Philadelphia City Paper, July 23th, 2015 by Philadelphia City Paper

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P H I L A D E L P H I A

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It’s a dreamy weekend for music fests in Philly.

Girlpool plays th e OK Fest on Sund ay. TONs OF TALENT AT XPONENTIAL. CATCH PUNK AT TH IS IS HARDCORE.

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ADO

MET P

IN THIS ISSUE … p. 8

EGON! OLDE ENGLISH 1-2 YEAR OLD

I’m Egon, a 1-2 year old pit bull mix who’s looking for love. I was found as a stray before being rescued by PAWS. I’m an energetic and fun-loving boy who’s eager to learn. Please give me a home! Meet EGON at PAWS Adoption Center at 100 N. 2nd St. Phila PA 19106.

PAWS animals are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and microchipped before adoption. For more information, call 215-238-9901 or email adoptions@phillypaws.org

MEETS CHEEZ WHIZ

IN THIS WEEK’S Penn & Ink, cartoonist Aaron Lange takes a page from the classic tale of King Ar thur’s Sword in the Stone and layers on some thick South Philly Chez Whiz. (Wid or wid-out?) The Philly-based enfant terrible of mini-comics is the author of the underground provocations ROMP and TRIM, available from thecomixcompany.ecrater.com. Lange’s art and writing have also appeared in Mineshaft, Cinema Sewer and other, obscure titles with print runs as big as your bank statement.

CP STAFF Associate Publisher Jennifer Clark Editor in Chief Lillian Swanson Senior Editor Patrick Rapa Arts & Culture Editor Mikala Jamison 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, Josh Kruger, 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/Social Media Director Jenni Betz Contributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Charles Mostoller, Hillary Petrozziello, Maria S. Young, Neal Santos, Mark Stehle U.S. Circulation Director Joseph Lauletta (ext. 239) Account Managers Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262), Russell Marsh (ext. 260), 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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BEST BIG WEEKLY IN PA 2015 KEYSTONE PRESS AWARDS

COVER PHOTOGRAPH OF GIRLPOOL // Allyssa Yohana COVER DESIGN // Jenni Betz

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THE BELL CURVE

OUR WEEKLY QUALITY-OF-LIFE-O-METER

THIS WEEK ’S TOTAL: -12 // THE YEAR SO FAR: -13

-2 0

According to a study by a British forensic linguistics professor, the Philly area’s favorite swear words are “fuck,” “shit” and “asshole.” According to a Bell Curve study, that guy can go bugger ’is mum’s arse till ’is bollocks knock the minge off ’er fanny.

-3

Most subway stops will be closed during the pope’s visit. You know why? Because we, as a city, are completely terrified of the pope. He’s like this natural disaster we were told about six months in advance and we don’t know what to do and we are freaking out.

More than 3,000 porta-potties and 350 urinal stalls have been ordered for the pope’s visit but some experts say that’s not enough. Oh my fucking God, people. It’s gonna be a Literal Apocalyptic Shitshow. The poop and pee experts are never wrong.

-2

SEPTA is forced to suspend sales of its “Papal Passes” after being hit with a high volume of web traffic. See that? We can’t even handle the web traffic. Imagine what the IRL traffic will be like. And the crowds. And the germs. Total Apocalyptic Shitshow. He is pope, destroyer of worlds.

Hotel rooms in Center City are still available during the pope’s visit to Philadelphia, leading some to believe people are being scared away by “Pope Panic.” Smart move, pilgrims. Save yourselves. Get to high ground. It’s too late for us. We will be wading in a river of human filth and beating each other to death with pope bobbleheads for the last bottle of Purell.

-6

According to Weather.com, Philadelphia is one of the 25 U.S. cities that will be most affected by climate change. That’s assuming we’re not completely wiped off the map by Popetastrophe 2015.

QUICK PICKS

Lily Tomlin — back in entertainment news with her Netflix series, Grace and Frankie — won the 1986 Tony for best actress for this solo comedy, written by her partner of 42 years and now wife Jane Wagner. The series of monologues led by bag lady Trudy won a Drama Desk award for unique the a tri cal ex perience. Cape May Stage’s produc tion fea tures Tri cia Alexandro, and is the third in their season of six plays by female writers. 7/299/4, Robert Shackleton Playhouse, capemaystage. org. —Mark Cofta

PHILADELPHIA DANCE DAY

So you think you can’t dance? No worries. Philly Dance Day proud ly places no emphasis on the “experience or even coordination” of its participants. All day Saturday, sample as many free dance workshops as you’d like, from classes in jazz, tap, striptease, belly dance and more. In the evening, catch a dance party for just $5. Go ahead and dance like everybody’s watching. (I mean, some pe ople pro bab ly are.) 7/25, various locations, philadelphiadanceday. com. —Mikala Jamison

RA SS .C OM

A Pennsylvania man is selling his marijuanathemed board game Pass the Grass, which he first thought of in the ’70s. In other words, he’s the Elon Musk of the pot world.

MILKY CHANCE/ X AMBASSADORS

AGNÈS VARDA IN CALIFORNIA

Mainstream radio quickly took note of Milky Chance’s spacey jam “Stolen Dance” after it went viral on YouTube last year. But the duo’s debut al bum, Sadnecessary (Lichtdicht Records), has a lot more going for it, with patient, moody pop that’s more Broken Bells than Katy Perry. Openers X Ambassadors are similarly compelling, injecting would-be arena rock with diverse, contem porary influences from hip-hop, electronica and beyond. 7/28, Skyline Stage at the Mann, manncenter.org. —

There’s nothing resembling what you might call a “Holly wo od film” in Ag nès Varda’s extensive filmography, but the diminutive French director did shoot a handful of films in Hollywood. She initially came to L.A. in the late ‘60s with her husband, director Jacques Dwemy, then returned in the early ‘80s. Those visits resulted in five short and feature-length films, all of which I-House will screen. 7/23-24, International House, ihousephilly.org.

Alex Marcus

@BSMIT T YDOTCOM

THE SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

HOLGER JENSS

more picks on p. 21

PA SS TH EG

—Shaun Brady

R. RING

Somehow soothing and raspy, Kelley Deal’s voice is the beauty and the brawn of R. Ring. But there’s plenty of guitar too.This is an evening of offshoots, with this Breeders/Ampline side project being supported by solo sets from Joe JackTalcum (of the Dead Milkmen) and Cynthia Schemmer (who plays with Radiator Hospital and writes for City Paper). 7/27, Johnny Brenda’s, johnnybrendas.com. —Patrick Rapa

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THENAKEDCITY

NEWS // OPINION // POLI T ICS

AIRBORNE: DroneCast founder ‘Raj’ Singh outside his company’s office. The startup attracted $1 million in investment funding last fall. MARK STEHLE

