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FRESH AIR Nick Lowe‘s songs have been recorded by Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello, Solomon Burke and Diana Ross, to name just a few. But the English singer-songwriter, who wrote the hits “Cruel to Be Kind” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” doesn’t only write songs. He’s also recorded quite a few critically acclaimed pop albums of his own. On Fresh Air, Lowe joins Terry Gross for an in-studio interview and performance featuring several songs from his 13th solo album, The Old Magic. MORE

Manhattan, 10:15 AM, September 11th, 2001 by Melanie Einzig  LUC SANTE: I can understand her decision not to publish it right away. It would have been attacked as being insufficiently attentive to the enormity of the day. It would have seemed irreverent. When something of that magnitude happens, everything seems to be in service of awe, shock, reverence – reaffirming basic values, casting out demons. Something that includes such a violent contradiction within its depiction of the event – it just feels wrong. People wouldn’t have been able to take it in right away. […] Minutes after that picture was […]

NATIONAL ENQUIRER: Publishing sources familiar with the contents of author Joe McGinniss’ highly-anticipated book “The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin” have revealed shocking secrets that will impact her decision to enter the 2012 presidential race. In the book, which will be published on September 20th, McGinniss claims Sarah had a steamy interracial hookup with basketball stud GLEN RICE [pictured above, with wife Cristina Fernandez]  less than a year before she eloped with her husband Todd. Sarah hooked up with the NBA great, then a 6-foot-8 junior at the University of Michigan when he was playing in a college […]

POST-GAZETTE: A new proposal is pushing the often-forgotten Electoral College into the spotlight as Pennsylvania officials ponder the state’s role in next year’s presidential race. Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi is trying to gather support to change the state’s “winner-takes-all” approach for awarding electoral votes. Instead, he’s suggesting that Pennsylvania dole them out based on which candidate wins each of the 18 congressional districts, with the final two going to the contender with the most votes statewide. So far, the idea has received support from colleagues of the Delaware County Republican in the state House and from Republican Gov. Tom […]

Feastival, Pier 9, 6:45 PM by JONATHAN VALANIA

BY JONATHAN VALANIA Okay Mr. Punk Friggin’ Rock. Before we even get started, you need to come down off your high horse. Take it slow, big fella. You’re not as young as you used to be, and it’s a long way down. All right, both feet on the ground? Good. Yes it’s true, the Sex Pistols played at the Donald’s Trump Marina casino on Saturday night, and you know what? They rocked, without apology. Like they meant it, man. At this late date–some 25 years removed from the filth and the fury of their snot-caked birth–what more could you ask […]

BY BRANDON LAFVING FRINGE CORRESPONDENT The stage front appeared simple enough – an old wooden façade, an antique piano, and a banjo suitable for a ventriloquist’s doll. Then the hands came out. One at a time, each slid aside a false panel in the wall, bearing a gift to top off the scene. They brought: a miniature, sepia-hued globe, a mechanical metronome, a birdcage that would be more appropriate housing for a ladybug, and a toy cannon. Once these accoutrements had been added, the lead role, Mister Punch himself entered through a trap door and unlatched the metronome. The show […]

[Illustration by ALEX FINE] NEW YORK TIMES: A little-known Republican businessman from Queens, channeling voter discontent with President Obama into an upset, won election to Congress on Tuesday from the heavily Democratic district in New York City last represented by Anthony D. Weiner. The Republican, Bob Turner, a retired cable television executive, defeated Assemblyman David I. Weprin, the scion of a prominent Democratic family in Queens, in a nationally watched special election. With 84 percent of the precincts counted early Wednesday, Mr. Turner was leading Mr. Weprin by 54 percent to 46 percent, according to The Associated Press. MORE

BY ZIVIT SHLANK For 12 years, Ars Nova Workshop has been presenting live music that is distinctly unique and adventurous, unafraid to challenge their audiences’ perceptions of jazz and beyond. It’s the perfect platform for performing artist Jen Shyu. From her father’s classical music collection and the Broadway show tunes that captivated her as a youth, to her travels to the Far East to learn indigenous styles, her musical journey is certainly unique. Her evocative, multi-faceted, and polylingual styles of voice, composition and movement have been mesmerizing audiences all over the world, stretching the boundaries and redefining what it is […]

[Photo by KzAkabueze – ONEin12] CHRIS HEDGES: What was played out in the weeks after the attacks was the old, familiar battle between force and human imagination, between the crude instruments of violence and the capacity for empathy and understanding. Human imagination lost. Coldblooded reason, which does not speak the language of the imagination, won. We began to speak and think in the empty, mindless nationalist clichés about terror that the state handed to us. We became what we abhorred. The deaths were used to justify pre-emptive war, invasion, Shock and Awe, prolonged occupation, targeted assassinations, torture, offshore penal colonies, […]

POP CHART LAB: This shirt envisions what could have been had Bill Murray landed the role of Han Solo. The first in a series of The Lost Roles of Bill Murray shirts. These light grey shirts are constructed from a blend of 10% polyester and 90% ringspun cotton, which is the softest, smoothest, most awesomely infographical cotton available. MORE