It's Going to Get Hot in Philly

Here's a look at the hourly forecast for today, July 22, 2011 provided by Weather.com:

Is it strange that I'm actually excited about this? See, thanks to the overwhelming humidity, the heat index accompanying today's heat is supposed to reach 115 degrees, which would be the hottest outside temperature I will ever have encountered.

As a young lad in Boise, Idaho I once experienced the mercury rise to 111 degrees, tying the all-time Boise record set in 1960. But that was a typical Great Basin dry heat, with humidity in the 10-15% range. It was toasty, for sure, but bearable and also relieved nightly by the crisp interlude of the high desert night.

Philly's humidity today will range from 55 - 69% and temperatures will peak around 101-102 around the 4 o'clock hour for an insane heat index of 115. There will be no relief with darkness either. I plan to be outside for some or all of this phenomenon to get the most savage taste of suffocating heat seen this side of Libya.

Vegemite Sandwich in Philadelphia?

The 'Ex-Pat' is the first sandwich on the list at the new Wedge + Fig in Old City and at first I didn't get it. Ingredients: Quicke's cheddar, Marmite, Avocado, Watercress on a Sesame baguette.

What is marmite? I asked the girl behind the counter. She started to say something about salty yeast extract, and then stopped, said, it's an acquired taste, maybe you'd like a try? At this point the owner stepped out of the kitchen and drew the parallel between Australia's famous Vegemite, which is illegal in the United States, saying Marmite is the America-safe version of this concept, which is, literally, yeast extract only with government-mandated processing for sensitive American gastronomy.

Then an ice cream sample spoon was offered over the counter with a dab of thick, dark syrup on the tip. So this is Marmite? It was opaque, not quite tacky, about as viscous as molasses. The taste was bracingly salty but with a familiar organic tang to it. After processing, I compared it to distilled soy sauce, like the heroin to soy sauce's morphine.

True to stereotype, Australians are apparently, actually crazy about vegemite and as word has spread of the marmite sandwich at Wedge and Fig, the owner has reported Aussies making pilgrimage from around the Philly area to snag a sando with the flavors of home. Now the 'Ex-Pat' part was making sense.

And I was intrigued enough to order one. True to assurances from the staff, the marmite wasn't overwhelming and added delicious saltiness next to the smooth avocado. It was a delicious sandwich.

Most of all it's good to see Wedge + Fig stepping up the game in this promising space. The former tenant and concept-proving, Old City Cheese Shop was decidedly un-cheesy for a cheese shop and a little too laissez faire in terms of knowledge, service and overall business-savvy. The best recommendation I ever got out of the OCCS was 'cheddar.' The Wedge + Fig has outfitted the fridges with a properly exotic roster of cheeses and sent me home with an excellent sheeps-milk cheese called 'ewephoria' in addition to the sandwich that helped me finally understand the Men at Work.

NFL Players All Over

Sports Illustrated has this nifty gallery of famous NFL players organizing their own workouts as the lockout prevents them from actually using NFL team facilities.

While I was disappointed not to see some pics of the Eagles in here, I do have a bit of local dish from Old City, where I've witnessed Eagles' 3rd-string QB Mike Kafka blasting his pecs (one armed bench press, no less) at the Sweat Fitness on 2nd street. I may have to stalk the gym now with my cellphone to sneak out any photographic evidence, but I'd also have to weigh that against the real threat of that making me creepy.

Greening the William J. Green Federal Building

Last night around 10pm the special lady and I were walking up 7th street back from Washington Square to Old City when we noticed some conspicuous activity up the street. Squad cars had blocked off 7th between Market and Arch and an improbably tall crane, lit by intense spotlights was hoisting large bundles of something from the street up to the roof of the Willam J. Green Federal Building, which houses the local offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Entering the immediate area on foot, we noticed a flatbed truck with a dozen or so bales of 'green roof media' which the crane was lifting one-by-one up to the roof of the building. A little Google-searching reveals this stuff is used to grow grass on building rooftops.

So, a couple of thoughts: 1) way to go on the FBI for greening a building. Not what I expected of a conversative Federal agency. Are they doing this elsewhere? 2) Is a sky-high crane really the best way to do this? I've heard crane rentals start around $10K/day, but it seems to me a few trips in the freight elevator could accomplish the same task. I'd like to see the cost-benefit analysis in energy savings making this a worthwhile endeavor, though in spirit I probably agree that it is no matter the installation costs.

