fauxklore

The Loser community is an outgrowth of the (Washington Post) Style Invitational humor contest and Loser activities include periodic brunches and parties and the more or less annual excursion known as Loserfest. This year’s event was in Philadelphia, which is a city I’ve been to many times, but there were still things I hadn’t done before. In fact, I think there were only two things I had done before - and one of them was something I’d suggested.

I made things less stressful for myself by taking the train up late Thursday afternoon. While most of the attendees were staying at the Marriott Downtown, I opted for the significantly less expensive Fairfield Inn about 5 blocks south, in the heart of what is referred to as the Gayborhood. This sign (for a pizza place) lends new meaning to Philadelphia as “the city of brotherly love.”

I might have done something in the morning, but the power and water at my hotel went out, apparently due to a cable problem. This was inconvenient, but it did give me an excuse to sleep in for a while. (Everything came back about 8:30 ish.) I think everybody else traveled up on Friday morning and we connected for lunch at the Hilltown Inn, which was just okay in my opinion. After eating, we walked over to the Eastern State Penitentiary. This was built in 1829 and, until 1913, all prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, which was thought to give them an opportunity to reflect on their lives and be penitent for their crimes. It was closed as a prison in 1971 and became a museum in 1994. Your ticket includes a very informative audio tour.

Here’s the yard:

Here’s a long hallway of cells. These hallways radiate out from a central circle.

One of the most famous prisoners who was incarcerated there was Al Capone. This was his cell:

Overall, I thought it was interesting and worth a couple of hours.

Our next stop was the Mutter Museum, which is a museum of medical history. They have a huge collection of anatomical specimens - all the bones and preserved organs you’d want to see, along with was models and antique medical instruments. They don’t allow photos inside - and, frankly, it would feel disrespectful to take any. It’s somewhat macabre, though there are so many specimens that, to some extent, I felt the impact of them was diluted by the sheer number. It was also rather more crowded than I’d have preferred. I thought the most interesting items they had were slides of sections of Einstein’s brain, a cast of Chang and Eng (the Siamese twins), and an iron lung.

In the early evening, we reconvened at La Scala’s Fire, a very good Italian restaurant. That was followed by the Dark Philly History walking tour. Our tour guide, Ted, was fairly entertaining, though we didn’t think he needed to cuss quite so much as he did. There was a certain amount of normal history, mixed with stories about prostitution, vampires, and ghosts. I can’t speak to the accuracy of all of it, but I did catch a fairly major error. Bram Stoker did not invent the idea of the vampire as a nobleman nor did he invent the blood-sucking concept. John Polidori did - nearly 80 years earlier. But Bram Stoker did do some of his writing in Philadelphia, so the guide can be forgiven for not knowing about “The Vampyre.” (Polidori wrote his story at the Villa Diodati, while Mary Shelley was writing Frankenstein.) A bigger problem was that there were supposed to be two groups, with two guides, but one of them apparently had an emergency. So the tour group was much larger than it should have been, which slowed things down and, sometimes, made it hard to get close enough to the guide to hear him. Overall, we enjoyed it, but it could have been better.

We started Saturday by meeting up at Reading Terminal Market. Most of the group had breakfast at Down Home Diner, but I really like the Dutch Kitchen and I knew it was closed on Sunday, so I opted for that. (I did go to the Down Home Diner on Sunday, along with a few of the other Losers.) Our first tourism stop was the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Of course, we had to visit the Rocky statue and go up the stairs there. But, since I have been to that museum many times, I didn’t take a lot of pictures. The one that I did make sure to take was Whistler’s Mother, (okay, the real name is “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1”), which is on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

They cleverly displayed it surrounded by other paintings about mothers. I should also note that it was not at all crowded.

We had lots of time to wander around the rest of the museum. I did drag a few people off to see my favorite painting there. (Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase”) but I’ve photographed that before. And, of course, they have Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” It’s still an excellent museum and worth a couple of hours.

Our next stop was a brief one at the Rodin Museum, where we contemplated just what this guy is thinking about. My theory is that he was worrying about whether or not Rodin would ever pay him for posing.

Then we headed over to the Masonic Temple for their tour. The tour was enhanced quite a bit by one of the attendees being a Mason who was eager to talk about his beliefs and experiences. We visited several of the meeting rooms. which are used by different Masonic Lodges, and decorated in different styles (Gothic, Corinthian, Ionic, Egyptian, etc.) We also saw the Grand Ballroom. The architecture and decor are spectacular and well worth seeing.

And, of course, everywhere you go in Philadelphia, you run into Benjamin Franklin.

In the evening, we went to The Dinner Detective, an over-the-top interactive murder mystery show. Basically, there was a murder at the beginning of the evening and various people (some plants, some ordinary members of the audience) were interrogated in between the dinner courses and you got various clues to figure out whodunnit. I think most people figured it out. Let’s just say that Agatha Christie wouldn’t have been losing any sleep over the plot if she were still alive. Overall, it was reasonably amusing.

On Sunday morning, we reassembled at the Reading Terminal Market. We rearranged our planned schedule because of the weather forecast and went first to Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. This is one of my favorite places and I’ve been there a few times before. (It was the place I’d recommended.) Most of it is a large and wild set of mosaic installations.

There was also a temporary exhibit, combining Mexican ceramics with the Chinese zodiac. This is exactly the sort of weird fusiony sort of stuff I love.

You might as well throw in a statue that's vaguely reminiscent of an Indian god.

Overall, this remains a place I love.

Our final stop was the Franklin Institute. I did say that Ben Franklin was everywhere. Seriously, this is a science museum that is really designed for children and I didn’t find it particularly engaging. My favorite part of it was the section on the brain, where they asked various people to create models of how they thought about their brains.