Philadelphia City Paper, December 4th, 2014 by Philadelphia City Paper

TICKETS MAKE GREAT GIFTS! GLENSIDE (PHILA)

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D e c e m b e r 4 - D e c e m b e r 1 0 , 2 0 1 4 | C i t y Pa P e r . n e t

cpstaff We made this

Associate Publisher Jennifer Clark Editor in Chief Lillian Swanson Senior Editor Patrick Rapa Arts & Culture Editor Mikala Jamison Food Editor Caroline Russock Senior Staff Writers Daniel Denvir, Emily Guendelsberger Copy Chief Carolyn Wyman Contributors Sam Adams, Dotun Akintoye, A.D. Amorosi, Rodney Anonymous, Mary Armstrong, Meg Augustin, Bryan Bierman, Shaun Brady, Peter Burwasser, Mark Cofta, Alison Dell, Adam Erace, David Anthony Fox, Caitlin Goodman, K. Ross Hoffman, Jon Hurdle, Deni Kasrel, Alli Katz, Gary M. Kramer, Drew Lazor, Gair “Dev 79” Marking, Robert McCormick, Andrew Milner, Annette Monnier, John Morrison, Michael Pelusi, Natalie Pompilio, Sameer Rao, Jim Saksa, Elliott Sharp, Marc Snitzer, Tom Tomorrow, John Vettese, Nikki Volpicelli, Brian Wilensky, Julie Zeglen Editorial Interns Indie Jimenez, Alyssa Mallgrave, Nia Prater, Sam Fox Production Director Michael Polimeno Senior Designer Brenna Adams Designer & Social Media Director Jenni Betz Contributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Hillary Petrozziello, Maria Pouchnikova, Neal Santos, Mark Stehle Contributing Illustrators Ryan Casey, Don Haring Jr., Joel Kimmel, Cameron K. Lewis, Thomas Pitilli, Matthew Smith Human Resources Ron Scully (ext. 210) U.S. Circulation Director Joseph Lauletta (ext. 239) Account Managers Colette Alexandre (ext. 250), Nick Cavanaugh (ext. 260), Amanda Gambier (ext. 228), Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262) Classified/Adult Advertising Sales Alexis Pierce (ext. 234) Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel 22

$20,000

Bruce Schimmel founded City Paper in a Germantown storefront in 1981. Local philanthropist Milton L. Rock purchased the paper in 1996 and published it until August 2014 when Metro US became the paper’s third owner. citypaper.net

30 South 15th Street, Fourteenth Floor, Phila., PA 19102. 215-735-8444, Tip Line 215-735-8444 ext. 241, Listings Fax 215-875-1800, Advertising Fax 215-735-8535, Subscriptions 215-735-8444 ext. 235 Philadelphia City Paper is published and distributed every Thursday in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Chester, Bucks & Delaware Counties, in South Jersey and in Northern Delaware. Philadelphia City Paper is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased from our main office at $1 per copy. No person may, without prior written permission from Philadelphia City Paper, take more than one copy of each issue. Pennsylvania law prohibits any person from inserting printed material of any kind into any newspaper without the consent of the owner or publisher. Contents copyright © 2014, Philadelphia City Paper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Philadelphia City Paper assumes no obligation (other than cancellation of charges for actual space occupied) for accidental errors in advertising, but will be glad to furnish a signed letter to the buying public. 55

contents Cover story, see p. 12

Naked City ...................................................................................6 A&E ...............................................................................................18 22

Events..........................................................................................25 26

Food ..............................................................................................29 34

Sex .................................................................................................31 cover illustration by cameron K. lewis design by brenna adams

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naked

the

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thebellcurve

city

CP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

[ + 1]

Bill Cosby resigns from the Temple Uni versity Board of Trustees. And tries to join the board at Penn State.

[ + 2]

A new species of frog is discovered in South Jersey — the Atlantic Coast leop ard frog, known for making groaning and coughing sounds instead of croak ing. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll quit tomorrow,” says frog, ashing into a water lily. “You know, I tried the ecig thing. Fucking embar rassing, man. I’m repping a whole spe cies here.” 22

[ - 3]

[ + 1]

[ + 3]

A Mayfair man previously convicted of slashing tires is arrested for allegedly puncturing tires using a homemade device made of glue traps and nails. Look, dude: You hate tires, we get that. But this is Mayfair. You wanna be a star? Put cheese on your wang. T he Christmas Village returns to Love Park and is expected to attract half a mil lion visitors this season. Wait, you mean the AfterHours Urinal Maze, right? After the Daily News runs a story about activists trying to care for the wild cats living along the Delaware before win ter, several readers donate money and supplies. “Oh, hey, great, thanks for all the cash. And this was indeed a fancy feast,” says the Rev. Snarls, archbishop of the cats. “We’ll think of it fondly when we freeze to death this evening.”

[ - 1]

J amie Moyer quits his job as a Phillies broadcaster after one year. “You gotta know when to fold ’em,” he says.

[ + 1]

A petition is filed to place a historical marker at the Grays Ferry McDonald’s where rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard was arrested in 2000. “We’re already planning party buses to and from Man ayunk,” exclaims one of the one million white people who think this is awesome, and believe themselves to be awesome by extension.

