BY AARON STELLA GAYDAR EDITOR It happened on the fairest of Thursdays that I had the pleasure of lunching with two of Brooklyn’s hottest new specialty bakery owners, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. Lately, A-list celebrities have been helping to disseminate news of their revamped line of sugary, and not so sugary treats. Lewis and Poliafito’s Sweet and Salty Cake was recently featured on Martha Stewart; their brownies were featured on the Today show and selected as one of Oprah’s favorite things. And now, for the first time, the duo share some of their treasured secrets in BAKED: […]
EARLY WORD: Celebrate Banned Books Week
Celebrate Your Freedom to Read! Banned Books Week, September 27-October 4, 2008 Each year libraries, schools, and book lovers come together for Banned Books Week, a celebration of our freedom to read without censorship. The American Library Association receives hundreds of reports every year about books and other materials that have been threatened with removal from public libraries and schools. For each known incident, four or five others go unreported. The children’s book “And Tango Makes Three” topped the 2007 list of most challenged books. Get involved in the fight against censorship. Attend one of these two Banned Books events […]
ARCHIVE: Phawker Talk With Amy Sedaris
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Pretty girls aren’t funny for the same reason that pretty boys aren’t funny: they don’t have to be. Form fits function, and function answers to need. Pretty people rarely need for much, least of all the ability to win friends and disarm foes with a few well-placed yuks. It’s basic Darwin. Lucille Ball? Phyllis Diller? Roseanne Barr? Funny fuckin’ ladies. Pretty? Not so much. Amy Sedaris knows this. Her career puts the lie to that premise, by the way, but to do so she has to put on a fat suit and give herself an overbite, problem […]
CANCELLED: Interview With A Vampire
CANCELED: Anne Rice Due to illness, Anne Rice has canceled her upcoming book tour, including a stop at the Free Library that was scheduled for Friday, October 10 at 7:30 p.m. If you have already purchased tickets for this event, please note that we are currently processing refunds for the face value of your tickets, less the handling fee. Thank you for your understanding and patience throughout this process. Email or call with questions. Contact 215-567-4341 authorevents@freelibrary.org RELATED: PHILADELPHIA – More than a century after its first publication in 1897, Dracula remains the ultimate horror story, with countless film adaptations and […]
WORD: A Beautiful Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Waste
[Illustration by SARAHATLEE] A.O. SCOTT: What’s true of writers’ lives is also, surely, true of their deaths. The temptation to regard Mr. Wallace’s suicide last weekend as anything other than a private tragedy must be resisted. But the strength of the temptation should nonetheless be acknowledged. […] The moods that Mr. Wallace distilled so vividly on the page — the gradations of sadness and madness embedded in the obsessive, recursive, exhausting prose style that characterized both his journalism and his fiction — crystallized an unhappy collective consciousness. And it came through most vividly in his voice. Hyperarticulate, plaintive, self-mocking, diffident, […]
OBAMA/BIDEN: Back In The Saddle
CNN: Sen. Barack Obama has widened his lead over Sen. John McCain, according to CNN’s latest “poll of polls.” Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. John McCain by 3 percentage points, according to CNN’s “poll of polls.” The senator from Illinois is ahead of McCain in national polls by 3 percentage points, 47 percent to 44 percent. Obama was up by 2 points in the poll of polls released earlier Thursday. McCain led in national polls last week, but by the weekend, the candidates were tied. Obama recaptured the lead for the first time in 10 days Wednesday. The latest poll […]
MOTHER: Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE EMINEM’S MOTHER TELLS ALL IN A MUCH-ANTICIPATED MEMOIR: My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem: Setting the Record Straight on My Life As Eminem’s Mother By Debbie Nelson, with Annette Witheridge BEVERLY HILLS, CA—September 16, 2008—Eminem is the Elvis Presley of the new century. His fans are legion and loyal. Tens of millions of his albums have flown off the shelves. His music videos—even the older ones—have tallied millions of hits on YouTube. His relevance is undisputed. And his mother wants to set the record straight. In MY SON MARSHALL, MY SON EMINEM, Debbie Nelson reveals the truth […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Acclaimed novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace, 46, was found dead in his home Sept. 12; reports attribute his death to suicide. His 1996 novel Infinite Jest was a critical and popular success, while in recent years he has written short-stories and nonfiction. And he wrote a celebrated Rolling Stone profile of John McCain in 2000; it was revised and this year as McCain’s Promise: Aboard the Straight Talk Express With John McCain and a Whole Bunch of Actual Reporters, Thinking About Hope. Wallace was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1997. Fresh Air remembers him with an […]
INFINITE JEST: David Foster Wallace Kills Self
NEW YORK TIMES: David Foster Wallace, whose darkly ironic novels, essays and short stories garnered him a large following and made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, was found dead in his California home on Friday, after apparently committing suicide, the authorities said. Mr. Wallace, 46, best known for his sprawling 1,079-page novel “Infinite Jest,” was discovered by his wife, Karen Green, who returned home to find that he had hanged himself, a spokesman for the Claremont, Calif., police said Saturday evening. MORE NEW YORK TIMES: David Foster Wallace used his prodigious gifts as a writer […]
TRADING SPACES: 30 Year Old Poe House Exhibit To Be Upgraded To State Of The Tell-Tale Art
KYW: Just in time of the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, his Philadelphia home is getting a new look. The house is just a few blocks from downtown Philadelphia. Edgar Allan Poe lived there for about 18 months in the early 1840s. The current exhibits are 30 years old — and interpretive program specialist Mary Jenkins says it’s time for a change. Jenkins says visitors will see Poe’s influence on world literature and on popular culture. Poe penned classics including “The Telltale Heart” and “The Black Cat” while living in the Philadelphia house. It closes December 1 and reopen […]
MOTHER: John Lennon’s Oedipus Wreck
THE SUN: JOHN LENNON fantasised about having sex with his mother Julia, according to a leaked audio diary which it is claimed he recorded a year before his death. His widow YOKO ONO and BEATLES bandmate PAUL McCARTNEY are furious about forthcoming book John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman, which makes the lurid accusation. However on the tape – which you can listen to by clicking here – a voice alleged to be John’s can be heard noting: “I was just remembering the time I had my hand on my mother’s t*t in 1 Blomfield Road. “It was when […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When Bush Can’t
FRESH AIR Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University and a retired Army colonel, discusses his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. He argues that pragmatic realism has always been the core of American foreign policy, and current politicians would do well to remember that. Excerpt: ‘The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism’ by Andrew J. Bacevich Chapter One The Crisis of Profligacy Today, no less than in 1776, a passion for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness remains at the center of America’s civic theology. […]