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contents Cover story, see p. 10
Naked City ...................................................................................5 A&E ...............................................................................................14 Movies.........................................................................................18 Events..........................................................................................20 Food ..............................................................................................25 COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK STEHLE DESIGN BY BRENNA ADAMS
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A MIDSUMMER’S EVE CELEBRATING LIFE, LOVE, AND TU B’AV
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14 7 - 10PM Enter to Win Tickets at Citypaper.net/win
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thebellcurve CP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter
[ +5 ]
Police Lt. Jonathan Josey, once caught on video allegedly punching a woman in the face, saves three people from a burning building in South Philadelphia. And then allegedly punches each of them in the face.
[ +1 ]
Researchers say a ship found at the site of the World Trade Center was likely built in 1773 in Philadelphia. “I should have known about this,” says Nicolas Cage from 2004’s National Treasure. “No, I should have known about it,” says Nicolas Cage from 2009’s Knowing. “Yeah, you both dropped the ball,” says Nicolas Cage from 2006’s World Trade Center.
[ +1 ]
Bon Jovi will win this year’s Marian Anderson Award in recognition of his charitable works. “Whoa whoa,” says the singer, obviously choked up. “Whoa whoa, whoa whoa.”
[ 0]
The state Supreme Court rules that people selling homes in Pennsylvania don’t have to disclose whether a murder, suicide or other traumatizing event has taken place there. “It would ruin the surprise,” says the ghost of the dude who was murdered in your bedroom 100 years ago tonight.
STOP AND GO: Police officers talk to a man near a beer store at 60th and Haverford streets last Friday. In this West Philly police district, the number of citations for minor offenses, such as loitering and drinking in public, nearly tripled between 2009 and 2013. HILLARY PETROZZIELLO
[ 0]
+
A new study says Sixers fans are among the most likely to abandon their team in the face of poor performance or a rise in ticket prices. “So let’s see what happens if we lower the prices and start winning games,” says whoever owns whatever team we’re talking about. The basketball one.
[ 1]
The owners of South Street rock club Legendary Dobbs say that the place is haunted by a ghost who moves things. “My bad,” says the ghost of Josiah Peale Dobbs. “I’m just digging through the old VHS tapes from the Pontiac Grille years. Modest was so math-rocky back then.”
[ +3 ]
Archbishop Charles Chaput announces that Pope Francis will visit Philly next year. Just a head’s up, Your Holiness: We have a pretty serious ghost infestation.
This week’s total: +11 | Last week’s total: -9
[ police ]
PHILADELPHIA’S NEW STOP-AND-FRISK? A sharp rise in police citations for minor offenses raises questions about aggressive quality-of-life enforcement. By Daniel Denvir and Ryan Briggs eighborhood regulars hanging out near 52nd and Market streets did not hesitate to complain as police officers on patrol walked the blocks, handing out fines for drinking in public and selling “loosies,” or single cigarettes. “I don’t think it’s really hurting anybody,” says Curtis, 57, standing in the heart of black West Philadelphia’s bustling retail corridor. “A lot of people are out of work, so they’re just trying to make ends meet. It’s not like they’re trying to sell any hard drugs.” Curtis says he remembers a time years ago when people “used to sit outside and drink … and there wouldn’t be no problem.” Things have changed: A City Paper review of Philadelphia Police data shows the number of so-called “summary citations” for minor offenses like loitering, drinking in public and selling loosies grew from 13,323 in 2009 to 23,458 last year — an increase of 76 percent. Much can be attributed to SEPTA Police, who have boosted the number of citations issued from one in 2011 to 8,725 last year.
N
The number of citations issued by Philadelphia Police rose more modestly, from 13,128 in 2009 to 14,662 in 2013. But a look at individual districts paints a more complicated picture. Citations plummeted in the Far Northeast's 8th District, for example, dropping from 300 in 2009 to 133 last year. But other districts showed major increases over the same period, including the 19th, which covers 52nd and Market and extends up into Overbrook and Wynnefield. There, citations rose from 850 a year to 2,443. In fact, just four of the city’s 22 police districts accounted for nearly half of all the citations issued last year: the 19th, the 6th (centered in eastern Center City and Old City), the 16th (including parts of University City, Powelton, Mantua, Mill Creek and much of Fairmount Park West) and the 24th (covering much of Kensington, Juniata Park and Port Richmond). The 19th District’s strict enforcement of quality-of-life crimes was apparent earlier this month as a reporter watched a group of officers on foot patrol cite a man on 52nd Street for having an open container of beer. They appeared to stop another man holding a beer, only to discover that he had not yet opened it. “A lot of people drink here,” Officer Richard Gallo told the man. “That’s why we ask. Nothing personal.” Gallo said his captain’s mantra is that “the small things lead to
Nearly half the citations come from four police districts.
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the big things” and that someone stopped for drinking or urinating in public might have drugs or an open warrant. But “no, I’ve never found guns,” he says. “They harassing us about beer,” complained the man cited for drinking, who declined to give his name. “Go get the motherfuckers that’s killing motherfuckers.” The police began to walk southward on 52nd — where they cited Curtis for selling single cigarettes, just minutes after he had finished speaking with a reporter. Walking away with a green citation, Curtis took a slow drag and deadpanned: “That’s a prime example.” A local businessman asked a reporter to step into his store, where he fumed that police were harassing Curtis and other smalltime offenders and ignoring drug dealers. “They know [who they are], but don’t want to mess with them,” said the merchant, who declined to give his name. “Instead they mess with people [who] try to make $5, $10 a day.” A man at the corner said that police appear to be targeting lowincome areas and have “been very disrespectful, very aggressive.” “It seems like they write citations, things of that order, because the city’s hurting for money,” he said, and they are doing so by enforcing “things that are overlooked” in other parts of the city. The man, who declined to give his name, said that the aggressive enforcement began about two years ago. ➤ POLICE CAPT. JOSEPH BOLOGNA took over the 19th District in June 2012 and the annual number of citations have more than doubled under his watch. “We’ve seen a direct relation to our enforcing quality of life, we’ve seen a decrease in other types of crimes, specifically violent crime,” Bologna says. “I’m a big proponent of quality of life and handling little, smaller issues so they don’t become larger issues.” Murders in the 19th, for example, fell from 23 to 18 between 2012 and 2013, a 22 percent decrease. But murders were down sharply citywide — by 25 percent. Shootings in the 19th decreased by 17 percent, slightly above the city’s 12 percent total. Bologna expounds the “broken windows” theory of policing, which posits that enforcing minor crimes creates a sense of order that discourages others from committing more serious offenses. “When a neighborhood looks less inviting to crime, when folks take care of their neighborhood, and when the police are enforcing what the community wants, and what they expect, and what they deserve as citizens, you see larger issues decrease,” says Bologna. Two social scientists coined the term “broken windows” in a 1982 article in The Atlantic, and it became widely known in the 1990s when New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Police Commissioner William J. Bratton employed it to crack down on graffiti and “squeegee men” approaching motorists. Violent crime dropped dramatically in the following years for reasons that remain hotly disputed. In Philadelphia, SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel III has embraced the theory, cracking down on turnstile-jumpers, and has been credited for cleaning up the area around the Somerset Market-Frankford Line station, long a center for the city’s booming heroin trade. “It’s our opinion that people who are not paying to get on the system are getting on the system to do other things that are not positive,” he told City Paper in April. The stops that accompany citations also present officers with an opportunity to frisk the person. “We stop individuals to investigate in reference to quality-of-life 6 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
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EPICENTER: Capt. Joseph Bologna, who heads the 19th District, believes in a strategy of “handling little, smaller issues so they don’t become larger issues.” HILLARY PETROZZIELLO
arrests,” Bologna says, “and it turned out to be something different — like they have drugs on them, they have guns on them, they’re wanted. It’s just the lawlessness, they think they can get away with it.” As such, the crackdown on quality-of-life offenses could serve as a pretext to legitimate stop-and-frisks that might otherwise fail to pass legal muster under a 2011 consent decree with civil rights lawyers monitored by a federal court. The attorneys say that police continue to stop too many without reasonable suspicion — resulting in a large number of the city’s marijuana-possession arrests. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has said that there has been no citywide directive to boost citations, telling City Paper in April that select captains may have taken it upon themselves to react to “community concerns.” Lt. Kevin Long, an administrator in Ramsey’s office, pointed to a rule change implemented in 2009 in which police were no longer required to arrest those being cited. Now, police can simply issue a citation that requires an offender to appear in Municipal Court, and possibly pay a fine. This has freed both police and offenders from time-consuming arrests, but has also made it easier for an individual captain to orchestrate a crackdown. On 52nd Street, police stopped and frisked Saba Clayten, 24, apparently for riding his bike on the sidewalk. “I don’t think it’s probable cause to stop someone,” said Clayten. “It’s a little like harassment.” Bologna emphasizes that his officers have discretion, but that “it’s the law. … The sidewalk is for walking. We have bike lanes. City of Philadelphia is very into going green.” Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, whose West Philadelphia district encompasses 52nd and Market, said that she had not heard about the enforcement campaign, but said, “Police have a job to do.” She said, however, that police should warn residents before cracking down. Councilman Curtis Jones Jr., who represents much of the 19th Police District, praised Bologna, whom he said was one of the first captains to show a serious commitment to the neighborhoods. “It’s a pendulum and it’s a hard one to maintain a balance on,” says Jones. But it is “important to let people know that selling loosies and drinking forties in front of these stores is not an acceptable form of socialization in the 4th Councilmanic District.” Civil rights advocates and many criminologists, however, agree
with the critical appraisal of broken-windows offered by the alleged scofflaw cyclist, loosie-vendor and sidewalk-imbiber. “If the point is to prevent future violence, shouldn’t we be concentrating on people with past violence rather than a guy riding his bike down the sidewalk?” asks criminologist John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. In New York, NYPD Commissioner Bratton is once again at the helm and reemphasizing the importance of clamping down on small-time offenses. But Roman says that cities like Washington, D.C., also experienced major crime downturns without cracking down on minor offenses. In D.C., once known as the nation’s “murder capital,” the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) emphasized building community relationships to tackle serious crimes, says Roman. That approach “put the police on the side of the resident, not in opposition to the resident. “Residents will call MPD and say I know who did that shooting and I’m going to tell you,” says Roman. “And I’m willing to bet that in the 19th District, where they’re [stopping people] for drinking a beer outside, they’re not getting those calls.” Roman also says that there are a number of reasons that crime dropped so precipitously in New York, including the hiring of thousands of police officers, tough gun laws, new technology and rapid gentrification. Today, Bratton continues to defend the broken-windows policy in the face of widespread criticism following the recent death of Eric Garner, 43. In a chilling video, police appeared to place Garner in a choke hold while attempting to arrest him for selling cigarettes on a Staten Island street. New York-based Police Reform Organizing Project director Robert Gangi has called NYPD’s enforcement “the new stop-and-frisk.” Overbrook community activist Gregory Allen, however, says that Bologna’s approach differs from the NYPD’s because it's not as “heavy-handed,” and he credits the captain for helping to clean up the community. “He and I agree firmly about broken windows,” he says. “I even went to The Atlantic and pulled him up the original article.” ➤ PHILADELPHIA MUNICIPAL COURT >>> continued on page 8
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UNHAPPY CITE: The ACLU says the crackdown feeds poor people into the criminal justice system, and backfires. DANIEL DENVIR
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processes summary citations issued by the police and, last week, room 404 was so packed with small-time offenders that a line had formed in the hallway outside. One young man from Kensington lamented that it was the second time he and a friend had to go to court for sitting on the steps of an abandoned house. Inside, a judge tried to persuade each offender not to take their case to trial, offering a $200 fine and a six-hour class in exchange for a clean criminal record. Most take the class: The judge warns that pleading “not guilty” carries the risk of a higher fine and untold court costs. Those who receive summary offenses that do not carry a threat of imprisonment have no right to a lawyer. Many are back in court because they missed their class. Everyone is offered a second chance — a mother, in court with her young children, pleaded for more flexible dates so she wouldn’t miss the class again. The judge agreed to work with her, but added that the classes fill up quickly. American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania lawyer Mary Catherine Roper says that cracking down on quality-of-life offenses wantonly feeds poor people into the criminal justice system — and backfires. “These are real criminal records that cause people real problems in trying to get employment, trying to get loans, trying to get education,” says Roper. “If you make it impossible for people to get honest jobs, they’re going to find some other way to feed themselves.” The police crackdown has also hit the city’s homeless hard, says Hillary Coulter, who works at a shelter operated by the nonprofit Bethesda Project. Homeless men, many battling alcoholism or mentally ill, are more likely to get citations and less likely to be able to deal with the consequences than the average person, she says.