FLIGHT TIME

BY ANDREW ZALESKI

SPROUTING NEW WINGS OVERHEAD

DroneCast, a West Philly startup that has flown drones carrying ads and promotional products for Fortune 500 companies, expands its operations. Partner-pilots are flying them, too. CONNOR GALLIC RECENTLY picked up an unusual way to make extra cash: Flying drones. Twice now theWest Philadelphian has piloted his own small, four-rotor, remote-controlled drone — what the Federal Aviation Administration calls an unmanned aerial system. But Gallic isn’t taking photographs or shooting films. Instead, his drone is flying banner advertisements for local businesses. “I work for a social media marketing company, but I wanted to do something a bit more and something a little newer, and that’s where I found DroneCast,” says the 22-year-old Gallic. DroneCast makes money by charging clients for drone-based advertising. That might mean flying banners emblazoned with company names and logos, dropping glow sticks into crowds of people at outdoor concerts or, as it meant during the last NBA All-

StarWeekend, ferrying bottles of Ciroc vodka to patrons at an after-party. The West Philly-based startup uses drones costing several thousands of dollars each and modified to fly an hour and a half and carry up to 6 pounds. Fortune 500 companies pay DroneCast between $10,000 and $15,000 per event to fly ads or carry other promotional products. In January, Ford Motor Co. hired DroneCast to deliver toy models of its Raptor pickup truck to attendees at the North American International Auto Show. In June, DroneCast added another money-making tool, and that’s where Gallic fits in. For $6,000, those interested can buy one of DroneCast’s custom drones as well as receive the startup’s services in lining up customers interested in drone advertising and taking care of the billing for each advertising gig. DroneCast, through an Arizona

company, also covers $2 million in liability insurance in case the partner-pilot flies the drone into a building or a person during a job. In exchange, DroneCast pockets 20 percent, while the partnerpilot receives the remaining 80 percent. If that sounds similar to a certain Silicon Valley ride-sharing company that operates in Philadelphia without the permission of the Philadelphia Parking Authority, that’s because it is. “We’re really modeling everything around Uber,” says DroneCast founder GauravJit Singh. “If [people] partner with us, they get their own little business. They get to do what they want and make their own hours, but we handle all the hard stuff for them.” Singh, a bright-eyed, cherubic-faced entrepreneur who goes by his nickname, Raj, has put his Drexel University education on pause, and seemingly possesses the acumen of a seasoned board member despite being one year under the legal drinking age. Last September, his dronevertising venture raised $1 million in funding, according to the investor website AngelList. On a recent afternoon, Singh showed City Paper an accounting sheet of DroneCast’s June revenues. Nearly $40,000 was made flying drones at different events for big-name clients. But the real money, Singh said proudly from his third-floor office at company headquarters on 48th Street, came from the new partner-pilot program: Nearly $73,000. Singh never set out be the Uber of drone advertising when he founded DroneCast last year. After watching Amazon.com

founder Jeff Bezos tout a line of delivery-drones on 60 Minutes in December 2013, he thought he could use a fairly new technology in a new way. In 2007, the FAA issued a policy statement saying that flying drones for monetary gain is illegal. Since then, the agency has softened its stance, and allows drone-based businesses to fly commercially provided they have received approval from the FAA. To date, the FAA has granted more than 800 of these so-called exemptions. Still, as remote-controlled drones have shrunk in size and become easier to learn to fly, plenty of photographers, filmmakers and others, including DroneCast, fly for profit without exemptions. (Singh says the FAA has never sent him a ceaseand-desist letter nor fined DroneCast.) Singh says it makes sense to contract with pilots in different locations. Instead of paying to fly one of DroneCast’s pilots — the company employs six people full-

‘We’re really modeling everything around Uber.’ time — to a place like Los Angeles for a $100 gig, why not let a pilot out there get a DroneCast drone, take the advertising job, and then send DroneCast $20? The initiative allows him to scale his operations as well as do advertising for companies that can’t pay $10,000 per event, but could pay $100 for an hour of flight time. “We wanted to service more people for a lower cost. There’s a lot of actual work out there,” says Singh, who says DroneCast’s partner-pilots could make up to $150,000 a year. For Gallic, who was an engineering major at Drexel before dropping out in 2012 — “I felt it wasn’t for me,” he says — that’s good news. After three on-site training sessions, Gallic paid $6,000 for his own DroneCast drone. His two gigs so far, advertising for two different hooka bars, have made him $400. But Gallic isn’t despairing; in his eyes, it’s only looking up from there. “It was a little nerve-wracking,” he says on dropping the $6,000. “But I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to make it back fairly quickly.” (editorial@citypaper.net)

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PARODY

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BY Yoni Kroll

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Punctuate the Positive OK Fest unites good bands for a good cause. WHAT’S PUNK MEAN? That depends on whom you ask. For some it’s just a style of music and fashion. For others it’s politics and attitude. To Barrett Lindgren, booker at Johnny Brenda’s and the main organizer behind this weekend’s OK Fest 2, punk is a force for change. “Punk really got taken from the people that needed it and that it could actually help out the most,” he says. “It’s well past the time that it gets reclaimed and goes back to the weirdos and freaks and folks that are misrepresented in society all the time.” OK Fest features 19 bands from Philadelphia and beyond and benefits LGBTQ youth space The Attic. The multi-day festival, which launched last year at the now-shuttered D.I.Y. space Golden Tea House in West Philly, is in many ways both a diverse and inclusive event, bringing together musicians from different subcultures and scenes. “It’s very much my punk fantasy kind of show,” Lindgren says. “A really cool, awesome and informed group of people that identify in super varying, super interesting ways, coming together to make something cool happen and make some money for some people that really need it.” The festival includes two concerts at PhilaMOCA and one at the First Unitarian Church, which has been hosting D.I.Y. shows for more than 20 years. Some of the bands are well known to music fans — like Girlpool, Sheer Mag, Amanda X and Pile — while others might be playing their first show outside of a West Philly basement. All are coming together for a good cause. Founded in 1993, The Attic is part after-school community center and part safe haven for LGBTQ youth aged 14 to 23. According to director of development Alyssa Mutry, The Attic serves “primarily youth of color, primarily youth that are low income or come from under-resourced communities. The school system isn’t doing that great of a job so we do a lot of stuff that supplements what schools should be doing.” That includes individual and family therapy, job training, HIV prevention and youth empowerment. Much of the programming at The Attic is decided on by the users of the space, which occupies a four-story row house on 16th Street. Mutry says every summer there are 40 teens and young adults interning at The Attic and working on a project to “help make Philly a better place for youth.” This year it’s related to the Black Lives Matter movement. “Our youth identify as LGBTQ but they also identify as Black or homeless or disabled or any of these intersecting identities,” says Mutry. “So we’re doing a lot of stuff around racial justice and LGBTQ communities and really trying to have an impact on the whole person and not just one part of their identity.” Even with increased visibility, and victories like the recent Supreme Court decision for gay marriage, “It’s still not a nice world out there

