Philadelphia City Paper, January 29th, 2015

� | PhiladelPhia City PaPer | J a n u a r y 2 9 - f e b r u a r y 4 , 2 0 1 5 | CityPaPer.net

cpstaffWe made this

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citypaper.net30 South 15th Street, Fourteenth Floor, Phila., PA 19102. 215-735-8444, Tip Line 215-735-8444 ext. 241, Listings Fax 215-875-1800, Advertising Fax 215-735-8535, Subscriptions 215-735-8444 ext. 235

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

Associate Publisher Jennifer ClarkEditor in Chief Lillian SwansonSenior Editor Patrick RapaArts & Culture Editor Mikala JamisonFood Editor Caroline RussockSenior Staff Writers Daniel Denvir, Emily GuendelsbergerCopy Chief Carolyn WymanContributors Sam Adams, Dotun Akintoye, A.D. Amorosi, Rodney Anonymous, Mary Armstrong, Meg Augustin, Bryan Bierman, Shaun Brady, Peter Burwasser, Mark Cofta, Alison Dell, Adam Erace, David Anthony Fox, Caitlin Goodman, K. Ross Hoffman, Jon Hurdle, Deni Kasrel, Alli Katz, Gary M. Kramer, Drew Lazor, Gair “Dev 79” Marking, Robert McCormick, Andrew Milner, Annette Monnier, John Morrison, Michael Pelusi, Natalie Pompilio, Sameer Rao, Jim Saksa, Elliott Sharp, Marc Snitzer, Tom Tomorrow, John Vettese, Nikki Volpicelli, Brian Wilensky, Julie ZeglenEditorial Interns Lauren Haber, Ryan Hughes, Owen Lyman-Schmidt, Kelan Lyons, Sam Yeoman Production Director Michael PolimenoSenior Designer Brenna AdamsDesigner & Social Media Director Jenni BetzContributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Charles Mostoller, Hillary Petrozziello, Maria Pouchnikova, Neal Santos, Mark StehleContributing Illustrators Ryan Casey, Don Haring Jr., Joel Kimmel, Cameron K. Lewis, Thomas Pitilli, Matthew SmithHuman Resources Ron Scully (ext. 210)U.S. Circulation Director Joseph Lauletta (ext. 239)Account Managers Colette Alexandre (ext. 250), Nick Cavanaugh (ext. 260), Amanda Gambier (ext. 228), Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262)Classified Advertising Sales Alexis Pierce (ext. 234)Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel

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

contentsCover story, see p. 4

Cover illustration by bryCe gladfelter design by brenna adams

Naked City ...................................................................................3

A&E ...............................................................................................10

Movies .........................................................................................13

Events ..........................................................................................15

Food ..............................................................................................19

citypaper.net | J a n u a r y 2 9 - f e b r u a r y 4 , 2 0 1 5 | philadelphia city paper | �

thenakedcity

MONEY OWNS THIS TOWN: “The new room

was, literally, a hot mess — overheated and

unused, with barely enough chairs.”

[ +1] Comcast finally installs service for a Northern Liberties man who sent out an e-blast to reporters about his “Kafkaesque” ordeals with customer service. “Sir, if you dislike us so much, perhaps you should partake of a different cable company,” says the chief business strategist at Comcast, a man-size cockroach.

[0 ] Philadelphia tops web site Experian’s list of cities based on sweatpants consumption. It’s that last word that really hurts. Why are we eating our sweatpants, you guys?

[ +1] By the end of 2015, all SEPTA vehicles will be equipped with GPS tracking. “And if that’s not enough, feel free to choose a different train company,” says SEPTA’s marketing manager, a gigantic rat in a conductor’s hat.

[0 ] According to Zagat Survey, Philadelphians are good tippers who like to eat bacon and steal things like salt shakers and sil-verware. Hmm. This makes us wonder if we’re overtipping.

[ +2] Al Pacino performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music. “Oh, I’m going to have your job, shithead. I’m going downtown and talk to Mitch and Murray. I don’t care whose nephew you are, who you know, whose dick you’re sucking on,” Pacino yelled at the top of his lungs, delighting the audience with a monologue from Glengarry Glen Ross. “You ever take a dump made you feel like you’d just slept for 12 hours?”

[ -1 ] Former Philly sportscaster Don Tollefson, who was accused of fraud and represent-ed himself in court, is found guilty on all counts. Suddenly dressed as a bailiff, Tolly offers to lead himself to jail.

[ +1] Rick Forman, the CEO of clothing outlet chain Forman Mills, is featured on an epi-sode of CBS’s Undercover Boss. Clothing? Sounds like you’ve never chowed down at their sweatpants ’n’ fixins trough.

This week’s total: +4 | The year so far: +10

[ teachers anonymous ]

is this a Classroom or a storage unit?

I recently got a call during my first-period class informing me that I would be spending my staff meeting/prep time later that day covering a last-period science class.

usually, in-house teachers only cover for other teachers because of meetings, events or other emergent situa-tions — when a teacher calls in sick, a sub gets called in. I later found out this particular science teacher had taken a standard sick day, but for whatever rea-son there was no sub.

During lunch, I researched and made my own sheet of student ID pictures, as I had never met most of these students and had no guarantee of getting a class roster. When last period rolled around, I headed to the sick teacher’s lab with no idea what to expect. The only direction I got was a sign on the door directing me to a different room — can’t put the lab equipment at risk of theft or damage.

The new room was, literally, a hot mess — overheated and unused, with barely enough chairs tossed in for the students who opted to stay. The door was left unlocked, allowing students to wander in and out. at least two weren’t even in the class; they were

there visiting friends instead of in their own classes with other subs, they said, because our student body equates having a sub with not needing to go to class at all. I kept them because I’d rather not have them get in trouble wandering the halls.

It’s good that I had my own sign-in sheet, because that ended up being the only paper in the room. There were no texts and nothing to write with except board chalk. Most frustratingly, there was no emer-gency or make-up work for the kids, or any suggestion of something productive to do with them. I’d had this happen so many times across

three schools in six years; I’m not sure if it’s a result of teachers not leaving a plan, or the roster chair not distributing it.

for the last 90 minutes of the school day, I and the english teacher who’d gotten a similar call that morning concentrated on making sure the worst this “science class” did was talk shit and stare at their cell phones. This wasn’t a classroom, this wasn’t even baby-

sitting — this was storage. It spoke to so many systemic, everyday problems faced by teachers: student

attitudes, lackadaisical co-workers, unconcerned administrators, the District’s frightening lack of basic resources. The old sing-song rhyme “no more lessons, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks” popped into my head. It seemed frustratingly accurate.

