Hey guys, have we mentioned it's Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe time? Despite being a good recycler, you're still a little trashy. We'll admit, we didn't know what khat was, but apparently ICE doesn't like it. The guards at the Art Museum are asking for paid sick leave. It's like talking to a statue. A peek into the Democratic National Convention… and getting there. While in the political mood, get involved with a worthy cause. It's......

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY Be a Champ: Kick off the Summer Games with food and entertainment at the Evening of Champions in Chinatown (10th and Arch), 5:30PM. Free Last Chance to Help teh Aminals (by Watching Naked Ladies, That Is): Last Suicide Girls PAWS benefit of the summer at Raven Lounge (1718 Sansom), 9PM. $5 080808: Chiptune Party with No Carrier, 8GB, Nullsleep, Animal Style, Cheap Dinosaurs, Auto Da Fe, and......

Former Atlantic City mayor Robert Levy has been convicted of lying about his Vietnam War service record to collect additional benefits. Less trash, fewer arrests, and less traffic have Jersey Shore merchants down. Seriously? Sure, tourism is important, but so is peace of mind. The city burns from below and Chinatown loses power this weekend while the mess is cleaned up. A Delaware man learns that if you're about to be busted for a......

*Why yes, it is Wednesday. Chef Joseph Poon is sixty, but you wouldn't know it when you meet him. It's only once you start doing the math while he's talking—it seems as if the Chef has had hundreds of restaurant jobs, on top of owning no fewer than than four establishments over the years—that you realize that he couldn't possibly be as young as you first thought. Nobody can blame you for your misconceptions, and......

Whew! Two new writers in one week! This one is Johann Diedrick, a University of Pennsylvania undergrad who serves as a music editor at 34th Street, Penn's weekly A&E magazine. Like many Penn students, Johann finds himself staying in town for the summer, looking for ways to keep busy—and luckily, he chose us. Welcome, Johann! The weather might be warming up, but some of us are still in need of something warm and snuggly to......

Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of police shootings in the country. The Daily News takes a look at what's being done about it, and is pretty underwhelmed. Apparently "many of the officers involved in these shootings are back to their regular street beats, even though most incidents are still being investigated without a determination that the officers were justified in firing their weapons." Due to the fact that local schools had received recalled......

...

Fun around town, for $10 or less: FRIDAY The N Crowd: Weekly improve comedy show at The Actors Center (257 N. 3rd), 8PM. $10 Andrew Gregory: Andrew Gregory (CD release party), John Francis, and Ian Thomas at Tin Angel (20 S. 2nd), 10:30PM. $10 Leslie and the Ly’s: Leslie and the Ly’s, MC Digga and Sgt. Sass at North Star Bar (2639 Poplar), 9PM. $10 Intertwine: Opening reception for Intertwine, with work by Brooke Hine,......

...

...

Fun around town, for $10 or less: X-mas Eve Holiday Light Show: The famous light show at Macy's (1300 Market), every hour on the hour from 10AM to 6PM. Free (p.s. it will always be the Wanamaker's light show to us) And While You're There: Visit the Dickens Village on the third floor of Macy's (1300 Market), 10AM-6PM. Free See the Choo-choos: Holiday railroad display at the Reading Terminal Market (12th and Market), 8AM-6PM. Free......

We want to hang out with Joseph Poon.........

Chinatown's most in-your-face emporium. Photo by author, SkyscraperSunset.com, August 28, 2007.......

A male and female student are hospitalized, the former in stable condition and the latter with serious injuries, after a shooting at around 1AM this morning at Delaware State University. The campus has been locked down and classes are cancelled for today as police search for the gunman. Praxis released their preliminary recommendations on how to redevelop the face of the Delaware River at a community meeting yesterday. They suggest a public park every......

When you go to New York or Princeton, are you tired of taking the R7 to Trenton? Do you find the schedule isn’t always convenient or the train gets so delayed you miss the New Jersey Transit train? If you don’t want to risk life and limb on a Chinatown bus, there is another option that is much cheaper and runs more frequently, but the downside is that you have to go to Camden.......

