NEW YORK TIMES: As a performer, Mr. Curtis drew first and foremost on his startlingly good looks. With his dark, curly hair, worn in a sculptural style later imitated by Elvis Presley, and plucked eyebrows framing pale blue eyes and wide, full lips, Mr. Curtis embodied a new kind of feminized male beauty that came into vogue in the early 1950s. A vigorous heterosexual in his widely publicized (not least by himself) private life, he was often cast in roles that drew on a perceived ambiguity: his full-drag impersonation of a female jazz musician in “Some Like It Hot”; a […]
EXIT THE RAM: Emmanuel Stepping Down
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Rahm Emanuel will resign as White House chief of staff on Friday and will begin his campaign for Chicago mayor by meeting with voters in the city on Monday, two people familiar with Emanuel’s plans said. The two people, who spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because they did not want to pre-empt Emanuel’s announcement, said he will return to Chicago over the weekend and begin touring neighborhoods Monday. “He intends to run for mayor,” one of the people told The Associated Press. MORE NEW YORKER: Rahm Emanuel’s office, which is no more than a three-second walk from […]
REALITY CHECK:The Bush Tax Cuts
RELATED: Austan Goolsbee, Obama’s pick to replace Christina Romer as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, talks for two minutes about the Bush tax cuts. He doesn’t say anything that hasn’t been hashed over a million times before, but he says it with cogency and clarity and even a hint of a Texas twang (befitting a proud son of Waco named after Stephen F. Austin, the “Father of Texas”.) But I wonder, who is this aimed at? The public, generally speaking, is in favor of raising taxes on the rich. The sticking point, for the White House, is Congress; […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Richard Nixon is remembered as a ruthless politician driven at times by fear and hatred of his perceived enemies. But a new book suggests that Nixon’s paranoia was based at least in part on his own experience. In Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture, Mark Feldstein describes the epic battle between Nixon and the muckraking syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. Feldstein follows the rise of Anderson’s investigative journalism career and explains how his decades-long face-off with Nixon would become emblematic of the relationship between the press and other politicians. In the […]
TONITE: Hipsters Beware
Cameron McGill And What Army [pictured, above] plays the First Unitarian Church tonight with Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos and Lonely Island.
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
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 […]
KITCHEN BITCH: Nutella Pancakes
BY MAVIS LINNEMANN If you’ve ever been to Europe—or maybe just your local European import store—you’ve come across Nutella, a wonderfully creamy hazelnut chocolate spread. Pietro Ferrero invented Nutella in the 1940s in response to the rationing of chocolate during World War II. Mr. Ferrero used hazelnuts, which are abundant in the Piedmont region of Italy, to extend the chocolate supply, and Europe has never been the same. Nutella is ubiquitous in Europe, but it’s making the rounds in the U.S., too. You can find it stuffed into croissants or pastries, spread onto crepes or crunchy Euro breakfast toasts, or […]
BLACKLIST: The Words Google Instant Doesn’t Like
2600: Google Instant is the latest incarnation of the search engine that fills in potential responses as you type them into the Google search bar. Some people think this is great while others feel like Google is reading their minds and are freaked out by it. We believe it’s fun for at least one reason. Like everything these days, great care must be taken to ensure that as few people as possible are offended by anything. Google Instant is no exception. Somewhere within Google there exists a master list of “bad words” and evil concepts that Google Instant is programmed […]
CONCERT REVIEW: The Books At The Troc
BY PELLE GUNTHER It feels wrong to even begin calling this show at the Troc a concert. It was an experience. A musical and visual trip through the bizarre and fascinating sonic hodgepodge that is the art of Nick Zummuto and Paul de Jong, the duo more commonly known as The Books. After releasing their first album in about 5 years, the band was back and ready to play some wild sampledelic folktronica. They played with the assistance of what I assume was a flash drive and PowerPoint, as they flipped from song to song, only once restarting a song […]
TMI: Rutgers Student Jumps To Death After Dorm Mate Secretly Filmed Him Having Sex With A Man And Streamed It Live On The World Wide Web
ABC NEWS: A Rutgers University freshman posted a goodbye message on his Facebook page before jumping to his death after his roommate secretly filmed him during a “sexual encounter” in his dorm room and posted it live on the Internet. Tyler Clementi were found by the George Washington Bridge last week, according to authorities. Clementi’s freshman ID card and driver’s license were in the wallet. Clementi’s post on his Facebook page, dated Sept. 22 at 8:42 p.m. read, “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” Clementi’s body has not been recovered, but police have pulled an unidentified male body from the […]
Fake Pimp Of ACORN Sting Fame Attempted To Make Hidden Camera Sex Tape With CNN Reporter
TALKING POINTS MEMO: James O’Keefe, the young conservative activist who secretly recorded meetings with ACORN and was convicted in May of entering Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office under false pretenses, allegedly tried to “punk” CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau by luring her on to a boat and seducing her. According to CNN, Boudreau was trying to get O’Keefe to let her and a camera crew tape a video shoot O’Keefe and some of his friends were doing. He told her he wanted to meet her alone, in person, beforehand. When she arrived at his house in Maryland, she was approached by Izzy […]
WORTH REPEATING: It’s Not Easy Being Will Bunch
WILL BUNCH: It’s 11 p.m. on a Tuesday night in the intensive care unit at Bryn Mawr Hospital outside of Philadelphia. The lights are out in the hallway, and it’s relatively quiet — relatively. The one patient who repeatedly screamed out “Help me!” every hour on the hour has been moved upstairs, and now I’m getting used to a nearby patient whose breathing monitor occasionally plays a bizarre jazz riff in the mode of Charlie Parker. My ICU Room 1 is illuminated only by flickering lights, the TV with its endless-50-something-guy loop of Sportscenter, and a pale green monitor showing […]