✚ Teachers Anonymous shares brief stories from Philly teachers and others that illustrate their daily lives working in a severely underfunded system. Email sto-ries to [email protected] or by mail to Emily Guendelsberger c/o City Paper, 30 S. 15th St., 14th floor, Philadelphia, PA, 19102.

thebellcurveCP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

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City PaPer:I saw that Junior Gotti rushed his side of the story into publication ahead of your book. Did that surprise you?

george anastasia:No, I knew it was coming. There’s been a lot of buzz for the last month or so. In fact, the reporter who did the foreword to Gotti’s book, Peter Lance, tried to sandbag my book by writing emails to HarperCollins and basically telling them they ought to re-vet it, hold it back. So, I think they were trying to, through a back door, delay publication of this book so they could get out ahead of us.

I’ve never talked to Gotti Junior, but I’ve read a lot about him and in talking to John Alite for a year, I’ve got a sense of who he is. And I think it’s another example of Junior trying to control the narrative, and that’s what he does. He spins.

CP: In a piece I read about Jun-ior’s new book, he calls Alite

a “dog,” says he’s a “nobody” who wasn’t around. What do you think about that?

ga: Alite made an awful lot of money with Junior and

that’s been established. The fed-eral government described Alite as Junior’s enforcer and his right-hand man. Junior was Alite’s best man at Alite’s wedding. Alite was a member of [Junior’s sister] Vicky Gotti’s wed-ding party. … So, if he was a fringe player, what’s he doing in all these places? I think it’s rewriting history to say he wasn’t a major player.

CP: How did you come to meet Alite and what was in it for

him to talk to you?

ga: I knew of him because he spent some time down here

in the ’90s. He was living in Cherry Hill and Voorhees and he was doing stuff in the Philadelphia underworld. He knew of me from being down here, cause he followed the media. About a year and a half ago, I got a phone call from him, and he said, “I’m looking for somebody to tell my story, would you be interested?” So, we met right

here in this diner for the first time. … I said, “I’ll only do it if I do the book. Third-person narrative. You tell me the story.” He said “fine” because at that point he wanted his story told in full.

We used that very back booth back there. He would sit looking out and I would sit facing him. We met at least once a week for probably eight months. We’d have breakfast or coffee and talk. Then we would email and text back and forth. As I’m writing the chapters, I would bring them in and let him take a look. He was very much involved in the process.

I took notes. I had all his testimony. I must have read 6,000 pages of tes-timony. Not just his testimony, but the testimony from both trials. So, I knew all the backstory. I basically knew what his story was, I would just ask him to expand on it and take notes and we’d go from there.

CP: The first sentence in your book is “John Alite was a murderer,

drug dealer and thug.” Why do you think you could believe his story?

ga: Look, I’ve talked to a lot of these guys who have “come to

Jesus” or whatever and become coop-erators. You question all their motiva-tions as to why. The more I talked to John the more I realized this guy is not trying to sugarcoat anything that he was, anything that he did. And he’s trying to change his life.

Now, I couldn’t corroborate every-thing. Stuff in Brazil, it’s impossible. But the things he talked about in New York were backed up by the fed-eral prosecutors. And the things he told me about Philadelphia, I mean I know Philadelphia, those things all lined up correctly. So, it gave me a comfort level.

The only thing I told him is, “John, you don’t have to lie, your story’s so good, you don’t have to make any-thing up.” This is around the bend, this story. His life on the run, the life in prison, and all that. It’s as big as the story of life in the New York underworld with Gotti Junior. You don’t need to make anything up. And I think he was honest with me.

CP: What is it like to sit across the table from a mob hit man?

ga: Well, I mean, I’ve talked to a lot of guys. Sitting down

with a guy who’s a murderer or an alleged murder, it might be unique for some other people, but it’s not particularly unique for me. I think people lose sight of the fact that these guys are multidimensional the same way anybody else is. …

John talked about his family, talk-ed about his kids, talked about what he hoped to do with his life. And that doesn’t negate what he did. I didn’t want to lose sight of that. But I was standing here and I looked him right in the eye and he would not try to hide who he was and what he did and not try to explain it away. He wouldn’t even try to justify it. He told me, “I’m going to a therapist once a week because violence was like an addiction to me. I have to control it.”

CP: How would you describe the Philly mob today?

ga: It’s always going to exist, but it’s a shadow of what it used

to be. I think there’s an attempt now to go back to the old way of staying in the shadows, make money not headlines. Don’t call attention to yourself. … Ironically, if they do that, they’ll continue to exist and maybe flourish because priorities in law enforcement are different now. Priorities are now terrorism and dif-ferent drug gangs and that kind of stuff. If the mob stays low-key, and they don’t start shooting one another, they’ll probably have another run. Although, it’ll never be like it was in the ’60s or the Angelo Bruno days, those days are gone.

([email protected])

For eight months,

over breakfast or just coffee, author George Anastasia talked with a former mob hit man, John Alite, in a back booth at the Marlton Diner. That’s where Alite told his story — an insider’s tale of murder and muscle as the right-hand man for mob boss John “Junior” Gotti. Junior became the head of the Gambino family in New York in 1992 after his father, “The Dapper Don,” was sent to prison for life.

After years of benefiting from the mob’s dirty work, Alite (A-LITE) went on the run and ended up in a hellhole of a prison in Brazil. He was extradited to the U.S., turned government witness and testified against Junior at trial. Now out of prison, Alite was moving on with his life and asked Anastasia to write his story. Gotti’s Rules was published by Dey Street Books, a part of HarperCollins, on Tuesday.

Junior Gotti, who says he left the mob in 1999, was irate over the imminent publication of Alite’s story and self-published his own version of events. His e-book, Shadow of My Father, came out Jan. 19.

City Paper sat down with Anastasia at the same diner and asked him about the dueling books, how Gotti’s Rules had come about and the state of the Philly mob today. Here is an edited and condensed version of that conversation.

±

read the full interview with george anastasia at citypaper.net.

A Mob hit MAn tells philly tAlesAllen Iverson, rAbbI neulAnder And Joey

MerlIno All MAke AppeAr-Ances In GeorGe AnAstAsIA’s

new true-crIMe thrIller About A GottI henchMAn

turned InforMAnt.

By Lillian swanson

photo by maria pouchnikova

� | PhiladelPhia City PaPer | J A N u A r Y 2 9 - f e B r u A r Y 4 , 2 0 1 5 | CityPaPer.net

In the mid-1990s, John Alite also set up shop in the Philadelphia–South Jersey area, where he already had two homes. His common-law wife, Claudia, had moved into a house he purchased in a residential neighborhood in Cherry Hill. Alite also spent time in one of the three homes located on the 15-acre tract he owned in nearby Voorhees Township. Alite had turned the grounds into an athletic facility of sorts with an outdoor gym and boxing ring equipped

to train fighters. Boxing remained a big part of his life. He never hesitated to get in the ring. And as he got older he came to realize that his fascination with the sport wasn’t just about winning. A good fighter not only knew how to throw a punch, but how to take one. Alite brought that same attitude to the streets. You might knock him down, but unless you knocked him out, he was getting back up. And if he did get back up, you had a problem.

