Phawker

A deluge system in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts discharged gallons and gallons of water by accident (once again) — this time flooding the rooftop garden and the Perelman Theater below.

No fire was found, but water released Tuesday sometime between 11 and 11:30 p.m. soaked through the rooftop garden into the theater, its stage, seats and floor, and onto electrical equipment.

This weekend’s three performances of Rennie Harris: Puremovement dance company were postponed indefinitely. Monday night’s “Keyboard Conversation” with pianist Jeffrey Siegel has been moved to Verizon Hall. And performances next week by American Theater Arts for Youth and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society may be moved.

The reason for the discharge is not known, said Kimmel acting president and CEO Natalye Paquin. “It will take between 12 and 24 hours for the space to dry out and to better assess the impact,” she said.

INQUIRER: Sounds Like A Job For Guy Noir, Private Eye

Aftershocks of the $68 million sale of Thomas Eakins’ The Gross Clinic rippled across the city’s cultural landscape yesterday as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts disclosed that it had sold one of its most recognizable paintings – Eakins’ The Cello Player – to help finance the deal.

“We gave it long and careful and agonizing consideration,” said Herbert Riband, the academy board vice chairman. “Our board did not undertake this lightly.”

Riband would not disclose – and said he did not know – the identity of the buyer nor the price paid for the large 1896 oil portrait of renowned cellist Rudolf Henning, intense and alone with his instrument.

The painting was purchased by the academy in 1897 and has been on public view there ever since.

INQUIRER: OK, Explain To Us Again How The Pennsylvania Academy Of Fine Arts Can Sell An Eakins Painting And The Vice Chairman Doesn’t Know WHO Bought It Or HOW MUCH They Paid?

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 31 — A candlelight vigil to raise awareness of the vandalism at the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial and to show respect to the memory of those who are honored there will be held Friday, Feb. 2 at 8 p.m. The vigil is sponsored by the Philadelphia American Legion Post 985 and the Philadelphia Vietnam Veterans Memorial Advisory Fund (PVVMAF). The event at the Memorial at Front and Spruce streets at Penn’s Landing is open to the public. The Memorial has been plagued for some time with vandalism caused by skateboarders and others, but starting before Christmas there was a rash of incidents involving wreaths left by friends and relatives. The PVVMAF last week announced the 20th anniversary observance of the Memorial with a “Duty to Remember” Campaign to raise funds to repair damage from vandalism, make other needed improvements and ensure the perpetuity of the Philadelphia landmark. The PVVMAF is the nonprofit board that works with the Fairmount Park System to provide oversight for the memorial, which was dedicated in October 1987.

PHILADELPHIA VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL: Those Who Forget History Are Doomed To Repat It Every 40 Years Or So

FRESH AIR ON WHYY

Stuart Bowen, Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, has just issued his quarterly report investigating waste, fraud and security problems in the reconstruction efforts. PLUS, Former FBI Agent Eric O’Neill and Director/Screenwriter Billy Ray have collaborated on the new film Breach. It is based on the true story about FBI operative Robert Hanssen who was found guilty of treason and the FBI agent (O’Neill) who was assigned to Hanssen to draw him out of deep cover.

RADIO TIMES
Is America prepared to compete in the future global marketplace? A new study says a radical overhaul of American education is needed if we are to be prepared. We’ll talk with HARRY SPENCE, co-author of the report Tough Choices or Tough Times. It was released by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. Among the reports recommendations include: starting school for most children at age 3, and ending high school after 10th grade. Students then would opt for either technical college or spend two years in college prep courses. Download the executive summary at the Commission’s site.

TO: REDACTED
FROM: Wreckless Eric
Subject: Beretta 76
Date: Jan 26, 2007 8:32 AM
What is it about Philly? First the Jukebox Zeroes, now you lot. Everything sounds great. I particularly like Pretty Baby where you actually sound just like Blondie without sounding at all like them, if that makes sense. I meant that as a compliment by the way.
Eric

Sherrybaby (Directed by Laurie Collyer)
A standard issue dress-down act from Maggie Gyllenhaal, which I suppose she had to get around to sooner or later. (Please resist, La Zooey.) “Raw” and “non-judgmental” and “empathetic,” even when our protag — an ex-junkie trying to regain custody of her son — does the exact stupidest thing she could do at any juncture, which is a bit too often for my tastes. Should be needless to say that it doesn’t contrast well with Clean, with which it shares a near-exact premise (and a lead named Maggie!). Olivier Assayas did everything he could to dress up his film’s inherent silliness, and wound up cutting right to its heart. Collyer plays it completely straight and Sundance’ 93, and elicits little more than vaguely condescending head nods. Not to mention, in addition to getting trounced by Maggie C., Maggie G. loses out to a shockingly awesome Giancarlo Esposito. C+

KIDNEY BINGOS: AKA Matt Prigge

Ronald Hives, 7, saw his mother shot to death Saturday morning.

He does not remember hearing the shots ring out in rapid succession outside the family’s Bartram Village apartment in Southwest Philadelphia.

But he remembers the blood on her body and the blood splattered on the wall.

