(That’s a video, by the way)

Temple  is putting on a production of Cabaret at the Prince Music Theatre, and I’m in an acting class and had to go watch it. In case you don’t know, Cabaret is about (you guessed it) a Cabaret in Berlin that a young, dumb, sorta queer (but will still have sex with/fall for the leading lady in order to drive the plot with a heterosexual love story), American stumbles upon. He’s “a writer”, which as it turns out means that he parties a lot at the Kit Kat Club while boning this British cabaret dancer/sometimes some guy he had met in Paris. He leaves for home when the whole Nazi thing gets too real for him.

Now here’s the interesting part. Upon realizing something stinks in Berlin, Cliff (the lead dude) tries to convince Sally to leave. But Sally, like the rest of the Kit Kat Club’s denizens feel that politics “don’t involve them”. This is of course excepting the armband wearing Nazi (Fritz?). Cliff gets pissed, he tells her something about opening her eyes, about reading a goddamn paper and caring about what’s going on instead of partying all the time. This sounds familiar.

For those of you who don’t follow links I’m referring to the stock anti-hipster line: “they don’t care, they just get fucked up/party/vapid/shallow/decadent/sluts/etc”. And at the same time we have Cliff, the “writer” who in fact doesn’t create any work. This, the person who proclaims to be a creative type (look at my macbook lappy/adobe skills/art school haircut/idcard), is a quintissential hipster trope (I think).

So. Cabaret was first produced in 1966, which is to say that Ebb & Kander brought up the same issues/moral concerns as Adbusters, fourty-plus years ahead of time. I also got more boners watching Cabaret than I ever have from reading Adbusters.

Fail?

Fail!

And that is why musicals make me proud to be an American.

p.s. How many musicals would we have left if we got rid of all the ones about New York/The Holocaust/WWII ???

A girl.

So. At this point it’s probably  obvious that I only leave the house to 1) Go to school/work on Temple’s campus and 2) Get drunk (no pictures then). Will get a real life soon for blog purposes.

This cutie caught my eye among the adverts on my way out of Temple’s cafeteria. I think this is art. It’s definitely art because she’s framed sorta off center; her bangs are nestled in that rule of thirds (of course I have no clue what I’m talking about, I’m an Anthro. major for chrissakes) hot spot. And it’s in black and white!

Either that or the people that sex ads in the back of our Alt-weeklies are stepping it up with some new let’s get in touch with the college market brand initiative.

A Bike

Note the brake lever peeping on the the top of the picture.  Note the fork. I think this is a conceptual work. It’s meant to make us question why we install our bike forks like this:

This work has been really revelatory for me. Now I find myself questioning the hegemonic bike component ideologies propagated by the Religious Right/post Reagan (neo)conservatism.

I think I've been drinking too much.

I saw this pink guy (get ready to be surprised), on Temple’s campus. And I got really excited because I was listening to one of my own songs on the iPod and I started running after them; it was like being in my own music video something quirky all shots of skinny altboy chasing after some mysterious something, probably a girl.

The elephant in the room

And I said hi to, uh Brian. And Aly (?)

Did not really ask if I could take photo

They’re members of Temple’s Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), an org I actually used to sort of be in before I decided to change the world through blogging/consumerism. (I kid)

Keeping in mind what they told me about why they were carrying this elephant around, I propose to name this one:

TUGSA and Temple’s Faculty are Still Working Without a Contract and are Sorta/Really Pissed About It.

That’s basically what they told me. Now, how does that come across during the big scary recession? Something tells me that the public isn’t really going to be very sympathetic towards unions asking for higher pay right now, as this open letter to SEPTA’s union demonstrates. Of course, it may just be Philly’s long standing resentment of SEPTA.

I don’t think this really needs a caption. Or words. It’s funny because this is an intersection where cars get stuck behind passing pedestrians. They sort of start nudging forward  while people are still crossing.

It’s nice to raise awareness and all, but I can’t help but wonder whether posting flyers to draw attention to the text clearly printed on light switches telling  you to, uh, turn them off when you aren’t using the light is a sort of one step forward, two steps back kind of thing. At least as far as being “green” is concerned.

I ran into this giant stuffed squirrel (?) on the way back from J&H with Flip. He thinks it looks like Penn State’s Nittany Lion. Whatever it is, it seems to be slam-dunking a ball of tin foil.

