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 […]
ART OF THE DEAL: PAFA Sells THE CELLO PLAYER To Buy THE GROSS CLINIC; Buyer & Price Unknown
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 […]
VETERANS OF UNPOPULAR WARS: The Pump Don’t Work Because The Vandals Stole The Handle
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 […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
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 […]
WRECKLESS ERIC: Whole Wide World LIVE 1977
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
MOVIE REVIEW: Sherry Baby
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 […]
GUNCRAZY: Dad To Seven Year Old — ‘Go To Your Grandmother’s House, I Am Going To Kill Your Mom’
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 […]
SMELLS LIKE JOURNALISM: Inky Puts Boots On The Ground In King Of Prussia, Gets The Backstory Of Penn Professor & Wife’s Deadly Domestic Nightmare
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 […]
EXPLAINER: WHAT THE FUCK IS HABEAS CORPUS?
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 […]
HARRISBURG: What If We Ran The State Like A Democracy Instead Of A Pirate Ship? Hmmm…
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 […]
AND THEN NOTHING TURNED ITSELF INSIDE OUT
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 […]
VOTE FOR VETS Tells Specter Talk Is Cheap
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 Votevets.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 […]