Odder & endier

Yesterday on the way home I saw a banner in the park advertising a “Traveling Salvation Show”. That infelicitous phrase had heretofore only meant a rather poor seventies ditty by one who must not be named. While taking my furry little friend out for his afternoon sniff session, I strolled over to that part of the park and saw a group of teenage girls playing softball and about two dozen people having a weenie roast. Salvation show? It was more like a goat-roper’s attempt at a church picnic! Feh.

Continuing on the protestant front, today I saw a former Baptist church that’s now being converted to a hair salon. That should lead to some funny confusion some day.

Went to the bank the other day and saw this above the door. Turns out there’s a Peruvian consulate in the neighborhood. Cool coat of arms, eh? (Tried to post the image using the new gadget on Blogger, but to no avail.)

Lately the local weathercasts include the dewpoint. Yesterday this provided a good laugh. It was dry enough that we could not get dew, but only frost (with a dewpoint of 32) and the high was near 90 degrees.

small world after all

The other day we had a nice experience at the park. Came across an adult soccer game in which each team had players from far corners of the globe. It almost goes without saying that the game was amicable and well-played. A little further down was a little league baseball game with a similar composition. At the other end of the park was hurling practice. Just another ordinary day in the park, right?

Only a few years ago all three of these scenes would have unlikely. The soccer and baseball-playing immigrants included Central Americans, Russians and Africans – none of whom came to the western U.S. in large numbers until more recently. Even now a great many citizens shun immigrants, though not to the degree that was once common. Twenty years ago I doubt there were enough locals who knew what hurling was to comprise a team, now we have past national champions - and you don’t even have to be Irish to play. (BTW, hurling is a fascinating game to watch.)

Just a little something to think of when windbags pontificate about how divided we are as a society.

Mr. Esguerra makes a meme.

It’s about the liturgical music survey. Good stuff, Maynard!

• My choice for a liturgical song that makes a difference: The Exultet
• Composer, text writer, hymnal, and/or other source: The composer’s identity is lost in the mists of antiquity.
• Please tell us the reasons for your selection: It is a clear, true, beautiful and timeless participation in the Church’s ongoing work of praise throughout the millennia.
• Comments: I’ve heard the Exultet in a modern instrumental setting that robbed it of a good deal of its clarity, beauty and timelessness. To alter this music is worse than putting the Mona Lisa in a halter top

Odds ‘n ends

The other day I was taken aback to see a local abortuary had been tagged with graffiti – in blood red no less. The vandalism was probably random rather than targeted, but that makes it no less ironic. I’m startled that the graffiti has been up so long. Then again, given the neighborhood in which cleanliness resides, perhaps they’d rather keep the filth.

In a pharmacy the other day I noticed Bob Marley brand incense. I thought medical marijuana was a concept that had fallen out of favor.

Amazing what one can learn from IMDb. The other day we say the new Batman flick – it’s pretty darn good BTW, if too many fisticuffs and car crashes for my tastes. It’s one of the only movies I know of to even tangentially address the Global War on Terror. I was intrigued to find out more about some cast members. Mr. Bale, the able lead, once played Our Lord, then played a serial killer, now he’s Batman. No typecasting for him. I looked up other cast members and found a surprising new miniseries in production: The Ten Commandments. Looking forward to it!

A new game!

Haven't blogged much due to work at the job and lots of yardwork. Hacking up sod that's taken over a flowerbed gave me new appreciation for the sodbusters. Tearing up weeds in the tomato patch gave me the opportunity to pretend I have Tourette's Syndrome. I return to blogging with a little game.

The Bard of Ohio pointed to a site that gives trivia and flapdoodle about your date of birth. One feature is your “birth tree”. Mine is as follows

Apple Tree, the Love
Of slight build, lots of charm, appeal and attraction, pleasant aura, flirtatious, adventurous, sensitive, always in love, wants to love and be loved, faithful and tender partner, very generous, scientific talents, lives for today, a carefree philosopher with imagination.

Oh dear. Could they be more wrong?

“of slight build” – Neither department stores nor many better menswear stores generally carry dress shirts, suits or sport coats big enough to fit me. I’m either taller, heavier or both taller and heavier than 44 of the current Denver Broncos as listed here today – though certainly less athletic than any of them.

“lots of charm, attraction and appeal” – this could conceivably be true if they’d qualify it by adding “when compared to other eccentric loners”.

“flirtatious” – does awkward, sweaty stammering count as flirting these days? How about looking at her shoes instead of my own while attempting to converse?

“adventurous” – My dad was a literal belt-and-suspenders guy, at least after age 70. While I’m not that far gone yet, I’ve always been somewhat of that bent. I’ve only gone tree-climbing twice.

“very generous” – these men, these men and these people are very generous. I live in a nice house and work in an air-conditioned office. Q. E. D.

