Philadelphia City Paper, June 18th, 2015

INSIDE: A rave for Heritage’s food and service P H I L A D E L P H I A

JUNE 18 - JUNE 24, 2015 ISSUE #1568

BY MARK COFTA

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IN THIS ISSUE … p. 11

‘I’LL BE BACK IN TWO SECONDS’ COMIC ARTIST CAITLIN MCCORMACK takes aim at those who make a living making the rest of us miserable — towing our cars away and making us go to some God-forsaken lot to get it back — our wallets $200 lighter. Asked for her bio, McCormack says she wants readers to know that she “has a hot body and does things in South Philly.” Oh, and she has a BFA in illustration from The University of the Arts. We figure she doesn’t toe the line.

CP STAFF Associate Publisher Jennifer Clark Editor in Chief Lillian Swanson Senior Editor Patrick Rapa Arts & Culture Editor Mikala Jamison Food Editor Caroline Russock Senior Staff Writer Emily Guendelsberger Staff Writer Jerry Iannelli Copy Chief Carolyn Wyman Contributors Sam Adams, Dotun Akintoye, A.D. Amorosi, Rodney Anonymous, Mary Armstrong, Bryan Bierman, Shaun Brady, Peter Burwasser, Mark Cofta, Adam Erace, David Anthony Fox, Caitlin Goodman, K. Ross Hoffman, Jon Hurdle, Deni Kasrel, Alli Katz, Gary M. Kramer, Drew Lazor, Alex Marcus, Gair “Dev 79” Marking, Robert McCormick, Andrew Milner, John Morrison, Michael Pelusi, Natalie Pompilio, Sameer Rao, Jim Saksa, Elliott Sharp, Marc Snitzer, Nikki Volpicelli, Brian Wilensky, Andrew Zaleski, Julie Zeglen.

Production Director Dennis Crowley Senior Designer Brenna Adams Designer/Social Media Director Jenni Betz

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Account Managers Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262), Susanna Simon (ext. 250) Classified Account Manager Jennifer Fisher (215-717-2681) Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel founded City Paper in a Germantown storefront in November 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.

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THE BELL CURVE 0 0

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Somebody hacks an electronic road sign in Fishtown to read “Fuck Bitches, Get Money.” This concludes the Fishtown TEDx conference.

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At a robotics conference in California, Philly-based company Humanistic Robotics debuts a device that paralyzes outof-control robots at the push of a button. And this is how the war starts.

QUICK PICKS

MARINA CHAVEZ

more picks on p. 23 MY MOTHER HAS FOUR NOSES People’s Light adds singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke’s autobiographical play with music to its 40th season. This one-woman show explores Brooke’s experience caring for her eccentric mother, a poet and clown who suffered from Alzheimer’s in her final two years. The recording artist has issued nine albums, written music for film and television, and collaborated with Katy Perry and The Courtyard Hounds. It’s a timely companion piece for People’s Light’s How to Write a New Book for the Bible, running through June 28, which also chronicles coping with illness and death in an uplifting way. Through 6/28, People’s Light & Theatre Company, peopleslight.org. —Mark Cofta

A TargetExpress store will be built on the former site of the historic Boyd Theatre. Now, what we want to say is “Hey, let’s all vow to never shop there,” but we know we will. Oh, we’re like “Fuck that place” now, but later we’ll decide we need something, sunglasses, and we’ll say we’re just going in there this once. We will maybe even hate ourselves.

But then the next time it’s a salad spinner, or a new vacuum, because the old one doesn’t suck like it used to. And whatever we get will be plastic — eternal, immortal plastic. And we will take some comfort in its inherent infinity, its ability to twist and break but never disappear. Unlike the Boyd, it will survive us.

Officials in Wildwood ask officials in Atlantic City not to use a recording of a voice saying “Watch the tram car, please” on their boardwalks. “Tell you what,” says Wildwood.

“We’ll let you guys build sand boobies on the beach, even though that’s really our thing.”

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“Zombie foreclosures” — foreclosures of abandoned properties — are on the rise in Philly. Some neighbors complain these houses are eyesores, while others say they’d like to eat brains.

MADELEINE PEYROUX In the beginning, with her Billie Holiday inflections and penchant for publicly disappearing to busk on the streets of Paris, it was difficult to know quite how to take Madeleine Peyroux. But over the last decade, as her songwriting became stronger and names like Warren Zevon, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen crept into her repertoire, she forged a distinctive folk-jazz identity. She’ll look back over her career, in support of a new best-of CD, in an intimate acoustic trio setting.

6/19, World Café Live, worldcafelive.com. —Shaun Brady EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL Station Eleven — Mandel’s breakout novel about Shakespearean actors wandering an America decimated by disease — is an apocalypse wrapped inside a drama tangled up in a mystery, and its genius lies in Mandel’s ability to keep all the balls in the air. It’s a little like Lost: lots of unlikely interconnectedness, revelatory flashbacks and gorgeous moments of head-scratching beauty. 6/18, Free Library Main Branch, freelibrary.org. —Patrick Rapa

MAT THEW PARRI THOMAS

THIS WEEK ’S TOTAL: +2 // THE YEAR SO FAR: +17

OUR WEEKLY QUALITY-OF-LIFE-O-METER

JU L IE Z E

GLEN

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Two Taylor Swift fans get married in a parking lot outside the Linc before a concert, and the pop star invites them backstage afterward. That’s where she revealed to them her true form, that of a giant steel stickbug, before peeling and eating them like string cheese.

SHAMIR @ MAKING TIME “Hi hi, howdy howdy, hi hi.”

Those six words (okay, two), and a few marbles dropped on a cowbell, introduced us to Shamir Bailey via the unstoppably smileinducing “On the Regular.” But that circa-1991 hip-house aesthetic merely scratched the surface of what this chameleonic 20-year-old can do — break your heart with an acoustic country ballad, for instance, or (per his XL debut LP, Ratchet) deliver the most spine-shivering disco vocal since Antony did “Blind.” 6/19, Voyeur, voyeurnightclub.com.

—K. Ross Hoffman

CITY BY CITY: DISPATCHES FROM THE AMERICAN METROPOLIS This new collection of essays from the makers of proudly brainy litmag n+1 is distinctly, thoroughly, grimly modern. Inspired in part by the 2008 economic collapse, the book takes a city-by-city look at poverty, class, innovation, debt and survival. Start with Chanelle Benz’s powerful “Philadelphia SVU” chapter, about her runins with public masturbators in our “Gotham with no Batman.”

6/22, Free Library Main Branch, freelibrary.org. —Patrick Rapa

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THENAKEDCITY

NEWS // OPINION // POLITICS

NURSING DISPUTE: Protesters make their opposition to outsourcing evident in a demonstration staged outside the Richmond elementary school.

EDUCATION

BY EMILY GUENDELSBERGER

FIGHT OVER SCHOOL NURSES REACHES A PIVOTAL POINT

The Philadelphia School District requests bids from private companies to fill nursing jobs lost to layoffs. Public-school advocates say outsourcing leads to worse care.

EVERYONE AGREES THAT the Philadelphia School District’s current situation with school nurses is unacceptable. The district has laid off 100 nurses since 2011, and today about half of the 183 remaining nurses alternate days at more than one school. Many smaller schools, District Superintendent William Hite told City Council at a district budget hearing in May,

“have health-services staff on site only one day a week … if [students] get sick on a Tuesday but the nurse is only there on Wednesday,” they end up the responsibility of staff members without medical training.

Those worried, untrained adults often end up calling 911 unnecessarily, which is expensive for the city. Or, much worse, not calling 911 when it is necessary, as in

the 2013 asthma-related death of Laporshia Massey — the sixth-grader had started to complain she couldn’t breathe at school, where there was no school nurse on duty.

The disagreement, which has spurred protests outside the school district’s headquarters and at schools, is how best to fix the situation. The district’s budget remains too limited, it claims, to hire back the full-time union nurses. So it decided to check out its other options. In May, the district put out a Request for Proposals (RFP) for private companies to bid on taking over some of Philly’s public-school health services. Proposals were due June 10, and the RFP gives the anticipated start date as Sept. 8.

Unsurprisingly, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, which counts school nurses as members of its union, did not like this idea. “In our protracted contract negotiations with the school district, they have repeatedly sought to eliminate all contract language related to school nurses,” said PFT president Jerry Jordan. He released a scathing statement arguing that privatization would result in worse care for students, writing, “The school district is once again using a budget crisis as an excuse to shirk

their responsibility to provide basic services to Philadelphia’s students,” and calling the idea “a shortsighted, Band-Aid solution.”

Public-education activist and soon-to-be City Council member Helen Gym agreed.