This week’s total: +4 | Last week’s total: 0 | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

NOTEWORTHY: Since July, Michael McGettigan has hosted free letter-writing events in city taverns. Maria PouChnikova

[ pen pals ]

A pint, A pub And A pen At city bars, patrons are dabbling in the old-fashioned art of handwritten letters. The stamps and paper are free. By Natalie Pompilio

ichael mcGettigan always writes his letters using a fountain pen, the ink flowing unevenly onto linen stationery. When he pauses to think, he is careful to pull the nub away from the page to avoid unseemly spots. If this were the start of a movie — perhaps one titled The Art of Letter Writing — the camera would begin with a tight shot of mcGettigan’s hand moving across the paper. It would then pull back so his upper body could be seen, his face pensive, thoughtful under a shock of white hair. Then it would pull back again, with the viewers expecting to see a downton Abbey-worthy country house in the early 1900s, mcGettigan quietly seated at his rolltop desk with a glass of sherry, his man servant waiting to post his latest missive. How wrong they would be. mcGettigan was sitting on a bar stool at a two-person round table inside Paddy’s Old city Pub, a pint glass of beer before him. The air was thick and smoky, the ashtrays along the bar filled with new and finished cigarettes. It was loud, with a TV squawking and

d e c e m b e r 4 - d e c e m b e r 1 0 , 2 0 1 4 | C i t y Pa P e r . n e t

the rumble of conversations. And it was simply perfect for Publetters. Since July, mcGettigan has hosted free letter-writing events in city bars. He provides the stamps. His friend Nestor Torres, owner of casa Papel, provides the stationery. The alcohol, at times, provides the inspiration. “I do a lot of analog stuff,” explained mcGettigan, who has hosted Type-In events, encouraging fellow fans of the typewriter to join him in clacking away on the machine. “Things in the world have gotten as fast as they can. This is a good way to slow down.” And writing a letter by hand conveys more emotion than any on-screen text or letters made by an impersonal printer ever could. Tears can’t smudge a keyboard. They can affect ink. “The electric guitar didn’t replace the acoustic guitar,” he said. “If you really want to get somebody sobbing, you need an acoustic guitar. It’s not obsolete. It’s just different.” Publetters was born from a conversation mcGettigan had with a friend. He mentioned it to Torres, whose shop is near mcGettigan’s business, Trophy bikes, in Northern Liberties. They partnered and hosted their first gathering at doobie’s on Lombard Street. Since then, more than 200 Publetters have gone out into

Tears can’t smudge a keyboard. They can affect ink.

>>> continued on page 8

[ is taking a hard look at cleanliness ] [ teachers anonymous ]

a Change in feelings about Coming out

t’s my fourth year sponsoring the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at my high school, and we’ve had a pretty solid core of kids — mostly girls. The club was actually all-female last year. but this year, I was really happy to get a lot more boys in the club, both gay and straight. In general, it seems like teenage girls have an easier time coming out in high school than teenage boys — there’s more of a stigma if you’re a boy. being gay is not a requirement of the GSA — I have a lot of straight students who participate. but there’s sometimes this assumption that if you’re in the GSA, you must be gay. Just the general perception that you’re gay can be dangerous, even if you’re not. So a lot of students don’t want to stick up for each other or get involved with altercations, because then they might be accused of being gay and then they could be attacked. my school’s a pretty safe space; we’re really lucky that way. but boys often use calling somebody gay as an insult, an attack on who you are. And I do see it more and more that our young women students will stand up. And this year, we have a lot more boys in GSA. I think it’s indicative of changing feelings about being gay or lesbian, and less fear of “if you’re an ally, you must be gay,” you

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know? I think we have some straight boys in the club, and that’s just as cool, because they’re not afraid to be associated with the issue. Like: I had this very athletic student who participates in a bunch of different sports; he was staying after school in my room to finish an assignment during a GSA meeting. When he came up to me at the end and asked me what the club was, I was a little bit nervous, because I wasn’t sure whether he would react well. I told him it was the Gay Straight Alliance, and he asked, “Oh, what do you guys do?” I said, “We mostly just hang out together, but sometimes we’ll talk about LGbT issues, or how we can implement things in our school, bullying, current events, things like that.” He said, “Oh.” Then he paused and asked, “can I come next week?” I was very, very surprised. I told him, “Of course!” He hasn’t come yet, but I thought it was really cool that he was interested; it was the exact opposite response from what I expected. It’s been really refreshing this year to have more young men participate. It was interesting having an allfemale club, but it wasn’t an accurate representation of the people in our school. The club missed that point of view, and it’s really great to have it this year.

editor’sletter By Lillian Swanson

Why We did this Food-safety evalutions, a public service.

✚ Teachers Anonymous is a column that shares brief stories from Philly teach-

ers and other school employees that illustrate the difficulties and joys of working in a drastically underfunded system. Interested in contributing? Describe a brief situation, scene or moment that you feel communicates something larger about the challenges or rewards of working in Philadelphia schools. Email stories to emilyg@citypaper.net or send by mail to Emily Guendelsberger c/o city Paper, 30 S. 15th St., 14th floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.

photostream ➤ submit to photostream@citypaper.net

PARK SCENE:An indie film crew sets up shop in Fitler Square. rob lybeck

➤ During the four years I worked in New York City, I came to rely on its restaurant-grading system in deciding where to dine. An “A” posted in the window meant the kitchen had met the city standard for cleanliness. In contrast, a “C” grade was a red flag when it came to food safety. In Philly, no such government-issued shorthand exists. Instead, restaurant patrons who care about food safety are left to dig through nearly impenetrable restaurant-inspection reports that are posted by the city’s Health Department. The restaurant ratings that we are publishing in this week’s City Paper and posting on our website is our effort to make that information more accessible to our readers and to put it in context. Some food safety violations are more serious than others, and our analysis has factored that into our results. Patrons of Philly restaurants can easily check how an eatery performed, on average, during Health Department inspections over the last five years. Working with food-industry experts and foodsafety analysts, we’ve made our opinions known — awarding four stars to restaurants performing the best, and then down the scale to one star to those with the worst averages. With this project, a joint effort by City Paper and the AxisPhilly investigative journalism website, we’ve done what good news organizations traditionally do — sort through a mountain of data, analyze it and share our evaluations — as a public service for our readers. Our readers can play an important role in helping us keep the database current by letting us know if a restaurant has closed so we can remove it from the list. It’s important to note that this rating system is not meant to be a substitute for government-issued letter grades. We would support that effort in the interests of public health. But since the Philly government has chosen, so far, not to go down that road, we created this project, our opinion of the food-safety performance of the city’s 3,800 restaurants. (lswanson@citypaper.net)

