The Philadelphia Zoo’s three African elephants will not move to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, which announced today that it has delayed the expansion of its elephant habitat and would not be able to accommodate Petal, Kallie and Bette this spring as planned. Officials at the Philadelphia Zoo, which is closing its elephant exhibit, said they are working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums to find another home for the animals. Dulary, the Philadelphia Zoo’s Asian elephant, is still scheduled to move to the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, most likely in April. INQUIRER: Alas, The Great Philly-Pachyderm Assimilation Experiment […]
HEAR YE: A Minute By Minute Review Of New Wilco
[NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO: SKY BLUE SKY THE NEW ALBUM BY WILCO] Yesterday over at Rock Town Hall, Ed King ‘live blogged’ the new Wilco album, instantaneously reviewing it as he listened to our stream. WARNING: We do not recommend you try this at home — or even over PW, after all Mr. King is a trained professional and a hardened veteran of many unpopular rock wars. (RTH also has this nifty YouTube for fans of horticulture.) Here’s what he wrote: BY ED KING If you don’t have it yet or haven’t found another place to check out Wilco’s […]
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 […]
GAYBO: BEYOND THE BEYOND
BY SARA “I’m Not Gay But I’m Willing To Learn” SHERR GUEST COLUMNIST While Tommy Zane is on vacation this week, I’ll continue to advance the gay agenda, since according to Margaret Cho, fag hags are the fabric of gay society. However, if I get my pronouns wrong, please remember that at the end of the day, I’m a boring old straight girl in an eight-year relationship who hasn’t worn a pair of pants since the end of the Clinton administration. But, having gone through puberty during the early years of MTV, I love a man in eyeliner and a […]
NPR FOR THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since ’06
FRESH AIR Record producer Joe Boyd was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He first became involved in music promoting blues artists while a student at Harvard University, and in 1964 made his first visit to Britain, returning the following year to establish an overseas office of Elektra Records. He was eventually to settle in London.He became best-known for his work with British folk and folk rock artists, including the Incredible String Band, Martin Carthy, Nick Drake, John Martyn, Fairport Convention and Richard Thompson. Some of these were produced by his own production company, Witchseason. He also co-founded London’s UFO Club and […]
TRANSIT: Woman Attempts Suicide By SEPTA
Pennsylvania – A 46-year-old female attempted to commit suicide Friday morning at the SEPTA subway station at 40th and Market streets, Philadelphia Police Department officials said. The woman — who was unaffiliated with the University of Pennsylvania — jumped in front of the eastbound Market-Frankford train at about 11 a.m. Philadelphia Police received a radio call at 11:44 a.m., and SEPTA, Philadelphia and Penn Police and the Philadelphia Fire Department responded to the incident. The victim was trapped under the train and freed at 12:10 p.m. by the Fire Department. She was transported to the Hospital of the University of […]
GAMBLOR: Send Lawyers, Guns And Money!
DAD, GET ME OUT OF THIS! FROM THE INQUIRER: A ballot question seeking to exclude casinos from residential areas cannot be stopped by court action, City Solicitor Romulo L. Diaz Jr. has advised Mayor Street. Diaz said that if the ballot initiative approved unanimously by Council last week is passed by city voters on May 15, it will eventually be voided by the courts because state law takes precedence over city codes. Nevertheless, Diaz wrote Friday in a memo to Street, he cannot prevent the proposed amendment to the city charter from being voted on in the May primary election. […]
FIGHT CITY HALL: Vern Anastasio 1, Frank DiCicco 0
[Hat tip to da Wook, HOLLA!]
THE MICHAEL SMERCONISH EXPLAINER: Wiping The Smirk Off Mr. Clean With The Dirty Rag Of Truth
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Michael Smerconish looks like Mr. Clean, or, as he is known to Russian housewives, Mr. Proper. Michael Smerconish is also a country club Republican, a talk-radio host and, as of late, a regular fixture of the Inquirer’s Sunday Op-Ed page. Bully for him, we’re all for equal time and open debate even if we think he has his head up his ass most of the time. Sadly, because of guys like Smerconish — Machiavellian media climbers that will say ANYTHING to ensure their butt space in the game of musical chairs that is the talking head punditocracy […]
MOVIE REVIEW: MAFIOSO
(1962, directed by Alberto Lattuada, 105 min., Italy) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC There was quite a lot of grumbling last year over the fact that many critics listed Jean-Pierre Melville‘s 1969 war film Army of Shadows as the best film of 2006, as it was getting its first U.S. screenings 37 years after it was made. Resurrected by the small distributor Rialto Pictures and it honestly was like nothing else seen in theaters last year. This year, Rialto is setting its hopes on another forgotten gem, Alberto Lattuada’s 1962 tragic-comedy Mafioso. While it’s not as stylistically daring as the […]