La Compagnie Transe Express at Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts

If you don't know how to describe this, you're not alone. But this is a scene from the culminating event of the ambitious 25-day Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. Sold by the friends who enticed me to come out last night as a circus with French acrobats and pyrotechnics, what we actually got was 'Maudites Sonnants/ The Celestial Carillon,' courtesy of a troupe of Lyonnais known as La Compagnie Transe Express. Bascially, we have an over-engineered contraption (later revealed to be a chandelier) hoisted into the sky on a very tall crane. Dangling beneath the metal and wires is a gang of French minstrels with drums and bells and just 3 acrobats. The contraption expands and contracts and slowly rotates while the musicians tinkle out the creepy-clown music of a child's nightmare and the acrobats write around on swings or ropes.

All in this was the kind of opium dream spectacle of Toulouse-Letrec-era France that is kind of lost on modern audiences who have no expectation of such things. Hence my confusion when it turned out to be very un-circus. There was also a notable underwhelmingness in the crowd of 150,000 or so Philadelphians, who waited an hour while the device haltingly got off the ground in 20 minute, bell-announced intervals. This was puzzling: technical flaw or French theatrics to build up the anticipation? Either way it had the affect of riling a rile-prone audience and then under-delivering in terms of expected dynamics. Acrobats, for example, did no flying leaps and pyrotechnics turned out to be a few sparklers and kerosene torches.

Still, in terms of sheer novelty it was the most original thing I've seen in a long while and no doubt left some indelible impressions on attendant children, some of whom are still cowering in fear this morning after resultant night terrors, while others are probably plotting their emigration to Lyon to sign up with the celestial performers of La Compagnie Transe Express.

Video provided by the Inquirer since words fail.

Skunks

Last night was my father-in-law Eddy's 66th birthday and we celebrated by having dinner at Smith & Wollensky steak house in Philadelphia. Not exactly an original choice of restaurant, but given the constraints imposed by 3 grand children, it was nicely suited to the occasion blending the appropriate level of fanciness and child-tolerance, and we got a great, private table in their amazing second-floor dining room overlooking Rittenhouse Square.

Between the taxidermized* moose heads on the wall and my sister-in-law's recent vehicular run-in with a telephone pole, the conversation turned to roadkill at which point my youngest nephew chimed-in that he'd never seen a skunk, except for what gruesome, dead remains they came across on the side of the road.

And it's true, driving around the city and burbs for almost two years now, I've seen countless roadkill raccoons, skunks and opossums, but have yet to see a single living example of any of these three critters which are so evidently present. Curious.

Then it was Eddy's turn. As a 27 year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic in the 1970s he and some of his buddies had never encountered a skunk. (In fact I remember asking him a few years ago what the Spanish word for 'skunk' was and he didn't know it (mofeta, in case you're curious) because I guess they don't have any skunks in the DR.) So during his residency at a party, one of his colleagues found a skunk rooting around outside and captured the animal with his bare hands and then brought it into the party to show his friends what he'd found. A mix of hilarity and panic ensued, but Eddy doesn't recall the skunk getting down to skunkish business with the stinky spray.

Hearing this I wondered why hadn't the skunk sprayed? Which brought me to another supposed insight I'd gleaned from a classmate in college who was a direct descendant of original mountain man Daniel Boone. Seeing as Daniel Boone fought bears without aid of fire arm, we afford credibility to his great great great grandon's testimony that if a skunk raises its tail to spray, you have a split second before the scent-glands engage and the manly response to this is to step forward, grip the skunk by its tail and fling it skyward to avoid the spray. You can also run the other way, but what fun would that be?

*Hipster bars in New York City are teeming with taxidermy. Last month after whiffing on my trip to Bonaire, I drowned my sorrows in a bar in the East Village which featured some really poor-quality taxidermized deer heads on the walls.

Shots Fired 41st and Pine!

I'm generally suspicious of any calls from unknown numbers, but particularly those interrupting me at 1:16AM this morning. Naturally I screened the call, but this caller was determined to get through and left not only a voicemail but one better: a chilling text message about 'shots fired' at 'area of 41 pine.'

'41 pine' is a pretty specific location to pin the nebulous sound of 'shots fired' but okay, shit's going down at a street address about 9 blocks from my own apartment. I wasn't feeling threatened at this point, but curious and also wondering whom was behind this rather sophisticated security feature. At first I thought it was the City of Philadelphia, but this was hard to swallow for a number of reasons having to do with the City's general inability to perform basic tasks like trash pick up with anything approaching efficiency. Plus which, if I got a phone call and a text every time there were shots fired in the Philadelphia Police Department's jurisdiction I'd be blowing up like the World Trade.