“There’s a long path of outsourcing and privatization we’ve seen in the school district for 15 years. Outsourcing often leads to high levels of turnover, less likelihood of being certified, and far less accountability … It’s creating situations in which the district is no longer in control of its essential personnel, can’t control its costs and can’t assure a quality and consistency in services.”

The District didn’t give a comment by press time, but there are two main disagreements at work here. The first is about children’s safety: The District claims that private companies, able to hire lower-compensated nurses, will make it possible to hire sufficient staff. Public-education advocates claim that lower wages attract less-qualified candidates, leaving the District with the bottom of the barrel and little consistency.

The second is about money: Supporters of privatization believe that the free market can cure unsustainable government bloat that’s

‘In our protracted contract negotiations with the School District, they have repeatedly sought to eliminate all contract language related to school nurses.’ crippling public schools. Opponents claim it opens school doors for profit-motivated companies with unclear accountability. They say cost savings have not been proven in most cases.

School Reform Commission Chair Marjorie Neff says the RFP is being blown out of proportion. At a somewhat hostile Q&A session

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FIGHT OVER SCHOOL NURSES REACHES A PIVOTAL POINT

among parents, teachers and the SRC, she fielded a question about “outsourcing” school nurses and substitutes.

“I didn’t see it as an outsourcing,” replied Neff. “We are outsourcing the substitute service, I will certainly own that issue ... But the District did not recommend that with [nurses].” She said that she hadn’t seen the proposals yet, but that the District had given her to understand that they were not looking at ways to replace nurses, but “to expand and augment the services that we already have in place.”

That isn’t present in the wording of the RFP, though, which states that the District would like to see “a variety of models” — it mentions examples like traditional school nurses hired and employed by a third-party contractor, in-school health centers and primary-care clinics and “other innovative service delivery models.”

The District is open to any idea, the RFP states, “so long as the model delivers enhanced and high-quality health

services to students without increasing current net expenses.”

The RFP also says if a proposal is for a system that looks like the current one, the company must address its “willingness and ability to offer a position, at the respondent’s employment terms and conditions, to current School District of Philadelphia School Nurses before recruiting health-care staff from elsewhere.” That is, almost certainly offering current nurses lower wages and a worse benefit package.

“So the District will try to make this argument: ‘Well, this will allow us to do it cheaper and get some personnel into schools,’” says Gym. “But what the District continually fails to understand is that it’s not about placing bodies into positions — it’s about securing a stable, professional team.”

“Of course it’s problematic!” says Jordan. “In order for schools to thrive, you have to have a stable workforce. Nurses who are a part of the schools are known by the families,” and can often be the first to spot serious medical problems in kids who don’t get to the doctor for checkups. “They build trust over the years being part of a school,” says Jordan, which would be difficult to do with the high turnover generally associated with lower-paid workers in difficult jobs.

“The bottom line must be what is best for students,” says Carolyn Duff, president of the National Association of School Nurses, which will hold its annual conference in Philly next week. She declines to take a side on privatization. “It is understandable that the district wants to cut costs; however, safety of students and quality of school health services must not be cut at the same time.” Duff says that privatization can work

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well in some circumstances. The key, she says, is consistency — if there’s too much rotation or turnover, “nurses will not become part of school communities and will merely perform the technical nursing tasks as best they can.”

City Paper filed a Right to Know request asking which companies had submitted proposals, but it was denied on the basis of vendor responses being exempt from disclosure until after a contract is awarded.

It’s difficult to find studies on the privatization of school nurses, but Roland Zullo, a researcher at the University of Michigan, has done and continues to do a lot of work looking at outsourcing other school services, primarily cafeteria, school bus and custodial. He says his research supports the public-school advocates’ argument. “[Private contractors] make their profits in two ways,” says Zullo. One is “by cutting back on the wages and benefits of workers — in almost every case I’ve seen, this is true. And this has implications. They’re mining that labor market for the cheapest labor they can find. … [and] often face very high turnover among staff. They churn people through the system, and all of those safeguards to make sure that the custodian is a responsible adult you know and not a different face every other month, those get relaxed. You lose control over who those folks are.”

The other way contractors make profits, Zullo says, is “by cutting back on services — in food, serving cheaper food.

In custodial services, doing fewer things, cutting out the extras. In transit, not doing or charging for all the extra uses of the vehicles for field trips, sporting events, things like that.

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FIGHT OVER SCHOOL NURSES REACHES A PIVOTAL POINT

continued f rom p. 7

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Cutting out the extras.”

Gym says privatization in general “has not resulted in better outcomes for young people. … We outsourced our testing. We outsourced curriculum development.

We outsourced school management — all of those things have become extremely problematic. The District does not have the capacity or the authority to monitor these contracts responsibly, and it’s caused a lot of problems when [contractors] fail to deliver, because there isn’t another outfit that can pick them up that easily.”

There is language in the RFP allowing the District to fire a private company for any reason at any time, but finding a new source of a couple hundred school nurses isn’t as easy as finding a new plumber. “Where schools sometimes get caught is they agree to certain terms that lock them into a contract, then they can’t get out of it when it begins to fail, or when the service underperforms,” says Zullo. A huge factor in getting trapped is getting rid of infrastructure that’s difficult to replace, he says. “For instance, in school transit, one of the ways schools get suckered is they sell the bus fleet.”

In cafeterias, the private company often rips out the kitchen and installs a new one that only works with the company’s proprietary trays. “It gives a contractor all kinds of power to go back at a later date and raise the cost. You become pretty much captive.”

Zullo says that, recently, he’s started observing schools that had privatized services pulling the jobs back under

the district. Isn’t that expensive? “It depends on the scope of the operations,” he says. “It’s easier for a smaller district to turn around and reverse a bad decision. The ones that get caught in bad contracts are typically larger districts that would have problems restaffing. … The large operators that come in, they want to work for the biggest districts. They don’t make a lot of money on a smaller district. They want long-term contracts.”

The promises of privatization “are attractive during times of fiscal stress — school boards and administrators are lulled into believing that private contractors are going to help them fix a budget hole,” says Zullo.

“That’s usually the way they get in the door.” (emilyg@citypaper.net) (@emilygee)

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ESSAY

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WHAT CAITLYN’S STORY MEANS TO TRANS WOMEN LIKE ME

ON JUNE 1, a Monday morning like almost every morning, I made my coffee and logged onto the Internet to catch up on the news. What I saw on my homepage was an image of a woman posing seductively in a bathing suit on the cover of Vanity Fair. I didn’t know who she was until I read the caption, “Call me Caitlyn.”

At first, I thought “how cool!” and “she looks great” and then I moved on to another website. Wouldn’t you know, there she was again, and then on my Facebook page. Again, again and again...there she was! By the time I’d finished my coffee, my phone was full of messages from friends and family asking if I’d seen Annie Leibovitz’s portrait of Caitlyn Jenner on Vanity Fair.

Seen it? I couldn’t escape it. As I headed into work, I was well aware that, on this day, I’d be the transgender again. I’d be the

one someone would tell a friend “she knows” or he “works with.” That Monday, I was reminded that I am different.

A year ago, I came out publicly as a transgender woman.

I was featured in an article in Metro, where I work in advertising sales. I’m not delusional. Like most people who are transgender, I know I’m outside the norm. I’ve heard people like me called “the ultimate minority.” Still, after gaining acceptance from my family and coworkers, on many days I quite often forget that I am different. I simply feel like me.

In the days since I saw Diane Sawyer’s TV interview with Jenner in April on “20/20” and then the cover shot on Vanity Fair, I’ve thought a lot about this sudden “trans-awakening.”

Everyone was talking only about Caitlyn’s appearance.

Conversations that began applauding “her courage” inevitably shifted to “Caitlyn looks great” or “it’s no wonder, she has the resources that so many of us will never have.”

Initially, I found this disturbing, but couldn’t help but wonder if Caitlyn and her publicists wanted it that way.

Why the swimsuit glam shot? Any magazine in the country would have given her the cover regardless of what she wore.

While many in the trans community were quick to champion Jenner as their newly appointed hero, an equal percentage dismissed the notion that she represented them.

My take is simply this: Caitlyn Jenner, like most transgenders over the age of 40, fought an internal struggle that few can imagine — one that requires untold strength and courage to endure. Before the Internet, we had no role models, no easily attainable information and most of us, myself included, felt ashamed of our feelings.

We learned to hide and suppress our true feelings. Many turned to drugs and alcohol, while others threw themselves into their families and careers. Bruce Jenner became an American hero through hard work and determination, winning the Gold Medal in the decathlon in the 1976 Olympics.

At the time, Jenner was deemed the greatest athlete in the world. I wonder how much of that effort may have been fueled by an attempt to escape her true self by winning the adulation of others.

Many trans people my age can relate to Jenner and, at the same time, are in awe of all she has accomplished. But does she represent us? Nobody represents an entire demographic of people. Our stories, though they may be similar, are unique.

