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➤ NEWS | Fighting over the controllerFOOD | Time to ramp it up ✚ THEATER | Doing the Bard with ’botsc typaper
[ P H I L A D E L P H I A ]
P H I L A D E L P H I A’ S I N D E P E N D E N T W E E K LY N E W S PA P E R
April 25 - May 1, 2013 #1456 | www.citypaper.net
Why Temple professor Terell Stafford says this city needs an all-star jazz orchestra.
DISCOVER THE POWER OF FOX®
—see page 15
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Publisher Nancy StuskiEditor in Chief Theresa EverlineSenior Editor Patrick RapaNews Editor Samantha MelamedArts Editor/Copy Chief Emily GuendelsbergerDigital Media Editor/Movies Editor Paulina ResoFood Editor/Listings Editor Caroline RussockStaff Writers Ryan Briggs, Daniel DenvirAssistant Copy Editor Carolyn WymanAssociate Web Producer Carly SzkaradnikContributors Sam Adams, A.D. Amorosi, Rodney Anonymous, Mary Armstrong, Meg Augustin, Justin Bauer, Shaun Brady, Peter Burwasser, Ryan Carey, Mark Cofta, Jesse Delaney, Alison Dell, Adam Erace, M.J. Fine, David Anthony Fox, Michael Gold, K. Ross Hoffman, Brian Howard, Deni Kasrel, Gary M. Kramer, Drew Lazor, Gair “Dev 79” Marking, Robert McCormick, Andrew Milner, Annette Monnier, Michael Pelusi, Elliott Sharp, Tom Tomorrow, John Vettese, Julia West, Brian WilenskyEditorial Interns Naveed Ahsan, Dotun Akintoye, Jessica Bergman, Marisa Denker, Zoë Kirsch, Kelly Lawler, Joseph Poteracki, Sameer Rao, Marc SnitzerProduction Director Michael PolimenoEditorial Art Director Reseca PeskinSenior Designer Evan M. LopezEditorial Designers Brenna Adams, Matt EggerStaff Photographer Neal SantosContributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Mark StehleContributing Illustrators Ryan Casey, Don Haring Jr., Joel Kimmel, Cameron K. Lewis, Thomas Pitilli, Matthew SmithHuman Resources Ron Scully (ext. 210)Circulation Director Mark Burkert (ext. 239)Senior Account Managers Colette Alexandre (ext. 250), Nick Cavanaugh (ext. 260), Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262), Stephan Sitzai (ext. 258)Account Managers Sara Carano (ext. 228), Jonathan Morein (ext. 249)Marketing/Online Coordinator Jennifer Francano (ext. 252)Office Coordinator/Adult Advertising SalesAlexis Pierce (ext. 234)Founder & Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel
cpstaffWe made this
COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY NEAL SANTOS DESIGN BY RESECA PESKIN
The Naked City .........................................................................6
Arts & Entertainment.........................................................22
Movies.........................................................................................34
The Agenda..............................................................................38
Food & Drink ...........................................................................46
contentsOrchestral maneuvers
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thenakedcity
matt egger
[ -1 ] John Bolaris announces he’s moving back to New York City in pursuit of as-yet-unnamed opportunities. Which has led to specula-tion that he’s finally gotten that Weather Smurfing Machine up and running.
[ +2] Mayor Nutter sends a letter to the U.S. Olym-pic Committee saying Philadelphia is in-terested in bidding on the 2024 Olympic games. “I guarantee we’ll be ready by then,” says future Mayor Jaden Smith.
[ -2 ] Phillies pitcher Jonathan Papelbon says he’s becoming afraid of crowds and that “Obama wants to take our guns from us and everything.” Scouts have assured the team that Papelbon is headed for a gradual descent into paranoia and madness a la Steve Carlton, rather than a full-on John Rocker xenophobic meltdown.
[ -4 ] District Attorney Seth Williams says Mayor Nutter’s budget-proposal process is “inad-equate and disrespectful.” Adding: “For instance, on page 4, I’m pretty sure that’s a stick figure of me in a Rastafarian hat sel-ling weed and making a peace sign. What the actual fuck?”
[0 ] Marijuana activists rally and smoke pot on Independence Mall. “I have balanced the budget,” says Seth Williams.
[0 ] The Parking Authority moves its headquarters to Seventh and Market. Right now they’re having a staff meeting on the power lines over Ronnie Polaneczky’s car.
[ -1 ] Police say robbers in South Philly are using mail slots to reach into houses and unlock doors. “Why’s everybody looking at me?” asks Spencer Hawes.
[ +1] After being mocked on Fox29, swimmer Ryan Lochte says he’s learned to ignore all the haters. “Now I just shut off my TV when that happens,” he says. “And it’s my under-standing that the haters are then trapped in there until I swim over and turn it back on. Yes, I keep my TV by the pool, why?”
[ -2 ] According to a new report, the number of office jobs in Center City is stagnating while the suburbs are booming. “Thanks, Obamacare,” tweets Jonathan Papelbon.
This week’s total: -7 | Last week’s total: +10
thebellcurveCP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter
[ politics ]
controlling interestsIs the city Controller race becoming a proxy war between organized labor and private developers? By Ryan Briggs
T he race for city Controller, assigned the unglamorous task of auditing the spending and work of municipal departments, tends to receive little attention despite the critical role finan-
cial oversight plays in a legendarily corrupt city. But if campaign contributions are any indication, those with stakes in the political clout of building unions are eyeing this year’s contest very closely.
Two-term incumbent alan Butkovitz, long characterized by opponents as the city political machine’s man on the inside, has unsurprisingly accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from his traditional base: politically powerful labor unions. But what’s more interesting is that his returning challenger, Brett mandel, a self-styled reformer, surpassed Butkovitz last year in fundraising.
How, exactly, did mandel get more cash than an entrenched incumbent anointed by the political class and bankrolled by the deep-pocketed union lobby? With the help of the pestronk brothers, the developers behind post Brothers apartments, whose renovation of the Goldtex building in Callowhill made headlines last year after they defied some of the same union groups now backing Butkovitz.
From 2011 to 2012, the pestronks and likeminded businessmen helped mandel bring in $223,685 to Butkovitz’s $190,350.
and what mandel’s and Butkovitz’s campaign cash flows can tell us
about their politics, perceived or otherwise — and about the tempera-ture of the war over union control of City Hall — may be more inter-esting than anything either candidate will say on the campaign trail.
in all, michael pestronk, his brother matthew and four limited-liabil-ity corporations they control donated $20,000 to mandel’s campaign last year. Combined, the gifts make them his biggest contributors by far. Other top donors include high-profile members of philadelphia’s business and political aristocracy. Notable are outspoken point Breeze developers Ori Feibush ($2,000) and John longacre ($1,617), South philadelphia realtor (and former City Council candidate) Barbara
Capozzi ($4,100), the lenfest family ($8,100 from four indi-viduals), Comcast heiress lisa roberts and her husband David Seltzer ($8,100) and former may-oral candidate Tom Knox ($2,500).
michael pestronk says there’s a reason they are rooting for an upset. it has to do with the challenges of doing business in philly, which he says Butkovitz has exacerbated.
He and his brother publicly faced off against the unions last year, after the philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council staged extensive protests of their Goldtex worksite, assaulting work-ers and alledgedly vandalizing the construction site. The city’s official reaction was lackadaisical — due, critics insisted, to union clout.
“We have been attacked by a lot of the politicians in the city,” says pestronk, who hasn’t made major political contributions in philly before. He singles out Butkovitz — who he says is “in the pocket of Building & Trades” — as a particularly insidious foe.
“all of the bad news that has to do with the city’s finances, the >>> continued on page 10
It’s about the war over union control of City Hall.
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[ takes a musket from the mantle ][ a million stories ]
Gun Showlast year, there were 334 homicides in philadelphia, 85 percent of which were committed with handguns. But, District attorney Seth Williams pointed out on monday, “not one of them was commit-
ted by a person that lawfully possessed a handgun.” There’s a simple fix, he added: require the reporting of lost or stolen guns at the state level, which would clamp down on the “supermajority” of guns that make it to the streets by way of straw purchasers.
But the following morning, at his eighth annual Second amendment Day rally in Harrisburg, state rep. Daryl metcalfe was proposing a slightly different — in fact, opposite — idea. His celebration of “political force and military force” drew hun-dreds of supporters to the Capitol steps — bused in from places most philadelphians have never heard of, like Beaver County — in favor of unchecked gun access. Without the unrestricted right to bear arms, metcalfe told the energized crowd, “We would have no
other rights, would we?”The event ended with a raffle of a Smith & Wesson, courtesy of
ace Sporting Goods in Washington, pa., and began with an ecstatic greeting from state rep. rick Saccone: “Good morning, all you
patriots and freedom lovers!” Saccone was there to talk up his House Bill 671, which would allow all gun-permit holders to carry concealed weapons. “Why do we need the government’s per-
mission to put a coat over our weapon?” he wanted to know. Despite the U.S. Senate defeat of federal background-check legis-
lation, metcalfe was promoting a bill to reject enforcement of federal gun controls in the state. in his favor, state rep. matt Gabler even rolled out the old adage, “guns don’t kill people,” with a new (and
way-too-soon) twist: “pressure cookers … don’t kill peo-
ple … evil people do.” and, as if to bring things full circle, state Sen. Elder Vogel blamed the “prosecutors and judges” for failing to put people who misuse guns behind bars.
The keynote speaker, ex-military officer Sean parnell, emphasized the importance of being ready to “take a musket from the man-
tle and muster it for battle.” (On philadelphia streets, semiauto-
matic pistols are preferred.) “it is a battle,” parnell insisted, “for the central nature of our identity.” —Samantha Melamed
barkS and recreationa week after the bombing of the Boston marathon, the Sunday-afternoon mood is momentarily somber at a meetup of the Boston “T” party, a monthly social event held by the three-month-old Boston Terrier Club. in honor of the victims, co-founders Carl Cristella, Nicole Solis, laura Kibler and Greg Beidleman have designed an instagram image reading “Boston We’re Wif you.” Solis says, “it [went viral] more than we thought. We’ve even made T-shirts and hoodies.” On the other hand, Solis adds, a luau
theme is also in the works for the summer. after all, somber isn’t really in a Boston terrier’s nature. about 20 of the high-energy dogs and their owners took over the Schuylkill river Dog park for an hour or so. The group’s founders say they just like giving their “super-smart” and “friendly” Bostons a chance to interact.
not everyone is impressed.allison Oxenberg and her dachs-hund are watching the Bostons warily. “right now, they were
being a little aggressive,” Oxenberg says, standing off to one side. “my dachshund is just a baby. We just wanted to be a little careful, so we’re waiting for there to be less dogs.” maybe she’ll feel differently, she adds, when someone forms a dachshund club.
—naveed ahsan
critical maSS➤ For Clara Jerez, Sunday mornings mean mass at la milagrosa, a chapel at 1903 Spring Garden St. that has, for decades, been a touchstone for philly’s latino Catholic community and was home to philly’s first Spanish-language mass. But last Sunday, Jerez was outside la milagrosa to pray for the church itself and protest its planned sale and closure. “This was like a home for us,” she says. after eight years here, the Colombian immigrant can’t imagine trying another church. “i will not find anyplace like this.”
more than 100 supporters gathered in the street for a “last mass” to bring aware-ness to the plight of the chapel, which they say is one of a dwindling number of churches serving philly's Spanish speakers as the church “turns its back” on one of its fastest-growing demographics. “Faith is not for sale, community is not for sale. … But this building is very much for sale,” said Gloria Casarez, the city’s lGBT affairs director, whose great-grandparents were members of the church. “The archdiocese has thrown us out on the street today.” But the archdiocese of philadelphia says it’s not to blame. in a statement, it notes that it’s a Barcelona-based organization that’s selling la milagrosa “in order to support their retired priests and brothers in Spain. … The archdiocese does not own the property and does not have the funds to purchase it.”
But the community’s anger, it turns out, may be justified at more than just gut level, Jennifer Clarke of the public interest law Center of philadelphia told the crowd: “There are very serious legal questions about the sale. … The money that was given to establish this chapel was given for a restricted purpose.” —Samantha Melamed
hitandrun ➤ news in brief
LIFE SCIENCEThe “graphic story” illustrating how a maid at Drexel’s College of Medicine in the late 19th century donated her body to science, with her ner-vous system on display to this day [“Meet Harriet Cole,” written by Jess Bergman, illustrated by Evan M. Lopez, April 18, 2013], prompted Theresa M. Connors, an instructor and lab manager in the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at Drexel, to write: “Thank you for giving Harriet Cole some muchdeserved press. I teach gross anatomy and do research in neuroscience at Drexel College of Medicine. I encourage medical students to spend time with Harriet, and I always make her my first stop when groups of highschool students visit our campus. Her story is fascinating, and she never ceases to amaze everyone who sees her. Harriet completely embodies the spirit of medical education and research at Drexel College of Medicine, and I’m proud that we can still use her generous gift to educate our students.”
OLD PROBLEMSSeveral responses came in to our cover story about the numerous blighted properties in Old City and the curious reasons why long-time owners won’t develop them [“The Trouble with Old City,” Ryan Briggs, April 11, 2013].
Citypaper.net commenter afromacnerd observed: “You could easy title the article ‘The Trouble with the City.’ The issues pointed out here have been duplicated throughout the city for years.”
Commenter phillyplease added that those troubles have also existed “in more residential parts of the city, where blight is holding back communities that haven’t already realized the type of turnaround and improvement that Old City has. I sympathize with Old City residents, but it’s just puzzling to see blight in a neighborhood with multimilliondollar townhouses. In Kensington, West Philly, Point Breeze, et al, blight is holding back communities that are working hard to create clean, safe, residential neighborhoodsof mostly homeowners. And there are people in Philadelphia who would be willing to rehab a lot of these sites for their homes. The city needs to make it easier for those people to acquire, rehab and reside in those types of properties.”
