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Archive: May, 2012
Devoted poet/avid concert-goer/nerd-grrrl extraordinaire Jane Cassady’s weekly horoscopes run in this space every Friday morning.
Taurus (April 19-May 18): If there’s someplace you can go where everybody’s pretty and special and fun, go there. You’ll fit right in and find exactly what you need!
Gemini (May 19-June 21): Last weekend, we spent a fair number of hours playing Wii Jeopardy with my family, and here’s what I think: It’s much more enjoyable on the easy setting. Alex Trebek is less fun without the mustache. My Mii is due for a makeover. The answers are less like questions every day. (Confidential to K.C:YAAAAAAAY!)
Cancer (June 22-July 23): Next time it rains, play hooky and catch up on your pleasure reading. Take one or several naps — you need to catch up on your dreaming to defragment your subconscious and start anew.
Each week, Nina Willbach puts together a rundown of book-centric events. This week: Community Scrabble, Toni Morrison and a look at Philly in the next 100 years!
Thursday: As Words With Friends sweeps the nation, it's easy to forget about its analog forbearer Scrabble. The classic board game not only increases vocabulary but has a unique ability to bring together players of many generations, making it a true classic and a staple of any serious game cabinet. Today at the library's Falls of Schuykill branch, they'll be laying all their tiles on the table with two full hours of good, old-fashioned scrabble. Players of all levels are encouraged to stop by for a round or two at the boards. For students on summer break, it's a great way to brush up on your verbal trivia. For English Language learners, scrabble represents the social side of expanding your vocabulary. Get off your smart phoness and pick up your tiles for a fun and nerdy wordy Thursday.
10:30 a.m., free, FLP Falls of Schuykill Branch, 3501 Midvale Ave., freelibrary.org.
We have two tickets to see Brooklyn-based comedian and musician Reggie Watts at the Troc (1003 Arch St., 215-922-6888) on Saturday. To snag them, submit a Watts-related haiku to josh.middleton@citypaper.net by 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. We'll pick and announce a winner by noon.
Also, check this space tomorrow afternoon for LOL With It columnist Ryan Carey's Q&A with Watts, where they talk about superheroes, psychedelic comedy and what it's like to eat pot brownies on live TV. Mmmm!
You say you’re itching for another film festival? The always be-scarved Thom Cardwell informed me, while dining at La Veranda’s 25th anniversary dinner, event that QFest 2012 will run July 12-23. “We’re not ready to announce any details of films, celebrities, award recipients or guests, yet,” he said while fiddling with his scarfy pocket square, as you can see from my accompanying photo. Stay silken, T.
Lo these many months that Spruce Street Coffee/Espresso has been closed (it only moved a block away to a longer building with higher ceilings and re-named itself Odd Fellows Café), we kept waiting to see what would move into the old 11th Street spot. Ta da — it’ll become an as-yet-unnamed juice bar. Real juice, not weird euphemism juice. Hmm.
View gallerySadly, five-time Grammy winner and undisputed Queen of Disco Donna Summer passed away today after a long battle with cancer. R.I.P.
Ever wonder what Mayor Nutter looks like riding a bike? This Friday, the mayor will celebrate National Bike to Work Day with staff, clients and volunteers from Gearing Up — an organization that promotes biking and bike education for women in recovery. Three years ago, Gearing Up founder Kristin Gavin began riding bikes with women at Interim House, a residential recovery home for women in Mt. Airy. Since that initial ride, the program has helped hundreds of women through earn-a-bike classes and group rides. Reintegrating into society requires a lot of the same skills it takes to ride a bike: confidence, self-sufficiency and an ease with public space. As Gavin says, “A huge part of successful recovery and reintegration for women in our program is having the opportunity to connect with healthy people, places and things ... such as pedaling side by side with the Mayor of Philadelphia”. In honor of the program's third anniversary, join Nutter and the gang tomorrow at 7:30 a.m., cycling from Lloyd Hall to the Municipal Services Building.
Movie critic (and the guy who compiles our weekly repertory film listings) Michael Gold reviews his favorite Netflix Instant flick of the week.
May is easily Hollywood’s desperate month. Left Coast studio executives are gearing up for a career-making blockbuster season, while anxious TV big wigs present their upcoming lineups to scrutinizing critics in the Big Apple. Essentially, this summer is a profit-focused Hunger Games, where by the end only one studio’s ratings will be left standing. Look only to the existence of Rihanna-starring blockbuster Battleship (the first of many “based on the hit board game” adaptations) to know that L.A. will stop at nothing when it comes to the bottom line.
