Phragments from the 6th Borough

The New York Times Sunday Magazine had an interesting article about a privy excavation in the author’s back garden in Greenwich Village.  Greenwich Village is not unlike our own Queen Village — colonial neighborhoods of brick row houses, New Netherland to our New Sweden.  Both neighborhoods hold the subterranean remnants of generations of new Americans.  Privies are well known as repositories of historic rubbish (aka artifacts) and can reveal a good deal about our citizen ancestors.

Phound in Philly: bottle, marble, redware, blue & white ceramics, and oyster shells

There is one “artifact” that is ubiquitous in Queen Village — oyster shells.   They were a very popular street food back in the day, and any modern-day Philly gardener can confirm that.  They were sold as street food in Colonial times — sort of proto food trucks.

African Americans were often street vendors in Philly. This wheelbarrow full of oysters was one of the first food “trucks.” (I guess the shells were proto litter…)

 

Being White at Philly Magazine and Desperate for Readership

This article was so lame it just screams to be made fun of.  It was so bad that it doesn’t even warrant a bad journalism award.  Unfortunately the piece seems to be getting taken seriously and pissing people off.  Is Robert Huber actually serious?  Where did he come from?  Geez, even the Amish in Reading Terminal Market treat their Black customers just like…well, CUSTOMERS.  And you couldn’t have more disparate existences than that of North Philly and a farm in Lancaster county…

Dodeca the Halls!

I know we’re a day late and a dozen short, but yesterday’s numerologically significant occasion warrants even a belated celebration, especially at this most celebratory time of year.

It is said to be the last sequential date of the century (I guess if you don’t count 11/12/13 next year).  It’s the last REPETITIVE date is really what they mean.

Excited families welcomed new arrivals at 12:12!  Las Vegas saw a surge in weddings – some right at midnight (on the dot of 12)!

12 x 12 is the combined age of Paul McCartney plus Mick Jagger (plus a toddler) who performed in a special fundraising concert that night.

Dodeca is the ancient Greek word for 12, and people who freaked out over the date might be called dodecaphiliacs (okay, we made that up except for this lone blogger).

And for local interest, there is a special 12-ish thing to be found right here in Philly.  The garnets in Fairmount Park have a dodecahedral shape!  That shiny indigenous rock, the Wissahickon schist can be full of garnets.  You can find some pretty good sized ones in some rocks and if you look along the sandy stream bank you might just find a pile of little ones that have weathered out of the rock.  Voila!  An eggsquisite reminder of the first dozen days of 12/2012.

“Google Doodle no Philly tribute”

I wonder just how many individuals thought, “Yo, Philly statue!” when they saw today’s google doodle?  Okay, so maybe most of the inhabitants of our fair city thought that, but then we’re not such deep thinkers…

Turns out some other folks might have thought it was a tribute to THEM as well.  Like the University of Louisville.  Heck, even Detroit and Cleveland have one of these sculptures.

Well, google missed a golden opportunity to pay tribute to a REAL Philly sculpture a few years ago during Rocky’s 30th anniversary.  Chumps!

We’re making up for that omission now…

“Blindness is no barrier for Center City triathlete” (But dumbness may be. Go ask Alice…)

An article in today’s Inquirer about an exceptional individual who happens to be a blind para-athlete just further emphasizes how dumb our state government is.  Dumb as in idiotic.  They seem to think, mistakenly, that every single audio book has already been put online (“Huh? Whaddya mean there ain’t no app for that?”) so they can just trash existing valuable media from a local library.

Alice Lubrecht, the acting state librarian, can’t even be bothered to consider an alternative to the ill-conceived, money-wasting consolidation of Philadelphia’s historic library for the visually impaired.  And the Kafkaesque tale of the library’s potential demise is like going down the rabbit hole.

In a state that seems bent on destroying public education, it may be a little unrealistic to think they give a damn about reading.

Change in Harrisburg is long overdue…

Philly Flag Day: Philadelphians United by Their Flag

Did you know that March 27^th is the birthday of Philadelphia’s flag?  And the city celebrates it every year?  (And yes, the city does have an OFFICIAL flag.)