And in a post praising the story, the blog Philebrity chimed in, in its understated way, with the headline “Today’s CP Cover Story Is Accidental Exhibit A in Why Maybe Everyone in This Town Over 60 Should Just Die Already.”
feedbackFrom our readers
We welcome and encourage your feedback. Mail let-ters to Feedback, City Paper, 123 Chestnut St., 3rd Floor, Phila., PA 19106. E-mail [email protected] or com-ment online at citypaper.net. Submissions may be edited for clarity and space.
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system failure➤ Last saturday was supposed to be a big day for lisa Sodano. maurice ingersoll, her fiance, was going to take her shopping for a wedding ring. She woke up early and drove from Bucks County to Community Corrections Center No. 2 (CCC2), a squat, gray concrete building with dirty windows at Eighth and Spring Garden streets.
But by the time she arrived, ingersoll was dead — and Sodano believes the staff and conditions at CCC2 are to blame. The halfway house run by the pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) is the worst-performing one in the state, according to a recent study that damned the system as ineffective.
Seventy men live at CCC2. Sodano visited ingersoll, 39, nearly every day since he was paroled there on march 4. it had been tough. ingersoll, whom Sodano met at the trailer park where she and his mother, Deborah Smith, lived, was depressed. He had, according to his family, borderline-personality disorder and had been prescribed propranolol, tra-zodone and venlafaxine for his anxiety.
last week, however, Sodano was optimistic: ingersoll was coming home soon. But when they spoke Friday night, ingersoll was furious. He com-plained that his counselor was never in the office, and his day pass for Saturday had not yet been approved. The counselor treated white residents especially poorly, the family alleges, and had taken her time in approving his home plan. “They treated them like a piece of shit,” says Sodano, who believes prison was a more humane environment. “at least when my man, when these men, are locked up, they get hot showers, three square meals a day.”
On Saturday, Sodano pulled up at CCC2 at 7:20 a.m. While she was waiting for ingersoll, a fire truck, an ambulance and police cars arrived. minutes later, a halfway-house resident walked up to her truck.
“He said, ‘mama, i’m about to tell you something, but whatever you do don’t get out the truck until iwalk away, because i could get in trouble.’ He said, ‘mama, your man’s dead.’” a coroner later told the family he had overdosed on opiates.
Sodano and Smith say the halfway house drove ingersoll to desperation. One resident told Sodano drugs were available inside and said a resident had given ingersoll percocet, an opiate. The philadelphia medical examiner told Cp that his death had been ruled an accident caused by drug intoxication, but would not reveal toxicological details.
State halfway houses have recently been the subject of considerable criticism — most promi-nently from state Corrections Secretary John Wetzel. a February DOC report found that 67 percent of inmates paroled to the 38 privately run and 14 state-run halfway houses are re-arrested or re-incarcerated within three years, making them more likely to recidivate than offenders released directly to the street.
CCC2 has the highest recidi-vism rate of any large halfway house in pennsylvania. itprovides no medical or mental-health services on site, though residents are supposedly subject to drug screening. “medical or mental-health services are pro-vided in the community,” says DOC press secretary Susan mcNaughton, who declined to comment on ingersoll’s death specifically. “if a resident has a need for such services, they would … go to the hospital or clinic.” But the family says ingersoll needed permission to make such a visit, and did not see a mental-health professional during his stay. “itwasn’t like he could just walk out there and go,” says Sodano.
and ingersoll needed those ser-vices. His stay at CCC2 stemmed from a 2007 arson arrest. The
family says he had attempted to set fire to the home of dealers who had sold bad drugs to his younger brother. “There were some very poorly-put-together molotov cock-tails,” says Bensalem detective John monaghan. “He was a very bad arsonist.”
ingersoll began experiencing problems with his medication last week, says Sodano.He had two visits with a doctor at the public Health management Corp.’s Care Clinic. She says his prescription was altered on the second visit, and that he later requested help from his counselor but did not receive any. While mcNaughton notes there are toll-free numbers for reporting mistreatment, Sodano says ingersoll told her to stop calling his parole officer to com-plain. His counselor had allegedly said it would “cause a problem.”
“This program was to integrate these men out into society,” says Sodano. “They’re not doing that. They’re being abused. and now, because of that abuse, my man is dead.”
“Because of that abuse, he’s dead.”
hostilewitnessBy Daniel Denvir
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controller has a lot of power over,” he says. “But what does Butkovitz do? He buries his head and puts out reports on job sites. … He’s put out reports against us.”
pestronk is referencing an October 2012 report in which the controller described unnamed construc-tion sites paying subcontractors under the table and violating federal workplace-safety regulations. Butkovitz has repeatedly come under fire from mandel for releasing scattershot reports while failing to conduct regular departmental audits as required by city law. However, Butkovitz says this particular report was technically an audit of the Department of licenses & inspections, inasmuch as it chronicled l&i’s failure to regulate work sites.
pestronk claims the report was timed to discredit post Brothers. “We called [Butkovitz] and said we wanted to make sure we were doing everything right, but we never got a response,” says pestronk. “Then he … told several reporters our project was the biggest offender.”
Butkovitz denies that the report was aimed at post Brothers. But says he’s not surprised his inves-tigations would spur developers to back mandel. it’s not so much about what the controller can do to help developers. “But i can tell you what a control-ler can do to hurt a developer. We did very damag-ing audits last year pointing out a lot of evasion of
regulation and difficulty enforcing the tax laws. … Developers were infuriated.”
He paints mandel, in turn, as their union-busting crony. “The post Brothers have been very high pro-file in coming to philadelphia with the mission of breaking union wage standards and breaking the con-struction trade unions. and Brett mandel has taken the position of being their point guy,” Butkovitz says. The pestronks deny that, and say they have “a fantastic relation-ship with most of the trades, except for Doc and the electricians.”
“Doc” is, of course, John Dough-erty, leader of the international Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (iBEW) local 98 and Butkovitz’s top supporter via local 98’s paC($11,500), iBEW’s national paC($10,000) and Building a Better philadelphia ($10,000) — a local 98-affiliated paC registered to Councilman Bobby Henon’s home address. (Henon, a former iBEW political director, retains a part-
Controlling Interests<<< continued from page 6
[ the naked city ]
>>> continued on page 12
“He puts out reports on job sites, reports against us.”
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time role in union leadership.)meanwhile, mandel’s largest single contribution
came from state Sen. larry Farnese’s campaign committee ($11,500). Farnese won his seat by duk-ing it out with Doc in 2008 — a feud that, it appears, has not been fully laid to rest. Farnese, though, says he just wants a controller who can help him con-vince Harrisburg lawmakers “that if you give the city money for development or the school district, that it’s going to be spent appropriately and wisely.”
mandel and Farnese pleaded ignorance to any behind-the-scenes labor battle. mandel says donors have simply been attracted to his message of trans-parency. Though he has already more than doubled his total fundraising in 2009, mandel claims to have “no idea” what caused the spike in donations. “Certainly, i noticed that i have hundreds and hundreds of individuals giving me money, while [Butkovitz] has dozens of folks behind him with significant financial resources,” he says. “He has clearly failed to connect with philadelphians.”
in the last two years, mandel collected 414 individual political contributions, nearly all of which were small, personal contributions. Butkovitz recorded 273 indi-vidual donations, roughly a third of which came directly from paCs, unions, law firms, parking-lot operators, billboard owners and other politicians’ war chests, most generously, mayor Nutter’s campaign committee.
But it seems Butkovitz or his supporters have taken notice. in the first quarter of 2013, Butkovitz cleared $77,750, virtually all from union paCs.
mandel reported raising just $250. “We gave mandel some money,
and i guess someone heard about it,” pestronk says. “in the end, it might have almost helped Butkovitz more, because it got those guys fired up for him.”
pestronk isn’t about to double down. He hasn’t been impressed with mandel’s campaign strategy lately. “We feel as though [mandel] needs to be going after quote-unquote new philadelphians,” he says. The circulating rumors about mandel’s closed-door meet-ing with Butkovitz and Farnese — last week made public in a Daily News story in which Butkovitz accused mandel of seeking a job in exchange for dropping out of the race, while mandel professed a hazy memory of the whole affair — are probably not helping.
in any case, Farnese insists, the controller’s job is about indepen-dence: “i don’t think [the cam-paign financing] has anything to do with ideology.”
Controlling Interests<<< continued from page 10
[ the naked city ]
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In 1996 Stafford moved to Temple to become director of jazz studies, a role he continues to fill. Becoming chair of the instrumental-studies department in 2010 gave him oversight of both jazz and classical students. “Sometimes I see myself as a peacemaker or an ambassador,” he says, “the voice between faculty and administration.”
In his current position, Stafford is able to build bridges between the two genres, something that was discouraged when he was studying at Rutgers. As a classical student, he could have been granted professional leave to tour with a classical ensemble, but not with a jazz band. So when saxophonist Bobby Watson offered him a position in his band Horizon, Stafford tried to get sneaky: He applied for leave to tour with the Robert Watson Chamber Ensemble — a clever ruse that earned him a one-year suspension for academic dishonesty when Horizon landed on the cover of DownBeat magazine.
“Back then it was so segregated,” Stafford recalls. “They used to call classi-cal ‘legitimate music,’ so that must mean jazz is non-legit. My wind-ensemble instructor would say, ‘Terell, you’re playing with that jazzy sound, get rid of that.’ I’d be crushed. So my job at Temple is to have the two genres meet in the middle and respect the best of what both have to offer.”
Having come to jazz later than many of his contemporaries, Stafford has dedicated a considerable amount of his energy to paying homage to his fore-bears, a mission that will continue under the auspices of the Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia. In 2011, he released This Side of Strayhorn,a collection of music penned by Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn. His next project will be a tribute to Philly trumpet legend Lee Morgan, material he debuted last year at the Kimmel Center.
Morgan’s work will also make up part of the new orchestra’s repertoire. Draw-ing on the music of composers associated with Philadelphia certainly leaves the orchestra with no shortage of potential material. Stafford easily rattles off a host of greats whose material they could perform: John Coltrane, Jimmy Heath,
Benny Golson, McCoy Tyner.“Philadelphia is a very soulful, passionate city, and
the music that comes from the city is the same,” Staf-ford says. “It has this unique attitude, and there’s an intellectual side and a spiritual side to it.
“There’s so much talent and so much music that comes from this city,” he concludes, “and people need to hear it.”
✚ The Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia performs Tue., April 30, noon, free, City Hall courtyard.
IN HIS ROLE AT TEMPLE, STAFFORD IS ABLE TO BUILD BRIDGES BETWEEN JAZZ AND CLASSICAL.
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©2013 A-B, Budweiser® Black Crown Lager, St. Louis, MO
TASTE IS INTRODUCING A NEW SHADE OF AMBER
# TA S T E I S
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[ theater/animation ]
THE TRAGEDY OFMECH-BETHTrying to make Shakespeare more accessible to kids via animated robots and modern English. By Marc Snitzer
I f Baz Lurhmann can make a ’90s-heartthrob Romeo and Juliet set on Verona Beach and Mekhi Phifer’s Othello can be a high-school basketball champ, the limits to reinterpret-
ing Shakespeare are pretty fuzzy. But one common denominator between Leonardo DiCaprio and whoever played Romeo on the Globe stage is that they’re both humans.
As its name implies, the Philly-based Robot Shakespeare Company produces shortened Shakespeare works as computer-ani-mated films in which all the characters are CGI robots. Sci-fi float-ing cities replace Scotland in its most recent release, the all-robot Tragedy of Macbeth, as a visual draw for the RSC’s target audience: kids. To aid the accessibility factor, modern English subtitles accom-pany the original lines spoken by the ’bots (“These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so, it will make us mad,” becomes “Stop worrying so much! It will make you crazy,” for example). RSC found-er Dan Gallagher spoke with City Paper.
City Paper: Your take on Macbeth moves the setting from Dark-Ages Scotland to a distant sci-fi universe. How does that affect
the material?Dan Gallagher: The idea is that the kingdom is the whole planet and the palace is a floating, Cloud City-type situation. What I was really going for was to have the sci-fi setting be shorthand so kids can say, “OK. They’re in space, and that floating city is what’s in charge,” [and, don’t have] to be concerned with the politics of Norway invading or really worrying about where Norway is. Just different kingdoms. Different planets. Bad guys.
CP: Why did you choose Macbeth as your first kid-friendly adapta-tion, given how R-rated it is?DG: [Laughs.] That occurred to me so late in the process! I real-
ized, “This is a really graphic, dark, disturbing thing.” But Macbeth is just the most straightforward — in terms of plot, in terms of action. We have the good guy who gets messed with his head, becomes
a bad guy right in front of you, and boom — he’s a bad guy. Then the good guys have to fight him. Julius Caesar and Hamlet are a little complicated. But using robots instead of flesh-and-blood people, you can really tone the violence down to a Lion King level of implied vio-lence without really scarring anybody.