“scientific talents” – what little talent I have tends to revolve around a preternaturally keen sense of smell, a good memory and some facility with language. By that count, I guess Proust would have been a scientist rather than a novelist.

“a carefree philosopher” – first off that’s a complete non-sequitur. No philosopher who’s formed a complete thought is carefree. Philosophers are among the most care-filled of all people. I’m about as carefree as Hamlet, consequently I lack the discipline to drink from the wells of philosophy.

Were I to be characterized as a tree, I’d suggest the Alamo or the Blue Spruce.

The trivia (like the phase of the moon on the date of my birth) was more interesting and, I daresay, more accurate.

The consequenes of shacking up with modernism

Mr. Christopher Johnson in a recent post mentions some consequences of the decline of the Church of England, including references to church attendance in 1968 and the present.

Per The Times, attendance has dropped by over 25% in the 37 years. Being a nosy parker, I looked into what percentage of the English population could be expected to be found in a CoE church on any given Sunday in 1968 and in the present. (Using general demographic stats provided here.) I was stunned. In 1968, it was only 3.28% and it is now a robust 2.38%. All that work to be engaged with modernity sure has paid off!

Road Wars Episode II: Attack of the Drone

A while ago, in a commonwealth far, far away . . .

Fortunately I had no lingering ill effects from the first trip to Philly. I got a week and a day in at the office before the second trip. No traveling companion this time and a better (or so I hoped) hotel augured for a better time.

This time I got in while it was still light. I enjoyed a little spin through Wayne on the way to King of Prussia. Got to stay at a rather odd complex that included two hotels and the Valley Forge Convention Center. One of the meetings included a large contingent from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I shared an elevator with a fellow who wore a T-shirt that announced “As a matter of fact, I am a rocket scientist”. There was also a sales meeting for what sounded like “Snapple”, but turned out to be “Snap-On” – the tool company. It was pretty easy to guess at sight (or sound) which hotel guests were with the divergent groups.

The title refers to the coursework I was there for, taught by a pleasant, knowledgeable and astoundingly boring fellow. So it goes.

Got back into downtown for good seafood and this time took a jaunt through the older part of the city. I was surprised that Independence Hall was so small. Years of looking at Denver East High School* messed up my sense of scale for that building. Speaking of odd perspective: there were several costumed tour guides dressed as 18th century gentlemen near the Hall, but nearly all of them were black women.

The nearby Liberty Bell was a touching sight. I was truly surprised by the ironic proximity of Chinatown to the birthplace of American self-determination. The Delaware River waterfront has great potential, though it has some seedier establishments too. The S. S. United States – once the pride of the high seas – could become quite a draw on its own with a little elbow grease.

I got to a Rock Bottom Brewery and found that they now make a serviceable knock-off of Chimay. Still, it’s better to patronize the Peres Trappistes by buying the original item. Side note: Pennsylvania has some of the weirder liquor laws in this country, and that takes some doing. The commonwealth has a monopoly on sale of package wine and spirits, but doesn’t sell beer in its stores hence liquor stores and beer stores are wholly separate. Large numbers of restaurants and, reportedly, some night clubs are BYOB.

Meanwhile, Dude! Had I known, I could have saved a few simoleons by blogging my travel experience.

Coming next, Episode III: Revenge of This and That

* Scroll through for two great photos of the school and a few other good shots of my hometown, including St. Dominic’s Church on the west side.

Road Wars Episode I: The Lodging Menace

A while ago now, in a commonwealth far, far away . . . .

(I’ve only had one full week in the office over the past nine weeks thanks to so much travel. What’s worth posting about April’s travels has been posted. So here is the first PA travelogue.)

The first week of May was my first trip to Philly. As in the first time I’d ever been there, even. On this trip, and only on this trip, I was accompanied by a lovely young lady who also works for the hospital who also had some familiarity with the town. There was still a bit of light as we got the rental car and started out to the Valley Forge area, but by the time we got to the hotel, I was glad the hotel was right on the highway as it was quite dark out. We each retired to our respective suites and chanced room service. I’ll spare you the details, other than that the room service food produced copious unwelcome special effects.

The next morning, after a breakfast buffet that has established itself as the worst I’ve ever encountered, we found our way to the vendor’s location for training. We passed a few colonial-era farmsteads and an architecturally charming 18th century Presbyterian establishment complete with a burgeoning churchyard. (I wonder how much spinning goes on in those graves over things like this.) A bit farther down the road we came to a complex of recent commercial buildings that are sure to be forgotten and buried in well under 200 years. Our training room was deep in the basement. There’s not much to say about software training, and that’s even more true of software like this that’s so highly specialized. It should be a good tool. I hope to use it well.

After we got out of the first day of training, we took a spin to the nearby King of Prussia Mall area to find somewhere to eat. The mall (properly two malls connected with a walkway) was indeed big, as advertised. I didn’t see anything that looked especially Prussian – not even Prussian Blue signs, which would have been a subtly fitting touch. I was the only person to stand ramrod straight and probably one of rather few in the neighborhood to have even nodding familiarity with von Clausewitz. I not only refrained from goose-stepping, I even eschewed the pickelhaube.