He also remembers the last words the suspect – his father – called out to him as young Ronald and his mother, Ruth Angel Hayes, tried to flee the third-floor dwelling in the 2700 block of 56th Street.

“Go to your grandma’s house. I am going to kill your mom.”

INQUIRER: Jesus Fucking Christ!

By Kathy Boccella Inquirer Staff Writer In recent years, Ellen slipped deeper into her problems and away from her friends. By early 2004, she rarely left the house or returned phone calls. In March of that year, she still hadn’t taken down her Christmas tree. The house was so cluttered it was hard to get past the front door.

“Things were bad,” Pedlow said. Her friend sought counseling, Pedlow said, but she claimed that antidepressants aggravated her chronic colitis.

Five months ago, Ellen finally consulted a lawyer and rented a place in King of Prussia for $1,550 a month. She expected to get $4,000 in monthly support, Ellen told the real estate agent.

It was her daughter who gave Ellen the push she needed, Art Gregory said.

Ellen worried that stress at home was harming the girl. And something else was troubling her, Gregory said: Was it just 12-year-old attitude or had her daughter begun to mimic Rafael’s belittling behavior?

“She didn’t want [her daughter] to think that’s how men treated women,” Pedlow said.

In December, Ellen asked Rafael to move into the townhouse, police said. When he refused, she decided to take her daughter and leave instead.

Pedlow remembers her last conversation with Ellen, two days before her friend was beaten beyond recognition at her kitchen table.

“I’m turning 50, my life is changing,” Ellen said. “I want a better life for me and I want a better life for my daughter.”

INQUIRER: Desperate Housewives Die Every Day

Under Habeas Corpus, you have the right to say, I want to be brought into the court to determine if I am the right person charged, if there’s an actual law prohibiting what I’m charged with, if the people who are holding me have the jurisdiction to do so, and I want that publicly known and I want the right to dispute all of that and the right to be tried too. Without Habeas Corpus you can be swept up off the street and never heard from again. Period. Nobody has to know. Nobody – including yourself – has to know why. Nobody gets to determine if there is a law against what you’re charged with. You have no rights at all.

HUFFINGTON POST: The Price of Liberty Is Vigilance

HARRISBURG – One House member wants to see all bills and amendments posted on the Internet before a vote.

Another wants to give rank-and-file members a chance to get at least one of their bills to a committee vote each session.

But, wait, there’s more: No more midnight sessions. End “ghost voting.” Eliminate the two-week legislative land rush known as sine die.

Like wayward men and women who have suddenly found religion, the Pennsylvania state House is at long last embracing reform.

Yesterday, one by one, House members – some freshmen, others longtime reform advocates – proposed ways to make government more open and accountable.

INQUIRER: Beware Of Wolves In Sheep’s Clothing

PHAWKER RADIO: Yo La Tengo‘s AND THEN NOTHING TURNED ITSELF INSIDE OUT

Gregory Crewdson’s eerie photographs of suburbia at dusk require set-ups as elaborate as a film shoot. “My photographs are about the moment of transition between before and after,” he explains. “Twilight is evocative of that. There’s something magical about the condition.” The eerie effect of twilight crossed with strong artificial light – street lights, house lights, lights from the sky – is exaggerated by Crewdson’s choice of backdrop, which is almost always nondescript suburban America.

He is not the first photographer to be drawn to twilight – “nature at its most impressive”, according to the exhibition catalogue – but his images are uniquely tense, pregnant with atmosphere. Edward Hopper, Ray Bradbury, The Twilight Zone, Stephen Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and David Lynch can all lay a claim to influence.

Lynch is Crewdson’s most obvious source of inspiration. When he was a graduate art student in the mid-1980s, the photographer says he was struck by Lynch’s masterpiece, Blue Velvet. “I had the distinct feeling it would change me,” he says. Lynch’s vision of a dystopian world beneath the suburban idyll of Lumberton – in particular, the unforgettable 15-minute scene in which Kyle MacLachlan hides in a cupboard while Dennis Hopper acts out his S&M fantasies with Isabella Rossellini – left a lasting impression: “I love everything about it – the set, the attention to colour, light and mood.”

THE GUARDIAN: The Witching Hour
WIKIPEDIA: Gregory Crewdson, American Photographer
THE SPEEDIES: His Old Punk Band

By KYW’s Mike DeNardo An Iraq veterans’ group is launching an ad campaign urging some Republican senators — including Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter — to support a resolution condemning a troop buildup in Iraq. “I cannot support sending additional troops to Iraq.” That’s Sen. Arlen Specter on Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” on CBS.But Jon Soltz, chair of the group called Vote Vets.org wants more. His group wants Specter to vote for a resolution condemning the buildup: “Arlen Specter is willing to say that he’s concerned about the president’s policies of escalation. But we don’t need talk, we need a vote.” Votevets is launching a TV campaign on Thursday, featuring a vet (below) whose hand was amputated: “On the other hand, there’s George Bush, who supports escalation.” The group is targeting Republican senators who haven’t said how they would vote on the resolution. The cable TV ads begin running on Thursday.