Naomi Wolf

A-List

Naomi Wolf, SNL Weekend Update Thursday, memoraBEALEia, Online Protest Songs, The Get Down.

Naomi Wolf

Naomi Wolf, best known as the author of international bestseller The Beauty Myth, has followed the classic writer’s arc from the personal as political to the political as personal. First she called out the heinous ways the fairer sex is judged against impossible prefab ideals of physical perfection. Then she shoved a crowbar into the madonna/whore complex and shredded the maternity industrial complex. In The End of America, she distilled 10 signs of fascist government. After demonstrating the progression of these signs through examples like Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, Wolf slid the Dubya Administration beneath the blueprint and took stock. She’s currently serving up Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries, in which she summons the spirit of our revolutionary Founding Fathers to inspire us, the humble citizenry, to huff some CPR into the ol’ USA. Otherwise, she warns, it doesn’t just seem like our country’s dying right before our Internet-sore, crappy sitcom watching, uninsured eyeballs. It will. (Tara Murtha)

Saturday Night Live on Thursday

The presidential election is the best thing to happen to Saturday Night Live since “Dick in a Box.” Inspired by a Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin ratings boost, the late-night weekend sketch-comedy show will be airing half-hour Thursday-night specials with Weekend Updaters Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers as well as occasional guest appearances, like this week’s Hall and Oates impersonation by Fred Armisen and Will Forte. (Erica Palan)

memoraBEALEia

Freshly peeled Beale for worshippers of Little Edie of Grey Gardens fame, memoraBEALEia chronicles author Walter Newkirk’s escapades in N.Y.C. with Edie Beale between 1980 and 1983. The book includes their correspondence, never-before-seen photos, fan art and essays on Gardens. Newkirk, Beale’s close friend, says he wants to memorialize the artist as a star’s star. (T.M.)

Online Protest Songs

What are you going to do with your life? I’m going to rock a karaoke-style protest song about what a drag it would be if I were forced to birth my rapist’s child over the smooth rock stylings of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and send it to Sarah Palin. Only available in Toronto, Philadelphia and San Francisco, werenotgonnatakeit.org—an art project started by Toronto artist Amos Latteier—is waiting for our fair city’s pissed-off residents (read: everyone you know) to blow up their cellie on phone karaoke. It’s activism made easy and sleazy. (T.M.)

The Get Down

Philadelphia has contributed greatly to the constantly evolving hip-hop dance culture. Our city gets props for innovating styles such as pop locking and breaking, as well as birthing newer dances like the Wu-Tang. Adding to this legacy is the Get Down. Presented by the producers of the film Raw Talent: A Philadelphia Hip Hop Dance Documentary, this dance party and battle attracts some of the most talented local dancers and allows them to showcase their skills. Want to do some damage to the dance floor and not your pockets? For a small fee, b-boys and b-girls can also compete for cash. Forget all the terribly choreographed moves you saw in cheesy movies like You Got Served and Step Up, and get down with the Get Down. This is the real deal. (Shahida Muhammed)