Phawker

SUN RA ARKESTRA under the direction of Marshall Allen
Halloween! Saturday, October 31, 8pm
International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut Street
$20 General Admission

Join us for this special and spectacular Halloween performance of the Sun Ra
Arkestra. Founded in 1958 under the leadership of Sun Ra, the Arkestra
pioneered a unique brand of afro-futurism, forging intersecting musical
pathways that explore outer space and Egyptian mythology. Drawing on the
work of Duke Ellington and Fletcher Henderson, the Arkestra are pioneers of
the bop-derived avant-garde and collective improvisation. Their work has had
tremendous impact on scores of musicians including MC5, Sonic Youth and
George Clinton.  Following the Arkestra’s influential tenures in Chicago and
New York City, Sun Ra and the Arkestra relocated to Philadelphia in 1968,
where they continue their commitment to the study, research and development
of Sun Ra’s musical precepts. Following the ascension of Sun Ra in 1993 and
John Gilmore in 1995, Maestro Marshall Allen (b. 1924) has launched the Sun
Ra Arkestra into a dimension beyond that of mere “ghost” band by writing
fresh arrangements of Sun Ra’s music, as well as composing new music and
arrangements for the Arkestra.

The first emailer to feed@phawker.com wins two tix. Include your cell number for confirmation. Good luck!

Otto Penzler is a well-known editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives. Located in Tribeca, The Mysterious Bookshop is one of the oldest and largest mystery specialist bookstores in America. Penzler is the author of 101 Greatest Movies of Mystery and Suspense (2000). For the New York Sun, he wrote The Crime Scene, a popular weekly mystery fiction column that ran for several years. He has worked with several outstanding authors including Elmore Leonard, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, Sue Grafton, Mary Higgins Clark, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke and Thomas H. Cook. He is currently series editor of The Best American Mystery Stories Of The Year and has edited several anthologies, including, most recently, the New York Times Best Seller The Black Lizard Big Book of American Pulps. His newest anthology, just in time for Halloween, is The Vampire Archives.

PHAWKER: What inspired you to create “The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published”? Why vampires, and why now?

OTTO PENZLER: The initial impetus for the book was the great success of my previous Vintage anthology, The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps. My editor said let’s do another book–what should it be? I suggested Horror. He’s smarter than I am, so fine-tuned it to Vampires. I’ve read a great number of vampire stories over the course of a long reading life and knew there was a deliciously large trove of first-rate stories from which to choose. Why now? Are you kidding? The staggering success of Stephanie Meyers, Charlaine Harris, the HBO series, etc., etc. Vampires are everywhere.

PHAWKER: Between Twilight, True Blood and rumors of a remake of Buffy: Vampire Slayer, it seems we’re experiencing a vampire heyday.  Why do you think that is?

OTTO PENZLER: The image of the male vampire underwent a major shift with Anne Rice, and a still greater image maker-over with the Twilight books and film. Vampires are seen, more than ever, as handsome, romantic, loving. They are so much cooler than the dorks who spend their waking hours hanging out at the mall, doing meth, and texting.

PHAWKER: Do you think any of these modern vampire tales will ever take precedence over the original Dracula?

OTTO PENZLER: That’s like asking if Agatha Christie took precedence over Arthur Conan Doyle, or if Michael Connelly is taking precedence over Agatha Christie. They are all excellent, and unique in their own way. Count Dracula will live forever. Certainly the more recent books are more accessible, with a faster pace and less baroque language, especially to younger readers. Whether they will stand the test of a century remains to be seen.

PHAWKER: As a follow-up, in all your research for THE VAMPIRE ARCHIVES, did you notice any trends about the popularity and content of vampire tales throughout history?

OTTO PENZLER: The early stories, those beautiful Victorian and Edwardian tales of terror, tended more often to feature castles, cathedrals, old country manors, and, of course, the ever-popular graveyards and tombs, frequently crumbling, while contemporary tales find vampires walking among us in ordinary settings, dressed like everyone else. Stories written before World War I tend to be quietly creepy and scary, while later stories are often more overtly violent or, starngely, humorous. There are plenty of exceptions to both eras, of course.

PHAWKER: Do you have any favorite stories?

