BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL FRINGE CORRESPONDENT The Philadelphia Live Arts and Philly Fringe Festival has been a local institution for long enough, loudly and proudly enough, that we almost take it for granted. In the past 12 years it’s grown from a few blocks in Old City to a festival encompassing the city, all genres of live performance and performers from all over the world. Shows in the past have been so diverse and varied that the word “Fringe” has become synonymous with the strangest and most alienating of performance art. However, the Festival itself is one of the most welcoming […]
HELP WANTED: Mob Looking For A Few Bad Men
GEORGE ANASTASIA: Decimated by a 20-year onslaught of federal prosecutions, bloody internecine power struggles, and turncoat testimony, the local branch of La Cosa Nostra — which in the 1980s had roughly 80 members — now has a base of about 20 “soldiers.” And nine of them are in prison. Simply put, the Philadelphia Mafia has fallen on hard times. It is no longer the dominant player in the underworld, and is dwarfed in size by some of the area’s more violent drug gangs. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Where Have All The Gangsters Gone?
EARLY WORD: Making Time Aquatic
? The Making Time Pool Party… The Sequel… The Movie or “Hot Dog the Movie, Part III” from Klip Collective on Vimeo. Sunday September 6th, 2009 @ Bamboo Bar 927 Delaware Ave (below Frankford/around the corner from The Barbary) Philadelphia, PA 4pm-2am (more details HERE)
DEA: One Third Of All Seized Cocaine Is Tainted
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Nearly a third of all cocaine seized in the United States is laced with a dangerous veterinary medicine — a livestock de-worming drug that might enhance cocaine’s effects but has been blamed in at least three deaths and scores of serious illnesses. The medication called levamisole has killed at least three people in the U.S. and Canada and sickened more than 100 others. It can be used in humans to treat colorectal cancer, but it severely weakens the body’s immune system, leaving patients vulnerable to fatal infections. Scientific studies suggest levamisole might give cocaine a more intense high, […]
SNEAK PREVIEW: The New Wes Anderson
Movie Trailers – Movies Blog MTV: As we can see from the recent trailer, the stop-motion animated film (in theaters November 13) is a unique mix of kiddie-fare breeziness (it’s based on a classic Roald Dahl children’s book), indie-minded filmmaking (“Rushmore” writer/director Wes Anderson is in charge) and star-powered vocal chops (including Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman). As our weeklong Fall Movie Preview continues, Jason Schwartzman pays us a visit to explain why “Mr. Fox” makes him want to cry. MORE
GREATEST HITS: Today I Saw Revisited
BY JEFF DEENEY TODAY I SAW a white kid, maybe 12, with dirty blond hair cropped short, pedaling an adult size tricycle with a wooden box between the rear wheels up D Street towards Indiana Avenue. Attached to the back of the graffiti tagged wooden box was a fifteen inch stereo speaker that blared rap music loud enough to shake my windshield. The face of a car stereo was mounted to the front of the box so he could reach down to adjust the volume or skip tracks while coasting along. There was a subwoofer inside the box nestled in […]
Dugard Kidnapping Case Grows Ever More Bizarre; Dead Prostitutes, Meth-Fueled Backyard Orgies
DAILY MAIL: Detectives began digging up the gardens of kidnapper Phillip Garrido and his next-door neighbour yesterday amid fears that they are dealing with a serial killer. Possible links are being examined between up to ten murdered prostitutes and the monster who kept Jaycee Lee Dugard in a back-garden prison for 18 years. Police believe Garrido might also have killed 15-year-old schoolgirl Lisa Norrell, whose body was discovered in 1998 dumped in a remote industrial area close to where he used to work. MORE DAILY MAIL: After work each night, builder Mike Rogers liked to sit on his porch in […]
PASTOR: “I hope that God strikes Barack Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy and I hope it happens today.”
MyFOXPhoenix: A Phoenix-area pastor has started to draw protesters to his congregation after he delivered a sermon titled, “Why I Hate Barack Obama,” and told his parishioners that he prays for President Obama’s death. Pastor Steven Anderson stood by his sermon in an interview with MyFOXPhoenix, which reports that the pastor continues to encourage his parishioners to join him in praying for the president’s death. “I hope that God strikes Barack Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy and I hope it happens today,” he told MyFOXPhoenix on Sunday. He called his message “spiritual warfare” and […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Britney At The Wachovia
DAN DELUCA: Throughout, she wore a headset microphone and consistently moved her mouth in time with the never all-that-expressive vocals that were pumped through the sound system. Probably, she was actually singing over pre-recorded tracks that removed any possibility of an aural mishap. […] Spears fans were deliriously happy to be in the same room with one of the biggest brand-name superstars in the world, and the object of their affection worked hard enough to put on a properly sensory-overloaded show, with a stage that shot off smoke jets and lit up in a burning ring of fire as Brit […]
SEPTA GIRL: The Three Wise Men
BY PHILLYGRRL It’s surprisingly easy to resent the homeless man who uses the bench at your bus stop as a bed. Especially if you’re carrying three textbooks that weigh five pounds a piece and are waiting for a bus that comes once an hour. Last Thursday, as I waited for the 44 to come by at 13th and Market, I found the bench occupied by three elderly men – two black, one white – who were engrossed in a deep conversation when I came by. I stood for a minute before one man nudged the other who nudged the other […]
Monk’s Shut Down After Fatal Fire Escape Collapse
[Photo by ldandersen] INQUIRER: An iron-wrought railing gave way from the ivy-covered brick fire tower about 3 a.m. today as a 25-year-old man who lived in an apartment one floor below and a female friend were leaning on it, authorities said. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and the woman was taken to Hahnemann Hospital, police said. Directly below the fire tower is a narrow alley and a fence enclosing the back of a spa next door. The man’s identity was being withheld pending notification of next of kin. The woman was not identified because she was in […]
BREAKING: DJ AM Found Dead In New York
NBC: Celebrity disk-jockey DJ AM was found dead in SoHo today, sources told NBC New York. He was 36 years old. The body of DJ AM, also known as Adam Goldstein, was found on the seventh floor of an apartment building at 215 Lafayette Street, law-enforcement sources said. Goldstein, along with drummer Travis Barker, barely escaped death in a small plane crash in South Carolina on Sept. 19, 2008. That incident left him badly burned, but four others died in the accident. The details of his demise are still unclear, but police sources said investigators are looking into the possibility of a drug overdose, as drug […]