The Gonzales Contata, a Philly Fringe show by composer Melissa Dunphy that will run this weekend, is a choral work with libretto taken directly from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Buzz about the show has gone viral with write ups in The Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post and earlier this week Rachel Maddow devoted an entire segment to the production on The Rachel Maddow Show. Kudos for making the show’s official website a dead-on parody of the Drudge Report. (Show times and venue info after the jump) [TRMS: La Cantata inspired by disgraced […]
SEPTA GIRL: Poppin’ Wheelies
BY PHILLYGRRL Wheelies. That’s what some people on my morning bus call folks in wheelchairs. Usually it’s said in a negative context. Like, “Damn them wheelies, if another one gets on the bus, I’m going to be late.” Because you see, in order for someone in a wheelchair to get from the sidewalk to the inside of the bus, the driver first has to lower the bus and then lower a platform a ramp. Once the person is in the bus, the driver must then flip up one of the chairs and strap the wheelchair in place. It can take […]
CINEMA: The Nutcracker
EXTRACT (2009, directed by Mike Judge, 91 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Something does indeed seem to have been extracted from satiric director Mike Judge: Was it his guts, his heart, his balls? Enough name calling: what’s really missing from this, the third of Judge’s American satires, is the anti-corporate stance that set apart his previous cult comedies, Office Space and Idiocracy. Office Space perfectly captured the happy business speak taught at management seminars to sociopathic bosses while Idiocracy looked at a corporate-controlled future society dumbed-down to neanderthal-levels by the crass equations of the mass media. Idiocracy took […]
THE DANGERS OF MAGICAL THINKING: Just Because There Is No Evidence That Glenn Beck Raped And Murdered A Girl In 1990 Doesn’t Prove He Didn’t
GLENNBECKRAPEDANDMURDEREDAYOUNGGIRLIN1990.COM: This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumour that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. We don’t claim to know the truth — only that the rumour floating around saying that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 should be discussed. So we’re going to do our part to try and help get to the bottom of this. Why won’t Glenn Beck deny these allegations? Notice: This site is parody/satire. We assume Glenn Beck did not rape and murder a young girl in 1990, although we haven’t yet seen […]
NEW LOW: Man Bites Off Another Man’s Finger At Health Care Rally, Socialist Doctors Sew It Back On
WASHINGTON POST: One of a national series of rallies for health-care reform took a violent turn Wednesday night when, according to authorities in Thousand Oaks, Calif., an unidentified man bit off the tip of another man’s pinky finger. The Thousand Oaks event attracted only about 100 people — a small group compared to the turnout at congressional town halls, which have drawn up to 1,500 people. But their passions were running high, and when a supporter of health-care reform wound up among a group of about 25 counter-protesters, an argument and fistfight broke out, Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Frank O’Hanlon […]
FRINGE REVIEW: Welcome To Yuba City
Welcome to Yuba City Pig Iron Theatre Company Theater, 75 minutes BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Damn you, Pig Iron. You magnificent bastards have done it again; created theatre so joyfully compelling it takes everyone who sees it far outside their selves and turns every theatre artist outside your realm emerald green with envy. Come on down to Yuba City. You’ll travel down a stretch of highway so lonely you’re grateful for the broken fluorescent sign with an arrow pointing the way to the diner, and the glaring streetlamp bordering the parking lot. Set designer Mimi Lien and lighting designer James […]
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
UNCANNY: Madonna’s Daughter Looks Just Like Mom
DAILY MAIL: Trussed up in white wedding dress and veil, Madonna’s daughter Lourdes recreates her mother’s famous wedding dress pose in the Eighties hit song Like A Virgin. The 12-year-old wears lashings of red lipstick and has the iconic beauty spot painted above her lip. It is taken from what is believed to be a second version of Madge’s Celebration video, which will include fans dancing to the song, to be released next week. MORE
BOOKS: Q&A With Methland Author Nick Reding
BY JEFF DEENEY The heartland as detailed by Nick Reding in his new book, Methland, is not your father’s heartland. Stripped of any means of getting ahead by multinational agribusiness conglomerates, many residents of Smalltown, USA are using crystal meth to cope with endless low-wage packing plant shifts and the despair that comes with poverty and social decay. Mexican drug trafficking organizations have capitalized on Big Agriculture’s need for a steady stream of illegal immigrant workers by flooding cornfields with high purity meth made in sprawling superlabs and carried across the border by the same workers who slaughter America’s pigs […]
Ringleader Of Broad St. Flash Mob Riot To Stand Trial
INQUIRER: A West Philadelphia man was ordered held for trial today on riot, assault, theft and other charges for allegedly participating in the May 30 “flash mob” on South Broad Street that left one man seriously injured and a local convenience store looted of thousands in merchandise. Stephen Lyde, 21, was ordered held for trial by Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge Bradley K. Moss in the late-night rampage by more than 100 teens and young adults on South Broad between South and Bainbridge Streets. According to testimony during this morning’s preliminary hearing, the mob converged on South Broad after apparently being […]
SCIENCE: How White People Were Invented
LIVE SCIENCE: Humans come in a rainbow of hues, from dark chocolate browns to nearly translucent whites. This full kaleidoscope of skin colors was a relatively recent evolutionary development, according to biologists, occurring alongside the migration of modern humans out of Africa between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. The consensus among scientists has always been that lower levels of vitamin D at higher latitudes — where the sun is less intense — caused the lightening effect when modern humans, who began darker-skinned, first migrated north. But other factors might be at work, a new study suggests. From the varying effects […]
USELESS INFORMATION: Father Knows Best
SHITMYDADSAYS: “What are you listening to?…I know who Hall & Oates are god dammit. It’s the mustache guy and the gay man.” MORE SHITMYDADSAYS: I’m 28. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says. MORE RELATED: You can follow Phawker’s Twitter stream HERE
Incendiary 9/11-On-Steroids Ad Widely Condemned; Philly International Joins ‘Trusted Traveler’ Program
[Click HERE to enlarge] NEW YORK TIMES: The World Wildlife Fund on Tuesday condemned an unauthorized advertisement that depicted dozens of planes heading into Lower Manhattan, with a tag line reading, “The Tsunami Killed 100 Times More People Than 9/11.” The ad had been pitched to the Brazilian branch of the World Wildlife Fund by an advertising agency and rejected, said Steve Ertel, a spokesman for the group. “It was a concept to our office in Brazil and it was rejected. From that point, we have not been able to get a hold of the agency to find out how […]