OTTO PENZLER: Inevitably, among 84 stories, some will resonate more than others. A few of the most famous stories and authors wouldn’t make the top of my list, probably because of over-familiarity. If you want to read some truly memorable tales, try Gahan Wilson’s “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Could Be,” the two very short stories by Hume Nisbet, “The Old Portrait” and “The Vampire Maid,” and the chilling story by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, “Down Among the Dead Men.” Oh, and Lisa Tuttle’s “Replacements.” Oh, and…so many more.

PHAWKER: Do you prefer the Bram Stoker Dracula vampire, or the Stephanie Meyer Twilight vampire? 

OTTO PENZLER: Give me the guy with a castle and a tuxedo any day.

PHAWKER: The vampire myth has changed so much over time—why do you think vampires persist, and why do you think their mythology keeps getting rewritten?

OTTO PENZLER: It hasn’t changed as much as you think. Vampires remain, for the most part, immortal blood-drinkers. There are truly evil ones today, as there always have been, and there are also some who try to do the right thing, who are smarter than ordinary humans (one advantage of living for centuries is you get to learn a lot of stuff, especially history), and who are relatively benign. This is as true in contemporary fiction as it was in the 19th century. With so many millions of readers for so many years, clearly there are numerous reasons for the enduring popularity of these creatures. People love to be frightened, just so long as they know they really are safe. Roller coasters, bungee jumping, ghost stories, eating in an authentic Chinese restaurant–all scary, all popular. Vampire stories are mostly scary. I think there is also the appeal of immortality. It is common for readers to identify with the hero or heroine of a book or movie. So here is someone who will live forever. Not unattractive.

ANTICHRIST (2009, directed by Lars von Trier, 104 minutes, Denmark)

THE NEW YEAR PARADE (2008, directed by Tom Quinn, 84 minutes, U.S.)

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Filmmakers will often describe a film heavily inspired by their own experience as a “personal film”.  Although Danish filmmaker has never claimed to go mad in a forest cabin it is clear that his latest work Antichrist is also a deeply personal film, not just for von Trier but for its audience as well.   It is a work that doesn’t lead you to pre-digested conclusions and instead presents the deep recesses of von Trier’s mind and lets the viewer have their own reactions.  Judging from the film’s disdainful reception, it seems that to many if a film that makes you feel dirty and horrible, than the film itself is horrible.  But if you want to experience a dark and uncompromised exploration of the recesses of a man’s brain, Antichrist is the must-see film of the year.Then again I’ve never bought into the idea that von Trier is a raving misogynist, a label that has been hung on him ever since he plotted Emily Watson’s Christ-like torture and resurrection in Breaking The Waves. The one-dimensional women that are stalked and killed in slasher films may represent such hatred but surely not the heroines in von Trier’s films, who are exceedingly noble creatures to whom he obviously deeply relates, even as he breaks your heart with their cursed fates. Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character in Antichrist is cut from a different cloth than the female martyrs in his films of the last decade, named only as “She” the character seems more metaphoric than “real” from the get-go.

Antichrist opens in a beautifully surreal black and white set piece, where Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg (listed in the credits only as “He” and “She”) make love passionately in the shower while their child creeps out of bed and falls out a window, hitting the cement at the same time the couple climaxes, perfectly coupling their sex and guilt.   “She” ends up in the hospital for weeks, dazed on drugs and wracked with grief. “He” is a psychologist, who dispenses with medical ethics when he decides to take his wife to an isolated cabin to treat her himself.   “Who knows you better than I?” he says, as the camera pulls in to the murky waters and twisted roots that lie beneath the water line of a bouquet at her bedside.

Driving across a beautifully foreboding landscape much more stylized than von Trier’s Dogma-affiliated work, they travel through a forest named Eden where “He” dispassionately explains that they must get past their grief by facing their fears.  It is here that von Trier begins to catalog a number of deeply upsetting fears, from genital mutilation, death, insanity, commitment and the fear of our very nature itself.  Audiences seem to be distracted by this close-quarter war the erupts between the man and the woman but is it really two people engaged in this battle?  With barely enough fat between their lean frames to make a bar of hotel soap, the androgynous Gainsbourg (a ringer for the young Patti Smith) and the semi-Neanderthal presence of Dafoe make the pair – a psychologist and the academic – seem like warring factions of von Trier’s own mind rather than flesh and blood people.  Von Trier has claimed the film was inspired by a bout of crippling depression he experienced, which accounts for the dream logic and unbridled surreality of Antichrist, lingering in the sort of madness that earlier films only touched upon fleetingly.

