NOTE: All this week we will be running our Popped! Fest Band Libs. Northern Liberties 1. We are called Northern Liberties because we are a noospheric oratory rite, transmitting holographic emblems, resonating neural linguistic imprinting, brazenly eulogizing radiant terrestrial imagined entities, stridently. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is unenlightened of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we received the command, and it is a way for us to partially reveal our plan. 4. If we were not a band, we would be a pigeon, a beehive, or a […]
BREAKING: House Of Cash Burns Down
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – The Tennessee home of late country icon Johnny Cash burned down on Tuesday as renovations were under way for its new owner, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, a local newspaper reported. Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash, lived together in the three-story, wooden lakeside house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, about 20 miles north of Nashville, from 1968 until they died within months of each other in 2003. The Hendersonville Star News quoted a fire official as saying the blaze probably started when fumes from a wood preservative used in the renovations were ignited by a […]
FILM FEST PICKS: COMEDY POWER; CRUDE AWAKENINGS; DIRTY CARNIVALS
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC In my years devising strategies for tackling Film Fests I always skipped attending offerings like A Comedy of Power. It has nothing to do with the quality of Claude Chabrol’s latest thriller, it is just that you should get ample chance to catch up with the film during its regular run or on home video. Chabrol is a dependable talent who has had his films distributed in the states beginning with 1968’s Les Bitches through 2003’s Flower of Evil. However since A Comedy of Power opened in New York way back in January, the era […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
SWORDFISH & TROMBONES: Grandchildren, Popped! Fest, Last Night [FLICKR] EVA SAYS: Holy shit! I am so hyped up on Monster Energy Drink right now it’s not even funny. It’s 3:23 in the morning, I’ve smoked my third cigarette in a row, and I’ve just read this last sentence over five times. Whoever thought of giving out free mega doses of glucose and sucrose in sugar-water beverages to kids at an avant-garde, prog-rock, DIY West Philly show is either an asshole or a genius — I haven’t decided yet. Luckily, the task ahead of me deserves all the energy I […]
Plot Thickens For Man Questioned In Atlantic City Sex Worker Serial Killings
BY SAM WOOD INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Salem County authorities have seized another box of items from the home of a man who was questioned last week in the slayings of four Atlantic City women.The man, Terry Oleson, 34, has been jailed since Friday, when he was charged with invasion of privacy – an accusation unrelated to the corpses of four prostitutes who were found in a watery ditch in Egg Harbor Township in November. The charge stems from the discovery of a videotape showing a naked teenage girl, found by investigators during a search of Oleson’s Alloway Township home, his […]
HEY LADIES: Dirk Diggler Is Comin’ To Town
Mark Wahlberg has decided that Philadelphia is The Happening place to be. The actor, who earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed, has signed on to star in writer/director M. Night Shyamalan‘s apocalyptic thriller — set to begin filming in the City of Brotherly Love this fall. Wahlberg will reportedly play a family man determined to do whatever it takes to save his loved ones from a cataclysmic crisis. [via BoxOffice.com]
ATTORNEY GENERAL SUBPOENAED BY CONGRESS
WASHINGTON — Democrats subpoenaed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for more documents Tuesday, escalating their fight with the Bush administration over the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. The subpoena, issued a week before Gonzales was scheduled to testify before Congress about the dismissals, seeks hundreds of documents either withheld or heavily blacked out by his department. The subpoena sets a Monday deadline for Gonzales to produce the documents. “We have been patient in allowing the department to work through its concerns regarding the sensitive nature of some of these materials,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., wrote Gonzales in a […]
THIS JUST IN: Rick D. Memorial Services Announced
RICHARD C. DOBROWOLSKI, April 7. 2007 of Phila., beloved son of Eileen and the late James, brother of Linda Lyng (John) and Susan Lester (Doug); also survived by 2 nieces, Audrey and Lily. Relatives and friends invited to his Memorial Service, Thurs., 11 A.M., JOHN R. FREED FUNERAL HOME, 124 N. Easton Rd., Glenside. Int. Chelten Hills Cem. The family will greet friends after 10 A.M. No flowers. Instead please send donations to Philabundance, PO Box 37555, Phila., PA 19148-7555. [Via Philly.com] UPDATE: An informal wake for Rick D. is reportedly going down tonight at Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar.
TODAY I SAW…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, which […]
FILM FEST PICKS: HUMAN TAXIDERMY; SEXUAL PERSONAE; WHISKEY & WILD, WILD WOMEN!
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC With films from 41 countries in this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival, it is tempting to treat the two weeks like a whirlwind tour; you can scramble like Bond across every continent and study the faces of people worlds way. As exotic as such globetrotting is, let’s not forget this is Philadelphia, and things can get pretty curious right here, as well. Andrew McElhinney wrote in the current Philadelphia Weekly about two local filmmakers whose shorts go on tonight at the International House as part of a program titled Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild Wild Women […]
POPPED! FESTIVAL PICKS: BARKING SPIDERS, NORMAL LOVE, BEAR IS DRIVING
NOTE: All week we will be sharing responses to our Popped! band-libs. Barking Spiders 1. We are called Barking Spiders [pictured, above] because it’s what grandpa called farts. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is correct of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we are good friends. 4. If we were not a band, we would be another band. 5. People say we sound like lawn mower. 6. But really we sound like jet skis. 7. A year ago we were online dating and now we’re married. 8. If […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Walter Isaacson, former managing editor of Time magazine and author of best-selling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger, has turned his attention to the 20th century’s scientific poster boy, whose family life was as difficult as his career was distinguished. Isaacson’s book Einstein: His Life and Universe draws on newly released personal correspondence to create a portrait of the private as well as the public Einstein. ALSO, Children of Men, the breathtaking Alfonso Cuaron film based on P.D. James’ dystopian-futurist novel, has just come out on DVD. Critic-at-large John Powers takes a look at one of 2006’s […]