“Vigil”: A First-Timers’ Visit to the Lantern Theatre Company
Having recently moved to the environs of South Philadelphia, I thought I could walk from around South Street to 10th and Ludlow Sts. The Lantern Theatre Company holds its many plays there in what (I would imagine) was the social hall for St. Stephen’s Church. But, if you can believe one terribly inexperience theatre-goer –this is my first time to a live-theatre performance, not including the copious high school plays/musicals I attended—this theatre is a special place. Generally, if I want to watch a play or a drama, I either read the play or I watch it its film adaptation at the movies or on Netflix. The kinds of entertainment/culture that I would attend usually places me at a distance from what I am actually seeing. The divide between spectator and spectacle is not permeable (not unless you’re this fellow):
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IIl3zSYL8k
At the Lantern Theatre, I felt directly connected with the action of Morris Panych’s Vigil. I can’t say I have anything in common with the main characters Kemp and Grace. Kemp is a egotistical, asexual, repressed, transgender, misanthropic, homicidal, self-loathing, former bank teller who receives a letter from his affluent, dying aunt Grace asking him to visit. He speaks 95% of the time whereas Grace sits in her bed with subtle facial expressions underscoring Kemp’s sometimes ridiculous and heartbreaking reminiscences of his childhood.
Cael Phelps, a Temple adjunct, plays Grace and does a fantastic job in rendering her character to be full of warmth and humor. I am reminded of the old comedy teams like Abbot and Costello, or the Three Stooges, or Lucy and Desi, in its format. The actor Leonard C. Haas plays Kemp. The beginning half of the play, Haas delivers to the fullest Kemp’s irritableness. He is perhaps a modern-version of Scrooge. Midway through the play, he creates a literal deathtrap (think the company Veritas…), which is pretty hilarious (but disconcertingly creepy at the same time). The director Peter DeLaurier is the husband to Phelps. There are a number of blackouts that signify the passing of time. It seems that the actors/crew were virtuosos at quick scene changes.
There are a lot of places to laugh, but I don’t want to ruin the jokes. And so, I’ll leave you with three random videos that make no sense within this context, but after you see the show, then you’ll reach enlightenment, sort of.
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lanterntheater/
Lantern Theater Company: https://www.lanterntheater.org/
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoOhnrjdYOc
A(n) (in)formal introduction
Bienvenidos/Bienvenue/Welcome/Willkommen/(insert greeting in language of choice here____________)
Often times, in the birth of a blog (such as this one), the writer of said blog is required (or more or less obligated) to write a few words of introduction. This is one of those introductions (which you can pretend is one of those awkward stickers affixed onto my shirt like Hester Prynne’s Scarlet Letter A): Hello! My name is Mark Inchoco (pronounced like in chocolate sans late).
As an undergraduate English major here at this fine institution, I try to live up to the “liberal” end of CLA. In doing so, I’ve managed to do the following: DJ on WKDU 91.7FM , classical trumpeter mainly with the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia (with a gig or two with opera companies), and, for a short time, I was part of the hip-hop outfit Slick Mantra. In addition, I’ve written for a few blogs and magazines (read Hyphen, Temple’s arts magazine & Faucet Magazine) along the way.
Apart from tooting my own horn, all these things have allowed me to see a lot of the cultural comings and goings, in & around our fair city of Philadelphia. A lot of these places, which you may know, are featured in your GenEd PEX passport. Every week you will be able to read my adventures (or mis-adventures for that matter) at each of these places of cultural happenings; perhaps, you too, will check out these places for your own enjoyment, or, at the very least, it could be a story to tell (“Oh man, we tried to get to “institution x,” but it snowed hardcore, and we got stuck in a trolley in West Philly. But, it was cool because the guy sitting next to us told us a story about such and such. It was pretty awesome, man”).
Check back here every Wednesday with updates from my latest visit. To where is anybody’s guess, but the below is, of course, the starting point for anywhere in the city:
postscript*
Here’s a track from local Philly artist Birdie Busch. Her music encapsulates a lot of what the city is all about.
