NMA: Movie star Ryan Gosling saved British writer Laurie Penny from an oncoming car when she stepped out blindly into New York City traffic Tuesday. “Ryan Gosling grabbed me away from a taxi,” Penny tweeted that evening. She said she looked the wrong way before crossing the street because she is accustomed to traffic flowing in the opposite direction in London. Penny has apparently been inundated with press requests following the incident. She claims she is turning down interviews, choosing to instead address the hoopla via a Gawker blog post Wednesday. GAWKER: Everybody needs to calm down about Ryan Gosling […]
TINARIWEN & FLEA: Cler Achel
RELATED: Tinariwen was founded by Ibrahim Ag Alhabib, who at age four witnessed the execution of his father (a Tuareg rebel) during a 1963 uprising in Mali. As a child he saw a western film in which a cowboy played a guitar. Ag Alhabib built his own guitar out of a tin can, a stick and bicycle brake wire. He started to play old Tuareg and modern Arabic pop tunes.[citation needed] Ag Alhabib first lived in refugee camps and later resided with other Tuareg exiles in Libya and Algeria. In the late 1970s Ag Alhabib joined with other musicians in […]
EARLY WORD: People Are Strange
JON FOY, DIRECTOR, RESURRECT DEAD: While most people associate [Resurrect The Dead star] Justin Duerr with the Toynbee tiles, I’ve been a long-time admirer of Justin’s unmistakable style of art for many years before we shot the movie. It was all over West Philly on records, shirts, show flyers, and wheat-pastes, and despite this he’s been one of the city’s best kept secrets.With the movie’s wide release, I’m hoping it leads many more people to discover Justin’s talents. The exhibit includes the largest collection of Justin’s work ever assembled in one place. These two free screenings are intended to introduce […]
Q&A With Jon Foy, Director of Resurrect Dead
PHAWKER: Just to start off with, for the sake of readers that might not know anything about The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles please explain… JON FOY [pictured, below right]: Sure. Well, it’s a documentary about a mystery. It explores this sort of urban legend-esque type of phenomenon. Someone’s been laying these tiled messages, and they’re embedded in the street. They look like little plaques. They’ve got messages about resurrecting the dead. They’re sort of cryptic. They’ve been in the street for almost three decades, basically across the U.S. and South America. Nobody knows who does them – or why, […]
SIDEWALKING: Big Ol’ Jet Aeroliner
Grumman’s Greenhouse, Lenfest Plaza, PAFA, 7:01 PM Tue. by JEFF FUSCO ASSOCIATED PRESS: It was born as a military aircraft, enjoyed a second career as a firefighting plane and is settling into its golden years as a piece of public art after a close call with the scrap heap. “Grumman Greenhouse” is a decommissioned military plane that was being sold for scrap in Alabama when 27-year-old artist Jordan Griska purchased it with a more noble fate in mind. Its new home is next door to his alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in a new plaza it […]
ARTSY: From Russia With Love
OLEG DOU: I was born in the artistic family and faced the art when I was a little child. Once I was looking at the book with Proto-renaissance artists which became my favourite for many years. I found a lot of awesome portraits with strange weird emotions in that book. Some people was ill, some angry, some crazy and some had empty indifferent eyes. It was not used to show the people that “perversion” way nowadays and that was real discovery for me. Since that time I had a passion for a human face and tried to find that kind […]
REPEATING HISTORY: The National Archives Puts 1940 Census Online, Massive Clusterfuck Ensues
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Interest in the newly released 1940 U.S. census is so great that the government website with the information was nearly paralyzed shortly after the records became available to the public for the first time. Miriam Kleiman, spokeswoman for the U.S. National Archives, told The Associated Press that the site registered more than 22 million hits in just four hours on Monday, from almost 2 million users. In a tweet posted after 5 p.m. on its official Twitter account, the archives said the website had received 37 million hits since the information was released at 9 a.m. Computer experts […]
HOSERS: Did Steve Volk’s Philly Mag Story About Rampant Reverse Discrimination And Racial Politics In The Fire Dept. Get A Deputy Fire Chief Fired?
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE: According to a recent report produced by the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, 87 percent of the department’s white firefighters believe that disciplinary decisions are biased by race; less than 30 percent of all firefighters think that hiring and promotions are done “without regard to race or ethnic background.” Numerous stories of unfair race-based treatment circulate through the city’s engine houses. There is the story about African-American Cory Nuble, who complained that a pair of black lieutenants harassed him for being too friendly with white firefighters. There is the story of Troy Gore, an African-American fire captain and Valiants […]
GOING ROGUE: Obama’s DEA Puts Lie To Campaign Promise, Raids Oaksterdam’s Cannabis University
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The doors to Oaksterdam University in downtown Oakland were cordoned off by yellow tape and blocked by United States marshals. Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration removed trash bags of unknown materials from the school to a waiting van. Arlette Lee, a spokeswoman for the Internal Revenue Service, told reporters that agents were serving a federal search warrant but that said she could not otherwise comment on the purpose of the raid. “What we are doing here today is under seal,” Ms. Lee said. About a dozen protesters gathered in front of the multistory building, which is adorned […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Aziz Ansari is about to hit the road. The 29-year-old comedian and star of Parks and Recreation is embarking on a multicity comedy tour, where he’ll be riffing on what he calls the “fears of adulthood.” You know, babies. Marriage. That kind of stuff. “I see a lot of my friends are kind of entering serious stages of their lives where they’re getting married and having children, and I’m getting to the age where that stuff is getting expected of me,” Ansari tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And it’s all very terrifying to me. It still feels like […]
DAVID LYNCH: Crazy Clown Time
Directed by David Lynch. Need we say more? PREVIOUSLY: NOW YOU TELL US: David Lynch Was Here…Again PREVIOUSLY: I SEE A DARKNESS: Twin Peaks Turns 21 PREVIOUSLY: David Lynch To Release Crazy Clown Time PREVIOUSLY: TRANSCENDENTALISM: Eternal Bliss In Our Time PREVIOUSLY: ‘I’ve Got To Find The Flaming Nipple’ PREVIOUSLY: USELESS INFORMATION: David Lynch’s Twitter
EARLY WORD: Last Tango In Philly
[Artwork by JUAREZ MACHADO] This coming Thursday, a crowd of people will dance the tango around Swann Memorial Fountain at Race and 18th Streets. Authorities will not stop it. This bacchanalia is no flash mob. Rather, it will commemorate the day when water will once again flow through Logan Square’s fountain. Anyone will be able to join the instructors, performers, musicians and party-goers with impunity to recreate an historic, massive “municipal dance” that was held to mark the opening of the fountain back in 1924. At the time, local police were stationed to assure that dance moves would not get […]
HOT DOC: Sold! To The Rich White Men In The Back In Top Hats, Tails And An Air Of Entitlement
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