Philadelphia, With Rev Bev
Trip Start
Feb 08, 2008
1
8
127
Trip End
Sep 11, 2009
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Already Way Behind
Once I got off the airport floor experiences began to accumulate faster than I had time or location to record them. I guess I'll have to skip over many of the details I have been thinking about. But I`ll try to outline the gist of the last few days.
At the Salt Lake City airport I went for my first food in 30+ hours, I think. It was in a concourse restaurant with a rock 'n' roll theme. It had a glass case containing Madonna's gold, torpedo tit bustier, tambourine, and captain's hat greeting those in line awaiting a table. And coating the walls were all manner of pictures, posters and artifacts of the genre. I misjudged the time I had to eat.
Poetry Slam in Mt. Airy
When I pulled out my pocket watch it looked like 12 minutes 'til the plane left. I corralled a busboy to get me a box, then ran to the waitress pressing 15 into her hand saying, "I've gotta get outta here real fast."I don't think I was the last on the plane. But as I went down the aisle to my seat in row 30, it seemed that all the six-abrest seats in front were full.
In Philadelphia it was a cinch to get into the central city on the metro rail line ($10). I found the platform for my transfer to the suburban location where I was to couchsurf for the next three nights. There was a train there and a home-from-work crowd boarding. I jumped on, flailing my backpack, front pack and wheely suitcase.A young lady informed me I was on the wrong train, a express headed in the opposite of my intended direction. At the first stop I jumped off--in north Philadelphia. Anyone been there? Two matronly black women were conversing; two black teenagers were figetting about. Selfconsciously I took out my lap top to recover the phone number of my host. Then I didn't have change for the pay phone. I asked one of the kids for change to a dollar. Together they pungled up two quarters. Then one remembered his cell phone, handing it to me. My host had left home. In the confusion I seemed to have forgotten to return the 50 cents
The Rev Bev in Action
. Man, I`m sorry for that. (And I have written this in confession. Yea, I have my fantasy prejudices. I just try to not let them govern my human interactions. That`s all I can say.)When I finally reached my hosts' house I was directed to await their return at a local pub. I went there, but it was too raucous. So I walked the street, which to me seemed like a British village street. I ate a small, delicious pizza in a place next to the pub. Then, when they closed I again walked the street, and fell into a coffee house as a young woman was just finishing a humorous reading. There was a break, then the "poetry slam" began. This was my first one. I'm trying to cut details here. Suffice it to say that one young man had me literally in tears of laughter.
When that was over I returned to the pub, thinking my host would stop by to find me. But by 11 no show, so I walked to the house to find them in. I spent three nights in the comfortable home of the Rev Bev, as she is called, and her partner Lawrence. Both are academics. Beverly is a Chrisian minister, not associated with, but on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. She see sees her ministry at this point--if I do not misrepresent it--as liberating up-tight Christians from inhibitions of sensual sexuality.
And to that end, the second night I attended her one-woman performance of a show she titles, "An Irreverent Journey from Eggbeaters to Vibrators." I guess you could call it a women's lib movement to the max. Beverly was most impressive in the variety of characters she singularly represented, and her depiction of them.
A Greek Woman, Maybe
Following the performance each of the audience attendees was presented with a vibrator. I passed on that.
Next, she and I, her administrative aide, and two students went to a near by bar--fighting a blowing, sub-freezing chill--for some food an drink.
That was Sunday. Saturday I had spent in the U Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthro-pology. While I was there visitors could attend a Charles Darwin birthday party, with cake!
Even though I had stayed until closing, fighting museum fatigue, once on the street the inevitable pull to see "what`s around the corner" led me on.
I walked in the fading light to the Philadelphia City Hall. Too late to get a city map. So I turned right and headed along a well lighted street, thinking to circle back to the campus rail station.
The street turned out to be Philadelphia's theatre row. And I walked along just to take it all in. It was a lively Saturday night. Near the end of the set of performing arts houses was Kimmel Hall, an impressive 2001 structure built to house the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was like a huge glass quonset hut. That is, a long, high arched, entirely glass structure enclosing a large lobby, a main and auxiliary theater, and numerous works of art. I went in to check out the lobby and see what I could see. At one point I opened a door to the balcony of the auxiliary theater and walked in as a group to perform later that evening was doing their mike check and balancing
In Blue and Pink
. It was an Armenian folk group of six or seven musicians and singers. Even though it was spotty, I enjoyed the sounds I heard for about 20 minutes.After that I thought I might as well make an at least a partial night of it. So I walked into the open balconied restaurant to have a nice meal. For me a couple of appetizers are well sufficient. In this case, a soup of butternut squash bisque (I don`t know if soup and bisque are redundant), whipped potatoes, and a beer (from the nations oldest brewry). And there was butter and three small rolls looking sort of like horse chesnuts. All a very elegant, white linen table cloth and candlelight. It was delightful! (You can see pictures of the place by image Googling, kimmel center philadelphia).
I had been staying in the delightful section of Philadelphia known as Mt. Airy, and in a house on Mt. Pleasant street, no less. When I went to leave I stopped into the cozy little coffee shop that was in the quaint, Victorian era suburban train station. A guy at the next table was going on about the Kimmel Center. So I begged to interject myself, and was accepted with friendliness.
After I had misread the timetable and missed the train, one of the folks, a landscape architect, who was kind of a regular there (he remembered me poking my head in for directions two
nights before), he volunteered to walk me over to the nearby station of another line. As we left a folk group was setting up to play. I was torn.
The other station, too, was a small quaint Victorian era stucture
Another Character
. It housed a delicious-looking used bookstore, which unfortunately (or fortunately) was closed.That alternative line, however happened to terminate in just where I was headed beyond Philadelphia, terminating in Trenton, New Jersey. It was the line I had mistakenly taken on the my first night in Philadelphia.At Trenton I followed the crowd. Well, it thinned out, so I followed a few people, and fortunately was led to the Amtrak line with the train waiting for New York City. You see, I'm often just too shy to ask.
After a while the conductor came around. They take fares on the move in these parts. But by this time I only had a 50$ bill for the, I think, 17$ fare. And he said he couldn't change anything but a 20. He went on to perhaps get change, I'll never know. For his superior came a while later. And, seeing I had no ticket said, "We'll have to put you off at New Brunswick." So I got off at New Brunswick and bought a ticket for the 30-minutes-later train--having got the first part free.
At Penn Station in the heart of New York City I called my niece, whose office was about six blocks of a very cold walk away. She met me in the lobby.
Christine is a clothes buyer for a retail chain. After leaving my gear at her desk we went to one of her vendor calls, a couple of blocks away. So I saw how she performed some of her workday--a viewing of fabric and style samples in a manner of business and friendly familiarity. We went on to one other vendor before catching the 5:30 bus to her suburban home in the depths (so it seems) of New Jersey.
But that is certainly enough for now. I've left stuff out, but gotta move on.