I’ve seen a lot of change in our community since the day six years ago when I finally found the courage not to call a therapist and instead embark on my current path. Where once only a handful of us would gather in a secret location to support each other, now we assemble in public, our pride on display for the world to see. Five years from now, I predict everyone will either work with or have a friend who is transgender. Further, their being transgender will be an afterthought.

The benefit of all the hype surrounding Jenner and that magazine cover can be summed up in a word — awareness. Those who never gave our struggle a thought are now involved in open discussions about what it means to be your authentic self.

And now that the media frenzy has quieted down, l hope to continue my quest of simply being a woman whom you may or may not know. I guess that probably sounds kind of dull, but the reality is, to most of us, it’s a dream come true. (editorial@citypaper.net)

PARODY

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w o L o S is ? e g n i r F w e n the — er the city v o ll a ’s it nd p, it’s DIY a rts festival. a a e g h c in ’s m r it , fo er It’s weird big Philly p t x e n e h t SoLow is

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ell Bang-Jensen chauffeurs her audience in a Zipcar. Laurel Hostak hosts hers in a blanket fort. Daniel Student shares gay porn, while Joy Cutler and Johnny Smith explore the icky truths inside their own bodies. Danielle Lenee and Jeffrey Stingerstein provoke laughs about racism. Cory Kram and Corey Bechelli summon spirits and Eileen Tull waits for Jesus.

A few people will even make you dinner or rearrange your furniture.

All these offbeat experiences — and more, nearly 50 — are performances in the sixth annual SoLow Festival, running June 18-28, all over Philly.

This do-it-yourself festival started in 2010 with five performers presenting solo work in their own apartments.

Thomas Choinacky and Amanda Grove’s brainchild has expanded every year since, and is now administered by Lena Barnard, Meredith Sonnen, Lauren Tracy and Chris Davis, to inspire artists to break new ground with the same guiding principles: 1) It shouldn’t cost artists anything to participate in or produce their shows; 2) Every performance is pay-whatyou-can, with no one turned away for lack of funds; 3) Artists are accepted without a screening process or fees; 4) The festival should be “low stress and low maintenance”; 5) All dona-

BY MARK COFTA

tions go directly to the performer, because artists should be financially compensated for their work; 6) A SoLow performance must be 51% solo, and 7) Anything goes: personal narratives, storytelling, music, dance, installations, performance art, puppetry, street theater, webcasts, podcasts, even film.

“Honestly, we haven’t been able to have a single meeting with all of us in the same room since we took over,” jokes Sonnen about the new managerial team. “Amanda, Thomas, and Meghann [Williams, a performer who also helped run SoLow] swear to us that this is normal.

The previous team did an amazing job setting up a system.”

It’s easy to notice that SoLow seems a lot like its 18-year-old cousin, the Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

“They are both Philadelphia performing arts organizations that try and push the boundaries,” Sonnen explains. “I work for both of them [she’s FringeArts’ company manager], which is a great artistic purpose venn diagram for me. I think SoLow is only possible in Philly because of the foundation that FringeArts laid.

FringeArts brought this experimental, risky, weird arts energy to Philadelphia.” The kind of work that is accepted in this city is so broad and risky, Sonnen says, and adds that we have FringeArts’ last 18 years to thank for that foundation.

The SoLow Festival, she adds, “is taking that energy and running with it in a different direction,” with the guiding idea that “art can go anywhere.”

SoLow organizers want to “empower the artists we know to put up that idea that is in the back of their head or hidden in a file on their desktop,” Sonnen explains. “SoLow made me realize I could make amazing theater in my friend’s living room with my friends. I don’t need a huge budget or a formal venue. Art can be anywhere and on any scale.”

Lena Barnard concurs. “The great thing about SoLow,” she explains, “is that there is no pressure. We don’t want artists to feel hindered by a production budget or any stress to break even with a show. We hope that this freedom creates an environment where people can try things out and discover what works in a project. There are no formal connections between the two festivals, and if a SoLow show makes its way to Fringe, it is because the creator takes it there.”

One such success story is actor Seth Reichgott’s Stand Back, I’m Gonna Uke: An Evening of Old-Timey Music — his vaudevillian alter ego, Slim Bob Slim, tells stories and plays modern songs on the ukulele — which was first developed in the 2013 SoLow Festival, then played in the 2014 Philly Fringe Festival and New York City’s 2014 United Solo Theatre Festival, and is going to this year’s Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s Cabaret and Performance Conference.

Laurel Hostak says she’s had a lot of good friends participate in SoLow, and wanted to be a part of it. Hostak, who works for 1812 Productions and the Wilma Theater and studied site-specific theater in Prague, has been developing her show Kingfisher since February especially for SoLow. “I knew I wanted to talk about myth and childhood, and I wanted to explore the idea of looking down on my own experience as if it’s the size of a chessboard, and exploring the past from a different scale. From early on, I wanted to make miniature versions of the locations and events of the story that I could manipulate and, with my director Tommy Butler, developed a paper-made world that’s kind of a mashup of toy theater, shadow puppetry and kids’ arts and crafts.

We’re developing it for performance in a blanket fort because it’s the coziest, most reminiscent-of-childhood setting I could imagine, and I want the same

Ta y a r is

ha Po e

ALWAYS PREPPED: Nell Bang-Jensen’s SoLow Festival show, Road May Flood, is about worst-case scenarios. She says she wonders why humans consistently try to prepare for the worst.

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excitement of that world to infuse the performance,” she says.

SoLow, Hostak explains, “gives a big presence to small shows — small casts, of course, but also small budgets. So it’s an excellent way to get some exposure for a lo-fi kind of piece, but it also encourages artists to develop projects that can have further incarnations. I could pack this show up in one box and take it to a festival anywhere, or I could do it in my house and friends’ houses every weekend. I would love to show it again as it grows.”

“I think it was the second year of SoLow when people said I should do a show,” says Brett Mapp, director of operations at Old City Special Services District, co-founder of Making a Progressive Philadelphia and a Flashpoint Theatre Company board member. “My first idea was to do Brunch with Brett, where we have brunch and spin a wheel and whatever the pointer landed on is what we talk about. It was too expensive and too much work, so I changed it to Bagels with Brett.”

The popular first-nighter and enthusiastic theater supporter will tell brief

stories about growing up in Brooklyn Heights. “Each audience member will reach into a ‘Bag of B’s’ and grab a card that will have something to do with my boyhood: ‘boarding school,’ ‘bi-racial,’ ‘bees’ and so on.”

Mapp created Bagels with Brett for SoLow, doing it himself with assistance from friend Morgan Hugo, who will collect money and help prepare the bagels.

“I have the same fear as any performer in the city: Will people come to my show? My other fear is that people will come to my show, especially people I have seen on stage before and for whom I have a great deal of respect. I have no fear of speaking in public. My fear is, did I block the show properly, did I work long enough on the script?”

He sees his biggest challenge, though, as finding time to see other shows. “People ask me if I ever want to be an actor, and I tell them no. I get to see on average 2.5 shows a week and I would miss it.”

Mapp thinks SoLow “is a great starting point for a performer.

CONTINUED ON P. 14

GET COZY: Laurel Hostak will perform her show, Kingfisher, from inside a blanket fort in a South Philly house. An audience of 7-10 people can join her inside.

m To m

tl y Bu

er

A SoLow Festival six-pack of picks: Man, I Feel Like a Woman, June 24-26

M

eghann Williams earned notoriety with Chlamydia dell’Arte, the sassy burlesque sex-ed lesson created with Gigi Naglak. This new comedy, she

explains, is about “woman’s work and femininity, the roles we play and the pressure and pleasure we feel in those roles.”

Coffee Is Thicker Than Blood, June 20, 21, 27

R

andi Alexis Hickey is one of many SoLow performers in Bright Invention, the White Pines Productions’ improv troupe. She explores how “the whole concept of family being the people who you share DNA with or whose house you grew up in feels limiting — and maybe sometimes not so helpful.”

The Idaho Shuffle, June 18-21

J

eremy Gable shares the distinctive sound of metal on maple in this tap dance show that looks at “what you do when you live in a place that you don’t understand.”

Jesus, Do You Like Me? Please Mark Yes or No, June 24

P

erformance artist Eileen Tull joined SoLow with this “satellite performance,” in Chicago, of her semi-autobiographical comedy about the Second Coming.

So why mention it? It sounds great — “Answers to all existential crises guaranteed!” — and it’s cool that SoLow extends so far outside Philadelphia.

Bicycle Face, June 19-21

H

annah Van Sciver’s “interdisciplinary feminist joyride,” framed by a 2125 Feminist Theory class, connects three different women separated by a century each. The title was coined in 1895 by doctors concerned that cycling was unhealthy for women. “It’s gonna get weird,” she promises.

