50 YEARS AGO: The Day The Music Died

THE INDEPENDENT: “That’ll Be the Day” topped both the British and American charts, incidentally topping the US chart when Holly only had 500 days left to live. Frank Allen of the 1960s band The Searchers loved the record: “To be a star, you obviously need a desirable amount of talent, but the most important factor is individuality – and Buddy was distinctive and unmistakeable, both visually and aurally. While we were skiffling away, trying to find a fourth chord, Buddy was giving us the opening bars of ‘That’ll Be the Day’ with unbelievable expertise and on an instrument that was […]

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SHE’S GONNA BLOW: Mt. Redoubt Version 2.0

[Click image to see live webcam of Mount Redoubt] SCIENCE BUZZ: A volcano is about to erupt about 100 miles from Anchorage, Alaska. The volcano last erupted nearly 20 years ago in 1989 [pictured, above] disrupting air traffic and polluting the Drift River with volcanic debris. The volcano may erupt at any minute and amazingly enough, a webcam [pictured, below] has been set up so you can watch it LIVE. MORE LA TIMES: Alaskans are not running in mad panic for cover, but many are concerned about the imminent eruption of Mount Redoubt southwest of Anchorage. Fox News is reporting: […]

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THE EARLY WORD: Histoire Lesson

Whenever Wednesday, February 18 @ 6:30pm Screening and Reception: Melody Institute of Contemporary Art · University of Pennsylvania 118 S. 36th St., Philadelphia, PA 19104-3289 · 215.898.5911 Join Anthony Campuzano over wine and cheese to watch Serge Gainsbourg seduce nymphet Jane Birkin in Melody (1971), Jean-Christophe Averty’s kaleidoscopic 28-minute video accompaniment to Gainsbourg’s iconic and provocative concept album Histoire de Melody Nelson. SERGE GAINSBOURG: Requiem Pour Un Con

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CLUELESS: According To Rasmussen Poll, Majority Of GOP Thinks Party Should Be MORE Like Sarah Palin

HUFFPO: While the media and political elites debate the future of the GOP, rank and file Republicans see see no need to deviate from the party’s current path. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, a plurality of Republican voters think the party has grown too moderate over the past eight years, and a majority think the party should become more like controversial Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. MORE GUARDIAN: Alaska governor Sarah Palin opened a political action committee yesterday, a move that may not outright confirm her intentions of running for US president in 2012 but indicates she intends to remain […]

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KILLADELPHIA: 15-Year-Old Boy Charged With Killing 73-Year-Old Man In Christmas Eve Hit And Run

DAILY NEWS: Police arrested a 15-year-old boy who they say was behind the wheel of his parents’ Ford Expedition on Christmas Eve when he plowed it into 73-year-old William Wrigley, killing him, and then kept driving. Police said that he turned himself in yesterday after an arrest warrant was issued more than a week ago. Authorities have not released the identity of the teen suspect, pending whether he’s charged as an adult when he appears in a court hearing today, a police source said. About 9:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Wrigley, of Frankford Avenue near Sedgely, was crossing the intersection […]

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BUZZ KILL: Now Can We Have A Grown-Up Conversation About Marijuana? Of Course, NOT!

NEWS OF THE WORLD: This is the astonishing picture which could destroy the career of the greatest competitor in Olympic history. In our exclusive photo Michael Phelps, who won a record EIGHT gold medals for swimming at the Beijing games last summer, draws from a bong. The glass pipes are generally used to smoke cannabis. And after sporting chiefs announced laws which mean four-year bans for drug-taking, Phelps’ dreams of adding to his overall 14 gold medal tally at the 2012 games in London could already be OVER. Those dreams seemed the last thing on his mind when he puffed […]

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We Know It’s Only Avant Garde Noise But We Like It

HOWL: Thurston Moore, International House, Last Night [Photos: JONATHAN VALANIA] BY DAVE ALLEN I counted about a dozen walkouts from Thurston Moore and Mats Gustafsson’s performance at International House last night. The duo’s aggressive and experimental playing on guitar and saxophone, respectively, tested the limits of what two instruments, with but six strings and one strip of wood between them, could do, but it also tested the audience’s patience and tolerance of noise. During quieter moments, the duo’s playing resembled a static-smeared AM radio receiver rapidly cycling between stations, and during the louder moments they sounded like dueling atom smashers. […]

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THE REVOLUTION WILL BE COMMERCIALIZED: Q&A With NYT’s Consumed Columnist Rob Walker

BY ELIZABETH FLYNN Rob Walker wants you to think before you sink your money into another superficial purchase. Walker — who writes the Consumed column for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, and author of Buying In, a highly-readable dissection of the dark art of branding — began his career focusing on advertising and media campaigns in 2000, writing the Moneybox column and other contributions for the online magazine Slate. Through his research into corporate strategies to incite a buying frenzy in consumers, he started asking some questions: If consumers had become, as many studies proclaimed “hyperaware” and “immune” to […]

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Inky/DN Seeking $10 Million Bailout From State

NEWSBUSTERS: We all wondered if it would happen. NB readers said it would very soon. NB author Tom Blumer even predicted this would be the year for it. Now the largest newspaper in Philadelphia is requesting a bailout. In a perfectly ironic fashion it took a lawsuit for the public to learn that the Philadelphia Inquirer is seeking $10 million dollars from the state of Pennsylvania. The bailout request was revealed after the school filed suit against the paper for a series of articles questioning the school’s use of government funds.Now, according to an interview between the Philadelphia Bulletin and […]

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CINEMA: Dancing In The Dark

WALTZ WITH BASHIR (2008, directed by Ari Folman, 90 minutes, Israel) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Like last years’ Persepolis, the true-life mystery Waltz With Bashir delivers the West some much-needed Middle Eastern history in an easy-to-digest cartoon format. Make that “easier-to-digest” format, because even when told with this expressionist mix of flash and hand-drawn animation this difficult-to-shake tale of the toll of war lures us to stare at some truly grueling memories that would be unbearable on film. With interviews collected as documentary then sculpted and rendered in animation, filmmaker Ari Folman presents the stories of his comrades from […]

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