“Joey” by Birdie Busch
A Three-Hour Tour to the Franklin Institute
Prologue:
There’s going to be a lot of information in this blog post because there are 1001 things one can do in an afternoon at the Franklin (formerly known as the Franklin Institute). Each section will have a title that in a word or two will illustrate the main themes of the (6) exhibits I visited. This is partly because I can structure an overenthusiastic essay into little bits and pieces for you to enjoy like a Whitman Sampler, and you wouldn’t necessarily have to belabor through the entire essay. Pick which subjects you, the Reader, are interested in, and after the jump, you will be able to read on. Of course, you are welcome to read the entire essay: This will make me quite happy, but it’s up to you. I’ll be quiet now…
Beginning:
On a brisk Tuesday morning, I headed to the Franklin Institute (henceforth called FI) from Main Campus after a mildly difficult French test. There are a number of ways to get to the FI from Main Campus, which I’m sure you’re well-aware. But, in case if you’re new, I’ll give you directions: Engage Google Maps!
When you enter the FI, you are greeted by statue of Benjamin Franklin posed in the same manner as President A. Lincoln at his eponymous monument in D.C. The crowd at the museum consisted of children aged x ≤ 14 either with their families or, on the ever-treasured, school field trip. When it was my turn to receive my tickets to enter the FI and the newly-opened da Vinci exhibit, I was slightly worried that the PEX Pass wouldn’t guarantee a discounted fare to see both da Vinci and the general museum. With a quick question to the cashier, my hesitation was alleviated: You can see the da Vinci exhibit and the rest of the museum for $3 less, which came to a total of $21.00. This may seem a little steep, and perhaps for college students, it might be, but, as I hope you’ll agree with me, it was (or will be) quite worth it.
Wandering to the Rosenbach
I am a creature of habit, but luckily the Rosenbach Museum never failed to disappoint each time I visited. It was late January when I mentioned to my friend, Katrina, a fellow English major, that James Joyce’s notebooks are in Rittenhouse Square. We were on a kind of an Irish lit binge after she read (or was/is reading) Ulysses and I had studied Mr. Joyce’s, Beckett’s, and Yeats’ work for the whole of my undergrad career. (Let me tear up now because that career will be over soon…) Anyways, we picked a Wednesday as the museum is closed on Mondays, and tucks in early on Tuesdays and Fridays (from 12-5PM), then an hour later on the weekend (from 12-6PM), and, for some reason, stays up late on Wednesday and Thursday (from 12PM to 8PM).
When you go you must remember what day it is and have time to take the house tour. The museum has few exhibits with the main one often times being a tribute to Maurice Sendak (of Where the Wild Things Are fame), and rotates periodically with the seasons turn, turn, turn, and, say, in October there would be a Dracula-themed exhibit with Bram Stoker’s manuscripts, and so on.
That day, there was a jazz concert being held on the third floor, so the woman at the register told us that the house tour would be a bit abbreviated. We didn’t mind at all and browsed the gift shop to buy literary kitsch. This reminded me of when I travelled to Chicago through Indiana and patronized a truck stop with every variation of porcelain fairy and soda cans that had secret compartments to hide one’s “stash.” Except with literature: James Joyce, Lewis Caroll, Maurice Sendak, Marianne Moore, and others were represented in books, toys, posters, wristwatches, cookbooks, t-shirts, finger puppets, chocolate bars, bookmarks, USB drives, and other paraphenalia. I bought a postcard with Virginia Woolf’s cartoon on the front.
Our tour guide arrived —let’s call her Debbie— from the regional rail train. From the gift shop, I heard Debbie and the clerk say that our tour needed to be quick. Debbie welcomed us into the small room with all these portraits (most of them from the 1800s) staring at us. There were rows of white upholstered chairs that we (including one other fellow) sat on. I’ll spare you her spiel, but on the wall behind her were these pictures of the Rosenbachs and a few facsimilies of their acquisitions. I saw one photograph of a manuscript, handwritten in Catholic school cursive, on paper not unlike one you would find in a Moleskine notebook. I recognized the first lines, “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan…” It was Joyce’s Ulysses.
Each room (especially the dining area and living room) was lavishly decorated. In the dining room, there was a large cabinet (or chest, I’m not sure the terminology) for fine silverware and china as well as beer glasses with the corresponding family’s heraldic symbol painted in frosted glass on theside. (For the record, neither of us have heraldic symbols.) Another room had modernist, Marianne Moore’s, New York apartment recreated to exact detail on the third floor. Personally I’m not sure if many students have read her work, but she was, sort of, a celebrity around New York City in that she would often go to boxing and baseball games wearing a cape and three-cornered hat. The room was filled with books, and typewriters, and weird art on the walls.