Road May Flood, June 22-24

N

ell Bang-Jensen’s “part theater piece, part podcast, part confessional”

about facing fears happens in a car, with an audience capacity of three, which even for SoLow is really intimate.

—MARK COFTA

Full information at SoLowFest.com.

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P. 13 CONTINUED FROM

You don’t have to pay an entry fee, production costs are usually very small, especially if you’re using your house or a public space as a venue.

Run time is short, most shows are under an hour, and you can think of it as a workshop before you decide if you want to do a Fringe show.”

As a fan, he says, “there are so many great shows in both that you can’t see them all.”

While most SoLow projects are created by their performers, theater director Chelsea Sanz conceived The Era Project, which Emily White performs. Loosely taken from her experiences of the late Long Island 1990s-early 2000s underground

features projections by Kathleen Grandos, and includes sculpture-like elements composed of period “found objects” like clothing and shoes.

“I decided to participate,” says Sanz about SoLow, “because I like the idea of gritty, do-it-yourself pieces that really help ground a single story and immerse oneself in an event. It pushes you to take risks, make hard choices and explore things you may not have in a traditional setting.”

Actress Jess Brownell also sees SoLow as a chance to take risks. “I’ve been saying for a couple years now that I want to create and perform a solo show,” says Brownell, who plays Betsy Ross at the Betsy Ross House in

ty, t i r g f o a e lly d a i e r e h t ha et t k i l s nd I e a c “ e y i r to fp l s e s e t. l r n g u e n o i v y s e d o - i t g ro u n d a e l f i n a n i s k s . ” s help erse one to take r imm hes you s It pu ska-punk scene, “It has had a long journey that originated with the idea of going back to my roots and a simpler time,” Sanz explains, “where teenagers found freedom in ska shows, house parties and awkward glances filled with sexual tension. It was a time prior to Facebook and the entire social media generation, where we found expression in writing poetry in notebooks, passing notes in class, sweating in ska-punk shows, and a release in driving down suburban roads at night just to drink a cup of coffee in a funky place.”

The installation-style performance

Old City, “and I think the SoLow Festival is the perfect place to do it.”

Last year, she worked on her first devised and physical theater piece, No Place Like with Kaleid Theatre in the Fringe Festival’s Neighborhood Fringe, “and in it we shared some personal stories, and that got my wheels turning, so to speak. When I heard the theme for the 2015 SoLow Festival is ‘The Days After Tomorrow,’ I knew exactly what I was going to do.”

Every SoLow Festival has a theme, “but it’s always been a loose concept,” says co-administrator Barnard. “I see the theme as a tool for the people who

want to do a show in SoLow, but have no idea what direction they’d like to take.

The theme gives them building blocks to play with.”

Brownell felt inspired to share the story of her divorce, which is “a bit of a taboo subject, especially when you’re a young woman, and even more so when you grow up in and/or live in a conservative Christian community. Having the label of ‘divorcee’ feels like a scarlet letter.”

Her 35-minute play, D, is a physical exploration of the emotional journey through divorce, using Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief model: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. “Each scene has its own distinct physicality and tells its own part of the story,” Brownell explains. “I’ve tried to be as honest and true to my own personal experiences in the creation of D, which has proved challenging at times.”

She’s grateful for Sarah Mitteldorf’s direction, and music by composer Adrian Bridges. “This is a hard, emotional piece, but it’s something I think everyone can relate to on one level or another; we have all experienced grief and loss. And it’s time we learn that it’s okay to talk about it.”

“I’m honestly a little nervous about the unforeseen challenges working in other people’s kitchens,” says Susanne Collins about Give Peas a Chance, which she created for SoLow. “I’ve tried to combat this by creating a questionnaire for participants to answer that gives a better idea about their kitchen situation, but I’m sure something unexpected will come up last minute. As a cook, I tend to be a bit improvisational, which could be a disaster in a kitchen that I’m unfamiliar with.”

She’s been thinking for a while about the concept of cooking for someone else in their home, but the show’s more focused idea — “to give vegetables a grand reprise” — was inspired by this year’s SoLow theme. “My goal is to equip people to make bolder vegetable choices in the days and years to come.”

Collins, “an actor first” and a 2014 University of the Arts graduate, sees food “as a huge part of the human experience — it’s how we relate and connect with each other — and I was frustrated with the fact that (aside from your run-ofthe-mill dinner theater) I hadn’t seen very much marriage between food and theater.” She notes, however, that she’s excited to see that several other artists are also experimenting with food and theater this year, too. “I’ve been tossing around grandiose ideas in my head for a while, but realized that I had to start simply,” she says. “SoLow seemed like the perfect outlet.” (m_cofta@citypaper.net)

Sar ah R. Blo om

GOING IT ALONE: Cast members of a troupe called Bright Invention: The White Pines Ensemble will present nine separate and unique solo shows during SoLow Festival this year.

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neighborhood news

POTENTIAL LOSS OF LANCASTER MEWS TOUCHES A NERVE Cassie Owens When chef Gordon Ramsay walked into Zocalo, a Mexican restaurant in Powelton Village, for his “Kitchen Nightmares” TV show about four years ago, it was sinking financially.

Some days, the business would only pull in $300, scraps compared to the $750,000 of debt that the place was carrying, its owner confessed on the show. The superstar chef implemented multiple fixes, but the restaurant failed anyway.

Along came Aloosh Hookah Bar Restaurant, which opened in 2013, and now the business at 3600 Lancaster Ave. is booming. Patrons have their choice of flavored tobacco, drinks and a full menu of Syrian food at the bar, in the parlor, in the

SMOKE SIGNALS: Drexel University students take a break at Aloosh Hookah Bar Restaurant on Lancaster Avenue in Powelton Village. Patrons have their choice of flavored tobacco, drinks and a full menu of Syrian food.

Photos by Hillary Petrozziello

lounges and on the tented patio.

Owner Dema Alashkar believes that a big draw is its homey-ness, and as she tells me that, three girls are chatting in the room behind her, two of them sprawled out on big pillows.

Aloosh is the corner business of the Lancaster Mews, a block of gingerbread rowhouses that stand together as an apartment complex above with rez-de-chausée storefronts below. The owner, AP Construction, intends to demolish the complex.

The firm’s development chief told the Inquirer that it plans to replace it with student housing.

With fears about gentrification in the neighborhood looming as Drexel’s footprint continues to grow, the potential loss of the Mews has touched a nerve.

The West Philly Local reported that a meeting called to discuss the block’s status drew more than 100 neighbors and business owners “vow[ing] to save” it. The Powelton Village Civic Association has made an application for the block to be added to the city’s historic register. If that happens, building permits for the property would have to go through the Philadelphia Historical Commission, and a demolition permit would require proof of economic hardship or that its removal is “necessary in the public interest.”

AP Construction did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell told Powelton Village residents in May that she was willing to convene a meeting between AP and the community. “All requests will be honored,” said the councilwoman in a statement to City Paper, adding she “will schedule a meeting when the community groups want to.”

The fight to save the block will be interesting to watch. The block dates to the 1870s, but wasn’t built by a well-known architect. While it doesn’t look like a run-of-the-mill block of Philly rowhomes, it’s not remarkably ornate either. The block is just handsome.

Patrick Grossi, a historian and the director of advocacy for the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, says while it’s not the most striking block, it’s beauty shouldn’t be overlooked for preservation: “As much as I do want to celebrate the gems, of which there are many, I also don’t want to lose sight of the rougher stones, because they were an equally important part of the fabric.”

What the Mews tell us about the city’s heritage, he finds particularly significant.

“The rowhouse is really the quintessential example of Philadelphia vernacular housing,” Grossi states. “So much of what Philadelphia is cited for when we talk about being a place of history really refers to the colonial period… There’s a real blind spot, for the city’s narratives, the city’s legacies that speak to period in which it really grew into the city it is today, and that’s the late 19th and early 20th century. Rows like [this one]

WEST PHILLY

are a powerful reminder of that. It’s a sense of continuity to that past and to that core identity.”

The People’s Emergency Center, a Community Development Corp. that serves West Philadelphia, is supporting the civic association’s application for historic preservation. PEC Commercial Corridor Manager James Wright says the loss of the strip would be a “blow,” pointing out that the 3600 block is like the prototype for the neighborhood’s historic vibe as it has that “nice Main Street small community corridor feeling to it.”

“I could conceivably see them doing construction with ground-floor commercial, which still meets the goal of having a small business corridor and having that vibrancy,” says Wright.

“But if it’s not attractive and it doesn’t fold into the brand of the neighborhood with Powelton Village and how long it’s been around, then it’s just not ... exactly what we’re looking for.”

The Powelton Village Civic Association declined to comment on its efforts. Discussion about the Mews by the historical commission, originally scheduled for earlier in June, has been tabled until September.

