This is how my friend Gab describes the first spring-like day of the year: It's like people have been released from their homes, and five long months of pent-up energy spills out into the streets.

Today, the Snipes Family Farm is an emerald isle set in a suburban sea. Bordered by housing tracts and highways, it's wedged between Northeast Philly and Trenton. From Center City, it's only 30 minutes up I-95. Which, says Snipes, is good in its own way, because it makes the farm so easy to visit.

"Despite what Thompson writes, I don't have a single image of him smiling."

Gordo killed Crip over $3. Shot him point-blank in the chest with a 9 mm in broad daylight.

In the face of criticism, the Phillies didn't listen to the fans. They targeted 36-year-old Raul Ibañez and signed him to a long, fat contract. It was substantially more than Pat Burrell got. The fans cried foul, and national pundits viciously attacked the move. Thus far, it's worked.

These men aren't simply sharp-tongued Mametian slang-slingers; they take conspicuous pleasure in their linguistic precision and piquancy.

This much-heralded musical features true-life mother/daughter melodrama and witty lyrics, lending some entertainment to two otherwise sad, odd souls.

The white stuff is much more than a basic food condiment — apparently serving as a kind of Viagra in the Middle Ages.

Potsic's point is that neither the images, nor the scars they display, should be troubling. She wants you to look beyond, to join her in discovering their aesthetic qualities.

Best of all is Bryce Dessner's interpretation of Lincoln's favorite tunes — if The National frontman is right, he seriously fancied fiddles.

"Her eyes are bandaged, to say, 'I'm not allowed to see everything I want to see.'"

Philly is full of stories, and Mighty Writers wants to make sure those stories get told.

There's a Norman Greenbaum fuzz and soul clap swagger to Free Energy, who are new to both DFA Records and Philadelphia.

Aaron Weiss used to be such a great screamer.

Without straying too far afield, Yesterday and Today finds Stockholm's Axel Willner broadening his options.

If you're enthralled by the likes of Corin Tucker and Karen O, Paternoster may as well be screaming your name.

Kendra Shank's fifth CD is as adventurous as most female singers' are banal.

Songs regularly take unexpected detours, without sacrificing the band's talent for goofily endearing hooks.

Slow Food Philadelphia Pig Roast Fundraiser | Chimay Beer and Cheese Tasting at Jose Pistola's | Around the World with Alison Barshak | Ms. Tootsie's Finally Fridays

"Joemus is definitely a record where I become different characters: Widow Twanky, the pantomime dame; Mr. Proctor, the strange cabaret singer; the Jamaican glam rocker."

Dubbed Hair of the Dog Craft Show Sundays, it differs from Raboczi's past events because it offers workshops for attendees. Last month, people made paper art, and in June they'll whip up wallets from tape.

High Dramma has performed some wildly absurd skits in the past year. The most out-there sketch, though, places video game characters Mario and Luigi on Intervention.

"Unless you're Demi Moore, you probably don't have money to get a juicer or a dehydrator, so it takes creativity to make good raw meals."

"Play Ball!" uses ticket stubs, stadium seats, jerseys and other memorabilia to detail the city's baseball history all the way back to the mid-1800s.

We have to eat to live, but every day more and more evidence reveals that the way we eat is bad for us and the Earth.