COMING ATTRACTION: Mr. & Mrs. au Naturale

On Friday, look for Phawker’s exclusive interview with the R. Crumb and Aline Kominsky-Crumb: Big butts, bigger boots, LSD, weird sex, piggyback rides, meeting the Beatles, leaving America, and growing up in Philadelphia…newly hired PHAWKER BOOK CRITIC Mavis Linneman‘s review of City Paper Editor Duane Swierczynski‘s The Blonde…FILM CRITIC DAN BUSKIRK‘s review of the hilarious hipster comedy of manners that is Mutual Appreciation. Plus, the new ARCADE FIRE on PHAWKER RADIO, NPR FOR THE DEAF, PhillyHistory Write-A-Caption contest, and, invariably, some wry riposte on the latest and seemingly regularly-scheduled snuffing of a human life by a gun. Damn.

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Cover Wars: Whose Artfag Kung-Fu Is Stronger?

Here’s to the motivational power of Tough Love. After giving both alt-weeklies talk-to-the-hand last week, both have come back strong — as Mike Newall would say. (Whatever happened to that guy, anyway?) CP rocks yet another distinctive illustration by Evan M. Lopez to illustrate it Sarah Weinman‘s Where’s Waldo?-esque cover story on a nameless Philly boy missing for 50 years — complete with retro cherry top, spot-color blood stains and case-solving arrow (he was behind the cop the whole time, in the trees, right below the arrow!). Good stuff, CP, however, PW really upped their game this week. With a […]

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REVIEW: FACTORY GIRL

(2007, dir. by George Hickenlooper 90 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC When you’re sent to review a film, you must have the patience of a priest and the endurance of a superhero, and refuse to pass judgment until the final credits finish rolling, no matter how badly your Spidey senses are tingling. Sad to say, it only took a few minutes of Factory Girl to sorely test my priestly patience. Director George Hickenlooper’s game plan — take this radical culture star and shoe-horn her life into the staid biopic formula — was apparent right out of the gate. […]

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Hizzoner ’07: Milton Street In It To Win It, If Acquitted

Milton Street just held an impromptu press conference in City Hall to announce that he’s running for mayor in the Democratic primary. As for the pesky matter of his recent federal indictment for tax fraud? He said he didn’t know why that would be an issue, since, in his words, he hasn’t done anything wrong. He pointed out that he hasn’t been convicted of anything. Reporters also asked him about the residency requirement to run for mayor. Street seems to live in New Jersey — that’s where reporters tracked him down on the day of that indictment. He didn’t directly […]

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JUNK SCIENCE: Like Schindler’s List, The Spice Is Life

BY ELIZABETH FIEND India is an ancient land of exotic foods flavored with sizzling spices, blended in sophisticated, aromatic, mouth- watering ways. Dishes are seasoned with a dazzling array of herbs and spices, ones we rarely cook with like fenugreek, asafetida, black mustard seed, mint, cardamom and rose petal essence. Complex, heady mixes like Tandoori spice are heady with ginger, nutmeg, coriander, cumin, paprika, black pepper, salt, cloves, cinnamon and turmeric, each blend particular to each cook, the recipes passed on down the generations. Compare the intricacy of Tandoori spice to our “special sauce” — a mix of mayo and […]

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GUNCRAZY: Cop Describes Shipyard Shootout

Leissner’s patrol car raced down the Navy Yard’s desolate main road and stopped at Building 79 – a brick warehouse surrounded by silence. The 17-year military veteran, who had served in Kuwait and is a firearms instructor for the Air Force Reserve, could not have known he was seconds away from stepping into the scene of the city’s biggest mass murder in more than six years. Three businessmen had been shot dead inside a second-floor conference room. An accountant fought off the pain of bullet wounds to the stomach and managed to dial 911, alerting Leissner and other cops to […]

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TRIBUTE: BYE BYE MISS AMERICAN SUGAR PIE

BY AMY Z. QUINN This being Valentine’s Day, the Holiday That Launched a Thousand Mixtapes, I wanted to talk about Rock and Roll Broads — Lady Rockers — and what they taught me about love and sex. The lessons are many and definitely worth sharing, but that will have to wait for another time. Because today, despite the fact that it makes me vaguely nauseous and sad, I have to talk about Anna Nicole Smith — so let’s just get it all out there and off our chests so we can go back to our lives, shall we? On one […]

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GOD BLESS AMERICA: Dems Introduce Bill To Restore Constitution, Halt Construction Of Naked Men Pyramids

WASHINGTON POST — A group of Senate Democrats introduced legislation yesterday that would restore habeas corpus rights to all detainees in U.S. custody and would narrowly define what it means to be an “enemy combatant” against the United States, a measure designed to challenge laws ushered in by the Republican-controlled Congress last year. The bill, titled the “Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007,” strikes at the core of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 by giving detainees access to U.S. courts. It was introduced by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. The bill would […]

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