CP: What are some of the limitations in a robot Macbeth? For exam-ple, I’d imagine Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking monologue might be tough without blood.
a&eartsmusicmoviesmayhem
NOBODY APPRECIATES OBSCURE anni-versaries like I do. (The best thing about PIFA was that its artists took inspiration from some real historical lulus.) Radio legend Michael Tearsontells me that April 29 is the 45th anniversary of “the day Philadelphia radio changed forever” as Dave Herman’s “Marconi Experiment” and HyLit’s “Hyski’s Underground”launched that day, on WMMR FM and WDAS FM respectively. Featuring deep album cuts and psychedelic jammers, this was radio at its pre-pre-programmed finest. To celebrate those wild days, listen for “Michael Tearson’s Marconi Experiment,”a webcast airing on iradiophilly.com’s Ziggy and Libra channels, premiering April 27 and 28. Tearson, a veteran of both WMMR and WDAS, took over Herman’s show in September 1970. “Since I retired the name, I kinda have custody,” says Tearson. “And with Internet radio blossoming, it’s time to revive ‘Marconi’ in the spirit of exploration that was the early days of album-rock radio.” Then there’s the fact that Philly’s purveyors of hit-pop and reggae-dom, The Hooters,are celebrating 33 1/3 years since playing their first show at Matti’s Place in Levittown, Pa. “I’ve been playing ‘All You Zombies’ [since] my very first gig,” says drummer David Uosikkinen,who’s currently mixing his In the Pocket band’s Live from Colonial Theatre CD with Phil Nicolo.“Not to slight any other song, but, ‘Zombies’ hasn’t missed a set list.” To celebrate, Uosikkinen, RobHyman,Eric Bazilianand the rest of the Hoots play Electric Factory on April 27. After that, April 30, the Hooters hit Harrisburg’s Capitol building to receive an official state Senate proclamation celebrating The Hooters Appreciation Day.“It’s pretty cool to get recognized for something like being in a rock band,” laughs Uosikkinen. “This state has been a huge part of our success. In the early ’80s it felt like we played every high school and college here. The proclamation is humbling and we’re grateful to get it.” Big congrats to the National Constitution Center’sVP of external affairs Alison Young,who externalized her inner Len Goodman and won the fifth annual Dancing with the Philadelphia Stars Sunday at the Crystal Tea Room.Her victory dance was the foxtrot with Paul Samuelnas from theStudio at Take the Lead on Pine. Yay her. WIOQ 102 FM’s Maxwellwaltzed into second place. Fans of Jersey Devil-style ’80s metal need not head back in time or leave Pennsylvania to hear one of the form’s finest purveyors. Born in 1983, the heavy crunch-ing Attacker headlines an early show at Kung Fu Necktie on April 27. The fact that these guys are at work on a new album gives us hope. Icepack Illustrated (like this, but with photos) appears every Thursday at citypaper.net/criticalmass.
icepackBy A.D. Amorosi
>>> continued on page 24
In space, you don’t have to worry about Norway.
TURN, HELL-HOUND, TURN: King Macbeth
(foreground) is about to get an Act V righteous
smackdown from a hov-ercraft-mounted Macduff in the Robot Shakespeare
Company’s latest.
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[ respect the line between wistful and woeful ]
THE ANGEL’S SHARE[ B- ] THE TITLE OF Ken Loach’s latest refers to the small percentage of alcohol that evaporates out of the barrel as it ferments. While The Angels’ Share demon-strates the concern with the U.K.’s downtrodden that marks most of Loach’s films, it seems to dissolve into the ether compared to his higher-proof work. In the early going, the director establishes an appropriate air of desperation for his protagonist, Robbie (Paul Brannigan): Following a vicious fight, the young, repentant thug is sentenced to community service, a reprieve due in part to the imminent birth of his son. Stuck in a brutal section of Glasgow where violent grudges fester for genera-tions, Robbie is intent on reforming but trapped by circumstance, the recursive cycle of mindless retribution constantly threatening a final strike against him. The chance discovery of his keen nose for whiskey seems to offer an unlikely opportunity for escape to a more elite environment. But at this point, the film makes its first (but not last) abrupt tonal shift, turning into a breezy semi-documentary on the world of whiskey. Loach’s camera sits in for a tasting, tours a distillery, drops by for an auc-tion, all the while mining a few easy laughs from Robbie’s makeshift gang of com-munity-service misfits. Once that milieu is established, Paul Laverty’s script shifts again, transforming into a light-hearted caper, its gravitas by this point completely dissipated. Loach stands by impassively through it all: watching unflinchingly as Robbie faces one of his victims and his family; sitting attentively for a lesson on barrel aging; imparting no real urgency to the climactic heist. The theft of a few bottles’ worth of rare Scotch is depicted as a victimless crime, its aficionados easy targets for a send-up of show-offy “expertise.” It all goes down smooth, a wee dram for the septuagenarian social realist. —Shaun Brady
flickpick [ movie review ]
[ PIFA-scope: festival reviews ]
INTERCULTURAL JOURNEYS
Cellist Udi Bar-David, of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Dalí Quartet, is a fine musician. He’s also clearly one of those connectors who gets people to show up and make things together. But it was telling that the actual pieces of Guadalupe: Our
Lady of the Roses (April 19) weren’t listed in the program; it seemed like Bar-David had just invited a bunch of musicians to put together some Latino-related stuff and show up at 7. The titular concert opera was a small fraction of the intermissionless program. Each of the many participating groups took turns in the spotlight for the rest. It was interesting, but not quite what was billed. —Emily Guendelsberger
GERMAINE INGRAM PROJECT
Shows that draw inspiration from social injustice can come off like a lecture. Fortunately, Where Heaven’s Dew Divides (April 18) opted for a more open-ended approach. That’s a neat feat considering the piece takes inspiration from George Washington’s slaves, African-American religious leaders of the 1700s and Philadelphia’s yellow-fever epidemic. All were evident, yet the piece is abstract enough that it wasn’t like getting hit over the head with backstory. —Deni Kasrel
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT
Rufus Wainwright crunched two of his most daring and best-loved programs into Prima! Rufus! Judy! (April 21). Two of Wainwright’s singers from his opera Prima Donna boldly tackled its somber, twitchy-percussion-filled selections before a brief intermission. After that, it was showtime as Wainwright, in a sparkly tux jacket with tousled hair, went about the business of vocal dexterity, subtle-ty and schmaltz in a tribute to Judy Garland’s comeback.
—A.D. Amorosi
LUNA THEATER COMPANY
FutureFest (through April 27) offers six one-act plays about possible futures: androids, post-apocalypse scenarios, etc. But the show’s shorts format works against it: Sci-fi does best with room and time for world-building. A few plays pack so much unfamiliar terminology into so little space that they end up incomprehensible. Still, Luna makes good use of the space, with piles of post-apocalyptic junk on stage and colorful TV installations in the wall giving the show a cohesive visual feel. —Joseph Poteracki
✚ These are just a few final excerpts from our ongoing festival coverage at city-paper.net/PIFA; we’ll now return you to your regularly scheduled Disc-o-Scope column of CD reviews.
PAVED PARADISEA LENGTHY HIATUS was inevitable for K’s
Choice. Despite major acclaim in their native Belgium, the band failed to hold Americans’ attention after “Not an Addict” peaked at No. 5 on Billboard ’s Modern Rock chart in 1996. Members came and went, and after 2002’s Almost Happy,singer-song-writer Sarah Bettens moved to Tennessee to raise a family and make solo records while guitarist Gert Bettens stayed home to focus on his own music.
A reunion was just as inevitable: The siblings wrote and sang together for so much of their lives that geographical distance couldn’t sever their bond. Though they started recording in 2009, it’s taken a few years to secure a U.S. release of their two post-hiatus CDs and an accompanying tour, which brings them to World Café Live tonight.
The years have been kind to K’s Choice. Their lat-est lyrics seem largely untroubled by the angst that riddled so much of their ’90s music. Echo Mountain(Wallaby) is full of pretty alt-rock songs with slow-building verses and driving choruses: “Come Live the Life” makes the most of the siblings’ harmonies, “Killing Dragons” exhibits fine guitar work, and “I Will Carry You” hits the sweet spot where grunge-pop and Lilith Fair overlapped. Little Echoes (Wallaby) gives the unplugged treatment to new and old songs, and features back-to-back covers of Radiohead’s “No Surprises” and the Pointer Sisters’ “I’m So Excited.” What’s not to like?
In retrospect, there’s not much to dislike about Paradise in Me,K’s Choice’s second album, but there wasn’t much to distinguish it in 1996. The songs maintain a healthy tension between heavy riffs and delicate acoustic-guitar lines, and Sarah Bettens respects the line between wistful and woeful. Her voice is raspy and lovely, especially on “Song for Catherine.” “Not an Addict” isn’t the best track, but the repetitive lyrics and dynamic production signal it as the one most obviously engineered to be a hit. Better that than the silly “Something’s Wrong,” which closes the record with a series of unlikely scenarios, starting with “When your pubic hair’s on fire.” That must’ve been a crowd-pleaser when K’s Choice was opening for Alanis Morissette.
reconsidermeM.J. Fine does it again
WHISKEY REBELLION: A young thug (Paul Brannigan, center) attempts to reform
himself after his son is born, but is later drawninto a heist of rare Scotch.
A keen nose for whiskey offers an escape.
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[ arts & entertainment ]
DG: Right, well — there really is no blood. There’s one scene — oh, I better get this right — Act 2, Scene 1, where Macbeth has his famous “Is this a dagger I see before me?” speech. Normally when that’s done on stage, there’s no daggerthere. They’re not going to float a dagger in mid-air on a stage. I wasn’t sure what I should do here because this whole thing is implied madness. I decided to just show a knife in front of him. I gave it the same visual effect as the witches to imply that it has the same evil surrounding it. That was the one scene that thematically stuck out as trouble for me.
CP: How did you try to imbue these robot charac-ters with their Shakespearean qualities through character design?DG: There are lots of little touches. The royals — like the king and his two sons — their robots are purple because that’s the classic color for royalty. Macbeth, Banquo and Macduff are the men of action, so they have a more action-figure shape to their bodies: broad shoulders, that kind of thing. The more administerial types are skinnier in com-parison. I also did this ghost-like holographic effect with the witches so they’re clearly bad.
CP: Had any of your voice actors performed Macbeth prior to this?DG: There were only three of us, actually. There’s an actress I know who has done Macbeth out in L.A., so I flew her out here. She performed all the lady parts and some of the younger male parts. The other voice actor is actually another producer, and he and I have done Shakespeare together in the past. (This was on stage, never as voice actors.)
CP: Which parts do you play?DG: I played Macbeth, Duncan — who the hell else did I play? [Chuckles.] I was one of the mur-derers who kills Banquo. I was also Siward, the doctor who finds Lady Macbeth sleepwalking, and a couple other assorted minor characters.
CP: You use modern English subtitles as a way to make the play more accessible for kids. Is Shakespearean English a foreign language now?DG: It pretty much is. It’s only used for Shakespeare. With any language, the only way to get it is to just work at it — and that’s no fun at all for a new audience. It’s tough for newcom-ers to get into it because no one really meets you halfway. ... But a lot of the time we were work-ing on this, I had to stop and just think, “Wow, Shakespeare is a really good writer.” Once you get what these lines mean, they really crackle. The problem is that it’s just walled off. Think of it like vegetables: People will tell you, “No, just eat them.” Why not cook them in a little butter?
CP: Were there any translated subtitles you were particularly pleased with?DG: That’s a good question. There are so many
good lines that — actually, I went through so many drafts because I was just trying to say what he was saying. It got too cluttered and hard to read because I was trying to be literal. It took a lot of drafts — probably six or seven — to really get there. But at some point you have to realize, “It’s Shakespeare. You’re not going to write this well.” So my favor-ites are the moments where Shakespeare’s simple line needs no translation so the subtitle matches exactly. Those are the moments where I hope the lines will cross in the viewer’s head.
CP: Is the Robot Shakespeare Company working on any new plays for the future?
DG: Right now we’re in prepro-duction, breaking down scripts and going through designs for King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
CP: What’s important about exposing kids to Shakespeare?DG: We’re going for young stu-dents in particular because it’ll give them such a leg up. If you plan on ever studying in Western literature, aside from, like, the Bible, there’s nothing more influential than Shakespeare. So if you just get his stories and his structure and how he does things with his themes, it’ll really just help you out when looking at any other stories. (That’s scholastically.) But hon-estly, they’re just so good. People are really missing out. You know, there’s no limit to the amount of cool movies you can watch and cool books you can read. So don’t draw a limit there because of the intimidating context and lan-guage it has.
✚ The Robot Shakespeare Company’s version of Macbeth can be found online at robotshakespearecompany.com.
✚ The Tragedy of Mech-Beth<<< continued from page 22
Once you get the lines, they crackle.
Saturday, April 27th 11am-7pm & Sunday April 28 12-5pm
Some of your favorite Northern Liberties boutiquesare coming together to celebrate the warmer weather with a sidewalk sale! Discounts up to 75% off!
Participating Stores:Arcadia 819 N 2nd St., Duke & Winston 633 N. 2nd St., Art Star 623 N 2nd St.Framing Philadelphia 631 N. 2nd St., Bloom 910 N. 2nd St., Once Worn 906 N. 2nd St., Casa Papel 804 N. 2nd St., Swag 935 N. 2nd St., Concrete Polish 716 N. 3rd St.
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TIME AND TIME AGAIN
KATE ATKINSON’S Life After Life (Regan Arthur, April 2) flirts with one of the mustiest clichés of time travel: killing Hitler. It happens, in fact, in the prologue, as Ursula Todd pulls her father’s gun, left over from the Great War, on the Führer in a Munich cof-fee shop in 1930. This is perhaps Atkinson’s only concession to cliché, though; the prologue ends with Ursula’s death, as does the next scene, which begins the novel proper, as she is delivered still-born during a blizzard in 1910, umbilical cord wrapped around her throat.
Atkinson’s high concept — Ursula is born again and again, able to make different choices in each life, guided by chance or perhaps premonition — means that her heroine circles around crucial moments: a first kiss, the bombing of an apartment build-ing during the Blitz. It also means that her smallest actions have radical, often life-or-death, repercussions.
Life After Life depends on a very particular idea of personality and circumstance, one that doesn’t offer a great deal of consistency in character: Ursula’s choices, and very little else, are what mark the difference between an early death, an abusive marriage or a spa retreat with Eva Braun. As a result, there’s very little to Ursula but her choices, nothing inborn or immutable. At the same time, though, it gives the novel a strong empathetic charge: how easy to slip from safety to victimhood, from life to death.
The volume and the variety of Ursula’s stories open up a wide canvas for Atkinson to work on; because she adopts this circular, repetitive conceit, Atkinson gains the ability to examine the far-reaching changes in British society during the first half of the last century from all sorts of perspectives.
But just as often as this ambitious formal experiment works to emphasize the impact of history (as with the quick, almost ines-capable succession of deaths from the 1918 flu epidemic), it also works to mute our investment in Ursula — after all, she’ll get another chance.
Just shortly after the mechanics of time travel are explained to Bee Ridgway’s hero Nick Davenant in her sci-fi/Regency romance mash-up The River of No Return (Dutton, April 23 — launch April 25 at the Rittenhouse Barnes & Noble), he asks an obvious question that provokes a quick rebuke: “Why, when we talk about time travel, do we always have to kill Hitler or not kill Hitler! It is to make Hitler a commonplace!”