She’s speaking from experience — Coulter says she is now in court “every week” on behalf of the men in her charge. Nearly a quarter of those in her shelter have been ticketed recently, usually for loitering or drinking on the street, she says. Some may not understand that they are being charged with a crime, or that they have to show up in court. Fewer are able to scrape together $200 to pay a fine. “I check all my guys’ docket sheets when they come in now,” Coulter says. “It’s a big hassle. We had to go to three different court dates to clear up one citation.” But many homeless men are repeatedly ticketed. One man at Coulter’s shelter, named John, has received 33 citations, only one of which dates from before the 2009 rule change. Since 2011, John has been cited 18 times for loitering, 13 times for “trespassing” (Coulter says usually on the steps of a building) and once for “obstructing a highway.” “[John] is a chronically homeless guy, he’s been homeless for 10 years. He has schizophrenia, so he can’t hold a conversation with you. He can’t track you,” Coulter says. “He can’t understand what you’re saying when he’s unmedicated.” Coulter says the citations also resulted in the suspension of John’s welfare benefits, Medicaid and food stamps, and froze his spot on the city’s lengthy wait list for permanent public housing. “They won’t deny you outright, but they will put your benefits on hold until the open cases are resolved,” says Coulter. It’s an uphill battle. Although Coulter and others were able to get some of John’s cases withdrawn, he was automatically found guilty and fined for many others in absentia. He currently owes more than $6,300, which >>> continued on adjacent page
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â&#x20AC;&#x153;These are real criminal records that cause people real problems.â&#x20AC;? alongside the failures to show up to court, led to a bench warrant being issued for his arrest. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One night around 1 a.m., the bench warrant unit came to [the shelter to] arrest him,â&#x20AC;? Coulter says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They searched the whole building even though the staff said he wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t there.â&#x20AC;? John already suffered from paranoid delusions, and he vanished after the appearance of the warrant unit at his shelter on May 8. Coulter is still trying to get his active cases resolved. Of Johnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 33 citations, 29 were issued by the same two police officers. â&#x17E;¤ NEIGHBORS SAY THAT MORLAI, an immigrant
from Sierra Leone, is a â&#x20AC;&#x153;nice guyâ&#x20AC;? who seems to suffer from mental illness and a drinking problem. On a recent afternoon, he was out on a corner near 19th District headquarters, at 62nd and Haverford streets, with a can of Four Loko wrapped in a black plastic bag. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like to go far away [from home],â&#x20AC;? said Morlai, asked why he liked to drink on this corner. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When I have money, I go to a bar. When I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m here. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t try to cause any problems, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m just chilling.â&#x20AC;? As Morlai described his experiences, he silently turned and tossed his can into a nearby alley as two police on foot patrol approached. After a halfhearted search for the can, the officers warned Morlai about drinking on the street and moved on. He was lucky, this time. Morlai, who stays at a local shelter, has been ticketed at least 34 times over the last year alone and has court dates
scheduled every week for the next month, all related to recent publicdrinking citations. But the last time he traveled to Center City Municipal Court to deal with his numerous citations, he says he was arrested and â&#x20AC;&#x153;locked up for seven days. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They said I had to learn my lesson,â&#x20AC;? he told a reporter, before heading across the street to buy more alcohol. Roman, the criminologist, says that a broken-windows policy persists amongst law enforcement not because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effective, but because â&#x20AC;&#x153;for every complicated problem, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a solution thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s simple, intuitive and wrong. And broken windows is simple, intuitive and wrong.â&#x20AC;? Bologna says that lawbreakers might not like the program, but it works. He likes to point to behavior at Disney World as an example. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People, no matter who they are, they know to use the trash cans. You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see people throwing their cigarettes on the ground. â&#x20AC;Ś You never really hear about too many problems at Disney World. Maybe people are too friendly. Maybe theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re on happy pills.â&#x20AC;? (daniel.denvir@citypaper.net) (ryan.briggs@citypaper.net)
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â&#x153;&#x161; CITY PAPER â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DENVIR WINS PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD A series of three articles by senior staff writer Daniel Denvir has won the 2014 Public Service Award from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN). The stories focused on the Pennsylvania Innocence Projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effort to win a new trial for Lance Felder and Eugene Gilyard, who were convicted of murder and were serving life sentences. The pair claimed they did not commit the 1995 murder of North Philadelphia shop owner Thomas Keal, and their conviction was based on questionable eyewitness testimony. Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi ultimately ordered a new trial and freed the men on bail. District Attorney Seth Williams, who had long fought to uphold their conviction, announced in June that he was dropping charges against the men. Denvirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reporting helped bring forth a critical witness who testified about his brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s alleged involvement in the killing. The stories were published in 2013, on May 16, July 25 and Oct. 10. The judges wrote that the articles â&#x20AC;&#x153;were well-researched and writtenâ&#x20AC;? and praised the outcome. This yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s AAN contest drew entries from 77 weekly alternative newspapers from across the nation. City Paper won first place in the Public Service Award category for papers with over 50,000 circulation. â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Lillian Swanson
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BLACKSTAR FILM FESTIVAL
reviews
TROOP 491: THE ADVENTURES OF THE MUDDY LIONS BDirector/writer Praheme drew from his time as a Richmond, Va., Boy Scout for Troop 491: The Adventures of the Muddy Lions, and it’s this experience of moral tug-ofwar filtered through innercity adolescence that is the film’s most genuine quality. Newly minted middle schooler Tristan (Kimani Coleman) is sweet, sensitive, bright and the clear outlier of his group of posturing, up-to-no-good friends. When his mother enrolls him in the Boy Scouts to steer him away from mischief, he begins questioning his own trajectory; the Scouts are perceived as soft and lame, but Tristan knows
Troop 491: The Adventures of the Muddy Lions
well enough that sticking around with his old buddies will eventually get him into trouble. Tristan’s inner conflict after witnessing a murder (snitching versus keeping quiet) fuels Troop 491 enough to shadow the overall stiffness and complete disregard for how urban tweens communicate with one another. Example: I think the word “swag” appeared in dialogue over 50 times. —Marc Snitzer Sat., Aug. 2, 1 p.m., free, Annenberg School for Communications, 3620 Walnut St.
HALF OF A YELLOW SUN B Rare is the adaptation that
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MAORI KARMAEL HOLMES AND BLACKSTAR FILM FESTIVAL ARE PUTTING
BRAIN TRUST: BlackStar’s organizers meet at International House. Back row, l-r: Adrienne Kenton, Marla Campbell Harris, Kamilah Clarke, Michelle Gilliard Houston, Patrice Worthy and Eugene Haynes. Front row, l-r: Denise Beek, Maori Karmael Holmes and Lauren Holland. p h ot o by m ark s tehle
spark of visual insurrection hit the web last month. In the video, a woman dances before a mural of menacing boxers, her similarly hard-hitting moves mixing one-twos and two-steps at a breakneck pace.The unsettling churn of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”pulses in the background.The woman’s expressions send you to an uncomfortable place where quiet discontent has been ripped open to reveal incendiary rage. What happens next doesn’t really matter as much as your quick move to action against archaic power structures that keep you — and, seemingly, this dancer — from moving forward. This isn’t Do the Right Thing’s opening sequence stuck on repeat in your DVD player, but instead the North Philly-shot trailer for this year’s BlackStar Film Festival, which takes inspiration from Spike Lee’s iconic intro. Local dancer and choreographer Melanie Cotton plays the Rosie Perez role, dancing as text echoing the festival’s theme (“MUSIC IS THE WEAPON”) and the names of venue/ financial partners (International House, Annenberg Center, Knight Foundation, among others) flash in the foreground. Tribute to a historic independent film aside, BlackStar has taken some serious steps toward fighting the power structures that characterize the contemporary American movie industry and provide limited opportunities for minorities. Entering its third year when it opens on Thursday, the festival is quickly building a national reputation for featuring the best in film from the African diaspora and beyond. By prioritizing this work, the
THE FOCUS ON BLACK CINEMA.