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[ the naked city ]

MAIL CALL: Six people showed up to a recent Publetters session at Paddy’s Old City Pub on a frigid night. Others at the bar soon joined in. Maria PouChnikova

✚ A Pint, a Pub and a Pen <<< continued from page 6

the world. Pope Francis gets sent at least one letter addressed to him during each gathering, and perhaps there will be more with his planned trip to the city in 2015. Local politicians, like mayor michael Nutter, have been sent notes. A list of popular address requests includes President Obama, eddie Izzard and John Oliver. Letters have gone to Ireland and Australia — those take three first-class stamps. mcGettigan didn’t think many people would attend the most recent Publetters, held at Paddy’s on a frigid night two weeks ago. but at least six people showed up specifically to write and others at the bar joined in. Around 7 p.m, mcGettigan held up a glass filled with writing instruments and announced it was time to begin. “Start your pens,” he intoned. A variety of stationery types, provided by casa Papel, was stacked on the pub’s front-window ledge. There was a classic ivory linen stock, a smooth Italian-made paper bearing a watermark, more textured sheets made with milkweed. but even Torres, who makes his living in the paper business, notes the stationery is secondary. “Paper is just the medium for travel,” he said. “It’s the words that matter.” Torres has begun writing regular letters to his 5-year-old son. “To sit down and write a letter is special,” he said. “It’s a treasure.” Natalia Ugarte, who was jotting a note to her mother in Florida, agreed. She saves all of her birthday cards and keeps three special missives — one each from her mother, father and grandmother — in her bedside table. “I read them all the time,” said Ugarte, 33. “When I’m sad, I’ll pull them out.” That’s something that can’t be done with, for example, a floppy disk. mcGettigan said it’s a good thing his wife has a printed copy of her dissertation because the original is on floppy disk. He recalled an old commercial with a person presenting a cigar box filled with a collection of saved letters to the delight of other family members. In the another scene, the person presents a cigar box of | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

floppy disks, which are then thrown into the trash. One of his most cherished letters? A photocopy of the saved carbon from a thank-you note his father wrote in 1954. It was sent to the Philadelphia Police department and the officers who had taken his pregnant wife to the hospital where, an hour later, mcGettigan was born. “dad wrote, ‘my understanding is that Officer reed, badge 5446, is, in every respect, courteous, confident and professional in a very trying time. I would appreciate you adding this to his service record, conveying my thanks to him,’” mcGettigan said. “I joke it was my first brush with the law.” mcGettigan writes at least one letter per event. He has a14-yearold niece in New York who “barely speaks to me,” but she will write to him. They’ve become regular correspondents. “In one letter, she made this great distinction about music. ‘If I’m feeling bad, it’s Old crow medicine Show. but if I want something to pound in my ear, it’s Green day,’” mcGettigan recounted, clearly delighted by this small bit of inside information. “That alone was worth the price of writing letters again.” Growing up, candice byrd wrote letters to her favorite musicians. She ticked off a few artists, all of whom would surrender an eyetooth now for some fan mail: New Kids on the block, Paula Abdul, Vanilla Ice. but on this night, she wrote to her 93-year-old grandmother who lives in brookhaven, delaware county. “I wrote it in big letters so she could see it,” byrd, 33, said. “I just hope she checks the mail.” When it was time for byrd to choose a stamp, mcGettigan pulled out a binder of first-class postage options and flipped through the pages. “ray charles?” he offered. “batman?” “She wouldn’t know batman,” byrd said. more pages, more stamps: Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin stamps were also deemed beyond grandma’s comprehension. The eventual

“Paper is just the medium for travel,” says McGettigan.

d e c e m b e r 4 - d e c e m b e r 1 0 , 2 0 1 4 | C i t y Pa P e r . n e t

winner was a stamp featuring a bird, fitting for someone with her moniker. byrd sealed the letter and affixed the stamp. mcGettigan pulled out a stamper and marked the envelope’s back with a personalized “Publetters” mark. cinnamon J. bowman walked up to find a stamp. She said she enjoyed the rituals of sending a letter in the mail: licking the envelope, carefully writing the address, picking the stamp. (She went with Janice Joplin, having once dressed as the late singer for a party.) She has a collection of treasured correspondence, including a note of apology from the grade-school classmate who punched her, and gossipy bulletins on scrap paper handed to her under high school desks. A Paddy’s employee, she decided to stay on after her shift after observing a previous Publetters event from behind the bar. “everyone was talking about writing and what they were into and it didn’t matter who they were writing to or what they were writing. It brought people together,” said bowman, 41. “I always like that.” (editorial@citypaper.net)

✚ Michael McGettiGan’s tips for publetter writers 1. Order a drink, but address the envelope before taking a sip. 2. Organize your work space unless you want that telltale beer glass ring on the letter for effect. 3. If stuck for inspiration, consult your bartender. Most are word wonders who will come back with some one-liner that will get your pen moving. 4. Pace your drinking. McGettigan has rigid personal rules of writing: “I don’t start that second drink unless I’ve started a second page or even a second letter — sort of Pavlovian about it.” 5. Post the letter immediately. Even better, give it to McGettigan and he’ll do it for you. “Wait a day and it may never get posted!” he said. ✚ Upcoming Publetters: Dec. 9 — Standard Tap, 901

