Author Archives: bella

Free screening of ‘The Social Network’

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Before you read this, you were probably frantically scrolling through your news feed, wondering why “Person X” always puts sappy country song lyrics as his or her status and why “Person Y” writes out his or her schedule for you every day. Well, now’s your time to meet the person who let people X and Y trash your news feed. Kind of.

An advance screening of the “The Social Network,” a film depicting the validity behind Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s business, will be playing at the Pearl Theater Wednesday, Sept. 22 at 7:30 p.m. Advance screening passes are located at the Information Desk in the Student Center. One pass allows two people.

Don’t forget to check out The Temple News’ exclusive interview with “The Social Network” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and Matt Flocco’s review of the film.

Relic hipster icon bashes Fourteenth Street mag on blog

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Ironic though, isn’t it?

After reporter Josh Fernandez gave Philebrity.com editor and co-founder Joey Sweeney ample opportunity to put in his expert hipster two cents for his Fourteenth Street magazine (inserted in this week’s issue of TTN) cover article on hipsters adopting queer style, the blog, true to its form, published a barely-there, almost-funny-but-not-quite post attempting to ridicule the mag.

In its post, Philebrity boasts Sweeney’s response to Fernandez’s request for comment, saying, “Instead, he forwarded the email to all of his friends with the subject header “PLEASE KILL ME.” A decision, for the record, he still stands by.”

Funny, because Sweeney’s actual response to the request went something like this: “Hi Josh- I’m gonna pass on this one. Good luck!”

Read: I would respond to you, but I’m too busy hanging out and posting comments here.

Fourteenth Street thanks you for the free publicity, Philebrity. How are ad sales these days?

As a kind sidenote, your “hip” use of Yiddish words is facacta in itself. If you’re going to muddle other tongues, at least have the decency to learn to spell the words correctly. Or are you too cool for that?

Interview With a Comedian: Pat Barker

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pat barker

In the first in what is (hopefully) a series of interviews with local comedians, I had a chat with Pat Barker, a 24-year-old comic from New Jersey currently making a name for himself in the business of making people laugh. Barker was a finalist in Helium Comedy Club’s 2007 “Philly’s Phunniest” Competition, and you can also find him there this weekend opening for Eddie Gossling. You can check out some clips of Pat in action, and also ask him for his hand in friendship on his myspace.

Aaron Hertzog: Pat Barker, how would you describe your style of
comedy, in terms of comparing it to a member of the animal kingdom?

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Important Presentation on Waterfront Development

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GAry.jpg

As I wrote about in my column a few weeks ago, PennPraxis, the UPenn design team contracted to create a community-based redevelopment plan for the Delaware water front, will shortly be releasing its findings. The presentation will be held downtown at the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Wednesday, November 14th. RSVP is required, here. Attendees are supposed to show up at 6:00 PM, but from what I’ve been told over 1,000 people have already registered, so you may want to show up early.

I can only reiterate what I’ve already said in my column. The central Philadelphia riverfront is a span of the city that is over half the size of Center City, and largely undeveloped. Furthermore, it is probably the largest span of undeveloped land that sits in proximity to our central commercial district. It is crucial to our future that we take advantage of this area, even if only because waterfront property routinely is the most valuable real estate. I encourage everyone who can to attend this survey and educate themselves about the potential our city has.

Rolling With Bolling

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Deborah Bolling
She has “smoked herb on glaciers with Eskimos while on a video shoot”, worked with arguably the two most famous rappers of the mid 90’s and traveled on business purposes to foreign countries with no knowledge of the native language.

So, how exactly has Deborah Bolling been able to do all this? Simple, “dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with bullshit,” she said in a speech to the Society of Professional Journalists Monday at the Student Center.

Bolling started out as a film major and stayed in that industry 20 years. She worked for Nickelodeon, HBO, Showtime and MTV, where she was part of the “I want my MTV” campaign.

MTV coupled with her background in film took her to “high” (pun) places. She worked on music videos with the late Christopher Wallace (yes, The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or just Biggie.) To her, Biggie was a “big, huggable teddy bear.” She also knew him well enough to tell the audience that “if he had a blunt and a Bic, he was set.”

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Field Hockey team lead pack of A-10 hopefuls this weekend

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fh.jpgThe field hockey team heads into Friday’s Atlantic Ten Conference Tournament at Saint Joseph’s in an unfamiliar position. For the first time in school history they have been crowned as the regular season conference champions. This means that the Owls (15-5, 6-1) hold the No. 1 seed for their first round matchup against fourth-seeded Saint Joseph’s (10-8, 4-3).

