Seems that back in the ’50s, smoking actually saved lives. Those were the days…
INTERVIEW: How Devil Girl Became Mrs. Natural
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Almost everyone knows R. Crumb‘s work whether they realize it or not. Keep On Truckin‘? You’re soaking in it. Cheap Thrills? You betcha. Big butts? He invented them. Devil doll glamazons offering piggyback rides to nebbishy four-eyed horn dogs? Sweet Jesus! Giddyup! (If none of this rings a bell, you would do well by renting Terry Zwigoff’s 1994 documentary, Crumb.) Aline Kominsky-Crumb, his wife of 35 years, is not quite the household word her husband is, but that may well change, depending on how hip the household. Aline has been cartooning as long as her husband has, […]
HOT DOC: Emancipation Proclamation Phones Home
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A museum on Thursday unveiled a rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, a document signed in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln declaring the end of slavery in the United States. The document is one of about 24 known copies to survive out of 48 that were originally printed. It was acquired on behalf of The National Constitution Center museum from an unnamed private collector. “This is one of the rarest, most valuable, most significant documents in history,” president of the non-profit museum Joseph Torsella told a news conference. “With the possible exception of the Declaration of Independence, […]
1.5 Million Women To Sue Pants Off Wal-Mart
SAN FRANCISCO Feb 6, 2007 (AP)? A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest private employer, must face a class-action lawsuit alleging as many as 1.5 million former and current female employees were discriminated against in pay and promotions. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a 2004 federal judge’s decision to let the nation’s largest class-action employment discrimination lawsuit go to trial, possibly exposing the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailing powerhouse to billions of dollars in damages. “Plaintiff’s expert opinions, factual evidence, statistical evidence and anecdotal evidence present significant proof of a […]
RIP: Molly Ivins, Concerned American, Legendary Texas Political Racontuer, Thorn In The Decider’s Side
Molly Ivins died Wednesday at age 62 after a long battle with breast cancer. This is her final column, entitled “Stand Up Against The Surge“: The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue.It is […]
THIS OLD CITY: ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES
30th Street Station [Photo by MooCat]
JUNK SCIENCE: Wash Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant!
BY ELIZABETH FIEND You already know that you’re supposed to wash your hands after going to the toilet and before food preparation and eating. But did you know it’s recommended to wash up after eating as well? Or that the best place to sneeze is into your elbow? And that you shouldn’t use the hand blower in the public rest room, it might actually be blowing germs onto your just-washed hands? It’s so important to wash hands because the flu, diarrhea and colds are transmitted either in the air or on surfaces you touch. Germs, bacteria, and viruses can live […]
Sidewalking: Hello Fancy Pants, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
[PHOTO & TEXT BY EVA LIAO] WHERE: The Art Musuem WHEN: Sunday 3:42 PM WHY: This guy rolls into the joint, suave as hell, right? Like he’s John Lurie circa Down by Law and asks me if I can bum him a smoke. I take one look at his ’30s style pants and brown rimmed Fedora and next thing I know I’m back at his place rolled up in flannel bed sheets and I can’t find my panties. Sike. Never happened. Cool pants, tho.
WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS: Kimmel Center Flooded
A deluge system in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts discharged gallons and gallons of water by accident (once again) ? this time flooding the rooftop garden and the Perelman Theater below. No fire was found, but water released Tuesday sometime between 11 and 11:30 p.m. soaked through the rooftop garden into the theater, its stage, seats and floor, and onto electrical equipment. This weekend’s three performances of Rennie Harris: Puremovement dance company were postponed indefinitely. Monday night’s “Keyboard Conversation” with pianist Jeffrey Siegel has been moved to Verizon Hall. And performances next week by American Theater Arts for […]
ART OF THE DEAL: PAFA Sells THE CELLO PLAYER To Buy THE GROSS CLINIC; Buyer & Price Unknown
Aftershocks of the $68 million sale of Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic rippled across the city’s cultural landscape yesterday as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts disclosed that it had sold one of its most recognizable paintings – Eakins’ The Cello Player – to help finance the deal. “We gave it long and careful and agonizing consideration,” said Herbert Riband, the academy board vice chairman. “Our board did not undertake this lightly.” Riband would not disclose – and said he did not know – the identity of the buyer nor the price paid for the large 1896 oil portrait […]
AND THEN NOTHING TURNED ITSELF INSIDE OUT
PHAWKER RADIO: Yo La Tengo‘s AND THEN NOTHING TURNED ITSELF INSIDE OUT Gregory Crewdson’s eerie photographs of suburbia at dusk require set-ups as elaborate as a film shoot. “My photographs are about the moment of transition between before and after,” he explains. “Twilight is evocative of that. There’s something magical about the condition.” The eerie effect of twilight crossed with strong artificial light — street lights, house lights, lights from the sky — is exaggerated by Crewdson’s choice of backdrop, which is almost always nondescript suburban America. He is not the first photographer to be drawn to twilight — “nature […]
S.A.D. Thought Of The Day
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents… some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” — H.P. Lovecraft, 1926