N. Second St., Dec. 16 — Fergie’s, 1214 Sansom St. Each session runs from 7 to 9 p.m.

c i t y pa p e r . n e t | d e c e m b e r 4 - d e c e m b e r 1 0 , 2 0 1 4 | p h i l a d e l p h i a c i t y pa p e r |

7 Things You Must Know Before Putting Your Home Up for Sale Philadelphia - A new report has just been released which reveals 7 costly mistakes that most homeowners make when selling their home, and a 9 Step System that can help you sell your home fast and for the most amount of money. This industry report shows clearly how the traditional ways of selling homes have become increasingly less and less effective in today's market. The fact of the matter is that fully three quarters of homesellers don't get what they want for their homes and become disillusioned and - worse - financially disadvantaged when they put their homes on the market. As this report uncovers, most homesellers make 7 deadly mistakes that cost them literally thousands of

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This report is courtesy of Larry Levin, Coldwell Banker Preferred. Not intended to solicit buyers or sellers currently under contract. Copyright ÂŠ 2014

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artsmusicmoviesmayhem

firstfridayfocus By Mikala Jamison

“Do not be attached to the outcome.” ➤ Jeffrey Stockbridge’S Home

going: PHotograPHS from 20042008

Photographer Jeffrey Stockbridge knows the worst parts of Philadelphia. For four years, he photographed what he found inside abandoned houses in the rougher parts of the city, and he also publishes the Kensington Blues blog, where he posts his photos of people in the neighborhood — drug addicts, those trying to recover, sex workers — as well as their stories. This exhibition focuses not so much on the people, but the structures: What really makes a home in Philadelphia? Through Jan. 16, reception Fri., Dec. 5, 5-7 p.m., free, Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St., 215-925-9914, paintedbride.org. ➤ angel’S girlie SHow Philly’s got a couple of places where the infatuation with the pinup girl is alive and well — ever gazed at the painted ladies on the ceilings of Varga Bar? Or gotten a haircut at Salon Blush, which is right next to owner Alanna Ralph’s pinup photography studio? Pinups were the ultimate in ’40s and ’50s feminine glamour, and Angel (her working name, she’s a mural artist in Philly) has latched onto that inspiration in her figure drawing. Check out the paintings as well as some promised burlesque. Says Angel: “I’m just a grown woman still playing with her dolls!” Fri., Dec. 5, 7-11 p.m., free, Portside Parlor Body Graphics, 30 S. Second St., 215-922-1313, bodygraphics.com. ➤ leander fontaine + Jean PlougH These concurrent exhibitions are a little at odds — one is all about the imagination: It’s all cerebral. The other is about abandoning thought. Leander Fontaine’s “More Black, White, Weird,” features large-format black-on-white works based on real and imagined creatures. Jean Plough’s “Equilibrium,” on the other hand, features abstract paintings “based on the process of ‘aimless wandering,’” which follows these rules: Do not have any goal; Do not try to make it look like anything; Do not try to salvage any area; Do not be attached to the outcome. Let your mind go, we say. Through Dec. 28, reception Fri., Dec. 5, 5-9 p.m., free, 3rd Street Gallery, 45 N. Second St., 215-625-0993, 3rdstreetgallery.com. (mikala@citypaper.net, @notjameson) 18 | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

SHOW, DON’T TELL: (L-R) Kitty Hailey, Steve Clark and Marjorie Winther are storytelling VIPs in Philly. Maria PouChnikova

[ first person ]

Talking heads Philly’s most revered raconteurs swap storytelling stories. By Mikala Jamison

itty Hailey is a good storyteller. but she wouldn’t need to be for people to be enthralled by what’s happened in her career and life. “In real life, I am a professional investigator,” she said at a First Person Arts (FPA) StorySlam on march 26, 2013. The night’s theme was “Virtue and Vice,” and Hailey wove an amusing yarn about following a lawyer whose church lady wife suspected him of infidelity. Turns out the church lady was shacking up in a motel with a mystery gentleman of her own. but Hailey and a couple of her companions in the quest to tell the best stories in Philadelphia — Steve clark and marjorie Winther — don’t need to lead lives of intrigue to spin a good story. They say they just need to reach others on some real, human level — people relate to mistakes, to faux pas, even bumbling idiocy. “I can’t get up there and say I’ve recovered 26 children in my career and that makes me special,” Hailey says. “but I can tell the story about one where I fucked up.” Though the three elaborate on their various pratfalls, they’re winners in the Philadelphia live storytelling community. clark is the only storyteller to have ever won two Grand Slams,

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the FPA season-end event where the previous Slams’ winners compete for the ultimate title. He’s won three other FPA Slams, too. Winther won the first Slam she ever did, earning 10/10 in every judging category. She’s also won the “audience favorite” title twice, as well as two other FPA Slams. Hailey’s won the “Virtue and Vice” Slam, as well as a Philadelphia The moth StorySLAm, and has also been an FPA audience favorite. This is a side gig for them, to be sure. Hailey’s a PI who’s written books on industry ethics; Winther is a former science teacher who leads professional workshops and does corporate training; and clark teaches sixth grade at the dePaul catholic School. even with their success stats, the three agree it’s not all that common. “Winning is so rare, you can’t even worry about it,” clark says. Winther adds, “You just talk about what you wanna talk about.” What they want to talk about, much of the time, is the relatable craziness of simply being a person. “It was all about my romantic failures, in the form of an Irish drinking song,” clark says of the Slam he bombed hardest. “The only reaction I heard from the audience, it’s marjorie going, [enormous groan], like, ‘That sucks so bad for you,’” he says as Winther giggles. He later reworked it into a story that won a Grand Slam.

“I can tell the story about where I fucked up.”

