The National Day of Lighting Shit on Fire Was Spent Quite Well, Thank You
Philadelphia – our old stomping grounds, now a weekend getaway. It’s very nice, the tiny cobblestoned streets and crumbling architecture enjoyed in small bites, going back without feeling like going backwards.
We wandered the new stirrings of alt-town cuteness going on in Nothern Liberties, didn’t bother with the corpse of South Street. Felt similar to how St. Mark’s is a tourist cheddarfest while the condo-avante garde goes marching into Brooklyn. Had drinks at Eulogy, drove down to an Essington barbeque where there was a gaggle of wild kittens a couple yards over, and came back up for the fireworks over the art museum.
I’m very happy to see the urban rot hasn’t changed a whit.
A water bottle filled with white wine, veiled in sweat, just drinking in the noise and the lights. Linking hands with my drinking comrades and snaking through the crowd like a rogue piece of spiral dance. The show going on late and people booing the Goo Goo Dolls’ attempt to pacify the crowd with an encore. An argument in the liquor store, two passerby guys peeling their shirts off in front of the house party we ended up at and all of us on the stoop very ready to be the beer-swilling audience, a couple of the partygoers setting off fireworks on the sidewalk (me: “That guy in the SUV yelling at you? C’mon, he’s not serious if he’s not getting out of the car. Light some more!”) . Walking home through the quiet ebb of a citywide party.
The city to me is pretty much summed up by two defining traits: easily-provoked belligerence, and little bits of art scattered everywhere.
Ended up sleeping in a converted chocolate factory while a pair of plush turkeys meowed through my dreams.