Then, we went to the main event, for me at least, and it was where Joyce’s manuscripts were put on display. His handwriting, admittedly, looked like mine and I almost teared up a little looking at his work. The room was dark with the blinds completely closed. Debbie gave us a small flashlight. Katrina and the other fellow were abl to hangout and see the rest of that room, but I stayed there transfixed at Joyce’s handwriting. Behind me was Joyce’s deathmask, pale and grey. I flashed my flashlight and I saw that he had Charlie Chaplin’s mustache and four little lines is in his forehead. Joyce’s chin jutted out a bit almost like someoen with an overbite. I wondered, “Iwhat would happen if I somehow took it?’ or “when can I make the money to buy that?” Then, the tour was over essentially. We waoked back tdownstairs and skipping the concert, we headed to a coffe shop, Elixir, to chat about what we saw.
How was your visit? Anything cool especially struck you?
Endgame at the Annenberg Center
In the evening hours after five, I met with resident Joycean, Shelly Brivic, at the Tuttleman lobby. Dark already descended on campus as daylight savings time came into effect days before. Perhaps, it was the same day I gathered the courage to call Shelly at the bequest of my friend, Prof. Josh Lukin. I had known about the Dublin-based Gate Theatre’s production of Beckett’s Endgame from walking down Chestnut Street (or Walnut?), and seeing posters for the play in front of Penn’s Annenberg Center. As a self-proclaimed, Irishman, –I don’t have a modicum of Irish blood in me–I had the urge to go, and maybe down a pint of the black stuff.
Shelly suggested we take the subway from Cecil B. Moore to City Hall, then the trolley. Perhaps the El train would be better, I thought, but then he noted how the trolley stops right in front of the theatre. He was right. When we made the transfer to the trolley station beneath the Occupiers, we talked about a poem I wrote for Hyphen, which dealt with the downward spiral of a college relationship. I tried deflecting the moderately embarrassing questions with a poem my friend, Kristen Stabile, also published inHyphen, wrote about a similar situation.
It had occurred to me that the rain was starting to soak my hair and Shelly’s socks, which were hiking sandals meant for bare feet in Appalachia, and not the puddles and gravel of University City. Thankfully, the walk from the trolley to the theatre was brief, albeit cold and windy. My glasses and I assume Shelly’s as well, were coated in rain.
I had visited the Annenberg Theatre once before with my father and a man I met with my mother from a previous Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra (LCJO) concert, Michael Dutton. (Dutton and his date, a seemingly cosmopolitan woman named Genevieve –she used the word “furnished” as in “Furnish me your address”–somehow knew Mr. Marsalis. I was allowed to enter the green room, a thrill of my life, and met the rest of the LCJO. There was free champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. I was 14.) We watched Wynton Marsalis perform with his trio from his (then) latest album. Now I was here with Shelly to watch Beckett’s Endgame. [Read More...]
How to Listen to the Philadelphia Orchestra (These Days)
The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts on Broad and Locust is the home for the Philly Orch for the past couple of years. Verizon Hall, the venue for the Orchestra and its Kimmel Center Presents programs (KCP), is shaped like a cello; the prevailing color is a shade of red like Temple’s crimson but not too far off from the Phils’ red either. It is beautiful.
Every year, the eZseatU program allows college students to attend concerts for twenty-five dollars. In the PEXPass (which, if you haven’t grabbed one yet, can be found in the Student Activity Center (the “SAC”) at the help desk), students will be able to buy one of these subscriptions for the entire year. How it works is simple: If a concert isn’t sold out (which, to be honest, is not that often unless it’s Beethoven’s Ninth or Fifth), then you’ll be able to sit in the extra seats that range for $34 to over $100. For college students, it’s a great deal because going to a concert or two is worth more than what you will pay for the subscription. There’s a little hitch though…
The Kimmel Center is on strike before the season has even started. The Opening Gala is a generally ritz-y Philadelphia affair that invokes some scenes from Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, or the latest episode of Gossip Girl, or an old episode of The Real Housewives of New York. That event is going to be held at UPenn in the Irvine Auditorium. After that, no one knows where concerts will be held at. It all depends on the union talks. Regardless, the subscription is pretty cool to have. (I’m sure the PhilOrch will be back at their old home in no time). Before you do here are a few concerts that I think might be cool for college students:
http://www.philorch.org/performance/12475/2011/10/21/
http://www.philorch.org/performance/12493/2011/11/11/
http://www.philorch.org/performance/12498/2011/11/18/
Another thing, the Philly Orch just hired a new chief director, Yannick Nezet-Seguin. He’s an “intensely physical” conductor. See for yourself!