>>> continued on page 20

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INVITE YOU AND A GUEST TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING OF FOR A FAMILY FOUR-PACK TO SEE â&#x20AC;&#x153;NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMBâ&#x20AC;?, LOG ONTO: WWW.CITYPAPER.NET/WIN No purchase necessary. Two admit-two passes will be available while supplies last. Note that passes received through this promotion do not guarantee you a seat at the theatre. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis, except for members of the reviewing press. Theatre is overbooked to ensure a full house. No admittance once screening has begun. All federal, state and local regulations apply. Recipient of tickets assumes any and all risks related to use of ticket and accepts any restrictions required by ticket provider and their affi liates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. We are not responsible if, for any reason, winner is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. Void where prohibited by law. Participating sponsors, their employees and family members and their agencies are not eligible. No phone calls, please. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB is rated PG.

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✚ Talking Heads <<< continued from page 18

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That’s a theme with these three — personal failures turned into triumphs. “Well, my life fell apart,” Winther says, with surprisingly contagious laughter, of how she got into StorySlams. “my marriage broke up in a big blaze … my husband went to prison, it was about visiting him.” She ended up telling the story of the implosion at a Slam, where she won all 10s. “I do [that] every week!” Hailey interrupts about visiting prisons, for her work as a PI. The two then launch into a commiserating exchange about not being able to wear bras with underwire through the prison metal detector. People have to make emergency undergarment runs to Kmart to comply with a prison sign reading, “Undergarments must be worn.” “How can they police that?” a bemused clark wonders. Hailey talks about reading boring books to her younger sister when they were kids, so she made up a Nancy drew-ish alter ego called “Stony Lake” to make the stories more interesting. This makes Winther howl with laughter. She calls Hailey “Stony” for the rest of the afternoon. clark says, “I think marjorie and Kitty being as good as they are challenges me to be a better writer ... if you’re going to be competing against them … they’re really good at this.” At that, Hailey lightly touches clark’s arm and almost silently says, “thank you,” just as Winther explodes with, “can I just say how much that I hate that it’s a competition?” Winther, for one, gushes over how warm and nonjudgmental FPA StorySlams are. She compares them to her past in standup comedy, though she admits it’s been nearly eight years and she doesn’t know the scene now. “It was horrible,” she says. “It was all men, they were ‘edgy’ men who liked to talk about … ‘spooge’ or whatever.” “Splooge,” clark politely offers. but FPA Slams, Winther says, are very accepting. “I give 100 percent credit to Jamie [J. brunson, FPA’s executive director]. She makes everybody feel like she’s glad they exist in the world. That spirit permeates First Person Arts.” So what’s it like being not only repeat storytellers, but repeat winners? They’ve learned a lot. “You can’t go first,” clark says, and Hailey and Winther agree. “If you do a great story first, you can’t get higher than an 8, because [the judges] don’t know what’s going to happen next,” Winther says. She prepares, she says, by writing her story down. So does clark. Hailey says she wings it. The timing, they say, presents issues. each FPA storyteller has five minutes. “I’ve found that like 800 words is five minutes,” Winther says, “but really it’s not — one time people laughed for 35 straight seconds. That’s like 10 percent of your time!” As for not-so-great storytellers, they each point

[ arts & entertainment ]

to a damning action: clark says bragging. Hailey says rambling. Winther says self-deprecation that’s too deliberate. Asked if anyone’s heard a Slam story that they thought was bullshit, clark jokes, “most of marjorie’s.” Winther does have a quotation from a friend that she holds onto: “The minute you try to impress or look good, you will die a humiliating death.” All three are quick to answer why they do this — why, week after week, with no guarantee of winning, or cash, with no guarantee of even being called onstage, do they partake in the Slams? “When I go to L’etage or World café Live, I walk in and I’m genuinely happy to see people,” Hailey says. “I mean seriously, Steve [clark] will sit at a table with me … he is less than half my age. That’s cool. It’s acceptance.”

“One time, people laughed for 35 seconds.” “I think as a culture, we are suffering from alienation,” Winther says. “This is a place where people connect. The stories that make people happy are ones where [you think], ‘Oh my God, my mother was that way, too.’” And what do the storytellers hope audience members might be thinking when they’re onstage? “Nothing. I want them to be paying attention,” Hailey says. clark explains, “I would want people to think that there’s some work that’s put into it, that it’s not, like, easy to do, but that they can do it, too.” As for Winther? “I want them all to be in love with me,” she says. (mikala@citypaper.net) ✚ The 14th StorySlam season begins with the theme “Family Matters,” Mon., Dec. 8, 8:30 p.m., $10, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., firstpersonarts.org.

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aniel Traub grew up near Fitler Square but often spent summer days during his teenage years in North Philly where his mother, Lily Yeh, established The Village of Arts & Humanities community center. “It was like going to a different city,” Traub remembers. “It’s all one city but in a way there’s this huge divide between these places.” Traub later moved away, studied photography and lived in china for 10 years. He now calls brooklyn home. but North Philly stuck with him, and between 2008 and 2013, he returned to take pictures. At first it was the glowing storefronts of chinese takeout restaurants and the lush, miniature wildernesses of overgrown vacant lots that drew his eye. Later it was the people and the churches. Traub’s new large-format photography book, North Philadelphia (published by Kehrer Verlag) shows the neighborhood as he sees it: a place of beauty, grace and decay. One photo shows a church established in a looming stone building that was obviously a bank in a previous life. In another, two African-American kids stare dead ahead into the camera, one striking an adolescent tough-guy pose, the other looking thoughtful and vulnerable. Traub, half-white and half-Asian, knew he

was an outsider going into the project. “There was an element of suspicion with some of the people,” he says. “In general, however, people were warm and welcoming, particularly when I explained that I was making a book of photographs about North Philadelphia. In fact, many people approached me and asked to be photographed.” For more photos by daniel Traub, go to citypaper.net/arts. —Patrick rapa ✚ North Philadelphia book launch, Tue., Dec. 16, 6 p.m., free, Print Center, 1614 Latimer St., 215-735-6090, printcenter.org, danieltraub.net.