Of course, killing Hitler is a commonplace thing (maybe even a
genre unto itself) but debut novelist and Bryn Mawr prof Ridgway’s quick-witted dismissal of the cliché — she acknowledges it, and then brushes it off — shows her confidence working with a hand-ful of familiar styles. And in Nick she has a winning naïf of a hero, cheerfully anachronistic (quoting, say, “King of the Road” to explain the limits of his actions as titled gentry: “a man of means by no means”) but entirely consistent as a man out of time. River pushes him forward insistently (and, well, backward, too: The story starts in present-day Vermont but quickly shuttles back a couple of centuries to London). And if Ridgway relies more on picaresque urgency than careful plotting, finishing up with a sequel’s worth of loose ends, that’s because she’s more interested in delivering a roller-coaster ride than in tightening all the bolts on the tracks.
Time moves in only one direction in Meg Wolitzer’s The
Interestings (Riverhead, April 9) — steadily and inexorably forward — but Wolitzer’s allegiance to ordinary cause and effect does not signal any less ambition or scope thanAtkinson.On the contrary: Wolitzer’s novel occurs over a similar chunk of time, from Watergate to the present — set mostly in New York rather than London — and she works to incorporate a similarly wide range of experiences. But where Life After Life is aggressive and formally daring, gaining scope through repetition, The Interestings relies on the variety of an ensemble cast and the flexibility of a warm, forgiv-
ing narrator.And while The Interestings
starts off with the first flush of youth — its characters meet at an artsy summer camp — the book is refreshingly and engag-ingly an adult novel, concerned more with aging than with com-
ing of age. The large cast, anchored by almost-actress-turned-ther-apist Jules, pair off and uncouple; they realize or betray or discard the talents of their youth.
Wolitzer gently moves her characters from a group-of-friends ensemble piece into an examination of the dynamics of marriage and family, and the personal stakes and emotional complexity deepen accordingly, with shadings of envy and acceptance.
So, when Jules and her husband Dennis contemplate leaving New York City and their friends and jobs there, Wolitzer with characteristic grace calls the city “this place that they had man-aged rather than conquered,” and captures a very realistic kind of regret, an acknowledgement of consequences and limitations. This is not a dazzling performance; Wolitzer does not walk the same kind of tightrope Atkinson does, nor do her characters face the same degree of personal (or even historical) peril. But Wolitzer’s sustained attention and sympathy mean that even their smaller, homelier choices carry a full, satisfying weight.
[ arts & entertainment ]shelflife
Under the covers with Justin Bauer
“Why do we always have to kill Hitler or not kill Hitler!”
✚ WE ARE EVERYWHERE.Don't believe it? Find phillycitypaper on Instagram: We are legion. We’ve got also got the last drops of PIFA reviewage on the blog, citypaper.net/criticalmass.
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now a full-time member of the group. “Kevin was absolutely down for
anything,” says Bolton. “And Ruston? Sometimes when I think I’m alone he sneaks up on me and scares me.” Bolton adds that Grosse’s giant harmony vocals added a layer of plushness.
“We had a lot of interesting post-produc-tion ideas including bombs blasting and strange sound effects,” says Giordano. “Kevin was awesome with post-production and really helped us tie everything togeth-er with those noises.”
You can hear what she’s talking about on standout tracks like “The Creeple,” with its “medieval royalty” vibe and “troll-sounding choir.”
As for Surgeon’s metallic take on pro-gressive rock, Bolton is pragmatic, if not too hopeful. “I do see some newer prog bands getting good attention, but I don’t think there’ll ever be too many spins at weddings or hits at top 40 radio,” he says. “It seems as if prog will always be more of a cult thing.”
✚ Sat., April 27, 8 p.m., free-will donation, Garage Mahal, 2026 N. Hancock St.
[ prog/metal ]
DEAD WORLD RISINGEast Kensington band Surgeon rocks the wasteland on the new Chemical Reign.By A.D. Amorosi
“T he end of my block looks like the edge of the world,” says Sean Bolton of Philly band Surgeon. The singer/bassist — who grew up in Germantown with his bandmate guitar-
ist Lydia Giordano — currently lives in East Kensington. From his front door, he can see the burned-out Buck Hosiery building where two Philadelphia firefighters died in a blaze last year.
Whether it’s on Surgeon’s first album (2008’s Steve Albini-pro-duced Angry Guest) or the new Chemical Reign (self-produced with Kevin Antreassian), you can sense the blasted-out, detritus-ridden environment they live in, literally and figuratively. Bolton credits (or blames) the tattered urban remains on his street with fueling his imagination and filling his head with visions of power struggles and toxic horrors.
He and Giordano forge a visceral and agitated prog-metallic sound — doomy, but with resplendent bright spots at the end of every third tunnel or so.
“I wanted the music to fit the album’s title and lyrics; to have a very creepy and dark feel, but with an uplifting quality, too,” says Giordano of Chemical Reign’s bleak, bold atmospheres. “Anything interesting, catchy and eerie is great.”
She and Bolton met following high school and formed edgy indie-rock trio Bumrunner. “At that age, it was who you got to get you beer: a bum runner,” says Bolton. “I mention that name to people to this day and some of them immediately cringe.”
By the mid-2000s, the pair got into harder, more musically com-plex stuff. As Surgeon, their moody material confused people in the early going.
“We were frustrated with the industry,” says Giordano, thinking back on demo-ing tracks for Angry Guest. “We were being pushed by some heavy-handed producers at the time and weren’t happy with the result. I did some research to find a producer that was more hands-off. Steve seemed like the perfect fit.”
Steve as in Albini, the laissez-faire producer of Nirvana and Jesus Lizard whose disdain for micromanagement is legendary. “We’ve always been a more-or-less DIY band, so we were attracted to his reputation,” says Bolton. “We got just a little more DIY from him than we expected, though,” he laughs. “His hands-off attitude was extreme, even to the point where if you asked if the take was good, Albini would say, ‘Well, what do you think?’”
They had the kinks ironed out when it came to Chemical Reign,which they recorded themselves with help from producer Kevin Antreassian, whom they met through drummer Ruston Grosse,
[ arts & entertainment ]
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[ arts & entertainment ]
META FRICTION
THE MAGIC FLUTE comes with baggage. There’s misogyny and racism embedded in the text. Its moral message boils down to “Trust dudes with beards, and also love is cool!” The libretto is long, poorly paced and dumb as a bag of rocks; unless you’re really into Freemasonry, the second half drags ass all the way to a jarring anticlimax.
There are good things built in, too, obviously, or it wouldn’t be one of the most popular operas ever. There’s Mozart’s immensely likeable score. The jokes transcend time and language. The Queen of the Night’s big arias are a standing invitation to bring down the house; ditto the fairy-tale setting for costume and set designers. Still, modern pro-ductions of The Magic Flute tend to have some sort of conceit to distract from the nonsensical story: It’s all a dream! It’s a post-suicide journey to the afterlife! It’s drugs! Postmodernism!
In Diane Paulus’ new take, a production pre-miered in Toronto in 2011 and now getting its third outing from Opera Philadelphia, the Academy of Music’s stage literally contains another, smaller stage, on which an 18th-century audience of aristo-crats and servants watch a production of The Magic Flute. I hate to discourage Opera Philadelphia from giving new stuff a shot, but this production is confusing, and its core concept — plus a couple key voices one afternoon — just isn’t all there.
The play-within-a-play conceit worked great in the first act: Seeing the onstage “audience” gasp at monsters and giggle at over-the-top mugging did a wonderfully efficient job of establishing that The Magic Flute has less-dignified origins than the golden Academy stage would suggest. It also limits production-value expectations, which was freeing — you don’t wish for some $20,000 Julie Taymor puppet when the audience on stage is so clearly delighted by a giant dragon head stuck on top of two skinny human legs.
There’s some meta-story going on in the world of the aristocrats — the birthday-girl noble who ends up playing Pamina maybe likes the guy play-ing Tamino? The actress playing the Queen of the Night is married to the actor playing Monostatos, and they’re both into leather? But since it’s not remotely in the text, the poor actors are stuck try-
ing to communicate a second nar-rative using only Twilight-wor-thy significant looks. I had only a vague idea of what was going on with the meta-plot when the Act I curtains fell — first the small one, then the big one — but the fun outweighed the confusion.
Unfortunately, Act II jettisons the stage-within-a-stage concept and goes right off the rails. If a piece of scenery moved in the first act, you saw a servant move it. The second act is done in a labyrinth of hedges that shift around via the more standard unseen stagehands, and the actors seem to have actually become their characters.
This could have been neat if the audience had the vaguest idea why this happened. But “As the drama unfolds, the actors leave the theatre behind ... . All distinc-tions between fantasy and reality fade away as their pageant lasts through the night” is all we get about it in Paulus’ production notes. Fairies? Eighteenth-cen-tury acid tea? Who knows?
Costumes that might have been charmingly DIY in the con-text of an 18th-century garden party felt cheap in the second act — the climactic trials by fire and water (shown, above) particularly looked like a high-school-dance-team interpretation of Frost’s “Fire and Ice,” and, according to a friend, caused the opening-night audience to break out laughing.
The standout was Curtis alum Elizabeth Zharoff as Pamina, who overcame her Disney-hero-ine outfit to make even the most ludicrously unearned emotional moments feel real. Zharoff has the vocal equivalent of Claire Danes’ cry-face, unafraid to be less than pretty. I bought that she was heartbroken to the point of suicide because a dude she’d known for, like, five minutes wouldn’t talk to her, and the high note she hit when they were reunited had such joy in it that I got shivers. Baritone Mark Stone nailed both the music and the comedy as Papageno, playing him as a Jason Segel character.
Not all the roles were so well->>> continued on adjacent page
curtaincallBy Emily Guendelsberger
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cast. The opposition of Sarastro and the Queen is reflected in their extreme ranges — he needs a solid, trust-me-I’m-a-bass low F, while she’s defined by the cold power and glittery precision of her high range, up to a high F. Strangely, neither singer cast had the voice necessary for the part: Jordan Bisch sounded lovely higher up, but the low notes weren’t there. And Rachele Gilmore, singing the Queen for the first time in her career, doesn’t have that big, scary voice yet, and was a bit imprecise to boot.
The supertitles were interesting — what gets left behind in the jump from German to English has a big effect on the story .As in most modern translations, the racist stuff about Monostatos the rapey Moorish slave gets left behind, because yikes.(The thankless role is well played by tenor Joseph Gaines as something like the hypersexual but unthreatening Dean on Community.)
The sexism that’s too plot-central to be left out — most of the Temple of Bros Before Hos — also seemed to be disarmed by playful, tongue-in-cheek supertitles that make it sound pompous verging on silly. Giggles broke out when Sarastro solemnly con-gratulated Tamino with “Your manly behavior has
triumphed” and “Your conduct has been manly and composed.” The supertitles also leave out enough of the Queen’s nattering and specific evil designs to make her seem sympathetic enough that at times I wondered if the libretto was translated by Howard Zinn.
Not that I object! The happy-ending tableau, as the sun rises and the garden party comes down from all those mushrooms or whatever, includes the Queen and Monostatos happily embrac-ing amid the rest of the group. I liked it more than the usual endings, where they’ve been banished or killed by the beardo patriarchy. I fully support pro-ductions that ditch some bits of The Magic Flute in the name of “we don’t do that bullshit any-more.” If only it had been done in a way that made a lick of sense.
✚ Through April 28, $10-$235, Academy of Music, 240 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999, operaphila.org.
[ arts & entertainment ]✚ Curtain Call<<< continued from previous page
“Your manly behav-ior has triumphed!” caused widespread giggles.
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✚ NEW
THE ANGEL’S SHARESee Shaun Brady’s review on p. 23. (Ritz Five)
ARTHUR NEWMANA haiku: Can Colin Firth startover and escape his past?Colin Firth cannot. (Not reviewed) (Wide release)
THE BIG WEDDINGA haiku: Meet the Parents meetsMamma Mia! meets Licenseto Wed or something. (Not reviewed) (Wide release)
KOCH | B-Ed Koch, New York City mayor from 1978 to 1989, had a habit for telling it like it is that won him both admirers and detractors. Koch,Neil Barsky’s nimble documentary on the late, polarizing mayor, tells it like it was, but with more fawn-ing respect than probing insight. Alternating between scenes of Koch in his later years and during his critical time in of-fice, the film showcases this feisty, larger-than-life politician whose catchphrase was “How am I doing?” Barsky shows how Koch accomplished what he did, from getting elected to becoming a hero to a broke and depressed New York, and digs into the contradictions of the man’s career. Koch was im-mensely popular, yet rode out corruption scandals. He stood up against transit workers during a 1980 strike, and closed Sydenham hospital to much criticism. He was accused of being unsupportive of the gay community during the AIDS crisis, and still remains cagey about his sexuality when pressed. These vignettes are all ably presented with archival footage and knowledgeable talking heads, but Koch never
inspires — or infuriates — like the late mayor did. Koch claimed he wanted to be relevant. But Koch the film, though neither hagiography nor hatchet piece, feels somewhat inconsequential. —Gary M. Kramer (Ritz at the Bourse)
MUD | B-In Take Shelter, writer/director Jeff Nichols depicted an internal armageddon, a tempest of fear and anxiety that could have portended the end of the world or just the end of one man’s ability to deal with reality. Nichols’ follow-up is less successful, but takes a similar approach to explor-ing intimate emotion through genre dramatics. Mud is a Mark Twain-inspired pulp fairy tale, a story of doomed love through the eyes of an adolescent boy who wants more than anything to believe in a romantic ideal. Matthew Mc-Conaughey sports crooked teeth and skin cured like jerky as Mud, a drifter whom two young Arkansas boys discover living in a boat stuck in the branches of a tree following a flood. One of the boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan), has just learned that his parents are divorcing at the same time that he’s suffering the pangs of a first love. Through his eyes, the reality of his elders looks spoiled and rotten, whereas Mud’s desperate attempts to evade his pursuers and reunite with his Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) seems the only true romance to be found. Nichols maintains a delicate balance between the Southern-fried realism of Ellis’ home life and the fantasy of his secret alliance with Mud until it collapses in an avalanche of melodrama, with the bitter tinge of disil-lusionment remaining. —Shaun Brady (Ritz Five)
NO PLACE ON EARTHA haiku: Remember when wehid in caves during the war?OMG that sucked. (Not reviewed) (Ritz at the Bourse)
movieshorts
Mud
FILMS ARE GRADED BY CITY PAPER CRITICS A-F.