Hello! My name is Mark.
I find myself in Philadelphia six days out of the week. Since I’m a student, most of that time is spent on campus running about in a seemingly absurd manner going to things called lectures, meetings, and work. When there’s down time which I (and yous all) should have, the GenEd PEX Pass is essentially a lifesaver from the week’s class/meeting/work cycle that we find ourselves in. It’s kind of nice that folks from all over the Philly area from museums to theatres to parks, what-have-you, want to extend an invitation to you to hang out.
This is the bit where I display my street cred. I grew up in Port Richmond but moved to the suburbs in the environs of Sesame Place. Not to be outdone, I trained as a jazz trumpeter at the Kimmel Center Youth Jazz Ensemble and its spin-off jazz and chamber music camp. During breaks at the newly built Kimmel Center, I wandered endlessly having no idea where I was but loving each new street, park, and people.
In college, I was a DJ on 91.7FM at Drexel (before I happily transferred to Temple). Then, I had a brief tenure in a hip-hop group called Slick Mantra. We performed at the Fire, North Star Bar, and elsewhere. Once our band disbanded I shifted as a classical performer playing in a production of La Boheme (The opera is based on a book called La Boheme, all of which is what the musical Rent is based from) and performing with the Orchestra Society of Philadelphia with WRTI’s own Jack Moore often conducting for the past two years.
Enough about me and go out there. Have some adventure (of course be safe). Let the Pass help you find new things about our city before you may ask yourself, What have I done?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU
Hurricane Irene, David Lynch, and a Visit to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The main reason I visited the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) was the fact that David Lynch attended art school here. Lynch lived in the Fairmount area of Philly, and apparently Philadelphia during the late-1960s and `70s was pretty “Lynchian.” If you watch(ed) Blue Velvet, Eraserhead, Lost Highway, or the classic Twin Peaks, you (will) know what I mean.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDEzzFtrCTs&feature=related
Regardless of which, I took the Broad Street Line from Temple to City Hall. The rainy weather (I usually use the phrase “English weather,” but I refrain from doing so in order not to offend any Brits, specifically my English friends/readers…) was the prelude to the oncoming Hurricane Irene. It was a short walk from the subway and I cut through the Philadelphia Municipal Building plaza, you know, the one with all the board game pieces. That’s usually a nice place to take pictures like Love Park or the Philly Art Museum. From there I walked north on Broad Street on the left hand side of the street, parallel to the glowing new Convention Center, and there it was.
Entering PAFA was majestic. A grand staircase leads you to the exhibits. From the main entrance, the exhibit on the left displays PAFA alumni’s works, which were made available to purchase; a bit pricey to say the least. There seemed to be a kind of rural theme that pervaded each piece. One painting in particular was essentially a black canvas with a few streaks of red and white paint supposed to signify the trailing lights of a passing automobile or motorbike.
The special exhibit I visited focused on Philadelphia-based, Japanese-born visual artist, Hiro Sakaguchi. He seems to have a fascination, a fetish more accurately, on airplanes specifically commercial airliners. It’s sort of morbid and unnerving now that I reflect on it bearing close to the anniversary to the terrorist attacks. But what I think he’s commenting on is the culture of tourism, which obstructs the natural beauty of a place. Those sorts of things…
PAFA’s main museum is a hodgepodge of stuff. In the front part, there is a lot of colonial paintings. Stuff you’d see in a history textbook. It may interest the history buff in you. Walking down each corridor and reading each placard, one starts to notice that these are artists trained at PAFA, some since the late-1800s. Thomas Eakins, a Philadelphia-based artist from the turn-of-the-century, went to PAFA. You can see his artwork at the Philly Art Museum, but a lot of his early work is at PAFA. His most memorable work at the museum was his painting of a surgery in progress at, I believe, the Philadelphia Physician’s College.