Sheer Mag By Marie Lin

for LGBTQ youth,” she says. “We’re firm believers in not just having this little safe row home that’s a safe community but we want to go out and make systemic and institutional change.” Daniil R and Jasmine Morrell, whose doom/sludge metal band Space Chumpy is playing OK Fest on Saturday, agree. While there are more and more safe spaces for LGBTQ-identified people, including Morrell’s recently opened Spirited Tattooing Coalition, the only LGBTQ-owned tattoo shop in the city, “The problem is that the world isn’t queer,” says Daniil. Places like The Attic can help “make queers safe from the world but we should be thinking about making the world safer for queers.” Camae Defstar is very familiar with The Attic. The musician and activist, who is performing at OK Fest 2 on Friday under the guise of her lo-fi electro persona Moor Mother Goddess, has put on workshops there on freestyle rapping and the Afrofuturist philosophy. The latter, according to Defstar, was extremely impactful because so many of the youths at the center can’t imagine the world ever getting better. Challenging that meant asking, “How can you change that future, what agency do you have in your future?” Defstar has been organizing her own punk music series, the popular Rockers!, for almost a decade, providing a showcase primarily for bands made up of people of color as well as female and queer-identified musicians. “The concept really with Rockers! now is that the folks who are still struggling to get seen, pair them with other bands so they can help each other,” she says. Not only does this make for really fun and interesting shows, it creates change in the music scene as a whole by directly attacking the idea of what a punk band should look or sound like. The Philadelphia D.I.Y. music scene is far less homogenous today than it was even a few years ago, but Defstar and Lindgren both say more needs to be done. Lindgren, who along with his duties at Johnny Brenda’s also books lots of D.I.Y. shows around the city, lays the blame directly on the organizers and bookers of concerts in Philadelphia, most of whom are cisgender white men like himself. The irony is not lost on Lindgren. “I also recognize that my participation is inherently part of the problem,” he said. “The best way we can [create change] is to support more bands, more promoters and more organizers who are not cis white dudes.” R5 Productions, which has put on thousands of D.I.Y. shows in Philadelphia over the past two decades, is helping with some OK

Fest logistics. Andy Nelson, who books and promotes for R5, says he hopes lineups like OK Fest’s become the norm. “I know I’m not alone in being pretty bored by most anything consisting of 99 percent straight white males, and it’s probably no coincidence that as that percentage goes down, the amount of enthusiasm for exciting, creative music being made in a given scene tends to go way up.” Things are changing. That can be seen at basement shows, at bigger concerts at Union Transfer and places in between. Tina Halladay from South Philly’s Sheer Mag, a band that combines catchy Thin Lizzy-style guitar hooks with biting political lyrics, has seen it firsthand. “What I can say and what I notice about more POC and women in the scene getting hype is that it’s all amazing. More visibility and acceptance in the scene is always good in my eyes. It leads to positive things in my opinion, no matter what.” (editorial@citypaper.net) ▶ For more on OK Fest — and the other big music festivals this weekend — turn the page.

▶ continued on p. 12

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▶ continued from p. 10

Code Orange

amanda x By Pete Murray

H2O By Rudy De Doncker Harms Way

BY Patrick Rapa

GIRLPOOL By Allyssa Yohana

YESTERDAY I MET SOME ALIENS from Neptune and they asked me what music sounds like where I’m from. I told them to go to OK Fest. They thought this was a rude way to answer a simple question, but I stand by it. Though it features some impressive outsiders — like Boston brutalists Pile and spacey NYC bedroom poppers Eskimeaux — the three-day OK Fest is basically a Polaroid of Philadelphia, 2015. Friday boasts a rare solo performance by Frances Quinlan (of the world famous Hop Along, who plays XPoNential the next day). Expect a fun, loose set featuring new songs and covers. But you need to show up in time to catch Blowdryer, a righteous punk/post-punk trio featuring Sarah Everton (formerly of Bleeding Rainbow). In the middle, Afrofuturist rock star Moor Mother Goddess will feed your head. Rough, rowdy and endlessly catchy, Saturday’s headliners Amanda X remind me of a time when jangly indie giants like Tsunami, Small Factory and Belly walked the earth. Everybody has a good time when Amanda X plays. You’ll already be a sweaty mess by then, thanks in part to screaming, pounding lo-fi math-punk two-piece Pinkwash. Garagey/grungey duo Lithuania (Dominic Angelella of Drgn King and Eric Slick of Dr. Dog) have been around for 10 years, but still qualify as aspecial occasion. On Sunday, the pre-Pile party includes groovy, extra-lo-fi rockers Sheer Mag and Temple grung rocker Alex G. And you need to catch Girlpool. The sublimely drum-free duo moved to West Philly from L.A. last year and it feels like we found a twenty in the gutter. Pure good fortune. P.S. We’re at war with Neptune now. ▶ July 24-26, PhilaMOCA and First Unitarian Church, r5productions.com.

BY Patrick Rapa

OK Fest This Is Hardcore PUNK AND METAL are always scraping up against each other, and the four-day This Is Hardcore sits right on the fault line. Founded in 2006, the annual festival always features a few thorny and slashy logos alongside all the skulls and Helvetica Bold on its fliers. Nobody treads that murky territory better than this year’s headliners, The Misfits. The Jersey-born horror-punk band has been scaring parents off and on since the late-’70s. But there’s a but. Usually when a band does one of those “performing the whole album” conceits — as the Misfits are doing at TIH with their 1983 classic Earth A.D. — they’ve assembled something close to the original lineup. Well, that’s not the case here and, needless to say, oldheads are calling bullshit on the current incarnation of the Misfits doing this Glenn Danzig record without Glenn Danzig. He, you know, wrote and sang all the songs, so they have a point. Punks

▶ continued on p. 14

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always have a point. Good thing there are, like, 50 other bands on the bill. While ’90s Canadian straight edge act Chokehold is reuniting, Massachusetts fists-inthe-air anthem-makers Bane are saying goodbye. Also on the punk royalty roll call are Biohazard, American Nightmare/Give Up the Ghost, Cro-Mags, The Exploited, Snapcase, Slapshot. Plenty of young blood, too: Timebomb, Cruel Hand, Twitching Tongues, Morning Again, The Geeks, Sacred Band-Aid, Cross Purposes, Let’s Not Fight Anymore, Lower Back Pain, Regrettable Tats and more. OK, I made a bunch of those up. Doesn’t matter if you’ve never heard of some of these bands, you know what to expect. Shouting dudes. Tight chord changes. Machine-gun drums.

▶ continued from p. 12

FIRST AID KIT

ST. VINCENT By Renata Raksha

Courtney Barnett By Pooneh Ghana

▶ July 23-26, Union Transfer

BY Patrick Rapa

and Electric Factory, thisishardcorefest.com.