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movie

shorts

Films are graded by City PaPer critics a-F.

The Babadook

: New THe BaBadook | aThere is no fear like a child’s, and though the protagonist of Jennifer Kent’s astonishing first feature is a grown woman, the monster that invades her house through the mind of her 5-year-old son brings with it the kind of terror that can’t be banished with logic or a splash of holy water. The Babadook — a name that only sounds silly until you’ve heard it croaked in a voice like the cracking of a tomb — first comes to Amelia (essie Davis) and Sam (Noah Wiseman) in the pages of a children’s book whose illustrations combine the Victorian dread of edward Gorey with the jagged edges of a crude charcoal smear. At first, the boy’s insistence that the creature is real, and inside their house, is just one more thing pushing his mother toward the brink of mental collapse: She’s been widowed since his birth — the boy’s father died driving her to the maternity ward — and his insistence on bringing homemade anti-monster weapons to school constantly lands him in trouble, to the point where even a mild whine makes her apoplectic. but 24 | P h i l a d e l P h i a C i t y Pa P e r |

the babadook starts to make his way into her mind as well, embodying her grief over her husband’s death, and her irrational, unexpressable anger at her son for causing it. We become terrified for Amelia, and of her. Kent, who quotes maria bava and George méliès alongside Skippy the bush Kangaroo, goes back to cinema’s earliest monsters, using jerky stopmotion rather than slick cGI; as the babadook moves towards Amelia at 12 frames a second, your mind fills in the gaps with the stuff of nightmares. Davis’ performance, with its shades of catherine Deneuve in Polanski’s Repulsion, is a tour de force, and Wiseman captures both the innocence and aggravation of a child’s attachment to imaginary worlds. but good as both are, the real star is Kent, who made a masterpiece her first time out.—Sam Adams (The Roxy)

: coNTiNuiNg ciTizeNfour | aThe scariest thing this Halloween was a wide-eyed edward Snowden swearing in disbelief at the end of Laura Poitras’ gripping, disturbing

documentary. Citizenfour, whose core is the now-(in)famous meeting between Snowden, Poitras and journalist Glenn Greenwald in a Hong Kong hotel room, offers a limited catharsis through Snowden. Sure, he’s exiled from his own country and branded a traitor by many opposed to his disclosure of information on U.S. surveillance programs, but he’s done what he set out to do. In the last scene, though, Greenwald tells him of another whistle-blower who claims the U.S. has more than a million people on various watch lists, to which Snowden can only respond, “That is fucking ridiculous.” It’s an unforgettable reminder: No matter how jaded we are, there is always something that can shock us. We should be afraid, and Poitras’ essential film reminds us why. —SA (Ritz at the Bourse)

foXcaTcHer | aAlthough it’s not entirely free of the plodding About America-ness of Money ball and Capote, bennett miller’s latest has a secret weapon at its center, and it’s not Steve carell’s nose. As John eleuthère du Pont, the unstable millionaire who murdered Olympic

D e c e m b e r 4 - D e c e m b e r 1 0 , 2 0 1 4 | C i t y Pa P e r . n e t

wrestling champion Dave Schultz (mark ruffalo) on his Newtown Square estate in 1996, carell disappears beneath layers of latex and padding, but he never sinks into du Pont’s skin. That’s where channing Tatum’s performance as Dave’s younger brother, mark Schultz, comes in. Although he was also an Olympic gold medalist, mark was overshadowed by his more charismatic brother, which in Dan Futterman’s version of the story, leads to a psychic bond between him and du Pont. Tatum’s quiet, selflacerating bearing gives the movie its broken soul, part wounded puppy, part attack dog. With an early scene where du Pont and mark look out over the Valley Forge battleground, Foxcatcher lunges for symbolic significance: mark is an abandoned veteran, a national hero, cast aside once he’s served out his term, reduced to regaling middleschool assemblies for $20 checks. but miller’s grasp is sure, and the movie’s steady march toward its tragic foregone conclusion feels inevitable rather than redundant. but on those terms, it’s a powerful simulation of the whirlpool of wealth, and how people sell themselves a little at a time and then suddenly all at once. —SA (Ritz East)

NigHTcrawler | aDan Gilroy’s shadow-cloaked debut might just contain Jake Gyllenhaal’s meatiest and most marketable role in years, a performance so eye-opening you’ll find yourself making excuses for some of the film’s flimsier devices. A hard-driving but directionless petty criminal in L.A., Louis bloom is relentless without having anything to be relentless about, his unblinking discipline pushing him toward a goal he hasn’t yet set. (The autism spectrum is hinted at.) His ambition finds its outlet in “nightcrawling” — risky freelance camera work that places him, and later his stammering street-kid partner (riz Ahmed), in violent and compromising situations. bloom’s footage soon becomes invaluable to struggling TV producer Nina (rene russo), leading to a complex professional and personal relationship shaped by their shared appetite for control. Unpredictable, unscrupulous and often straight-up spooky, Gyllenhaal is so good here that you find yourself rooting for his character — even if the right thing to do is to root for him to be arrested. —Drew Lazor (Wide release)

events listings@citypaper.net | december 4 - december 10

[ another sleepy dusty delta day ]

THE LIGHT OF DAY: Mirel Wagner plays the Side Chapel at the First Unitarian Church on Friday. aki roukala

New Orleans to millions of TV watchers, but the trumpeter and vocalist was a big easy favorite son long before HbO (or Katrina) came calling. A disciple of Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan, ruffins carries on his mentors’ deft and ebullient playing as well as their boisterous personalities and dionysian growls. —Shaun Brady

magic. This is the first of eight projected iterations, to be performed by the same seven actors over 24 years. —Mark Cofta

12.4

[ theater ]

[ jazz ]

$15-$60 | Through Dec. 13, Team Sunshine Performance Corporation at FringeArts, 140 N. Columbus Blvd., 215-413-1318, fringearts.com.