Perhaps the last thing to check out there as you walk around its exhibits is this simple wooden statue of an Amish girl. I cannot recall the sculptor, but I have not been more spooked in my life. There was just something about the grain and the texture and the detail that made me wonder if the sculpture of her was in fact a woman posing, getting paid to freeze in time.
Let me know how your trip to PAFA went!
Re-Joyce at the Rosenbach Museum
June 16 was Bloomsday. If you have friends who are literarily-inclined, perhaps you already know. This is when the entirety of Joyce’s novel Ulysses takes place. It’s hard to retell a plot summary for the novel because it’s a little like explaining what “being” is, or why you may like chocolate ice cream. But maybe this Sigur Ros and Ulysses mash-up may persuade/intrigue/perplex/seduce you to read the novel:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcSOfMXEBb4&feature=fvst
A bit of Delancey Street in Rittenhouse Square became decked out with chairs, and a slight podium for various readers to come on by. Usually, it’s noted Philadelphians like Marty Moss-Coane or Mayor Nutter who take part in this 12PM to 6PM marathon reading. Folks dressed up like turn-of-the-century Irishman in bowties and straw hats, walking with canes.
The inside of the museum has a number of interesting exhibits in particular a horrendous amount of first-edition books. Most of them priceless, sometimes I wonder what prevents the museum from a literary version of a bank/art heist. If anyone out there is an English major, I’m sure you’e read Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” a million times. There are a number of his handwritten manuscripts there. It’s pretty cool to see his handwriting.
Admittedly though, this stretch of Delancey Street is a bit tricky to find because it’s somewhat of a walk from Rittenhouse Square itself. Set in a residential area, the museum is relatively unassuming and the placard which explains the museum is the only way one would know it was a museum. But of course you’ll have lots of fun there.
Yo Adrienneeeee! (or a Visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art)
A few days ago, after looking through books at the now-closed Borders near City Hall, I figured to take a trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum (PMA). It was a Friday, the last one of my third year in college. I had finished a lengthy-paper on James Joyce’s Ulysses, but instead of going to the Rosenbach Museum, I thought Mr. Joyce and I should take a break. In procrastination, I scoured YT for the writer/art critic John Berger’s BBC documentary Ways of Seeing. (There was a book, which I probably bought at Borders, with the same title and presenter that is popular in art history/criticism). It’s pretty insightful:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnfB-pUm3eI
There are a number of ways to travel to the PMA. On nice days, one could walk down the Ben Franklin Parkway to the West Entrance (the steps where they filmed that movie about, I think, boxing…) and perhaps take a short rest in front of the fountain at Logan Circle. I remember I felt a little tired from walking around the city; so I opted to take the 38 bus in front of the Philadelphia Municipal Building. As I waited in the bus shelter, I could see a few tourists taking pictures in front of the mini-Claes Oldenburg-esque board game pieces: Bingo, Sorry!, Monopoly and Chess. He designed the famous “clothespin” in front of the building known as Centre Square. Standing next to me were two German tourists. Though I’m not a German speaker, I was curious to what brought them to Philadelphia. Since I was raised in and around Philadelphia, I never had many chats with tourists.
The bus ride itself was generally pleasant, and the German tourists were treated kindly. We stayed on until the PMA stop, which is on a gentle hill alongside the North wing. I walked up the hill and saw a box-like, glass structure. It reminded me of what the architect Philip Johnson created with his “Glass House.” As I walked closer, I could make out an elevator, and a sign that read “Parking Lot.”
The entrance from the North wing has large, brass-looking doors that were somewhat difficult to pull. Once inside, I went to receive my ticket from the helpful clerk. I imagined she was a student at Tyler, as I recall a number of my friends knew of people who worked at PMA. For some reason, I derive great pleasure in those little badges one wears when they visit museums. That day’s badge color was a shade of green that reminded me of the outside of a watermelon. Found in the center of the badge was the shape of a gryphon (as in Griffindor for the Harry Potter enthusiasts amongst you readers). Perhaps, I purposely wore my corduroy blazer for the day since I placed the “badge of culture” in the buttonhole of my left lapel (as it should be).