event is helping to foster a unique community for independent black filmmakers and artists who otherwise struggle to attain the means to create and showcase their works. The fest is also connecting big-name talent with rising stars — this year’s lineup features appearances from Michael K. Williams, Bilal and others whose work has garnered international acclaim. But the flashing of sponsor names over BlackStar’s trailer is rather telling, for no matter how innovative a festival might be, it still works within a system that ties it to funding. So, how does a film festival change and play the game at the same time? Revolutions are guided by people who evade the spotlight, working tirelessly behind the scenes to get something off the ground with the strength of their own vision. Maori Karmael Holmes, BlackStar’s founding artistic director, is one of these people. Her demeanor, calm and precise, belies the frantic work she and a committed group of colleagues have put into this festival — all for no pay. Sitting at OCF Fairmount a few weeks ago, she understates an impressive background that includes an M.F.A. from Temple’s film program, journalism work (including a few pieces written years ago for City Paper), managing The Roots’ Black Thought and nearly seven years in foundations. Her entry into film festival organization in Philadelphia started with 2007’s Black Lily Film & Music Festival, which Holmes produced alongside Mercedes Martinez and Tracey Moore of the R&B duo Jazzyfatnastees. Black Lily laid the groundwork for BlackStar, but the rubber hit the road in 2012, when Holmes partnered with current BlackStar board member Sara Zia Ebrahimi on the Asian Arts Initiative-hosted KinoWatt Film series. Around then, Holmes noticed an opportunity: Ebrahimi had taken a summer off, but some dates for events had already been booked. This coincided with a cultural change that she noticed most prominently in Brooklyn, where spaces that existed for transgressive
By Dotun Akintoye
+ Sameer Rao
BLACKSTAR FILM FESTIVAL
reviews
Half of a Yellow Sun
is approved, and even respected, by the original writer. So Nigerian literary rising star Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s professed happiness with this film adaptation of her acclaimed 2006 novel should count for a lot. But the directorial debut of London-based playwright and writer Biyi Bandele did not impress me similarly. The novel’s interrupted chronology is subverted for a linear plot that, given its faithfulness to Adichie’s plot twists, feels uneven and needlessly sensational. Still, the drama of two sisters’ voyages in life and love as disrupted by the atrocities of the late-’60s Biafran Wars
(buoyed along by dedicated performances from Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose and Chiwetel Ejiofor, among others) is a functional introduction to the rising power of new post-colonial voices in contemporary film. —Sameer Rao Sat., Aug. 2, 8:30 p.m., $10, International House, 3701 Chestnut St.
EVOLUTION OF A CRIMINAL B+ D a r i u s C l a r k M o n r o e, with the backing of his for mer N.Y.U. professor Spike Lee, hits rewind on himself with Evolution of a Criminal, deeply dissecting the single childhood decision that derailed his life.
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B L AC BL A CKK SSTAR TA R FILM FESTIVAL
reviews
Evolution of a Criminal
As a 16-year-old standout student growing up in Houston, Monroe, sick of his family’s financial struggles, conspired with two friends to rob a local bank, making off with $140,000. As the mastermind, Monroe recounts the motivations behind the deed and the permanent effects it had on relatives, friends and bystanders, who sit down to share their bluntest perspectives with the contrite convict, who is both interviewer and subject. Though Monroe expresses deep apologies, the doc is not just a story of reconciliation — it’s an eloquent and sobering reminder that crime is rarely as simple as the police
blotter states. Citizens who break the law don’t all look, talk, act or think a certain way. Monroe’s sensitive filmmaking, self-aware in the most inclusive manner, reminds us of this truth . —Drew Lazor Sun., Aug. 3., 12:45 p.m., $10, International House.
TIME IS ILLMATIC APropelled by interviews with Nas, his brother Jabari and his father Olu Dara, firsttime feature maker One9’s documentary uses int erviews with musical collaborators, performance footage and archival material to
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art were being reinvented. “There were all these things happening in Brooklyn, it felt like something African was happening every week in music and fashion,” says Holmes. “The way that we think about Africa is often essentialist and not at all modern, so a lot of this stuff [in Brooklyn] was looking at contemporary art from Africa.” She adds, “Film is my wheelhouse, and I was noticing just how many things hadn’t been showing in Philly. And that was kind of crazy.” The first festival occupied the void left by these unfilled bookings, materializing within only a few months, but it wasn’t easy. Here, Holmes could count on one of her best assets — the rare ability to coordinate intelligent and critical minds into a stronger collective. A cursory look at festival advisors reads like a brain trust of Philadelphia’s black cultural zeitgeist. Questlove and Black Thought serve as honorary co-chairs, while Martinez is board vice president. Working to help promote the festival through various media channels is Michael Dennis, the founder of ReelBlack Films, which has spotlighted black cinema and art in the city for almost a decade. Lesser known but pivotally important are members of the consulting advisory board: among them, West Philadelphia native Akiba Solomon, editorial director of Colorlines. com (an eminent voice in critical discourse around art and multiculturalism), and Tayyib Smith, the media entrepreneur best known as co-founder and publisher of two.one.five magazine. Although never directly involved with the festival, the late Richard Nichols was a role model. “Like most people he worked with, our relationship became very familial and went beyond just a professional one,” says Holmes of longtime Roots manager Nichols, whom she met through Black Lily. “He was a major influence on me as someone working in the music industry who maintained a high intellectual curiosity and a standard for artistic excellence that I still feel is like no other.” Although focused on film, Black-
Star has become an annual gathering of black intelligentsia and artists of all kinds. The inaugural festival featured Philadelphia native Marc Lamont Hill, a noted public intellectual, activist and journalist, and last year’s hosted Spike Lee. This year’s music-centric festival will feature Kahlil Joseph, an emerging filmmaker noted for his mesmerizing art-film-like music videos; Arthur Jafa, a filmmaker and cultural critic; Greg Tate, a writer, film producer and musician; and Terence Nance, a 2014 Guggenheim Fellow whose first feature film, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, premiered at Sundance in 2012 to considerable acclaim. “I just kind of heard the lore of it,” says Nance of BlackStar. “I heard Maori’s name a lot and she reached out to me about attending last year. I was blown away by the curatorial vision, and how valued filmmaking as art-making was. And I think that that stands in direct contrast to a lot of other film festivals.” This is an idea Holmes takes very seriously, and it is one of the reasons this festival has become a center of gravity for artists like Nance. “There are a lot of black film festivals. I think many of them are more Hollywood-oriented than we are, and so to them black film means black people are in it,” says Holmes, referring to this as “Hollywood films in brown face.” “I’m not knocking that, you need a diversity of representation. But we’re not that festival. We’re really trying to be independent in spirit and aesthetic.” This is plain to see in the festival schedule, which is populated with shorts, experimental works and documentaries. Another emphasis of Holmes’ curatorial vision is internationalism. Lauren Holland, BlackStar’s Philly-bred and D.C.-based associate director, describes the intent as focusing “on the African diaspora and on black people who are native to different parts of the world. We really want to expand the definition of what that means, the global experience of different types of black people.” BlackStar stands in opposition to a long-standing problem in filmmak-
ing. Every year the Bunche Center at U.C.L.A. releases what it calls its “Hollywood Diversity Report,” which details statistics demonstrating a clear marginalization of minorities in the film industry. The 2014 report concludes that while “films and television shows with casts that reflect the nation’s racial and ethnic diversity were more likely to post high box-office figures or ratings during the study period, minorities and women were nonetheless woefully underrepresented among the corps of directors, show creators, writers and lead actors.” In response to questions about the necessity of BlackStar, Tayyib Smith says,“Anyone who asks why this needs to exist is operating in a space of privileged ignorance. If you’re asking why does there need to be more complex images of people of color, that’s because you have a plethora of images in films that look like you … from buffoon to hero.” “What we see is who we become,” says Holland. “Media is what shapes our culture.” What BlackStar is trying to do is make space for “something beautiful, something thought-provoking, something independent and something truly diverse. There’s value in that, because once we see different people’s experiences, it expands our compassion and humanity. That’s the value of this festival.” The rigor of Holmes’ vision and the commitment to indie and international film that has solidified BlackStar’s reputation so quickly may also prove to be a problem in future funding. “A lot of our films are not going to do well [commercially],” Holmes admits. “They’re not meant to sell necessarily, and I think we struggle with that because people don’t know what the films are. So if I say Terence Nance and Arthur Jafa, the funders are like, who’s that?” Holmes, Holland and the small, yearround volunteer staff are all essentially working remotely. If BlackStar can be said to have an office, it is Maori Holmes’ living room. “It’s hard, because I know the funding is out there, I know we can
“IT’S BIGGER THAN JUST SHOWING A FEW FILMS.”
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identify it, I know we have an event that’s worthy of it,” says Holland, “But, you know, I gotta eat, so unfortunately I can’t commit to this full-time. It’s bigger than just showing a few films.” Sustaining the festival financially has become the principal difficulty. “What we really have to figure out is how to get more arts money,” says Holmes. “We met with Pew to see how to get into that kind of space. You know, people who are interested in unfundable things,” she laughs, “We’ve been trying to go the corporate sponsorship route [and have succeeded with PECO, which is sponsoring The Youth Program and Shorts: Coming of Age], but we don’t have enough gloss for that. And I’m not interested in pursuing that only for the money.” That’s where an organization like the Knight Foundation, a philanthropic enterprise engaged with media and the arts nationwide, comes in. Dennis Scholl, the foundation’s vice president of the arts, credits BlackStar’s efforts to increase the visibility of independent
filmmaking in Philadelphia as the reason why it won the competitive Knight Challenge Grant of a $25,000 matching award that allowed the festival’s budget to expand from $15,000 in 2012 to $75,000 in 2013 (the first year of the grant), and $100,000 this year. “Supporting BlackStar was an easy choice for us given the level of effort that [Holmes has] put into it,” says Scholl. And he wasn’t deterred by Holmes’ internationalist ambitions and the fact that there weren’t any Philadelphia filmmakers in the festival this year. “The idea of expanding the festival into an internationally renowned festival fits perfectly with our vision of artistic excellence,” he responded. “Having it located in Philadelphia is still a big plus for the community, because it gives the community access to films they might not have seen otherwise.” But the Knight Foundation’s grant expires this year, and since the Knight Challenge Grant is meant for new projects, BlackStar will have to move on,
though maybe not too far. While declining to provide details about continuing a relationship with BlackStar, Scholl seems enthusiastic about the future. “I’ll put it to you this way: While we haven’t received a request for additional funding, she has certainly delivered the goods on her initial grant from us. And if you’ve ever done any grant seeking, you’ll know that’s a very favorable response.” As for Holmes, her vision for the festival isn’t shrinking. She wants a permanent staff and eventually a screening space for year-round programming and community workshops, and enough funding to create a seminar environment by bringing the filmmakers to the festival. “We’re here,” she says, not needing to utter the rest — and they’re not going away. (dotun@citypaper.net) (sameer.rao@citypaper.net) Blackstar Film Festival, Thu.-Sun., July 31-Aug. 3, free-$10 individual events, $125 festival passes, various locations, 877-435-9849, blackstarfest.org.