The flag, with it’s IKEA colors (which commemorate the original Swedish settlers), is there to UNITE us.

The flag’s motto, “Philadelphia Maneto,” seems to have several translations, though the official one is: “Let Brotherly Love Continue.”  However, maneto, from the Latin manere, can have another, “earthier” meaning as well.  It can mean to spend the night – in a romantic sense!  Was this the inspiration for that Philly’s More Fun When you Sleep Over ad campaign…?

Maybe Philly Flag Day could usher in a banner year!  Perhaps by celebrating the flag we could change the city for the better.  By waving it (like the white flag of surrender) at gangs of marauding youth, it could cast a spell of brotherly love upon them and they wouldn’t pummel their fellow citizens.  Having politicians wrap themselves in the flag would be a GOOD thing as the four principals — PEACE, HOPE, JUSTICE, AND PROSPERITY – rubbed off on them and corruption disappeared from our fair city.  And if the unifying effects were flagging at some locations, then you could just call up the Philly Pride Lady who’d arrive in her colorful costume to give you a civic booster!  What a beautiful dream…

Sure there are other things you could be doing that day – working, watching TV or even going bowling – but I know what I’ll be doing on March 27th!

Philly's more fun when you're bowled over.

Philadelphia Barnes the Center of the Art World

Isaiah Zagar was right all along!!!  Philadelphia is the center of the art world.  Maybe he’s some sort of homegrown Nostredamus…I wonder if he could tell us who’s going to win the Republican nomination…No, of course not!  Who cares about such a debased subject as politics!  Art is beauty, art is uplifting and art is NOT about money (well, mostly not, unless you’re trying to control a whole collection of it).  Sure the new Barnes Foundation on the Parkway, has membership levels as high as $25,000, BUT you may still be able to get in for FREE!

Philly is welcoming the new museum with open arms, and some think the collection has happily escaped the grasp of Lower Merion.  Stu Bykofsky, however (channeling the late Albert Barnes) has a very different take.  Well, as they say about money, you can’t take it with you.  And if you’re long gone, it’s not going to stay where you left it either.

It's an ART study center, not a YOUTH study center!

Rendell, Blatstein, High Finance, and the Tangled Tale of the Philadelphia Media Network

In a slightly convoluted story (though, admittedly it IS convoluted), The Naked Philadelphian gives some justification for the recent snub of Bart Blatstein’s group in its attempt to purchase Philadelphia Media Network.  The scuttlebutt is that a dislike of Raymond Perelman and his bad business practices are at the heart of the strange dealings.  However, Naked’s Laura Goldman implies that Roger Altman has his eye on a cabinet position with the Obama administration and thinks Ed Rendell can get him some extra added traction.  (It may be a long shot for Altman, as Wall Street bankers are not that popular these days, Obama would have to let Timothy Geithner go, and there are still a number of other candidates to contend with before Altman had a shot at Treasury.)

Philadelphia Media Network has hired Altman’s firm, Evercore Partners, to broker the sale.  One of the current PMN owners, Angelo Gordon, is apparently eager to unload the entity he bought at auction in 2010.  Alden Global is another owner whose CEO ostensibly has a bad business beef with Raymond Perelman, who claims HE was prevented from bidding on the media group (Ray was part of Bart’s homegrown group and made an unsuccessful attempt to buy PMN last time around).

Ed Rendell still maintains that he is just doing good for the city and its economy.  He does not appear to be fronting any money in this venture, even though he is the frontman for his group.  He also says he had nothing to do with the recent censorship debacle at the Daily News.  Laura Goldman intimates that was also partly Evercore’s doing because they don’t believe Bart is a big enough player nationally so they froze him out.

There are more than a few local journalists who are suspect of Rendell’s claimed civic mindedness because his investor group includes people who are highly politically connected.  Ed emphasizes his desire to keep Philly journalism independent and even spoke of erecting a “fire wall” between management and the day-to-day reporting.

We suspect this story will continue to be front page news — provided the local media continues to cover it and they can still afford to print a front page…

Talk about a media circus....geez!