BANE By Momo Vu SNAPCASE By Chris George

XPN XPoNential Music Fest WXPN’S ANNUAL MULTI-STAGE three-day throwdown across the river is not only the biggest and friendliest festival in the area, you could also argue it’s the best curated. (OK, Folk Fest is pretty friendly, too.) Unlike Firefly or Made in America, the XPoNential lineup tends to be eclectic but comfortable, a roster of acts that work as well together on the airwaves as they do on open air stages in Camden. Nothing too loud or too hip, an emphasis on feel-good jams, vocal chops and thoughtful songwriting. The big name headliners are pretty big — Indigo Girls, My Morning Jacket, St. Vincent, Grace Potter, George Ezra — but there’s a ton of talent to be see before the sun goes down. Saturday afternoon on the River Stage is particularly tight, including City Paper faves Hop Along, Tex-Mex indie-rockers Calexico, sweet Swedish folkies First Aid Kit and twangy L.A. romantics Lord Huron. Don’t miss Australian guitar heroine Courtney Barnett on Sunday; her live shows are powered by passionate playing, gut-check vocals and a general sense that she’s having a blast up there. Fans of fresh, local music have good reasons to show up early each day. On Friday, make a point of checking out Milton, a smooth-talking purveyor of R&B and hip-hop. On Saturday, Vita & the Woolf ’s grand (nearly operatic) soul-pop should send out cool vibes in the noonday sun. And Sunday you’re gonna want to be there for Cheerleader, who do dreamy indie pop that’s a little Death Cab and a bit Simon & Garfunkel. ▶ July 24-26, Susquehanna Bank Center and Wiggins Park, xpnfest.org.

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ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

MAKE THAT PAPER: A pile of zines that can be found at The Soapbox Independent Publishing Center in West Philly. HILLARY PETROZZIELLO

D.I.Y.

BY CASSIE OWENS

WRAPPED UP IN BOOKS

The zine scene is alive and well at The Soapbox in West Philly. TWO FILE BOXES packed with zines and chapbooks sit, waiting to be catalogued at The Soapbox, an independent publishing center on South 51st Street. Another file box sits atop a bookshelf. Someone just dropped them off one day, says Soapbox cofounder Mary Tasillo. This is typical. Thanks to a stream of donations (and giveaways like zine contests and Craigslist postings), the nonprofit Soapbox’s collection in West Philly has grown from two shoe boxes to the largest zine library in the city. Tasillo hopes that through the work of volunteers and interns, their growing backlog of unsorted zines will be cataloged next year and yield a more precise count of the holdings. For now, Tasillo estimates that The Soapbox has between 1,200 and 1,500 zine issues. West Philly has no shortage of zine culture: Tasillo and Philly Zine Fest

founder Casey Grabowski both acknowledge LAVA Space and A-Space as breeding grounds, plus the Zine Fest that happens annually at the Rotunda. (This year, it’ll be held on Aug. 29.) Tasillo, an office manager and paper-making professor at Fleisher, and Charlene Kwon, currently a doctoral student, hatched a plan in 2009 to open a spot where people not only could browse zines, but also could make them. They spent roughly a year sprucing up The Soapbox house until they opened in 2011. Members can get access to printing and binding at The Soapbox for $100 and 15 hours of volunteering a year, or $150 a year. “I wouldn’t say it was harder to make zines before the Soapbox — it’s fairly easy/accessible to make zines with nothing but scissors, glue sticks and access to a photocopier. (Even if it’s just the one at Staples!)” zinester Kerri Radley said in an email. Tasillo considers Deafula, a serial zine

ARTS // MUSIC // T HEAT ER // BOOKS

in which Radley shares perspectives from navigating the world with profound hearing loss, among the library’s gems. “What The Soapbox has made much easier for me is creating zines that are more artistically beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. … They allowed me to go from printing zines that are small, black and white, and plain paper only to zines that are larger with color covers that are letter-pressed, block-printed or silk-screened — and are really beautiful looking,” wrote Radley. Zines date to the science fiction fanzines of the 1930s. Researchers easily draw a lineage that’s older than that, through the country’s alternative press, to the pamphleteering of the Colonial-era even. But in the ’30s, fanzines were independently published issues bearing reviews, fanfic, original stories, letters and more. Zines’ popularity escalated with the arrival of copy machines (Xerox marketed its first photocopier in 1959), and boomed once more as desktop computers became ubiquitious in the ’90s. Zine libraries are much younger. The early years were in the ’80s and ’90s, according to Karen Gisonny, who began collecting zines at the New York Public Library back then. Jenna Freedman, who founded Barnard College’s zine library in 2003, says the zine archives have sprouted in cycles. The Soapbox is part of the most recent one. These collections remain relatively rare. There appear to be only seven zine libraries in Pennsylvania, four in Philly. One is at Little Berlin in Kensington,

which stores second copies at Temple; another is also in Kensington, at Girls Rock Philly; and one more is a part of LAVA Space’s radical library. On the Internet, many observers have called zines dead. While it’s fair to cast zines as the progenitor to some Tumblrs, self-publishing still goes down all the time. Laris Kreslins, an artist, former zine maker and owner of creative marketing firm Lime Projects, explains that zines continue to thrive in spaces throughout Philly, adding, “I run into some kind of element of zine culture on a daily basis.” Tasillo asks me to feel the paper when talking about why zines remain attractive to many authors. “I think that there’s an interest, because so much information is in a digital format, to connect to something that’s handheld,” says Tasillo. “I think that there’s a greater representation of hand-printed or fold-out elements than there used to be. … There’s something different about being able to hold the thing in your hand, and carry it around.” Showing me some of her favorite zines, Tasillo opens a copy of Empty Nest,made by one of her former professors, Susan Viguers, and it is lovely — blue strokes swirl throughout a story

‘There’s something different about being able to hold the thing in your hand, and carry it around.’ of young swallows taking flight. “This book might sell for $300 or something, so it’s not going to end up in a library like ours,” explains Tasillo. “With a book like this, it ends up in a special collection somewhere or it’s in a gallery show,” where readers would not likely be allowed to thumb through it. Most of the zines in the Soapbox stacks are not that finished, like the next favorite that Tasillo shows. Its green cover was cut out with scallop scissors, and it’s small enough to fit on one hand. Tasillo’s best guess is that the title is Dear Snail (a pasted paper cut-out snail smiles above this on the inside cover). She can’t find the author. The content is all handwritten; I can’t make out if it’s a letter, or poetry or both. There’s no question that this was a D.I.Y. project. And there’s no question that it must’ve been super tough to catalog. (editorial@citypaper.net)

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PHILADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // CIT YPAPER.NET