B L A CCKK STA S TA R FILM FESTIVAL
reviews
celebrate the 20-year anniversary of Nas’ seminal Illmatic, and examine the 20-year-old who created it. As we see Nas in the present honored at Harvard University, we are also presented an empathetic and nuanced portrayal of Nas’ upbringing and neighborhood: a fractured and complex family, degradation, dropouts, drugs and death in the projects. It’s a story haunted by ghosts, and stricken by time; a film full of those who didn’t make it surrounding the young man in whose songs their struggles live on. —Dotun Akintoye Sun., Aug. 3, 5 p.m., $10, International House.
SABRINA! 2-4 YEARS OLD
I’m Sabrina, a feisty 2-4 year old cat who’s looking for a new home to explore! I will be happy as your only pet, or with another cat who respects my space. Meet me at Grant and Bustleton! PAWS Northeast Adoption Center at 1810 Grant Avenue (at Bustleton). All PAWS animals are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and microchipped before adoption.
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artsmusicmoviesmayhem
soundadvice By Marc Snitzer
CRY AGAIN ➤ DO YOU BELIEVE in the new emo revival? Does it matter what we call it? To me, a lot of these bands feel fresh and exciting, like opening a new box of sneakers. The Hotelier and Foxing — two bands playing The Fire on Sunday night — are particularly so, as neither seems interested in front-running the nth wave of some oft-maligned subgenre. Instead, these bands are working on opposite ends of the same spectrum — the spectrum of writing and playing songs that make me want to cry. Home, Like Noplace Is There (Tiny Engines), The Hotelier’s second LP, is neither elegant nor calculated. Instead, the Worcester, Mass., band borrows from folk-rock, hardcore and straightforward pop then builds on it with guitar wails and sky-high choruses (see: “Among the Wildflowers”). This could’ve found its way onto the radio waves if singer Christian Holden’s lyrics and delivery weren’t so paralyzing. “Life in Drag” blazes like a Southern California brush fire and feels like an exorcism, but just try not to imagine fireworks bursting from some outdoor festival or arena during the final chorus of “Your Deep Rest.” This earns The Hotelier a solid 8 on the Cry-O-Meter. Foxing is far less pop oriented. The St. Louis quintet’s debut, The Albatross (Triple Crown), is raggedly orchestral, what with its string and horn arrangements, jazz-influenced percussion and gang vocals that lean closer to Gregorian than NYHC. The guitar tones vary from the soft, mid-summer evening rain of “Den Mother” to finger-tapping tantrum on “Bit by a Dead Bee Part 1,” where singer Conor Murphy’s falsetto suddenly devolves into something unexpectedly primal. The Albatross is unique in its stark beauty, and earns Foxing a walloping 9.2 Cry-O-Meter score. (marc.snitzer@citypaper.net) ✚ Sun., Aug. 3, 7 p.m., $10-$12, with Prawn and
Little Big League, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298, guildshows.com.
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OUT OF THE WOODS: Students at the Center for Art in Wood get crafty during this year’s Windgate ITE International Residency at the Center. Work from that program will be on display Friday through Oct. 25. AMBER JOHNSTON
firstfridayfocus By Holly Otterbein
➤ LITTLE BERLIN Mere weeks before his exhibit “Pop-Up Bookstore” opened in Austin, Texas, Kevin McNamee-Tweed says, “I didn’t know what I was doing.” To stir up an idea, McNamee-Tweed headed to his safe place: a bookstore. He had always dreamt of becoming a writer and had once worked at a bookstore in San Francisco. Recently, he almost opened a bookstore with his best friend from Brooklyn. Surrounded by novels, poetry collections and magazines, McNamee-Tweed started making watercolor and gouache paintings of imagined book covers, complete with made-up titles, authors, illustrations, featured reviews and a healthy dose of silliness. Washington Square Squared is the title of one. Another: So You Grew Up in White Suburban America But You Love Bob Marley and Other Cultures. Then there are the fake reviews: “This novel suffocated me,” says the Omnipolitan Times of the book Omaha. “Didn’t read it,” says Sturgil Commontree, author of Smoke Like Wool Curls Up in the Worst Way. “I just started making these things and didn’t think about it,” says McNamee-Tweed. “When I had about 30 of them, I figured I could probably turn this into a full concept.”
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At his exhibit in Austin, McNamee-Tweed hung the watercolor pieces alongside an elaborate recreation of an actual bookstore. He says the installation included “all the bookstore clichés that I could manifest”: hanging plants, dusty fans, coffee tables, fake art and even a bulletin board filled with “people posting insane things.” But in Philadelphia, McNamee-Tweed is paring down the show. Instead of hitting viewers over the head with bookstore ephemera, he wants the installation to “hint at bookstore.” The focus will be squarely on his dozens of watercolors of books (as well as some newspapers and posters), which will be organized on the wall according to genre and the author’s last name. There will probably also be a fake clerk and a few plants. The exhibit calls to mind all of the country’s bookstores that have folded in recent years, but not in an overly depressing way. “I do want to kind of memorialize books,” says McNameeTweed, “and hold up my love for them as objects and as things that contain stories.” Through Sat., Aug. 2, reception Fri., Aug. 1, 6 p.m., 2430 Coral St., littleberlin.org.
“I just started making these things.”
➤ THE CENTER FOR ART IN WOOD Albert LeCoff, co-founder of the Center for Art in Wood, tells his >>> continued on page 17
[ poetry and prison have always been neighbors ] [ album reviews ]
➤ big freedia | B+ The NOLA bounce monarch’s Herculean campaign to liberate the asses of the planet — via tireless touring, booty-twerk vids and reality TV — hasn’t left much time for pedestrian concerns like making albums, but Just Be Free (Queen Diva), unsurprisingly, approaches that proposition with the same sass and aplomb Big Freedia brings to everything else. Its funky horns, ghetto-house break beats and insta-coined catchphras—K. Ross Hoffman es will keep those cheeks clapping.
➤ jack white | AAs unpredictable and endlessly intriguing as White himself, Lazaretto (Third Man) finds the impish, ineffable guitar hero/ antiquarian, with a cast of dozens, at both his darkest and most playful. He’s following his abundant, aberrant whims: reviving mid-’90s rap-rock on the unhinged title cut, scraping out backporch country ballads alongside fiddler Lillie Mae Rische, lurching into searing, vengeful melodrama or hot-wiring Willie McTell’s —K. Ross Hoffman Delta blues for the digital age.
flickpick
19102review
➤ lana del rey | B+
The review of Philadelphia books
Ultraviolence (Interscope) strips all of the hip-hop, and much of the Hollywood, out of LDR’s signature vibe, making it less magnificently fantastical but not necessarily any more realistic; less sonically striking (that unmistakable breathy, languorous alto aside) but hardly less rapturously absorbing. Nothing sounds like a single, so it all just sinks deep into a bluesy, glam-tinted wallow — call it bummertime sadness — blurring into a continuous, elegantly framed soft-focus, slow-motion montage. —K. Ross Hoffman
➤ peter rowan | A It’s astonishing to hear Peter Rowan’s voice — legendary for blending bluegrass high-lonesome with a nod to the falsetto ornaments of Mexico’s hot lands and his impressions of Native American vocalizations — sounding better than ever on Dharma Blues (Omnivore). As the title suggests, many of Rowan’s originals are little gems of Buddhist teaching. Pedal steel sets a perfect meditative tone on some cuts, drives on others. Pals Jody Stecher, Hot Tuna’s Jack Casady and Gillian Welch are prominent contributors. —Mary Armstrong
[ movie review ]
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT [ C+ ] WOODY ALLEN’S MOVIES come along with the inevitability of allergy season: Some
years there’s a beautiful bouquet, and others you’re left bleary-eyed and fuzzy-headed. Magic in the Moonlight isn’t Woody Allen’s worst movie — not by a long shot. But it’s one of his least necessary, the kind that could be wiped from the world’s hard drives without anyone raising much of a stink. Disappearing, as it turns out, is a speciality of Stanley (Colin Firth), a magician who beguiles audiences in between-the-wars Europe with his tricks under the guise of the “Oriental” conjurer Wei Ling Soo. Despite the deception inherent in his profession, Stanley is obsessed with unmasking the deceptions of others, especially spiritualists like the American Sophie (Emma Stone), who’s entranced a British dowager (Jacki Weaver) by conveying messages from her late husband. Despite half-hearted attempts to keep his identity secret, Stanley is openly contemptuous of Sophie’s purported abilities, so much so that Allen practically forces us to take her side. Sophie may be a con artist — the movie only briefly holds out the possibility that she isn’t — but she brings people joy, whereas Stanley is a perpetual sourpuss. At some point, it becomes clear that Magic in the Moonlight is meant to be a romance, despite the evident lack of chemistry between its stars and the fact that Stanley’s behavior merits nothing so much as a swift kick in the balls. Firth finds the character’s sympathetic corners, especially when Allen suggests that his antipathy to those who claim a connection to the unseen world is rooted in a deep desire to believe — he’s like the Fox Mulder of faux-Asian stage magicians. But at its core, the movie seems to believe that a man treating a woman with cruelty and disdain is reason enough to fall for him, which would be revolting if it were put forth with any conviction. —Sam Adams
Stanley’s behavior merits a swift kick in the balls.
I HATE MY HAT: Woody Allen’s latest pits a young clairvoyant (Emma Stone) against a seasoned magician (Colin Firth).
NOT THE BEES! ➤ THE TERM “ECO-THRILLER” might cue
images of mutant jungle plants overtaking the planet, but thankfully Jon McGoran’s newest book, Deadout, keeps things a little more low-key. The novel follows job-shaken detective Doyle Carrick as his ties to the organic farming movement expose him to the politically and biologically ugly side of GMOs. Colony Collapse Disorder, a very real problem facing contemporary beekeepers, takes a central role as the industry-threatening mystery facing a group of scientists and farmers. The book’s greatest strength lies in how it weaves environmental concern over GMO food sources into a suspenseful plotline without becoming science fiction. McGoran starts with a tiny member of the food cycle, the honeybee, and allows his critique of the farming industry to grow from there. The novel’s scientific developments are timely, and by incorporating a main character who’s not a hardcore activist, McGoran keeps the preachiness away. Deadout follows up McGoran’s also GMO-anxious Drift, released to solid reviews in 2013. Both novels begin in Philadelphia but quickly move to more rural areas. Most of Deadout takes place on the environmental haven of Martha’s Vineyard. McGoran’s obvious familiarity with the island lends colorful (if, at times, bordering on promotional) detail to the menacing storyline. McGoran’s story falls into some predictable tropes, but despite the clichés of genre, the novel delivers on suspense and a complex storyline. Its lesser-known but still eco-centric honeybee premise lends credibility without drilling too far into politics: No one wants to read another global warming apocalypse novel. Launch party Aug. 6, 6 p.m., Morris Arboretum. —Lauren Clem
✚
Deadout
Jon McGoran (FORGE, 2014, 400 PP.)
