The Good News Flower Hour #6 All the news that fits — in a five minute week-in-review read by a cartoon flower that sounds…wait for it…JUST LIKE ME. Enjoy.
CINEMA: Girl, Interrupted
WENDY AND LUCY (2008, directed by Kelly Reichardt, 88 minutes, U.S.) THE LITERARY WORLD OF FRANK & ELEANOR PERRY (This weekend at The International House) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC A film so internalized as to barely exist at all, Heath Ledger’s widow Michelle Williams mourns soulfully for her lost dog in the latest film from Kelly Reichardt, Wendy & Lucy. The plot is so slender it is almost high-concept, in its own modest way. Michelle Williams is Wendy, a twenty-something woman driving solo to work in Alaska’s fisheries when her dog disappears in a sleepy Oregon town. She feels […]
LAUGH OR DIE: High-Five Inauguration
Time was, inaugurations were all about the Benjamins. Those days are over. The golden goose has shit the bed. These days, it’s all about the cameos, baby. It’s all we got left.
Q&A: This American Life Host Ira Glass
BY JONATHAN VALANIA For nearly half a century television has had to bear the “barren wasteland” rap. But even a cursory, static-smeared twist of the radio dial reveals a largely fallow garden. Corporate consolidation and play-it-safe programmers have conspired to increase the emphasis on the obvious, the ordinary and the lowest common denominator. It doesn’t have to be like this. “When correctly harnessed, radio can be as emotional, as funny and as satisfying as the best motion pictures and television shows,” says Ira Glass, host of public radio’s This American Life. “But sadly, few radio programmers even shoot for that.” […]
GAME OVER: Obama Signs Gitmo Out Of Existence
NEW YORK TIMES: Saying that “our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground” to combat terrorism, President Obama signed executive orders Thursday effectively ending the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program, directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year and setting up a sweeping, high-level review of the best way to hold and question terrorist suspects in the future. “We intend to win this fight,” Mr. Obama said, “We are going to win it on our own terms.” As he signed three orders, 16 retired generals and admirals who have fought for months for […]
PAPERBOY: ‘All Science Is Local’ Edition
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
CAROLINE, NO: Kennedy Withdraws Senate Bid
NEW YORK POST: ALBANY — The search to replace Hillary Clinton in the U.S. Senate was thrown into chaos Wednesday night after sources said Caroline Kennedy had withdrawn her name from consideration. The startling news came just as Gov. Paterson was set to choose Clinton’s successor — with Kennedy considered to be the front-runner. Even as some sources said Kennedy had told Paterson she was pulling out, there was confusion among her closest confidantes. A family source said cousin Kerry Kennedy spoke with both Paterson and Caroline Kennedy’s political consultant, Josh Isay, and neither was aware she was bowing out. […]
HEAR YE: M. Ward Hold Time
Now playing on Phawker Radio! Comes out February 17th. BY JONATHAN VALANIA We’ve all heard the mythic tale of Robert Johnson’s Faustian bargain with the Devil, struck at the crossroads under a Delta moon. Let’s imagine for a moment that it’s a different night at that Mississippi crossroads. On this night, the devil is busy with other things, perhaps plotting the eventual rise of Slayer or meeting with the Republicans. And Johnson, well, he’s long since given the Devil his due, probably having second thoughts as to whether unlimited pussy, corn liquor and a little plantation-rock stardom was worth the […]
THE WAR ON ERROR: Obama Suspends Gitmo Tribunals, Will Close Terror Prison Within A Year
[Illustration by DREW FRIEDMAN] WASHINGTON POST: GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 21 — A U.S. military judge Wednesday suspended the trial of five detainees accused of involvement in plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, acceding to a request from military prosecutors in accordance with a directive from the new Obama administration late Tuesday. The suspension halts until late May the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the avowed mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot, and four other accused al-Qaeda members, even though Mohammed and three of the four objected to the delay. In Washington, meanwhile, aides to President Obama were preparing […]
CINEMA: You Say You Want A Revolution
CHE: PARTS 1 & 2 (2008, directed by Steven Soderbergh, 157 minutes, U.S./France/Spain) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Scattered amidst the filmography of director Steven Soderbergh are a handful of films that announce themselves as impossibly ambitious and intellectual. You can imagine the director bragging to his peers in the industry, “Oh yeah, my next film is a fictionalized take on the life of Franz Kafka” or “I’m remaking Tarkovsky’s Solaris and I’m getting it right this time!” Che, Soderbergh’s four-hour biopic on the life of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevera is the latest of these half-cooked dishes, delivering a […]
Godspeed Barack Barama And God Bless America!
[Photo by ANTOINE MCGRATH] “In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed […]
CHANGE: Brasserie Perrier To Become An Apple Store
ZDNET: A momentus event is almost upon us – an Apple Retail Store in Downtown Philly. MacNN reports that Apple has agreed to lease the former Brasserie Perrier restaurant at 1619 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. Despite having a retail presence in eight of the top 10 U.S. cities it has puzzled many as to why Apple hasn’t opened a retail store in the City of Brotherly Love (the 5th largest city in the U.S.). Detroit is the other snubbed city. New York, NY (3 stores) Los Angeles, CA (3) Chicago, IL (1) Houston, TX (3) Philadelphia, PA (0) San Diego, […]