[Click image to activate Internet] RELATED: CLICK TO ENLARGE JEFF DEENEY SAYS: The two remaining legal graffiti spaces I know of are on Carpenter Street between 12th and 13th and at 49th and Westminster Street in West Philly. There are likely more than these; those with more knowledge of the city’s graffiti scene can feel free to chime in and school us. Please link more photos if you’ve got them. According to BESO the walls around 12th and Carpenter are open to anyone who wants to paint there but at 49th and Westminster, not so much. I think the quality […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR With the moderating, centrist voice of Sandra Day O’Connor now gone from the Supreme Court, a conservative counterrevolution that had been stymied for 20 years has now begun. So says Jeffrey Toobin in his new book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. His book is about how this counterrevolution developed. It’s also a behind-the-scenes look at the court, its recent decisions and the personalities of the justices behind them. The Nine is based on interviews with justices and their law clerks that were given on a not-for-attribution basis — meaning, in plain language, that […]
DEJA VU: O.J. Freed On Bail, Surrenders Passport
BY AMY Z. QUINN The last time I remember turning on the TV and seeing a criminal courtroom full of people waiting on O.J. Simpson, I was 23 and hoping to catch a glimpse of my then-boyfriend, who was in his fourth month of covering the trial. It was verdict day, and my co-workers and I joined the rest of the country in crowding around the set to watch what we all expected to be a swift guilty verdict. Instead, I watched my former sweetie, seated in the courtroom behind Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister, crane his neck to take in […]
APOCALYPTO: Massive Meteor Hits Peru, Sickens 600
BBC: Some 600 people in Peru have required treatment after an object from space — said to be a meteorite — plummeted to Earth in a remote area, officials say. They say the object left a deep crater after crashing down over the weekend near the town of Carancas in the Andes. People who have visited the scene have been complaining of headaches, vomiting and nausea after inhaling gases. A team of scientists is on its way to the site to collect samples and verify whether it was indeed a meteorite. The incident began on Saturday night, when people near […]
POWER APHRODISIA: Hanky Panky In Harrisburg?
BY JOHN BAER OF THE DAILY NEWS As your Legislature returns from summer break, as your governor prepares to kick off the special session on energy on Monday, Harrisburg Sen. Jeff Piccola offers, um, a diversion. Piccola, who sought and then abandoned a bid for the GOP nomination to oppose Rendell last year, is investigating lobbying by a major film company, Lionsgate, and a friend of the guv’s, Leslie Merrill McCombs, and a $75 million tax credit for film and TV companies working in the state. The credit was part of a negotiated state budget settlement in July. The problem […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
MONSTER MASH: Girl Talk, Starlight Ballroom, Last Night
TONIGHT: Live & Direct From The Rock Snobitorium
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Be honest, does anybody really know what ‘twee’ means? What does ‘plaintive’ actually sound like? Can you draw me a picture of what ‘angular’ looks like? Didn’t think so. Check in with Phawker later tonight and you just might find out. We’ll be blogging live from the WXPN’s 885 Town Hall Meeting at the Annenberg Center starting around 8 PM. Bruce Warren will moderate a panel of 215 rock snobs including David Dye, Tom Moon and our own Sara Sherr. *** OK, we are live. And away we go…Bruce Warren has breaking news: Phil Spector jury is […]
CINEMA: Eastern Dark
EASTERN PROMISES (2007, directed by David Cronenberg, 97 minutes, U.K.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Except for a few memorable side trips, Canadian director David Cronenberg spent the first 25 years of his career as a feature film maker chronicling his characters’ relationships with reality and their own mysterious and ill-functioning innards. Around the turn of the century he made eXistenZ, whose plot revolved around video games you could plug right into your spine that dissolve reality. eXistenZ seemed to be the perfect summation of all of Cronenberg’s icky preoccupations with guts and the nature of reality. Since then, Cronenberg […]
MCNABB: Fear Of A Black Quarterback?
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Donovan McNabb says African-American quarterbacks are perceived differently than white quarterbacks in a wide-ranging interview that will air tonight on HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.”In the conversation, which will be shown at 10 o’clock, McNabb also talks about the pressure of being the quarterback in this city and what it takes to tick him off. At one point, interviewer James Brown asks McNabb about how people perceive him as a quarterback, alluding to the lack of African-Americans at the position because some people thought “they weren’t smart enough.” “There’s not that many African-American quarterbacks, so we have […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR For 18 years, from 1987 to 2006, Alan Greenspan was chair of the Federal Reserve Board — the United States’ central banker, in charge of steering the nation’s monetary policy. His every word was scrutinized by markets, read like tea leaves by market makers and investors looking for clues to his thoughts on the economy’s health. Now he’s put those thoughts on paper, at length, in a memoir. It’s titled The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, and it discusses everything from his cryptic word choices during Congressional testimony to protracted courtship of his wife, NBC […]
KILLADELPHIA: Just 14, And Stabbing Westward
INQUIRER: Kenneth Groce, 14, surrendered to Philadelphia police yesterday and was charged with the Friday afternoon stabbing death of Jeremiah Smith in North Philadelphia, said Lt. Philip Riehl of the Homicide Division.Riehl said Groce and Smith, 17, got into a fight around 6:40 p.m. and Smith was stabbed and collapsed at a door in the 2300 block of Edgley Street in North Philadelphia. Police recovered a bloody knife at the scene; Smith died about an hour later at Temple University Hospital. MORE
SPORTO: Is It Too Late To Bring Back Roman Gabriel?
BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY Thoughts of an NFL junkie after two weeks: All the power is in the AFC. If Green Bay, Detroit, San Francisco and Washington, along with the Cowboys, are the 2-0 teams in the NFC, the conference is in even sorrier shape than last year. Among these, only Dallas would be a favorite over, say, the Titans, an afterthought in the AFC. The Bears, last year’s Super Bowl rep, are headed for a fall. Their best player, Devin Hester, is a kick returner and he only sees the field a handful of times per game. The […]