IN THEATERS EVERYWHERE APRIL 26
NO PLACE ON EARTH
“Even in the Holocaust’s annals of extreme survival
THEIR HARSH SANCTUARYHOLDS A SPECIAL POWER.
The courage and stamina of the men, women and children boggles the mind.”
– Nicholas Rapold, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“ASTONISHING.Let those who think they’ve heard every inspiring
tale of Holocaust survival SEE THIS FILM.”– John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
A N A M A Z I N G S T O R Y C O M E S T O L I G H T
“AN EXTRAORDINARY SURVIVAL TALE. HUGELY MOVING AND MEMORABLE.”
– Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times
LANDMARK THEATRESRITZ AT THE BOURSE
Center City 215-440-1181EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT STARTS FRIDAY, APRIL 26magpictures.com/noplaceonearth
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PAIN AND GAINRead Drew Lazor’s review at citypaper.net/movies. (Wide release)
✚ CONTINUING
42 | B-Brian Helgeland’s Jackie Robinson biopic is predicated on the baseball leg-end having, as Harrison Ford’s cartoon-ishly crusty character puts it, “the guts not to fight back.” That translates into lots of seething in noble silence while racial epithets are hurled in Robinson’s direction. Early in the film, the tense yet muted approach is refreshing in comparison to the constant insistence on inspiration endemic to most hagiog-raphies. But as the Dodgers get closer to the pennant, the tension dissipates and Helgeland’s reserve settles into a tepid simmer. The orchestra ultimately swells and bases are run in ridiculous-ly protracted slow motion, but there are a few unexpected diversions on the way to that inevitable destination.—SB (Wide release)
BLANCANIEVES | B-An affectionate homage to both the silent-film era and 1920s Spain, Pablo Berger’s kicky curio restages Snow White in the bullring, with torero’s daughter Carmen (Macarena García) struggling to save her gored papa (Daniel Giménez Cacho) from a schem-ing nurse (a sublimely camp Maribel Verdú). Rather than treating silent film as a cutesy curiosity (cf. The Artist), Berger mingles Guy Maddin and Luis Buñuel, especially when Carmen loses her memory and winds up with a circus troupe of traveling dwarves. Though it lacks the slick revisionism of Snow White and the Huntsman ,Blancanievesoutclasses its big-budget quasi-peers .Much as it strikes out on its own, it still feels like a clever twist unable to stand on its own. —Sam Adams (Ritz Five)
THE COMPANY YOU KEEP | CRobert Redford may view The Com-pany You Keep as the next logical notch in his late-career lefty directorial belt, but it meanders into what’s closer to a pseudo-political Wild Hogs .The action actually starts off spirited, with Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) deliberately setting herself up for arrest by FBI stiff Cornelius (Terrence Howard). A nondescript mother to most, we learn that Solarz is a former Weather Underground operative, on the lam for decades for a bank robbery gone bad. Albany beat reporter Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) senses more to the story, leading him to the revelation that well-liked, recently widowed local lawyer Jim Grant (Redford) is actually the assumed identity of Nick Sloan, another infamous radical implicated in
the crime. As Sloan scrambles to clear his name, tapping into a network of associates that reads like the guest list at Gene Hackman’s last cookout, we’re pummeled with dragging dialogue, in-essential twists and a preponderance of nostalgic lamentations .—Drew Lazor (Ritz Five, Rave)
THE CROODS | BDreamWorks was boldly formulaic in hammering together its latest sure-to-be-smash, but it’s amiable and imaginative enough to tickle animation fans of all ages. The Croods follows that clan, hunter-gatherers led by dad Grug (Nicolas Cage), and their ho-hum existence inside a boulder-doored cave. While family members Ugga (Cath-erine Keener), Gran (Cloris Leachman) and Thunk (Clark Duke) don’t seem disenchanted by their lot , young Eep (Emma Stone) longs to roam. After meeting Guy (Ryan Reynolds), Eep gets her wish, as the family flees lands crumbling from the rapid breakup of Pangaea. The Croods’ Disney-style be-lieve-in-yourself sentiment is spread on quite thick, but co-writers/co-directors Chris Sanders and Kirk De Micco make the most of the prehistoric creative license. —DL (Wide release)
EVIL DEAD | CThis Evil Dead is better than the average Hollywood remake of a genre classic, but that faint praise is the best that can be mustered. There are plenty of elaborately nasty shocks along the way, some of them clever, some just brutal , but simply slathering on viscera isn’t enough to distinguish this from so many other gore fests. Most missed, naturally, is Bruce Campbell’s Ash, the charismatic, acrobatic dolt who battled the undead with a pat-ent disregard for his own body. The remake substitutes Mia (Jane Levy), a junkie holed up in the demon-infested cabin for a cold turkey rehab; not a bad premise, but she’s given only a backstory, not a character, and in the end she’s just another blood-drenched Final Girl. —SB (Wide release)
G.I. JOE: RETALIATIONA haiku: Knowing is half thebattle. The other half iscold-blooded killing. (Not reviewed) (Wide release)
THE LORDS OF SALEM | B-Industrial-metal auteur Rob Zombie has made a surprisingly successful transition to film, but he’s spent most of the last decade rebooting the Hal-loween franchise, with a pit stop onCSI: Miami.But The Lords of Salemisn’t a return to form so much as to Zombie’s roots, back before the psy-chotronic splatter that inspired House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects.
(There’s even a visual shout-out to George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon.) In essence, Salem is an updated riff on Vil-lage of the Damned,with atmosphere by way of Coffin Joe. The director’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, plays a nighttime DJ who receives a mysterious slab of vinyl credited to the titular band; its looping drone instills a sort of hypno-sis/possession in all who hear it. When Moon is on the mic with her fellow jock-eys, there’s a loving ease to their cross talk, but the movie’s spooky mechanics are flecked with rust. Once the latex wrinkles and witch-trial flashbacks start, any sense of fright goes up in smoke. —SA (Wide release)
OBLIVION | C-Graced by sleek, clean white curves and gorgeous digital vistas, Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion is a stunning iApocalypse. But like the director’s previous film, the Daft Punk video passing as a sequel Tron: Legacy, the film is vapidly pretty, utterly empty of ideas beyond, “That would look neat.” The plot seems as if someone dropped their prized collection of dystopian sci-fi scripts and the pages got shuffled to-
gether. Tom Cruise plays a technician left on Earth after a war to repair – no, let’s face it, Tom Cruise plays WALL-E. Cruise shoots a few more guns and the Pixar creation is a tad taller, but you don’t have to be a Disney lawyer to see the similarities in a handyman stuck on a desolate Earth, keeping a few flowers in a rusty can and scavenging remnants of the former civilization. —SB (Wide release)
OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN | C+Gerard Butler stars as a Secret Service agent pulled from President Aaron Eckhart’s detail after failing to save the First Lady during a car accident. Un-fortunately, he was apparently the only agent trained not to run chest-first into oncoming bullets, so he’s forced into a rescue mission when the Koreans shoot up the White House and kidnap the leader of the free world. Especially in the early scenes, director Antoine Fuqua walks a fine line between his usual grit and Stallone-style goofiness; yes, Butler deals out death via a bust of Lincoln, but no, he doesn’t make a presidentially-appropriate quip afterwards. The result is sometimes
mindlessly entertaining, but often just mindless . —SB (Wide release)
THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES | BAn ambitious drama that hits more than it misses, Derek Cianfrance’s follow-up to Blue Valentine is to 1950s melodrama what Cloud Atlaswas to 1950s sci-fi. Opening with an unbroken shot of the tattooed back of Luke (Ryan Gosling) as he moves through a circus and into a motorcycle cage, The Place Beyond the Pinesannounces itself as a death- or at least convention-defying feat, span-ning decades without succumbing to sprawl. When Luke’s circus swings through Schenectady , he discovers the previous year’s fling with Romina (Eva Mendes) left him with a son. He turns to crime to support the child, which sets him on a collision course with rookie cop Avery (Bradley Coo-per), resulting in an encounter with
echoes that linger as their sons grow up together. —SA (Ritz East)
RENOIR | C+A stunningly beautiful film shot in the south of France, most of Renoir’s action takes place on a lush hilltop overlooking the French Riviera. The cast spends its time cooking sumptu-ous food, splashing in streams and lolling around in the nude (the better to be painted by the titular elder statesman of Impressionism, played by Michel Bouquet). The story tracks Andrée Heuschling (Christa Theret), the painter’s latest model, as she familiarizes herself with his household and, later, with his son Jean (Vincent Rottiers). Theret is a fiery and engaging actress with a fun role, and Rottiers
[ movie shorts ]
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does a fine job as Jean. But the elder Renoir isn’t given much to do but spout platitudes: “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” Renoir is very pretty, like its namesake’s works, but just as you can choose how long you want to contemplate a painting, at almost two hours in length, there’s a good chance you’ll want to step away from this film. —Jake Blumgart (Ritz at the Bourse)
STARBUCK | B-French-speaking slacker David (Patrick Huard) has always made a buck through odd jobs. As a much younger man, that included innumer-able donations to the sperm bank he lived next to. After being confronted by an attorney for the lab, he learns that he inexplicably created more than 500 children, 142 of whom have filed a class-action suit to force the man behind the alias “Starbuck” to reveal himself. As raunchy as it could’ve been, director Ken Scott’s approach is not far from the traditional American rom-com, meaning its cornball moments cast off more glare than he probably intends. —DL (Ritz Five)
TO THE WONDER | BNo working filmmaker conveys a more palpable sense of the transcen-dent than Terrence Malick. But To theWonder is the first time he’s tried to make a movie that’s nothing but tran-
scendence, a string of lyrical images held together by a common sense of ecstasy. The titular “wonder” is Mont Saint-Michel, to which Neil (Ben Affleck) and his lover Marina (Olga Kurylenko) pay a visit in the opening sequence, but Malick finds less to marvel at in ancient landmarks than in the neatly aligned tract homes of exurban Oklahoma .To Marina, who follows Neil home after he agrees to marriage, it’s a new world, but Neil knows of the rot beneath. With To the Wonder Malick doesn’t reach for the sublime so much as lunge, arms outstretched, face turned to the sky. He stumbles, but still, it’s a beautiful fall. —SA (Ritz Five)
TRANCE | C+A cracking thriller built around art auctioneer Simon’s (James McAvoy) convenient amnesia, Danny Boyle’s Trance jumps the rails in the closing stretch. Till then, Boyle is in his ele-ment, exercising his showmanship as Simon struggles to recall his part in the heist of a Goya, while art thief Franck (Vincent Cassel) debates whether to let him live. Hypnothera-pist Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson) is called in to help Simon navigate the depths of his own mind, and thence it’s never quite clear whether we’re watching what’s happening or what he thinks is happening. —SA (Ritz Five)
✚ CINEDELPHIAPHILAMOCA531 N. 12th St., 267-519-9651, phila-moca.org. Slaughter Tales (2012, U.S.,91 min.): Local filmmaker John Dickie attends this screening of his ’80s micro-budget horror homage.Thu., April 25, 7:30 p.m., $10. Bunyip
The Movie World Premiere (2013, U.S.,98 min.): Two scientists traverse the Australian Outback in search of an elusive creature, soundtracked by locals The Armchairs, Banned Books and more. Thu., April 25, 9:30 p.m., $10.The Lost Man (1969, U.S., 122 min.): Sidney Poitier evades cops and woos so-
cial workers as a black militant in this rare screening. Fri., April 26, 7:30 p.m., $10. TLA Video Employee Reunion:Former TLA Video employees and customers share stories from the video stores’ heyday. Fri., April 26, 10 p.m., free. Rollercoaster in Sensurround
(1977, U.S., 119 min.): Local audio ex-perts hearken back to late-’70s theater tricks for this amusement-park thriller.Sat., April 27, 1:30 p.m., $10. Liquid
Sky (1982, U.S., 112 min.): Attractive androgynous cyberpunks. Invisible aliens. Why not? Prog-rockers Cheap Dinosaurs provide a live score. Director Slava Tsukerman makes a rare public appearance. Sat., April 27, 4 p.m., $10.Lady in the Water (2006, U.S., 110 min.): We Hate Movies is back to rip on Paul Giamatti’s relationship with some creature. Or something. Sat., April 27, 7:30 p.m., $10. Birdemic 2: The Res-
urrection (2013, U.S., 90 min.): The birds swoop back, their eagle eyes set on Hollywood this time. Director James Nguyen in attendance. Sat., April 27, 10 p.m., $10. For ticket information, check cinedelphia.com.
✚ FILADELFIAINTERNATIONAL HOUSE3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org. Paal/Child and
The Unique Ladies:The FiladelfiaLatin American Film Festival kicks off with films about a Mayan story-teller and Chicana lowriders. Sat., April 27, 1:30 p.m., $9. Violeta Went
to Heaven (2012, Chile/Argentina/Brazil/Spain, 110 min.): A biopic of the legendary Chilean folk musician and artist Violeta Parra. Sat., April
27, 4:30 p.m., $9. My First Love and
7 Boxes:A short about a child’s fascination with his older cousin and a full-length film about a delivery that descends into the criminal under-world. Sat., April 27, 8 p.m., $9. For all Filadelfia screenings, check flaff.org.