So I turned to Google which revealed ace reporting by the Daily Pennsylvanian citing shots fired (and nobody injured, phew!) at the intersection of 41st and Pine streets as opposed to the street address 41 Pine street. Now things were making sense. This was the doing of the University of Pennsylvania and their largest private police force in the commonwealth. And then I remembered that I'm enrolled at Penn, paying tuition and taking night classes in the Old Dogs, New Tricks department, and so am entitled beneficiary of this level of protection. Which is at once impressive -- showing what a state-of-the-art privatized police force can do to keep its paying citizens safe -- but also a bit scary in the dual sense of being both a glimpse of the future of the surveillance state and testimony to how far behind our public police organizations are.

That is Philly in the Cedar Rapids Trailer

Here's the screen grab from the 25th second of the Cedar Rapid's Trailer on IMDB, and that is definitely some old* b-roll of Philadelphia from somewhere over the Art Museum being passed off as Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Here's the actual Cedar Rapids skyline for comparison:

Not quite the same.

*Old, because the Comcast Center is conspicuously missing form the shot meaning two things:
1. The footage is definitely pre-2008 when the Comcast Center was completed, but maybe even older since there's no tower visibly under construction either.
2. The filmmakers saved a buck or two on some outdated, canned footage of a city skyline, still the choice is mystifying for lack of any real good reason to use it. The shot doesn't contribute to the general theme, which I suspect is central to some of the comedic set up of the film, of Cedar Rapids as a bit of a backwater.

Selected Scenes From Philly Thundersnow 2011

In addition to being the night of the East Coast's last freakish weather event, aka Thunder Snow 2011, January 26 was also when I watched 'Exit Through the Gift Shop.' The street art subject matter of the film got me feeling a bit mischievous and coupled with the interesting weather outside, motivated a midnight adventure armed with Flip Video and digital camera. I've already shared the motion picture account of that evening, which featured such unusual moments as drunk bastards snowboarding down Market Street, but here share a quieter sampling of my favorite still shots of the city transformed by more snow than most Philadelphians have seen in a generation (unless of course they were here last winter).

My Second Act on Google Street View

I was pretty stoked back in 2008 when my car appeared on Google Street View parked out in front of my folks' house in Boise. However, being that said car was parked there from June to September 2007, it was as likely as not that should the Google camera-car drive by sometime that summer, my car would be there ready for its cameo. What are the chances lightning strikes twice?

Flash forward, probably last spring some time, and my amigo Ben and I spotted one of these Google Street View camera-cars rolling down 2nd street in Old City with its conspicuous roof-mounted gantry. Here's the moment of recognition captured in digital perpetuity:

Spotting the opportunity from the cross-walk....

We makes it pay off big time, brah!

I made a mental note of the corner: 2nd and Market, not too hard to remember, and just happened to check back in with Google Street View yesterday. To my surprise and delight here we are looking about as douchey as we do in real life, proving once more that Google is succeeding in its mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. Avoid us at all costs it says.

Gritty City: Murder Map

Fortunately for moi, Old City where I live is in the eastern end of the little valley between 'Point Breeze' and 'Strawberry Mansion' which are both summits of killing in this captivating visual rendering of murder by numbers in Philadelphia. True to its flat topography in this map, I haven't heard of a killing in Old City in the year and a half that I've lived here.

So it was hard to fathom that Philly's been nearly as deadly to Americans over the last decade as 7 years of open warfare in Iraq, but when there were 7 murders last weekend alone, it felt a bit more real. Nearly all of these were gangland-style, multiple-bullets-to-the-head brutality. Yikes!

This got me thinking about whether it's more dangerous in Philly compared to other prominent American cities. The data is readily available and in terms of per capita rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter, Philadelphia is tied for 9th place with esteemed peers Cleveland and Memphis with .2 instances per 1,000 residents, or about 300 per year. This is below the rates of familiarly violent cities New Orleans (#1 with .50 murder-death-kills per 1,000 residents), Detroit (.46) and Washington, D.C.(.24), but well above Boston (.08), San Francisco (.06) and New York (.06).

For reference, my hometown of Boise, Idaho doesn't even rank in the available data set. Which might not surprise anyone.