It’s the sort of dissection of fear and nightmare imagery that only lovers of horror films will make comfort with and pity the poor art house connoisseur who wanders in drawn by Willem Defoe’s name on the marquee. Dafoe is excellent as usual, in another role the takes advantage of his taut physicality and the lizardy-lilt of his voice.  Like most von Trier films though, it is the woman with the juicy role.  Given permission to dig as deep into her grief as she wants, Gainsbourg delivers a performance that rivals those given by jungle beasts on the Discovery Channel.  It’s her performance that the critics who want to write offvon Trier’s masterpiece can’ t dismiss.  It’s a gutsy physical turn that matches von Trier’s brave determination to give us a peak at horrors that lurk within the darkness of our soul, a courageousness to put something on screen that we have not seen before.

- – - – - – - – - – -

From the dreamlike woods of Antichrist to the everyday reality of working class guys dancing in the streets dressed up like giant peacocks.  Well everyday if you live in Philadelphia and the day is January first.  The Mummers Parade is a local tradition that goes back hundreds of years and it makes for a colorful setting in The New Year Parade, Tom Quinn’s kitchen sink drama detailing the effects of divorce on a family from the unsurprisingly gritty streets of South Philly.

This sort of domestic drama is the frequent choice of filmmakers strapped with a tight budget but rarely is it as successfully pulled off as Quinn does here; down to a player, this mostly amateur cast consistently convinces with Quinn’s rough-hewn script.  The action centers around Jack (Greg Lyons) a twenty-something guy who is stuck between his parents when his father (Andrew Conway) discovers his mother is having an affair.  Jack marches in his fathers low-ranking Mummers outfit though the family friction has him considering jumping ship for the highly ranked Quaker State club.  Jack’s teenage sister seems most vulnerable, unable to discuss the parents break-up while also battling with her insensitive boyfriend.

All the dramatic situations you’d expect out of the story are here but it is the unexpected, naturalistic way that the improvised scenes hit their mark is what gives New Years Parade its fly-on-the-wall freshness.  Andrew Conway as the dad deserves special mention, he possesses the sort of steely, tip-lipped authenticity that would add gravitas to any TV cop show.  But if anything upstages the naturalistic acting it is the city itself, which Quinn captures with adocumentarian’s astute eye.

It’s an extremely confident debut, Quinn achieves everything he attempts but if there is a drawback it is in the characterizations themselves.  Quinn captures the psychological underpinning of his players perfectly yet the character’s rarely show a life outside of the problems in which they’re immersed.  Thankfully the Mummer’s camaraderie and the excitement of the big show keep the film from sinking into a mopey fugue.  While the vomiting and the public urination may be absent, The New Years Parade captures Philly’s heart and soul about as well as the Mummer’s themselves.

BY PHILLYGRRL Looking for some authentic Philly beats to spice up your Friday night? Look no further than Germantown hip-hoppers WrittenHouse, who play tonight at the Draught Horse. WrittenHouse, composed of producers Chris Conway, Kush Shalimar, hypeman Somerville Sleeves and emcee Charlie K, released their mixtape Sunshine Philadelphia Vol. 2 this past summer to critical acclaim. The members of WrittenHouse, Philly natives, have been active on the Philadelphia music scene as individuals since 2000, but started collaborating in 2007. They are known for their dynamic stage performances, strong lyrics and ah yes, tight beats. Tonight’s set list includes a crowd favorite, Mahogany Blu. Better check ‘em out now before they blow up on the national scene. Only last week, they opened for The Roots at their Vermont show. They’re the best group to hit this city since The Fresh Prince. Oh, who am I kidding. They would crush The Fresh Prince. (No disrespect, Will, but we all know acting’s your thing.) So if you’re feeling nostalgic for some real Philadelphia-flavored hip-hop, give WrittenHouse a listen.