There were chain restaurants of every description including, oddly enough, the faux-southwestern Chili’s. Rather sad evidence of how everywhere is becoming indistinguishable from everywhere else and they’re all just shadows of things that could be done so much better, if slightly less profitably. We ended up eating cheesesteaks at a local diner. The sandwiches and the service were good. The room was something else entirely. James Lileks’ book Interior Desecrations focused solely on bad residential décor, but if ever he puts something together about bad commercial spaces, this diner would have to make the list. Every horizontal surface was either garishly bright blue, yellow, orange or a combination of all three – likewise the banquettes and chair backs. But for the dingy ceiling, the other surfaces were generally mirrored. Yikes.

After the diner we decamped to find a grocery store so as to avoid another nausea-inducing hotel breakfast and to get some snacks. Serendipity led me to get some Unique Splits – the best hard pretzels I’ve had.

The second night we took the adventurous step of going downtown to get a bite. I don’t think it’s that adventurous to go afield in a strange city per se, but the “expressways” of southeastern Pennsylvania are themselves a risk akin to backcountry skiing in avalanche season. The roads generally have only two lanes in each direction with very short merge lanes for entering traffic. They’re built in spots that don’t lend themselves to expansion. Weirdly, most intersections coincide with bends in the road, compounding the traffic-flummoxing influence of each. The worst culprits, though, were two widespread driving socio-pathologies: (1) miscreants using the shoulder as a passing lane and (2) milquetoasts letting such miscreants back into traffic lanes. (This incenses me to no end as I saw it so often cause collisions and otherwise snarl traffic in San Diego.) A twenty mile trip took well over an hour on the euphonious Schuylkill* Expressway.

The trip was worth it, though, for the great shellfish at the Sansom Oyster House. Downtown was also quite picturesque. The City Hall is quite a sight, perhaps the most ostentatious building in the country and made all the more so by its positioning in the middle of the intersection of two major thoroughfares. I also passed by an edifice that has a great claim to the ubiquitous title “First Baptist Church” as it dates to the 17th century, about the time of the very first Baptists as we know them today. The downtown is pleasantly bustling, without seeming harried. This trip I didn’t get to any “old city” landmarks like Independence Hall.

The third night we stayed a bit closer in and had a tasty meal near the picturesque town of Wayne. A sign noted that this town had originally been known as “Louella”, but that it had been renamed for revolutionary war General Anthony Wayne. I’m confident I’ve never before heard of a town named “Louella”. If forces hostile to religion and all other attributes of truth get their way and cause the city once known as Yerba Buena to change its legal name, I suggest it be renamed “Louella” so that we’ll then be able to refer to adherents of those particular antisocial behaviors as “Louella Fellas”. But I digress.

That night I noticed to a great degree how differently a dining party is treated when it includes an especially pretty woman: things like the speed with which plates are removed or even undercharging for drinks. At first I thought we’d just stumbled on restaurants that had particularly good service, but at this restaurant we were close enough to other parties that I could see and hear enough to the compare staff’s attentiveness to other parties. It was rather fun to have a taste of how the other half lives. BTW, if you’re around Wayne, PA and are up for a great, if not inexpensive dinner, by all means try Nectar – terrific Asian fusion cuisine. Just remember to try to either bring a really pretty woman or leave any envy you might have with the parking valet, ‘kay?

That night happened to be Cinco de Mayo – and not just some delayed celebration thereof. Consequently the hotel was throwing a big celebration in the atrium (a/k/a excuse for folks to buy drinks). They advertised “authentic Mexican music”. Since I’m a sucker for mariachis – even if they aren’t very good - and I was homesick, I was hoping to catch a little music before retiring and maybe even enjoy a Presidente or two. Alas the music was a very loud and remarkably untalented Jim Croce impersonator. He was so bad that it took me at least a minute to recognize “You don’t mess around with Jim” due to problems with pitch and phrasing, rather than an accent. Needless to say, I passed. I had to turn up the volume on the room TV to uncomfortable levels to drown out the caterwauling below.

Friday afternoon we got out of class early and headed straight for the airport, this time taking the somewhat quicker and also oddly-named Blue Route - there really isn’t anything blue about it in either the literal or the euphemistic sense. Ordered a “big beer” at the airport bar and was surprised to get a quart mug. That with some pretzels made for a pleasant wait for the flight home, glad to know that I was free from the dread hotel.

Of course the first orders of business when I got back to work were to make alternate hotel arrangements for the next stay and to send a blisteringly accurate survey response to the hostelry.

Coming next – Road Wars Episode II: Attack of the Drone

*Pronounced “skook’ll”. Try it, it’s really quite fun to say.