FRESH AIR Hedge fund manager Kyle Bass had made a fortune betting against the subprime mortgage market when it collapsed in 2008. And now Bass is set to make lots more — from a Greek default. Bass’ story is chronicled in Michael Lewis’ latest book, Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour, which tells the stories of the fiscal recklessness in both Europe and the U.S. that led to the current debt crisis. Lewis tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross that Bass realized that governments around the world weren’t ending the 2008 financial crisis — they were just delaying it. So Bass decided that […]
THE EARLY WORD: Hell Hath No Fury
At the Painted Bride January 10th-14th. Tickets go on sale to the general public starting on Tuesday, October 11 at 12pm and can be purchased at paintedbride.org, by phone at 215.925.9914 or in person at 230 Vine street. Box office hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm – 6pm. LOS ANGELES TIMES: Well into her 50s, she still looks fabulous — and recognizable. (Clearly, she prefers plastic surgery tune-ups to a complete overhaul.) Dressed in a chicer-than-chic black-and-silver dress, her flaming red hair arrayed like Medusa after a supermodel makeover, she takes command of the stage with the authority of someone […]
CINEMA: Highway 61 Revisited
BY ALEX POTTER Two-Lane Blacktop, starring a pre-fame James Taylor and a post-fame Dennis Wilson, has been called the quintessential road movie. The mysterious, stoic and taciturn Driver (the progenitor of Ryan Gosling’s The Driver character in Drive?) is played by Taylor and his equally mysterious and stoic sidekick, The Mechanic, is played by Wilson. Director Monte Hellman, who went on to co-produce such celebrated indie films such as Reservoir Dogs and Buffalo ’66, deliberately selected non-actors to portray the Driver and the Mechanic. Robert de Niro, Al Pacino and James Caan were all interested in the role that the […]
MAPS & LEGENDS: Occupy Wall Street Going National
MOTHER JONES: Now in its third week, the loose-knit protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street has stirred action from New York City to Los Angeles and many cities in between. While questions remain about the anatomy and goals of the movement, one thing is clear: It has grown in scope, tapping into widespread American anxiety about the grim economy and anger over corporate greed and the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Here we present a view of protest activity from coast to coast and the movement’s growth thus far. What began as a call […]
CHRISTIE: I Am Sick Of This Crap, What Part Of ‘I Am Not Friggin’ Running’ Don’t You Understand?
CBS NEWS: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced Tuesday that he would not seek the Republican presidential nomination, saying that while he thought seriously about entering the presidential race, “now is not my time.” Christie said he made his final decision last night and told those closest to him this morning. He said he went to the bed last night “knowing exactly what I wanted to do” for the first time in weeks. He declined the chance to close the door on a future presidential run, saying he is “not going to preclude any employment in the future.” The New […]
WORTH REPEATING: The People Are Too Big To Fail
CHRIS HEDGES: The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in […]
HOT DOC: The Declaration Of The Occupation
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, […]
EARLY WORD: Like A Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
Lucinda Williams is still the beloved revolutionary sweetheart of the alt-country rodeo. All of us literate roots-rock boys still daydream about her the same way we used to daydream about Liz Phair. We know all about her because we read The New Yorker. We know about her father’s literary standing and her mother’s madness; we know about her dead boyfriends and her Southern pedigree. We know about her open-armed embrace of all the humid folkloric strangeness the region holds: the sweaty danger of juke joints, the satanic deals at the crossroads, the Pentecostal hellfire and brimstone, and the taking up […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
RADIO TIMES EMILIO ESTEVEZ has written and directed a new film about walking the medieval Christian pilgrimage route, El Camino de Santiago, or The Way of St. James. “The Way” stars MARTIN SHEEN, about a widowed father who treks the historic path through France and Spain, picking up where his world-traveler son (Estevez), was killed in a storm at the beginning of the son’s pilgrimage. As he walks the 500 mile path he originally feels he’s doing for his son, the father meets fellow travelers in search of their own personal reconciliations and dreams. “The Way” is partly based on […]
REVIEW: Don’t Look Back
BY TONY ABRAHAM I used to want to be Bob Dylan. In fact, I used to think I could channel him. It seemed to make sense at the time. We have the same middle name. His last name in Hebrew is my last name. So I tried to write songs like him; romantic, imagistic epics like “Visions of Johanna” and hilarious surrealistic ramblings like “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.” I played the shit out of Blonde on Blonde and Bringing It All Back Home. I read as much Beat literature as I could, kept myself awake at night just to see […]
WHOOPSIE: Up Until Not That Long Ago, The Perry Family Hunting Retreat Was Called ‘N*ggerhead’
THE AUSTRALIAN: Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry is under pressure to explain why his family’s hunting retreat was called Niggerhead and why the racially offensive name remained painted on a giant stone there for years. The Washington Post reported that the word was painted on a flat rock standing upright at the gated entrance of the secluded Perry family hunting refuge in Texas. The 430-hectare parcel, used for hunting and fishing retreats, was the venue of getaways hosted for decades by Perry, who entertained fellow politicians, friends and supporters there, the report said. The Post said the getaway was given […]
THE EARLY WORD: Expect Us
PW: Close to 400 people turned up at the United Methodist Church at Broad and Arch streets last night for the first meeting of Occupy Philly—a planned demonstration/camp-in and show of solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests in Lower Manhattan over the past two weeks that’s been garnering increasing media attention and spawning similar groups in dozens of cities throughout the U.S. While the Occupy movement—a “leaderless” movement chiefly organized via Facebook and Twitter and inspired by the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere—so far hasn’t presented an absolute, unified message or clear-cut demands, activists camping out […]
MUST SEE TV: When Sports Writers Attack
CBS: A flurry of Twitter jabs between two Philadelphia Eagles beat writers escalated into real-life fisticuffs Wednesday, with one writer allegedly punching his newspaper adversary in the head at the team’s practice facility. According to Howard Eskin of SportsRadio 94WIP, the spat started when Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer called Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News an “old hack that hasn’t broken a story in years.” The two sent initial jabs in 140-character form on the social media site Tuesday over the injury status of Eagles quarterback Michael Vick, CBS Philadelphia reports. McLane reported that Vick would definitely […]