Junior Gotti wasn’t big enough, tough enough or smart enough to knock him down.A few years after establishing a base in the Philadelphia suburbs, Alite was moving

easily in and around the local underworld. He knew some members and associates of the Philadelphia crime family and they, in turn, introduced him to others. He quietly went about his business, never calling attention to himself or boasting about his New York con-nections. Guys who needed to know found out quickly enough. For most other people, it didn’t matter. Who he was was not the issue. What he was doing was what mattered. …

Philadelphia presented lots of opportunities for Alite once he started to look around. In the mid-1990s, bars and restaurants were sprouting up along the Delaware Avenue river-front from Center City to South Philadelphia. The popular nightspots attracted the young and the wealthy from both the city and the suburbs. There also were more than a few wise-guys and wannabes and the beautiful young women who chased after them. Parking was always a problem and each establishment had a valet service.

Alite, who already had a big valet business in Tampa, simply muscled his way in, using threats and beatings when necessary, to push out any competitors. In less than a year he had control of the valet parking at about two dozen spots along Delaware Avenue, a few in South Jersey and a few more in Atlantic City. He even had a few locations in upscale shopping centers. … It was a cash business and, other than paying for insurance, there was very little overhead.

Alite charged the businesses a flat fee for the valet service, arranged off-site parking and set up two or three kids at each site to park the cars. Their biggest income came from the tips.

Several of the clubs along Delaware Avenue, places like Rock Lobster, the Eighth Floor, Egypt, and Katmandu, also attracted local celebrities and the city’s sports stars. One night, Alite was checking on his businesses when he saw a Bentley parked in a VIP spot next to the entrance at one of the clubs. It was standard for whoever parked in that spot to put $20 in the tip bucket. All the tips went to the guys Alite hired to park and watch the cars. This night, the tip bucket was empty. Alite asked who owned the Bentley. One of the valet workers told him it belonged to Allen Iverson, the basketball star. Alite went in the club and found him. “Move your car,” he said. Iverson was taken aback. “What?”

“Either move your car or put $50 in the bucket,” Alite said. “Usually it’s $20, but for you now it’s fifty.”

Alite said Iverson tried to play the celebrity card, asking him if he knew who he was.“I know who you are,” Alite said he replied. “I don’t give a fuck. You’re too cheap to tip.

Move your car.”Iverson said he was a friend of the owner of the club and that his presence generated

business. Alite said that didn’t do him or the kids parking cars any good. Iverson walked away, but Alite later found out he had asked the owner who Alite was.

“He came out after that and put money in the bucket,” Alite said. “He apologized. Said no hard feelings. Keyshawn Johnson [a star wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers]

A_Mob_Hitman_Tells_Philly_Tales.CP 1/29/15

An edited excerpt from

chApter 14

text and photos courtesy: Harper Collins Publishers

TWO OF A KIND: Mob boss

Junior Gotti (left) and hit

man John Alite.

The bOys: Junior, Alite and

the crew.

citypaper.net | J A N U A R Y 2 9 - F E B R U A R Y 4 , 2 0 1 5 | philadelphia city paper | �


was the same way down in Tampa. never tipped. Warren Sapp [an all-Pro defensive tackle for the buccaneers], on the other hand, was generous with everybody. Maybe that’s why he ended up bankrupt.”

Valet parking became a legitimate source of income. It was a way for alite to launder some of the cash that was flowing in from his drug dealing, gambling and loansharking operations. and it was there for the taking.

“It was wide open and I just moved in,” he said. “I couldn’t believe the local guys hadn’t gotten into this.”

at the time alite started making his moves in the Philadelphia area, the local mob was in turmoil. Little nicky Scarfo’s bloody reign as mob boss had ended with his arrest and conviction on racketeering charges in 1988. He was succeeded by John Stanfa, a Sicilian-born Mafioso with ties to the old leadership of the Gambino family. Stanfa was banging heads with the sons, nephews and cousins of members of the jailed Scarfo crew. The young group was headed by Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, whose father had been Scarfo’s underboss. The Stanfa and Merlino factions were busy cruising the streets and shooting at one another. They didn’t have the time or the inclination to go after the valet parking busi-nesses that alite had targeted.

There was one incident involving a guy who claimed to be Stanfa’s nephew. He slapped around one of the valet attendants working for alite at a Delaware avenue nightclub. alite got a phone call from the panicked attendant, who said these guys were trying to take over.

“I’ll be right there,” alite said. He got a friend to drive him over to the club. “I was wear-ing a leather coat and I had an uzi slung over my shoulder under the coat,” he said. “This guy who claimed to be Stanfa’s nephew, I’m not even sure if he was, wasn’t around, but one of his associates was still here. They were in the valet business at the time. I showed him the gun and said I was taking over their business, not the other way around.”

alite ended up with four more spots. He saw it as simply a business opportunity, part of his foray into a new and economically fertile area. He was very comfortable moving around on the fringes of the volatile Philadelphia underworld. He and Junior Gotti had met Scarfo in atlantic City in the early 1980s before the mob boss went to jail. He knew of Merlino and some of the younger guys around him. He also had a business connection with a second group of renegade gangsters led by a kid named Louie Turra. Turra was like Merlino, a thirtysomething high-profile gangster, a John Gotti wannabe, a celebrity wise-guy but without the new york stage to play on. Turra was in the drug business. One of his suppliers was Keith Pellegrino, who worked for alite.

“I tried to stay low-key,” alite said. “I didn’t need a Pa system to let people know who I was. but word got around. I’d say hello to guys, but not much more. I didn’t really need to get involved with any of them. I was making plenty of money on my own.”

but that didn’t stop Louie Turra from trying to hire him as a hit man.“I hardly know these guys, right?” alite said. “They’ve got this Christmas tree lot on

Oregon avenue and Pellegrino takes me there one day to meet with Louie Turra.”Turra’s father, anthony, and his uncle rocco, a legendary South Philadelphia tough

guy, were in the produce business and during the holiday season they also had a lot from which they sold trees. It was there that Turra asked alite if he would be willing to kill Joey Merlino.

“first, I don’t want to get involved in their problems,” he said. “Second, they hardly know me and they’re asking me to kill somebody. I figure I’m not the first one they’ve asked. I tell them, ‘Look, you got a problem with this guy, don’t go after him right away. Make up, get him to relax, set him up. That’s the way we do it in new york.’ They didn’t want to hear that. They were crazy. I stayed away from them for that reason. If something happened to Merlino, everybody would know it was them. Louie Turra couldn’t keep his mouth shut.


continued from p. 5

“i had an uzi slung over my

shoulder under the coat.”

PAPA JOHN: John Gotti Sr.,

AKA “The Dapper Don,” died in

prison in 2002.

PINCHED: John Alite agreed to testify against his old friend Junior Gotti.

ExtENDED fAmIly:

Junior, Alite and Alite’s newborn

baby, Jimmy.


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“I listened, but there was no way I was going to get involved. I thought these guys were all a little wild.”