Last season, a 2-1 regular season overtime loss to Saint Joseph’s bumped the Owls to the fourth seed in the tournament and an eventual loss to Richmond. This year the Owls’ consistency has them riding a six-game win streak into the postseason.

Senior forward Alli Lokey, who leads the conference with 18 goals, looks to continue her remarkable year and guide the Owls to their first A-10 championship since 1994. Lokey was named the A-10 Offensive Player of the Year Thursday. Ashley Bird, another senior, garnered A-10 Defensive Player of the Year honors. Also aiding the campaign is sophomore forward Dannah Brehm, who sizzled with three goals in the Owls’ 4-2 season finale win over the Hawks. The feat earned Brehm A-10 Player of the Week honors.

The Owls are 19-8 all-time against the Hawks, but know how difficult it is to eliminate the host team from the playoffs. Last season they were knocked out of the tournament courtesy of a 2-1 overtime loss to the host Spiders.

The tournament begins at 11 a.m. on Finnesey Field with the Owls facing the Hawks, and continues at 2 p.m. as second-seeded Massachusetts (11-8, 6-1) takes on the No. 3 Richmond (6-12, 5-2). The two winners will meet in the championship game on Saturday at 2 p.m.

With a pair of weekend wins, the Owls will reach their first NCAA Tournament since 1992. One or less wins and the team will anxiously wait to see if they are awarded an at-large bid.

Welcome to the Machine: a Philadelphia Election Primer

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IBob Brady, Chairman of the Philadelphia Democratic Party realized this week that many incoming students at Temple and even upperclassmen are unfamiliar with the political process in Philadelphia. As the general election is drawing perilously close, I decided to take a little time to do a rundown of how our elections work for the benefit of those newly arrived or long ignorant of the glorious Philadelphia party machine. In the first of a series leading up to our November 6th election, I would like to provide an introduction to some of the vagaries of the Philadelphia political process.

I’d like to begin this week by taking a look at exactly how elections work. With election day only a few weeks away, you’re probably thinking, “This is a glorious chance to make my voice heard and exercise the freedoms granted to me by the democratic process our soldiers have died to uphold.” Not so fast, young democratic advocate! You are fortunate enough to live in a city controlled by a “political machine“.

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Gimme Spoon

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Spoon pic

I’ve had a few friends tell me Spoon’s live performances have been less than stellar, and I completely see it. They have a tight sound full of popping grooves and quirks that manage to feel fresh…on a CD. Spoon doesn’t so much write complete songs as take one awesome idea and stretch it out for a few minutes. The songs never really go anywhere, but soon enough, you’ll start nodding your head in approval.

I’m going to see them because I know their CDs are great, and I want to see if there’s anything to these Spoon-haters I know. While we’re in such a pessimistic mood; I admittedly felt a little bored watching their SNL performance. But TV performances are rarely telling of what a band is capable of in a set.

So much of their success depends on acute timing, and creating an atmosphere of cool around their hooks. I’m a little scared that unless Spoon is really on their game, they’re going to have a tough time getting it right at the Electric Factory. It’s not typically the first, second, third, or fourth best place to go for sound quality.

(OK, stopping the pessimism now) Go see Spoon because, of all things concerning indie rock, lead singer Britt Daniel is the master of minimal groove, and has one of my favorite voices in rock and roll.

Check out one of the best songs on their new album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and the adorable yellow Nerf thing (called a “Keepon”) that dances with it. I love that little Nerf thing.

Spoon and The Ponys at the Electric Factory.
$22.00 day of show (10/19)

Whoopie For Whoopi Goldberg Clips In Class

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Copyright Whoopie CushionThink your classes are dull now? Imagine what they’d be like if your instructors never used video clips, Web sites or even newspaper articles. Now thank your lucky stars for the fair use doctrine.

Temple BTMM professor Renee Hobbs recently investigated how much educators knew about the fair use doctrine, which allows citizens to use copyrighted material for a handful of acceptable purposes. She published her results in a study titled, “The Cost of Copyright Confusion,” which was released in September. Results revealed many of the educators interviewed didn’t know the nuances of the law and chose not to use copyrighted material for fear of violating it. That translated into “less effective teaching techniques” and failure to “take advantage of new digital platforms.”

How’s that for an excuse for lackluster classroom instruction?

Not good enough, apparently. Freshman music education student Ethan Heck said the results meant students get short-changed. “There’s more material out there that we could be having access to that we’re not pointed towards,” he said.

Christine Einerson, a freshman communications major, said learning is more important than the law. “As long as I learn something, I don’t care where the information comes from. I want my professors, if they are hesitating, to be more confident in the information because if they’re not going to get penalized for it and I learn, it’s a good situation for both,” she said.