Alashkar is naturally anxious about the decision. She recalls that she and her husband, Samer Albarouki, would walk by the Mews regularly because they had opened Ed’s, a pizza-andwings spot a block away. As they’d pass by, he’d tell her, “If this place becomes available, we’re going to [get] this working good.”

After Zocalo closed, they replaced the location’s bright cantina look with reds and earth tones, engraved brass tables and pottery displays on the walls. They rolled out a menu with the Levantine flavors they knew — shish taouk, hummus, baba ghanoush and chicken shawarma are all on it.

“Samer was so proud. He was taking neighbors through for individual, personalized tours,” Wright remembers. “When he passed away people were heartbroken.”

They opened the place in July 2013. Albarouki died suddenly of a stroke that December.

“My husband gave his life to this place. He worked so hard. He spent so much money,” Alashkar says. “Now, I’m raising four kids. I need Aloosh to stay open.”

She says she found out about the potential demolition when the landlord called to say he was going to break the lease. “I told him I can’t.

Business is good,” she says. “The first year, we didn’t make any money. After all this effort, and they tell us they want to break the lease?”

She explains that if the block were to be demolished, “of course” they would look for another location, but how they’d move is a bigger question. So, for now, Alashkar is refusing to break her lease. Try their hummus with meat, any of the kebabs, or the “frooty” hookah, and see if you’re not thankful for her resolve. (editorial@citypaper.net)

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ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

ARTS // MUSIC // THEATER // BOOKS

MADE FOR THESE TIMES: Bill Ricchini (left) and Andrew Lipke are playing Boot & Saddle and the Roxborough Solstice Festival, respectively, on Saturday.

ROCK/POP

BY A.D. AMOROSI

THE BOYS OF SUMMER

Philadelphia singer/songwriters Andrew Lipke and Bill Ricchini reach new heights on their new records.

BILL RICCHINI and Andrew Lipke have nothing to do with each other, but they do have a few things in common. They’re both singers and songwriters based in Philadelphia. Each makes smartly literate chamber power-pop with notes of Radiohead and ELO. And they do it on similar schedules, having both released wellreceived albums a few years ago: Lipke’s The Plague and Ricchini’s Summer Fiction.

And now they’re both celebrating their newest albums in their hometown on the same days. On Saturday, Lipke’s Siddhartha will be the star of the Roxborough Solstice Festival while Ricchini’s Himalaya will loom large at the Boot & Saddle across town. If you’re up for it, and the traffic lights align, you could actually make it to both shows.

Fate and circumstance seem to mention these two in the same breath. We’re following suit by interviewing them (separately) for the same article.

“It feels like I’ve been doing the same thing I always have, except now the creation and development of my ideas has become much more connected to a singular vision,” says South African born multi-instrumentalist Lipke.Where his 2007 debut TheWay Home was a relatively eclectic collection, the intricate pop songs on The Plague and the new Siddhartha work together, using Albert Camus and Hermann Hesse as starting points for smartly constructed lyrics and gorgeously orchestrated melodies. This sort of thing isn’t entirely unexpected from a man who performs a “Brahms vs. Radiohead” symphonic mash-up with various orchestras around the country, and collaborates with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.

“I wanted to create something based on Siddhartha since I was 16 — opera, stage play — that would combine a number of different approaches that reflect my particular aesthetic. Or maybe peculiar is a

better word?” he says with a laugh. “Either way I wanted it to serve as a way to do all the things I love — compose, arrange, produce, record, perform — while still staying true to the initial impulse I felt many years ago.”

The father of two and guitarist for the Zeppelin cover band Get the Led Out points to two tunes on Siddhartha as indicative of his opulent sonic locution and complex wordplay. “I’m Gone” and “In a ModernWorld” reveal important plot points of the spiritual tale and are the most vibrant showcasing of his ongoing work with his band The Azrael Quartet as well as with Choral Arts Philadelphia. “These are new levels and types of collaboration for me,” says Lipke.

Bill Ricchini’s previous albums — including Tonight I Burn Brightly and Summer Fiction (also the name of his band) — were purposefully influenced by the Beach Boys and Todd Rundgren, what with their shadowy pop sounds and lonely boy love stories. “But, the lyrics on this new album are most personal with an emotional directness that reminds me of Lou Reed,” says Ricchini.

Some songs, like “Religion of Mine,” which has an almost Bacharach-ian elegance and formality, can trace their godly imagery back to his being a Catholic school survivor. “I listen to some of these tunes and don’t necessarily think that the guy singing them is in a great place. They bask in their bummed glory. So, at the risk of sounding cliché there was some catharsis to writing Himalaya.”

Like Lipke, Ricchini points at collabora-

tors in his life who have enriched his musical life — the members of Summer Fiction for one, Philadelphia expatriate pianist Brian Christinzio of B.C. Camplight as another.

Ricchini decided on a whim to record Himalaya in a mansion in North England for two weeks (“let’s see what happens, right?” he says with a laugh) with then-newly minted Brit Christinzio as his co-producer. He hunkered down for three months of “really disciplined writing, going to the office and punching a clock the way Nick Cave does. That was my game changer,” says Ricchini.

Likening his songwriting process to “a little radio station in my head with me filling in any gaps,” he says Himalaya tunes such as the contagious “Perfume Paper” and “Lauren Lorraine” are steps forward in terms of writing and production, each with melodic turns that break his own heart.

Ricchini and Lipke think highly of each other.

“I’m definitely a fan of his work and share his love of orchestration and all things Zep,” says Ricchini of Lipke. “I actually really admire Andrew and artists who find ways to diversify: compose, fronting different bands, producing.

I reckon I can learn a few things from Andrew.”

Lipke, meanwhile, loves Tonight I Burn Brightly and admires Ricchini’s ease when it comes to making arrangements that feel effortless “even though in any sort of close

‘They bask in their bummed glory.’ analysis, you can tell the careful precision with which he utilizes the forces he chooses to use or the discernment he has when choosing collaborators,” says Lipke. “He reminds me of many different disparate artists I love but never sounds specifically like any of them. I’m looking forward to checking out Himalaya as soon as I can get my hands on it.” (editorial@citypaper.net) Bill Ricchini’s Summer Fiction plays Sat., June 20, 8:30 p.m., $12, with Paul and Beril, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., bootandsaddlephilly.com. // Andrew Lipke plays the Roxborough Solstice Festival Sat., June 20, noon-9 p.m., free, with Arc Divers, John Faye, John Francis and more, Gorgas Park, 6300 Ridge Ave., roxborough.us/solstice.

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UR VEY O E K TA CK SUR QUI &

TCH A W E APPL

AN

OF RIC N O T &A ENT C Y L PHIL ES! PRIZ AT NOW T I E .NET R TAK E P A

CITYP

19102 REVIEW

BY ANDREW ZALESKI

A review of Philly books.

20

THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN NOT A GAME: THE INCREDIBLE RISE AND UNTHINKABLE FALL OF ALLEN IVERSON

KENT BABB

(Atria Books, 320 pp.)

DURING A GAME in March 1997, Allen Iverson — the new, 21-year-old face of the Philadelphia 76ers — took the basketball to the top of the key.

Meeting him there was the Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan, perhaps the greatest player in professional basketball. Iverson leaned hard to his left and, as Jordan followed, Iverson quickly dribbled right, went around Jordan, and sank a jump shot from the top of the key.

The skinny rookie from coastal Virginia who bragged in his youth about taking on the game’s best had just crossed him over.

It’s one bright spot of Iverson’s successful yet tortured life recounted in Not a Game: The Incredible Rise and Unthinkable Fall of Allen Iverson, a new biography from Washington Post sports writer Kent Babb. Familiar highlights of Iverson’s basketball career pop up — like his Most Valuable Player award en route to taking the Sixers to the 2001 NBA Finals — but Babb’s book is most valuable for its examination of Iverson’s life off the basketball court, and how that life destroyed Iverson’s professional career and personal relationships.

Iverson’s numerous tattoos, oversized white T-shirts, gold chains and cornrows made him unlike anything the NBA had seen before. His fans, in Philadelphia and elsewhere, relished him. Here was the boy from the streets who had risen from a fatherless childhood in downtrodden Hampton, Va., staying true to himself while signing multimillion-dollar sneaker deals with Reebok. During his career, Iverson made more than $150 million in salary alone.

But Iverson’s demons — his anger, his flippancy, his alcohol abuse — wrecked him. Babb, a consummate reporter, covers it all. He tarnished his relationship with the Sixers, who traded him during the 2006-07 season. He went broke in the process of spending incessantly and picking up the tabs for friends and family. He verbally and physically abused his wife, Tawanna, who divorced him in 2013. There’s no doubt Philadelphia still loves Iverson; the Sixers retired his No. 3 jersey last year. But in reading Babb’s book, “The Answer,” as Iverson was known, leaves the reader with just one question: How could Allen Iverson rise so quickly, but fall so fast? (editorial@citypaper.net)

MOVIESHORTS

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FILMS ARE GRADED BY CIT Y PAPER CRITICS A-F.