Coming from someone like alite, that assessment said all you needed to know about the South Philadelphia underworld circa 1994. Turra was moving marijuana, cocaine and heroin and was also involved in sports betting. Merlino and members of his branch of the mob were asking Turra to pay a street tax, the underworld price for doing business. Turra refused to pay. Or, as his uncle rocco later explained, “Who was Merlino that we should pay him? If he wants money, let him go out and steal it.”

Louie Turra was badly beaten in an after-hours club by members of Merlino’s crew. He was humiliated. During the assault, Merlino’s henchmen also took his rolex watch. but Turra still refused to pay. Instead he intensified his efforts to have Merlino killed. alite heard about some of the plots, which just reinforced his perception of the Turra crew. They were cowboys, he said.

The Turras and nearly a dozen associates would later be indicted on racketeering charges that included drug dealing, murder and attempted murder. The indictment listed a series of plots to kill Merlino, plots that revolved around hand grenades, machine guns and even, at one point, a bow and arrow. Most of the defendants in that case were convicted. The three Turras each found a different way out. rocco, to the surprise of almost everyone in South Philadelphia, became a government witness. He had had enough of the senseless violence, he said. Louie committed suicide by hanging himself in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan while awaiting the start of trial. and anthony, Louie’s father, was shot and killed one morning in front of his home as he was on his way to court. Members of the Merlino mob have long been suspected, but never convicted, of that murder.

alite’s name also surfaced in another notorious “hit” that generated intense media attention at the time. The wife of a prominent Cherry Hill rabbi was killed in her home, bludgeoned to death by an intruder. The murder of Carol neulander occurred on nov. 1, 1994. Over the next four years it would be the focus of an intense investigation by the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office. at one point word leaked out that investigators had questioned alite, described as a notorious “mob hit man” then living in Cherry Hill.

“I remember driving home one day with Claudia,” alite said. “She was living in the house on brick road. When we pulled up, there were two guys in suits and ties, a white guy and a black guy, waiting at the door.”

alite still laughs when he recounts the story.“Oh look, Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Claudia said when she spotted the men.“That’s how naïve she was,” alite said. “I knew right away they were detectives. I told

them to come in. They indicated that they didn’t think I had anything to do with it, but said they had to question me. I didn’t realize it, but sometimes when I went jogging, I would jog past the neulander house, the house where she was killed. She owned a cake shop and I used to stop in there sometimes. and I used to work out and play racquetball at the same gym where the rabbi worked out. I might have even played a game or two of racquetball with him. I don’t remember.”

alite said he was open and honest with the detectives, telling them frankly that he was making too much money on his own to hire out as an assassin. What’s more, he said, he would never kill a woman.

“I told them it was either some junkie or it was the husband,” alite said.alite was right. It was the rabbi. fred neulander was arrested in September 1998 and

charged with hiring two men to kill his wife. both hit men, one a recovering alcoholic whom the rabbi had befriended and was counseling, confessed and cooperated with authori-ties. They testified at two trials. The first ended with a hung jury, the second with fred neulander’s conviction for first-degree murder. neulander is currently serving a life term.


continued from p. 6

no DEAL: Junior Gotti talked with government

prosecutors in 2006, but never made the deal.

BEHInD BARS:

Alite (left) in a Brazilian prison

with a fellow inmate.

RUnnIng MAn:

The feds tracked down Alite in

Brazil in 2004; extradition took

two years.


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10 | PhiladelPhia City PaPer | J a n u a r y 2 9 - f e b r u a r y 4 , 2 0 1 5 | CityPaPer.net

WHEREFORE ART THOU: A column featuring the

work of Philly artists. We’re looking for creators to tell, in their own words,

the stories behind their art. Want to contribute?

Email a 100-words-or-less first-person statement,

mentioning any upcoming events, your social media

handles and a photo of your work, to

Mikala Jamison at [email protected].

➤ Marah Carpenter

I tend to be in conflict with my work. I balance my passion for cre-ating sincere fine art with the refusal to sacrifice some commercial functionality. for lack of a better title, I am a fashion fine artist. I strive for work that looks as cool walking down the street as it does hanging on a wall. not everything I create is wearable, but all of it focuses on experimenting with elements of both aspects. I have an unbelievable enthusiasm for turning everything into a piece of clothing or an accessory. Let’s face it; if you could slip on the Mona Lisa and head to town … you might consider it. See Carpenter’s work, including her upcoming clothing and accessory art line based on children’s paper dolls, at cargocollective.com/meo-c28.

➤ Derek MiChael Fass

I began painting my first year living in Philadelphia in 2009 after finding an old canvas being thrown away at a friend’s apartment building. after making my first painting, I couldn’t stop, and it has become a great passion. Generally my paintings are abstract in form and possess bright and energetic color. My inspiration stems from multiple sources: from the eccentricities of the glam rock era, differ-ent styles of architecture, to my strong interest in abstract expres-

sionism. I’d say my work is pretty flamboyant and tacky, but in a good way. See more of Fass’ work at derekmichaelfass.tumblr.com.

➤ austin hoDges

I am a boring, average Joe who takes photos of unique homes, doors and architecture. I travel to different neighborhoods in Philly and find the homes and buildings that stand out. My friend billy Cress (@billycress), started #phillyhomeportrait, and we’ve joined together to create a new project called #phillyneighborhood-church. This focuses on the small churches you see in neighbor-hoods, not the huge ones. My art has inspired a handful of people to get off their asses and go exploring. Follow Hodges on Twitter and Instagram @austinxc04, and on his website, austinxc04.vsco.co.

➤ ana VizCarra rankin

I am making art for the nerd in all of us. I make art about cartography and astronomy. My large format star maps contain a mixture of infor-mation gathered through research, naked-eye stargazing, star charts and smartphone apps. They show what is happening in the sky at a specific time in a specific place. My tiny astronomy drawings and paintings tackle formal issues such as the void and negative space. being a uruguayan-american who has spent a lot of time traveling has had a strong influence on my work. I can finally call Philadelphia home. Rankin’s work will be featured in the “Ad Noctum” exhibition open Feb. 7 at PhilaMOCA, and at the InLiquid Benefit Auction at Crane Arts on Feb. 7. Visit her website at avrankin.com.

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➤ sleater-kinney has never made a medio-cre rock record and, after an initial listen, it seemed the time apart hasn’t worn away the individual tal-ents of Janet Weiss, Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker, or the genius of their synergy. But just how good, after nearly a decade away — and with their own oeuvre as the competition — is No Cities to Love (Sub Pop)?

I was 9 when Sleater-Kinney debuted, and didn’t start listening to them until my early 20s. As such, I’ve learned to love them pretty much sans historical context. My attachment is to their songs, which, as combinations of words and guitar and drums, have few rivals (and no betters) over the last 20 years. Having heard them, there’s no getting over songs like “Heart Attack,” “Start Together” or “The Size of Our Love,” to name a very few.