CURTAIN CALL

BY MARK COFTA

PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL SHOES

JOHN FLAK

FLASHPOINT AGAIN TACKLES social issues entertainingly and energetically with Philly native Quiara Alegria Hudes’ 2007 play, Lulu’s Golden Shoes. The Pulitzer Prize (Water by the Spoonful) and Tony Award (In the Heights) winner’s intimate drama features Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriquez’s captivating performance as a 17-year-old Ana, who is coping with body image, poverty, an absent father, budding sexuality and dreams that seem out of reach. Inspired by comic books, Ana’s alter ego is Barrio Grrrl, supported by sidekick The Amazing Voice (the always-charming Leah Walton, in a brilliant costume by Natalia de la Torre). Fantasy overwhelms reality, at times perplexingly, but it’s worth the extra effort required. Ana’s comic book alternate reality includes two funny yet menacing “Alchemists” (Chris Anthony, Davey Stratton White) who obsess about purity, and how whores destroy it — or could the whores’ hearts be the precious gold they seek? Thom Weaver’s scenic design blends the real and the make-believe: Apartments are created with white taped outlines on the black floor; windows hang in space; props and costumes descend from the ceiling. Furniture wheels on and off quickly, so that the action flows through Ana’s troubled psyche. Jennifer Kidwell plays the title character, a weary prostitute whose flashy shoes tempt Ana, and Anita Holland is Ana’s psychic mother, who creates magic baths of river water, white petals, and chamomile tea that she’s sure will bring luck — or at least enough money to keep the lights on. Director Brenna Geffers’ production balances the hero’s tale with the ostracized teen’s plight well, with a cleverness that doesn’t overwhelm the eerie grace of Ana’s quest. It feels poetic, even while scoring laughs with satire about awkward sex and onion chopping. Most refreshing is that it’s a story about a young woman who isn’t fulfilled by finding a man or escaping to college, but who grows in other ways. Through Aug. 2, $22-$25, Flashpoint Theatre Company at Caplan Studio, University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad St., 267-997-3312, flashpointtheatre.org. (m_cofta@citypaper.net)

CITYPAPER.NET // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // PHILADELPHIA CITY PAPER

INDIE

MOVIESHORTS

TANGERINE

/ A- / As light and ver sa tile as the iPhones on which it was shot, Sean Ba ker’s ne o real ist farce — not to be confused with Estonian Oscar n o m i n e e Ta n g e r i n e s , t h o u g h wouldn’t that be a hoot — follows transgender sex workers Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor) down some of Los Angeles’ less-filmed streets. Rip-offs and physical violence are a constant threat, but there’s no trace of miserabilism in Baker’s approach; the shots are sunny and spacious, the palette (from which the film takes its title) is saturated with color and life. Baker, a straight cis man (what used to be known as a biological male), found his performers on the street and crafted the film’s story based on their experiences, so he never gawps with a tourist’s eye. As in his previous films Starlet and Prince of Broadway, Baker meets his subjects face to face. As one of the first American movies to feature transgender actresses in the principal roles, Tangerine carries a substantial representational burden, but wears it lightly. Within the carefully delineated universe they inhabit, Sin-dee and Alexandra’s gender status barely rates mentioning; cops and johns alike know who works

CAMERA PHONE: Alexandra (Mya Taylor) and Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) in Tangerine. There’s much hype over it being the first film with transgender actresses as the leads and having been shot entirely on iPhones — but, mainly, it’s just a very good movie.

which streets, although a post-op trans woman working pre-op territory earns an exasperated rebuke from a customer who doesn’t find what he’s expecting. They’ve got problems, including Sin-Dee’s hunt for an unfaithful pimp/ boyfriend (James Ransone), who may have two-timed her with a cis woman while she was in jail, but the mere fact of their existence isn’t one of them. Tangerine’s iOS origins have gotten plenty of ink, but the movie doesn’t look lo-fi, and the rich soundtrack fills in whatever depth the visuals might be lacking. The cinematography, by Baker and Radium Cheung, is in widescreen, giving its characters’ peregrinations and the lives of the people they encounter on one busy Christmas Eve the epic sweep they deserve. —Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

PHILADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // CIT YPAPER.NET

REPERTORY FILM

BY DREW LAZOR

ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES

1900 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy, 215-299-1000, ansp.org. Mega-Bad Movie Night: Deep Blue Sea (1999, U.S./ Australia, 105 min.): Deepest, bluest — my head is like a shark’s fin! The best cyborg murder shark movie of 1999, accompanied by snacks, drinks and commentary from an expert panel. Thu., July 23, 7 p.m., $25.

AWESOME FEST AT LIBERTY LANDS

Film events and special screenings.

926 N. American St., theawesomefest.com. Body (2015, U.S., 75 min.): Three friends break into a creepy, seemingly deserted mansion. Fri., July 24, 9 p.m., free.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE

3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org. Agnès Varda in California: Set of three West Coast-based shorts shot by Varda in the ‘60s — Uncle Yanco (1967), Black Panthers (1968) and Lions Love (...And Lies) (1969). Thu., July 23, 7 p.m., $9. Agnès Varda in California: Two more shot in 1981 — Murs Murs and Documenteur. Fri., July 24, 7 p.m., $9. A Cat in Paris (2011, France, 70 min.): Oscar-nominated animated feature about a slick little kitty with a double life. Sat., July 25, 2 p.m., $5. Best of Ottawa International Animation Festival: This 70-minute touring program highlights hits from the 2014 fest. Sat., July 25, 7 p.m., $9.

LA PEG

140 N. Columbus Blvd., 215-375-7744, lapegbrasserie. com. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999, U.S., 116 min.): Forest Whitaker as a bushido-following hit man. Wed., July 29, 8:30 p.m., free.

PFS MOVIES ON THE BLOCK

Belmont Charter School, 4030 Brown St., filmadelphia.org/ mob. Bite Size (2014, U.S., 87 min.): This documentary follows four American kids as they work toward healthier lifestyles through diet and exercise. Preceded by cooking demos, Zumba classes and a basketball tournament. Wed., July 29, 8 p.m., free.

PFS THEATER AT THE ROXY

2023 Sansom St., 267-639-9508, filmadelphia.org/roxy. May Allah Bless France! (2014, France, 95 min.): French rapper and poet Abd Al Malik adapts his autobiography for this personal coming-of-age story. Thu., July 23, 7:30 p.m., $10. Inside (2007, France, 82 min.): A pregnant momto-be defends her home from a sadistic intruder. Fri.-Sat., July 24-25, midnight, $10. Hocus Pocus Alfie Atkins (2013, Norway, 75 min.): Kid-friendly movie about a sweet 7-year-old who teams up with his imaginary friend and a magician to help him get a dog. Sat.-Sun., July 25-26, 11 a.m., $10. Samba (2014, France, 118 min.): A hardworking Senegalese immigrant to France deals with danger and discrimination. Tue., July 28, 7:30 p.m., $12. The Craft (1996, U.S., 101 min.): Light as a feather, stiff as a board. Wed., July 29, 7:30 p.m., $10 ($2 BYO fee).

RITZ AT THE BOURSE

400 Ranstead St., 215-440-1181, landmarktheatres.com. Jaws (1975, U.S., 124 min.): “Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.” Fri., July 24, midnight, $10.

