A Hollywood producer has asked about the rights to Philadelphia City Paper's serialized novel "Transit of Venus" by Anonymous D, says Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky. "Among the cast of characters so far is a self-cent ered, prima-donna female anchor, defiant photographers, an ineffectual news director, a lesbian PR person, naive production assistants, horndog salespeople, a bearded, lecherous general manager and a police commissioner with a brogue," Bykofsky writes. Could Hollywood resist a cast of characters like that??t
News racks in downtown Philadelphia have been corralled by a non-profit charged with developing the center city. Philadelphia City Paper Publisher Paul Curci was supposed to be part of the committee planning the installation, but he says he got no chance to comment and was told only the day before the corrals were installed. Nevertheless, Curci says he has no complaints about them.
Philadelphia City Paper's front page is one of 25 chosen for a poster, produced by the National Press Club, featuring front pages from around the world that ran the week of the 9/11 disaster. Sales of the poster will raise funds for the September 11, 2001 Family Relief Fund. (last item)
The brother of a Philadelphia City Paper employee was twice barred from boarding a United Airlines flight for Phoenix recently. The reason apparently was his choice of reading material: the first time he carried Hayduke Lives! by Edward Abbey, which had a picture of explosives of the cover. The second time it was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Philadelphia City Paper emptied its newsroom Tuesday, sending reporters into the streets of Philly and to New York and Washington to report on the terrorist attacks. The conclusion: "nothing will ever be the same."
Across the country, alternative newsweeklies ditched their planned front pages as the awesome events of Tuesday unfolded. East Coast papers like The Village Voice and Washington City Paper are sharing stories and pictures with colleagues from Maine to California.