✚ REPERTORY FILMAMBLER THEATER108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, 215-345-7855, amblertheater.org. OC 87
(2010, U.S., 100 min.): Filmmaker Bud Clayman’s doc on his struggles with OCD, depression, bipolar disorder and Asperger’s. Part of the ReelAbilities Film Festival. Thu., April 25, 7:30 p.m., $12. School of Rock (2003, U.S., 108 min.): Jack Black’s idea of what Dead Poets Society should have been. Sat., April 27, 10:30 a.m., $4. Gilda (1946, U.S.,110 min.): A saucy love triangle between a South American casino boss, his henchman and the foxy Rita Hay-worth. Tue.,April 30, 7:30 p.m, $9.75.
BRYN MAWR FILM INSTITUTE824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-9898, brynmawrfilm.org.8 1/2 (1963, Italy, 138 min.): Federico Fellini’s midlife-crisis-turned-film-making achievement: Don’t we all want to relive a memory? Shown in part as a cinema classics seminar. Thu., April 25, 7 p.m., $10.50. Manet:
Portraying Life (2013, U.K., 92 min.): A doc examining the Impres-sionist painter’s portraiture at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.Sun., April 28th, 1 p.m., $20.
COLONIAL THEATRE227 Bridge St., Phoenixville, 610-917-1228, thecolonialtheatre.com. Back to
the Future (1985, U.S., 116 min.): Biff Tannen really embodies the perfect high school villain. He’s way better than Johnny Lawrence. Sat., April 27, 2 p.m., $9. Sparrows (1926, U.S., 84 min.): Chaplin rival Mary Pickford plays a matriarch to orphans on a baby farm deep within a swamp. Wait, what? Accompanied by live pipe organ. Sun., April 28, 4 p.m., $13.50.
COUNTY THEATER20 E. State St., Doylestown, 215-345-6789, countytheater.org. Black Maria
Film Festival:This iteration of the annual independent short-film festival includes an appearance by festival director John Columbus. Thu., April 25, 7:30 p.m., $9.75. Gilda (1946, U.S., 110 min.): See Ambler Theater listing. Wed., May 1, 7:30 p.m, $9.75.
FRIENDS OF THE PHILADELPHIACITY INSTITUTE LIBRARYFree Library, Philadelphia City Insti-tute Branch, 1905 Locust St., 215-685-
6621, freelibrary.org. Symphony of
Six Million (1932, U.S., 94 min.): Anna Appel, mastering the nuances of Jewish motherhood. Wed., May 1, 2 p.m., free.
INTERNATIONAL HOUSE3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org. Drop City (2012, U.S.,82 min.): The first film in the International House’s Living on the Margins series, this doc focuses on the original rural commune. Thu., April 25, 7 p.m., $9. Canyon Classics of
the Bay Area:Part 1 of the Canyon Luminaries Program includes shorts from San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s influential mid-century Art in Cinema series. Fri., April 26, 7 p.m., $9. Through the Looking Glass: Part 2 of the Canyon Luminaries Program features three shorts from filmmak-ers who all use the Bolex camera and 16mm film. Fri., April 26, 9 p.m., $9. ALitany for Survival: The Life and
Work of Audre Lorde (1995, U.S., 60 min.): Part 1 of the Scribe Producer’s Forum is a documentary about the ico-nic poet/activist/feminist. Tue.,April 30, 5 p.m., $10. ...But Then, She’s Betty
Carter and Storme: The Lady of
the Jewel Box: In part 2 of the series, director Michelle Parkerson presents two shorts that attempt to preserve the accomplishments of famous but forgotten women in entertainment. Tue., April 30, 7 p.m., $10. An Injury to One
(2003, U.S., 53 min.): A socialist union organizer is lynched in Butte, Mont., a mining town with ample corporate pro-fits and dead bodies in turn-of-the-cen-tury America.Wed., May 1, 7 p.m., $9.
RITZ AT THE BOURSE400 Ranstead St., 215-440-1181, landmarktheaters.com. Raiders of
the Lost Ark (1981, U.S., 115 min.): Trivia: Ford improvised that famous gunshot-in-the-bazaar scene. Fri., April 26, midnight, $10.
TROCADERO THEATRE1003 Arch St., 215-922-6888,thetroc.com. Animal House (1978, U.S., 109 min.): While we’re on the topic, please remove that Bluto poster from your dorm-room wall. Mon., April 29, 8 p.m., $3.
[ movie shorts ]
citypaper.netMore on:
✚ C H E C K O U T M O R E
R E P E R T O R Y F I L M L I S T I N G S AT
C I T Y P A P E R . N E T / R E P F I L M .
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THURSDAY
4.25[ americana ]
✚ SONS OF FATHERSPaul Cauthen sounds stunned, in a good way: “Every day I wake up and it’s something new,” he beams. Along with David Beck, he’s created what is unarguably the hottest ticket in Americana today, Sons of Fathers. American
Songwriter and No Depres-sion are lionizing the powerful story-songs on Burning Days(Blanco River Music). The Sons are bringing the entire six-piece band with them on the road, so the lush, some-times Balkanesque harmon-ies will be performed just as Lloyd Maines produced them. Asked why SoF has succeeded where others only come close, Cauthen chuckles. “We’ve put in the hours! But,” he says, “we are doing pretty well, considering we hated each other at first.”
—Mary Armstrong
Thu., April 25, 9 p.m., $8-$10, with Maitland, MilkBoy Philly, 1100 Chestnut St., 215-925-6455,milkboyphilly.com.
[ theater ]
✚ ARABIAN NIGHTS “In the wake of what’s hap-pening in Syria and what has occurred in Boston,” says director Amy Dugas Brown about her University of the
Arts production of The Ara-bian Nights, “I think telling this story, and stories like this, is essential. We should strive to keep stories about life and love triumphing over stories of selfishness and violence.” Artistically, Brown appreci-ates that Scheherazade’s classic tales, adapted by Mary Zimmerman, are all told by a woman “in a culture that doesn’t, on face value, en-courage a woman to take that kind of control. The women in this play empower themselves by embracing their female-ness, not by imitating men.” Though her cast of undergrads comes from many different races and ethnicities and the stories are universal, she says, Arabian Nights “consistentlyreminds us of the wonder and richness [of life] and challeng-es our ideas of what ‘Middle Eastern’ means.”
—Mark Cofta
Thu.-Sun., April 25-28, $10-$20, Arts Bank Theater, 601 S. Broad St., 215-717-6030, uarts.edu/onstage.
FRIDAY
4.26[ rock ]
✚ THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLANWhen The Dillinger Escape Plan was between singers in 2002, they drafted Mike Patton (who had earlier invited the band to open for Mr. Bungle) for their Irony Is a Dead Scene EP. It was an almost too-perfect match, a singer known for his ability to swerve crazily be-tween the sublime, the punish-ing and the ridiculous joining a band founded on the same prin-ciples. In singer Greg Puciato, DEP found a replacement who approximates Patton’s manic swings while staying just shy of impersonation, a razor’s edge he continues to walk on the band’s fifth full-length album, One of Us Is the Killer.
The record is built on rapid-fire dynamic shifts: moody melo-dies colliding with blast-beat brutality, or suddenly overcome by the eruption of jazz-funk metalcore. DEP has essentially written one long song over the course of its career, each piece a Lego block that could be connected with any other, but they manage to construct some imposing edifices.
—Shaun Brady
Fri., April 26, 6:45 p.m., $20, with The Faceless and Rolling Thunder, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com.
[ jazz/pop/soul ]
✚ FLYING LOTUSThe grandnephew of John and Alice Coltrane, Steven Ellison definitely inherited the family’s penchant for search-ing into the mystical, an ability to create sound worlds both serene and extreme. On Untilthe Quiet Comes, his latest as Flying Lotus, Ellison creates beats that are elusive and
insectoid, seeming to skitter away from perception like roaches from the light. There are elements of old-school soul, ’70s jazz fusion, Brian Wilson harmonies and instrumen-tal exotica, but all of this is processed into something 21st-century and decaying, as if decades of collected sound had been captured by a far-off sat-ellite and beamed back into our dreams. As the title suggests, there is a twilight hush to the album, but not quite a calm; Ellison is waiting for the quiet, perhaps, but the anticipation is sensuously unsettling.
—Shaun Brady
Fri., April 26, 11 p.m., $20, with Thundercat, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com.
[ rock/pop/experimental ]
✚ LOVELYLITTLE GIRLSThe music of the Chicago avant-rock oddballs Lovely Little Girls is inspired by the
[ men do not have friends ][email protected] | APRIL 25 - MAY 1
theagenda
The Agenda is our selective guide to what’s going on in the city this week. For comprehensive event listings, visit citypaper.net/listings. IF YOU WANT TO BE LISTED:
Submit information by email ([email protected]) to CarolineRussock 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.
I CAN UNSCREW MY HEAD: Flying Lotus plays Union Transfer on Friday.
TIMOTHY SACCENTI
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paintings and drawings of art-ist/vocalist Gregory Jacobsen. It’s the sort of artwork that can inspire lyrics like “Inflamma-tion of the harelip,” candy-colored grotesques that seem like carnival art intended to scare children with the threat of STDs. These characters are depicted in the band’s Frith/
Residents-inspired anarchic outbursts, sideshow skronk in Vivian Girls colors. The songs come mostly from the pen of Cheer-Accident bassist Alex Perkolup, who translates Jacobsen’s deformed portrai-ture into an equally deranged sonic palette, a no-wave jug-gling act by turns horrifying and horrified.
—Shaun Brady
Fri., April 26, 8 p.m., $6-$8, with George Korein and The Spleen and Lion’s Head, Highwire Gallery, 2040 Frankford Ave., museumfire.com/events.
SATURDAY
4.27[ rock/pop/folk ]
✚ DENISON WITMEREarly in an artist’s career, the self-titled album is usually an earnest and unpretentious introduction: This is me, plain and simple, hope you like it. A mid-career eponymous record is a rarer, more enigmatic species. Are we talking about a
sellout or sea change? Maybe it’s bold proclamation, an artist announcing the arrival of a masterwork. Soulful Philly folkie Denison Witmer is not known for pulling pompous
rock-star moves, so let’s call his new self-titled ninth album (!) a renewal of the vows. The songs on Denison Witmer(Asthmatic Kitty) are pristine and pretty, and sound, at first, like the sort of gentle-hearted/strong-willed acoustic stuff he’s been making for years. But there’s a hint of a wink of a glimmer of an undercurrent of urgency to the achey “Take More than You Need” and the surprisingly lush “Right Be-hind You,” which he concludes with a note of ultra-sincerity worth repeating: “It’s good to keep hope alive.” And then there are stark, sun-showery songs like “Keep Moving Brother, Keep Moving Sister” and “Constant Muse” that are just catchy enough to make you wonder whether they’re lost ’70s soul classics. They’re not. That’s just Denison Witmer circa Denison Witmer. Maybewe are in masterwork territory.
—Patrick Rapa
Sat., April 27, 9:30 p.m., $12-$14, with Soporus, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-739-9684, john-nybrendas.com.
[ dj nights ]
✚ ZOMBIE BUTT TOUCH 4This kooky party series contin-ues its strange brew of zombie antics and thumping dancefloor beats. Headlining is Kindzadza (pictured), a Russian DJ/pro-ducer who releases his signa-
ture dark psy-trance sounds on the Osom Music label. There will be three rooms of music, offering different audio flavors as well as sculputural installa-tions, video mapping projec-tions, vendors, performance art and more fun stuff. Time to get yourself zombified and join the rave of the living dead.
—Gair “Dev79” Marking
Sat., April 27, 9 p.m.-3 a.m., $15-$25, with Coral, Kilowatts, Super Galactic Expansive, Telepathik Frequencies, Blame the Kid, Ziggymon, Fractal Phono and Beat Mizer & Wicked Kozy, Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org.
SUNDAY
4.28[ rock/pop/folk ]
✚ BURIED BEDSYou never know what to expect from Buried Beds. For a while they were a rustic little acous-tic duo, just Eliza Jones and Brandon Beaver hitting sweet notes and plucking taut strings. Then came Tremble the Sailsin 2011, and damn if it wasn’t a full-on rock ’n’ pop album with hooks and riffs, clapping hands and pounding pianos. Now comes the announcement that
a new album will drop in late summer — title TBD — and it’s “a collection of songs written as folk tales.” Haven’t heard a note of it, but I’m expecting something smart and lovely when they debut a few of the new numbers at Kung Fu Necktie on Sunday. This will be the last time to catch the Beds for a little while, as Jones is about to tour Europe opening for Nightlands while Beaver crosses the U.S. playing guitar with mewithoutYou.
—Patrick Rapa
Sun., April 28, 8 p.m., $8 , with Auction-eer and Great American Canyon Band, Kung Fu Necktie, 1250 N. Front St., 215-291-4919, kungfunecktie.com.
[ folk/pop ]
✚ KAKI KINGA lot of bands are out there touring on the “playing their classic album in its entirety” premise, and a lot of times it’s a fun, if inessential, live-music experience. But when Kaki King comes around to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her debut album, well, it’s a bit more crucial. For one thing, while beloved by everybody who knows it, more people
[ the agenda ]J
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with guitars that jangle and then crunch on songs like “The Right Thing Right” and “Upstarts.” And his singing’s not bad either — a little remi-niscent of fellow Mancunians like Noel Gallagher and Jimi Goodwin of Doves.
—Michael Pelusi
Tue.,April 30, 8 p.m., $25, with Alamar, Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-6888, thetroc.com.
[ bicycles ]
✚ PHILLY BIKE-SHARE FORUMHosted by the Mayor’s Of-fice of Transportation and Utilities, this public forum will detail Mayor Nutter’s plan to develop a bike-share system within the city by the end of 2014. Plenty of cities around the country (and the globe — hey, Stockholm!) have already implemented similar programs to great success, probably because the concept is both so simple and clever: Rent a bike from an Old City kiosk, ride to the Art Museum, drop it off, rinse, repeat. Part of the Greater Philadelphia Pedestrian & Bicycle Summit
(phillypedbikesummit.event-brite.com), the event’s speak-ers include integral designers of bike shares from Boston, Denver and Washington, D.C.