And though nothing on No Cities quite knocks me over the way those songs did, there is still much to love: The rhythmic work of drums and synth on “Fangless,” the heaviness of “Fade” (which recalls their work on The Woods), intimations of dance music on “A New Wave,” the way Weiss calls down thunder on “No Anthems,” and the tunes and riffs which make you wonder, for all their beloved fierce-ness and bravery, if a full accounting has been made of how naturally musical they are.

Lyrically, they celebrate their abiding love on “Surface Envy”: “I feel so much stronger now that you’re here.” As for the politics: Greed, “the system” and dread all have their day, though the ladies refuse to succumb. And on closer “Fade,” they exorcise the enervation that made them quit in 2006: “If we are truly dancing our swan song, darling/ Shake it like never before.”

(@dakintoye)

soundadviceBy Dotun Akintoye

whereforeartthou?Philly artists in their own words

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: New

BLAck SeA | B+as much as casting perma-posh Jude Law as a hard-scrabble Scotsman with salt water in his veins seems like an odd kind of reach, it’s one of many aspects of Kevin Macdonald’s claustrophobic deep-water thriller that works. built around aggressive clashes made doubly bilious by the rust-eaten walls of a World War II sub-marine, Black Sea is a conventional crime caper with unconventional ambitions. Law is robinson, a captain for a private salvage outfit who’s laid off from his job with little explanation. Looking to get up on the corporate pa-per-pushers that have kept their boot on him for years, he agrees to head up a mission, backed by a shady benefactor, to retrieve a cache of nazi gold that disappeared into the depths decades ago. Though the members of his half-brit-ish, half-russian crew are promised a hearty cut, the pressure starts making the boys feel restless, paranoid, greedy and downright homicidal — sentiments that aren’t exactly beneficial to morale when you’re piloting a junker through hostile territory. Though it’s really not much more than a good old-fashioned dick-measuring contest, the shifting alliances and mind games keep the overall pace taut and time-conscious, and Law’s fiery shot-caller is a strong-armed point of reference. (His Scottish accent is not so strong.) real-life Glaswegian Macdonald’s heart-stopping underwater sequences signal-boost his knack for innovative action, a talent he hasn’t shown off since 2011’s The Eagle. —Drew Lazor (wide release)

: coNtiNuiNg

AmericAN SNiper | Cespecially in the wake of his unforgettable appearance at the 2012 republican national Convention, it’s near impossible to approach a Clint eastwood movie about the Iraq war without the Hollywood icon’s politics in mind. but eastwood the filmmaker has never been one to argue with empty chairs, and in its own narrowly focused way, American Sniper is the latest in a long line of films in which eastwood has wrestled with the reality of good but violent men. a bulked-up bradley Cooper stars as real-life navy SeaL Chris Kyle, who chalked up the most confirmed kills of any sniper in u.S. history during four tours of Iraq. Whether saving his kid brother from school-yard bullies or enlisting in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Kyle is depicted as having a protective instinct, drilled into him by his no-nonsense father. His absolute God-and-country confidence feels alien to a war that in reality has offered little in the way of moral certainty. Whether or not eastwood shares that confidence, he offers little in the tense battle scenes to contradict it; even when Kyle trains his sights on women and children, there’s no ambiguity as to who are the bad guys. The director’s inter-est isn’t in questioning the war effort, but in exploring its effect on the men tasked with carrying it out. The film splits its focus between Kyle’s experiences in Iraq and his increasing alienation at home, where PTSD takes its toll on his health and his family. for all its valorization of the troops — and make no mistake, the film’s depiction

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of the efficiency and camaraderie of soldiers is as nuance-free as a John Wayne flag-raiser, despite some of Kyle’s more inflammatory statements — American Sniper finds the adjust-ment from battlefield to home front impossibly daunting to navigate. eastwood himself shares the same difficulty; while many of the battle se-quences, particularly a vivid, almost abstract, attack during a sandstorm, are among the director’s best work in years, the repetitive and trite scenes between Cooper and Sienna Miller as Kyle’s wife quickly grow tiresome, as if Clint is as eager as his subject to get back to the action. —Shaun Brady (wide release)

A most violent yeAr | Byou don’t need to decide whether J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year is a masterpiece: The movie is happy to tell you itself. Like James Gray, Chandor shoots in a shadow-flecked style that might be called mid-’70s masterwork, but he doesn’t invest it with his own particular under-standing of the mode. In spite of cinematographer bradford young’s ace Gordon Willis impression, the movie feels as safe as its ambitious heating-oil businessman hero (Oscar Isaac) is reckless. (That preciousness extends to the title, which comes from the fact that 1981, when the

movie was set, was the most violent year in new york City’s history. The indefinite article adds a touch of the crooked pinky.) That said, A Most Violent Year is plenty enjoyable in more modest ways, as a master riff rather than a masterpiece. Isaac has his Pacino down pat, and the evoca-tion of the then-undesirable island of Manhattan mixes the proper degrees of disgust and nostalgia. The most canny inversion is envisioning Jessica Chastain, Isaac’s Chanel-draped wife, as the Sonny to his Michael Corleone, rather than his Kay. The daughter of a bona fide gangster, she’s a loaded gun waiting to go off, practically flicking her cigarette ash in detective David Oyelowo’s face as he searches

their house for cooked books and drawling, “This was very disrespect-ful.” It’s the little touches rather than the drive towards big statements that make Most Violent worth watching. at times you feel you’ve been here before, but it’s never a trial to go back. —Sam Adams (wide release)

selmA | B+The first-ever theatrical feature about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is not a birth-to-death biopic, but a dissection of a meticulous feat that's never quite earned the historical enshrinement it deserves. In explor-ing the marches in alabama — which took place after the Montgomery bus boycott, the nobel Peace Prize, the March on Washington and “I Have a Dream” — ava DuVernay imbues King's legacy with newfound nuance, highlighting his skill as a strate-gist over the public presence that's made him a legend. That's not to say David Oyelowo doesn't crush this career-defining role — he nails King's oratory with eerie, goosebump-induc-ing power — but it's the machina-tions of protest, and not the protest itself, that prove most fascinating. Seeking to empower disenfranchised black citizens in the deep South, King called his Southern Christian Leadership Conference into action in 1965, with plans on marching from Selma to Montgomery in sup-port of constitutional voting rights. Granting us a seat at the planning table, DuVernay explores how the events were as tactical as they were political or spiritual, showcasing how King played non-violence against the short fuse of the law to his greatest media-aided advantage. Selma's most noticeable shortcoming, controversial portrayal of LbJ (Tom Wilkinson) be damned, is the lack of development of its secondary characters, all of whom were invaluable to the victory. —DL (wide release)

sPAre PArts | B-While the profile of Selma has been boosted by the “divine timing” of its release (Oprah’s words), a much smaller movie has also found its vein along the sociopolitical zeitgeist. It won’t win any awards, inspire any lofty op-eds or birth any red-carpet stars, but Spare Parts tells a story bigger than the creative sacrifices required to spread it. a 2005 Wired article by Joshua Davis uncovered events too improbable to be fake: four arizona teenagers, all of them