✚ If you know of any really good books to review please email mikala@citypaper.net.
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[ rock/pop/experimental ]
[ arts & entertainment ]
THE PURE STUFF DANIELLE NEMET
Mad lo-fi scientist Meg Remy returns to Philly from Toronto with the U.S. Girls army. By Patrick Rapa
stalk the stage, make eye contact with others and lift my head high for proper singing projection. It makes me feel strong to have people on stage and in the studio with me who are invested in making the songs sound as good as they can. We settle for nothing less than perfection. I always wanted a band or at least for my songs to sound bigger, and I have finally achieved this. CP: Do you still use the gadgets?
hen we put Meg Remy on the cover of City Paper back in 2010, it was kind of a curious move. The Roots and Kurt Vile and various Espers have graced page one plenty, but Remy was different. Under the name U.S. Girls, the solo artist/mad-noise scientist was known for dissonant, spooky, lo-fi musical creations that involved a lot of knob twirling and effects-tweaking. Like a lot of acts on Philly’s esteemed Siltbreeze label, she was making strange and wonderful sounds that the world in general probably wasn’t going to get. But still, we had a feeling about her. Maybe it was those soul-vocal snippets that sometimes rose up out of the static, or maybe it was the way pretty pop hooks revealed themselves after repeat listens, especially on her second full-length, Go Grey. Whatever it was, we put her on the cover and we never regretted it. And it’s been great watching Remy grow as a musician and a filmmaker — she’s directed videos for The Grange, and IceCream, as well as her own stuff — even though she left town to do it. I caught up with Remy, who currently lives in Toronto, via email in anticipation of her triumphant return to Philly, playing here for the first time with a full band. Her sound these days is cleaner, and a touch more accessible, but no less daring. She’s still making crazy music, but maybe the world will meet her halfway.
W
City Paper : What do you sound like with a six-
piece band? Meg Remy: We have invented a new form of music. It doesn’t have a name yet (waiting for some journalist to pen something). We are transcribing samples, tape loops and those strange old compositions of mine into live band songs. So that means mimicking jump cuts and strangely timed melodies and all that. It makes for a listening that feels nostalgic but foreign all the same. The setup is bass, guitar, organ/synth, drums and vocals. Traditional rock ’n’ roll setup spinning some bizarre-ass web. CP: How does it feel going from a solo artist with a
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MR: Oh yes, I still play solo sets
with all the tapes and knobs. Those will never go into permanent retirement. I would never want to get too comfortable with any one setup. In the past year, U.S. Girls has performed as a solo act, a six-piece band, a seven-piece band, a threepiece plus hand percussion, and a duo. I will try anything and everything. Not to make something stick but just to keep things interesting. CP: What’s been going on in your life since that City Paper cover story? MR: I moved to Toronto in 2010, was married in 2012 and I have discovered the world of video/ film art. I recently received a grant to produce a short film and I have been making music videos for lots of freaks. I am hooked. CP: Is it fair to say City Paper is
what rocketed you to superstardom? MR: I think that is fair to say. City Paper gifted me a taste of the CoverGirl life and I haven’t looked back since. CP: What else should I know? MR: I have stopped using effects
on my vocals. Pure Meg pumpin’ through the speakers now. … And last night I heard this record Trip Thru Hell by C.A. Quintet. Everyone should listen to this album! Whoa. (pat@citypaper.net) ✚ Mon., Aug. 4, 8 p.m., $10, with IceCream, Bourbon & Branch, 705 N. Second St., 215-238-0660, bourbonandbranchphilly.com.
✚ First Friday Focus
[ arts & entertainment ]
<<< continued from page 14
“If you come up with a good pile of shavings, I’ll be happy.” international fellows not to worry about producing picture-perfect woodwork by the end of their twomonth stay. “There’s usually the pressure of performance,” he says. “I always say, ‘If you come up with a good pile of shavings, I’ll be happy.’” His advice captures the happy, innovative attitude of the Windgate ITE International Residency, now in its 19th year. Despite his recommendation, the artists always end up creating wood pieces very much worthy of display. In fact, a past fellow literally used wood shavings in a piece to depict the fur of a ram. This year’s “allTURNatives: Form + Spirit 2014” exhibit features work by Eric Adjetey Anang, Miriam Carpenter, Jordan Gehman, Reed Hansuld, Maggie Jackson, Amber Johnston and Yuri Kobayashi, who hail from everywhere from Pennsylvania to Canada to Ghana. Through Oct. 25, reception Fri., Aug. 1, 5:30 p.m., 141 N. Third St. 215-923-8000, centerforartinwood.org.
➤ TIGER STRIKES ASTEROID Stop by Tiger Strikes Asteroid to see geometric mastermind Gary Petersen’s colorful, massive, sitespecific painting. Along with the titular 14- by 19-foot piece, his exhibit “zip line tow rope” also features a few works on paper. “I am interested in geometric abstraction that reflects our vulnerability and uncertainty in the world,” Petersen says in his artist’s statement. “I’ve always been interested in the line, how it contains, defines and suggests. Color is very important in my work. It allows the somewhat familiar forms to become personal and subtly eccentric.” Through Aug. 31, reception Fri., Aug. 1, 6 p.m., 319A N. 11th St., 484-469-0319, tigerstrikesasteroid.com. (holly.otterbein@citypaper.net)
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movie
shorts
FILMS ARE GRADED BY CITY PAPER CRITICS A-F.
Get On Up
✚ NEW CODE BLACK | B+ The state of American health care, a pet topic for grinning politicians and gas-bag pundits, receives a refreshingly apolitical examination in physician-turned-documentarian Ryan McGarry’s expressive debut. Named after L.A. County Hospital slang for an ER wait list well over capacity, Code Black yanks us into the chaotic, blood-stained ballet of “C-Booth,” a 20-by-25-foot treatment floor credited as the birthplace of modern emergency care. McGarry and his fellow residents speak of the iconic trauma bay as the backdrop of a grittier, nobler time in medicine, when work meant helping patients directly without getting buried in compliance and liability paperwork, as they are in their newer, nicer and less efficient facility. Instead of healing patients, many of whom come from low-income backgrounds, the bottlenecked system hinders their recovery, hamstringing the medical professionals who simply want to help. McGarry wins by strongly aligning the film’s perspective with his own, that of a young, energetic doctor only beginning to reach his caregiving potential. The feature has some tonal issues — the melodramatic score, for starters, sounds better suited for a superhero movie — but that doesn’t detract from the conversation, which touches on a few inspired solutions. —Drew Lazor (The Roxy)
GET ON UP | BYears from now, there’s a good chance we’ll talk about Chadwick Boseman’s James Brown the same way we discuss one of Robert Downey Jr.’s most memorable parts in passing: Hey, didn’t Iron Man play Charlie Chaplin one 18 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
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time? In other words, a meaty biographical role will eventually outgrow its vessel and stand alone as a feather-in-cap point in a superstar’s career. Boseman hasn’t reached the S-word echelon yet, but he has everything — looks, charisma, tangible talent — to indicate it will happen, his take on the Godfather of Soul transcending the strain surrounding it. Opening with the elderly Brown rushing his office with a shotgun, then leaping back decades to a harrowing plane ride over violent Vietnamese airspace, it’s clear early on that director Tate Taylor (The Help) has chosen to avoid the boring front-to-back storytelling that so often slows down biopics. The chronological hopscotch slides between Brown’s messed-up backwoods childhood, his ’50s origins, ’60s heyday and ’70s reinvention with ankle-shimmying style, keeping Boseman physically and creatively engaged. But there are still far too many clichéd music-movie contrivances — drugs, drama, infighting, Brown leaning on a sink in deep emotional pain (fave!) — for the flower to blossom fully. Taylor’s decision to have Boseman erratically turn to the camera as a half-invested narrator is a particularly bad choice that tamps down his star’s swagger. —DL (Wide release)
MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT | C+ See Sam Adams’ review on p. 15. (Ritz Five)
✚ CONTINUING BOYHOOD | A With the Before Sunrise trilogy, Richard Linklater proved himself to be an insightful chronicler of the changes
wrought by time on a relationship. With Boyhood he develops that notion even further, watching one young boy’s growth and maturation over the course of nearly three hours, like timelapse photography of a plant blooming. Linklater’s unconventional approach — filming a short segment each year for 12 years — has been well-publicized, but in practice it never feels like a gimmick. The focus is on Mason (Ellar Coltrane), who is introduced as a 6-year-old pondering the heavens to a Coldplay soundtrack and exits as an 18-year-old college freshman. His round, chubby face takes on angular definition and his inquisitive boyishness sharpens into an actual personality. But we watch his family age and grow as well. His older sister Samantha, played by the director’s daughter Lorelei, goes from a teasing annoyance singing Britney Spears songs, to jaded teenager, to thoughtful young woman. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke appear as Mason’s divorced parents, who reluctantly settle into maturity, their less-dramatic physical changes showing the burdens and wear of time. As we check in on their progress year after year, what we see are not necessarily the most dramatic moments; crucial events unfold offscreen and banalties accumulate. If nothing in Mason’s experience is particularly novel, it’s stunning to watch how the same truths become new discoveries in each person’s life on the road to becoming an individual. —Shaun Brady (Ritz Five)
I ORIGINS | CLike his first film, Another Earth, Mike Cahill’s I Origins attempts to strike a balance between grand ideas and intimate human drama. Here he depicts the debate between science and spirituality as a love triangle with a scientist played by Michael Pitt at its center. Pitt’s research deals with the evolution of the human eye, the complexity of which has often been used as evidence of intelligent design. As he makes breakthroughs in the lab with his partner, he’s also in the process of falling in love with a model (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey) whose beliefs are less rooted in the rational world. The contrast between hard logic and irrational passion is lyrically, if too rigorously, drawn in the film’s early scenes, but that line becomes fuzzier in the second half, dragging the writer-director’s arguments and the film down with it. An obvious devotee of popular science, Cahill nonetheless manages to do a disservice to both sides, making Pitt’s
secular worldview too strident and humorless while giving a pass to hoary New Age name-calling. —SB (Ritz at the Bourse)