Vocalist Ann Hampton callaway has found her greatest success on broadway and cabaret stages and as a songwriter for barbra Streisand and others. but she always maintains a connection to jazz, most recently paying homage to Sarah Vaughan on her latest, From Sassy to Divine (Shanachie). She’ll be exploring the Great American Songbook tonight with the Temple University Jazz band, led by trumpeter Terell Stafford. —Shaun Brady

Events is our selective guide to what’s going on in the city this week. For comprehensive event listings, visit citypaper.net/events. iF you Want to be liSted: Submit information by email (listings@ citypaper.net) or enter it yourself at citypaper.net/submit-event with the following details: date, time, address of venue, telephone number and admission price. Incomplete submissions will not be considered, and listings information will not be accepted over the phone.

thursday Kermit ruffins & the BBQ swingers $20-$50 | Thu., Dec. 4, 8:30 p.m., with Cory Henry Group, Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, 610-649-8389, ardmoremusic.com. Through his appearances on Treme, Kermit ruffins has become synonymous with

the sincerity Project

director Alex Torra’s Team Sunshine Performance corporation premieres a storytelling, performance art, physical theater, music and dance show inspired by the question, “How do you create truth onstage?” It aims to make theater less narrative and more

[ jazz/cabaret ]

Ann hAmPton cAllAwAy Free | Thu., Dec. 4, 7:30 p.m., Temple Performing Arts Center, 1837 N. Broad St., 800-298-4200, templeperformingartscenter.org.

12.5

special guests, some holiday songs and who knows what else. —Patrick Rapa

friday

[ rock/pop ]

worK Drugs $10-$12 | Fri., Dec. 5, 8:30 p.m., with Vita and the Woolf, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., 267-6394528, bootandsaddlephilly.com. best black Friday deal I got was when Philly pop oddballs Work drugs switched their whole catalog on bandcamp. com to “name your price” status. This included their latest, the smooth and strange Cayman Islands Sessions, Volume II, in which some of the band’s songs are reworked with a “laid-back/ bossa/acoustic sorta vibe,” says singer Tom crystal (not his real name). The distinctly summery album was put together by bassist Nero catalano (definitely not his real name). This Friday’s show at the boot is their annual christmas “spectacle,” featuring

[ folk/pop ]

mirel wAgner $10 | Fri., Dec. 5, 8 p.m., with Madalean Gauze and Wild Orphan, First Unitarian Side Chapel, 2125 Chestnut St., 877-435-9849, r5productions.com. mirel Wagner was born in ethiopia and raised in Finland but good luck spotting those influences on her sparse, dreary and beautifully dispiriting new record When the Cellar Children See the Light of Day (Sub Pop). Acoustic American blues and spooky Leonard cohen-esque folk are the obvious reference points here, with little hope of a hallelujah vibe. —Patrick Rapa

[ theater ]

nice AnD fresh $7 | Fri.-Sat., Dec. 5-6, 6 and 8 p.m., Moving Arts of Mount Airy,

6819 Greene St., 215-842-1040, smokeyscout.com. I caught last month’s Nice and Fresh, SmokeyScout’s eclectic performance showcase, and enjoyed its variety and moving Arts’ living room-like intimacy and informality. This month features two short plays, Hella Fresh Theater’s John rosenberg’s Aaliyah (rock the boat) and Josh mcIlvain’s Joni and the Doorman, plus Putty dance Project performing A Hip and a Swing + Emoticon and dance-circus theater troupe Almanac’s Get Up. —Mark Cofta

[ jazz ]

miKe Boone QuArtet $15 | Fri., Dec. 5, 8 and 10 p.m., Chris’ Jazz Café, 1421 Sansom St., 215-568-3131, chrisjazzcafe.com. If a bassist can be said to be the backbone of a jazz band, then it’s a role that mike boone has taken to heart for the Philly jazz

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Her smoky voice grabs the ear, her lyrics wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t let it go: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I got some news this morninâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; from choctaw ridge/ Today billie Joe mcAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge.â&#x20AC;? Those lyrics provided a popular mystery, then Gentry herself became one, falling off the music-biz radar. Tara murtha, former Philly Weekly staffer, has done massive amounts of sleuthing to produce a book on Gentryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s classic album Ode to Billie Joe for the 33 1/3 series. The Lower

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bridge. On his new cd Heart and Soul, boone takes a rare turn in the spotlight, leading a quartet that features fellow mentors and mainstays John Swana and rhenda Fearrington. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Shaun Brady

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[ reading/country ]

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$12 ($25 with signed book) | Fri., Dec. 5, 8 p.m., Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org.

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Ode tO Billie JOe

Once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve heard bobbie Gentry on her â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ode to billie Joe,â&#x20AC;? you are unlikely to forget her.