Well, OK, almost nothing. As trashy and predictable as content has become, no production company has reached the level of Sidney Lumet’s Network. In search of a hit show, fictional network head Diana Christensen (played by Faye Dunaway before she started looking super creepy) actually strikes a deal with militant terrorists to guarantee strong ratings. It’s just one instance of the outlandish tactics that fictional network UBS utilizes to bring in big audiences. Throughout Paddy Chayefsky’s biting script, television execs peddle excessive trash onto the unwashed masses. The machinations are both appalling and uproariously entertaining, much like Network itself. Still, by the movie’s frenetic conclusion, it’s hard not to feel a little complicit in the summer’s screenings of artless fare.
(michael.gold@citypaper.net) (@migold)
Chris Brown digs into our listings bin and pulls out a little something-something to do every day of the week.
The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia invites you to pay homage to riders no longer with us as their eighth annual Silent Ride takes place tonight. In the last year, six individuals have lost their lives while on the road and to call attention to this sad fact supporters are gathering in front of the Art Museum and embarking on a memorial excursion through the neighborhoods.
Wed., May 16, 6:45 p.m., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. Benjamin Franklin Parkway, bicyclecoalition.org.
Put it in your calendar. The 51st edition of the Philadelphia Folk Festival will take place Aug. 17-19, once again at the Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township, near Schwenksville, PA. Yesterday, some lineup highlights were revealed:
- Debo Band
- Mary Chapin Carpenter
- Voices of the Wetlands (Um, is this a band or a non-profit?)
- Little Feat
- John Hiatt and the Combo
- Steve Earle and the Dukes
- Lucinda Williams
- Wanda Jackson
- Paul Thorn
- Strand of Oaks
- The Wooden Sky
- The Secret Sisters
- City & Colour
- Red Clay Ramblers
- Lori McKenna
- Mark Erelli
- The Holmes Brothers
- Mary Gauthier
- Mike Cross
- Comas
- Tracy Grammer
- Arborea
- Chris Bathgate
- Brother Sun (featuring Pat Wictor, Joe Jencks and Greg Greenway)
- Roosevelt Dime
- Pokey LaFarge
- The Gypsy Hombres
- Chris Kasper
- Griz
- Spuyten Duyvil
- Zach Stock
- The Great Groove Band
- And, of course, your host, the immortal Gene Shay.
So there you go. Some well-known names and some names to research. Not sure if any of these qualify as a Kimya Dawson/Decemberists-type crossover act, but there’s plenty of young blood and old favorites to sink your teeth into.
When the announcement went out on Friday that Jay-Z would hook up with the Mayor of Philadelphia on the steps of the Art Museum, a few things rang through my mind:
1) Hova wanted to continue his Watch the Throne collaboration tour with Kanye West but West was too busy with Kim Kardashian. Rapping Michael Nutter would therefore be Kanye’s replacement
2) That he and Beyonce really liked our Museum and, with Blue’s birthday coming up fast, needed a present
3) He really really likes our Sixers more than his Nets
4) Z’s buddy Geoff Gordon from Live Nation won a bet
5) He had a free Monday, that’s all
Instead, Jay was coming here to — as announced first in the New York Times on Sunday – give up the deets on the Budweiser Made in America festival in Fairmount Park, Sept. 1 and Sept. 2, with tickets going on sale May 23 through LiveNation.com and Ticketmaster.com with a portion of proceeds are to benefit the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern NJ.
Named after one of Watch the Throne’s tunes (maybe Kayne will get involved?), the festival will have Z as its curator and headliner (what else) with a broadly eclectic group of acts as his openers. That’s what we knew before Monday morning.
With the rain holding to a spritz, Z and Nutter — standing in from of the Art Museum and a large United States flag, and joined by Philly’s own Freeway — they reiterated the same info, adding that some 30 acts would be scheduled. Maybe Beyonce will make her second area appearance after Revel’s opening weekend with her husband. Stay tuned for the bookings, though Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson — The Roots’ blabbingest drummer — posted on Okay Player that he knows the bulk of the lineup and compares the Labor Weekend fest to Live Aid ’85. “If I name the other 30 acts scheduled to appear I will have officially become Hov’s 100th problemo and Nutter will Osage Ave up my momma’s home,” writes ?uest.
Speaking of, the ever-ubiquitous ?uestlove — whose Roots Picnic is also a two-fer, with De La Soul and Major Lazer on the first weekend in June — will appear on the finale episode of Morgan Spurlock’s Hulu show, A Day In The Life, talking about all Jimmy Fallon, Philly and fried chicken. Girl Talk, Joel McHale and Richard Branson have been previous guests, so the company’s good. Watch it starting today, May 14.
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