The time I arrived was at 5:30PM. Usually on Fridays I have rehearsal at Community College of Philadelphia at 7:30PM, which afforded me an hour and a half to visit the museum. I couldn’t run around the PMA like the characters in Band of Outsiders did in the Louvre. But I could see a few works at length and call it a day.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z74tb51YI8
I barely consider myself much of an art expert, but I like to look at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” In reproductions in, say, a textbook or the yearly poster sale in front of the Bell Tower, the image of the painting is simply a picture, a photograph. You don’t really see the detail and the amount of texture Van Gogh used. As a result, it seems in photographs that this painting looks generally docile and perhaps plain. But when I stood in front of it (from a distance deemed suitable by the security guards), I cannot help but notice a certain intensity there. Each brushstroke, in particular the flower petals, includes a hearty amount of paint, crafted like a mad man. The brushstrokes reminded me in a way when one writes an early draft of something, maybe a diary entry or a love letter, and is so dissatisfied and/or embarrassed that they cross it out hurriedly and deliberately. This is how I “view” Van Gogh. Now to get a little contemporary.
PMA’s collection of contemporary and modern art is adjacent to where the Van Gogh resides. There are the usual names Dali, Picasso, Magritte, Andy Warhol, Duchamp, Rothko and so on, which are on display. A number of either high school students or freshman college kids were roaming each hall. I made my rounds and figured I wouldn’t see anything new. The Duchamp exhibit was still the same with the nonsensical stool with the bicycle wheel jutting out of it as if bicycle, or rather, unicycle trees existed. The urinal. But what I didn’t notice until my latest visit was a dark room along the same wall as the Readymades. I may have ventured inside once or twice, and there embedded in the wall was a provincial looking door. Never had I bothered to look closely at the door to see what was there. In the middle of the door, there were two holes roughly the same span as the distance between the left and right eyes. Let me know what was there, and what you thought of it. Sometimes cliffhangers are good…
We Real Cool at Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCo6RtIEdSA
I think a few weeks ago, another fine PEX Correspondent, Jordyn, wrote about her experiences at the Penn Museum of Archaelogy and Anthropology. A week or two ago, I made my way there with my friends from Drexel University’s lit journal, Maya, as a kind of summit between our respective journals. (Read Hyphen!). We had a very nice dinner at a sushi restaurant called Ajia in University City. Tina, their managing editor, took the initiative to pick up tickets for everyone in advance for Excelano Project’s spoken word event entitled “We Real Cool,” after the famous poem by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Waiting in line for the doors to open was an adventure in itself. It seemed that before “We Real Cool” there was a whole different event, just as well-attended, that would be letting out before the spoken word event. As an English major, I’ve never really delved into the world of spoken word and the poetry slam, save for bits I’ve watched on YouTube. I wasn’t quite sure what I was in for.
As the crowd was let out, my friends and I waited in the cramped vestibule. It was a little warm and crowded. Perhaps we were all a little cranky, but the thought had occurred to me: Look at all these people coming to a literary event! Philadelphia has seen its share of festivals: The Cherry Blossom Festival, the Philadelphia Book Festival, and, of course, PIFA. But, compared to the open-mics at cafes and on campus, whatever the Excelano Project was doing, they were doing it in spades.
The program consisted of two acts with a short intermission between. Start, middle, and end times seem to be of relative importance at Penn. But did the poetry make up for it. Armed with only their words, ten to twelve poets spoke on topics relevant to college kids: Sex, first love, death, and inter-generational conflicts/harmonies. Many of the poems, I felt, tended towards to the sad and serious, giving credence to the idea of the brooding artist. But, even the most serious of poems, had its moments of uplift and insight that it would be hard pressed not to snap one’s fingers.
Though there will not be any repeat performances, this post is to setup a series of literary things (in particular plays) that are offered in the PEX Passport. Be sure to plan ahead, and quick too, since, like our end of semester, theater companies are winding down too with their seasons. An event might be an excuse to get that paper done earlier. (One can hope).
