BY AARON STELLA Never buy your first home for love; buy it for money. Embracing this maxim will maximize the considerable benefits of first-time home ownership. As I mentioned in our last edition, people don’t typically buy a home until they’re ready to settle down, and it’s this mindset that prevents many people from home owning and securing wealth until later in life. Your dream home doesn’t have to be your first; make it your fourth, and by that point you should be able to buy it in cash. After I got serious about buying my first home, I had […]
CINEMA: Land Of The Lost
VALLEY OF GWANGI (1968, directed by Jim O’Connelly, 96 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Secret Cinema will be offering a free screening of their print of the 1969 Technicolor fantasy film Valley of Gwangi tonight at 7:00pm at the American Philosophical Society. The film was directed by Jim O’Connolly but is defined by its gorgeous special effects by legendary animator Ray Harryhausen. Harryhausen found his calling at the age of thirteen when he saw the original 1933 King Kong at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where he was mesmerized the the model animation work of Willis O’Brien. He contacted O’Brien […]
KOOL KEITH & TOM WAITS: Spacious Thoughts
“Spacious Thoughts” NASA feat. Kool Keith & Tom Waits from Fluorescent Hill on Vimeo.
TONITE: We Travel The Spaceways
Tonight! Tuesday, May 25, 8pm SUN RA ARKESTRA Maestro Marshall Allen’s Annual Birthday Celebration Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Avenue $12 General Admission Ars Nova Workshop presents a very special performance of the Sun Ra Arkestra in celebration of the 86th birthday of Marshall Allen and the 96th anniversary of Sun Ra’s arrival on Earth. The Arkestra, under the direction of Allen, will perform two sets; DJ hi-res will spinning classic jazz, breaks and more; archival films will be projected behind the stage; and we’ll be giving away complimentary Moon Pies to the first 100 through the door. You won’t […]
BIG BLACK: It’s BP’s Oil, We Just Live In It
[photo via THE BIG PICTURE] MOTHER JONES: The blockade to Elmer’s is now four cop cars strong. As we pull up, deputies start bawling us out; all media need to go to the Grand Isle community center, where a “BP Information Center” sign now hangs out front. Grand Isle residents are not amused by the beach closing.Inside, a couple of Times-Picayune reporters circle BP representative Barbara Martin, who tells them that if they want passage to Elmer they have to get it from another BP flack, Irvin Lipp; Grand Isle beach is closed too, she adds. When we inform the […]
VBS TV: Diplo Takes Over Bob Marley’s Studio
Why Philly? A lot of people in your situation would have chosen New York. I couldn’t afford to move to New York. Besides, Philadelphia is really a good city and a pretty creative place. I guess it’s tougher than New York in terms of the competition because everybody hates each other. If you can make it out of Philly, you have pretty tough skin. I also got a scholarship to go to university there, so school was another reason. MORE
ORANGE CRUSH: Next Stop, Blackhawk Downs
[photo by RYAN DEVERA] NHL.COM: It’s been 35 years since the Flyers last hoisted the Stanley Cup. [Flyers owner Ed] Snider was 42 at the time. He celebrated his 77th birthday in January. You could understand if his patience has worn thin. “When (the Bruins) scored those three goals, I said, ‘Well, it’s been a great run … we gave it a great shot,’” Snider told NHL.com Monday night. “I have to be honest, I thought it was over. These guys never know what over is. They never quit.” MORE RELATED: A limited number of Stanley Cup Final tickets will […]
REEFER MADNESS: Fed-Funded Drug Unit Seizes Citizen Petitions Calling For Legalization
FIREDOGLAKE: A federally funded drug task force seized as evidence up to 200 petition signatures for marijuana legalization in Washington State in a series of early-morning raids this week. Seizing the petition signatures is bad enough. What’s worse is what the task force did on its raids of a legal marijuana dispensary and its owner’s home. Drug agents handcuffed a 14-year-old boy and pointed a gun at his head. Then they took $80 from a 9-year-old girl’s Minnie Mouse wallet that she earned for straight A’s on her report card. Now the drug agents – funded by the US Department […]
EARLY WORD: Talking Heads
When: Thursday, May 27 at 7 PM Where: Friends Center, 1501 Cherry Street Tickets: $12, available HERE Slate’s Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz bring their acclaimed weekly political podcast to the Friends Center in downtown Philadelphia, PA for a live performance. They’ll discuss President Obama, the Supreme Court, and the hot political stories of the week, and then wrap it all up with Cocktail Chatter. Afterwards, you will be invited to participate in the dialogue during audience Q&A.
Is It Time To Time To Rename The Fencl Award?
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] DAILY NEWS: IT WAS a joke. It had to be a joke. That was the only thought that entered Officer Richard “Butch” Riddick’s mind last week when he was told by the Daily News that he was the winner of the 25th annual George Fencl Award. MORE DAILY NEWS: George Fencl died in January, 1985. At the time he was chief of security for the Philadelphia School District, having retired from the Police Department with the rank of chief inspector in 1983, after 33 years on the force. Soon after his death, Chuck Stone, then senior […]
THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE: Man Drops Off Family At Casino, Sets Car On Fire, Disappears
INQUIRER: On Friday night, Martin Caballero, 47, of North Bergen, drove to the seaside resort Friday night with his wife and two adult daughters. He pulled his 2009 white Lincoln MKS up to the Porte cochere of the Trump Taj Mahal and let his family out, police said. Police said the women entered the casino. Ten minutes later they returned to where they last saw Caballero but could not find him. They assumed he had gone into the casino, said Sgt. Monica McMenamin, a spokeswoman for the Atlantic City police. Four hours later, one of the daughters received a call […]
BOOKS: Mark Twain Will Have His Revenge
THE INDEPENDENT: Exactly a century after rumours of his death turned out to be entirely accurate, one of Mark Twain’s dying wishes is at last coming true: an extensive, outspoken and revelatory autobiography which he devoted the last decade of his life to writing is finally going to be published. The creator of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and some of the most frequently misquoted catchphrases in the English language left behind 5,000 unedited pages of memoirs when he died in 1910, together with handwritten notes saying that he did not want them to hit bookshops for at least a century. […]
WORTH REPEATING: What Did Jesus Do?
NEW YORKER: Belief remains a bounce, faith a leap. Still, the appetite for historical study of the New Testament remains a publishing constant and a popular craze. Book after book—this year, ten in one month alone—appears, seeking the Truth. Paul Johnson has a sound believer’s life, “Jesus: A Biography from a Believer,” while Paul Verhoeven, the director of “Basic Instinct,” has a new skeptical-scholar’s book, “Jesus of Nazareth” (Seven Stories; $23.95). Verhoeven turns out to be a member of the Jesus Seminar, a collection mostly of scholars devoted to reconstructing the historical Jesus, and much of what he has to […]