LUCY | B First of all, the oft-repeated notion that humans only have access to 10 percent of our brains is a complete fallacy, meaning that Lucy, in which a baggy of experimental, mind-expanding drugs explodes inside Scarlett Johansson’s bloodstream, is built on a foundation of utter nonsense — and it only gets exponentially sillier from there. This being a Luc Besson movie, increased brain power leads not to profound insights and scientific breakthroughs, but to a hypervisual spectacle involving high-speed car chases, shootouts with Taiwanese gangsters and the ability to manipulate reality. None of it makes the slightest bit of sense, even with Morgan Freeman explaining the film’s ludicrous science. Lucy’s abilities become essentially boundless, her main super power apparently being the ability to clear Besson’s mental warehouse of cool, context-free spectacle. Gun-toting villains are knocked unconscious en masse, floated helplessly to the ceiling, or trapped in a mime box; time is scrolled backwards, straight through a face-to-face encounter with the heroine’s australopithecine namesake. Which is all to say that it’s ridiculous fun, but it might help to turn off about 90 percent of your brain before watching. —SB (Wide release)
is relatively low stakes by espionagethriller standards, but that’s entirely to the point: What changes there are to be made will be small, and even those will come at a cost. The drama is about personal integrity and trust, not ticking bombs and rogue nukes. Though there’s not a shot fired or a body dumped, it’s still thrilling, because Günther’s struggle is never farther away than Hoffman’s magnificently worn face. —Sam Adams (Ritz East)
a patient back-patter. All the Big Meaningful Moments, executed at an even clip as if to fulfill some sort of government-sanctioned weeping quota, get old early, the whiny consternation surrounding Aidan’s selfish hopes and dreams diminishing any chance for emotional context. —DL (Ritz East)
WISH I WAS HERE | C
INTERNATIONAL HOUSE
Cue up the Bon Iver, ’cause Zach Braff is unsure about life shit again! The occasionally grating writer/director’s Kickstarter’d follow-up to Garden State, co-written with his brother, Adam, presents itself as a film about family. But it requires only a surface reading to determine that it’s yet another feature about Braff, and the insufferable man-child archetype he assumes all American males can relate to. As luck-free actor Aidan, Braff provides very little for his gainfully employed wife, Sarah (Kate Hudson), and young kids (Pierce Gagnon and Joey King). When his difficult father (Mandy Patinkin) tells him he can no longer afford to pay for the children’s private education due to his cancer returning, Aidan cranks his privileged ambivalence to unforeseen levels. Braff gifts himself all the best lines, never bothering to spec out his supporting cast, especially Hudson, who’s never permitted to be anything beyond
3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org. Black and Cuba (2014, U.S., 82 min.): Ivy Leaguers travel to Cuba to see racial equality from another perspective. Thu., July 31, 4:10 p.m., $10. Dreams Are Colder Than Death (2014, U.S./Germany, 53 min.): Director Arthur Jafa explores what it means to be African-American with help from celebrated artists and intellectuals. Thu., July 31, 6:30 p.m., $10. Shorts: Experimental: Prepare to have your mind blown. Fri., Aug. 1, 1:30 p.m., $10. Kahlil Joseph Program: Three short films by director Kahlil Joseph, who is known for his music videos and stunning cinematography. Q&A with Joseph and director Terence
✚ BLACKSTAR FILM FESTIVAL
[ movie shorts ]
Nance immediately follows. Fri., Aug. 1, 5:30 p.m., free. Til Infinity: Souls of Mischief (2013, U.S., 93 min.): An in-depth look at Soul of Mischief’s 20year-old record, 93 Til Infinity. Fri., Aug. 1, 8:30 p.m., $10. Shorts: Hip-Hop: Docs in brief about a rapper named Cakes da Killa, the Studio 54 of hip-hop and more. Sat., Aug. 2, 1:40 p.m., $10. Little White Lie (2013, U.S., 66 min.): A woman raised in a Jewish household discovers that her biological father is black. Sat., Aug. 2, 3:10 p.m., $10. They Die by Dawn (2012, U.S., 60 min.): African-American cowboys shoot it out in the Wild West. Sat., Aug. 2, 6:50 p.m., $10. Shorts: Makers: Three stories of creation, large and small. Sun., Aug. 3, 11:30 a.m., $10.
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citypaper.net/events
A MOST WANTED MAN | AAnton Corbijn’s moody Le Carré adaptation gains inevitable, and almost unbearable, poignancy from featuring one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final performances. (All that remains is Mockingjay, although he died before its completion.) But had he never played a role other than Günther Bachmann, he would still have been one of his generation’s greatest actors. Günther, whom Hoffman plays with a heavy German accent and a heavier weight on his shoulders, is the head of a secret German intelligence unit that operates in the moral and legal netherworld. Although A Most Wanted Man is set in the present — or at least emphatically post-9/11; echoes of the Hamburg cell are everywhere — Corbijn strands the film in a gray nowhere, the better to depict a landscape that no one, least of all Günther, knows how to navigate. The plot, which involves tracking down a Chechen militant who may have trained with Islamic terrorists, C I T Y PA P E R . N E T | J U L Y 3 1 - A U G U S T 6 , 2 0 1 4 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
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events LISTINGS@CITYPAPER.NET | JULY 31 - AUGUST 6
[ let’s take it back to the concrete streets ]
STENS LAND: Juston Stens and the Get Real Gang play the Boot & Saddle on Friday.
Events is our selective guide to what’s going on in the city this week. For comprehensive event listings, visit citypaper.net/events. IF YOU WANT TO BE LISTED: Submit information by email (listings@ citypaper.net) or enter it yourself at citypaper.net/submit-event with the following details: date, time, address of venue, telephone number and admission price. Incomplete submissions will not be considered, and listings information will not be accepted over the phone.
7.31 thursday [ hip-hop ]
JURASSIC 5/DILATED PEOPLES
Los Angeles’ Jurassic 5 and San Francisco’s Dilated Peoples. J5 was hot, cool, conscious and cold-blooded; Chali 2na and the rest of the MC/DJ crew brought a jazzy, loopy vibe similar to East Coast brethren on the Native Tongues tip. Dilated Peoples, meanwhile, were weirder, noisier, jazzier and harsher lyricists. Where J5 seems to be done making records, Dilated Peoples is releasing its first album in eight years, Directors of Photography (Rhymesayers), and, yes, they’re still independent. —A.D. Amorosi
[ author reading ]
$50.50 | Thu., July 31, 6:30 p.m., with Cut Chemist, River Stage at Great Plaza, Penn’s Landing, Columbus Blvd. and Chestnut St., 800-745-3000, ticketmaster.com.
SANDRA MORAN
The West Coast independent hip-hop scene of the ’90s has no better representatives than
Sandra Moran’s 2013 book, Letters Never Sent (Bedazzled Ink), is a look into the lives of
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early 20th-century female characters, who challenged societal mores by loving and having sex with other women. These brash characters carouse, drink and smoke, but the sex takes center stage, and in Moran’s capable hands, each moment becomes radical and poetic. Moran will read from Letters — the book won an Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction — and delve into what she encountered while studying the political and social atmosphere surrounding gender and identity during the pre-Cold War era. —A.D. Amorosi
FREE | Thu., July 31, 5:30 p.m., William Way LGBT Community Center, 1315 Spruce St., 215-7322220, waygay.org
8.1 friday [ rock/pop ]
JUSTON STENS AND THE GET REAL GANG $10 | Fri., Aug. 1, 8:30 p.m., with
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Goodnight Lights and Brett Harris, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., 267-639-4528, bootandsaddlephilly.com.
Fall, a documentary currently in search of a local screen. —Patrick Rapa
were drawn to her in the first place. —Dotun Akintoye
Somebody somewhere probably told Juston Stens he was crazy for quitting his job playing drums for Dr. Dog, and that somebody needs to hear Share the Road (Eschatone). This raw, unpredictable rock album features Stens out front, playing guitar and singing with some of the notable artists he’s come to know over the years, including members of Spoon, Wilco, Those Darlins and a bunch more (like Dr. Dog, because the bridges remain unburned). The standout track is surely “Strange Love,” in which Stens’ deep voice shares the mic with Jessica Lea Mayfield’s soft and mighty croon, then makes room for a whistling wind-down. Stens’ cross-county motorcycle adventure making this record is the subject of I Lay Where I
[ r&b ]
8.2
KEYSHIA COLE $40-$65 | Fri., Aug. 1, 8 p.m., with Adrian Marcel and Suzann Christine, TLA, 334 South St., 215-922-1011, lnphilly.com.
saturday
Nearly a decade into a career whose second half has been marred by decreasing sales and impact, and after a brief spell in the cultural limbo of a middling reality show (the almost predictable result being the dissolution of a young marriage), Keyshia Cole must now navigate an R&B genre where enigmatic young women like Kelela, Banks, FKA twigs and SZA have emerged from the margins to create a shadowy center in the Empire of Queen Bey. Judging by the new songs, Cole’s ready for a fight, which is why people
FREE WITH RESERVATION | Sat., Aug. 2, 11 a.m., Radio 104.5 Block Party with Wild Cub and Jukebox the Ghost, Festival Pier, 601 N. Columbus Blvd., 215-629-3200, radio1045.com.
[ rock/pop ]
BLEACHERS
Finally, some freaking summer jams. In a season that’s been woefully thin on windows-down fist-pumpers, fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff brings the goods with a mostly-solo side project that’s lousy with instant anthems and equally potent deep cuts. Strange Desire (RCA) — which has the exultant gang-chanted choruses, martial stomp and giddy, maximalist
INVITES YOU TO AN ADVANCE SCREENING
MONDAY, AUGUST 4 - 7:30PM
LOG ON TO WWW.CITYPAPER.NET/WIN FOR ENTRY DETAILS THIS FILM IS RATED PG-13 Please note: Passes are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first served basis while supplies last. No phone calls, please. Limit one pass per person. Each pass admits two. Seating is not guaranteed. Arrive early. Theater is not responsible for overbooking. This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recording. By attending, you agree not to bring any audio or video recording device into the theater (audio recording devices for credentialed press excepted) and consent to a physical search of your belongings and person. Any attempted use of recording devices will result in immediate removal from the theater, forfeiture, and may subject you to criminal and civil liability. Please allow additional time for heightened security. You can assist us by leaving all nonessential bags at home or in your vehicle.
IN THEATERS AUGUST 8 GO #INTOTHESTORM
INVITE YOU AND A GUEST TO A SPECIAL ADVANCE SCREENING OF
VISIT FOXSEARCHLIGHTSCREENINGS.COM AND ENTER THE CODE: PHCITYPAP1 THIS FILM IS RATED R for sexual references, language, brief strong violence and some drug use. Please note: passes received through this promotion do not guarantee you a seat at the theater. Seating is on a first come, first served basis, except for members of the reviewing press. Theater is overbooked to ensure a full house. No admittance once screening has begun. All federal, state and local regulations apply. A recipient of tickets assumes any and all risks related to use of ticket, and accepts any restrictions required by ticket provider. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Philadelphia City Paper and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. We are not responsible if, for any reason, recipient is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. All federal and local taxes are the responsibility of the winner. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary. Participating sponsors, their employees and family members and their agencies are not eligible. No phone calls!