Out of the Darkness Came Thundersnow!

I've literally felt like hibernating since the end of December, but then woke up last Wednesday night as the 15 inches of Thundersnow was covering Philadelphia and felt like taking a late-night walk in the otherworldly winter scene outside. I took along the new Flip video camera I got for Christmas and shot a little b-roll of the scene in Old City. Pretty ridiculous that we're on pace this winter to beat out last winter's all time record 85 inches of snow in Philly. I wonder if this is the new winter paradigm for the area, the unpredictable emergence of global warming simply making things crazier, or two freakish blips on the radar. Either way it merits documentation.

Charting Philadelphia Landmarks

Instead of working as hard as I could have today, I made this in PowerPoint because I'd always been curious to know:

From L to R: Pat's King of Steaks, Independence Hall, Rittenhouse Square, Citizen's Bank Park, Battleship, Aircraft Carrier.

Yarn Bomb!

Yarn Bombing: the horticultural equivalent of dog sweaters.

So this, apparently, is 'Yarn Bombing' as recently witnessed on 3rd Street in Old City. It appeared mysteriously overnight, perpetrated by unknown citizen hipsters, as if by elf magic, and I suppose is conceived as high-minded, viral, civicdo-goodism but it just looks like B-grade foolishness to me.

Fat Birds

We live behind an Italian restaurant in Old City and most of the time people think hey, what a sweet thing to live so close to this cute BYOB that always smells like garlic, you must eat here all the time. 3 times total, and that's counting the chance encounter 8 years ago when I dined with my cousin visiting from Idaho on our mutual first trip to Philadelphia, so that's really like twice, which is to say living behind an Italian restaurant is more of a mixed bag than anyone not living behind an Italian restaurant realizes.

In 2007, or the last time I was in Italy, I heard some crazy shit was going down in Naples where the civic authorities somehow had failed to pick up the garbage for a stretch of about six weeks in the midst of the sweaty Mediterranean summer. Something about a feud with the mafia and their claims on the waste-removal business, but by and by the normally quaint and can't-miss tourist town slowly filled up to waist-deep in most places of fetid, stinking garbage and while that's about the worst of it (with tourists and residents alike walking around, half-drowning in their own stench-induced vomit) there's also the proliferation of trash-loving vermin like roaches, rats, centipedes and bums.

Here in the Ill it's not so bad, but with City Hall enforcing 'brownouts' on non-essentials like the Fire Dept, we're always a little nervous that waste-removal might be the next furloughed public service if the stimulus continues to wear off.  I'm merely highlighting the worst case scenario of too much Italian unconsumed or undisposed. At present, our trash is removed weekly and our local vermin, consisting of the occasional mouse, are held in check by the neighborhood semi-feral cat whose taste for Italian isn't much.

But the birds, those little nameless brown and gray jobs that you see everywhere (I only want to say nuthatch because it's fun), can't get enough Italian food and are raiding the trashcans continuously for clam shells, pancetta and bathes of alfredo sauce. As a result they've grown as round and fat as hamsters and spend more time on the ground hopping about and squabbling amongst the crumbs than they do soaring in the clouds.

Sights, Sounds and More from Chromeo at the Troc

Last Tuesday night the Missus and I stepped out for an evening with Montreal Canada's hottest electro-funk pop duo, Chromeo, at the Trocadero and I wanted to report back on some of the the notable sensations that comprised the experience.

-The sign on the door warned entrants that Chromeo's show features intense strobe lighting effects. This is no joke and so I'd have to conclude that Chromeo in concert is not for epileptics. Sorry guys.

-There were 3 opening acts, the last of whom was an aspirational MGMT with decent musical chops, but like zero charisma. I think that makes all the difference in the world.

-Chromeo got the crowd rocking - particularly the 35 year old dude next to us in the balcony viewing area. We may have been dating ourselves, chilling up there in the balcony with its u-shaped, padded vinyl benches, but I'd have to register a minor complaint about the size of this dudes dance moves. Way too big, like 6-7 feet in lateral distance. Sure, it's cool to get on your feet and shimmy around a bit and clap in time (the 2 and the 4 white folks), but when you're elbowing, kicking and crotch-thrusting into your neighbors with each gyration its time to reign in it a bit. The ground floor in front of the stage is a more apt environment for sweaty shenanigans like this, not too mention that they're generally better left to young, attractive women.

