In what is being billed as the world’s first interactive music video — at long last, you prayers are answered, right? — The Breeders let you choose from four different viewing perspectives. Pretty cool.
RUN: Women & Children First, Every Man For Himself
ACCUWEATHER: The window for evacuations is closing as Gustav inches closer to the central Gulf Coast. Tropical storm conditions will reach the Louisiana coast this evening and New Orleans after midnight. Gustav is expected to make landfall late Monday morning as at least a strong Category 3 storm, the same strength of Hurricane Katrina when it devastated the region three years ago. CNN: About 1.9 million of Louisiana’s 2 million coastal residents had fled ahead of Hurricane Gustav by Sunday evening in the largest evacuation in state history, Louisiana’s governor said. More than 200,000 people have left New Orleans, leaving […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
EMPIRE OF DIRT: Nine Inch Nails, Wachovia Center, Friday Night [Photos by JONATHAN VALANIA] BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Industrial music is all about the intersection of man and machine, drawing sonic tropes from the pneumatic wheeze of moving parts, and taking lyrical cues from the existential exigencies of life in a mechanized world. Trent Reznor made it speak to the punkish angst of youth trapped in dead-eyed factory towns in the dawn of the Information Age — and became the new Man In Black. Twenty years on, Reznor may have lost some of his cultural cachet — Friday […]
STORM OF THE CENTURY: The Exodus Is Here
WASHINGTON POST: NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 30 — New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D), along with a half-dozen police, fire and community leaders, encouraged residents Saturday to leave the city as soon as possible, ahead of the anticipated landfall early next week of Hurricane Gustav. City officials said they would turn all lanes of traffic on major highways into one-way routes headed away from the city starting early Sunday morning. More specific plans are expected later Saturday evening, Nagin said. With winds of up to 145 mph, Gustav became a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale on Saturday, as […]
FRINGE PICKS: Sea Of Birds, Everyone
Sea Of Birds Structured like Homer’s Odyssey and reminiscent of The Little Prince, Sea of Birds takes place inside a luminous dome made of paper and bamboo, where history and imagination interweave to create a breathtaking experience for audiences of all ages. Drawing on stories from her mother’s childhood in Latvia during the Second World War, performance artist and writer Sebastienne Mundheim (Currently Franklin, 2006) brings audiences into a three-dimensional storybook of delicate paper sculpture, dance-based puppetry, and live musicians. Video preview by Woodshop films. Sun. 8/31 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM, Theater, 40 minutes, ICE BOX Projects Space,1400 North American […]
MEOW MIX: You’ve Come A Long Way, Maybe
Why did John McCain choose Alaska’s Sarah Palin, the Hottest Governor In America (a title she’ll only hold until Gavin Newsom wins California, but whatever) as his pick for vice-president? And come to think of it, given the two had only reportedly met once before she was tapped, is the former beauty queen even really his pick or just a Hillary Lite spokesmodel for social conservatives?…DEVELOPING… People don’t know anything about her, so the first words thrown out about her by right-wing pundits, “a maverick in Alaska,” threaten to stick. Look for a lot of talk in Minneapolis about where […]
INSTA-REVIEW: FUC — Fringe Unofficial Cabaret
BY TIFFANY YOON FRINGE CORRESPONDENT The “unofficial” Cabaret, also officially nick-named FUC (Fringe Unofficial Cabaret), kicked off last night at Johnny Brendas with dirty child molestation jokes, raunchy dancing and a stuffed monkey. Needless to say, it was a fucking hit, and hat tip to Scott Johnston and friends that made the efforts to keep the Fringe festival’s post-show booze n’ fun tradition alive. The stage was backdropped with footage from the old Saturday morning classic “Land of the Lost” (see video below) in between acts and all throughout Animus’s set, the band headlining last night’s events. Other than some […]
KILLADELPHIA: Three Dead Since U Went To Bed
INQUIRER: The Labor Day weekend got off to a violent start in Philadelphia with three men, including a 78-year-old, shot to death before the sun rose this morning.Police had made no arrests today in any of the shootings. Police identified the elderly victim as Enor Williams of the 6300 block of N. 11th St. He was shot in the face shortly after 6 p.m. Friday outside a Veterans of Foreign Wars post at 2033 N 33rd St. in Strawberry Mansion. Homicide detective Lt. Mark Deegan said he was told Williams was a veteran, but didn’t know whether he was a […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Disco Descending
BY AARON STELLA FRINGE CORRESPONDENT Who’d a thunk that Orpheus and Eurydice’s ancient tale of woe could be catapulted out of its musty tomes and into silk shirts, bell-bottoms, and sleek-white platform shoes. But it can, apparently. Under the artful direction of Karen Getz, director, choreographer and veteran thespian, comic-dance troupe 1812 narrates the tale through an actor-y ballet of boogie and hustle. Despite, however, Disco Descending’s fantastic soundtrack and a Saturday Night Fever vibe, the 1812 troupe are not professional dancers in any respects. They can move pretty much as well as you or I can, and in some […]
FRINGE INSTA-REVIEW: Sonic Dances
BY TIFFANY YOON Sonic Dance, wherein a troupe of dancers basically dance their way down Broad Street from City Hall to the Avenue of the Arts, articulating their bodies with rhythm and grace across any surface — sidewalk, street, mailbox, passerby — that would have them. Too bad the weather was kinda crappy and the music coulda been louder, but they certainly captured the public’s curiosity. By the end of the performance, there was a small mob, practically jogging to keep up, hoping to figure out just what this was all about. And that of course, was the point — integrating […]
THE DARK SIDE: Comcast Killed The Internet Star
GIGAOM: Karl Bode over on DSL Reports reports that Comcast will institute a 250 GB cap on its broadband connections starting Oct. 1. Expect other carriers to follow suit and make tiered broadband a reality. Much as I would like to think otherwise, this is the end of the Internet as we know it. The caps are a move to ensure that the gouging scheme put in place by Comcast and other cable providers stays intact and they can continue to sell their video-on-demand services. It was a point I made when I wrote, Why Tiered Broadband Is The Enemy […]
MCCAIN VEEP: It’s A Girl!
WASHINGTON POST: The McCain campaign had make little secret of the fact that they wanted to pick a woman as the Arizona senator’s running mate, believing that the rift caused by the protracted primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton gave them an opportunity to pick up scads of disgruntled women. PHAWKER: Three thoughts up front. 1.) You can measure the fear of a man by the extremity of his choices. 2.) His choice is a response to the Democratic party circa last week. Not the Democratic party circa now. 3.) This is like saying to black people, ‘Here’s […]