BRIAN ENO: We’re living in a stylistic tropics. There’s a whole generation of people able to access almost anything from almost anywhere, and they don’t have the same localized stylistic sense that my generation grew up with. It’s all alive, all “now,” in an ever-expanding present, be it Hildegard of Bingen or a Bollywood soundtrack. The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness. I think this is good news. MORE
KIA GREGORY: Still Hard Out There For A Pimp
INQUIRER: Forty-three minutes past midnight, a crackle pierced the summer air. For a moment, Leroy Lewis, perched on a concrete wall beside a rowhouse in his Juniata Park neighborhood, talking to two friends, dismissed the sound as leftover fireworks. When Lewis, 19, turned to look, he saw a young man, his baseball cap tilted low, moving from the alleyway across the narrow street, pointing a gun, hunting. “The next shot was me looking at him,” Lewis recounted later. “I just seen a whole bunch of fire.”Lewis took off, dipping behind parked cars, as bullets cut through his stomach, his buttocks, […]
EARLY WORD: God Save The Queen
[“Death Of Cleopatra” by GUIDO CAGNACCI] INQLINGS: Cleopatra, comin’ atcha. Next year, the Franklin Institute will be the first stop in a traveling exhibition about the enigmatic Egyptian queen. “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt,” opening June 5, follows the FI’s 2007 blockbuster “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” which National Geographic, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology also had a hand in. Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.) was Egypt’s last pharaoh before the Romans stepped in to conquer. The Romans later tried to rewrite history and destroy all traces […]
GAYDAR: My So-Called Life
BY AARON STELLA Welcome back, folks. This chapter of my life story marks the eleventh of its kind. Upon each recounting, I am required to dredge up buried memories that I rarely visit. Recently, however, the impact of my past has become gruesomely clear. There is much left to be done, from what I can see—but I shall be better for it in the end. For those of you who haven’t been following along, you can read the whole story beginning to end after the jump. But for now, onward and upward. So, picking up where I left off last, […]
THIS JUST IN: The Return Of ‘The Answer’?
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Allen Iverson’s retirement could be a short one. A person with knowledge of the talks says the Philadelphia 76ers have been approached about signing their former franchise superstar, and team management has held internal discussions about bringing Iverson back. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because talks have not been made public, says Iverson is among the free-agent candidates the Sixers are considering to replace injured point guard Lou Williams, who’s expected to miss eight weeks after jaw surgery. “I think we would look at all the options for sure, but nothing has really happened,” Peter […]
THE VICE GUIDE TO TRAVEL: Hipster At The Hajj
Vice founder Suroosh Alvi goes to Mecca with mom and dad. Takes camera. Fascinating, Captain.
RIP: Al Alberts Dead At 87
[Video: 6 year old Melissa Lynn sings “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” on Al Alberts Showcase – November 1985] INQUIRER: Mr. Alberts rose to fame in the 1950s as one of The Four Aces, whose hits included “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing,” “Stranger in Paradise” and the Jule Styne number “Three Coins in a Fountain.” But generations of Philadelphians knew him as “Uncle Al,” a tuxedoed fatherly figure with a white pompadour, blinding smile and infinite patience, as he gave screen time to young singers, hoofers, and comedians on Saturdays. The program started on Channel 48 in 1968 […]
CINEMA: Beyond Good And Evil
BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS (2009, directed by Werner Herzog, 121 minutes, U.S.) OH MY GOD (2009, directed by Paul Rodger, 93 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC If you think the Batman series has turned dark, you won’t believe the latest film franchise. Bad Lieutenant, the 1992 film gave Harvey Keitel a chance to wail naked as the drug-addicted criminal cop has returned, re-imagined by its producer Edward Pressman as a showcase for the long-dismantled weirdness of Nicholas Cage. Helmed by German director Werner Herzog, this new Bad Lieutenant allows the director to show another crazed […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Season’s Greetings From POTUS
jonathan — Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, Americans across the country will sit down together, count our blessings, and give thanks for our families and our loved ones. American families reflect the diversity of this great nation. No two are exactly alike, but there is a common thread they each share. Our families are bound together through times of joy and times of grief. They shape us, support us, instill the values that guide us as individuals, and make possible all that we achieve. So tomorrow, I’ll be giving thanks for my family — for all the wisdom, support, and love they […]
ALBUM REVIEW: Weezer Raditude
BY JAMIE DAVIS Weezer are a great band. Everyone knows it, and has ever since they heard “The Sweater Song” for the first time. Back then Weezer was good and nerdy, with awkward haircuts, blocky glasses, and just a general sense of being on the same side as your average teenage outcast. However, on their second-to-latest album The Red Album they abandoned their old geekdom completely, with songs like “The Greatest Man on Earth” and “Troublemaker” which may have been amazingly subtle skewering of hip-hop’s self-congratulatory lyric style, but I’m pretty sure they were just about how great frontman Rivers […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Censored Ad For The Truth
$166 Million In The Hole, Washington Post Closes L.A., Chicago And NYC Bureaus The Washington Post, in a significant retrenchment, is closing its remaining U.S. bureaus outside the capital area. The six correspondents who work in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago will be offered assignments in Washington, while three news assistants will be let go. The money-saving moves, coming on the heels of four rounds of early-retirement buyouts and the closing or merging of several sections, are the clearest sign yet of the newspaper’s shrinking horizons in an era of diminished resources. “The fact is, we can effectively cover […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR You may recognize these names from recent headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts. Stupak and Pitts have become familiar names through the media’s health care overhaul coverage; their abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill. Ensign was the focus of media attention over his affair with a campaign staffer. Just last night, a Nevada man disclosed that he found out about his wife’s affair with the state’s junior senator — his best friend — via a text message. The […]