Pulse: Quick Takes

Philly & the Big Screen

A short story from Fitler Square novelist Ken Kalfus’s well-reviewed 1998 collection Thirst is on its way to the big screen. Universal has optioned “Night and Day You Are the One,” an urban psychological thriller about a man who can’t seem to decipher reality from dreams. Meanwhile, Philly Mag executive editor Benjamin Wallace has had two magazine articles optioned for the movies. His 2001 story “The Prodigy and the Playmate,” which delved into the life of a modern-day Michael Milken gone wild, has been picked up by TriPoint Capital. “Bark Raving Mad,” which Wallace wrote for Details about the competitive dog-­Frisbee world, has caught the eye of Moshag Productions, which told Variety it envisions something like Happy Gilmore.

Cecily: Drop Anchor Talk

As the resident hottie on the number one newscast, newly married Cecily Tynan is used to hearing rumors — and she’s dismissing them all. “First I was renting a room at Gary Papa’s house, then I was sleeping with my trainer,” she says with a laugh. “And every so often, Stu [Bykofsky] calls and asks if I’m pregnant.” But what about the oft-whispered rumor that she’s joining Jim Gardner on the anchor desk? Not true, she says. “If they wanted me to anchor, I would, but I’m really happy being a meteorologist.” Where does Tynan think the rumors come from? “My mom is probably behind this.”

A Stop-Rudy Campaign

A Philadelphia banker who is one of Rudy Giuliani’s oldest nemeses has already launched an anti-Rudy-for-president campaign. George Marlin, a New York resident who chairs the Philadelphia Trust Company, quixotically took on Giuliani as the Conservative Party candidate for mayor of New York City in 1993. Now he’s distributing a pamphlet, called The Quotable Rudolph Giuliani, filled with what would pass for heresy at the Christian Coalition. There’s Giuliani saying homosexuality is “good and normal”! That he would “give [his] daughter the money for” an abortion! Marlin is distributing the pamphlet among Republicans. “My conservative friends nationally should know where Rudy stands,” he says.

“There are three kinds
of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
—Save Ardmore Coalition member Jeff Levine,
quoting Mark Twain, at a recent Lower Merion
Township board of commissioners meeting. According to the Main Line Times, Levine’s comment compelled the commissioners to pass a motion banning
cursing in front of the board. Violators may now be removed from meetings.

The Scoop on Jesus

Has Jesus’s crucifixion kind of lost its luster? Is Easter absent all real meaning? Not for Harry Yanoshak, writer for the Bucks County Courier Times, who this year reported a Tullytown church’s reenactment of Jesus’s trial and crucifixion as a contemporary crime story. The ­Jerusalem-datelined article, under the headline nazarene crucified, included quotes from Pontius Pilate and Jesus Himself. “Every major holiday, we look for a new way to approach the holiday,” says associate editor Carl Lavo, “to give it a fresher look.” We’re waiting for a birth announcement in December.