Friday, October 30
Show start 9PM
Draught Horse at Temple University’s Main Campus
1431 Cecil B. Moore Ave
For more information, check out the event’s Facebook page.

BY ADAM BONANNI I know everyone’s gearing up for their super Halloween movie mash this weekend, but even more rare than finding a good horror movie nowadays is picking up a truly scarifying game. Sure games really have no qualms about turning up the violence, as most do, but it takes a certain restraint and nuance to pace the player along in a tense and uncertain manner, to mess with their minds and make that guy sitting at home in his nice comfy couch with the controller feel truly unsafe. How exciting is it to give a person the reins to a character who’s sole mission is to descend into a hellish adventure? This isn’t a movie; if a player’s wits aren’t fast enough, their character can easily be overcome and face death. Nerve-wracking much? The kind of interactive guided experience that a video game can offer is totally suited to horror, and some games take that experience to a whole new level of Hell. The following is a list of the Five Scariest Games Of All Time:

DOOM-Easily the most antiquated game on this list, Doom is best known for revolutionizing first-person shooters and bringing violence in games to a media sensationalist high kind of level. First person perspective means your character’s eyes are your own, and for many people, this was the first time they had been brought face to face with such demonic creatures. Imps, lost souls, and zombified remains of your fellow soldiers jump out and attack from all sides. The levels, to put it nicely, are a labyrinth-esque mess of flickering lights and claustrophobic corridors, and never before in a game have I felt so disoriented and hopelessly lost. Through all the violence and jump-out scares, the environments are a chilling mash up of sci-fi laboratories and Gothic design that don’t shy away on the pentagram per square foot ratio. For such an early example of a horrifying game, this one’s still surprisingly effective

RESIDENT EVIL 2-If Doom raised the hairs on some, there was no telling what Resident Evil would do. Representative of a different kind of horror, one where the characters are just trying to scrape by with peashooter ammo against a zombified town of significantly stronger and faster mutants, it was a chilling test of survival. Resident Evil 2 absolutely nailed the formula after the monster success of the first game, and even given the freedom to roam around an entire city or barricade yourself inside a police station, nowhere in Raccoon City felt safe. Death came frequently and in ghastly spectacles, mostly attributed to the cinematic looking but confusing way the environment was framed. Of course, the game blew it towards the end trying its darndest to draw back the curtain on what caused the viral outbreak, effectively destroying the mystery, but since I have yet to see a Resident Evil game that doesn’t fall into this totally avoidable trap, let’s just give it credit on where it does succeed.

SILENT HILL 2-Alas, this is one I haven’t played even halfway to completion (regrettably), so forgive my superficial remarks on a game that warrants a significantly deeper evaluation, especially since it gets so many things right. The one thing that always gets me about this game is the creatures. Those damn creatures that can only be described as moving mannequins convulsing in a horrifically unpredictable fashion. Walking down a hall, you might come across a frozen mannequin that wasn’t there before, and jump out of your seat as it springs to life and starts attacking you. There’s such variety and nuance to their appearance and animations which makes them such memorable foes (oh my god, the nurses). And that isn’t even touching on Pyramid Head. Truly the stuff of nightmares.

PENUMBRA-This game is a truly special one. Your character is thrust into the bleak arctic wilderness, alone, and has to seek refuge in underground mines. Once he finds out he’s not alone down there, that’s when the blood starts pumping. Right from the beginning, the game lets you know you’re not the marine from Doom, running around with 14 flavors of rocket launcher strapped to your back, and the only way to survive against this unnamed threat is to be sneaky. You find a shaky flashlight early on, and that’s about it. Oh but you can’t use it, because wouldn’t that let every little creature know you’re down here? You’re forced to think every one of your decisions through because your wits are your only weapon and once you give yourself away, it’s a quick and messy game over. The environment is absolutely decrepit and in constant threat of caving in, and mix in the soft but menacing footsteps of a creature pacing around the room searching for food, getting ever closer to finding out your position, and this one might keep you up in bed for weeks.