40, a band of equally intrigued locals â&#x20AC;&#x201D; bassist/bandleader Phil dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Agostino, guitarist brad Hinton, drummer matty muir, violinists Jay Ansill and Hollis Payer plus loads of guest singers including birdie busch, barb Gettes and Ali Wadsworth

[ events ]

â&#x20AC;&#x201D; will bring the entire record to life at Fridayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book launch. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Mary Armstrong

and Zydeco Trouble, direct from La-La land. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Mary Armstrong

12.6

saturday

[ folk/pop/holiday ]

Over the rhine

[ zydeco/dance ]

AllOns dAnser

Free (with reservation) | Sat., Dec. 6, 7 p.m., District N9NE, 460 N. Ninth St, zydecocrossroads.org. Allons danser has been presenting cajun and zydeco dances in Philly for better than two decades; imagine their delight in partnering with WXPN for a year of events under the Zydeco crossroads banner. Zydeco was born in Louisiana, where African- and Franco-American traditions meld. La-La music is what they called it until clifton chenier folded in r&b and urban blues. Today it ranges from honking and hot to cooled off â&#x20AC;&#x201D; just an accordion with a triangle clanking out the beat. Learn the steps this Saturday to the music of curley Taylor

$25 | Sat., Dec. 6, 8 p.m., with Dom Flemons, Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org. Not all christmas albums suck. In fact, every year somebody puts out a decent one, so how â&#x20AC;&#x2122;bout everybody just shut up and enjoy the music and be kind to each other? I mean it. One of this dArrIN bALLmAN

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scene as a whole. The bassist has mentored countless local musicians, including guitar great Kurt rosenwinkel, and serves as president of Jazz

yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s saving graces is Blood Oranges in the Snow (Great Speckled dog) by veteran cincinnati folk act Over the rhine. The

Try a Little

TENDERNESSÂŽ

RAYMOND LUKE JR. PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS. ALL OTHER PHOTOS BY ANDREW ECCLES.

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foodanddrink

pintsighs CARoLInE RuSSoCK

Caroline Russock on dive bars

Cookie’s Tavern | 2654 S. Alder St., 215-271-9487

smoking: Yes Jukebox/entertainment: Touch Tunes, Megatouch and some well-used video poker machines Bathrooms: Recently re-tiled, pristine and well-stocked Head Count/Tab: Two people, $32 before tip: Two Heinekens, two Jamesons ➤ “this is thE kind of place where Homer goes

to get away from Marge,” my date said walking into Cookie's. Panning the bar, it was clear that everyone here was more than content watching Sunday night football in relative silence, with occasional breaks to rehash a play or regale a stoolmate with a story from the holiday weekend. Of course, the stories were 100 percent about some very gritty-sounding fights involving clumps of hair getting ripped out of someone’s head and not a word about stuffing. Frank, the gravelly voiced, tough-but-kind bartender, cracked open two beers for us. (“I don’t know, there’s just something about Frank that makes me feel safe,” my date told me.) Then there was DJ, a grayand-white shih tzu with a soul-melting snaggletooth, splayed out on the linoleum tiles under my stool. “This is the most dog-friendly bar in the world,” a regular in a Cookie’s sweatshirt sporting a semper fi emblem told us. “Yeah, we’ve got dog biscuits and everything,” said Frank. “We get some great dogs in here.Way better than the customers.” Somehow this sentiment didn’t exactly line up with the fact that he’s one of the most on-top-of-it bartenders I’ve seen in a while, knowing everyone's orders and making sure that no one was ever even close to empty. The decor at Cookie’s is veterans’ hall all the way, with Marines memorabilia and a well-stocked bar that’s home to everything from an untouched bottle of Chambord to Valor vodka, perhaps the only clear liquor that feels at home next to a wall full of mounted rifles that have no doubt seen action. Midway through our generous pours of Jameson another patron launched into a serious round of sneezes. “Eleven times in a row, every time.” he announced to no one in particular. “Three more and then I’m done.” Three sneezes later, he was still sneezing. (caroline@citypaper.net)

FRY SOCIETY: Peruvian potato wedges with aji amarillo mayo, cilantro, peanuts, olives and scallions at V Street hillary petrozziello

[ review ]

FLYING V A well-traveled vegan menu at V Street. By Adam Erace

V Street | 126 S. 19th St., 215-278-7943, vstreetfood.com. Sun.-Thu., 5-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. $5-$12.

hen Rich Landau and Kate Jacoby opened Vedge in 2011, they envisioned the now-seminal vegan restaurant as “a casual, badass boundary-pusher,” Landau says. “But in that brownstone setting, with the marble bar, people were coming dressed up to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. We got a lot of notice as a posh place, and Vedge became very fancy.” The couple isn’t complaining. In the years since it opened, Vedge has flowered into one of the city’s best restaurants and earned itself notice on the radars of savvy tourists and food-glossy editors. Beard nominations appeared. A line of plant-based marinades materialized at Williams-Sonoma. Hollywood investors courted the couple for an L.A. outpost. This is how it happens — little by little, then all at once, a locally acclaimed restaurant becomes a national sensation. To their credit, Landau and Jacoby have stayed grounded, and instead of heading to the West Coast, they only headed to the west side of Broad, where they opened the energetic V Street, the restaurant Vedge was always supposed to be.

What is that restaurant, you ask? A bottle-shaped 40-seater whose no-reservations policy fosters a lively bar scene, where dressed-down drinkers, law firm drones and herbivorous couplings peel and eat lupini beans like boiled shrimp and nuzzle popcorn floating on the surfaces of Peruvian-inspired cocktails. Waterlogged those kernels may have been, but they were the most appealing element of the Lima Mist I sipped while waiting for a vacancy in V Street’s light-strung rear dining room. The buttery bouquet hit my nose with each sip, but the blend of pisco and chicha morada that followed lacked structure and strength. Chicha morada, in case you’re wondering, is a spiced purple corn-and-pineapple elixir traditionally consumed in the Andes — V Street’s is made in house from yellow ears and a demure amount of spices — and it isn’t the last time you’ll encounter a mystery on this street food-inspired menu. It could make even seasoned restaurant-goers scratch their heads. You might drop hon shimeji in daily convo and know harissa from chermoula. But what about jelab? Do you know piri piri from halo-halo? Langos? Choripán? Kinderpunsch? You’d have to be a Portuguese-Filipino spy with stations in Budapest, Buenos Aires, Beirut and the Dresden Christmas market to cover all that. “We wanted to challenge people without showing off,” says Landau, who pored over cookbooks and chatted up street-cart vendors while