SAMANTHA TAYLOR, WHARTON GRADUATE 2012: You have all these anti-establishment, “mad at the man” hipsters running around leading this movement when in reality they are living off of plush trust funds funded by the establishment that they’re so mad at. Many of them need to go occupy the homes in which they grew up, nestled in the safe, upper middle class suburbs of America. Why don’t they occupy the Apple store, or are they too afraid of not having the newest stylish Mac to pose with at the local coffee shop? While the dispersion of wealth in America is no […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: The Man Who Howled Wolf
FRESH AIR: Bad As Me, Waits’ 20th album, references the people he normally sings about: loners, losers, drunks and eccentrics. The “poet of outcasts,” as The New York Times once called Waits, romanticizes loneliness, the city of Chicago, death and love, among other topics. The album also pays homage to some of Waits’ favorite singers, including James Brown, Peggy Lee and Howlin’ Wolf. “I’ve always looked to [Wolf] for guidance, and probably always will,” Waits says. “He does have a voice that is otherworldly. It should be in a time capsule somewhere. When you’re a kid and you’re trying to […]
EARLY WORD: Saints Be Praised
Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), was a missionary and logician. Annie Clark (1982- ), the American singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist who goes by the name St. Vincent, brings a missionary zeal to her current status as indie’s ambassador of goodwill from The Other Side. Likewise, despite all its head-spinning detours and U-turns, her music follows the pristine logic of a flowchart. Such was the case Thursday night when St. Vincent stunned a near-capacity crowd in the sweaty basement of the First Unitarian Church with a flawless recreation of selections from Actor, her just-released and deservedly hyped sophomore collection of otherworldly, asymmetrical pop. Clark plays […]
VISUALIZATION: How Earth Got 7 Billion Guests
EZRA KLEIN: A lot of the commentary surrounding the fact that the world’s 7 billionth baby will soon start mewling has suggested that there are “too many” people for the Earth to handle. But context matters. It’s true that seven billion people all using the same amount of energy and raw materials as the average American would utterly demolish the planet’s carrying capacity. But if we can either curb our consumption or learn to use resources more efficiently — so that everyone consumes, on average, one-fifth of what Americans do now — then we could, in theory, survive just fine. […]
CRUEL AND USUAL: Law Firm Throws Party To Mock The ‘Bums’ They Threw Out Of Their Homes
NEW YORK TIMES: Let me describe a few of the photos. In one, two Baum employees are dressed like homeless people. One is holding a bottle of liquor. The other has a sign around her neck that reads: “3rd party squatter. I lost my home and I was never served.” My source said that “I was never served” is meant to mock “the typical excuse” of the homeowner trying to evade a foreclosure proceeding. A second picture shows a coffin with a picture of a woman whose eyes have been cut out. A sign on the coffin reads: “Rest in […]
LIFE LESSONS: A Pep Talk For OccupyPhilly
AP TICKER: I’m getting lots of letters about why I haven’t shown my face at any of the Occupy Philly protests. I wholeheartedly, endorse and support their endeavors and while I talk a good game about revolution and overthrow of this plutocracy, the sad truth of the matter is……..I’m a very very lazy man. As I have said many times before, my favorite hobbies are as follows, lying on my couch and being very very quiet. I and my couch bound brethren, represent a subset of The Greatest Generation that I have coined “The Lazy Generation” This true silent majority […]
AUTHOR AUTHOR: First Rule About Interviewing Chuck Palahniuk Is Don’t Talk About Fight Club!
[Illustrations by ALEX FINE] BY ALEX POTTER Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk has just published his 11th novel, Damned, the first installment of a trilogy that documents a few days in the afterlife of Madison Spencer, the dearly departed daughter of a filthy rich film producer father and narcissistic movie star mother. Madison dies on her 13th birthday in a freak accident that wouldn’t be out of place in the apocalyptic imagination of Tyler Durden. Palahniuk’s luridly cinematic rendering of hell—think screenplay by Milton, based on the novel by Dante and directed by John Hughes—is littered with sticky-sweet Halloween candy […]
THE DREAM SYNDICATE: Halloween
QUIT MUMBLING: The Dream Syndicate was described to me as L.A.’s version of The Velvet Underground from the 80?s. Say no more- I’m in. The band formed in ’81, played a show in Hollywood, made a basement 4-song demo, and overnight grabbed the attention of the L.A. music scene. In ’82 The Dream Syndicate released The Days of Wine and Roses, an album that could have easily doubled for a VU bootleg, only with a bit more noise and dynamic shifts. “Halloween” is a gem from the album, utilizing pretty wonderful guitar feedback as a dense surrounding for the dried […]
#OCCUPY: All The King’s Horse’s & All The King’s Men
WKDVR At least seven people were arrested in downtown Denver during a confrontation between Denver Police and Occupy Denver protesters Saturday afternoon. A police spokesman says the confrontation began when some Occupy Denver protesters tried to “occupy” the state capitol, which is illegal. “I saw the police become brutal for no reason,” said a woman who was at the protest. “I saw them choke a guy, I saw people get tear gassed who weren’t violent.” Witnesses say some in the crowd were throwing objects at police, and that a police officer patrolling the protest on a motorcycle was pushed off […]
SIDEWALKING: Welcome To The #Occupation
#OccupyMelbourne, Melbourne, Australia 10:41 PM RELATED: I confess to being driven insane this past month by the spectacle of television pundits professing to be baffled by the meaning of Occupy Wall Street. Good grief. Isn’t the ability to read still a job requirement for a career in journalism? And as last week’s inane “What Do They Want?” meme morphs into this week’s craven “They Want Your Stuff” meme, I feel it’s time to explain something: Occupy Wall Street may not have laid out all of its demands in a perfectly cogent one-sentence bumper sticker for you, Mr. Pundit, but it […]
CINEMA: That Barton Fink Feeling
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Still catching up on many of the event films as the Philadelphia Film Festival moves into its second week. I caught Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, and as a fan was a little underwhelmed, particularly by the underwritten second half. The first half was a treat for the director’s fans, bringing together another stellar cast including, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Udo Kier, John Hurt, Alexander and Stellan Skarsgard as father and son and the sad-eyed Kirstin Dunst for a wedding scene to rival The Deer Hunter. The second post-wedding act may have seemed short on incident but the […]
TONITE: Angela Davis Is Free
Legendary social justice activist Angela Davis will be addressing #OccupPhilly at 9:15 PM tonight at Dilworth Plaza. All are welcome. WIKIPEDIA: Angela Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party. Prisoner rights have been among her continuing interests; she is the founder of “Critical Resistance“, an organization working to abolish the “prison-industrial complex“. She is a retired professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the […]
HOW DID WE MISS THIS: Sly Stone Is Homeless
NEW YORK POST: In his heyday, he lived at 783 Bel Air Road, a four-bedroom, 5,432-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion that once belonged to John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas. The Tudor-style house was tricked out in his signature funky black, white and red color scheme. Shag carpet. Tiffany lamps in every room. A round water bed in the master bedroom. There were parties where Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Miles Davis would drop by, where Etta James would break into “At Last” by the bar. Just four years ago, he resided in a Napa Valley house […]