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Weeding at Fair Hill

This is the season of spooky visits to grave yards, but Fair Hill is, as always, a little different. Philadelphia has a number of fascinating burial grounds, filled with the the famous, the infamous, the remembered and the forgotten. Fair Hill’s history dates to the late 1600s, originally a gift from George Fox to the Quakers for a quiet place to bury the dead.

Best remembered as the final home to many of the leading lights in the Abolitionist Movement, including Lucretia Mott, Fair Hill has been brought back from being a blight on the neighborhood to being the center of the community, a visual gem that also hosts summer time agricultural programs that truly engage the local youth.

Saturday, October 17th, from 10 to 1, people are coming out for the annual Fall clean up day. Bring your gardening or work gloves and join in, as much as anything to celebrate and experience something wonderful in its simplicity and its success. Check out some photos of the burial ground here, on Flickr.

Fair Hill Burial Ground
2900 Block on Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19133
www.fairhillburial.org

Shop owner Afshin Kaighobady outside Philly Electric Wheels with an electric bicycle, Photo by Pam Rogow, courtesy Technically Philly

If you’re ready for a new kinda kick, I highly recommend you head up to Mt. Airy and give the bicycles at Philly Electric Wheels a test ride. They’re a brand new shop at Greene and Carpenter, just across from Weavers Way Coop, and their grand opening is this Thursday from 2 to 7.

Remember how you felt the first time you rode a mountain bike after riding only cruisers? Or a really fast road bike after owning a 70s 10 speed? The bikes at Philly Electric Wheels are remarkably different in a truly fun way that brought enormous grins to myself and my two sons when we stopped in for a test ride last weekend.

They have several different styles designed by Dutch and Spanish engineers that incorporate a rechargeable battery that kicks in while you’re pedaling, at whatever level you decide it should. The nudge of power is cool and refreshing, and I was so unaccustomed to such a feeling, such a sensation, that it took me a moment to get used to it.

I rode it down Greene Street towards Lincoln Drive just like a regular bike, but on the way back up that considerable incline, I merely pedaled gently and the electric motor kicked in. Literally… no sweat!

The implications for commuters are enormous. You can pedal the length of Kelly Drive to work in your work clothes, get just enough cardio, and leave almost zero carbon footprint. The battery sucks up about the same juice as a cell phone when you recharge it.

Now just like road bike folks had to make room in their hearts for mountain bikes and vice versa, this is a totally new kind of bike, and I suggest that everyone climb aboard at least once and give them a try… then imagine where they’ll fit into our new world view, and our new consciously greener lifestyles.

Philly Electric Wheels
550 Carpenter Lane, Philadelphia PA 19119
(215) 821-9266
www.phillyelectricwheels.com

I love the Philadelphia Print Center. I love the feel and look of the place, as well as the work they show. Knowing where it is in the 1700 block of Latimer Street near Rittenhouse Square gives me another great destination when I find myself strolling in that area of town. Admission is always free, and it becomes another place I can take friends when I’m giving them ‘the tour.’

Currently, they’re showing an exhibit entitled Streets of Philadelphia: Photography 1970-1985, featuring the works of 21 photographers active in Philly at that time. For those of you who saw Invincible and thought that Philly could never have been that gritty, this show should open your eyes. For first generation punk rock kids like yours truly, it’ll be a trip down memory lane.

The Print Center
1614 Latimer Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 735-6090
www.printcenter.org

Along with the Third Woodmere Triennial of Contemporary Photography, the Woodmere Art Museum is challenging local photographers to submit their best images of Philadelphia – its people, culture, or landscape. They’re calling this The Philly Photo Challenge, and everyone who enters will be invited to be a part of their opening celebration on Sunday, October 25th.

Woodmere is asking for photos as jpegs, burned onto a disk, and delivered to them between now and October 6th. So you’ve got all weekend to get photographing!

I’m always curious and happy to see what others see through their lens when focused on this remarkable city.

Woodmere Art Museum
9201 Germantown Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19118
(215) 247-0476
www.woodmereartmuseum.org

Okay, as a German American, I can say with a clear conscience that German food is lacking in imagination. I’ve tried to love it, really, I have. But in the end, I’ve asked it if we could just be friends.

On the other hand, early German Americans, and there were a bazillion of us thanks to free farmland being given away in the very fertile colony of Pennsylvania, seemed to be full of inspiration, whimsy and flights of fancy when it came to decorating the otherwise visually bland world of Colonial America. They decorated EVERYTHING. Blanket chests, family bibles, marriage certificates, house blessings, broadsides… you name it.

All that 18th and early 19th century German American folk art is known as “Fraktur”, and our beloved Philadelphia Free Library is holding a symposium on this very influential local phenomenon. Many of their fraktur treasures will be on display, and local artists and art teachers, as well as those who love the arts and local history, should get a real kick out of both the exhibition and the symposium.

Get your quills and brushes, scribes and whittling knives tuned up for action! The exhibit is on display Monday through Friday, 9am to 5PM.