ELECTRONIC POP

EVENTS

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: JULY 23 - JULY 29 :

GET OU T T HERE

MEMORY TAPES/SCHOOL DANCE

We haven’t heard much from dreamy Jersey synth-pop loner Dayve Hawk since 2012’s fluidly expansive Grace/Confusion, but he sidled back into the active column this spring with a single, “Fallout”/“House on Fire” (Carpark), suggesting two intriguingly disparate paths forward: the former a sharp, post-punky anxiety-blast; the latter a gentle, softly glowing flashback to the patient guitar lines and sub-tropical vibes of his celestial early work. Fellow former Philly duo School Dance (now based in Denver) bring their similarly atmospheric, slightly spooky indie-pop along for the ride. —K. Ross Hoffman

7.23

POWERDOVE

$7-$10 // Thu., July 23, 7:30 p.m., with Earth Tongues and Julius Masri/ Ashley Deekus Tini, House Gallery 1816, 1816 Frankford Ave., museumfire.com/events. IMPROVISATION

Annie Lewandowski’s hometown — Bemidji, Minn. — was the setting for the Fargo TV adaptation, and they prove to be apt neighbors. With her sometimes solo, sometimes not project Powerdove, Lewandowski, like the Coens-inspired series, combines folksy and strange, icily pretty and starkly mysterious, her high, piping voice emerging from beneath a miner-style headlamp. The band this time will be a trio with bassist Devin Hoff and drummer Corey Fogel. —Shaun Brady

STELLA AND LOU

$27-$49 // Through Aug. 23, People’s Light & Theatre Company, 39 Conestoga Rd., Malvern, Pa., 610-644-3500, peopleslight.org. THEATER Local play-

wright Bruce Graham’s skills continue to sharpen; his 2013 play, receiving a splendid area premiere, feels utterly realistic yet also expertly crafted. As the title suggests, this 75-minute one-act brings together South Philly bar owner Lou (Tom Teti) and nurse Stella (Marcia Saunders) on a set by James F. Pyne that lacks only a stale beer stench, with Scott Greer’s boisterous drunk Donnie providing perspective and laughs. Graham’s effortless comedy plays perfectly in director Pete Pryor’s production, with riffs about weddings, texting, kids’ names and tattoos, but with an undercurrent of despair and desperation between the two 60-somethings that packs a powerful dramatic punch. Suddenly, the play concerns aging, loneliness and last chances. Call this The Season of Graham: After Stella and Lou at People’s Light, Graham has new plays at Theatre Exile (Rizzo), the Arden (Funnyman), and Trenton’s Passage Theatre (White Guy on the Bus). —Mark Cofta

EXTRA CREDIT

Free // Thu., July 23, 10 p.m., Dolphin Tavern, 1539 S. Broad St., 215-2787950, dolphinphilly.com. HOUSE This one’s a must for house heads and club kids. Jansen & Eagle will be spinning hip-shaking, bassthumping tracks to set the dance floor of the Dolphin on fire. With special guest Matpat, partygoers can look forward to jamming to a bit of Detroit techno and a wide variety of house the whole night. —Lissa Alicia

f riday

7.24 GO APE! $10 per night // Fri.Sat., July 24-25, 9p.m., Mahoning Drive-In, 635 Seneca Rd., Lehighton, exhumedf ilms.com, mahoningdit.com MOVIES On a planet where apes evolved from men, hyperintelligent orangs won’t waste their time in a multi-

plex. So get your stinkin’ paws up to Lehighton’s Mahoning Drive-In this weekend for the rare opportunity to see all five original Planets of the Apes — and the even rarer opportunity to catch Revenge From Planet Ape (aka Amando de Ossorio’s Tombs of the Blind Dead shamelessly retitled to cash in on ape-mania). —Shaun Brady

ASYLUM

$20-$25 // Fri.-Sun., July 24-26, Stagecrafters Theater, 8130 Germantown Ave., asylumtheplay.com. THEATER Kash Goins

directs the Philadelphia premiere of New Jersey novelist and playwright Cheril N. Clarke’s acclaimed drama, based on the true story of a young lesbian who flees Uganda to escape death from her own family. American debates about gays are relatively civil; in Uganda, homosexuality is outlawed, and many people are hateful and violent against gays. Asylum won the audience award and was runnerup for best play at the 2012 Downtown Urban Theater Festival in New York City. —Mark Cofta

HAIL DAYVE: $12 // Fri., July 24, 8 p.m., with Computer Magic, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., 877-435-9849, bootandsaddlephilly.com.

TANLINES/ MAS YSA

$10 // Fri., July 24, 9 p.m., Making Time with Making Time DJs, Voyeur, 1221 St. James St., voyeurnightclub.com DANCE-POP/ELECTRONIC Tanlines

specialize in summery, eminently pleasant indie dance-pop that’s somehow distinctive despite seeming almost

NOAH KALINA

thursday

deliberately generic. More jangly/less jungley second album Highlights (True Panther), for all its watered-down New Order basslines and re-fried new wave drumbeats, is naggingly difficult to deny. Befuddlingly monikered Montrealer Mas

Ysa (pictured), meanwhile, takes a decidedly different approach on his strange, effortful debut LP Seraph (Downtown), hammering home the melodramatics and dynamic shifts, and frequently raising his unpretty, Oberstian voice from a quavering whisper to a strangulated yowl. —K. Ross Hoffman

SKYLAR SPENCE $12 // Fri., July 24, 9 p.m., with Moon Bounce and Dream Safari, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 Frankford Ave., 215739-9684, johnnybrendas.com. DANCE-POP/ELECTRONIC Ryan DeRob-

ertis first made a name for himself as St. Pepsi, dispensing shiny sample-based “future funk” that, as these things go, generally looked more to the sounds of the past: French touch filter-disco, chillwave,

PHIL ADELPHIA CI T Y PAPER // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // C I T Y PA P E R . N ET

EVENTS the primordial 1980s. Lest the multinational soft-drink behemoth not take kindly to being canonized, he’s now rebranded himself, while also adding more vocals to the formula, though the product — as on the slick, blindingly neonhued forthcoming Prom King (Carpark) — is as fizzy, saccharine and gratifying as ever. —K. Ross Hoffman

saturday

7.25

JOE HILL ROADSHOW

$10-$30 // Sat., July 25, 7:30 p.m., University Lutheran Church, 3637 Chestnut St., crossroadsconcerts.org. FOLK This November will mark the centenary of the execution of Joe Hill by firing squad on an almost certainly trumped-up and politically motivated murder charge. Hill, the Swedish-born poet laureate of the Industrial Workers of the World, left behind a legacy of pro-union folk songs that have inspired protest singers for the last century. Crossroads Music will host this traveling celebration of Hill’s music featuring Magpie, Charlie King and George Mann. —Shaun Brady

sunday

7.26 FLOETRY

$47.50 // Sun., July 26, 8 p.m., with Janine and the Mixtape, TLA, 334 South St., 215-9221011, lnphilly.com. NEO SOUL Floetry’s ascent to the spotlight began in the early 2000s, here in Philly, when British-born spoken-word songbirds Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart were regulars at the Black Lily. Over a decade later, the two have solidified a top slot in the neo soul hall of fame with singles like “Say Yes” and “Getting