DOCUMENTARY

BAT IN A CAGE: Mukunda Angulo peers out the window of the apartment he and his six brothers spent their entire childhoods inside, learning about the outside world by watching and recreating movies.

THE WOLFPACK

/ B / How much of a great documentary comes down to having a great story? Crystal Moselle’s Sundance-winning movie serves as an ideal test case. After a chance encounter on the street, Moselle found her way into the incredible lives of the Angulo brothers, six young men raised in neartotal isolation in a Manhattan apartment, with Hollywood movies their only window on the outside world. Rather than passively consuming them, the brothers take the movies they love into their own hands, re-enacting Pulp Fiction and The Dark Knight in their entirety with homemade props made from yoga mats and cereal boxes.

As Moselle presents it, The Wolfpack is a tribute to the power of art, allowing these brothers to escape their

FILM SHORTS INSIDE OUT // A-

The latest release from Pixar boasts sugar-coated colors, Happy Meal-ready characters, and occasional manic slapstick.

But like the best of the studio’s films — and this one immediately ranks with them — Inside

Out uses kid-friendly imagery to grapple with complex, very adult emotions. Director Pete Docter has been a key player throughout Pixar’s history, with story credits on most of their best films along with his own directorial credits (Up, Monsters Inc.). Those films have never shied away from loss, and Inside Out magnifies that bittersweet pang with an

perverse, even hellish, upbringing. But that rosy presentation — yay, movies! — is undermined by the kid-glove caution with which Moselle treats the details and effects of how the brothers were raised. There’s a strange softness to them, with their identical waist-length black hair and thin white tank tops, but that’s as close as we get to understanding what kind of effect living their lives in near-captivity must have had. Their father, a Peruvian Hare Krishna, occasionally drifts through a scene or appears in the background, but he offers no real justification for his actions, nor does Moselle appear to press him for one. It’s like being at a WASP dinner party where everyone’s thinking about someone’s recent divorce but no one dares break decorum to ask about it. Did the brothers’ developmentally disabled older sister, who’s such a fleeting presence in the film you don’t even know she exists for much of it, influence their parents’ determination that the outside world was too dangerous a place for any of their children? Your guess is as good as anyone’s.

There is, to be sure, a great story in TheWolfpack. It’s a shame the film doesn’t tell more of it. (Ritz at the Bourse) incredibly melancholy story of childhood’s end. While the central character is 11-year-old Riley (Kaitlyn Dias), the stars are the emotions that run her brain.

Joy (Amy Poehler) has ruled this roost since day one, but as major changes occur in Riley’s life, Sadness (Phyllis Smith) starts infecting her golden-hued memories with a blue tinge. An accident

sends those two competing emotions off across the treacherous terrain of Riley’s inner self, leaving Fear (Bill Hader), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), and Anger (Lewis Black, obviously) to grapple with her first days in a daunting new environment.

Beyond being wacky, colorful characters, these emotional

continued on p.22

Film events and special screenings.

REPERTORY FILM

BY DREW LAZOR

BRYN MAWR FILM INSTITUTE

824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-9898, brynmawrfilm.org. Antony and Cleopatra (2014, Canada, 170 min.): Theatercast of Shakespeare’s tragedy, as performed on the Stratford Festival stage in Ontario. Thu., June 18, 7 p.m., $20, and Sun., June 21, 1 p.m., $20. The Trouble with Angels (1966, U.S., 112 min.): Familyfriendly Catholic school comedy from Ida Lupino. Filmed in Ambler. Nuns be nunnin’! Mon., June 22, 7:15 p.m., $12. Touch of Evil (1958, U.S., 95 min.): Charlton Heston plays a Mexican, and that’s not even the mysterious part.

Tue., June 23, 7:15 p.m., $12.

DELL MUSIC CENTER

2400 Strawberry Mansion Drive 215-684-9560, mydelleast. com. 22 Jump Street (2014, U.S., 112 min.): “Fuck you, doves!” Tue., June 23, 7:30 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE

3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org. Hard to be a God (2013, Russia, 170 min.): Earth scientists struggle to govern the beings of another planet in late Russian auteur Aleksei German’s final film. Thu., June 18, 7 p.m., $9. Sagrada: The Mystery of Creation (2012, Switzerland, 90 min.): Profiling the distinct challenge of completing the construction of Antoni Gaudi’s ambitious Catholic church, which the architect dreamed up in the 19th century. Fri., June 19, 7 p.m., $9. A Massacre Triple Feature! Three camp-heavy gorefest masterpieces curated

by Exhumed Films — Meatcleaver Massacre (1977, U.S., 85 min.), Drive-In Massacre (1977, U.S., 74 min.) and Mardi Gras Massacre (1978, U.S., 97 min.). Sat., June 20, 7:30 p.m., $20. Reelback Presents: Philly Shorts A showcase of 12 local filmmakers and their short-format work. Cash prize for the most popular short of the evening, as voted by the audience. Tue., June 23, 7 p.m., $10.

PFS THEATER AT THE ROXY

2023 Sansom St., 267-639-9508, filmadelphia.org/roxy.

Weekend (2011, U.K., 97 min.): Two gay men stand by as their random hookup blossoms into a serious romantic relationship. Thu., June 18, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Henry Fool Trilogy Hal Hartley’s trilogy, screened back-to-backto-back — Henry Fool (1997, U.S., 137 min.), Fay Grim (2006, U.S., 118 min.) and Ned Rifle (2014, U.S., 85 min.).

Sat., June 20, 2 p.m., 4:45 p.m. and 7:15 p.m., $10. Roy Andersson’s Living Trilogy A seemingly disparate string of vignettes build into a greater picture of love in Roy Andersson’s films — Songs from the Second Floor (2000, Sweden, 98 min.) and You, The Living (2007, Sweden, 95 min.). Sun., June 21, 2 p.m. and 4:15 p.m., $10. Summertime (1955, U.K., 100 min.): A reserved American secretary (Katherine Hepburn) is charmed by a local business owner (Rossano Brazzi) during a trip toVenice. Mon., June 22, 2 p.m., $8, and Wed., June 24, 2 p.m., $8. Filmadelphia at the Roxy: June Screenings of four new shorts produced by local directors.

Tue., June 23, 7:30 p.m., free (RSVP required).

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embodiments are a clever representation of the confusion of adolescence (glimpses into her parents’ brain reveal far more harmonious teams).

The landscape of Riley’s brain is especially rich, with gingerbread houses and princess castles being razed in her imagination to make room for a boyfriend generator; a dazzling trip through Abstract Thought is one for the Pixar highlight reel. Ultimately, we’re left with an appreciation for the sadness that inevitably colors nostalgia and the richness that complex emotions bring to life, even as we’re forced to abandon the unleavened happiness of youth. —Shaun Brady ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL // A

Charming, personal and emotionally intricate, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s heart-swelling Sundance smash is that rare teen movie that doesn’t behave like a teenager. Precocious without being pretentious, aware of its limitations and respectful

of its influences, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl talks up a time in every one of our lives when individual days, and the day’s individuals, mattered more than anything.

Smart, sensitive and hopeful no one notices, Thomas Mann’s Greg comes off like a boy worthy of your stand-up-straight complaints. Slouching, fleetingly witty and self-deprecating to an exhausting degree, he’s developed a proprietary system of social camouflage, never lingering too close to one clique lest something be required of him. His best/ only friend Earl, nailed by newcomer RJ Cyler and his open-ended deadpan, does his best to smooth out Greg’s neuroses. The two spend their time swede-ing films like Rashomon and A Clockwork Orange, for no real reason other than a sincere love of the screen. But they find a purpose for their peculiar fixation after learning that Rachel (Olivia Cooke), an introverted classmate, has been diagnosed with leukemia.

Greg and Earl know far more

about the classics than dudes their age should — but will it help them create a fitting cinematic elegy?

Yes, the “cancer plus art plus chatty high-schoolers” template will produce inevitable comparisons to The Fault in Our Stars, but these kids are throwing around a little less gravitas than John Green.

Basically, they look, sound and act young, scared of what happens next but terrified to show it. Credit the nuanced performances from Earl’s three leads, as framed out by screenwriter Jesse Andrews, adapting from his own novel.

Connie Britton, Nick Offerman and Jon Bernthal, in substantial supporting roles, maximize and humanize their time, ensuring Gomez-Rejon doesn’t get too cute with his high-style storytelling.