FATAL FRAME 2-Sequels, sequels, sequels. Actually, this is one thing that games do better than movies, because a sequel is a chance to fix up some things that didn’t work the first time around instead of trying to repeat the success of the original, but I digress. Fatal Frame 2 is the granddaddy of all horror in gaming. Never before have I seen horror conveyed in the style of film so seamlessly presented in a game. It’s Wicker Man meets The Ring; two Japanese twins stumble upon a ghost town where they are mistaken for the twins expected to be used for a ritual to seal the gates of Hell. The only way to exorcise the ghosts is through the Camera Obscura found early in the game, so expect some up close and personal time with their twisted visages. You play mainly in third person, and as you’re running through the town, you might catch a glimpse out of the corner of your eye of the inhabitants flickering between realms. The ghosts are masterfully rendered and even the common ones give me goosebumps. The most abhorrent are the ones when you can tell how they died; the woman covered in blood and cuts or the apparition floating around the town with a white kimono and a broken neck. This is one that needs to be experienced, and nothing I could say could do it justice. Play it with the lights off!

NEW YORK MAGAZINE: To promote yesterday’s iTunes release of the pair’s new short, We Once Were a Fairytale, Spike Jonze posted this medium-funny behind-the-scenes video of him pretending to slap a distracted Kanye West on the set. Given Kanye’s popularity these days, this seems like pretty smart marketing. MORE

["Dennis Hopper 1971" by ANDY WARHOL]

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Dennis Hopper has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is canceling all travel plans to focus on treatment, his manager said Thursday. The 73-year-old actor and artist is being treated through a “special program” at the University of Southern California, said Sam Maydew. Asked about Hopper’s prognosis, Maydew said, “We’re hoping for the best.” He would not elaborate on the actor’s condition. MORE

RELATED: Q&A With Dean Wareham

BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY How weird is it that the Phillies are in the World Series as the defending champs, last year’s ace and World Series MVP is healthy and rested, and he doesn’t get the start in Game 1 or 2, in favor of two guys who not only weren’t on the team last year, they weren’t on the team in JUNE! Pedro signed July 15th, Cliff Lee was acquired July 29th, and Cole Hamels starts Game 3. Very weird. My thoughts as the game unfolded last night:

Bottom 1st: Pedro looked awesome in the first inning. Fastball – see ya Jeter. Changeup – see ya Damon. Pop-up – so long Teixeira.

Top 2nd: With a runner on 2nd base, Matt Stairs hits a ground ball to third base. Error on ARod! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA! Perfect. They ruled it a hit? That’s ludicrous, but who cares. 1-0 Phils.

Bottom 2nd: ARod strikes out on a wicked curve ball. Chump. That’s 3 Ks already for Pedro on 3 different pitches. Martinez puts up a 0 with help from a sweet catch by Raul Ibanez in left.

Top 3rd: Man, (Yankee catcher Jose) Molina blocks a lot of balls in the dirt. Walking Utley to pitch to Howard works for the Yanks, but Burnett threw a lot of pitches in this inning (24 pitches and 6 pick-off attempts).

Bottom 3rd: Melky Cabrera hits the hardest ball so far against Pedro but only flies to center. Damon also thought he hit the ball well, but flies out short of the track. So much for everything carrying out of Yankee Stadium

Top 4th: Jason Werth goes with a pitch away and lines it to right field. Then he foolishly is picked off 1st base. He looked awkward on his no-slide, but he still would have been out even if he slud (obscure Dizzy Dean reference).

Bottom 4th: Teixeira really catches a hold of one and it’s bye-bye, homerun. And for the first time, it feels like a series. The Yankee fans finally have something to get excited about. The inning ends when Hairston strikes out on a fastball that looks low.

Top 5th: I thought Ruiz had got enough of his shot, but the ball just isn’t carrying. It goes off the wall for a double. With Rollins up, more blocks by Molina on Burnett curveballs in the dirt. He’s stopping everything and keeping Ruiz at 2nd base. Rollins and Victorino are retired, it’s still 1-1.

Bottom 6th: Pedro is dealing. Teixeira strikes out on a curve after homering his last time up. ARod has a very weak swing at a changeup for strike three. Pedro gets ahead of Matsui 1-2, and just when it looks like he is going to strike out the side, Godzilla drops the barrel on a changeup and gets just enough on it to put it in the 3rd row down the right field line. As well as Pedro has pitched, he’s behind.