It’s a blogosphere sensation and up-and-coming arts and culture magazine that is all about Philly and its funky-fresh scene. From hip-hop to hipster trends and indie rock, McJAWN’s got you covered.

Seated on a weathered couch at a local coffee shop, Wen Vo, co-founder of McJAWN, told The Temple News what it’s all about.

The Temple News: Where did you come up with the idea for the magazine?

(Julia Wilkinson/TTN)

Wen Vo: Actually, it started at the Last Drop [Coffee House]. Yis [Goodwin], co-founder, and I, we’ve been friends for a while now. We were talking about how it’s a shame Philadelphia’s art culture is misrepresented or not represented enough. He wanted to create a magazine, and I wanted to create a blog, and we just kind of combined the ideas.

TTN: So where did the name come from?

WV: It’s funny because we were thinking about different names. We definitely wanted something that encompassed the Philadelphia culture, the art scene and something that fit our personality ­– something funny, something down-to-earth. We thought of the word jawn because it’s a Philly slang word. Jawn is just basically a noun for everything and anything. [But] when we tried to register [Jawn], it was already taken. So we thought of the movie Superbad [and the character] McLovin and were like, “Hey, let’s just combine the two.” So that’s how McJAWN came about.

TTN: Is it more of an online format or is it hard copy?

WV: We started off as an online magazine. The blog was actually supposed to be the buzz for the magazine, but then the blog took off. We get over 3,000 hits a day. So that took off and we just basically spent a lot of time on the blog, and it took us a while to get the first issue out. Now that it’s out, we can’t wait to get the second one out. It’s a bi-monthly magazine, and it’s available online for free at McJAWN.com.

We do have hard issues. As of right now, we have an art zine, and it’s distributed all over Philadelphia in cafés and local stores. With the second issue, we hope to reformat the online magazine into a hard copy, and we’re going to distribute it to over 100 locations.

TTN: What kind of stories do you like to feature?

WV: Mainly, we like to focus on Philadelphia’s culture. When we started off, we wanted to focus on the art scene here. The first issue was kind of like a trial-and-error thing, and it came out great. We want to make sure that art is our main focus. So I guess you can say [we feature] art, life, music, fashion, entertainment and food, with art and life being the two most important things that we focus on.

TTN: McJAWN seems to focus on a lot of hipsters and hip-hop kids. What is it that McJAWN finds inspiring about the subcultures of Philly?

McJAWN founders Wen Vo and Yis Goodwin started their magazine and blog in a coffee shop (Julia Wilkinson/TTN).

WV: I guess you could say that our target demographic is the hipster and sneaker-head community. We find them inspiring because they stick to what they believe in and [are] typically more passionate, creative and outspoken. And they’re open-minded ­­– that’s what I really like. With McJAWN, as you can see, we’re very random. We also like the spontaneous behavior that they possess.

TTN: What’s going to be in the new issue released on Feb. 4?

WV: I know we have a piece with the local band Cortez! Cortez!! We have an awesome fashion spread. We’ve been working with our stylist Nargiz Alekperova, and she’s pulled amazing looks for this new issue. Its funky-fresh, so we’re trying to bring it back to the whole ‘80s, Fresh Prince of Bel Air scene. We have another piece about Chris Wright. He does custom bikes, and he’s on our cover. And one of our photographers did this fake advertising campaign of American Apparel called American Appalling. It’s really cool, so I suggest you guys check that one out, too.

TTN: What are your top favorite things about Philly?

WV: How we really don’t care about what people think about our city. We’ve been in New York’s shadow for way too long. I think Philadelphia has its own thing going on, and I really appreciate that. Number two, how we have such a good, young art scene, and everyone is so into it. Three, how people are willing to talk to each other and how interpersonal people can be here. Four, we have great sports teams. Five, all the local businesses that are sticking to Philadelphia and believe in Philadelphia – I really like that.

TTN: If you had to use one word to describe Philly culture, what would it be?

WV: Jawn-errific.

Dianca Potts can be reached at dianca.potts@temple.edu.

More Info: http://temple-news.com/2009/02/10/arts-and-culture-all-part-of-%e2%80%98jawn%e2%80%99/

Since his career as a comic book and graphic novel writer, MF Grimm’s books entered the NYC’s public library circulation, and New Mexico state made his books part of the public school’s reading curriculum.

And he just won Temple University’s Glyph Comics Award, which will be presented to him in May.

Congrats!

BTW, I slurped my frolatte like nothing, British Islander is the best.