Project MEOW, a West Philly-based non-profit, has been helping lost or abandoned cats and kittens to find new homes for 10 years since its inception in 2007. Project MEOW volunteers have also been helping to control local feral cat population through their Trap-Neuter-Return program. On Saturday, May 20, from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m., the organization that is mostly funded by donations is holding its first fundraiser at Greensgrow West (5123 Baltimore Ave.).

The event will feature wine, non-alcoholic drinks, and hors d’oeuvres from local businesses as well as live music. A variety of exciting items will be up for auction, including Phillies tickets, Barnes Foundation guest passes, and gift certificates from area restaurants. Raffle tickets for the auction will be available for purchase at the event and door prizes will be awarded. A playpen full of kittens will be there as well for your amusement!  Continue Reading

Over 20 years into making music, Blake celebrates his unusual song forms, which land between spoken word, folk song, rock song, and theatrical installation, with the title of his new double album, Recitative. Recitative, also known by its Italian name “recitativo,” is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech—a style that permeates Blake’s music over the folk- and blues-inspired rock laid down by his backing band.

The Letters—Connor Kennedy on guitar, Lee Falco on drums, Brandon Morrison on bass, and Will Bryant on piano—represent the next generation of the “Hudson Valley sound” started by Bob Dylan and The Band. The list of where they’ve played is tall and long, from Levon’s Barn to Carnegie Hall. With the support of The Letters, Blake is able to paint with broader strokes and more vivid colors; the band is a Ferrari in idle waiting to roar between the narratives and vignettes.

Blake’s performances have been described as “powerful” and “intense,” like “Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, and a proton bomb all combined into one”; his storytelling has been called “one of the best forms of concert entertainment ever experienced.” With tunes that investigate everything from couples and single women, to US drone attacks, to Saturday nights, to the rock and roll dream, Robt Sarazin Blake & The Letters draw from folk, Americana, and rock roots to create a sound that’s all their own.

dirs. various, digital, in English, 66 mins.

FILM
dir. Samuel Beckett & Alan Schneider, USA, 1964, DCP, 22 min.

In 1964 author Samuel Beckett set out on one of the strangest ventures in cinematic history:  his embattled collaboration with silent era genius Buster Keaton on the production of a short, titleless avant-garde film.  Beckett was nearing the peak of his fame, which would culminate in his receiving a Nobel Prize five years later.  Keaton, in his waning years, never lived to see Beckett’s canonization. The film they made along with director Alan Schneider, renegade publisher Barney Rosset, and Academy Award-winning cinematographer Boris Kaufman, has been the subject of praise, condemnation, and controversy for decades. Yet the eclectic participants are just one part of a story that stretches to the very birth of cinema, and spreads out to our understanding of human consciousness itself.

NOTFILM

dir. Ross Lipman, USA, 2015, DCP, 128 min.

Tickets: http://ihousephilly.org/calendar/notfilm

The sidewalk along 49th Street where the Bar(n) hopes to put outdoor seating (photo by West Philly Local).

Residents mostly supported a proposal for outdoor seating at the Bar(n) at 49th and Catharine Streets during a sometimes heated Wednesday evening meeting of the Cedar Park Neighbors (CPN) zoning committee.

About 30 people were on hand to hear the Bar(n)’s manager, Tim Blair, describe a plan that would enclose a portion of the sidewalk along 49th Street with planters to create an outdoor seating area that seats about 30 at five or six tables. The area would only be accessible from inside the bar, would be geared mostly toward food service and would close by 10 p.m. nightly.

“More of a place for someone to sit down and have a nice meal,” he said. “It’s not a party spot.”

Wednesday’s meeting will help determine whether the Bar(n)’s application to the city is approved.  Continue Reading

dir. Jeff Barnaby (Mi’kmaq), Canada, 2013, video, 88 min.

Director Jeff Barnaby’s visionary feature debut uses the tragic legacy of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools as a leaping off point for a full-throttle revenge fantasy.  Alia, a young woman haunted by her mother’s suicide slings pot on the Mi’kmaq reservation to bribe a sociopathic Indian agent to keep her out of the reservation school.  But when a deal goes south, Alia is forced to fight for her freedom.

Special thanks to the Penn Museum who invite you to a free 50th anniversary screening of Navajo Film Themselves. This experimental set of films made in 1966 in a small town in the Navajo Nation has provoked years of debate among scholars, filmmakers and Navajo people. Penn Museum’s archives has managed a restoration and digital repatriation project in the last 8 years, offering the films back to the community in which they were made. A sample of the restored films will be shown, as well as the premier of a film by Richard Chalfen, created in 1966, which gives an overview of the project and views of the town and people. The screening is on Saturday, June 11 at 5pm at the Penn Museum. More details at www.penn.museum

Presented in association with UCLA Film & Television Archive. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Series curators: Jan-Christopher Horak, Dawn Jackson (Saginaw Chippewa), Shannon Kelley, Paul Malcolm, and Valerie Red-Horse Mohl (Cherokee). Associate curator: Nina Rao. 

Tickets: http://ihousephilly.org/calendar/through-indian-eyes-3