Finding the Simeone Foundation
Photography by Travis Kniffin
If (and this is a rather inflated “if”) one wants to see classic foreign sports cars such as the penultimately rare 1957 Ferrari Testarossa (“Redhead” in Italian), I’m fairly certain that Southwest Philadelphia wouldn’t come to mind. As of late, due to my fervent obsession with the BBC’s Top Gear, I have (perhaps) annoyed my Facebook (FB) friends with posts of YouTube (YT) links to various episodes. Some featured clips range from vintage sports cars I admired as a kid (the Jaguar E-Type, or the `50s Mercedes-Benz 300SL) to the National Geographic-esque, or NatGeo, –if you’re nerdy– adventures to places such as Botswana, Vietnam, Chile and even the North Pole (the 1996 North Magnetic Pole). Thanks to the wonders of Google Analytics and FB data-mining, displayed on my FB feed were advertisements for the Simeone Foundation. Admittedly, I clicked the link because it seduced with a picture of the said E-Type.
I assumed that this museum was perhaps located in an affluent area along the Main Line, or somewhere in North Jersey where they refer to themselves as “New Yorkers.” But when I google-mapped (a neologism, I admit), 6825 Norwitch Drive, I noticed that the Philadelphia International Airport was a stone’s throw away. It was certainly a hike from campus. And so, I reserved a Saturday morning to head over there.
I enlisted my friend Travis Kniffin, for being a fellow car enthusiast, Top Gear fan, Intro to French (former) comrade, and a very good camera to come along for the trip. We met at Suburban Station, and took the 36 trolley to 70th and Elmwood. The line snakes about University City and glides across Darby. From our stop, we walked south along 70th Street until we reached the overpass of which we had to cross via the medium. The sidewalks on this road were dense with enough foliage to warrant bringing a machete. The corner of 70th and Norwitch Drive, we found a heavily cracked, but intact car windshield alongside some abandoned Goodyear tires that was admittedly foreboding. After passing by a few industrial warehouses and a Hertz rental for industrial machines, we saw a sign for the Simeone Foundation that gave a slight taste of what was to be inside.
The façade of the museum one could certainly deem as having been a warehouse frozen during the 1990s. But inside, as we were about to find out, was quite different. Two docents greeted us inside as we paid the student rate of $8. One docent (lets call him “Fred”) asked us where we went to school. Both of us, falling prey to Liberal Arts guilt, revealed that we were English and Art History majors. To which he replied, “Good luck!”
The museum itself is arranged loosely by the technological developments of each car. We viewed cars from the early 1990s, many of which needed a crank-start in the front. Then, as if it was “no big deal,” there was Mercedes-Benz 300SL “Gullwing,” in its German racing color, silver, to be admired. There were two plastic chairs in front of the hood of the car where we just sat, and uttered expletives of amazement and wonder. For many years I had owned this model car, and never have thought to see the source of my measly 1:18 simulacrum.
The red Ferrari Testarossa was there as well, and post-voyage, I found that it fetched +$12 million at auction. The car simply sits there to be gawked at. A few racecars from the Le Mans 24 Hour endurance race were also on display. And, the central exhibit had as its focus British automobiles specifically the E-Type from my childhood. All three (!) incarnations of the E-Type were on display. And, as luck would have it, Travis and I were able to push one onto an elevated display. I also had this car in miniature (in the same British racing green, no less).
It seemed absurd that all these cars were located under one roof in SW Philly of all places. Even more absurd that the namesake of the Simeone Foundation, Dr. Simeone, a retired neurosurgeon from Penn (which on a personal note does excellent work), established this museum. Perhaps it’s my bias that I have no conception of retirement, and so the idea that one creates museums as a hobby astounds me. Dr. Simeone, in fact, owns a number of the automobiles in the collection.
Not to get philosophical, but many of these cars were simply aesthetically pleasing to look at, and others were sheer oddities (mostly American cars). Some racecars were achievements in engineering, and gained high positions at some of the famous car races. And, others, especially the Triumphs and the Italian sports cars like the many Ferraris and Maseratis, exuded an old-time glamour perhaps only found in old Fellini movies and the gamut of French New Wave (Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman, Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows, and any Sean Connery-era J. Bond film). Often times, one needs a car to get to point “A” to point “B”. But, I think, a well-designed automobile, both in terms of engineering and looks, offer one of those few marriages between aesthetics and utility. And sometimes, the cars simply look great. The commute back to Center City had us pondering this idea of form and function. After a burrito at the intermittently open, Mexicali, we were still baffled at the immensity of the collection, and the feelings of being a kid, not at the fore or the back of our heads, but rather somewhere in the present. Nevertheless, if you’d like to go off the beaten path (literally) the Simeone Foundation will fit the bill.
