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This Issue 10/26/2006

Also in this issue

• Everybody must get stoned
• A big step up from 'Battlefield Earth'
• Bloody 'ell!
• Press Play, Playa
• Ego of the Week

The abandoned houses of Philadelphia are lonely places, the neglected vessels of forgotten human lives. They plague the city's poorer neighborhoods in the north, west, and south, an entire ghost town, like those of the mythic West, planted within the city's living ranks. Recognizable by their crumbled porches and their doors and windows, which are lidded with plywood or metal sheets, they often bear warnings of of "No Trespassing" and "Keep Out," though occasionally their front doors are left wide open. Some are covered with graffiti, short impoverished phrases like Disheen is ugly, All womyn are beautiful, and Here today, gone tomorrow.