IN SELECT THEATRES AUGUST 8 HEROES ARE NOT BORN, THEY’RE CREATED
INVITES YOU AND A GUEST TO SEE
To download two passes go to www.Gofobo.com/RSVP, and enter RSVP Code CITYMJDT. WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.
COWABUNGA, DUDE! SEND A MESSAGE TO TMNTMOVIEPHILLY@GMAIL.COM WITH WHO YOUR FAVORITE TMNT IS AND WHY, AND YOU’LL BE ENTERED FOR A CHANCE TO WIN: New York City’s crime rates are still on the rise and the city¹s civilians are trembling in fear! Play as all 4 Turtles as you fight to save NYC from the evils of the world in this Nintendo 3DS action brawler video game!
No purchase necessary. While supplies last. Theater is overbooked to ensure a full house. All federal, state and local regulations apply. A recipient of prizes assumes any and all risks related to the use of a ticket and accepts any restrictions required by prize provider. Paramount Pictures, Philadelphia City Paper, and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Prizes cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. Sponsors are not responsible if, for any reason, winner is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. Participating sponsors, their employees, their family members and their agencies are not eligible. Tickets are first-come, first served and seating is not guaranteed. See ticket for full disclaimer information.
IN THEATERS AUGUST 8
TEENAGEMUTANTNINJATURTLESMOVIE.COM • @TMNTMOVIE
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Celebr ating Americ an Craft Beer and Classi c Arcade Games
8.3 sunday [ theater ]
ONE MINUTE PLAY FESTIVAL $20 | Sun.-Tue, Aug. 3-5, InterAct Theatre Company at the Adrienne Theatre, 2030 Sansom St., 215568-8079, interacttheatre.org.
$10 LUNCH SPECIAL FRI - SUN until 5PM Any $6 Beer, Sandwich & Chips Monday to Friday: Happy Hour Special 1/2 Off Small Plates
OPEN MON-THURS at 4PM | FRI-SUN at NOON 1114 FRANKFORD AVE |BARCADE PHILADELPHIA.COM PHILLY | BROOKLYN | JERSEY CITY | NEW YORK
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NOW OPEN!!!!!
Can a play establish characters and a setting and tell a story in just one minute? That’s what Dominic D’Andrea’s New York-based company, One Minute Play Festival, proves by co-producing local festivals in nearly 20 cities, including here with InterAct. This will be the second run in Philly, and last year’s local festival was a high-energy, sometimes chaotic
mixed bag, with more hits than misses, and it scored big with audiences eager to experience the novelty of plays crafted to begin and end in the length of a TV commercial. This year’s festival features more than 60 new short plays by established playwrights such as P. Seth Bauer, Jim Christy, Jaqueline Goldfinger, Michael Hollinger, David Robson and Seth Rozin, as well as dozens of up-andcomers, all staged by professional directors. Half of the proceeds benefit the Philadelphia New Play Initiative, a volunteer campaign to improve the regional climate for new work of all lengths. —Mark Cofta
[ rock/pop ]
UNITED NATIONS $10-$12 | Sun., Aug. 3, 7:30 p.m., with Frameworks, Sore Saints and Kids, Boot & Saddle, 1131 S. Broad St., 267-639-4528, bootandsaddlephilly.com. With United Nations’ brand new album The Next Four Years (Temporary Residence), the mysterious hardcore ensemble (is it a bunch of guys from Thursday, as the rumor goes?) continues to raise the ultra-violent bar on dark, brutal music that borrows as much from ’70s no wave punk as it does the ’90s screamo genre. Plus Four Years has more songs and stretch than
[ events ]
askpapa By Ernest Hemingway
E VA N M . L O P E Z
production ethos of his mealticket band, but only about a third of the gloss — is a thrilling and unabashed homage to new wave synth-rock of the “Dancing With Myself”/”Dancing in the Dark” era (see also: Big Country, Tears for Fears, Modern English) but it’s got far too much idiosyncratic heart, and too many surprises up its sleeve (Grimes! Yoko Ono! Kid A/múm-level electro-skitters!), to reduce to mere retro-pop pastiche. —K. Ross Hoffman
➤ IF THE GUNS DON’T GET YOU, YOUR WOMAN WILL Dear Papa: I’ve been stuck in a meaningless job for half a decade, and I can’t escape. Every day, I’m snowed under heaps of paper, alone, in a windowless room, doing busywork. I might not have a problem with the job, if only someone actually told me what I was supposed to be doing, but I have to make it up as I go along. So really, I’m forced to create my own misery in order to look productive. I hate this job, and every time I leave the office for home I feel a little bite that’s been taken out of my soul. The two things that keep from getting out of it are 1) No one else will hire me, and 2) This job cuts me paychecks that keep me complacent. What the hell do I do? —Restless in Roxboro Dear Restless: It sounds like you need a drink. You should have one, then have another, and do it again. When you wake up and you feel like hell, skip work and go fishing. No matter what you do for money, you’re going to be miserable. Hey Papa: I know that you’re (allegedly) not a lesbian, but I have been wondering about the appropriate boundaries to have with exes. My ex-girlfriend and I are friends, which feels good for me because it’s nice that she is still in my life but in a different capacity. Often our reminiscence of our relationship will also feel good, nostalgic and important to remember. But I can understand how these interactions, in their content, form or frequency, could make my current girlfriend uncomfortable. What do you think is appropriate and inappropriate to talk about with an ex, and how often is too often? —Gal in Germantown Dear Gal: I can tell you that a sweet reminiscence with a woman is a walk in front of a firing squad but there is no last drink or last cigarette, you are just always there with the guns pointed at you. For some that is the kind of excitement they need in life. Do you need that kind of excitement? If the guns don’t get you, your woman will. But if you value your life, then save the fond memories for your book, where all things end the way you plan them to. (askpapa@citypaper.net) Hemingway communicates with writer Alli Katz via Ouija board. Send her your questions for him.
2010’s Never Mind the Bombings, Here’s Your Six Figures, so you feel as if you’re getting more bang for your buck. Get to the Boot & Saddle early to see Philly’s atonally like-minded Sore Saints. —A.D. Amorosi
8.5 tuesday [ reading/singing ]
RICK PERLSTEIN FREE | Tue., Aug. 5, 7:30 p.m., Free Library of Philadelphia, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-5674341, freelibrary.org. America from 1973 to 1976: 22 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
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Watergate exposes corruption permeating politics all the way to the Oval Office, an energy crisis threatens our independence on the eve of the Bicentennial, and — this might sound familiar — the country extricates itself from a lengthy, unsuccessful war and battles the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Amid an unprecedented level of national soul-searching from Wall Street to Hollywood, enter sunny Ronald Reagan, who preaches American exceptionalism and something called “trickle-down economics.” Historian Rick Perlstein magnificently studied the rise of mid-20th century American
conservatism with his books on Barry Goldwater (Before the Storm) and Richard Nixon (Nixonland), and with The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan (Simon & Schuster), he examines how the most iconic rightwinger of them all won over the nation by first winning over a very skeptical Republican establishment. —Andrew Milner
GAYFEST! $20-$25 | Aug. 5-23, various locations, 215-627-1088, quinceproductions.com. Quince Productions’ fourth GayFest! continues the amazing growth of this annual celebration of LGBT theater. This year’s GayFest! includes three special events, four mainstage plays, and five one-night stands. The fun starts with a gala festival opening two-night run of The Bang Group’s Head Over Heels Aug. 5 and 6. The New York-based dance group brought its Misters and Sisters to GayFest! 2012, and boasts
YI-CHUN WU
[ theater ]
a mash-up of influences from gay culture and street dance to MGM musicals. The second week’s special event is an Aug. 10 benefit for Equality PA featuring a collection of short plays by Paul Rudnick, Neil LaBute, Moisés Kaufman and others about gay marriage. Steven Fales’ acclaimed oneman show, Confessions of a Mormon Boy, follows for five performances Aug. 20-23. The
four main-stage plays include Robert Patrick’s The Haunted Host at the Plays & Players Skinner Studio (Aug. 8-22), a 50th anniversary production of what’s hailed as the first openly gay play. Also at Plays & Players is the Philadelphia premiere of Some Are People by Kathleen Warnock (Aug. 7-23).
In rotation at the Skybox at the Adrienne are another local premiere, Geoffrey Nauffts’ Next Fall (Aug. 11-22), a comedy about a gay Christian, and Quince artistic director Rich Rubin’s coup, You Know My Name: A Daniel Talbott Trio (Aug. 12-22). Talbott’s plays have been big successes in every GayFest!, and these three one-acts are world premieres. The one-night stands at Plays & Players include Homo Poe by Baltimore’s Iron Crow Theatre (Aug. 11), an evening of plays inspired by Edgar Allan Poe; Rachel Tension’s Karma Came ’Round: A Witchy Celebration of Love and Life Lessons, told with Tarot cards and hip-hop (Aug. 12); R. Eric Thomas’s terrific one-man show Always the Bridesmaid, with new material (Aug. 17); Tim Martin’s One’s Self I Sing, performed by Thomas-Robert Irvin (Aug. 19); plus another to be announced. The many GayFest! and Quince Productions events I’ve seen the past three years have convinced me that Rubin’s company is committed not only
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to celebrating the LGBT experience, but to creating great theater. —Mark Cofta
8.6 wednesday [ rock/pop ]
TEMPLES FREE WITH RSVP | Wed., Aug. 6, 9 p.m., Morgan’s Pier, 221 N. Columbus Blvd., 215-279-7134, morganspier.com.