undocumented immigrants, rode a tiny amount of cash and a ton of ingenuity into a victory over top-tier universities in an underwater robot-ics competition. While it serves as the head and the heart, the earnest dynamic of the group — the born leader (Carlos PenaVega), the gear head (José Julián), the genius (David Del rio), the muscle (J.r. Villarreal) — comes off war-movie predict-able. and director Sean Mcnamara, who’s made his bones on the Disney Channel circuit, kiddifies his moves, pumping air into proceedings that are too often dark and desperate. but whatever compromises were required to get these kids on the big screen — lumping the club’s two advisors into one character, played by a marketable Latino star like George Lopez; painful product placement, shoveling praise on a certain fast-food chain known for targeting minorities — were worth it overall. as we sprint toward an election year, everyone will be talking about immigration, and stories like this help us remember that when we’re arguing about the is-sue, we’re arguing about real people. —DL (wide release)

still AliCe | C+“I feel like my fucking brain is dying,” laments Julianne Moore’s linguistics professor, stricken with a rare form of early-onset alzheimer’s. at some point in richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s movie, you will feel similarly. There’s not much to fault in Moore’s performance of a woman whose intellect is gradually fading like chalk in a rainstorm, but Glatzer and Westmoreland are stolid-at-best filmmakers and far worse writers; the closing scene in which one character asks another “What’s it about?” may be the clumsiest in the history of recorded drama. alec baldwin has the thankless and ill-defined role of Moore’s husband, a high-pow-ered doctor who battens down the hatches rather than facing his wife’s deterioration, but Kristen Stewart invests the part of her youngest daughter with more feeling than it deserves. (With this and Clouds of Sils Maria, she’s giving some of her best performances playing not-so-great actresses.) In its most poignant moments, Still Alice hands off the emotional heavy lifting to quotations from elizabeth browning and Angels in America, betraying a lack of confi-dence in Glatzer and Westmoreland’s skill to manufacture their own drama that sadly proves entirely well-found-

ed. —SA (wide release)

: rePertory film

Bryn mAWr film institUte 823 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-9898, brynmawrfilm.org. Them! (1954, u.S., 94 min.): The academy of natural Sciences’ “Mega-bad Movie night” moves to the Main Line for a special installment featur-ing giant mutant ants. The beloved b-movie will be accompanied by live insect specimens, edible bugs, scien-tific commentary and free popcorn and yards beer. Thu., Jan. 29, 8 p.m. (reception at 7 p.m.), $10-$15. Harry

and the Hendersons (1987, u.S., 110 min.): Dangerously biased pro-Sasquatch propaganda piece. Sat., Jan. 31, 11 a.m., $4-$5. The Fault in

Our Stars (2014, u.S., 126 min.): The teen cancer tearjerker will be accom-panied by remarks from members of bryn Mawr Hospital’s oncology team. Wed., Feb. 4, 7 p.m., $12.

tHe ColoniAl tHeAtre 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville, 610-917-1228, thecolonialtheatre.com. On the

Waterfront (1954, u.S., 108 min.): One-way ticket to Palookaville not included in admission price. Sun., Feb. 1, 2 p.m., $9.

CoUnty tHeAter 20 E. State St., Doylestown, 215-348-1878, countytheater.org. Eleanor’s

Secret (2009, france/Italy, 80 min.): an animated feature about a young boy’s adventures with beloved liter-ary characters. Sat., Jan. 31, 10:30 a.m., $4.

internAtionAl HoUse 3701 Chestnut St., 215-387-5125, ihousephilly.org. Story of My

Death (2013, france, 151 min.): Catalonian filmmaker albert Serra imagines what’d go down if legendary womanizer Casanova and legendary neck-biter Dracula were bros. Thu., Jan. 29, 7 p.m., $9. Dusty & Sweets

McGee (1971, u.S., 91 min.) and Aloha Bobby & Rose (1975, u.S., 88 min.): an exploration of under-rated and influential auteur floyd Mutrux’s best work, including his 1971 debut and 1975 second feature. Fri., Jan. 30, 7 p.m., $9. in the Grip

of the lobster: restoring Jack

Smith. Jerry Tartaglia presents this detailed rundown of Smith’s career, as an underground filmmaker, performance artist and iconoclastic

LGbT icon. Sat., Jan. 31, 5 p.m., free (RSVP required). Pariah (2011, u.S., 86 min.): Dee rees’ acclaimed drama about a young african-american les-bian (adepero Oduye) growing up in brooklyn. Part of the Penn Humani-ties forum’s celebration of cinematog-rapher bradford young. Wed., Feb. 4, 7 p.m., free (RSVP required).

Pfs tHeAter At tHe roXy 2023 Sansom St., 267-639-9508, filmadelphia.org/roxy.The Thing

(1982, u.S., 109 min.): The John Car-penter horror classic that ruined the antarctic tourism industry forever. Fri., Jan. 30, midnight, $10. Little

Giants (1994, u.S. 107 min.): “Look, you berserko barbie Doll — when you mess with Spike, you mess with death.” Sat.-Sun., Jan. 31-Feb. 1, 11 a.m., $1-$9.

ritZ At tHe BoUrse 400 Ranstead St., 215-440-1181, landmarktheatres.com. Akira (1988, Japan, 124 min.): The dystopian epic considered a masterpiece of the Japanese anime genre. Watch the original before it gets remade with cornball non-asian actors. Fri., Jan. 30, midnight, $10.

troCADero tHeAtre 1003 Arch St., 215-922-6888, thetroc.com Tiberino: The Art of Life (2015, u.S., 90 min.): Philly director Derrick Woodyard debuts his documentary on the artists of the multigenerational Tiberino family, “The Wyeths of West Philly.” The screening will be pre-ceded by a reception and followed by a Q&a featuring Woodyard and mem-bers of the Tiberino clan. Sat., Jan. 31, 8 p.m. (doors at 6:30 p.m.), $10-$15. Groundhog Day (1993, u.S., 102 min.) and Edge of Tomorrow (2014, u.S., 113 min.): Double feature of two similar-but-different “time loop” films — Harold ramis’ timeless dark com-edy and Doug Liman’s energetic Tom Cruise/emily blunt sci-fi actioner. Mon., Feb. 2, 8 p.m., $3.

[ movie shorts ]

morecitypaper.net/events


1.29thursday

[ theater ]

The Dangerous house of PreTTy Mbane$22-$38 | Through Feb. 8, InterAct Theatre Company at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., 215-568-8079, interacttheatre.org.

