STRIPED WHITE JETS: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Starlight Ballroom, Last Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER First, a bite of crow: in the interest of full disclosure, I must confess to being among the few critics that did not clap my hands or say ‘Yeah’ when CYHSY first blazed across the night sky of the blogosphere two years ago, leaving behind of phosphorous tail of spent Pitchfork hype and Brooklyn hipster cachet. But it would seem that either they have changed or I have, or perhaps a little of both. Judging from CYHSY’s taut, expansive and altogether persuasive […]
WORTH REPEATING: How To Sell The City
Just stumbled upon this on UWISHUNU, which, it is no secret, is “created and fully moderated by the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation.” When the city’s marketers are using MIA as tourist-bait, truly a “new day” has dawned in Philadelphia. Update: The VIP package is SOLD OUT! ***You can still purchase MIA tickets from Live Nation. You should also check out Philly Like a Local for another cool way to stay in Philadelphia. Sri Lankan-British rapper/singer/songwriter Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, better known as MIA, is coming to Philadelphia’s Electric Factory on Saturday, December 1 to support her new album, Kala. It’s […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Raising Sand
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO BY ED KING ROCK EXPERT Today I set out to listen to and share my thoughts on the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album, Raising Sand. This collaboration, which the artists have taken great pains to say is not an album of “duets,” was produced by T-Bone Burnett. I’ve been looking forward to hearing it in its entirety. I must note that unlike most of my Insta-Reviews, I couldn’t help but hear snippets of some of these songs on the artists’ recent radio interviews, but I’ll try to keep my thoughts as fresh as possible. You have […]
HEAR YE: Robyn Hitchcock I Often Dream Of Trains
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO HEAR YE: Led Zeppelin Mothership NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO! INSTA-REVIEW: I’m Not There Soundtrack NOW PLAYING: ON PHAWKER RADIO! HEAR YE: Ween La Cucaracha NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO! HEAR YE: Radiohead In Rainbows NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO
SHOCK & AWE: 15 THINGS THOU SHALL NOT KNOW ABOUT DAVID DYE AND THE WORLD CAFE
1. All things considered, he’d rather be a DJ than an author. As part of the relentless media blitz for his recently-published book The Best Of The World Cafe, Mr. Dye has been jet-setting from one affiliate to another, planting the flag in exotic capitals of commerce and culture such as Akron, Louisville and Milwaukee. There, he is invariably greeted by a grateful populace as the man who brought water to the arid, choice-less deserts of the airwaves over middle America; a welcome, earthy alternative to the grating crackle and slick drivel of corporate radio. Having just touched town in […]
‘I HAVE AN EVENT TODAY, IF YOU WANT TO COME’
BiG TeA PaRtY screens H2YO! an environmental video at Fairmount Waterworks Interpretive Center. Four showings: Saturday November 16 & Sunday November 17 at 1:30pm & 3:30pm Fairmount Waterworks Interpretive Center Is behind the Art Museum along the Schuylkill river 640 Waterworks Drive, center door, downstairs, see you there.
MAILBAG: Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You
DEAR PHAWKER, We have a military veteran friend [NOT pictured] who was honorably discharged during the Vietnam era. He served in the US Navy while having dual citizenship (Canadian/US). He was born in Canada and his family moved to New York when he was a child and became dual Canadian and US Citizens. After discharge my friend worked in the US for over 3 decades, paying US taxes and Social Security. When it came time to retire and apply for his pension he was informed that the US Department of Homeland Security had revoked his US citizenship and did not […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
10 THINGS I LEARNED THE HARD WAY ABOUT MONSTER BOBBY & THE PIPETTES AT THE NORTH STAR THE OTHER NIGHT THAT I CAN’T TELL MY MOM By Tiffany Yoon
CINEMA: Whatever Happened To Donnie Darko?
SOUTHLAND TALES (2006, directed by Richard Kelly, 144 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Move over Michael Cimino. Grand in design, epic in its failure, Richard Kelly’s follow-up to the cult hit Donnie Darko is bound to be the new historical benchmark for young directors sending their careers up in flames. At nearly two and a half hours, the apocalyptic Southland Tales propels itself through its End Days scenario like an SUV rolling over on the freeway: it flips and flips and flips and flips till one wants to shout out in fear “Jesus, won’t this thing ever stop!” […]
EYES WIDE SHUT: Judge Opens Jena 6 Trial To Public
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A state judge has agreed to open the juvenile trial of one of the black teenagers known as the Jena Six. District Judge J.P. Mauffray agreed Thursday to open Mychal Bell’s trial but noted in a court filing that he was not required to open pretrial hearings. Bell, 17, is set for trial Dec. 6 on charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy in an attack last December on Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School. Barker spent several hours in the emergency room, but attended a school event later that day. Typically, juvenile […]
JOHN LENNON: Real Love
Ad for JC Penney.
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR BY DAVID EDELSTEIN Brian de Palma is one of cinema’s most hypnotic stylists, a virtuoso who can expand your perception of space, time and motion onscreen. So when he throws away his jazzy technique and goes for rough-hewn and immediate — as in Redacted — it’s a major statement. Redacted — De Palma‘s fictionalized restaging of the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and the killing of her family by American soldiers — is in form a kind of furious charcoal sketch: an assemblage of fake documentary footage, much of it from soldiers’ camcorders, with inserts of […]
JUNK SCI: Does This Holiday Make My Ass Look Big?
BY ELIZABETH FIEND LIVING EDITOR The holiday season is fast approaching, and I know a lot of you men are starting to worry about how you’ll keep your figure through all that festive, stressful, eating- and holiday-related gathering. It’s football season, too. With games on Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, and Monday night too, that’s a lot of beer. Go Eagles! (Why do I even bother?) Body-image problems are usually considered a women’s issue. But nowadays, men are concerned with their bodies and lookin’ good too. And men have to worry not just about their weight, but things women […]