Thomas FitzSimmons High School in North Philadelphia will graduate their first class of all boys this Thursday. The school went all-boys two years ago, and is the only all-boys public school in the state. Meanwhile, the Ada H. Lewis Middle School in East Germantown might be voted closed on June 20th by the School Reform Commission, due to declining enrollment and a $38 million repair estimate. But parents and teachers are fighting to keep the......

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. The Flying Scotsman - Apparently the long, slow process of Philadelphia Film Festival movies getting "real" releases has begun, as here's The Flying Scotsman, a Film Festival film that tells the true story of Graeme Obree, an untrained amateur who broke the world one-hour record on a bike in 1993 using a bike he built himself out of scrap metal and washing machine parts. Sounds like......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In other......

About ten days ago, I was able to live out a fantasy of mine (not that kind, you perv): I had the perfect Sex and the City brunch. That is to say, the company was straight from SATC, not the food. (I was with three girlfriends: a "Miranda," a "Samantha," and a "Charlotte." I'm happy being the "Carrie," so long as I don't have to grow SJP's nose to play the role.) We got......

...

As we reported yesterday, Milton Street got arrested! Will this deter him from continuing his run for mayor? We're betting not. Our favorite parts of this story are the details: the cops found him outside a 7-Eleven near his Moorestown, NJ home, arrested him because of two traffic tickets that led to contempt citations, and he ended up in jail because he couldn't pay the combined fine of $3,250. (Btw, non-imprisoned mayoral candidate Chaka......

When one door closes, a window opens... Saturday. Rounding the corner at 10th and Race, the ground was littered with tiny strips of shredded red cardboard, remnants of a clamor that had popped off while I slept. A store opening is a beautiful thing in Chinatown. Drums are pounded in rhythmic fashion and dancers bring a dragon to life, amidst the ecstatic crackling of raucous fireworks. Regretting that I had missed the dramatic proceedings,......

Besides offering a concise and appropriate representation of the times, some quotes are so incisive that they make a step back from the clarity of the moment nearly impossible. “The Iranian government should remember what is happening in China. Nearly 30 thousand people are currently employed to control Chinese weblogs."      - Iranian blogger's response to new laws requiring websites and blogs to be registered with the government When the people in Tehran think you're worse......

...

Looking east from 10th Street in Chinatown, with the Ben Franklin Bridge in the distance. Photo by author, May 3, 2006.......

We found this taped to the front wall of a building on 11th Street in Chinatown. Uh...interesting!But we think that any skinless individual with enough balls to railslide the Ben Franklin Bridge (while backhanding Jaws and dodging the Lightning Apocalypse) probably wouldn't be too concerned about knee and elbow pads.Photo by author.......

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. SFist Tourist......

Well, we tried. We were so close, too. Damn you, Miami, for preventing an all -ist reunion! Paris even came to the party. Sigh! Austinist: That's one -ist writer who wasn't at any Katrina fundraisers... Parisist: Franz Ferdinand had a show in Paris. Not a huge deal, but we haven't linked to our French friends in quite some time, so we just wanted to say "hi." Bostonist: A Chinatown bus had a problem? Seriously? SFist:......

Performances: By Grimm (part of Vagabond Acting Troupe’s Journeys to the Edge) (Future performances); Austentatious (11th Hour Theatre Company) (Future performances); The Guided Tour (Kaibutsu) (Future performances); Granuaile and a Place at Howth (SAOIRSE Celtic Performance Troupe) (No future performances); Cell (Headlong Dance Theater) (All future performances sold out); Cell: Movement in Restricted Spaces (Group Motion Dance Company) (Future performances); Every Day Above Ground (SaBooge) (No future performances); Flip the Script (The Brick Playhouse) (Future......

No doubt about it, Philly's got a lot to offer: a thriving theatre scene (don't forget, Fringe is just around the corner), fabulous museums, loads of live music and more historical hoopla than you can shake a stick at. However, there are some hotspot trends in places far, far away that look cool too, and Phillyist is wondering why local entreupenuers aren't jumping all over them. Dammit! We want them too! Private room karaoke: It's......