Post-Mandela South africa seems like a vastly improved place — no more apartheid, after all — but Jen Silverman’s

new play, forcefully directed by Pirronne yousefzadeh for Inter-act Theatre Company, reveals its underreported persecution of homosexuals. aimé Donna Kelly gives a profoundly hon-est and raw performance as a soccer player enjoying London’s freedoms until her lover Pretty Mbane (Lynnette freeman) disappears at home during the 2010 World Cup. a gay expat (eric berryman), a british jour-nalist (ross beschler) and her brother (akeem Davis) provide perspectives about a society that celebrates freedom while tolerating “corrective rape” of lesbians and other oppressions. —Mark Cofta

[ comedy ]

bob Marley$16-$24 | Through Sat., Jan. 31, Hel-ium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St., 215-496-9001, heliumcomedy.com.

no, Helium isn’t hosting a reggae night. The second-most-

well-known bob Marley is a classic observational comic, peddling self-deprecating standup with a loud new england twang. Marley’s been at it for decades, with stops on Leno, Letterman and Comedy Central on his résumé, and he’s a veteran of the touring circuit, thriving in intimate settings like Helium. —Alex Marcus

[ theater ]

voices of a PeoPle’s hisTory of The uniTeD sTaTes $15-$30 | Through Sat., Jan. 31, Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, 866-811-4111, playsandplayers.org.

Iron age Theatre Company’s John Doyle joins Plays & Play-ers to bring protest voices from Howard Zinn’s A People’s His-tory to life, from iconic figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and eugene Debs to lesser-known activists and

modern defenders of freedom. Doyle’s amazing cast includes adam altman, K.O. DelMar-celle, bi Jean ngo, roderick Slocum, Cathy Simpson and Mary Tuomanen. —Mark Cofta

[ theater ]

The Miracle worker$25-$42 | Through Feb. 15, Media Theatre, 104 E. State St., Media, 610-891-0100, mediatheatre.org.

The Media Theatre takes a break from its all-musical schedule to produce The Miracle Worker, William Gibson’s inspir-ing 1959 drama about blind, deaf and mute child Helen Keller and teacher annie Sullivan’s extraordinary efforts to commu-nicate with her. Director Jesse Cline brings back barrymore award-winner Jennie eisen-hower — Morticia in Media’s The Addams Family — to play Sul-livan, and found his Helen, Lexi Gwynn, in the company’s theater school. —Mark Cofta

1.30friday

[ electro-pop/hip-hop ]

unTil The ribbon breaks$25-$30 | Fri., Jan. 30, 8:30 p.m., with London Grammar, Electric Factory, 421 N. Seventh St., 215-627-1332, electricfactory.info.

not many acts would seem equally at home sharing stages with heavy-lidded lounge-poppers London Grammar — tomorrow night’s headliners — and the flat-out heavy rap duo run the Jewels (with whom they’ve traded album guest spots), but this u.K.trio fits the bill. Their assured if rather forbiddingly sober debut, A Les-son Unlearnt (Cobalt), somehow synthesizes the past half-decade’s trends in electro-pop, lushly moody avant-r&b, indie rock anthemism and egghead hip-hop with precisely the kind of fluid fluency their cassette-

tape-referencing moniker lacks. —K. Ross Hoffman

[ singer-songwriter ]

erin Mckeown$20 | Fri., Jan. 30, 8 p.m., Tin Angel at Serrano, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770, tinangel.com.

ethnomusicology major at brown, former fellow at Harvard’s berkman Center for Internet and Society, blog-ger and host for WnyC new york Public radio and board member of the future of Music Coalition, erin McKeown’s artistic and social engagement is wide and deep. Her latest re-lease, Manifestra, features sax, synths, strings, a bevy of guest singers and a song written with MSnbC’s rachel Maddow via text message. —Sam Fox

[ theater ]

nice anD fresh: January $7 | Fri., Jan. 30, 8 p.m.; Sat., Jan. 31, 6 and 8 p.m.; SmokeyScout

SAY IT, DON’T SPRAY IT: Erin McKeown plays the Tin

Angel on Friday.

Merri cyur

[ the whole universe is contagious if you look at it long enough ][email protected] | january 29 - february 4

events

Events is our selective guide to what’s going on in the city this week. For comprehensive event list-ings, visit citypaper.net/events. if

yOu Want tO be liSted: Sub-mit information by email ([email protected]) 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.

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with Goth-industrial and even ’80s pop influences. formed by ex-Zs and extra Life guitarist Charlie Looker with vocalist amirtha Kidambi, Howling Hex multi-instrumental-ist robbie Lee and percus-sionist russell Greenberg, Seven Teares is an intriguing experiment in recontextu-alization, whether swath-ing a renaissance ballad in synthesizer drones or giving alice in Chains the medieval treatment. —Shaun Brady

1.31saturday

[ rock/folk ]

KaKi King$22-$25 | Sat., Jan. 31, 5:30 and 8 p.m., World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400, worldcafelive.com.

Guitar-genius Kaki King has reinvented her role as a solo instrumental artist by team-ing up with visual designers Glowing Pictures to bring us

The Neck Is a Bridge to the Body, a riveting hourlong audio-visual performance where the guitar takes center stage. Provocative, moving and beautiful, this production is King at her visionary best. —Sarah Heizenroth

[ miscellaneous ]

Philly Fixers guild rePair FairFree | Sat., Jan. 31, noon-4 p.m., Memphis Street Academy, 2950 Memphis St., phillyfixersguild.org.

Toaster won’t turn on? Vacuum won’t turn off? Stop by the Philly fixers Guild’s Third repair fair and get help fixing your broken household goods. PfG volunteers want to see fewer fixable items getting thrown into landfills and fewer dollars spent replacing what could have been saved. even better, they love to share their knowledge, so that next time you can do it yourself. no vehicles, weapons or haz-ardous materials, but otherwise, anything goes. —Owen Lyman-Schmidt

2.1sunday

[ comedy ]

The dean’s lisT!Free | Sun., Feb. 1, 7 p.m., with Matt&, Philly Improv Theater, 2030 Sansom St., 267-233-1556, philly-improvtheater.com.

The heart of the Philly improv scene is PHIT’s “Super free Sunday” block. The early show, The Dean’s List!, is a fun exer-cise in spontaneity, as veteran teachers perform with random-ly selected students. This week, it also features Matt&, in which one-man improv powerhouse Matt Holmes partners with an unsuspecting audience member for an entire set. —Alex Marcus

[ events ]

morecitypaper.net/events

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[ café society ]

Share TradeThe dedication comes with a cost at this coffee and cocktail collective. By Owen Lyman-Schmidt

W/n W/n | 931 Spring Garden St., no phone, winwincoffeebar.com. Mon., 7 a.m.-3 p.m.; Tue.-Thu., 7 a.m.-mid.; Fri., 7 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sat., 9 a.m.-2 a.m.; Sun., 9 a.m.-mid.

T he name of W/n W/n Coffee bar (pronounced Win Win) may confuse at first, but hear it explained and you’ll get a glimpse of why this unassuming new spot on Spring Garden

Street is well worth watching.“[The name] comes from waste not, want not. It comes from

creating a win-win situation for employees, employers and custom-ers,” explains member-owner Mike Dunican.