Bottom 7th: Hairston gets a bloop hit, followed by a Cabrera hit-and-run single. Time to pull the plug on Pedro. Charlie Manuel agrees, and in comes Chan Ho Park. Pinch hitting with Posada works for the Yanks, as he singles in a run. Then Jeter buts foul with two strikes. HA! This was like Phil Ivey mucking a winning flush. The inning ends when the Phillies catch a break on a line-drive double play that Howard actually short-hopped. This should have gone for zero outs had the correct call been made. Hopefully, this wont further any calls for expansion of instant replay in baseball, because more instant replay in baseball is the dumbest thing I can think of.

Top 8th:  Finally Burnett comes out. What a game for him, and now here comes Mariano Rivera. I think it’s important for the Phils to work Mariano in the 8th, even if they don’t score, in order to weaken him for the 9th. Rollins has an awesome at bat, making Rivera throw 11 pitches and then drawing a walk. Victorino doesn’t work Mariano at all, but the result is still sweet as he dribbles one through the right side for a single. Now Mariano has two aboard with 16 pitches thrown and still five outs to go. This is when you start to get excited that you’re going to score against him, and which point he usually induces and double play and dashes your hopes. Here comes Utley…

I swear I wrote that before Utley grounded into the double play.

Bottom 8th: Oh crap, replays show that Utley was safe! Should have been 1st-and-3rd with 2 outs for Howard. Then again, in the bottom of the 7th the Yankees should have had the bases loaded with 1 out instead of inning over. A tough night for Blue at 1st base.

Top 9th: Mariano threw 23 pitches in the 8th…but it doesn’t seem to matter as he strikes out Howard on a pitch that looked high or outside or both. Howard seems to drop an F-bomb on FOX’s microphones. With two out and Ibanez at the plate, we get a closeup of Alex Rodriguez and he’s got some shmutz on his chin. Ibanez doubles, and the tying run comes to the plate. Here comes the sometimes clutch Matt Stairs who….strikes out. Game over. Oh well.

These first two games were pretty similar. Sabathia pitched well in Game 1, but Cliff Lee pitched better. And the Phils got enough offense on two solo homeruns (both by Utley). Pedro pitched well in Game 2, but A.J. Burnett pitched better, and the Yanks got enough offense from two solo HRs (Teixeira, Matsui). The Phillies should feel pretty good about coming home with a split and Hamels pitching Game 3. And Ryan Howard can’t keep striking out 2/3 of the time (can he?). This sets up a momentous 28-hour stretch this weekend with Game 3 in Philly Saturday night (Halloween!), Giants-Eagles at the Link early Sunday afternoon, nap or watch Brett Favre return to Green Bay after the Eagles game, and then World Series Game 4 Sunday night. Make sure to get your sleep tonight.

INQUIRER: The owners of the two Chester County dogs found fatally shot between the eyes Sunday broke their public silence this morning to thank the public for its support and try to prevent more carnage. “It’s important they find out who did this,” said James Milliner, issuing a plea for anyone with information to contact authorities. “Who knows what this person is capable of?” added his girlfriend, Laura Peperato. The dogs – a 11/2-year-old German shorthaired pointer named Emma and a 2-year-old mix of the same breed called Luna – were reported missing Sunday morning from the Milliner farm in Pocopson Township. They were found that afternoon, shot execution-style and positioned tail to tail, about six miles away in Pennsbury Township. MORE

RELATED: Anyone interested in contributing to the reward fund may call the Chester County SPCA at 610-692-6113, Ext. 215. Checks made out to CCSPCA can be mailed to the agency at 1212 Phoenixville Pike, West Chester, Pa. 19380.

BY GLORIA MARIS Really, I’m not in the habit of bringing home men from bars. I’ll recount two of them here. Keep in mind that the tales may not be too accurate, since they originated in bars. And furthermore, who knows how true are the tales men spin to me in bars? How true are the tales I spin in bars to men about myself?