—Marc Snitzer
Tue.,April 30, 6:30 p.m., free, Academy of Natural Sciences, 1900 Benjamin Fran-klin Parkway, 215-299-1000, ansp.org, phillybikeshareforum.eventbrite.com.
WEDNESDAY
5.1[ jazz ]
✚ CRAIG TABORN TRIOThe caliber of bandleaders with whom Craig Taborn has played is evidence enough of his bound-less intuition: Such diverse but equally boundary-stretching names as Tim Berne, Chris Pot-ter, Tomasz Stanko and Dave Douglas. Taborn’s own work as a leader remained relatively sparse until fairly recently, but he’s making up for that with a series of stunningly gorgeous albums on ECM. His landmark
CD Avenging Angel was one of 2011’s finest releases, an intri-cate, mesmerizing solo piano expression that seemed both profoundly confessional and architecturally inventive. His new follow-up, Chants, takes the same approach to the trio
format, featuring drummer Ger-ald Cleaver and bassist Thomas Morgan. The music is starkly intimate but also densely layered, a three-way conversa-tion in a melodious secret code that has to be fully explored to be understood, yielding multiple emotional translations.
—Shaun Brady
Wed., May 1, 8 p.m., $15, Philadelphia Art Alliance, 251 S. 18th St., arsnova-workshop.com.
[ the agenda ]
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OPEN MON-THURS at 4PM | FRI-SUN at NOON
$10LU
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Celebrating American Craft Beerand Classic Arcade Games
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Located on the corner of 2nd and Arch.All PAWS animals are spayed/neutered, vaccinated, and microchipped before adoption. For more information, call 215-238-9901 ext. 30 or email [email protected]
SNICKERS!4-6 YEARS OLD
Hi there! I’m Snickers, a 4-6 year old male spaniel/poodle mix who’s looking for a home. I ended up at the shelter after my previous owner passed away. I’ve got great manners and I’m
housebroken, too! I’m a social guy who likes to meet new people and play with other dogs. I hope you’ll come meet me!
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[ jazz/improvisation ]
✚ JOHN MEDESKIIn his 20-plus years of blazing incendiary new trails for the contemporary jazz piano/or-gan trio alongside compadres Billy Martin and Chris Wood, John Medeski has supplied keys for everyone from John Zorn to Iggy Pop, Robert Ran-dolph to Trey Anastasio and, most recently (wow), Coheed and Cambria. But he’s only now gotten around to cutting
a record of his solo playing, displaying a radically dif ferentapproach from the eclectic grooves beloved of jam-happy MMW heads. A Different Time — the first new release on long-defunct/newly revived classic jazz imprint and Sony sub-label OKeh — is a beau-tifully spacious, ruminative,
largely improvised nocturnal affair in the tradition of Bill Evans and, particularly, Keith Jarrett. While there’s considerable virtuosity and classically informed techniqueon display here — especially as it was recorded on a difficult-to-control 1925 French-made piano, the Gaveau — it’s above all a master class in delicacy, expressiveness and restraint.
—K. Ross Hoffman
Wed., May 1, 8 p.m., $20-$30, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.
[ the agenda ]
citypaper.netMore on:
✚ F O R C O M P R E H E N S I V E
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[ book shelf ]
STATE FAREFood historian William Woys Weaver sees a future in the foodlore of Pennsylvania Dutch cookery and culture. By Caroline Russock
S itting down with food historian William Woys Weaver in a booth at Reading Terminal Market’s Down Home Diner to dis-cuss As American as Shoofly Pie (University of Pennsylvania
Press, May 1), one might assume the conversation would veer toward Pennsylvania Dutch Terminal staples — say, Lebanon bologna and chow-chow and birch beer. But what shapes the con-versation is the book’s subtitle: The Foodlore and Fakelore of Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine.
As a former Gourmet magazine staff writer, Weaver’s fascination with the foodways of Pennsylvania run much deeper than a mere taste for chicken pot pie. He’s been studying local food-ways for nearly 40 years, including for a 1994 Julia Child Award-winning Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook, and for a new university degree in 2005. “I took my doctorate in Ireland on food ethnography, and they suggested that I choose a subject in my own backyard,” Weaver explains. “So I think, ‘OK, I’ll go with Pennsylvania Dutch, and that way I don’t have to spend thousands of dollars going to Cyprus or another place that interested me.’”
This allowed him to delve further into the regional cooking and culture of his home state, interviewing Lancaster County residents:
“I’d done a lot of interviews and talking to people about their food and food memories. It’s one of the best ways to get information and startling information.”
It’s startling information that goes beyond bonnets, beards and buggies. Weaver recounts his research on the subject of Amish food tourism: “I knew it started at the German Village restaurant in Lancaster in the ’30s, but I had no clue that this restaurant was open all night and that ladies of the evening worked it after hours. The guy who owned the bus station owned it. He had traveling busi-nessmen in, ladies of the night — and the Lancaster police station backs up on it across an alley. Why didn’t the cops close it down? The person who knew this place well told me that they got a discount on Thursdays. That’s Lancaster for you!” he jokes. “They’re so prim and proper, but look under the rug and you see all kinds of stuff.”
And what lies under that rug isn’t exactly the bucolic ideal that folks get out of a day trip to Amish Country.
As American as Shoofly Pie touches on all sorts of little-talked-about subjects like the uncomfortable position of the Pennsylvania Dutch during World War II
and the marketability of their unique culture. “You can see it right here at this market — you use Amish people as props to sell stuff. This isn’t a book for or against the Amish. They’re passive partici-pants in this whole thing, although a lot of them are very street-wise. They know that they can stand behind a counter at Reading Terminal and sell cakes because of their clothing.” Also explored in the book: the movement to stamp out Pennsylvania Dutch culture completely from the 1840s to the 1930s.
f&dfoodanddrink
>>> continued on adjacent page
citypaper.netMore on:
M O R E F O O D A N D D R I N K C O V E R A G E AT C I T Y P A P E R . N E T /M E A LT I C K E T.
RAMPSEach month, Adam Erace picks a crop that’s in season locally rightthisveryminute and asks some of the city’s best chefs how they’re preparing it.
IT’S BEEN A long, cold winter, ladies and gentle-men of the locavore persuasion. And I feel your pain. Not that I don’t like celeriac and kale, which were chronicled in this column; I like them and their cold-weather comrades fine. But this is the time of year when just looking at another parsnip is enough to make me want to commit vegetable homicide.
Fortunately, unlike in Westeros, in America, sum-mer is coming, and before it an emerald sprawl of whose first entrant is the highly prized, somewhat controversial, $20-a-pound-fetching ramp.
Ramps are “part of the lily family known as all-i ums, which includes onions, garlic, chives and leeks,” says Kevin D’Egidio, who forages for the wild-growing greens. “They grow under a forest canopy where there is ample amount of shade.”
Foragers like D’Egidio fiercely guard their hunt-ing locations. Can’t blame ’em; for the scant few weeks ramps peek through the soil, a good forager can make a mint. He supplies restaurants such as Stateside and Kraftwork, and chefs are willing to pay top dollar for this fleeting ingredient.
“I can see how some people say ramps are over-hyped, but I really like them,” says Ben Puchowitz, who tops Korean barbecued pigs’ tails with quick-pickled ramp kimchi at his new Cheu Noodle Bar. He’s not alone. At Le Virtù, Joe Cicala is making macaroni alla chitarra with ramps.
The chill of early spring coupled with heavy rain kept ramps from punctually popping this year, notes Kevin Carroll, another forager. “This gave them some more time to grow undisturbed,” says Carroll.
Some wonder if they’ll stay that way. Ramp mania has begat an unwelcome downer, and it’s not garlic breath. “As foraging becomes more popular, there is always a chance of overharvesting,” says D’Egidio. In Canada, overharvesting has created a population of ramps whose numbers are slow to rebound.
“This is the reason my friends and I try to find new spots whenever we can,” says D’Egidio. “The less we harvest from one particular area, the better it’ll be in the long run.”
Ramps are spring’s earliest sign. Without them, we’d have to wait another month for something green. Who knows how many root vegetables might be murdered by then.
inseasonBy Adam Erace
DOWN HOME: Author William Woys Weaver at
Reading Terminal Market.
NEAL SANTOS
The highly prized, somewhat con-troversial ramp.
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Weaver talks about his great-grandmother, who was beaten in front of her fellow students for speaking Dutch. “The idea was to get rid of the Dutch, to de-ethnicise them, make them English-speaking people. and then they’ll be better American citizens,” he explains. “And that was the mentality of Harrisburg, that these people were inferior mentally and culturally.”
These efforts took their toll. “Forty percent of the state of Pennsylvania’s population in the 1850s spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, and now it’s only a couple hundred thousand.” But Weaver sees a resurgence happening: He talks about Groundhog Lodges, men’s clubs where they get together and speak Pennsylvania Dutch. “Actually, they sit around and tell dirty jokes, and it keeps the lan-guage alive,” he says.
When asked about the preservation of the culinary aspects of Pennsylvania Dutch culture, Weaver has more than a few ideas: “My call to arms in the book was ‘Why don’t we have cooking classes in Pennsylvania Dutch?’ Then you can kill two birds with one stone. You can learn about the culture using its own language.”
He has plans in the works for a Pennsylvania foodways foundation, the Keystone Center, a research organiza-tion that will champion the produce, cookery and artisan goods unique to the state. He talks about tours of baker-ies that specialize in salt-risen bread, apiaries, cheese makers and maple-syrup producers.
But when it comes to a taste of real-deal Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, Weaver isn’t sold on any one restaurant :“It all happens at home. We’re in a transition period where the old, family-style restaurants are dying out.” He’d pre-fer to map out a list of specialty purveyors: a place in Bally, Pa., for homemade ketchup; Dietrich’s Country Store in Lenhartsville, Pa., for the best smoked meats; a lady at the Kutztown farmers’ market who makes the best shoofly pie.
He sees Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine as one that lends itself to being elevated, one that has a very real future. He likens it to a northeastern region of France: “”If you go to Alsace, the basic dishes are all there: stuffed pig stom-ach, cooking with goose fat. They’ve got three-starred restaurants. They have chefs doing all of the same kinds of dishes that we have in our classic culture, [and] you can find [them] in the three-starred restaurants in Strasbourg. No reason why we can’t do it here.”
“There’s a future for this,” he says. “Pennsylvania is a rich state and really underrated. And when you start to take Pennsylvania as a chunk of geography, it’s a big state. It’s not like Massachusetts, which was all one cul-ture. We’ve got all of these parts.” He brings up the vari-ous tunnels you travel through if you’re driving across the state. The first time he drove through one, “I came up in Somerset County, and it was like coming out of the Chunnel from London to Paris. I’m in another country, but it’s still my Pennsylvania. Well, vive la différence,because it’s just great.”
✚ State Fare<<< continued from previous page
[ food & drink ]
Pennsylvania Dutchcuisine is one that lends itself to being elevated.
THIS SUNDAY’S (4/28) MOVIE
UPSTAIRS @ 8PM!
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Tacky Wedding Bar Crawl
benefiting
Wish Upon a Wedding Philadelphia
May 19, 2013@ Noon
4 Center City Locations
Show up & be fabulous!
http://wishuponaweddingeventsphiladelphia.eventbrite.com
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merchandisemarket
homesfor rent
jobs
apartment marketplaceBRAZILIAN FLOORING
3/4", beautiful, $2.75 sf (215) 365-5826CABINETS KITCHEN SOLID WOODBrand new soft close/dovetail drawersCrown Molding 25 Colors, Never Installed!Cost $5,300. Sell $1,590. 610-952-0033
Cemetery Plot at Hillside For SaleCall For More Info: (215)423-3476
Contractor going out of business -plumbing heating material, office furn,tools, Call 267-333-3402 Best offer
BD a Memory Foam Mattress/Bx springBrand New Queen cost $1400, sell $299;King cost $1700 sell $399 610-952-0033BED: Brand New Queen Pillowtop Set$145; 5pc Bedrm Set $325 215-355-3878
2013 Hot Tub/Spa. Brand New! 6 personw/lounger, color lights, 30 jets, stonecabinet. Cover. Never installed. Cost $7K.Ask $2,850. Will deliver. 610-952-0033.