W/n W/n, which celebrated its grand opening last weekend, is the only restaurant in the city run as a worker cooperative. Worker co-ops are businesses owned in their entirety by the workers, who make decisions democratically on a one-share, one-vote basis (or in the case of W/n W/n, by consensus). It’s a time-tested model, but unfamiliar to many in an industry more often associated with high employee turnover and rigid, top-down management.

“a lot of us came from the service industry and didn’t like the

way we were treated,” says Dunican. “We wanted to create a space that empowered the people working on the floor.”

Industry veterans on the ownership team include Will Darwall (elixr Coffee), Tony Montagnaro (Pizza brain) and alden Towler, but not everyone who works at W/n W/n is an owner right off the bat. employees aren’t eligible to become member-owners until they’ve worked at the restaurant for six months, and then the existing own-ers have to reach consensus on offering them a share. Still, there’s no capital investment required and a profit-sharing program is being put in place for all employees. regardless of ownership, Dunican says, “It doesn’t seem like it’s just a job” to anyone on staff.

That level of personal investment will be critical if they’re going to successfully defy another piece of industry gospel, which preaches “farm-to-table” as great marketing language, but difficult on the books. To many with that

mindset, W/n W/n’s commitment to sustainable sourcing is as radi-cal as its management structure, but among the member-owners it’s a closed question. They source almost all their food from small distributors and local farms like Heritage and Kneehigh. That kind of dedication comes with a cost.

“It can be be 200 or 300 percent more expensive to buy this way,” admits Montagnaro. “If you’re going to have local food, you’ve got to limit yourself.” unwilling to underpay labor or overcharge custom-

f&dfoodanddrink

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WaGe TUrNergirard | 300 E. Girard Ave., 267-457-2486, girardongirard.com. Lunch: Mon.-Fri., noon-3 p.m. Brunch: Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dinner: Tue.-Thu., 5- 9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 5-10 p.m. Brunch, $7-$22; lunch, $5-$10; dinner, $7-$34.

➤ GIRARD, THE NAMED-FOR-THE-AVENuE brasserie from Starr refugees Cristian Mora and Brian Oliveira, has gotten most of its pre-launch attention from tipping. Or a lack thereof.

Sporting a marble breakfast counter and café windows and black zigzags evoking Delia Deetz on the ceilings, Girard is one of the city’s first no-tipping restaurants, a trend that has sparked an important conversation on hospitality workers’ rights. Girard’s staff is paid a living wage and is entitled to health insurance, vacation and sick days. You pay slightly higher-than-average prices for Oliveira’s interesting yet approachable menu. Everybody wins.

Of course, when the credit card slip comes, there’s still a line to add a tip. And on the table card explaining the no-grat-necessary policy, a caveat explains, “In case you choose to leave a gratuity for exceptional service, all monies will go directly to server.” But the perfunctory, blasé service at brunch didn’t exactly overwhelm me with generosity. My server was barely warm, and my guest Mora thought “looked like a funeral director” in his buttoned-up black suit.

It’s a shame the tipping situation has gotten the most publicity because Oliveira’s cooking is what should really be in the limelight. He can be heavy-handed with salt, but I really enjoyed what he cooked for me, beginning with a smart little avocado toast topped with grapefruit segments, wheels of water-melon radish, tarragon oil and Sichuan pepper.

Oliveira’s country breakfast comes with eggs your way, a respectably buttery biscuit, shaved potatoes and a choice of ham, merguez or charred grapefruit. The spuds and the sausage were where the chef’s salt predilection asserted itself, but not in a ruinous way. The burger, meanwhile, was a perfectly seasoned patty beneath a blanket of melted raclette. Oliveira should lose the fence of seared enoki mushrooms, but he’s made me a believer in the English-muffin-as-a-bun trend by sourcing from Philly Muffins.

Piri-piri chicken, vadouvan lamb shank, foie tartine and beet tartare are all on my radar for dinner. I’m confident the cooking will be worth a revisit — and I’m hoping the service will find some charm.

([email protected])

amuseboucheBy adam erace

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WIN WIN: The member-owners of W/N W/N

outside of their newly opened shop.

hillary petrozziello

ers, W/N W/N is choosing to wear those limitations on its sleeve, or rather, menu.

Initially, weekday offerings will be consist of baked goods with a focus on ancient grains, sandwiches and substantial bar snacks like okonomiyaki, a Japanese cabbage pancake made with sauerkraut and apples. On weekends, the kitchen will create single-plate meals for brunch, entirely vegetarian at the moment, with the exception of bacon from ethical farms. The small, rotating menu also will allow them to keep waste down. Recently, they’ve been producing a single bag of trash a week, a fact that makes the money they spend on the commercial waste-removal company they’re required by municipal law to retain seem itself a waste.

In the coffee program, which benefits heavily from Darwall’s close relationship with Elixr Coffee, ethical sourc-ing looks a little different. Obviously, coffee doesn’t grow locally, but Elixr will source and roast W/N W/N’s house brew. Elixr’s also been helping connect the newcomers with milk from Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative until W/N W/N has enough volume to meet the minimum order level for Trickling Springs Creamery. Darwall’s ambition is to sup-plement Elixr’s roasts with the best seasonal coffees from all of Philly’s roasters, to be chosen by a discerning team. “That’s where we’re helped most by having a full, strong crew that’s horizontally organized,” he says, an asset carried over to a cocktail program he calls “people-powered.”

Darwall elaborates: “In nearly all of our cocktails, part of the flavor profile is coming from herb tinctures we’ve made that are foraged or come from local farms.” That’s because so few ingredients vital to making craft cock-tails meet the sourcing requirements of the W/N W/N member-owners. Even regional brewers and distillers are liable to import distant conventional grain or opt for cost-saving labor and energy options, which disqualify them. A few local providers, like Yards and Philadelphia Distilling, happen to be leaders in making their respec-tive industries more sustainable. A locally brewed St. Benjamin’s Koffee Kölsch is currently on tap along with standards like Kenzinger and Jack’s Hard Cider.

The continuous research required to keep up with these challenges, not to mention the constant collective deci-sion-making about when and how to compromise, are the Herculean tasks the new worker co-op has taken on.

“It’s not something we’re doing to jump on any bandwag-on. It’s the only way we feel comfortable serving and order-ing food,” says Montagnaro with a shrug. Succeeding in a culturally and economically diverse neighborhood while prioritizing employee empowerment and relentlessly ethi-cal sourcing won’t be easy, but if the menu stays as strong as the values it’s built upon, it might be just enough.

([email protected])

✚ Share trade<<< continued from page 19

[ food & drink ]

20 | PhiladelPhia City PaPer | J A N u A R Y 2 9 - F E B R u A R Y 4 , 2 0 1 5 | CityPaPer.net

“It’s the only way we feel comfortable serv-ing and ordering food.”

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Philadelphia City Paper, January 29th, 2015