INQUIRER: You’ve seen them, even if you don’t remember it. You’re crossing the street and something catches your eye, a flash of color amid the rush of feet. You wait for the light to change and the traffic to thin, and there it is: a rectangular shape embedded in the asphalt, with a message etched in silhouette: TOYNBEE IDEA IN KUBRICK’S 2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER Philadelphia is not the only city where the cryptic messages have appeared. They’ve turned up in New York, Boston, and Kansas City, Mo., and as far afield as Buenos Aires. […]
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 […]
OBAMAJUANA: Pot Legalization Overwhelmingly Dominates Questions At Obama YouTube Town Hall
HUFFINGTON POST: President Barack Obama plans to take questions from YouTube viewers Thursday afternoon, and for the third time in as many years, the overwhelmingly most popular query involves the legalization of marijuana. Of the top 100 most popular questions as rated by YouTube users, 99 are about the drug war or pot. Of the next one hundred, 99 are again about drug policy. Somehow, two questions about clean energy made their way into the top 200. The pot questions don’t stop there, but HuffPost stopped counting deep into the 200s, as the president is unlikely to answer all of […]
Will Farrell To Replace Carrell For Office Wind Down
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Ferrell will play a visiting branch manager over an arc of several episodes. NBC announced the casting Wednesday with the promise that Ferrell’s character will be “just as inappropriate” as Steve Carell’s Michael Scott. Carell’s farewell is expected four episodes before the season finale of “The Office.” In preparation of his exit, NBC is bringing in high-profile guests, including “The Office” creator Ricky Gervais, reprising his role as David Brent.Gervais will make a cameo on tonight’s episode. MORE RELATED: Ferrell called the producers, offering his services because he’s a fan and wanted to commemorate Carell’s swan song by […]
SNOWPOCALYPTIC SEPTA SLUMBER PARTY: 150 SEPTA Buses Stuck In The Snow Over Night
[Photo by Wenda Guzman-Freeman] NEWSWORKS: “We had 150 buses get stuck last night into this morning,” said Heather Redfern, a spokesperson for SEPTA. Redfern said passengers were let off the buses if they had alternate means of transportation or if they lived very close by. Otherwise, “We did have some passengers on the buses overnight,” she said. Redfern wasn’t sure how many passengers participated in the SEPTA bus sleepover, or what neighborhoods were hardest hit. As of 10 a.m., about 45 buses were still stuck across the city, according to Redfern. MORE NBC PHILADELPHIA: Three of the buses got stuck in front […]
KITCHEN BITCH: Mushroom Risotto
BY MAVIS LINNEMANN My little black truffle: You knew I had to come back to it. It’s like a little black dress—it just keeps giving time and time again. I can’t receive a black truffle for Christmas from my good friend Ian Adams and only give KB readers one simple but insanely delicious recipe for baked eggs with black truffles, now can I? Nope, the black truffle brings a flavorful punch to other foods besides eggs. Because of its fragrant, pungent aroma and delicate nature, it’s best used raw or mixed into a cooked dish at the last second. It […]
Snowpocalypse Punishes City For Crying Wolf
[Photo by avocadoh] ACCUWEATHER: Two parts of a snowstorm have come together in the Northeast and are making for several hours of wild weather tonight. The result of the merging parts is bursts of heavy snow in some areas and rain changing to heavy snow in others in the eastern mid-Atlantic. What happens in this situation is road surface temperatures typically cool during the late afternoon and evening hours, while heavy, wet snow (and sleet) takes additional heat out of the roads. The result is a rapid covering of slippery snow. AccuWeather.com meteorologists are expecting a total snowfall of 8 […]
THE ENGLISH PATIENCE: How A Phawker Intern Learned To Stop Worrying And Love North Philly
BY REBECCA GOODACRE When I told people I was spending a year abroad studying in America, more specifically at Temple University in North Philadelphia, more than a few looked at me with slightly raised eyebrows and asked “Are you going to be safe?” I just brushed it off and made a few lame jokes about joining the Crips and getting myself a Smith and Wesson loyalty card. However, being a 5’5 white middle class girl from rural England, neither of these suggestions had any real viability, and so my friends and family just shook their heads and began worried aloud. I come […]
RIP: The Last Living Louvin Brother Dead At 83
NEW YORK TIMES: Resolutely traditional in approach, Charlie Louvin and his brother, who died in an automobile accident in 1965, were proponents of the high, lonesome sound of the southern Appalachian Mountains, where they grew up. Some of their best-known recordings were updates of foreboding antediluvian ballads like “In the Pines” and “Knoxville Girl.” Other material centered on the wholesome likes of family and religion, including “The Christian Life,” an original that later appeared on “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” the landmark Byrds album featuring the singer Gram Parsons. Alternative rock acts like Elvis Costello and the band Uncle Tupelo (which […]
MUST SEE TV: James Franco On The Daily Show
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c The Daily Show on Facebook Freshly-nominated for an Oscar for his role as a hiker who gets his hand stuck under a rock and has to cut it off to survive, James Franco gets his hand stuck in the mini-fridge in the Green Room of the Daily Show while reaching for a Snickers and is about to cut it off before, mercifully, Jon Stewart intervenes with some common sense.
UNSTOPPABLE: Duck Boats To Re-Take Delaware
INQUIRER: Just hours after the city rejected a plan Tuesday to move the duck boats to the Schuylkill, the company that operates them said it plans to return to the Delaware River, the site of a July 7 accident that killed two Hungarian tourists. There appear to be few hurdles in the way – at least for now. The Coast Guard has cleared Ride the Ducks, the Georgia company that runs the business, to resume operations on the Delaware. Joseph Forkin, vice president of the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. (DRWC), which holds the lease for the ramp the ducks use, […]
New Line Of Marijuana Soda To Debut In Colorado
TIME: A company based in Soquel, Calif., has created a new line of soda pot — or, marijuana soda — that it plans to launch in Colorado in February. Canna Cola isn’t the first marijuana soda on the market, but its designer Clay Butler, who said he has never used marijuana or smoked a cigarette but is a “firm believer that adults have an inalienable right to think, eat, smoke, drink, ingest, decorate, dress any way they choose,” told the Santa Cruz Sentinel that his beverage collection will be distinguished by marketing. “You look at all the marijuana products out […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: With Your Host AP Ticker
This week, AP discusses explains how West Philly High School student Brandon Ford got invited to sit with the First Lady for the State of The Union address, the Gosnell abortion horror show, and the Onion coming to town. Also, he explains why the U.S. will not be able to indict or extradite Wikileaks’ Julian Assange and pays tribute to his old pal Don Kirshner of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert fame.