US Open golf tickets wanted for alldates paying $150 & Up 818.262.3947
33&45 RECORDS HIGHER $ Really Paid
** Bob 610-532-9408 ***33 & 45 Records Absolute Higher $
* * * 215-200-0902 * * *Audio Power Amplifier in good cond.Offering $100 if satisfied. 215-612-9021
Books -Trains -Magazines -Toys -Dolls - Model Kits 610-639-0563
Coins, MACHINIST TOOLS, Militaria,Swords, Watches Jewelry 215-742-6438
I Buy Anything Old...Except People!antiques-collectables, Al 215-698-0787
I Buy Guitars & All MusicalInstruments-609-457-5501 Rob
JUNK CARS WANTED We buy JunkCars. Up to $300 215-888-8662
22xx S. Hemberger St. 3BR $800Plus Utilities. 1.5 bath. 267-476-0224
22xx S. 63rd St. 1BR $675very spacious, 1st floor, fin bsmnt, newappl’s, bk yard, ready now. 215-681-4258
434 N. 52nd St. 1BR $525 + UTILS1st Flr Lg back yard Call 267-582-884151st & Hazel/51st &Race 1br mod kit,ac 565+utl 1st/last/sec 215.474.733254xx Chancellor St. 2BR $ 700+u t i l sHDWD flrs, nice block, 215.327.251656th & Spruce 3BR Aptmust see, Section 8 OK 215.885.1700W. Phila 2br $595/mo. + utils + 1st mo& sec. Call 610-792-9962
4XX N. Gross St. 1BR $600/mo. $1800to move in. Newly renov. 215-284-7944Apartment Homes $650 - $995www.perutoproperties.com 215.740.4900City Line Area 2br Aptsbeautiful, Spring Special 215.681.1723Lansdowne Ave/Wynnewood Rd. 1BR$650. Lrg Apt, carpet, hdwd flr, living rm,dining rm, close to trans. Sec & 1 mo rent.215-715-4157 [email protected]
1515 W. Westmoreland St. 2BR/1BA$875 484-716-9330
1, 2, 3, 4 BEDROOMFURNISHED APTS
Laundry-Parking 215-223-700012xx W. Westmoreland 1BR $5003rd flr,incl utils. Call 215.327.2292
51XX N Camac 2 Units 1 Effec/Lg1BR/1BA $475+ Elec/ $600+ Elec
49XX N Camac Lg 1 Br/1Ba 625 + Elec/Gas, 1st/last/1 mo Sec Dep 215.455.3928
Housekeeper to Live-in 5 days very highslary ref & exp Windwood 732.530.4941
127 W. Tabor Rd. 1BR/1BA $5501 big bedroom ready for rent. Sec. 8 orCORMAR approved. Call Matthew at(856) 761-228314xx Nedro 2BR $750+utilsRenov, pvt entr. Sec 8 OK. 215-471-07651xx Rosemar 1br $625/mo.studio ref. includes heat. 215-397-38085105 N 13th St. 1BR $5003rd flr, nw reno., avail ASAP 215.768.8410
5846 N. Marvine 1br $600+utilsrenovated, close to trans (215)480-64605853 N Camac 1BR $660 + utilsrenov, 267-271-6601 or 215-416-275759XX Broad St. 1br $640 +. Heat incl3rd flr. 1st, last & sec. 215-840-3586
Church Lane Court-600 Church LaneFieldview Apt-705 Church Lane
Julien-5600 Ogontz/Eli Ct.1418 ConlynStudio, 1bdr & 2bdr -From$450-$850
Move in specials-215-276-5600
1xx Tioga Efficiency $470 inclwater/gas. $940 mv in, 609.703.4266
3xx E. Sanger 1BR/1BA $600 +utils1st flr, 2mo sec + 1mo rent 267.797.0811
1 BR & 2 BR Apts $735-$835spacious, great loc., upgraded, heat incl,PHA vouchers accepted 215-966-9371
339 E. Wister St. Effic. $530/mo.Newly renovated, ready to move-in. Call267-228-7359400 Hansberry St. 1BR/1BA $650Water & gas incl. (215) 740-03555211 Greene St. 1br $650+utilsGreat location. Call 610-287-98575220 Wayne Ave Studio, 1 Bron site lndry, 215-525-5800 Lic# 507568
602 E. Price St. 1BR/1BA $550Spac 1st flr, no pets. Easy access topublic transp. Call 215-784-0123
DO YOU HAVE A SECTION 8 VOUCHER?Apts in Germantown and Olney-SPECIALS
1bdr&2bdr- GAS, WATER, HEAT FREE!Quiet, New Renov, Safe Living Community
Call to schedule appt- 215.276.5600
Germantown: 1, 2, & 3BRs Startingat $650, newly renov., beautiful apts,close to transp. Call 215-740-8049Green & Seymour Effic. $500/moAll utils inc., 1K to move in 215-765-5578
7500 GTN AVE Garden type 1BR!Spring Special ! Newly dec, d/w, g/dw/w, a/c, lndry/cable, off st prkg. Pets
OK! 21 5-275-1457/233-3322
512 Oaklane 2BR/1BA $675 + utils.2mo. sec. Call 215-224-6566
6965 Ogontz Ave. 2BR, 2 full BA, $850.Near transportation. Call 215-809-9553
Broad Oaks 1BR & 2BRLndry rm. Special Discount! 215-681-1723
17xx Bridge St. 1BR/1BA $5502BR/1BA $700
Both plus utils. Call 267-476-0224
4840 Oxford Ave Studio, 1Br,Ldry, 24/7 cam lic#214340 215.525.5800
Frankford & Oxford 1BR $600Also Efficiency, $500, utils included. Wespeak Spanish. Call 215-620-6261
6806 Ditman St 1BR on site parking,laundry. 215-525-5800 Lic# 212704
Lawndale Studio Apt. $580Lawndale 2BR $780A/C, Terrace, beaut. units.609-408-9298
N. E. Philadelphia 1br/1ba $6957332 Dorcas St. 215-883-0542.
Clifton Heights beautiful 1 & 2 BRSpring Special, 215-681-1723
YEADON Area Beaut/Upgraded 1 & 2 BRW/D, Spring Special 215-681-1723
56xx Wyalusing Ave. $100 weeklyFurn. Lg Clean Rms. 215-917-9091
16xx Orthodox St, share ba, $125 & upper wk. Dep req’d. Nr trans 215.743.9950
2435 W. Jefferson St. Rooms: $375/mo.Move in fee: $565. Call 215-913-8659
4508 N. Broad St. 3M Rooms: $375/mo.Move in fee: $565. Call 215-913-8659
55/Thompson deluxe quiet furn $115-$145wk priv ent $200 sec 215-572- 8833
61st & Chester. Newly Renov. Room, $250dep. $125/wk, 267-456-2808
8th & Allegheny - 2 rooms, fully fur-nished, kitchen, SSI ok. 267-800-6940
A1 Nice, well maintained rms, N. & W.Phila. $85-$125/wk. Call 267-760-3148
Broad/Olney furn refrig micro priv ent$115/$145wk sec $200 215.572.8833Broad & Wyom., 60th & Market furn$200 sec. SSI. $90-$125/wk. 215-549-7389Caster and Winghocken, 54th and Lan-caster, 15th and Federal 55th and Me-dia 1BR apt 60th and Kingsessing Ave.Share Kitch. & Bath, $350 & up, no se-curity deposit, SSI OK. 267-888-1754
Frankford, nice rm in apt, near bus & El,$300 sec, $90/wk & up. 215-526-1455
FRANKFORD / NORTHEAST , Newlyrenov, nicely furnished, A/C, W/D, cable,clean, safe & secure. Call (267) 253-7764Frankford rooms $90-$105/wk Every-thing incl. Sec dep req. 215-432-5637Germantown Area: NICE, Cozy RoomsPrivate entry, no drugs (267)988-5890Mt Airy 61xx Chew Ave. Univ 2xx Melville$85-$125/wk. 215-242-9124NE Phila clean, safe, secure, newly renofurn, A/C, cable, W/D 215.645.4962NorthEast room, $125/wk, kitchenuse Nice House Call 267-312-5039North Phila. - Newly renovated rooms forrent. $100/wk. Call 267-702-8899N. Phila - $75 & up, SSI & Vets+ok,drug free, Avl Immed. 215-763-5565N. Phila furn. room for rent $380/mo.,
$380 move in. Call (215) 954-1480Overbrook $450/mo, Must see, immedmove in, No Smoke/Drugs 267.721.7345S. 59th St. near El, furn. room, a/c,fridge, $100/wk, $100 sec. 215-472-8119SW,N,W Movein Special! $90-$125/wkClean furn rms SSI ok 215-220-8877SW Philadelphia $250 to move in.Share kitchen & bath. 267-251-2749Temple off campus area. Nice, clean, lgfurn rooms. $400/mo. 267.240.6805West Phila & North Phila furn roomsavail 267-228-1143 or 215-416-2075
W Phila & G-town: Newly ren, Spaciousclean & peaceful, SSI ok, 267.255.8665
Grays Ferry Area 3 BRNear transportation, 215-343-1417
24xx S. 57th St. 2BR $750 + utilsHouse. Rehabbed. Call 215-688-368963XX Buist 3BR $795/monthremodeled, 610-834-9978
Please be awarePossession of exotic/wild animals may
be restricted in some areas.
pets/livestock
everythingpets
Maine Coon Kittens, CFA reg., M/Fmultiple colors. (215)438-8759
Siamese Kittens Rene 609.352.6358 1stShots, Micro [email protected]
SPHYNX KITTENS - CFA with shots, ador-able, hairless, $900/ea. 267-746-1952
Bichon Frise akc F/M pups, $550 vet ckedReady 4/16, family raised 717.225.5047
BLUE ENGLISH BULLDOG Bullies,Shots/wormed, 215-821-4767
BOXER PUPPIES - 3M, 3F, Shots,Dewormed, T Cropped. 302-655-5957
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel-GorgeousBlack/Tan Pups, M/F, Call 484.332.3516
DACHSHUND PUPS - Minis, vet checked,1st shots, M $400, F $450. 908.692.7560
Doberman Pups: AKC, 2 left 1M 1F, 1stshots Vet Chkd Ready Now 215.791.4663
DOBERMAN PUPS - AKC, Champ. blood-lines, family pets, M & F. 856-224-4179English Bulldog Pups pedigree, reg,dewormed. Vet Chked. 215-696-5832
Goldendoodle Pups, intelligent, no shed,paper trained, home raised, first shots.Call 610-799-0612
Golden Retriever Quality Puppies -Champ lines, 3 M, shots / wormed, color-ing cream to gold, sire and dams onpremises, family raised and nurtured.$800/ea. Call 215-234-4425
GREAT DANE PUPPIES FOR SALE$1,000.00 (302)266-0934.
LAB pups, Yellow, Choc, Black $500-$700 Reg, Health guar, 570.996.3261Maltese Pup - Beaut. sm. F, AKC Reg.,health guar., show qual. 302-562-0762Pekingese Pups 1M, 12 Weeks. Adorable
Homeraised Baby! 215-579-1922PIT BULL BLUE PUPS - UKC cert, 3F$500/each. 215-910-6935POODLE PUPS Toy, AKC, black, Male $650CH. Pedigree, Call 856.220.9794.SCHNAUZER PUPS Ready now. vetckd, shots, $550. 717-442-9493Yorkie/Terrier Pups 100% Pure bred,AKC, gorgeous, shots. 610-485-5814
Building Blocks toTotal Fitness
12 Years of experience.Offering personal fitness training,
nutrition counseling, and flexibilitytraining. Specialize in osteoporosis, injuries, special needs. In home or
at 12th Street [email protected]
I BUY RECORDS,CD’S, DVD’STOP PRICES PAID.
No collection too small or large!We buy everything!
Call Jon at 215-805-8001 or e-mail [email protected]
USA Cheesesteak ExpressLATE NIGHT
FOOD DELIVERY11 p.m. - 4 a.m.
7 nights(267) 237-1292
Looking For Good ClientsFederal To Vine - Front To 20th
STUDY GUITAR W/ THE BESTDavid Joel Guitar Studio
All Styles All Levels.Former Berklee faculty member.
Masters Degree with 27 yrs.teaching experience.
215.831.8640www.myphillyguitarlessons.com
PHILLY PAWSBENEFIT SHOW!
Jackie O. presents the 2nd Annual PhillyPAWS Benefit Show SAT 6/8 at Rebel Rock Bar: Outlaw Pandas,
Clashing Plaid, Supreem & The New Experience, Welter; awesome
raffle & prizes! Cover: $10 donation
LE BUS Sandwiches & MOSHE’S Vegan Burritos, Wraps and Salads Now Available at the EL BAR!It’s true! They’re here and
delivered daily!1356 North Front Street
215-634-6430
SEMEN DONORS NEEDEDHealthy, College Educated Men
18-39 ~ $150/SampleWWW.123DONATE.COM
FREE DRINKINGSMARTPHONE APP!!!
City Paper is very pleased to bring you our very first smartphone app! Just go to www.citypaper.net and click our martini glass icon to findout more, or type in ‘Happy Hours in the app store, android market-
place, or blackberry app world. Click the orange martini icon and
get drinking. No matter where you go or when you go, you can findthe nearest happy hours to you
with a single click! You can even sort through bars by preference or
neighborhood.
TEQUILA SUNRISE RECORDS525 West Girard Ave
VINYL AND CD SPECIALISTS CLASSIC & MODERN GLOBAL SOUNDS HOUSE TECHNO DUBSTEP DUB DISCO FUNK SOUL JAZZ DIY PUNK LSD
ROCK AND LIGHT HARMONY ROOTS BLUES NOISE AVANT
AND MORETUESDAY-SUNDAY 12-6PM
01-215-965-9616
AWARD WINNING,WORLD FAMOUSCUSTOM STUDIO
ARTISTIC TATTOOING!Philadelphia Eddies
621 Tattoo Haven621 South 4th St
(Middle of Tattoo Row)215-922-7384 Open 7 Days
WHAT’S ON TAP ATTHE WATKINS DRINKERY?
Six Point Saison, Lake Placid IPA, Cottrell Safe Harbor Blonde, Long Trail Centennial Red,
Otter Creek Russian Imperial Stout, Roy Pitz Old Jail Ale
All that and more at the Watkins Drinkery in South Philadelphia.
Corner of 10th & Watkins215-339-0175
HAPPY HOUR ATTHE DIVE
FREE PIZZA!$2 BEER OF THE WEEK!
$2 WELL DRINKS!IT’S AMAZING!
PASSYUNK AVE(7th & CARPENTER)
215-465-5505myspace.com/thedivebar
SPRING CLEANOUT SALE!@ The Bizarre BazaarEnd of Month Until May!
EVERYTHING ON SALE!Gotta Make Room for the NEW!
BIZARRE BAZAAR 720 south 5th st, Phillyville
Fashion Fetish?200+ steel boned corsets
in stock size S-8XLRubber-Leather-Kilts-More by 26 designers.PASSIONAL Boutique
704 S. 5th St. Noon-10PM,
7 days a weekwww.passionalboutique.com
HAPPY HOUR AT THE ABBAYE$2 OFF ALL DRAFTS
$3 WELL DRINKS $5 HAPPY HOUR MENU
Only at the Abbaye637 N. 3rd Street(215) 627-6711
www.THEABBAYE.net
ACHTUNG BABY,BIERSTUBEGERMAN BIERGARTEN
BURGERS, BRATS
AND 200+ BEERS
FO SHIZZLE MA SCHNITZEL!206 Market St. 215-922-2958
A HOUSE OF LAGERSMon-Wed 5pm-2am, Thurs-Sun 11am-2am
Reservations at www.mybierstube.com
A P R I L 2 5 - M AY 1 , 2 0 1 3C A L L 2 1 5 - 7 3 5 - 8 4 4 4
billboard[ C I T Y P A P E R ]
