-based animated video for the remix of “Broken Ankles’” “Suicide” feat. A$AP Ferg. It presents an alternative reality where Freeway and A$AP Ferg both star as Bart Simpson-esque characters, while Girl Talk is represented by Milhouse. There’s an army of Barts wielding guns, a badass version of Lisa Simpson, a stoned Maggie and […]
INCOMING: Exiles On South Street
This just in from 215 Festival organizers: This week, The 215 Festival — Philadelphia’s literary arts festival, featuring readings and events with some of the city’s greatest writers (and some pretty good ones from more far-flung locales, too) — will ramp up, and we couldn’t be more excited. That’s for a few reasons. One is that the 215 Fest is one of our favorite times of the year. Another is that we’re proud and honored to welcome this year’s writers and authors — a lineup that is proof positive that Philly’s literary scene is fresh, robust and totally ready […]
BEING THERE: Malala Yousafzai @ The NCC
Photo by PETE TROSHAK A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, one Obi-Wan “Ben” Kenobi, in the midst of a light saber duel to the death with one Darth Vader, Dark Lord Of The Sith, declared: “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” He was not kidding. Nobody in this galaxy has proven the verity of Obi-Wan’s prophecy more incontrovertibly than Malala Yousafzai. One day she was just a tiny voice for advocating for the right of girls to get an education in then-Taliban-controlled Swat Valley. And then the […]
Q&A: Tig Notaro Will Not Go Quietly
BY JONATHAN VALANIA If Tig Notaro never existed we would have never thought to invent her, which not only points out the shortcomings of our imagination but also the depths of her originality. A tall drink of water in low-slung jeans with Billie Jean King hair, she speaks in a laconic drawl that is either medicated or chill to the point of Zen. She doesn’t so much tell jokes as construct these elaborate verbal Rube Goldberg Devices Of Funny and at the end, when you finally stop laughing, you’re like ‘I can’t believe that worked.’ If you’ve never heard […]