Free Library of Philadelphia
1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 686-5416
www.freelibrary.org

Photo courtesy the Philadelphia Folk Festival

Going to the venerable Philly Folk Festival in Schwenksville was very much a part of my growing up, and the joy of just relaxing with a huge number of consciously mellow yet energetic and devoted music lovers is something everyone should experience.

I’ve always been someone who appreciated folk music, though not a big follower of it. The Philadelphia Folk Festival has exposed me to artists within the endlessly varied world of folk and world music that I never would have heard or seen anywhere else… many of whom I’ve become fans of, bought their records, know their work. I’m a richer being, by far, having spent time there. And with popular folk artists like The Decemberists and Iron & Wine, there’s a little something for everyone, both indie and mainstream.

You can camp at the Folk Fest, with or without your vintage trailer, or you can just zip up for day trips / evening trips. I recommend camping. Worthy!

Philadelphia Folk Fest
August 14th, 15th, 16th
www.pfs.org/PFF.php

Photo by G. Widman for GPTMC

Philadelphia is a wonderful place to take visiting friends around and through, and though we are known nationally and internationally as a great ‘walking city,’ if you mean to get your pals out of Old City, consider the Philly Phlash bus.

EVERY Philadelphian has a little tour guide in their soul, and the Philly Phlash bus has a $5 all day, unlimited ride pass that gets you off your feet long enough to re-energize, and drops you off in another part of Center City in a fun, relaxed way. I like to take friends up to the Art Museum and walk back into town from there, stopping at the Rodin Museum, the galleries at Moore (always a cool surprise!), and then hop back on for a jaunt towards the Reading Terminal, the underground displays at 1234 Market, a tour of City Hall and a ride up to the top of the tower, THEN back on again and off to Old City.

The next bus comes by every 12 minutes from 10 AM to 6 PM . Tickets can be purchased right on board the Phlash or at the Visitors Center at 6th and Market, but kids under 6 and seniors ride for free!

Philadelphia Plash
More info over @ GoPhila.com

The Oscuro Quintet

Pay no attention to what passes for tango on popular television. Think more along the lines of a genuinely passionate embrace with someone you feel an electric attraction to. Now the music carries you along, and that embrace melts and regrips, ebbs and flows into a dance that is both ferocious and tender. Sound good? It should.

Put a little more huggin’ up in your life with a free introductory tango lesson and dance performance with teachers from the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School, accompanied an evening of sinuous neuvo tango performed by local favorites, The Oscuro Quintet. Tango DJs will continue the music well into the night… and it is all free.

Head to Goldstar Park at 6th & Wharton this Thursday at 6:30. Bring someone you love getting close to! Remember to take the time to dress up. Tango has the nerve to demand a certain elegance, and a sharp presentation helps put you in that tango state of mind. Do it!

Goldstar Park
6th & Wharton, Philadelphia, PA
www.goldstarpark.org

Hooray for InLiquid! This weekend marks their 10th annual Art For The Cash Poor event, and as our perspective has changed somewhat with the economy, the title now carries a more poignant tone…

Belt tightening or not, we always try to support the arts and bring art that speaks to us into our lives, and Rachel Zimmerman and her crew have, once again, put together an arts happening where you can meet the artists and experience their work. Once again at the Crane Arts Building on North American Street, this is a two day event that is free, free, free, so whether you pocketbook is flush or flat, bicycle the few blocks north of 3rd & Girard and have a blast!

InLiquid’s Art for the Cash Poor 10
www.inliquid.com/features/aftcp10/details.php

Crane Arts LLC
1400 N American St, Philadelphia, PA 19122
(215) 232-3203
www.cranearts.com

June 16th, a late spring Tuesday like any other… except in Philadelphia and Dublin, where Bloomsday is held every year to celebrate James Joyce’s Ulysses. On that day, Leopold Bloom walked the streets of Dublin in Joyce’s amazing stream of consciousness novel, considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature.

Philadelphia’s Rosenbach Museum owns Joyce’s original handwritten manuscript, thanks to the brilliant foresight of our beloved rare book dealer, the legendary Abe Rosenbach. Every year, the whole block in front of the museum fills with fans and devotees of the book, and there are readings by dozens of notable Philadelphians and Joyce enthusiasts… and a general joy that is both charming and embracing as hundreds of Joyce fans gather under the trees of Delancey Place.

Though I am very familiar with the passage known as ‘Love loves to love love,’ I will admit to never having read Ulysses. Bloomsday is also a reminder to all of us who only know what the Cliff Notes have told us. Dig up a copy once and for all and dig in. I mean, 50,000,000 Ulysses fans can’t be wrong!

Bloomsday runs from Noon to 4 PM, and is free and open to the public.

Bloomsday @ the Rosenbach
June 16th, Noon – 4PM

Rosenbach Museum
2008-2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA 19103
(215) 732-1600
www.rosenbach.org