[Photo via INDYPRESS] BY JAMIE DAVIS For my first concert review for Phawker, I asked if I could cover the Wolfmother show at the Electric Factory on Saturday. Fine, says Phawker. Problem is, I can’t take the car out past 11 PM as I am only 17 and only have my Cinderella license, so I thought I’d let my friend Sasha drive. He said that he could and everything was cool, or so I thought. A few hours before the show, as I was printing the directions, his mom calls and tells me that Sasha has to be home by […]
CAMDEN: That All There Is To A Government Rescue?
INQUIRER: Raw sewage seeped into Jackeline and Eduardo Gonzalez’s basement, through its bathroom, hallway, and bedroom. The fumes forced the family to eat outside and sent 1-year-old Eduardo Jr. to the emergency room three times with respiratory problems. The toxic flow burned holes in walls and ruined clothes and a sofa. The mold ended Grandma’s visits from Puerto Rico. The sewage comes from a collapsed pipe at the end of their block, on Cherry Street in Camden. How does the city respond? For three hours, three days a week, a bored employee uses a noisy machine to transfer waste from […]
EARLY WORD: The Thin Line Between Love And Hate
SUNDANCE FESTIVAL: One of the most infamous lawyers of the twentieth century, William Kunstler liked to shake things up. Filmmakers Emily and Sarah Kunstler explore their father’s life and legacy: from middle-class family man to celebrated radical activist to “the most hated lawyer in America.”Kunstler’s resume is one for the storybooks. He fought for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr. and catapulted to the world stage by defending the Chicago Seven. Soon Kunstler became the go-to guy for the radical left. When inmates rioted at Attica prison or Native Americans took on the federal government at Wounded Knee, they […]
MERCY: House Passes Sweeping Health Care Reform
NEW YORK TIMES: Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.Democrats say the House measure — paid for through new fees and taxes, along with cuts in Medicare — would extend coverage to 36 million people now without insurance while creating a government health insurance program. It would end insurance company practices like not covering pre-existing conditions or dropping people when they become ill. Republicans condemned the vote and said they would oppose […]
GOOD CAUSE: Grow A Mustache, Save The Kids
The Philadelphia chapter of Mustaches for Kids is looking for growers for the 2009 Growing Season! (November 12th through December 12th) Intrigued?? Keep reading…
SEPTA STRIKE: The Backlash Has Begun
Philadelphians are sick and tired of listening to TWU 234 whining over a perfectly good contract and keeping us from getting to work, school, and other commitments. We’re planning to gather this Sunday at 1pm at SEPTA headquarters at 1234 Market Street to tell SEPTA not to back down! We support collective bargaining but will not stand for collective bullying! We would rather go without transit for however long it takes for SEPTA to either negotiate a fair contract with the union that won’t raise fares or replace and retrain all of them. UPDATE: Gov. Rendell and U.S. Rep. Bob […]
GORACLE: Only You Can Prevent Climate Catastrophe
INQUIRER: During a daylong seminar today at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, former Vice president Al Gore finished an hour-long talk by issuing a challenge to the 500 attendees and students in the room “for each of you to become a part of the solution.” […] “We can build a consensus,” he said. “And we must. Because not too many years from now, the next generation will look back. And depending on what the world looks like at that point, they will ask either why this generation stood back and did nothing, or how they mustered the moral courage […]
BOOKS: Writing For Your Life
BY DAVE ALLEN When does a quirk turn into something more? Writer A.J. Jacobs has turned what seems like a quirk — overhauling his life in sometimes-simple, sometimes-radical ways and cataloging the impact at length in books and for Esquire — into a genre. Quirk is the baseline for Jacobs’ life — he works at a fashionable men’s magazine, but largely forsakes fashion for comfort and claims to own only one suit; he’s an obsessive-compulsive germaphobe living in New York City, where personal space and public hygiene are scarce — but with each experiment, he seems to take his fish-out-of-water […]
CINEMA: Thinking Inside The Box
THE BOX (2009, directed by Richard Kelly, 115 minutes, U.S.) REVANCHE (2008, directed by Götz Spielmann, 121 minutes, Austria) THE FOURTH KIND (2009, directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, 98 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Eight years after its release, Donnie Darko has secured its place as a modern classic of the decade. After this auspicious debut, director/writer Richard Kelly spent a good five years basking in his role as the new young genius of American film. Then the world got a look at his 2006 follow-up Southland Tales, the sort of gargantuan, impenetrable mess rarely seen since the drug-fueled […]
PHAWKER TAWK: Q&A With The Kronos Quartet
[Photograph by Jeppe Gudmundsen-Holmgreen] BY DAVE ALLEN Any discussion of modern American music, especially in the last 30 years, has to start with the Kronos Quartet. But thanks to their efforts as commissioners and promoters of vital new work, both by composers from the US and all over the world, the discussion doesn’t end there. With their dedication to touring, recording and continuing to take on exciting and ground-breaking work, the Kronos Quartet have earned a spot in the pantheon — not just in classical music, not just in world music, but purely as musicians. I spoke with David Harrington, […]
BERSERKER: Army Shrink Massacres 12, Wounds 31
LOS ANGLES TMES: Reporting from Ft. Hood, Texas, Washington and Los Angeles — An Army psychiatrist who was about to be deployed to Iraq allegedly armed himself with two guns and opened fire Thursday afternoon on the grounds of Ft. Hood, the country’s largest military base, killing 12 people and injuring 31 others. Officials said that soldiers and civilians ripped apart their clothes to make bandages for fallen colleagues, many of whom were waiting at the base’s Soldier Readiness Center for medical and dental exams before deployment. The attack shocked the country and raised questions about base security. The suspected […]
Q&A: Ask The Yes Men
The Yes Men is a group of culture jamming activists who practice what they call “identity correction” by pretending to be powerful people and spokespersons for prominent organizations. From their offices in Milwaukee, they create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows. Their newfound, self-proclaimed authority to express the idea that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public has met both positively and negatively with political overtones. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the […]