—Drew Lazor

citypaper.net/movies

POP/FRENCH-CUBAN

EVENTS

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 18 - JUNE 24, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

: JUNE 18 - JUNE 24 :

23

GET OUT THERE

IBEYI

French-Cuban twin sisters Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz cover a lot of musical and cultural ground on their debut as Ibeyi (XL) — drawing on their Yoruban and Cuban heritage via chanted invocations and abundant hand percussion, but also incorporating plenty of soulful piano-based soft pop, oddly-textured electronics and gentle trip-hop grooves, recalling Zap Mama and Sylvan Esso in equal measure — yet the end result remains satisfyingly sparse and spacious. —K. Ross Hoffman

thursday

6.18

POST HASTE

$15-$25 // Through June 28, Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Rd., Rose Valley, Pa., 610-565-4211, hedgerowtheatre.org.

THEATER Frank E. Reilly’s new play about Emily Post, celebrated socialite and author, provides a tidy biography of the woman known for codifying common sense etiquette, but focuses on a 27-day road trip she undertook in 1915 with her 20-year-old son as chauffeur. Post (Penelope Reed) and Edwin (Brock Vickers) travel from New York to San Francisco before the era of super highways — the Lincoln Highway west of Chicago was all mud, they colorfully explain. Reilly, who also directs, finds little tension or suspense in their adventure, but much amusement in the motherson relationship (Vickers is wonderfully dour about his mother’s backseat driving, often responding only with a horn blast) and in Post’s adjustments to “roughing it” in an era of no rest stops

coupled with the impossibility of a lady squatting on the roadside for relief. Reed gives an energetically dignified yet daffy performance with a twinkle of naughtiness, as when she asks, “Why are temptations so scintillating?” though Post’s weaknesses don’t extend much beyond chocolate.

Although it seems like this two-act play could be a more trim 90-minute oneact, it’s a bright and breezy journey with a delightfully portrayed American icon.

—Mark Cofta

RICHARD THOMPSON TRIO $35-$55 // Thu., June 18, 7:30 p.m., with Joan Osborne, Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, Pa., 215-5727650, keswicktheatre.com.

ROCK/FOLK Wilco’s Jeff

Tweedy has been quietly catalyzing a growing array of musical heroes toward some very fine work lately, and he does the same producing the deathless UK folk-rock pioneer on Still (Fantasy), a tight set evoking the muscular directness of 1999’s magnificent Mock Tudor, and proffering such primedfor-onstage-elaboration

STARE DOWN: $20 // Mon., June 22, 8 p.m., with Son Little, World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.

FLAVIEN PRIOREAU

delights as “All Buttoned Up” — a sprightlier but no less crankily undersexed counterpart to Grinderman’s “No Pussy Blues” — and the tour-de-force history lesson/show-off extravaganza “Guitar Heroes.”

—K. Ross Hoffman

MARY, MARY

$18-$38 // June 18-July 24, Cape May Stage at the Robert Shackleton Playhouse, 405 Lafayette St., Cape May, N.J., 609770-8311, capemaystage.org.

THEATER Cape May Stage’s season of all-female playwrights continues with Jean Kerr’s 1961 classic comedy, Mary, Mary, which ran for nearly four years on Broadway and became a 1963 Debbie Reynolds

film. In the era nostalgically portrayed in Mad Men, Kerr — who also wrote the bestseller Please Don’t Eat the Daisies — was an advocate for intelligent, independent women. In Mary, Mary, a nearly divorced couple (Katherine McLeod, Sam Perwin) meet to discuss their split — on Valentine’s Day, naturally, and during a blizzard that traps them together with their tax lawyer, a Hollywood actor, and the husband’s new fiancée.

—Mark Cofta

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS

$25-$54 // Through July 12, Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival at DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center

Valley, Pa., 610-282-9455, pashakespeare.org.

THEATER “Back by popular demand,” Mark Brown’s theatrical adaptation of Jules Verne’s beloved 1873 adventure novel was a hit at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival a decade ago, and returns in an all-new production directed by Russell Treyz. Richard B. Watson plays Phileas Fogg, who makes a bet that he can circle the globe in just 80 days, and the race is on — by train, boat, automobile, elephant and some surprise conveyances. Brad DePlanche plays his faithful servant Passepartout, with People’s Light veteran Christopher Patrick Mullen, Arden regular Eric Hissom and

Anita Vasan playing a variety of roles. —Mark Cofta

JOHN INGLE/ DAN JOSEPH

$7-$10 // Thu., June 18, 7:30 p.m., with Ashley Tini, Random Tea Room and Curiosity Shop, 713 N. Fourth St., museumf ire.com/events.

JAZZ There aren’t many combinations of instruments that haven’t been tried, but John Ingle and Dan Joseph may have found something unique in the pairing of saxophone and hammered dulcimer. Beyond the sheer novelty factor, the duo weaves these sounds together into a mesmerizing tapestry of minimalist patterns that invoke Indian ragas as readily as free jazz. —Shaun Brady

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f riday

6.19 THE HELIO SEQUENCE/ LOST LANDER

$15 // Fri., June 19, 8:30 pm., Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., 267-639-4528, bootandsaddlephilly.com.

ROCK/POP Maybe more exciting than seeing Sub Pop’s two princes, The Helio Sequence, is seeing them with their Pacific Northwest brethren, Lost Lander. While Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel have been playing together under the Sequence pseudonym for more than 15 years now, Lost Lander got their start just this decade, thanks in part to Menomena’s Brent Knopf, who serves as the group’s producer. Listen to “Afraid of Summer,” their dark and spacious breakout track from 2012’s DRRT, and prepare for the perfect Portland package, people. —Nikki Volpicelli

saturday

6.20

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD /THE WHIPS

$13 // Sat., June 20,

10 p.m., Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org.

ROCK/POP Philly’s The Whips just shut the door in the studio, having finished up the recording for their debut 7”, due out later this year. In the meantime, they’re releasing “All the Time,” an exclusive track recorded in the same session that showcases the garage rockers straightforward, guitar-driven style. Watch them play with King Gizzard, the new age answer to Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. —Nikki Volpicelli

monday

6.22

BORBETOMAGUS

$12 // Mon., June 22, 8 p.m., with Hatchers and Will Guthrie, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-7399684, arsnovaworkshop.com.

NOISE/IMPROV One doesn’t so much listen to Borbetomagus as withstand them. The trio — saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich and guitarist Donald Miller — has been creating an overwhelming sonic onslaught for more than three-and-a-half decades, and the crushing torrent

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 18 - JUNE 24, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

of noise they create from three simple instruments must be experienced live.

There’s texture and variation aplenty to be found within that maelstrom, akin to walking into a hurricane to feel the raindrops on your skin. —Shaun Brady

TASHI DORJI

$7-$10 // Mon., June 22, 8 p.m., with Dunums and Shaina Kapeluck, First Banana, 2152 E. Dauphin St., museumf ire.com/events.

FOLK/IMPROV/WORLD

Though his approach lies somewhere between the austere Americana of John Fahey and the knotty deformations of Derek Bailey, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint the source of Tashi Dorji’s sound.

That’s less surprising when considering his backstory: The guitarist grew up in Bhutan listening to classical music on shortwave radio and Bollywood songs and U.S. pop via bootlegged tapes from India.

He later came to the States (he now resides in Asheville, N.C.) and discovered free

improvisation and American folk. —Shaun Brady

JAGA JAZZIST

$20-$22 // Mon., June 22, 7:30 p.m., with Grimace Federation and Among Savages, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-2322100, utphilly.com.

JAZZ/ROCK Sure, the ’80s jazz neo-cons tried to wipe the fusion virus off the map, but an album like Starfire, the latest from Norwegian octet Jaga Jazzist, is mind-expanding evidence that the vaccine didn’t hold. The eight-piece band could be claimed by prog, IDM, and progressive jazz enthusiasts with equal authority. The new album is its most elaborate studio construction, making the live show prospect all the more intriguing. —Shaun Brady

wednesday

6.24 NO JOY

$9.99 // Wed., June 24, 8

p.m., with Sad Actor and Likers, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N Front St., 215-2914919, kungfunecktie.com.

ROCK/POP No Joy started as a long-distance relationship, with L.A.-based Jasamine White-Gluz trading guitar and vocal parts with Laura Lloyd in Montreal.

Eventually, the girls’ rock paper scissored (metaphorically), and Lloyd won, moving the raw shoegaze project to her Canadian front full-time. The group followed up 2013’s huge underground success Wait to Pleasure with this month’s More Faithful (also released via Mexican Summer/Kemado Records).

—Nikki Volpicelli

sica Pratt, with her patient fingerpicking and weathered wisp of a voice, keeps spiritual company with faerie-folk foremothers like Vashti Bunyan and Linda Perhacs throughout On Your Own Love Again (Drag City). Meanwhile, the more self-consciously styled (and eminently spoonerisable) Chicago jazz-folk troubadour Ryley Walker augments the virtuosic fingerwork of Primrose Green (Dead Oceans) with mystical bluegreen flourishes on loan — as his sleeve-note readily admits — from the likes of Tim Buckley and Bert Jansch.