One of my bar dates told me he was a world-class soccer player. He had been selected to play for the U.S. in the World Cup, but suffered some horrible back injury and could no longer play competitively. He accompanied the team for the trip and enjoyed the trip immensely — France 1998? Italy 1990? — but gave up soccer and went to engineering school instead. How true was his story? He was built like an ex-athlete: heavily muscled as if from years of training, broad shoulders as if from physical therapy to heal a back injury, a belly as if from working behind a computer during the day and hanging around bars at night. He name-dropped the owner of the gastropub several times and had come downstairs after celebrating some kind of dinner or get-together with a crowd of friends. He wrote his phone number on a coaster, but I never called him afterward because his friends had taken his keys from him. I don’t want to get involved with a man-child alcoholic again, even if he does have a soccer player’s stamina.

Several months earlier, I was studying in my “local,” a dive bar with very cheap basket food specials and continually discounted PBR but a few good offerings on tap. I did a lot of law school studying in this bar. Sometimes I would set up my laptop computer at a table in the early afternoon and prepare notes for the next couple of days’ classes. Sometimes I would simply take a casebook and a highlighter to the corner stool at the bar. Most of the time I’d last three pints, at which point I would join in on some nearby conversation, or another regular would stop by and I’d decide to be social, or I’d have had too many pints to study efficiently — after enough time had passed for me to finish three pints, I would do best to take a study break anyway. Some younger guy from the neighborhood was sitting a few stools down from me and was intrigued that I was drinking one of the local microbrews rather than a PBR or lager or Budweiser bottle. We talked about local microbrews, the lack of a wide range of choices at my local, and the wider range of options at the Belgian gastropubs here in Philly. We ended up at my place in short order. MORE

BY AARON STELLA Forget the fact that we were born with two ears and one mouth; let’s get real people, homo-sapiens love to yak; dark corners of a smokey pubs especially included (oh how I miss thee, smokey pub). And supernatual folk tales usually make for amusing fare. But the questions stands, as it always will: what’s up with the story and its teller? Starting tomorrow, The Curio Theater Company will be  forking out the insides of raconteurs and their confab (pub-life included) in their production of Irish playwright Conor McPherson’s “The Weir”. As an insufferable yakker myself, I had to get the goods on this one a little early. Gay Carducci, Managing Director of the Curio Theater Company, tells me their company self-specializes in producing plays that focus the unique humanness of people, and so saw “The Weir”, an especially “talky play”, as the perfect production with which to open the season. Carducci was kind enough to indulge me in an interview, contained in which are a few teasers, as you can see below:

PHAWKER: What is it about this play that inspired you to produce it?

CARDUCCI: Well, the play is basically about folk tales and the supernatural as told by three local men meeting at this pub. There is a fourth man involved as well, who has moved away from this  tiny town to a slightly bigger town, and now he has come back, accompanied by a new woman to the area who has either bought or is renting a house up the street from the pub. Much of the play is about the men’s interaction and how they reveal things about themselves, how they tell stories, how they perhaps try to gain the attention of this woman; it’s a very talky play—just people sitting around being real, engage in conversation.

PHAWKER: In any conversation, there are many aspects of a person that are communicated by non-verbalized means. This is always a challenge in my mind when it comes to “talky plays” as you put it. And you stuck to the original script, I take it? 

CARDUCCI: Yes, we didn’t make any changes.

PHAWKER: Where was the first place you saw this play produced?

CARDUCCI: Actually, I’ve never seen the play produce. I’ve read it, and I’ve read a lot about it, but I’ve never seen “The Weir” produce. We [the Curio Theater Company] like to take stories that really focus on the humanness of people, and so our artistic director [Paul Kuhn].  chose to open this season with this particular play for that very reason.

PHAWKER: Taking from your account of the play, I see why: human speech is a deeply fundamental function of our species. And what’s more—what I think makes this play interesting—is that, as you said, it’s about folk tales involving the supernatural. Do the characters in this play actually believe in the supernatural, or is the supernatural of device employed self-consciously—literally, if you will?

(more…)

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey center. Why? Because we love you!