J A M E S L O V E D AY
Per the handle, Kettering, U.K.’s Temples are a reverent lot, taking their place
alongside Holland’s Jacco Gardner, Sweden’s Dungen and Australia’s Tame Impala
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[ events ]
in an international monastic order devoted to ritually summoning the precise spirit and sound of a sunny, swirly day in 1967. Sun Structures (Fat Possum), the band’s buoyant, Byrds-besotted debut, is duly and lovingly lavished with 12-strings and Mellotrons, phased vocals and fuzz-tone bass, offering a particularly crisp and tidy psych-pop simulacrum — with some slightly revisionist 21st-century boom and crunch to the drum sounds — that airbrushes out most of the era’s darker, trippier excesses without ever stinting on the melody or mysticism. —K. Ross Hoffman
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f&d
foodanddrink
feedingfrenzy UNION TACO
By Caroline Russock
➤ NOW SEATING
P.S. & Co. | Specializing in gluten-free, vegan and kosher/parve sweets, P.S. & Co. has a dazzling selection of plant-based desserts in its newly opened Rittenhouse shop. Cookies come in flavors, including organic almond and pistachio-espresso, there is a selection of coconut macaroons dressed up with lemon and lavender as well as a full café menu. Breakfast includes house-made coconut yogurt and chia porridge and there are soups (Burmese coconut and squash pear), salads (sunflower Caesar and kale avocado and kraut) and wraps on the lunch and dinner lineup. Mon.-Fri., 7 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 9 a.m.-7 p.m. 1706 Locust St., 215-985-1706, puresweets.com. Union Taco | Chef Nick Farina is bringing his international taco game to Manayunk with the opening of the second outpost of Union Taco. His oversized tacos are filled with combos like chipotle pomegranate pork carnitas. There is a selection of tortas on the menu along with strawberry habanero guac and chorizo cheese fries. Union Taco is also offering fresh fruit mixers, if you care to BYOT for margaritas. Tue.-Thu., 11:30 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m.; Sun., 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m. 4229 Main St., 267-455-0445, uniontaco.com. Gyu-Kaku | Grills are fired up at Gyu-Kaku, a new tabletop-cooking Japanese spot in Fairmount. This interactive dining experience begins with picking your protein (think rib eyes, hangers and filets plus a few chicken, pork and vegetable options), marinate to your liking (miso, garlic and soy are on offer), grill and top to taste (choose from cheese fondue, crunchy garlic sauce and sesame oil with sea salt). Round out your meal with french fries with cod caviar sauce, garlic fried rice bibimbap and mochi ice cream. Mon.-Sun., 5 p.m.-9 p.m. 1901 Callowhill St., 267-603-9482, gyu-kaku.com. Got A Tip? Please send restaurant news to restaurants@ citypaper.net or call 215-735-8444, ext. 207.
LOW AND SLOW: Rex 1516's Creekstone brisket is smoked for eight hours over oak. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA
[ review ]
SOUTHERN REVIVAL Under a new chef, Rex 1516 gets a satisfying second act. By Adam Erace REX 1516| 1516 South St., 267-319-1366, rex1516.com. Dinner: Sun.Mon., 5-10 p.m.; Tue.-Sat., 5-11 p.m. Brunch: Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Appetizers, $7-$14; entrees, $13-$26; desserts, $8-$9.
ovelty, novelty, novelty is the location, location, location of restaurant reviews. It’s the most important factor in determining what we cover and when. Ninety-eight percent of my reviews are of new restaurants. It’s not fair, but them’s the breaks when you live in a town where you can’t swing an heirloom-garlic farmer without hitting a freshbaked rotisserie, pho joint, gluten-free bakery or tasting-menu atelier. The unfortunate reality is that unless you are a seminal restaurant with a critical chef change (Fork), an elder statesman of the scene ripe for re-eval (Vetri) or somewhere that suddenly up and starts serving interesting food (Boot & Saddle), if you’re more than a year old, you ain’t getting reviewed. That sucks for chefs like Justin Swain, who’s been lobbying for new reviews of the three-year-old Southern spot Rex 1516 he took over two years ago. But not anymore. Today he gets his wish. The sluggish schedule of summer openings created a vacancy in the
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editorial calendar, and before I knew it, I was nibbling Swain’s buttermilk drop biscuits in Rex’s brick-walled, crypt-dark dining room. Tender, almost creamy and paved in sesame seeds, the pair of biscuits joined a fire-orange smear of spicy pimento cheese on the slateboard Farmer’s Platter. I ran my knife through the cheese spread — a traditional mix of grated cheddar, mayo, peppers and spices — and frosted the biscuits heavy and thick as birthday cakes. The rest of the platter was less compelling: mixed house pickles, jam — “Strawberry, raspberry, nothing really special,” a server estimated — and a trio of cheeses curated more by Di Bruno’s than Swain: the Irish Gouda-style Coolea, Spanish Cana de Cabra (misidentified as cow’s milk — it’s goat) and Point Reyes blue. All fine cheeses, sure, but none are relevant to Rex’s portrait of the American South. Therein lies the danger of doing a “themed” restaurant; the smallest whiff of non-due-diligence can make the whole thing stink. Before Swain, Alabama-born chef Regis Jansen was Rex’s physical link to the South; his attachment gave the restaurant an air of authority, of street cred. That link was severed when Jansen left the restaurant for health reasons. Swain was Jansen’s second-incommand while still in classes at the Restaurant School. (Jansen and Swain also cooked together at 1601 way back.) He approached owners Jill Weber and Evan Malone to fill the open spot. They
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[ i love you, i hate you ] To place your FREE ad (100 word limit) ➤ email lovehate@citypaper.net CASHIER STALKER! Now my life is all shady, Dark cold and empty, For 365 days, I live outside always, Looking up at the heavens, It is beautiful, Girl you are most beautiful, In the place where you are, From where I am, You are too far, Impossible not to see, That I do try for you, Baby, Please give me a chance, To have your friendship, Please come into my life, I so need your friendship, Your butt is the most beautiful thing, I have ever seen, I need you in my life.
estate. She is fake and phony wonder how is her marriage life. Ms.Hurt.
FAT UGLY HATER I’ve listened to you trash the other conductor for 4 days straight. Why are you such a hater? You’re fat and soooo UNHOT and hating on the other conductor is not helping. You are becoming more and more corny, lame and annoying by the minute! No I don’t care about your properties, No I don’t care about your mortgages, NO I DO NOT WANNA DO
CHEATER You keep telling us that you aren’t cheating on your wife, you know that we know different. It isn’t fair that you keep doing this dumb shit to your wife. Then the fucked up part is that your wife had the nerve to ask me were you cheating. I said to her to ask you, you are her husband. And then the truth finally came out. That you were. I can’t stand the fact that you are doing what you want to do behind your wife’s back and then we have to make sure that she is alright, that shit is getting a little too much for any of us in the circle to understand and handle. Just know that if you cheat we are going to be somewhere looking right at you and there isn’t going to be anything that you can do about it but get caught. Oh by the way, your wife did stop having sex with you, was that strange to you? Oh and that piece of shit woman that you said you were sleeping with, I heard this from another party, well she has herpes! Ha! Ha! Now what? I can’t wait until your wife serves the divorce papers next week because you fucked up! Fellas, what looks good is not always good, think before you cheat there is always a big consequence.
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I JUST LOVE YOU You are far away from me right now but you and I will soon be together soon! I can’t wait to fill you in with things that are going on in my life..I can’t wait until you are in the bed with me and we are sleep-
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DISGUSTING FOOD! Out of desperation I went to the gallery market east after my pedicure and got some food. I know that I can’t say the name of the place but it was horrible food. It was cold and disgusting. The lady was really nice and she asked me to come back to see her again. I wonder why she told me that, was it because she knew her food was disgusting. If you find somewhere that you love to eat stick to it! Don’t try anything new unless you really know for sure that the food is of some good! I made a big mistake and I don’t think that I will do that again. Sorry but, I can’t wait to shit this stuff the fuck out!
FAMILY APART My mother and Father are turning all over.you have siblings that are keeping secrets from the other siblings.they are suppose to be so into the Lord .they talk a lot of what they going to do to one sibling and turn around and say something different to another sibling.it is playing games I believe they are scared after the damage was done and let a child and sibling get out of home because of one sibling.they must remember they lost a home before. But for a child to scrabble to stay here And there has torned our family apart.and some family members are upset and against the executor of the
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LUNCH! Hating on another guy is not the way to get my number...Get your swag up and stop hating!! BTW his mohawk is way HOT!!
I HAVEN’T HEARD I haven’t heard from you in a long time! I was wondering what you were doing but, not really worrying about you! You do complain a whole lot and people are asking me did I speak to you! No! I didn’t and I really don’t miss your talking about the same old bullshit day after day! I hope that your boyfriend and you are happy in your little complaining hole in the fucking wall. People don’t
ing, and you act like you are sleeping and then you wake me up and then we make love...I love to make love to you..it is really so much into it..I want you to stare into my eyes and tell me you love me over and over again. I enjoy the fact that you are able to make me cum over and over again! Not everyone can do that to me! Did you know that...as soon as we get to know each other again, everything should be alright! I love you more than life itself..nobody should come between us again! Nobody!
out to you and nobody cares. What am I supposed to do in the meantime with the other things that I care about. I loved you for so long and now you’re just trying to keep me in the dark with what is going on with your relationship! What kind of stuff is that! I love you so much and being as though you are so far and married who the hell cares! You and I both know that she looks like a drag queen hooked on drugs or something! Do me a favor come to Philly and do the damn thing and fuck me! Just fuck me already..and if it makes you happy think about your wife and how she gets her shit off with someone else!
I WAS IN LOVE I remember this day like it was the other day, I saw you and you saw me and we connected like no other. I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next then you kissed me ever so gently on my lips and I kissed you back amazed that this was happening and I didn’t want to take advantage of the situation so I leaned back and let nature take its course of bliss and excitement! I love you so much and I can’t wait to feel you again, I was in love with being in love and having you all to myself, but soon realized that I wasn’t the only one loving you, the only one accepting you, now you want me back eat a dick and choke! I can’t wait until I am able to tell you to your face!
LAZY FUCKING BITCH I hate the fact that you moved back next to me! I feel like I am getting punished for something! Our trash day is Tuesday and unbeknownst to me your silly-stupid ass puts the trash in the fucking grass like an asshole! I can’t believe that you put the trash there and now all these other things are coming over to my side as roaches and shit! I am tired of cleaning up almost everyday behind your ass and you are just doing the shit because it is in your nature! I really want to talk to you mom and say something but I know in my heart that it is not worth it! So a big fuck you to your stupid ass and don’t be surprised that I say something really soon!
LOSER NEIGHBORS To my piece of shit neighbors, I would like to thank you for taking your bloody newspaper last Tuesday, now I have to send in a check and get my paper for $5 because you pieces of shit wanted to steal my newspaper just to spite me. But, that is all cool because I have something for you. You iliterate bastards. Next time I see you you better keep walking and not speak to me because if you speak to me I am going to let you have it. Please sleep with one eye open and watch your car, it might not be there just like my paper.
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7&3: (00% â&#x20AC;&#x153;..#&&3 -*45 )"4 (308/ 50 &1*$ 1301035*0/4 ,*5$)&/ )"4 "%%&% "/ &953" #&-- 8*5) 1&3)"14 5)& $*5:Âľ4 #&45 '3*5&4 40.& 45&--"3 #&&3 #"55&3&% '*4) "/% 7&3: (00% .644&-4Âł Craig LeBan, Philadelphia Inquirer,
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