—K. Ross Hoffman

JESSICA PRATT/ RYLEY WALKER

$12 // Wed., June 24, 8:30 p.m., The Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., bootandsaddlephilly.com.

ROCK/FOLK Less dutiful revivalists than old souls in young flesh, Californian acoustic mesmerist Jes-

citypaper.net/events

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FOOD&DRINK

REVIEWS // OPENIN GS // LISTIN GS // RECIPES

RAW DEAL: Green strawberries and Aleppo pepper brighten beef tartare.

MARIA POUCHNIKOVA

HERITAGE // 914 N. 2nd St., 215-627-7500, heritage.life. Hours: Mon.-Sun., 5 p.m.-2 a.m.

REVIEW

BY ADAM ERACE

WELL BRED

Chef Sean Magee shines at Heritage in Northern Liberties.

IT WAS THE moment the foie gras arrived that I realized the restaurant I was in.

Leading up to the liver, I’d really enjoyed other dishes. The tartare of TexasWagyu, for example, looking like a trove of moonstones hidden beneath a forest floor of golden frills mustard, tangerine lace and fennel antennae. And the seafood plateau, whose clever, unexpected mix of iced sea creatures had something to say besides “give me all your money.” (I ravaged it like a walrus.) Even the bread, a whole-wheat loaf with a soft, tawny crumb and pretzel-level saltiness on the crust, was a clue to where I was dining.

But really, it was the foie that locked this handsome wood-clad Northern Liberties newcomer, Heritage, in the personal top 10 I keep organized in my head. I took a bite of the dish and saw the names start rolling and

flapping like the train track schedule at Penn Station: Fork, Zahav, Kanella,Vernick, Serpico, Zeppoli, A.Kitchen… They went clack clack clack clack clack clack as Heritage found its rank among the mainstays.

Lately I feel that, spoiled by recent years of plenty, we’ve slid into a period of casualsex restaurants: They feel good, sure, but do they challenge us? Do they have a point of view? Are they adding something to the conversation? At first glance, Heritage seemed to be just another lemming, offering a couple hours of pleasant distraction with the same ole new American menu of kale salad, crudo and smoked things. Reading through online, the list felt inexplicably wintry. It was 95 degrees. I didn’t want to eat brisket with cabbage, trout in truffled broth or duck confit. I didn’t want to eat at

Heritage. Now, thanks to chef Sean Magee, I can’t wait to go back.

Magee has honed his craft over the years at Time in MidtownVillage, which shares owners Jason and Delphine Evenchik with Heritage.

(Former Time manager Terry Leach is also a partner.) The big difference with this project, besides being the most classic restaurant of the Evenchiks’ and Leach’s portfolio, is Magee’s involvement from day one. From planning the kitchen to planting the garden on the roof of this former catering commissary, so many aspects of this place bear his signature.

“I had the opportunity to start something from the beginning, which is one of the coolest things as a chef,” Magee explains. “I was pretty much told I could do whatever I wanted to do.”

In Heritage, Magee has a proper stage upon which to really show how well he can cook, and dish after interesting, thoughtful, multilayered dish made the menu’s boring verbiage feel like a delightful trick.

So the foie: While most chefs rely on a sweet glaze or fruit preserve to balance its richness, Magee introduced a slice of moist zucchini bread to his whipped liver mousse—like a slice of cake with savory foie frosting. He echoed the squash beneath with squash on top: curled shavings of raw zucchini and translucent pickled zucchini chips. Fresh ground sumac added a lemony grace note to each bite, smacking me to attention and drawing my fork back to the plate till only breadcrumbs and stray greens remained. Then I ate those, too.

There were too many things to like. Compressed in honeyed rice wine vinaigrette, green strawberries added bursts of acidity in that tartare, also spiced with slow-burning Aleppo pepper that lit the cubes of Straub Ranch eyeround aflame. Usual suspects like Rhode Island oysters and Jonah crab claws joined surprises like crawfish, sweet Stonington shrimp from Connecticut and a fantastic salad of plump Cape Cod mussels on the plateau.

Tender middleneck clams sidled up to sousvide Duroc pork loin in one entree, the thick slices of pig rippled with glistening fat in a shallow pool of mustard-tinted broth. A chubby link of coarsely ground rabbit sausage rode creamy, butter-yellow waves of killer smoked grits from Castle Valley Mills in Doylestown. “They’re so amazing on their own, I don’t know why I smoke

them,” Magee says. Because sometimes, a chef who’s respectful and talented can take a great product to another level.

Magee also becomes Johnny Self-Deprecation when talking about desserts: “They haven’t been my strong suit, and I’ve been open about that.” I have no idea what he’s talking about. The golden crust of the half moon-shaped rhubarb hand pie did look a little two-dimensional—a little more leavener in the dough would fix that—but the pastry was flaky, and a halo of thick crème anglaise was the ideal sweet foil to the pie’s tangy interior of molten rhubarb. The bar of airy white chocolate cheesecake was a story of redemption for the often-scorned not-reallychocolate. Sweet breadcrumbs inspired by King’s Hawaiian Rolls added texture. Fresh orange segments and a luminous triple-citrus sauce brought brightness.

Not everything at Heritage was perfect: The oysters’ caesar mignonette, a cute idea, needed more punch. The thermostat, reading 79 degrees, betrayed units that struggled to cool the cavernous dining room. (The upside: The condensation those systems create is diverted to irrigate the rooftop garden.) After sitting down, we waited too long to be greeted by a server.

Fortunately, after she finally made her way over, Katie Henry provided that kind of warm, enthusiastic, intuitive service I dream about.

When the heat melted the ice in my strawberrymescal cocktail, a glass of fresh rocks appeared with a spoon. When an underwhelming ginand-celery soda cooler went mostly untouched, she noticed and removed it from the bill with no one asking. (The small list of cocktails in general could use an upgrade.) The back servers and food runners also knew their stuff; they could talk Magee’s dishes with confidence and answer questions. More important, everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy working at Heritage. Can you blame them? Daily staff meals from Sean Magee would make me happy, too. (aerace.citypaper@gmail.com, @adamerace)

citypaper.net/mealticket

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // JUNE 18 - JUNE 24, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

27

FEEDING FRENZY

BY CAROLINE RUSSOCK

COMING SOON

Bud & Marilyn’s BUD & MARILYN’S // The latest addition to the Midtown Village dining scene is Bud & Marilyn’s. The new American venture from Marcie Turney and Val Safran is named for Turney’s grandparents, who ran a restaurant in Wisconsin in the 1950s. Although the menu is going to be taking on American classics, don’t expect any blue-plate specials; Bud & Marilyn’s is decidedly not going to be a diner. With the help of Rohe Creative, a design firm whose work can be seen at One Shot Coffee and Boot & Saddle, Safran has outfitted the dining room with all sorts of appealing Mid-Century Modern details.

Bud & Marilyn’s is slated to open in early summer. 1234 Locust St., budandmarilyns.com.

WHETSTONE TAVERN // Brauhaus Schmitz chef Jeremy Nolen and owner Doug Hager are taking over the former Adsum/Tapestry space at 5th and Bainbridge and rolling out a menu inspired by Pennsylvania fare.

Expect a bar program that’s heavy on whiskey and has a serious beer selection. Whetstone is planning on a mid-July opening, but there’s a preview on Monday, June 29, from 7 p.m. to midnight at Brauhaus Schmitz, where Nolen will be testing plates like Bloody Mary mussels, steak tartare with pickled green peppercorns, shallots and Dijon, and Philadelphia pepper pot soup.

The preview is a benefit for Friends of the South Street Mini-Police Station. A minimum donation of $20 gets you in. 700 S. 5th St., whetstonetavern.com.

HUNGRY PIGEON // Chef Scott Schroeder of South Philly Tap Room and American Sardine Bar is striking out on his own (along with longtime friend and former Balthazar pastry chef, Pat O’Malley). They’re opening Hungry Pigeon, which is going to be open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yes, there will be pigeon on the menu.

No official date has been set, but in the meantime you can get a sneak peek at what is going to be on the menu at 6:30 p.m., Monday, June 22, when Schroeder and O’Malley are hosting an intimate dinner at the upstairs dining room of Vetri. The menu’s looking great with snacks like very spicy dill pickled eggs and chopped liver on rye followed by locally raised squab pot-pie.

743 S. 4th St., hungrypigeonphilly.com.

@CAROLINERUSSOCK

caroline@citypaper.net

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JUNE 18 - JUNE 24, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

BY MATT JONES

JONESIN ’ “ F PLUS PLUS” that’s a lot of Fs. ©2015 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com)

ACROSS

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