-But mostly shame on the couple behind us too for their equally disturbing interpretive dance. Ignoring the exclusively up-tempo beats, said couple spent the night in a middle-school slow song tangle, complete with awkward pre-coital embrace and aggressive sucking of face. I didn't think the show was 18+,  ( or maybe they had good fake IDs) but who else needs to sneak out of the house just to French kiss for two hours? Making matters worse, our twinkish male-lead in this PG-13 love scene, was actor and director - filming the action for significant stretches of time with the video capture on his smartphone.

-Chromeo's set was short and sweet. They took the stage late and played their most beloved tunes in quick succession, sparing the audience too much of their new or lesser-known work. I for one applaud the lack of bullshit and getting to the point of delivering the goods.

Heat

Having lived 4 of the last 5 years in San Francisco I got used to the relative boringness of Bay Area weather which consists mostly of non-seasonal coolish weather year round, with a mix of fog and sun wherever you go. The difference between day and night is 10-15 degrees and so is the difference between summer and winter.

Philadelphia has been a wildly different story so far. Last summer was like the European Mini Ice Age with highs cracking 90 only one week in August that I can remember and a pretty consistent track of cool temperatures and steady doses of record-setting rainfall. This continued in the winter with the all-time record setting 10 feet of snow that we got in Center City. And why stop there, thought Mother Nature, before besieging the city with it's hottest summer in a decade and the 8th hottest since regular temperature recording began as a second act.

Critics of global-warming would point to the 10 feet of snow and say, look, proof that the temperature isn't rising. Hah Al Gore!

But all that is anecdotal evidence and at that it may even be evidential support of the data. All we know is that we're putting more energy into the system and what that brings in the local experience of global warming is unpredictable, but more frequent and violent extremes, mood swings if you will, is a likely outcome.

Some Thoughts

-Day one of the World Cup: I was thinking, after a pair of annoying, low-scoring ties, so far, so boring. 200 years ago, the United States didn't settle for ties with England. Why are we so high on this one? The Founding Fathers would not have been stoked, maybe even badly disappointed, particularly given that goal was complete garbage.

-Day two, I'm really feeling Die Mannschaft after the show they put on drubbing the 'Socceroos.' Having encountered a few genuine Australians in the world, with their 'no worries mate' attitude, acid-washed jeans and near unanimous sun-kissed good looks, it was oddly fun to see their party ended by efficient German workmanship.

-It bears noting that my wife made the most outrageous meal order of her adult life the other day at Beau Monde for breakfast, I guess you'd call it: a mimosa to kick things off then a froment crepe with apples, toasted almonds, brown sugar, caramel and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This was the breakfast of champions that kicked off a day of beer-drinking and hotdog eating at the Phillies' game.

-Speaking of whom, it's been painful watching them slide from 1st to 3rd in the National League East, particularly heading into this month's American League tour de force, already off to a banging start losing 2/3 to the Red Sox before hitting up the Yankees, Twins, Indians and Blue Jays before the month is out. It's hard to image the Phillies coming out of this stretch unscathed, so I've already begun the word-smithing of a cleverly-titled post to the effect of 'The Philadelphia Phaillies' or something like that. I'd be happily proven wrong.

-I reached out to volunteer some time and energy to the Philadelphia Tax Reform movement as avowed at PhiladelphiaForward.org and was met with a disappointing reply of weary capitulation. I hope somebody's still beating some drums on this topic.

-I've been following the story on Sabina Rose O'Donnell's murder since it first broke. I saw her photo on Philly.com and got a chill because back in January she had been our waitress on our lone visit to PYT. It's a terrible shame what happened to her at the hands of a coward and I hope they catch whomever is responsible for this terrible deed.

Just Ridiculous

This isn't my first screed on Ticketmaster, and it probably (sadly) won't be my last. This was just so shocking I had to share with the world. I'd like to catch Chromeo at the Trocadero in Philadelphia next month, but at a 43% gouge for convenience, I'll inconvenience myself by walking to the box office. It's nice out today and this might actually be a fun errand.

Signs It's Spring in Philly: Butter Krak

Possibly, no, definitely the world's worst-named candy, Zitner's Butter Krak, is being showcased with prominent cash register area placement at neighborhood Wawas in an apparent Philadelphia homage to trashy Easter traditions. WTF? Since when is Philly's 'krak problem' something to make light (fluffy candy) of? Let alone use as a device for marketing Easter candy to children?