BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER It’s difficult after just three or four listens to rate this album, but my initial reaction is that In Rainbows (****) is as fine a Radiohead album as I have ever heard. The devoted will be immensely gratified, and converts will be drawn in by all the buzz — and what proves to be bewitchingly ethereal, yet altogether visceral, rock music. The 10-song In Rainbows collapses into one tidy package all the Radioheads we have come to know: folk-rock Radiohead, electronica Radiohead, alt-rock Radiohead, prog-rock Radiohead. Not only does the band seem to nail […]
GAYBO: My Big Gay Indian Summer
BY TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR Fall is always my favorite time of year. There’s a huge influx of students moving into the city and summer gasps its last breaths, as we have seen these last few days. This year, The Gayborhood has some new spots on the menu to offer. Bill Wood, former owner of the ubiquitous Woody’s, has opened his lavish and upwardly mobile Knock. Entrees include pan-seared scallops, fire-roasted game hen and a grilled pork chop with chocolate sauce. Located at 225 South 12th St. (corner of Locust), Knock caters to a sophisticated crowd, so don’t be a […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Pulitzer Prize-winning business columnist Gretchen Morgenson talks about the subprime mortgage crisis and its effects on the markets and on the economy. Morgenson, an assistant business and financial editor for The New York Times, has covered the financial markets for The Times since 1998. ALSO, this year the Human Rights First Award for Excellence in Television will be given to a show that “depicts torture and interrogation in a nuanced, realistic fashion.” According to interviews with military leaders, portrayal of torture on television shows has changed interrogation techniques in the field. TV producer Adam Fierro (The Shield), intelligence […]
HEAR YE: Radiohead In Rainbows
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO!
SOAP OPERA: Talk To Your Daughter Before The Beauty Industry Does
BY AMY Z. QUINN Can a commercial, through sheer innovation and noble message, exceed its own status as a cheap marketing tool and become art? Or at the very least an important, buzz-worthy cultural artifact? “Onslaught,” Dove’s latest advert-cum-girlpower call to arms, sure gives it the old college try. It’s the follow-up to the legendarily creepy “Evolution,” which showed how an average-looking model is transformed, through the magic of beauty products and Photoshop, into a diva staring imperiously from a billboard ad. Like its sister video, “Onslaught” isn’t meant for the TV airwaves, aside from snippets in the TV news […]
WTF: Joey Sweeney Learns To Drive?
INQUIRER: Northern Liberties was the scene of extensive car carnage last night, as an out-of-control driver swiped about 20 vehicles along Second Street, according to area residents. The accident unfolded when a maroon Buick LaSabre sped south on Second Street, according to doctoral student Michelle Renee Chyatte, 32, a former freelance reporter, who talked with witnesses and police at the scene last night. The accidents began at Second and George, when the LaSabre struck a car trying to make a turn and spinning it into a fence. The driver, dazed or trapped, didn’t get out for about 20 minutes until […]
HOT DOC: How To Restore The Fourth Amendment
REP. JOHN CONYERS (D-Michigan): “I am proud to have introduced the RESTORE Act with Intelligence Committee Chairman Sylvestre Reyes… Earlier this year, President Bush signed a short-term surveillance law that exposed innocent Americans’ phone calls and emails to warrantless intrusion. Speaker Pelosi immediately asked us to fix this problem and to ensure court oversight while preserving our ability to fight against foreign threats. This bill shows that it is possible to protect civil liberties and fight terrorism at the same time.” [via TPM MUCKRAKER] RESTORE Act of 2007 (Responsible Surveillance That is Overseen, Reviewed and Effective) Bill Summary Security and […]
HEAR YE: Radiohead In Rainbows
NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO!
WORTH REPEATING: Reality Has A Liberal Bias
“That’s right, hate mongers like Media Matters [SEE upper right of blog] take innocent statements like mine, Rush Limbaugh’s, John Gibson‘s, and Bill O’Reilly’s and make them offensive by posting them on the internet, allowing the general public to hear words that were meant for people who already agree with us. Media Matters, you want to end offensive speech? Then stop recording it for people who would be offended.” –Stephen Colbert [via CROOKS & LIARS]
TODAY I SAW . . .
BY JEFF DEENEY TODAY I SAW the words “Da Bottom” and “36th St.” written in black magic marker on the front door to Mantua Hall. The door is made from stainless steel and has a scratched-up window that looks over the lobby past the security guard’s window. There’s another identical exit door with the same words scrawled on it on the other side of a partition. It swings open and a tired looking, deathly skinny women walks past, dragging two dripping bags of garbage behind her. Mantua Hall is one of the last of a dying breed; it’s a high-rise […]
CONFETTI BETTY: The Week That Was
BY AMY Z. QUINN The logic which binds these events together is as twisted as a pretzel — I mean yo, this is Philly — but it’s a kind of Six Degrees of Election ’08: South Philly Edition. Follow me: 1. Bono, in town to receive the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center, declares himself an American, says “this is my country, too.” Uses platform to deliver an elegantly worded tongue-lashing to his adopted country on subjects including: fair trade, our responsibility to the poor, free speech, our responsibility toward Africa’s AIDS victims, and torture. That last one was […]