Late.” Their July 17 show quickly sold out; thankfully the ladies agreed to an encore performance a week later. —Lissa Alicia

wednesday

7.29

THE WINTER’S TALE

Free // July 29-Aug. 2, Shakespeare in Clark Park, Chester Avenue and 43rd Street (rain location: Mandell Theater, Drexel University, 33rd and Chestnut streets), shakespeareinclarkpark.org. THEATER Shakespeare in Clark Park celebrates its 10th summer of free Shakespeare in the bowl with an ambitious production of one of Shakespeare’s later plays. Director Kittson O’Neill stages this tragicomic romance, in which two kingdoms and two families are torn apart by jealousy, with a children’s chorus that involves local community members and will help the audience understand the play’s magical world. Professional actors Kevin Bergen, Bi Jean Ngo, Corinna Burns and Sam Sherbourne lead the cast. SCP is highly regarded for family-friendly, accessible and swift Shakespeare, performed in about 90 minutes with no intermission. —Mark Cofta

THE APPLESEED CAST $13-$15 // Wed., July 29, 9 p.m., with ADJY, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 Frankford Ave, 215739-9684, johnnybrendas.com. ROCK/POP Evolved in the wake of emo acts like Sunny Day Real Estate, The Appleseed Cast has been playing their guitar-driven indie rock since ’97. This tour marks the 15th anniversary of their debut album Mare Vitalis. Their latest new music — 2013’s Illumination Ritual — remains true to their sound: intricate drumming, interlocking guitars and moody vocals. —Cynthia Schemmer

BONE THUGS-NHARMONY $27.50 // Wed., July 29, 8 p.m., TLA 334 South St., 215-922-1011, lnphilly.com. HIP-HOP Before Drake made it cool for rappers to sing, Bone Thugs-NHarmony were churning out euphonies without losing a single ounce of street cred. The Grammy-winning group will be performing tracks off their 1995 album E. 1999 ETER-

NAL. Perhaps the most unique hip-hop group of the ’90s, Bone Thugs carved out a melodic lyrical style that’s impossible to duplicate. —Lissa Alicia

JASON ISBELL AND THE 400 UNIT $30-$32 // Wed., July 29, 7 p.m., with Blake Mills, Electric Factory, 421 N. Seventh St., 215-6271332, electricfactory.info. ROCK/POP Jason

DAVID MCCLISTER

Isbell’s justly acclaimed 2013 album Southeastern marked the former Drive-By Trucker’s emergence into sobriety. The songs on his follow-up, Something More Than Free, are less raw in their emotions but share the same

spirit of working-class joy and resignation. Isbell pens confessionals from a variety of hard-luck perspectives, like a bartender with a lifetime of overheard sob stories and a bottomless supply of empathy. —Shaun Brady

citypaper.net/events

FOOD&DRINK

C I T Y PA P E R . N ET // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CI T Y PAPER

REVIEWS // OPENIN GS // LIST IN GS // RECIPES

HOLD THE CHEESE: A burger of grass-fed beef seasoned only with salt and pepper is served on a snowflake roll from Baker Street. HILLARY PETROZZIELLO

FOURTH AND CROSS // 1527 S. Fourth St., 215-551-5200, fourthandcross.com. Mon. and Wed.-Sat., 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m; Sun., 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

REVIEW

BY ADAM ERACE

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Fourth and Cross brings locally sourced fare and neighborhood vibes to Pennsport. ANDREW MICHAELS, wearing baggy cargo shorts and a three-day beard, stands in the raised dining room of his neighborhood diner and makes an announcement about water ice: “You see that guy out there?” asks Michaels, as he points outside. Customers at the L-shaped counter swivel in their chromelegged, red-vinyl stools. Couples pause mid-muffin at the reclaimed-wood tables. Even a baby temporarily stops gurgling. Everyone follows Michaels’ finger to the gentleman outside in the straw porkpie hat. He stands by a small cart parked on the corner of Fourth and Cross, the intersection from which Michaels’ all-day eatery takes it name. “That guy makes all-natural organic water ice right here in Pennsport,” Michaels booms. “Definitely check him out when you leave.” The diners at Fourth and Cross — hip young families, Mummers, real-estate prospectors, suburban in-laws, singles soaking up last night’s bender with local-grain pancakes — get excited, oohing and ahhing like an organism with a collective consciousness. I join right in, and after brunch I carry home a collection of water-ice cups. Fourth and Cross offers desserts — if the pastries by house baker Elizabeth Halpenny are any indication, they must be amazing — yet here was Michaels

not only letting what was essentially a competitor set up shop outside his door, but actively encouraging his customers to patronize him. “The idea of being a mensch is a very important thing for me,” Michaels tells me a week after his water-ice announcement, “to have a positive impact on my community.” The 22-year veteran of the Philly restaurant scene (Sabrina’s, Honey’s, Rouge) has done that just by opening Fourth and Cross. For years, neighbors along the street were subject to a dilapidated corner store there. Michaels, who lives nearby, got into a conversation with the owners and struck a deal to take it over. Over 11 months, he gutted the building and installed an open kitchen, hardwood floors, a lunch counter and big windows that flood the space with natural light. Local art brightens white walls.Wishbone chairs and long baby-blue church pews welcome butts. Potted cacti and tin watering cans decorate the shelves. “Between me and Grindcore [coffeehouse], it’s become the center of this neighborhood.Peoplehavemeetingshere; people celebrate birthdays here. When we’re not open, I hear about it. I close an hour early and I get emails, ‘Hey, where were you yesterday?’ It’s a very nice feeling.” Fourth and Cross is open six days a week, cash-only and inexpensive — particularly for the way Michaels (also head chef ) upgrades straightforward diner fare with all manner of local and sustainable ingredients. ReAnimator supplies the coffee beans; Castle Valley Mills, the grains. Two Gander Farm, a fixture at the Dickinson Square Farmers Market around the corner, brings raw honey and produce. A black-ops backyard gardener drops off a dozen different lettuces he grows in a South Philly container farm. Michaels’ philosophy: “Get really good products and get the hell out of the way.” For the most part, he does. Overlapping on a plate, my pancakes are a Venn diagram of whole-wheat wholesomeness — nutty, earthy and drawing all the sweetness they require from a scattering of chopped Jersey peaches, Two Gander’s honey and a scoop of sheep’s milk ricotta. The soft whole-wheat biscuit shares the flapjacks’ sensibility, its crown of sticky orange marmalade balancing the savory bread beneath. Peaches appear again