ON THE COVER

CP: A rambling, unvarnished and totally enjoyable series of diary entries from Rodney Anonymous, CP columnist and frontman for Philly punk legends/weirdos the Dead Milkmen. DM has reunited, if that’s the right word (seems like they all still hung out and played together occasionally), and is playing what is sure to be a prank-tastic Halloween show at the Troc, but Rodney’s writing isn’t promotional in the least. They’re strange and madcap, filled with bits and pieces that show what a shoe-string operation being in a band can be and how fulfilling it can be at the same time. Dig, if you will, a picture:

I occupy the unique position in music history of being the only member of a “one-hit wonder” band who had absolutely nothing to do with the one hit. Despite having a writing credit (all of the Milkmen equally share the writing credits no matter what combination of us initially wrote a tune), I neither wrote, sang on nor played on our big hit, “Punk Rock Girl.” I have also never turned down a royalty check for the song. If I could only just figure out a way to get paid for every song that I neither wrote nor played on — the entire Beatles catalog, for example — I’d be set for life.

A few nights ago I got it into my head that I should actually do something when we play “Punk Rock Girl” other than what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years: just standing around tapping my foot like Larry Craig in a men’s room stall. To this end, I’ve asked Joe Genaro (aka Joe Jack Talcum, Butterfly Joe, etc.), our guitarist, to stop by today to help me work out a keyboard part for the song since Joe played the accordion on the original and I want to emulate his style as closely as possible. It takes roughly 10 minutes for Joe and me to come up with something, so we use the rest of the time we’ve allocated for the project watching TV. Green Porno star Isabella Rossellini and convicted felon Martha Stewart make an anchovy costume, a skill we both agree will come in much handier later in life than knowing how to play “Punk Rock Girl.” Still, I dedicate roughly 15 hours over the next two days to searching for the right accordion sound before finally finding a perfect (i.e. free) concertina sample.

Who fucks around with concertina samples these days? How is “Punk Rock Girl” their only hit? (I, for one, heard “Bitchin’ Camaro” first, and assumed for years that it was the band’s big one.) How does an in-jokey punk band even land a hit? I’m filled with questions that don’t seem to have answers, but Rodney’s rants, fluidity with references and overall music knowledge make it clear I should just embrace the mystery.

PW: From Brian Hickey’s Jersey Files, a weird, convoluted tale of crime and suspicion, far from the streets of Our Fair City. Hickey ventures to the most rural, overgrown parts of the Garden State to bring us the story of TerryOleson, jailed on minor charges while police tried to pin the murder of four – count ‘em, four – prostitutes on him. While incarcerated, his finances and reputation each suffered tremendous damage.

By April 1, four months and a dozen days after the bodies were discovered, the law was closing in on the man they suspected of being a serial killer. So compelling was the case of four strangled Atlantic City prostitutes eroding in a marsh behind the motel—their heads all facing the neon lights, a message amid madness—that efforts were already underway to find catchy nicknames. Atlantic City Ripper. Black Horse Strangler. But none of that was on Oleson’s mind. That night he was focused on evicting his longtime girlfriend from the Salem County house he’d built up since buying it from his family when he was 17 years old.

They were a toxic mix. Oleson says marble tiles were swung and strangers were almost run over during fights at Home Depots. Restraining orders were issued. When he asked her to take her daughter and leave, she cried harassment to the cops. He already had a judge’s order. Oleson says his ex packed up just about everything, hers and his , before the court-sanctioned deadline. What he didn’t know then was that when he was off in Atlantic City working, neighbors had seen the police around the house. They were building a case.

Glad to see Hickey’s reporting chops are intact after his tragic accident last year. Still not sure an AC-South Jersey story belongs in a Philly alt-weekly, but if you’ve got the sources (Hickey mentions he covered the AC crime beat in the late ’90s) and the skills, why not?Oleson got a raw deal, but I bet he could shake his rep if he cut the mullet.

INSIDE THE BOOK

CP: To Pittsburgh, by bicycle: what could go wrong? First, the Yankees: in the off-season, we take on the Albuquerque Douchebags. I, too, have a Honda — really hope I can avoid this. Calorie-limit cuisine? Apparently, it works.

PW: Fight Pennsyltucky: state-level GOP once again threatens our future and safety. Misty Spectrum-colored memories. Getting Proustian with a bite of Indian. Stomach-turning cinema.

WINNER: CP takes it, because Rodney Anonymous somehow takes a running joke about Bowzer from Sha Na Na (yeah, I know… “Who?”) and makes it funny. A rare feat.