in a fresh fruit cup served with thick Lancaster cream, and again in a tender muffin gift-wrapped in parchment and topped with apricot-thyme glaze. At lunch, juicy heirloom tomatoes and flavorful fancy lettuces elevate both the thoroughly charred chicken thigh sandwich and a riff on Lyonnaise salad furnished with 1732 Meats bacon and a sunny orange vinaigrette. But it’s the burger that floors me. Michaels forms a loose patty from Breakaway Farm’s grass-fed beef seasoned only with salt and pepper; cooks it perfectly, and drops it on a joyful snowflake roll from Baker Street. There’s no cheese, just an herb mayo that seeps down into the beef and up into the bread. I layer on some house pickles — sweet bread-’n’-butter cukes, crunchy carrots cut like waffle chips — and commence destruction. It’s amazing. And I don’t even like mayo on a burger. I think a burger without cheese is sacrilege. Michaels isn’t a mensch; he’s a magician. He’s also defensive about his dining spot. The coffee at brunch was barely warm. Shells in a crab omelet special were like fingernail clippings. When I mention this during our phone interview, Michaels dishesupwe’re-only-a-month-oldexcuses followed by a side of cavalier indifference. I neglect to mention our server forgot cream for the coffee, then forgot to add cheese to the omelet. Annoying, but easy to overlook when a server is as warm and friendly as this one was. The sense that Fourth and Cross is still working out the kinks is most noticeable when the kitchen switches over to lunch from breakfast (about 12:30); the resulting limbo would make you think they’re trying to restore power to Jurassic Park. Despite all that, I can’t help falling for this place. Fourth and Cross embodies adjectives like sunny, cheerful, cozy and charming, and the neighborhood camaraderie percolating within is palpable.“As I get older … I have a very small family, and they’re spread all around the country,” Michaels says, sounding kind of melancholy. “I want more people around me.” Now, as has been the case through history, feeding them is the best way to make that happen. (aerace.citypaper@gmail.com, @adamerace)

citypaper.net/mealticket

OF ES! A TON PRIZ T A E GR W AT ET IT NO TAKE APER.N

CITYP

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BY CAROLINE RUSSOCK

FEEDING FRENZY

Y OUR TAKECK SURVE I QU

NOW SEATING: THREE NEW RESTAURANTS WORTH A TRY WHETSTONE TAVERN // The latest from the Brauhaus Schmitz crew is bringing vintage and modern American fare to the corner of Fifth and Bainbridge. With menu inspiration from chef Jeremy Nolan’s childhood in Reading, there are classics like crab cakes, French onion soup and roast beef sandwiches as well as reimagined plates like rabbit tetrazzini, a South Philly-inspired pork chop and kung pao chicken wings. There’s a serious cheese and charcuterie menu with selections from the States as well as Europe, and a far-reaching beer and cocktail list to keep everyone happy. The wine list, crafted by sommelier Marnie Old, ranges from $6 house wines to an orange muscat, amontillado sherry and a Vinho Verde rosé. Sun.-Thu., 5-10:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. 700 S. Fifth St., 267-909-8814, whetstonetavern.com. DANDAN // Bringing a healthy dose of heat to Rittenhouse, DanDan is serving a menu of Sichuan and Taiwanese specialties. Along with Sichuan go-tos like twice-cooked pork, cumin lamb and dry pepper chicken, DanDan’s menu is full of lesser-known Taiwanese plates, like three cup chicken, turkey rice and a take on a burger that’s filled with pork belly, fried pork, pickled mustard greens and peanut powder. If you’d like to sample more of the menu, DanDan offers a selection of tasting plates to try smaller versions of homestyle fish, green peppercorn hot sauce beef and soybean crisp soft-shell shrimp. Be sure to bring along a six pack of Tsingtao to this BYO. Mon.-Thu., 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.; Sun., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m. 126 S. 16th St., 215-800-1165, dandanrestaurant.com. SCRATCH BISCUITS // Biscuits aren’t just for breakfast at Mitch Prensky’s Midtown Village bakery and sandwich shop. Sure you can start your morning with a good-looking menu of breakfast sandwiches like the Philly Farmhand with housemade scrapple, baked eggs, creamy sage gravy and hot sauce, or a Plain Jane with salted molasses butter. But come lunchtime, the menu expands with a selection of Southerninspired offerings. With pimento cheese, Benton’s country ham and housemade pickles, the Kentucky Klassic is a winner as is the vegetarian friendly Willie Nelson with a black bean chili cake, avocado, Creole rémoulade and garlic-sautéed kale. Gluten-free biscuits are available all day as well. Mon.-Thu., 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 7:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.-1 a.m. 1306 Chestnut St., 267-930-3727, eatscratchbiscuits.com. (editorial@citypaper.net)

C I T Y PA P E R . N ET // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CI T Y PAPER

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PHILADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // CIT YPAPER.NET

BY MATT JONES

ACROSS

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19 20 21 22 24 27 29 30

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44 45 46 47 51 55 56 58

Low points Close pals “Just a ___!” Animal spotted in zoos Actress Remini ___ on the side of caution “I’ll play some background music. How about ‘___’, that #1 hit from 2012 ...” First name in soccer Obamacare acronym “I doubt it” Surname in cartoon scent trails Summon, as a butler, Downton Abbey-style Dish alternative Vanessa of Saturday Night Live “Better yet, let’s have that ___ ringtone character perform the theme song ...” Black, white or (Earl) Grey, e.g. He warned against the all-syrup Squishee Ear or mouth ending “While you’re solving, think of the soothing sounds of a ___ in your ear ...” Israeli weapon College sr.’s exam Eighth mo. “I’ll provide the clues in a visually pleasing ___ font ...” Bates and Thicke, for two German sausages, informally Partner of dental and vision What Frank mistook his intervention for in It’s

Always Sunny 60 Cherokee or Tahoe, e.g. 61 “___-la-la!” (Captain Underpants call) 62 Poetic planet 63 “If these clues get you nowhere, you can ___ to stimulate the mind!” 68 Crocodile feature 69 “Hey, Jorge!” 70 Basic shelter 71 Approval from a futbol fan 72 Restaurant reviewer’s website 73 Water under the bridge, maybe

DOWN

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 18 23 25 26 27 28

Like some strict diets Tree that yields gum arabic Dana of Desperate Housewives Fluish ___-com Court note-taker Uninteresting 180-degree turn Small amount Civil War historian Foote Leatherneck’s motto, briefly One of five lakes “That really stuck in my ___” Double Dare host Summers ___ on the Shelf (Christmas figure) “The Girl From Ipanema saxophonist” Open, in Cologne Pitch-raising guitar device College town northeast

of Los Angeles 31 College student’s stereotypical meal 32 At lunch, perhaps 33 Day-___ paint 35 Feeling of apprehension 38 Florida footballer, for short 39 ___ Aduba (OITNB actress) 40 Victoria Falls forms part of its border 41 Fat, as in Fat Tuesday 42 Athlete’s leg muscle 43 Hybrid citrus from Jamaica 48 They eagerly await your return 49 Like songs that get stuck in your head 50 Blue stuff 52 Curtain-parting time 53 Airport serving Tokyo 54 Alpine race 57 Atrocities 58 Color of a corrida cape 59 Like folk traditions 60 Cash-free transaction 64 Green Acres theme song prop 65 Bent pipe shape 66 Human cannonball’s destination 67 So ___

CIT YPAPER.NET // JULY 23 - JULY 29, 2015 // PHILADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER